OBJECTIVE
To estimate the annual incidence of non-fatal work injuries according to sociodemographic and occupational variables among housemaids.

METHODS
A community-based survey was conducted in a population of 1,650 women aged 10 to 65 years who reported a paid occupation randomly selected in a household sample of the city of Salvador, Brazil. Data was collected through individual questionnaires on living and work conditions and health status. Fisher Exact test was performed for frequency analysis.

RESULTS
It was estimated an overall annual incidence of non-fatal work injuries in the study population of 5.0%, which was statistically significant (p<0.05) higher among housemaids (7.3%) than in the group with other occupations (4.5%). Half of the injuries among housemaids were not related with long-term disabilities, and 38.1% women referred not being able to work for two weeks on average after the injury.

CONCLUSIONS
Housemaids represent a major contingent of the work force in Brazil and other Latin America countries. The high incidence of non-fatal work injuries in this working group reveals its public health relevance and the need for preventive programs.


Harvey may be considered to be the precursor of modern hemorheology, but it was not until the pioneering work of Loewenhoeck, Poiseuille, Fahraeus and Copley that the essential role of the hemorheological properties of blood and its cellular components was recognized. Before the advent of modern hemorheology in the 70s, studies were mainly focussed on microcirculation and validation of global hemorheological equations applied to blood circulation. Parallel studies on the microrheological properties (erythrocyte deformability and aggregation) explained analytically the non-Newtonian behavior of blood, and the essential contribution of these parameters to the understanding hyperviscosity syndromes. The development of clinical hemorheology in fact started at the international conferences held in Reykjavik (1966) and Heidelberg (1969), and with the initiation of the periodical European Microcirculation (since Nancy in 1960) and Clinical Hemorheology (since Nancy in 1979) Conferences. The current main avenues of research involve flow modelling, studies of cell-cell interaction mechanisms (aggregation and adhesion), in relation to the associated pathophysiological phenomena, such as cellular activation (platelets and leukocytes in particular), gene expression linked to blood flow (e.g. endothelial cells)... Clinically and therapeutically, it is crucial that pathophysiological studies be undertaken on the relationship existing between rheological parameters and objective clinical data (local flow rates, ischemic markers, hemostatic parameters, tissue oxygen, clinical symptoms,...). The main clinical application fields are cardiovascular diseases, thrombosis, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia... Also, studies on new therapeutics or on biomaterials should also be given priority.


Background: Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among adult men in the world, and the diagnosis requires biopsy. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test along with digital rectal examination (DRE) increases the detection rate of prostate cancer than DRE alone. The objective of this study was to correlate serum PSA level with histopathological diagnosis, identify the predictors of malignancy, and describe the pharmacotherapy of patients with serum PSA levels >4 ng/ml. Materials and Methods: This was a hospital-based observational study done among patients who presented with lower urinary tract symptoms and PSA levels >4 ng/ml who were planned to undergo prostatic biopsy. DRE followed by transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) assessment and guided sextant (6-core) prostatic biopsy was performed. Results: One hundred and four patients were screened and 87 were included. Nineteen patients were diagnosed with malignancy, and among them, eight had bone metastasis. Spearman's correlation coefficient between PSA and malignancy was 0.449 (P ≤ 0.001). Multivariate analysis suggested that the factors (adjusted odds ratio; 95% confidence interval; P value) such as increasing age (1.127; 1.013, 1.253; 0.027), nodular prostate (22.668; 4.655, 110.377; P < 0.001), and PSA (1.034; 1.004, 1.064; 0.024) were significant predictors of prostate cancer. All patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia were advised a combination therapy with 5-alpha reductase inhibitor and selective alpha-1 receptor antagonist while those with malignancy were prescribed androgen deprivation therapy with antiosteoporosis therapy. Conclusion: In elderly patients with raised PSA levels or suspicious DRE findings, TRUS-guided prostate is recommended to rule out malignancy and plan appropriate management.


The reality of Islamic Education today has experienced a period of intellectual deadlock. Among the indications; first, the lack of reform efforts, and if there is certainly less rapidly with changes in social, political and progress of science and technology. Second, the practice of Islamic education still maintains the old heritage and did not do much creative thinking, innovative and critical current issues. Third, the model of Islamic education learning too much emphasis on intellectualism-verbalistic approach and negate the importance of educational interaction and humanistic communication between the teacher and student. Fourth, Islamic education orientation focuses on the formation 'abd or slave and disproportionate to the achievement of human character as a Muslim caliph on the earth. On the other hand, Islamic education is an important task, namely how to develop the quality of human resources (HR) for Muslim to take an active role and to survive in the era of globalization. The development of quality human resources is not an easy issue and simple, as it requires deep understanding and broad at the formation of the basic concepts of man and calculation in the preparation of the institution as a device that will give birth to a superior human.


Washington, D.C. - Instead of developing innovative, break-through therapies, pharmaceutical companies devote most of their resources to modifying existing medications, according to the latest report from the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation (NIHCM). Release of the study further escalated already heightened rhetoric between health plans and drug makers over rising drug costs. "Highly innovative drugs are rare," said Nancy Chockley, president of NIHCM, which is supported primarily by Blue Cross and Blue Shield Assns.


Decision making is explained as a process through which, the solution for a problem is selected. Lack of perfect information evidently leads to uncertainty. Decision makers' opinion are expressed through words of natural language through a process of fuzzy multi attribute group decision making problem and aggregates the performance rating with respect to all the attributes for each alternative. In this paper, a technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) has been dealt with in the fuzzy environment based on decision makers' viewpoint weights. The decision makers' fuzzy decision matrixes were converted into an aggregated decision matrix to determine the most preferable choice among all possible alternatives. Finally, a numerical example was used to illustrate the procedure of the method and compare it with other extant methods.


The apparent activity coefficients for sodium (gamma'Na) in the blood of six insect species have been calculated from measurements made with sodium-selective electrodes and a flame photometer. In every case gamma Na was significantly lower than that for this cation in free solution (gammaNa). In Periplaneta americana gammaNa varied considerably, during a period of 90 days, so that a relatively constant sodium activity (aNa) was maintained in the blood in the face of large variations in the total sodium content measured by flame photometry. Despite the relative constancy of aNa (of around 0.088M) appreciable fluctuations were observed in the sodium and potassium content of nervous connective over a period of 140 days. The values of aNa and aK were used to devise a satisfactory cockroach saline for use in experiments with isolated nerve cords.


Introduction : Osteoarthritis is one of the most common joint and musculoskeletal problems, particularly within the knee joint, which causes functional disability and impaired proprioception. The aim of the present study was to study the effect of quadriceps kinesio tape on functional disability, pain, and knee joint position sense in females suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee. Methods and Materials : A total of 38 females suffering from knee osteoarthritis were randomly assigned to either the control group (n=19) or kinesio tape group (n=19). The extent of pain was measured using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the extent of functional disability was measured using Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), and the absolute error of reconstructing the active angle in 30 and 60 degrees of knee flexion was measured using an inclinometer. The results were analyzed using independent sample t-test to compare the treatment groups before the treatment and paired sample t-test to compare the groups before and immediately after the treatment. Results : In the kinesio tape group, a statistically significant improvement was observed in the reconstruction of the joint sense position at 30 and 60 angles of knee flexion before and after treatment ( P <0.0001). However, there no statistically significant difference was observed in the control group at 30° and at 60 ° . Moreover, the results from the VAS and WOMAC tests revealed no statistically significant difference between the control and kinesio tape groups. Conclusion : The quadriceps kinesio tape improves knee joint position sense in patients with knee osteoarthritis, but it does not cause significant changes in their pain and functional ability. Key Words : Functional disability; Joint position sense; Kinesio tape; Knee osteoarthriti


By spatially distributing offspring among several habitat patches in varying environments, an organism can "hedge its bets" to protect against bad conditions in any single patch. This strategy can maintain populations even when some or even all locations are, on average, population sinks. However, species may not have evolved this bet-hedging mechanism, especially when sink environments are anthropogenic "traps" - locations where traditional habitat cues have been altered. Using a model based on the life history of the Cascades frog (Rana cascadae), we examine the conditions that maximize growth in an environment with ecological traps created by the introduction of predators. In a temporally stochastic environment, maximum growth rates occur when some juveniles disperse to the trap. We then examine how different life histories and predation regimes affect the ability of an organism gain an advantage by bet-hedging, and find that bet-hedging can be less useful when the ecological trap drives adult, rather than juvenile, mortality.


Tile basic objective of tilis study was the evaluation of gastric lavage in the treat ment of accidental ingestion of petroleum distillate products, with particular emphasis on the development of pulmonary compli cations. Also, more detailed information concerning various clinical and epidemio logic aspects of poisoning from these prod ucts was sougilt. In addition it was felt that such a study could help develop a prototype for the application of co-opera tive data-gathering and research procedures through the network of the National Clear inghouse for Poison Control Centers, thus


This qualitative single case study aimed to examine the logics of one teacher education program towards preparing pre-service teachers for inclusive teaching from the perspectives of the program's coordinators. In particular, the study aimed to understand the practices of these coordinators and how these practices are influenced by inclusive education and teacher education policies. This examination would reveal how education policies are enacted in this particular case. New-Institutionalism (NI) theory (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991) constituted the theoretical framework that guided the methodology as well as the analysis of the findings. The study revealed that the coordinators' understanding and practices around the existing inclusion and teacher education policies emerge from their own experiences in this particular program, intermingled with their beliefs about how inclusion should be enacted in teacher education and schools. Key findings included coordinators developing inclusive mindsets among pre-service teachers, negotiating their logics towards inclusion through modeling inclusive teaching practices in the university classroom, and engaging them in critical discussions around inclusion policy practice in schools, and coordinators calling for a curriculum policy change. Recommendations for future teacher education programming in response to the evolving inclusive education are offered.


Speech process has benefited a great deal from the wavelet transforms. Wavelet packets decompose signals in to broader components using linear spectral bisecting. In this paper, mixtures of speech signals are decomposed using wavelet packets, the phase difference between the two mixtures are investigated in wavelet domain. In our method Laplacian mixture model (LMM) is defined. An expectation maximization (EM) algorithm is used for training of the model and calculation of model parameters which is the mixture matrix. Therefore individual speech components of speech mixtures are separated


This study and previous studies indicate that the current marine catch could be achieved with approximately half of the current global fishing effort. In other words, there is massive overcapacity in the global fleet. The excess fleets competing for the limited fish resources result in stagnant productivity and economic inefficiency. In response to the decline in physical productivity, the global fleet has attempted to maintain profitability by reducing labor costs, lobbying for subsidies, and increasing investment in technology. Partly as a result of the poor economic performance, real income levels of fishers remain depressed as the costs per unit of harvest have increased. Although the recent changes in food and fuel prices have altered the fishery economy, over the past decade real landed fish prices have stagnated, exacerbating the problem. The value of the marine capture seafood production at the point of harvest is some 20 percent of the $400 billion global food fish market. The market strength of processors and retailers and the growth of aquaculture, which now accounts for some 50 percent of food fish production, have contributed to downward pressure on producer prices. In technical terms, this study estimates the loss of potential economic rent in the global fishery. For the purposes of this study, economic rent is considered broadly equivalent to net economic benefits, which is the term used throughout most of the report. This study estimated the difference between the potential and actual net economic benefits from global marine fisheries using 2004 as the base year. The estimate was made using a model that aggregated the world's highly diverse fisheries into a single fishery. This made it possible to use the available global fisheries data such as production, value of production, and global fisheries profits as inputs to the model.


In this study of facial movements during speech, we found a consistent tendency for two native French speakers and an American English speaker (also reported in Toda et al. [1]): there exist two separate lip gestures for consonants involving 'labialization'. The first one is a lip protrusion with rounding (narrow lip area) observed for /w/, and the second is a protrusion with a large lip opening observed for postalveolar sibilants /S, Z/. Furthermore, this separation of lip patterns is supported by a factor analysis on the movement data, indicating that these gestures are functionally autonomous. We can relate this fact to the assumed modes of resonance for the consonants: rounding is a requirement for the Helmholtz' resonance of /w/ being responsible of low F2, whereas protrusion can be intended to lower the frequency of frication noise of postalveolars, enhancing the contrast with their alveolar counterparts. The acoustic/aerodynamic function of the large lip opening for postalveolars remains to be explained.


 Abstract— Information of nodes' locations is an important criterion for lots of applications in Wireless Sensor Networks. In the hop-based range-free localization methods, anchors transmit the localization messages counting a hop count value to the whole network. Each node receives this message and calculates its own distance with anchor in hops and then approximates its own position. However the estimative distances can provoke large error, and affect the localization precision. To solve the problem, this paper proposes an algorithm, which makes the unknown nodes fix the nearest anchor as a reference and select two other anchors which are the most accurate to achieve the estimated location. Compared to the DV-Hop algorithm, experiment results illustrate that proposed algorithm has less average localization error and is more effective.


In this letter, we design a novel unsupervised architecture for automatic classification of the dominant polarization in polarimetric SAR images. To this end, we leverage the ideas developed in [1] and suitably exploit them to build a decision logic capable of recognizing the dominant scattering mechanism which characterizes the pixel under test. Specifically, we combine the original data to generate three different sets of reduced-size vectors, which feed dominant eigenvalues classifier based upon the model order selection rules. Then, the outputs of the latter classification schemes are exploited to infer, according to a specific criterion, the dominant polarization. The performance analysis is conducted on the measured data and points out the effectiveness of the newly proposed classification architecture also showing that information about the dominant polarization can be representative of the type of structure which gives raise to the dominant backscattering mechanism.


Among pregnant women, up to 23% experience a depressive disorder, and up to 10% a generalised anxiety disorder.1 As reported by several studies, untreated depression (severe depression in particular) in pregnant women is associated with adverse birth outcomes, such as low birth weight, preterm delivery and developmental problems. Moreover, women with pre-existing psychiatric condition have high risk of relapse or worsening of symptoms during pregnancy.2 Similarly, anxiety disorders have been linked to the risk of preterm birth and delivery by caesarean section,3 but yet much remains to be understood about the effects of specific anxiety disorders, and the severity of their symptoms, on birth outcomes.

Antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), are prescribed to an increasing number of pregnant women (approximately 2%–8%) to treat depression and anxiety disorders.1 Although in the scientific literature SSRIs are generally reported to be quite safe during pregnancy,4 three recent studies raised concerns that these drugs may have a negative impact on fetal brain development with long-term consequences on offspring, especially autism. Focusing on exposure to SSRIs in utero and risk of autism, Brown and colleagues analysed data from nearly 36 000 births in Ontario, Canada, between 2002 and 2010.5 A second study investigated the association between in utero antidepressant exposure and overall psychiatric disorders in offspring, examining specific subcategories, including autism spectrum disorder.6 Finally, in a prospective study, Yonkers and colleagues analysed the correlations between the use of medications in panic disorder and generalised anxiety disorder with adverse maternal and neonatal pregnancy complications.7

In this commentary we will bring some consideration about perinatal psychiatric illness and its treatment, focusing on the three influential studies mentioned.5–7

In order to assess the association between serotonergic antidepressant exposure during pregnancy and child autism spectrum disorder, Brown et …


ABSTRACT Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) has been associated with increased risks of new-onset and worsening proteinuria. However, epidemiologic data for post-AKI proteinuria was still lacking. This study aimed to determine the incidence, risk factors and clinical correlations of post-AKI proteinuria among hospitalized patients. Methods This study was conducted in a multicenter cohort including patients aged 18–100 years with hospital-acquired AKI (HA-AKI) hospitalized at 19 medical centers throughout China. The primary outcome was the incidence of post-AKI proteinuria. Secondary outcomes included AKI recovery and kidney disease progression. The results of both quantitative and qualitative urinary protein tests were used to define post-AKI proteinuria. Cox proportional hazard model with stepwise regression was used to determine the risk factors for post-AKI proteinuria. Results Of 6206 HA-AKI patients without proteinuria at baseline, 2102 (33.9%) had new-onset proteinuria, whereas of 5137 HA-AKI with baseline proteinuria, 894 (17.4%) had worsening proteinuria after AKI. Higher AKI stage and preexisting CKD diagnosis were risk factors for new-onset proteinuria and worsening proteinuria, whereas treatment with renin–angiotensin system inhibitors was associated with an 11% lower risk of incident proteinuria. About 60% and 75% of patients with post-AKI new-onset and worsening proteinuria, respectively, recovered within 3 months. Worsening proteinuria was associated with a lower incidence of AKI recovery and a higher risk of kidney disease progression. Conclusions Post-AKI proteinuria is common and usually transient among hospitalized patients. The risk profiles for new-onset and worsening post-AKI proteinuria differed markedly. Worsening proteinuria after AKI was associated with adverse kidney outcomes, which emphasized the need for close monitoring of proteinuria after AKI.


My intention, my hope, is to revive interest in Jean Cauvin, the sixteenth-century French humanist and theologian--he died in 1564, the year Shakespeare was born--known to us by the name John Calvin. If I had been forthright about my subject, I doubt the average reader would have read this far. --Marilynne Robinson (The Death of Adam 174) We ought not to rack our brains about God; but rather, we should contemplate him in his works. --John Calvin (I.v.9) Marilynne Robinson's 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead takes the form of a letter, written by the Rev. John Ames to his six-year-old son. Ames is in his seventies and his heart is failing, so the epistle has the strange effect both of looking back as well as looking forward: while recounting his past, he is writing to his not-yet-adult son, for a time when the boy will be mature enough to understand the dying minister's more poignant observations on the world around him. At its outset, the letter seems somewhat directionless. It begins with a series of more-or-less unrelated fragments that are highly evocative, but confined largely to description. A characteristic meditation: I looked down at the yard and there you were, you and your mother, blowing bubbles at the cat, such a barrage of them that the poor beast was beside herself at the glut of opportunity.... Some of the bubbles drifted up through the branches, even above the trees. You two were too intent on the cat to see the celestial consequences of your worldly endeavors. They were very lovely. Your mother is wearing her blue dress and you are wearing your red shirt and you were kneeling on the ground together with Soapy between and that effulgence of bubbles rising, and so much laughter. Ah, this life, this world. (9) Such passages abound in Gilead, and might merely register as an attentive man's attempt to capture the beauty of the world in prose. But they also emphasize a third aspect of temporality that the letter's purpose might otherwise leave overlooked: past and future given due consideration, Ames is also deeply concerned with representing his most immediately present moments. While telling the story of his life to his son, Ames's letter eventually crystallizes around the narrative of the Reverend's best friend Robert Boughton, and the scandalous birth of a mixed-race child to Boughton's ne're-do-well son, Jack. (Jack, incidentally, is named for Ames.) It becomes, at times, a melodrama; at others, it is a morality tale about the need to forgive, lest one should forget how crucial a role family plays in a person's happiness. And while that storyline serves as more than just an occasion for philosophizing, the irruptions of aesthetic appreciation nevertheless register as somehow more essential to the novel's overall meaning than the plotted sequence of events making up the small-town scandal ever could be. These tableaus--these interruptions of the narrative characterized by rich, vivid imagery--are most concerned with immediacy. Though they occasionally appear within flashbacks, they are nevertheless intrusions on the Boughton narrative, and frequently disrupt the development of the story's progress toward resolution. I offer that Gilead promotes the kind of aesthetic attention to the world that Ames exhibits in these digressions, as a vehicle to an experience of the divine in the immediate and the immanent: an experience that stops short of knowing through reason and is content with simply living the experience of the miraculous in the everyday. Despite the relatively small amount of scholarly attention that Gilead has garnered to date (as compared to Housekeeping, Robinson's first novel), at least one critic has seen fit to seize on these moments as crucial to unpacking the novel's overall effect. Laura E. Tanner sees Ames's vignettes as the source of the novel's "cultural force," which she argues: "stems not only from [their] lyrical rendering of quotidian experience but from [their] powerful unveiling of how dying shapes the sensory and psychological dynamics of human perception" (228). …


ABSTRACT In light of recent controversies surrounding massive data collection by corporations and government agencies, digital privacy, the right to oblivion, and data ownership have become increasingly important concerns. This paper describes the author's artwork, Deletion Process_Only you can see my history, an interactive art installation based on her eight-year personal search history in the Google search engine. While the personal search history maintains a sense of privacy, according to the company's own declaration, the author reveals this archive to viewers in order to raise awareness and provoke reflection on the aforementioned subjects. The author discusses her motivation, describes the making process and the decisions made at each step of designing the installation, while integrating at the same time a deeper discussion on the place of digital privacy and oblivion within the contemporary approach to art and technology.


The present study aims at finding out the effect of using PORPE Strategy on improving EFL college students' reading comprehension skills. To attain the aim of the study, an experiment has been conducted on a sample of (60) EFL students at the Department of English, College of Education, University of Wasit during the academic year 2016-2017. The sample has been distributed into two groups with (30) students in each, a control group taught according to the conventional techniques and an experimental one taught by using the proposed strategy. The two groups have been equalized according to age, levels of parents' education and pre –test scores.
          At the end of the experimental instruction period, an achievement test has been administered to both groups. The findings of this test reveal that the results of the experimental group are significantly superior to the results of the control group.
          Pedagogical recommendations and suggestions for further research are presented in the light of the results at the end of the study.


The safety of vehicles on roadways depends, among other things, on a properly operating brake system. Commercial vehicles such as trucks and buses are equipped with an air brake system that uses compressed air as the energy-transmitting medium. The brake response time is a critical parameter that affects the stopping distance of a vehicle. The existing air brake system in a commercial vehicle has mechanically operated valves and pneumatic hoses that are used to transfer the compressed air from the storage reservoir to the foundation brake. Replacing the mechanical valves with electronically operated regulators and reducing the pneumatic lines will potentially reduce the brake response time thereby providing a reduced stopping distance. This study focuses on the development and mathematical modelling of an electropneumatic brake system for commercial vehicles. A mathematical model that correlates the pressure transients in the brake chamber to the voltage input provided to the electropneumatic brake has been developed. The efficacy of this model is tested by comparing its results with experimental data for various test runs. This mathematical model will be used towards model-based control and fault diagnosis of the electropneumatic brake.


Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a major unsolved challenge in medicine. Impact trauma to the spinal cord shears blood vessels, causing an immediate 'primary hemorrhage'. During the hours following trauma, the region of hemorrhage enlarges progressively, with delayed or 'secondary hemorrhage' adding to the primary hemorrhage, and effectively doubling its volume. The process responsible for the secondary hemorrhage that results in early expansion of the hemorrhagic lesion is termed 'progressive hemorrhagic necrosis' (PHN). PHN is a dynamic process of auto destruction whose molecular underpinnings are only now beginning to be elucidated. PHN results from the delayed, progressive, catastrophic failure of the structural integrity of capillaries. The resulting 'capillary fragmentation' is a unique, pathognomonic feature of PHN. Recent work has implicated the Sur1-Trpm4 channel that is newly upregulated in penumbral microvessels as being required for the development of PHN. Targeting the Sur1-Trpm4 channel by gene deletion, gene suppression, or pharmacological inhibition of either of the two channel subunits, Sur1 or Trpm4, yields exactly the same effects histologically and functionally, and exactly the same unique, pathognomonic phenotype - the prevention of capillary fragmentation. The potential advantage of inhibiting Sur1-Trpm4 channels using glibenclamide is a highly promising strategy for ameliorating the devastating sequelae of spinal cord trauma in humans.


PURPOSE
Heterotrimeric G proteins are regulated by receptors that act as guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) and by RGS proteins, which act as guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) activating proteins (GAPs). Guanosine diphosphate (GDP) dissociation inhibitors (GDIs), such as activators of G protein signaling (AGS)-1 and -3 and Leu-Gly-Asn repeat-enriched (LGN) proteins regulate the Gi family of G proteins. AGS3 and LGN contain four characteristic G protein regulator (GPR) domains that are responsible for its GDI function. This study investigates the presence of a GDI for transducin in photoreceptor cells.

METHODS
Western blot analysis of bovine and mouse retina was performed using specific antibodies to AGS and LGN proteins. The subcellular localization of LGN in retina was studied by immunofluorescence microscopy of mouse retinal sections and fractionation of retinal lysates, using sucrose density gradients. The interaction of LGN with transducin was studied using pull-down assays with GST-fused LGN constructs, co-immunoprecipitation and assays for GTPgammaS binding.

RESULTS
LGN, but not AGS3 and AGS1, was present in the retina, where it was localized mostly in the inner segments and outer plexiform layer of photoreceptor cells in both light and dark conditions. LGN was present in the cytosol, membrane, and the detergent-resistant cytoskeletal fraction. The amount of LGN relative to transducin was at least 1:15. The alpha subunit of transducin in its GDP-bound state interacted with endogenous and recombinant LGN, and the recombinant GPR domain of LGN reduced the rate of GTP exchange.

CONCLUSIONS
Photoreceptor inner segments contain LGN, which can bind to the alpha subunit of transducin and potentially regulate its function.


The development of an enterprise architecture (EA) in large organizations is complex. Thus, is important that the implementation of EA creates value in early stages of the process. This document contains a proposal of an EA framework design with agile approach based in TOGAF. This proposal is done with the objective to streamline the EA process. This framework presents a new design taking into account the current regulations, the target line of the organization and the principles proposed by the agile approach of EA. The objectives of each phase of the architecture development method ADM of TOGAF are matched with the requirements of the organization to extract only those that are aligned to the business. The deliverables proposed by TOGAF are analyzed with the goal to obtain, integrate and reduce the documentation in the implementation and modeling phases. This reduction allows more flexibility, less impact in the processes, reduction in development time and costs.


The antioxidative effects of pumpkin seed protein isolate (Cucurbita pepo) were investigated in vitro. The isolate exhibited about 80% radical scavenging activity, chelating activity of approximately 64% on Fe2+ ions and an inhibition of approximately 10% of xanthine oxidase. Subsequently the effects of the isolate on the plasma activity levels of alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase against acetaminophen induced acute liver injury in low‐protein fed male Sprague‐Dawley rats were ascertained. The rats were maintained on a low‐protein diet for 5 days and divided into three subgroups. Two subgroups were injected with acetaminophen and the other with an equivalent amount of polyethylene glycol 400. Two hours after intoxication one of the two subgroups was administered with the protein isolate. Rats from the different subgroups were killed at 24, 48 and 72 h after treatment. After 5 days on the low‐protein diet the activity levels of the enzymes were significantly higher than their counterparts on a normal balanced diet. The administration of protein isolate after acetaminophen intoxication resulted in significantly reduced activity levels. It is concluded that the protein isolate has promising antioxidative properties. Furthermore, the isolate administration was effective in alleviating the detrimental effects associated with protein malnutrition and acetaminophen intoxication. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In order to study the influence of constricting nozzles with different sizes and different distances on the formation of wall-wetted oil film,we measured the thicknesses of wall-wetted oil film under the conditions of different nozzle sizes and different nozzle distances by method of weighing. It is shown in the experiment that the relation between thickness of oil film and nozzle size, nozzle distance is not linear .However, in certain range, the larger the nozzle size, the more effectively the wall-wetted oil film forms and the thicker the thickness of oil film. The further the nozzle distance, the larger the area of the oil film and the thinner the thickness of wall-wetted oil film [1,2].


Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPc) is a cytosolic enzyme that plays a wide range of roles in different tissues of higher plants. A photosynthetic isoform of PEPc catalyses the primary fixation of CO2 in C4 and CAM plants. Other isoforms are thought to be responsible for different functions, including the replenishment of tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates, pH control, and the provision of malate in guard cells, developing fruit and legume root nodules. PEPc is an allosteric enzyme, inhibited by malate and activate by glucose 6- phosphate. Superimposed on this is control by reversible phosphorylation of a single serine residue close to the N-terminus of the protein. Phosphorylation modulates the allosteric properties of the enzyme, with the phosphorylated form being less sensitive to malate inhibition. The phosphorylation state of PEPc is controlled largely at the level of expression of PEPc kinase (PPCK) genes. The aim of this work was to identify and characterise PEPC and PPCK genes in C3 plants, particularly in the leguminous plant soybean {Glycine max). In legume root nodules, PEPc plays a central role in the metabolism that allows fixation of atmospheric N2 by bacteroids. It provides the C4 dicarboxylates that are required by the bacteroids for energy generation and also the carbon skeletons that are needed for the subsequent assimilation of ammonium into amino acids. In soybean one PEPc gene (GmPEPCT) is highly and relatively specifically expressed in nodules. To test the hypothesis that PEPc kinase expression would show a similar pattern, the expression of both PPCK and PEPC genes were analysed in soybean. Soybean contains at least four PPCK genes. The genomic and cDNA sequences of these genes were determined, and the function of the gene products demonstrated by in vitro expression and enzyme assays. For two of these genes, GmPPCK2 and GmPPCKS, transcript abundance is highest in nodules and is markedly influenced by supply of photosynthate from the shoots. One gene, GmPPCK4, is under robust circadian control in leaves but not in roots. Its transcript abundance peaks in the latter stages of subjective day. This is the first report of a C3 PPCK gene that is controlled in this manner. The expression patterns of five PEPC genes, including one encoding a bacterial-type PEPc lacking the phosphorylation site of the "plant" PEPcs, were also investigated. The PEPC expression patterns do not match those of any of the PPCK genes, arguing against the existence of specific PEPc-PEPc kinase expression partners. Collectively, the results demonstrate that the PEPC and PPCK gene families in soybean are significantly more complex than previously understood. Another role of PEPc is the production of organic acids in developing fruit. Previous work had identified two PPCK genes in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), one of which (LePPCK2) contained a novel second intron that exhibits alternative splicing. The correctly spliced transcript encodes a functional PEPc kinase, whereas unspliced or incorrectly spliced transcripts encode a truncated, inactive protein. The relative abundance of the transcripts varies in different tissues, both in wild-type plants and in the greenflesh tomato mutant. A PPCK2 gene was identified in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), also exhibiting alternative splicing and producing various amounts of the transcript in different tissues. Similar sequences are also present in potato {Solanum tuberosum) and aubergine {Solarium melongena). The data suggest that the alternative splicing of PPCK2 transcripts is functionally significant. The release of the rice {Oryza sativa) genome sequence allowed the identification of three putative PPCK genes. The sequence of one of these genes (OsPPCK2) was unusual in containing three in frame methionine residues at the 5' end, potentially allowing the production of a larger PEPc kinase protein. The functionality of these genes was assessed, but the results were unable to provide unequivocal evidence demonstrating the phosphorylation of PEPc by the Tong' form ofOsPPCK2. Overall the data presented in this thesis reveal a novel picture of the transcriptional control of PEPc kinase in C3 plants.


Oligo-peptides have been focused on by chemists recently because of the strong bioactivity an activity as drug or precursor of drug. α-Amino acid could self-assemble into oligo-peptides with the assistance of inorganic phosphorus reagents, so it could provide a new method to synthesize peptides. In this paper, the self-assembly reaction of L-Phenylalanine mediated by phosphorus oxychloride were studied by using ESI-MS. The proper condition of self-assembly reaction of L-Phe was reported. The reaction products were purified by RP-HPLC and Phe-Phe dipeptide was characterized by the means of IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and ESI-MS/MS.


In this paper, we propose a Bayesian nonparametric method to estimate missing data in tensors. The proposed method uses a Tucker-1 factorization to learn a smaller core tensor and a factor matrix via Gibbs sampling. Unlike most existing Tucker factorization algorithms, the tensor rank is estimated automatically. This is done by employing an Indian Buffet Process prior over the latent matrix, where the estimated number of non-zero columns corresponds to the tensor rank. The missing data is then estimated based on the latent structure learned from the factorization. As a result, the method provides a form of Bayesian model averaging over estimated ranks, allowing it to avoid overfitting. As an illustration, a number of datasets are artificially corrupted at various levels. Relative error is used to assess completion performance and our result is compared to parallel matrix factorization as a baseline. The empirical results show that our method does not beat the current state of the art, but provides pertinent information that other methods do not. That is, statistical quantities, like mean standard error, are readily available due to the Bayesian estimation framework of our method. Lastly, we identify some future avenues for research that may improve performance.


I. INTRODUCTION In Gilmer v. Interstate//Johnson Lane Corp. the Supreme Court enforced a mandatory arbitration clause in a securities registration application and barred the employee from seeking relief in federal court for his Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA") claim.l Since the Court's decision compelling arbitration of an employee's statutory claim, labor and employment lawyers have encouraged employers to include binding arbitration clauses covering all potential employer-employee claims in employment applications, handbooks, and collective bargaining agreements ("CBAs").2 As one commentator wrote after the Gilmer decision, "[t]he only thing remaining is for employers to begin writing compulsory arbitration clauses into their employment contracts."3 By inserting these clauses, many lawyers fail or refuse to recognize that the Supreme Court distinguished Gilmer from its earlier decision in Alexander u. Gardner-Denver Co.4 In Gardner-Denver, the Court allowed an employee to litigate his claim that the employer violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII") in federal court even though the union's CBA contained a mandatory arbitration provision.5 The Gilmer Court distinguished Gardner-Denver on three issues,6 but lower courts appear to adhere only to the distinction based on the context of the agreement. Courts since Gilmer have tended to enforce arbitration clauses in individual employment contracts but not provisions contained in CBAs.7 The Fourth Circuit in Austin v. Owens-Brockway Glass Container, Inc.,8 however, eliminated this difference just five years after Gilmer. It held that voluntary arbitration agreements are enforceable whether included in an employment contract or a CBA.9 The Austin decision, though, has not been widely adopted.10 With the distinctions between Gilmer and Gardner-Denver are dissolving and the legal precedent becoming increasingly uncertain, employers and their lawyers will be unsure of the appropriate action to take with respect to compulsory arbitration agreements.ll This Note argues that employers should eliminate mandatory arbitration clauses from preemployment agreements. This argument, however, does not rely solely on legal precedent or predictions of the Supreme Court's next decision. Instead, this Note focuses on the negative effects of Austin found by lower courts when following Austin's precedent, recent Congressional action, and public initiatives by government organizations and private arbitration firms. This Note also introduces the perspective of a strategic human resources manager trying to determine the appropriate solution for employers. This Note first analyzes the history of enforceability of mandatory arbitration clauses in employment agreements, examining the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925, Supreme Court history from Gardner-Denver to Gilmer, and decisions by lower courts since Gilmer. Part III studies the Fourth Circuit's opinion in Austin and its effect on cases decided by the few courts that have followed its reasoning. Part IV suggests how the law should proceed as the distinctions between Gilmer and Gardner-Denver begin to dissolve. In this section, the Note argues that legislative history, public rejection of mandatory arbitration agreements by government and private organizations, and a strategic human resources management perspective emphasize the need for voluntary agreements after the dispute arises and not preemployment agreements. Finally, this Note recommends that employers provide a grievance procedure that would allow the employee to discuss any problems that arise with a higherranking employee and, hopefully, resolve any conflict before incurring the necessary expenses and time required by litigation. If arbitration is not a viable option at this point, the employee should be allowed to bring his claim in federal court since federal statutes such as Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), and the ADEA were implemented to "provide minimum substantive guarantees to individual workers. …


This Article argues that the federal statute requiring election of the United States House of Representatives by single-member districts is unconstitutional. Simply put, this statute, which was first enacted in 1842, commandeers the states to draw single-member congressional districts every ten years. Members of the 1842 Congress hotly debated and carefully considered the constitutionality of commandeering the states to make law, using many methods of constitutional argument employed by courts and commentators today: text, history, structure, and prior government practice. The statute passed narrowly and has never been judicially challenged. Given the Supreme Court's holding in New York v. United States, I argue that the federal districting statute amounts to Unconstitutional Politics. I carefully examine the relevant constitutional text, structure, history, precedent, and prior government practice, and conclude that if Congress wants the House elected by single-member districts, Congress must draw the districts for each state. Otherwise, states may experiment with other electoral systems, such as at large or multi-member districts, as they see fit.


Identification of patients at risk of thromboembolism poses a daunting problem. Nevertheless the availability of measurable plasma or serum factors may help to identify those patients at particular risk of thrombogenesis and whom may benefit from prophylactic anticoagulant therapy. My thesis investigates the roles of fibrinogen, fibrin turnover, endothelial dysfunction and lipoprotein(a) in thrombogenesis associated with two cardiovascular conditions at high thromboembolic risk, that is, atrial fibrillation and left ventricular dysfunction. Atrial fibrillation was found to be a common cardiac arrhythmia in a survey of emergency admissions over a six month period to my hospital. Heart failure and cerebrovascular events were the commonest presenting features, accounting for about half of all emergency admissions who were found to be in atrial fibrillation. This survey gave a comprehensive profile of how patients with atrial fibrillation were investigated and managed in a district general hospital. For example, a suboptimal application of standard investigations In patients with atrial fibrillation was identified together with a reluctance to perform cardioversion or to commence anticoagulant therapy. This being despite the increasingly important roles for these two therapeutic manoeuvres in the current management of atrial fibrillation. One possible reason for the low rate of introducing anticoagulation may be the uncertainty of many physicians in identifying patients at high thromboembolic risk. The availability of a suitable plasma marker of thrombogenesis may assist decision-making in these patients. Factors such as fibrinogen, von Willebrand factor and lipoprotein (a) have been associated with thrombosis, embolism and stroke. In addition, the fibrin D-dimer fragment is a marker of fibrin turnover and is indirectly a measure of intravascular thrombus fonnation. In my study, I have identified abnormalities of these plasma markers suggesting a prothrombotic state in patients with atrial fibrillation and left ventricular aneurysms. Patients with chronic atrial fibrillation, for example, have significant elevations of plasma fibrinogen and von Willebrand factor when compared to normal population values; and this is irrespective of aspirin or warfarin therapy. Those who are on no antithrombotic therapy have the highest levels of plasma fibrin D-dimer, suggesting the highest levels of intravascular fibrin turnover in these patients. In contrast, patients whom are established on warfarin have the lowest fibrin D-dimer levels, consistent with the beneficial effect of warfarin in reducing thrombogenesis. No significant effect on these factors with respect to atrial size, ventricular function (as measured by echocardiography), or underlying valve or ischaemic heart disease was noted. Cardioversion of atrial fibrillation to sinus rhythm replaces the irregular atrial activity of atrial fibrillation with the regular atrial systole of sinus rhythm. If thrombogenesis has a simple mechanical basis, cardioversion of atrial fibrillation should be expected to immediately normalise plasma fibrinogen and fibrin D-dimer levels. This does not appear to be the case, as in patients without warfarin therapy, plasma fibrin D-dimer falls sequentially over two weeks following cardioversion. This is partly due to the clearance of D-dimer from the circulation and that atrial systole may not resume immediately. In addition, there is little change in plasma fibrinogen levels, which may inpart be due to the individual variation in the return of atrial systole. Although clinical studies suggest a 'high risk' period for thromboembolism following cardioversion, no significant peak in plasma fibrinogen or fibrin D-dimer has been noted. This is In keeping with the hypothesis that any emboli are due to pre-formed thrombus rather than formation of new thrombus following cardioversion. Patients who are anticoagulated pre- and post-cardioversion have low plasma D-dimer levels, which do not alter over the two weeks' follow-up, consistent with the prophylactic effects of warfarin in reducing thromboembolic risks during cardioversion. If fibrin D-dimer is a suitable indicator of intravascular thrombogenesis, further evidence may be obtained by a study of patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. These patients are regarded as at intermediate thromboembolic risk when compared to chronic atrial fibrillation and those in sinus rhythm. Patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (on no warfarin therapy) indeed do have intermediate levels of plasma fibrinogen and fibrin D-dimer, in keeping with clinical observations. This suggests that flow abnormalities may be important in thrombogenesis, as sustained irregular atrial activity (in chronic atrial fibrillation) causes greater abnormalities in markers of thrombogenesis when compared to patients with intermittent irregular atrial contractions (for example, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation) and those with normal, regular atrial systolic function (in sinus rhythm). (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).


The development of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) is a major problem in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients treated with interferon-beta (IFN). Whereas binding antibodies (BAbs) can be demonstrated in the vast majority of patients, only a smaller proportion of patients develop NAbs. The principle in NAb in vitro assays is the utilization of cultured cell lines that are responsive to IFN. The cytopathic effect (CPE) assay measures the capacity of NAbs to neutralize IFN's protective effect on cells challenged with virus and the MxA induction assay measures the ability of NAbs to reduce the IFN-induced expression of MxA, either at the mRNA or the protein level. A titer of 20 neutralizing units/ml traditionally defines NAb positivity. NAbs in high titers completely abrogate the in vivo response to IFN, whereas the effect of low and intermediate titers is unpredictable. As clinically important NAbs appear only after 9–18 months IFNtherapy, short-term studies of two years or less are unsuitable for evaluation of clinical NAb effects. All long-term trials of three years or more concordantly show evidence of a detrimental effect of NAbs on relapses, disease activity on MRI, or on disease progression. Persistent high titers of NAbs indicate an abrogation of the biological response and, hence, absence of therapeutic efficacy, and this observation should lead to a change of therapy. As low and medium titers are ambiguous treatment decisions in patients with low NAb titres should be guided by determination of in vivo mRNA MxA induction and clinical disease activity.


This review of the medical literature from 1994 to 2003 summarizes the relationship between raw and cooked vegetables and cancer risk and examines whether they may affect cancer risk differently. Twenty-eight studies examined the relationship between raw and cooked vegetables and risk for various cancers. Twenty-one studies assessed raw, but not cooked, vegetables and cancer risk. The majority of these assessed risk of oral, pharyngeal, laryngeal, esophageal, lung, gastric, and colorectal cancers. Most showed that vegetables, raw or cooked, were inversely related to these cancers. However, more consistent results were found for oral, pharyngeal, laryngeal, esophageal, and gastric cancers. Nine of the 11 studies of raw and cooked vegetables showed statistically significant inverse relationships of these cancers with raw vegetables, but only 4 with cooked vegetables. The few studies of breast, lung, and colorectal cancers also suggested an inverse relationship with both raw and cooked vegetables, but these results were less consistent. In the two studies of prostate cancer, there was no association with either raw or cooked vegetables. One of two bladder cancer studies found an inverse relationship with cooked, but not raw, vegetables. Possible mechanisms by which cooking affects the relationship between vegetables and cancer risk include changes in availability of some nutrients, destruction of digestive enzymes, and alteration of the structure and digestibility of food. Both raw and cooked vegetable consumption are inversely related to epithelial cancers, particularly those of the upper gastrointestinal tract, and possibly breast cancer; however, these relationships may be stronger for raw vegetables than cooked vegetables.


Background: The gallbladder remnant and the cystic duct stump calculus are uncommon cause of postcholecystectomy syndrome. Var ied presentat ion and complex of symptoms and Situational skil led management leads to post event syndrome. Incidence of incomplete Gallbladder removal following conventional cholecystectomy appears very low in the era of active management by laparoscopic cholecystectomy. There is paucity of literature on this problem and is limited to few case reports and series. The aim of our study is to do literature search for "Residual gallbladder and cystic duct stump calculus": (I) to determine its problem status in surgery; (II) to analyze the etio-pathogenesis; (III) preventive measures and its management. Methods: It is an analytical study of data comprising seven case series, which have five or more patients after combining all the worldwide studies there are 130 patients. Surprisingly, five of these studies are from our country that combined 110 patients out of 130 patients (84.6%). Symptoms reappear from few months to many years after the surgery right upper quadrant abdominal pain with or without jaundice. Results: Analysis of these literatures pointed for correctible reasons (incomplete dissection of cystic duct leaving calculus within it and reformation of calculus after subtotal cholecystectomy accounting for incomplete dissection). (I) Poor visualization of gallbladder fossa during surgery, excessive bleeding (cirrhosis), acute local inflammation, fibrosis; (II) inadequate dissection due to surgical skills, training and infrastructures. Non-correctible factors contributing were anatomical variations, dense Fibrosis, adhesions, concurrent inflammation, recurrent biliary colic, pancreatitis, comorbid conditions and finally surgical egoism. Subsequently there is an emergent need of assessment; active skilled intervention and formulation of prevention strategy and guideline are needed to overcome such bizarre. Conclusions: Skillful anatomical dissection and clinical skeletonisation of cystic duct starting from gallbladder infundibulum to one cm from common bile duct and inadequate dissection techniques, skills, training and set ups can be overcome by dedicated laparoscopic training under the supervision of experts.


Eider numbers in the North Clyde area remain quite constant throughout the winter, with an influx of birds, mainly juveniles, in the late summer. These birds subsequently disappear from the area either as a result of increased mortality or by competitive exclusion by adult birds. Attendance at a mussel farm in the area was highest throughout the winter, and male to female sex ratio was higher here than in other areas. Some breeding eiders from the North and West of Argyll move into the Clyde during the winter, but these represent only a small proportion of the wintering population. Eider wintering distribution can be influenced by aquaculture sites in some areas, although the effect on population growth is unclear.
The activity patterns of foraging eiders on natural mussel beds is strongly influenced by tidal height whereas on mussel farms there is no such effect. In wild-feeding flocks, different areas are utilised at differing periods of the tidal cycle, perhaps as a method of keeping a uniform optimal dive-depth. Birds feeding on natural mussel beds dived on average three times as frequently as those feeding on mussel farms, and so clearly had to work harder to meet energy requirements.
97% of Scottish mussel farmers contacted reported eiders as a pest species, and 21% also suffered damage from goldeneyes. Losses of stock to feeding eiders can be huge, and the fmancial cost considerable, averaging 14000 per farm per year (1994-1998). Attendance at farms tended to peak during early spring and late autumn. Many damage limitation measures were employed by farmers, with only one, netting, giving unambiguous success.
Worker presence on mussel farms decreased eider attendance by 95%. Chasing the birds by boat significantly reduced numbers of feeding eiders and goldeneyes in the short-term, by 91 and 51% respectively. This effect was short-lived, particularly with goldeneyes. There was also evidence to suggest that disturbance lowers the subsequent feeding rate of goldeneyes on mussel farms.
Laser light significantly reduced numbers of diving ducks on mussel farms, however its efficacy is reduced as ambient fight levels increase. As a result, its use is often restricted to periods around sunrise and sunset. Different populations of eiders showed significantly different sensitivities to laser light. Sequential trials of the laser fight on adjacent farms showed that birds were initially scared from one site to the next, but repeated regimes moved birds out of the area.
Trials of an Underwater Playback System (UPS), replaying recordings of chase-boat engines, gave significant reductions in eider numbers of 50-80%. A control trial with the playback of an unassociated noise gave no significant reduction in numbers. The mean return time of birds to the farm after chasing by boat also increased significantly during UPS trials. The long-term habituation of ducks to this system was negligible with occasional reinforcement by boat chasing.
On the basis of these scientific trials and observations,r ecommendations to mussel farmers are made in an advisory booklet (Appendix III). Netting designs are presented and possible use of UPS or laser light on farms is reviewed.


We develop a dual-layered agency model to study blockholder monitoring by activist funds that compete for investor flow. Competition for flow affects the manner in which activist hedge funds govern as blockholders. In particular, funds inflate short-term performance by increasing payouts financed by (net) leverage, which discourages value-creating interventions in economic downturns due to debt overhang. Our theory links together the observed procyclicality of activist block formation with the documented effect of such funds on the leverage of their target companies. The model also generates new testable implications and reconciles seemingly contradictory empirical evidence regarding hedge fund activism.


Shade trees provide many benefits but can cause damage if they fail. Despite the potential for costly litigation that sometimes arises when damage occurs, there are no investigations of bending moments and stresses involved in failure of shade trees. Twenty-four shade trees of three species in the genus Acer were pulled to failure at a suburban property in Massachusetts, U.S. The maximum load and distance to failure were used to calculate maximum bending moment; stress at the point of failure was calculated from bending moment and stem cross-sectional dimensions. No trees uprooted, and failures were categorized as either stem at a lateral branch(es) or the attachment of codominant stems. Failures of codominant stems required one-half of the stress of stem failures. Similarly, failures of codominant stems occurred at only 45% of wood strength, whereas stem failures occurred at 79% of wood strength. Prediction of maximum bending moment from tree morphometric data was more reliable than prediction of maximum stress from tree morphometric data. Prediction of maximum bending moment and stress was more reliable for stem failures than codominant failures. Results are compared with similar tests on conifers. Implications of findings are discussed with respect to risk assessment of shade trees.


Executive functions (EFs) are linked to positive outcomes across the lifespan. Yet, methodological challenges have prevented precise understanding of the developmental trajectory of their organization.We introduce novel methods to address challenges for both measuring and modeling EFs using an accelerated longitudinal design with a large, diverse sample of students in middle childhood (N = 1,286; ages 8 to 14). We used eight adaptive assessments hypothesized to measure three EFs, working memory, context monitoring, and interference resolution. We deployed adaptive assessments to equate EF challenge across ages and a data-driven, network analytic approach to reveal the evolving diversity of EFs while simultaneously accounting for their unity.Using this methodological paradigm shift brought new precision and clarity to the development of these EFs, showing these eight tasks are organized into three stable components by age 10, but refinement of composition of these components continues through at least age 14.


Microphone leakage is one of the most prevalent problems in audio applications involving multiple instruments and multiple microphones. Currently, sound engineers have limited solutions available to them. In this paper, the applicability of two widely used signal enhancement methods to this problem is discussed, namely blind source separation and noise suppression. By extending previous work, it is shown that the noise suppression framework is a valid choice and can effectively address the problem of microphone leakage. Here, an extended form of the single channel Wiener filter is used which takes into account the individual audio sources to derive a multichannel noise term. Furthermore here, the technique called decimation is used before transformation to reduce the sampling time. A novel power spectral density (PSD) estimation method is also proposed based on the identification of dominant frequency bins by examining the microphone and output signal PSDs. The performance of the method is examined for simulated environments with various source microphone setups and it is shown that the proposed approach efficiently suppresses leakage.


The green fluorescent protein (GFP) creates a fluorophore out of three sequential amino acids by promoting spontaneous posttranslational modifications. Here, we use high-resolution crystallography to characterize GFP variants that not only undergo peptide backbone cyclization but additional denaturation-induced peptide backbone fragmentation, native peptide hydrolysis, and decarboxylation reactions. Our analyses indicate that architectural features that favor GFP peptide cyclization also drive peptide hydrolysis. These results are relevant for the maturation pathways of GFP homologues, such as the kindling fluorescent protein and the Kaede protein, which use backbone cleavage to red-shift the spectral properties of their chromophores. We further propose a photochemical mechanism for the decarboxylation reaction, supporting a role for the GFP protein environment in facilitating radical formation and one-electron chemistry, which may be important in activating oxygen for the oxidation step of chromophore biosynthesis. Together, our results characterize GFP posttranslational modification chemistry with implications for the energetic landscape of backbone cyclization and subsequent reactions, and for the rational design of predetermined spontaneous backbone cyclization and cleavage reactions.


The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become an important genetic model organism in various research areas of modern biology. Originally, it was chosen as a vertebrate model system because its excellent properties that allow the study of embryonic development could be combined with powerful genetic analysis. Forward mutagenesis screens have led to the identification of thousands of mutants that are defective in developmental processes. More recent genetic screens have yielded many additional mutants in diverse biological processes, some of which are very reminiscent of human diseases. Great effort is undertaken to identify the genes responsible for these mutant phenotypes. However, the reverse genetic discovery of gene function, by inactivation of genes through knockout technologies, has not been possible in zebrafish until recently.
This thesis describes the establishment of a knockout technology in zebrafish. It describes the creation of the first zebrafish knockout, the rag1 gene, by target-selected mutagenesis. By resequencing a comprehensive library of mutagenized zebrafish, a null mutation in the rag1 gene was identified. This mutation leads to a failure in rearrangement of the immunoglobulin locus and consequently results in immunodefiency. Next, several refinements to this knockout technique are described. Instead of direct resequencing of mutagenized animals, the TILLING technique was used to pre-screen for point mutations in several genes. Using this method, thirteen potential zebrafish knockouts were identified. The current methodologies and potential future applications to do reverse genetic analysis in zebrafish are reviewed.
The other subject of this thesis is 'microRNAs (miRNAs) in zebrafish development'. miRNAs are small non-coding RNA molecules that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression. The base-pairing of miRNAs to target mRNAs results in translational inhibition or mRNA cleavage. Hundreds of miRNAs have been identified in various multicellular organisms and many miRNAs are evolutionarily conserved. Although the biological functions of most miRNAs are unknown, miRNAs are predicted to regulate up to 30% of the genes within the human genome. The recent advances in miRNA biology are reviewed. Particularly, there is a focus on the roles of miRNAs in vertebrate development and disease. The construction and analysis of the dicer knockout in zebrafish is described. Disruption of the miRNA-producing enzyme Dicer results in developmental arrest and failure to produce miRNAs, indicating that miRNAs are essential for vertebrate development. Furthermore, the miRNA expression patterns during zebrafish embryonic development are described. Most miRNA are expressed in a highly tissue-specific manner during segmentation and later stages, but not early in development, which suggests that their role is not in tissue fate establishment but in differentiation or maintenance of tissue identity.


Purpose - – For over two decades numerous studies have provided evidence on the predictive ability of the yield spread for real economic growth. While all this large literature has focussed on how well the spread helps predict real activity, none of these has given an answer on why the spread predicts. The purpose of this paper is to deal with this issue by trying to find an answer on the reason and the economic conditions under which the spread proves to be so powerful predictor of economic activity. Design/methodology/approach - – The authors examine whether the explanation of spread's predictive ability lies behind interest rate volatility supposing that the economy oscillates between high- and low-volatility regimes. For this reason the authors nest GARCH models into Markov regime switching models. Findings - – When the authors assume that the economy simply oscillates between different regimes, interest rate volatility does not explain the spread's predictive ability. However, the authors obtain a very interesting result when the authors augment the conditional variance with a level effects term. This ensures that in an environment with high levels of interest rates – in which the rational agents expect the economy to slow down – there is a greater possibility for the economy to switch to a high-volatility regime. Under these economic conditions, interest rate volatility appears to be the reason of spread's predictive power from one up to three years. Originality/value - – This study contributes to the relevant literature by providing an explanation on the reason and the economic conditions under which the spread proves to be so powerful predictor of economic activity.


Wind energy is one of the supremely renewable energy sources and has been widely established worldwide. Due to strong seasonal variations in the wind resource, accurate predictions of wind resource assessment and appropriate wind speed distribution models (for any location) are the significant facets for planning and commissioning wind farms. In this work, the wind characteristics and wind potential assessment of onshore, offshore, and nearshore locations of India—particularly Kayathar in Tamilnadu, the Gulf of Khambhat, and Jafrabad in Gujarat—are statistically analyzed with wind distribution methods. Further, the resource assessments are carried out using Weibull, Rayleigh, gamma, Nakagami, generalized extreme value (GEV), lognormal, inverse Gaussian, Rician, Birnbaum–Sandras, and Bimodal–Weibull distribution methods. Additionally, the advent of artificial intelligence and soft computing techniques with the moth flame optimization (MFO) method leads to superior results in solving complex problems and parameter estimations. The data analytics are carried out in the MATLAB platform, with in-house coding developed for MFO parameters estimated through optimization and other wind distribution parameters using the maximum likelihood method. The observed outcomes show that the MFO method performed well on parameter estimation. Correspondingly, wind power generation was shown to peak at the South West Monsoon periods from June to September, with mean wind speeds ranging from 9 to 12 m/s. Furthermore, the wind speed distribution method of mixed Weibull, Nakagami, and Rician methods performed well in calculating potential assessments for the targeted locations. Likewise, the Gulf of Khambhat (offshore) area has steady wind speeds ranging from 7 to 10 m/s with less turbulence intensity and the highest wind power density of 431 watts/m 2 . The proposed optimization method proves its potential for accurate assessment of Indian wind conditions in selected locations.


Gastrointestinal schwannoma is a rare, benign pathological entity that can mimic colonic adenocarcinoma and cause diagnostic dilemmas for treatment. A case of a 68-year-old woman with colonic adenocarcinoma who was discovered to have an incidental synchronous bowel lesion that proved to be a gastrointestinal schwannoma and not a synchronous adenocarcinoma is described. Gastrointestinal schwannomas are uncommon in the colorectal region; they are most often located in the stomach. These spindle cell lesions are distinct from gastrointestinal stromal tumours because the tumour cells have a distinct immunophenotype, with strong diffuse positivity for S-100, glial fibrillary acidic protein and vimentin, and corroborative negative staining of CD34, CD117 and smooth muscle markers. Accurate diagnosis and recognition of this benign entity is, therefore, of immense clinicopathological value for accurate planning of therapeutic strategies.


The criteria of restoration success should be clearly established to evaluate restoration projects. Recently, the Society of Ecological Restoration International (SER) has produced a Primer that includes ecosystem attributes that should be considered when evaluating restoration success. To determine how restoration success has been evaluated in restoration projects, we reviewed articles published in Restoration Ecology (Vols. 1[1]–11[4]). Specifically, we addressed the following questions: (1) what measures of ecosystem attributes are assessed and (2) how are these measures used to determine restoration success. No study has measured all the SER Primer attributes, but most studies did include at least one measure in each of three general categories of the ecosystem attributes: diversity, vegetation structure, and ecological processes. Most of the reviewed studies are using multiple measures to evaluate restoration success, but we would encourage future projects to include: (1) at least two variables within each of the three ecosystem attributes that clearly related to ecosystem functioning and (2) at least two reference sites to capture the variation that exist in ecosystems.


The work roll bending is one of the most effective flatness actuators in flatness control of cold rolled strips, as a result of its characteristics such as high speed response, powerful effects on the elimination of flatness defects such as edge-waves, central waves and so on. The existing research on flatness control mainly focuses on the calculation of optimal adjustment of individual flatness actuator. However, the final output of a flatness actuator is required to be limited firstly for some special cases. If the incoming strip is coming with big symmetrical flatness defects, it happens that the position limit of work roll bending is prone to be reached or exceeded during the execution of the displacement, resulting in the residual symmetrical flatness defects without further elimination, as well as a limited flatness control process. In order to avoid this situation, substitution control by intermediate roll bending in case of work roll bending control over-limitation have been developed, which is based on actuator efficiencies and in accordance with the practical conditions. Applications show that the substitution control of intermediate roll bending for work roll bending over-limitation can play an important role in the residually symmetrical flatness control.


A technique is described utilizing the separate injection of gamma-labeled red cells and plasma, with subsequent measurement of the amount of each label found in the cranial portion of the head and in venous blood specimens. By this means the relationship between the hematocrit of the cranial blood pool and venous blood is determined. In the basic technique, Cr51 is used separately and sequentially as the label for both red cells and plasma. A modification of this technique using I131human serum albumin is described also. Only antecubital venipuncture for injection and sampling was utilized. The mean hematocrit of the human cranial blood pool was found to be 0.84 times the venous hematocrit by both dual tracer methods. This technique should be applicable to other organs. The distribution ratios of any gamma emitters in brain and blood should be similarly measurable.


An accurate and efficient method of velocity and slope estimation is presented in this thesis. An adaptive Kalman filter is proposed to deal with the over-slip wheel, which is a challenging problem during velocity estimation. The research object of this work is the hybrid/electric vehicles with electric motors.
In the adaptive Kalman filter, we control the gain matrix directly based on the over-slip flag. If all of the four wheels over-slip at the same time, the velocity results are replaced by the integration of acceleration. To reduce the integration error, the longitudinal acceleration is modified by road slope estimation results. The slope estimation is based on typical Kalman filter and the observation variable is velocity estimation result. Then, the over-slip criterion and wheel speed selection method are involved aiming to estimate velocity accurately when all the four wheels are over-slip. Besides the wheel speed and pre-estimation of velocity, the wheel torque, provided by electric motor, is also used to find out the over-slip wheels. Nevertheless, some abnormal measurements that cannot be detected by the over-slip criteria affect the accuracy of the estimation. Thus wheel speed selection is put forward to reduce the influence of measurements error as well as the calculation quantity. After selection, only one wheel speed is selected as the observation variable of Kalman filter. At last, the algorithm is verified on both high and low friction road


Most arguments about electoral reform are thinly veiled cloaks for partisan self-interest. By contrast Patrick Dunleavy argues that, whatever your party, there is now an overwhelming public interest case for adopting the Alternative Vote – to restore to all MPs genuine majority support in their locality. This is the crucial first step in restoring the tattered legitimacy of Parliament. Not adopting this reform would condemn MPs to ever-worsening status in the eyes of their local communities in the future.


Twenty Hampshire lambs (31 ± 4 kg BW) in individual metabolism cages were used in a 10-treatment by 2-period ( = 4) trial to evaluate the interaction between protein supplementation and sulfate water on intake and metabolic responses when lambs were fed low-quality grass hay (; 6.4% CP, 79.5% NDF). The treatment structure was a 2 × 5 factorial: 2 water qualities (WQ; low-sulfate [LS] and high-sulfate [HS]; 442 and 8,358 mg/kg total dissolved solids, respectively) and 5 soybean meal levels (SBM; 0%, 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75%, and 1.00% BW/d). After 15 d of adaptation, periods consisted of 5 d for determination of forage and water intake, nitrogen balance, and digestion measurements (d 16 to 20) and 1 d for blood sampling and determination of ruminal hydrogen sulfide (HS) concentration (d 21). Supplemental SBM × WQ interactions were significant for forage OM intake ( = 0.04) and total OM intake ( = 0.04), whereas a tendency was observed for total tract digestible OM intake ( = 0.07). Intake values of LS lambs were higher than those of HS lambs ( < 0.05) in only the first and second levels of SBM. Water intake increased linearly ( < 0.01) with SBM level but was not affected by WQ ( = 0.39). Water quality and SBM supplementation affected total tract OM digestibility (TTOMD; < 0.01); LS lambs had lower TTOMD than HS lambs ( < 0.01). Plasma urea N increased linearly in response to SBM ( < 0.01) but was not affected by WQ ( = 0.11). Nitrogen balance was not affected by SBM × WQ interaction ( > 0.12), except for N utilization (N retained/N intake ratio; < 0.01). Regardless of WQ, N intake ( > 0.01), N urine ( > 0.01), and N balance increased linearly ( > 0.01) with SBM level. Water quality adversely affected N intake and N balance, although at the highest level of SBM no differences in N balance were observed between LS and HS lambs ( = 0.85). No changes due to WQ were observed for either urea reabsorbed by kidneys ( = 0.63) or glomerular filtration rate ( = 0.30), but renal function was affected by SBM level ( < 0.01). There was a supplemental SBM × WQ interaction for ruminal HS concentration ( < 0.01) due mainly to a greater concentration from 0.25% BW SBM in HS than in LS lambs. In conclusion, these results confirmed the existence of an interaction between sulfate water and supplemental protein, which alters intake and metabolic responses when lambs are fed low-quality grass hay.


The concept of ideology appears elusive, in it are combined philosophical, political, sociological, historical, epistemological, pedagogical interpretations. This short essay tries to give an interpretation in light of the contribution offered by the reflections of Marx and hermeneutical philosophy and, especially in light of the international phenomena in the Mediterranean and Middle East and recent economic crises, it overcomes the vision of that particular current of late '900 that wanted the era of ideologies as a land no longer fertile and destined for sunset.


Linguistic communication is geared toward the exchange of information, i.e., changing the addressee's world views. In other words, persuasion is the goal of speakers and the force of the speaker's commitment as indicated in the utterance is an important factor in persuasion. Other things being equal, the stronger the speaker's commitment, the easier the persuasion. However, if deception is detected, the stronger the speaker's commitment, the harsher the punishment, i.e., the damage to his or her reputation. One way for cheaters to avoid detection and/or to mitigate punishment is to downplay their commitment to what they mean through the utterance by making its content less informative, i.e., by producing underinformative utterances. Underinformativity is also a powerful way of triggering context-dependent and inference-based interpretation that goes beyond what is said. This allows speakers to indirectly communicate false content while producing an utterance that is literally true. This phenomenon of truthfully misleading is the topic of the present paper. As will be seen, it allows speakers to leave part of the responsibility for the false content to their hearers, with the triple effect that they can claim to have been misunderstood (plausible denial), claim that what they said was literally true, and explain the underinformativity of the utterance through ignorance.


This paper presents a new DSP-oriented code optimization method to enhance performance by exploiting the specific architectural features of digital signal processors. In the proposed method, a source code is translated into the static single assignment form while preserving the high-level information related to the address computation of array accesses. The information is used in generating auto-modification addressing operations provided by most digital signal processors. In addition to the conventional control-data flow graph, a new graph is employed to find auto-modification addressing modes efficiently. Experimental results on benchmark programs show that the proposed method is effective in improving performance and reducing code size.


In finance, the risk of an entity depends not only on its historical information

but also on the risk propagated by its related peers. Pilot studies rely on Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to model this risk propagation, where each entity is treated as a node and represented by its time-series information.

However, conventional GNNs are constrained by their unified messaging mechanism with an assumption that the risk of a given entity only propagates to its related peers with the same time lag and has the same effect, which is against the ground truth. In this study, we propose the subsequence-based graph routing network (S-GRN) for capturing the variant risk propagation processes among different time-series represented entities. In S-GRN, the messaging mechanism between each node pair is dynamically and independently selected from multiple messaging mechanisms based on the dependencies of variant subsequence patterns. The S-GRN is extensively evaluated on two synthetic tasks and three real-world datasets and demonstrates state-of-the-art performance.


Purpose: To review our previous studies regarding the prevalence of dry eye disease (DED) and risk factors among Japanese high school students and office workers who use visual display terminals (VDTs). Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Japanese high school students and office workers who currently use VDT. Subjects completed the same questionnaires designed to ascertain a diagnosis of DED and its symptoms and information on possible risk factors such as age, duration of VDT use, type of VDT work, environmental factors, presence of systemic diseases, and contact lens (CL) use. We used logistic regression analysis to examine the associations between DED and other factors. Results: Among 3433 high school students assessed, severe symptoms of DED were observed in 21.0% of boys and 24.4% of girls. CL wear was associated with significantly higher prevalence of severe DED symptoms in both boys [odds ratio (OR), 4.14] and girls (OR, 4.68). Among 4393 VDT users, severe symptoms of DED were observed in 26.9% of men and 48.0% of women. VDT use > 4 hours per day was associated with increased risk of DED (OR, 1.83). Conclusion: DED is commonly encountered among Japanese high school students and VDT users. The condition is more prevalent among women, CL wearers, and prolonged VDT users.


Shoot branching and plant height are among the key factors that define the overall architecture of plants. We found that overexpression of a cDNA for a zinc-finger protein of petunia, designated Lateral shoot-Inducing Factor (LIF), in transgenic petunia plants resulted in a dramatic increase in lateral shoots and reduced plant height. LIF overexpression also caused a decrease in the number of cells in the stem, leaf, and flower, accompanied by enlargement of cells. trans-Zeatin was decreased while N6-(Delta2-isopentenyl)adenine was increased in the leaves of LIF-overexpressed petunia. Most of the riboside, ribotide, and glucoside forms were also increased. Expression analysis using a LIF::GUS fusion gene and RT-PCR suggested that LIF is specifically expressed around the bases of axillary buds and weakly in basal part of flowers in wild-type petunia. GFP-LIF-GUS fusion proteins were translocated into the nucleus when transiently expressed in onion epidermal cells. LIF overexpression resulted in enhanced branching also in tobacco and Arabidopsis, indicating the conservation of the response to LIF overexpression among dicotyledonous plants. On the basis of these results we discuss about possible functions of LIF.


THE psyche-soma interdependency is seldom more strikingly evidenced than during pregnancy where bodily changes and the psychological state reciprocally influence each other. As evidence of this reciprocal functioning, McConnell and Daston 17 found perception of physiological changes following delivery reflected as significant changes in body image while McDonald and Gynther 19 found reliable pre- to postdelivery changes in self and parental ratings among unmarried primigravidas. Recognition of the intimate relationship between psychological factors and physiological processes during pregnancy has stimulated a growing body of research focusing on differentiation of obstetric complications through assessment of various personality parameters. These studies have clearly demonstrated that women with obstetric complications differ reliably in various respects during the latter stages of pregnancy (eg, seventh month of gestation) from those who have uneventful parturitions, deliveries, and normal offspring. Both married and unmarried patients with a variety of obstet


Optimizing gain through systematic methods of varying current injection schemes analytically is significant to maximize experimentally device yield and evaluation. Various techniques are used to calculate the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) gain for light emitting devices consisting of single-section and multiple-sections of even length. Recently double quantum well (DQW) superluminescent diodes (SLD) have shown a broad multi-state emission due to mutli-electrodes of non-equal lengths and at high non-equal current densities. In this study, we adopt an improved method utilizing an ASE intensity ratio to calibrate a gain curve based on the sum of the measured ASE spectra to efficiently estimate the gain. Although the laser gain for GaAs/AlGaAs material is well studied, the ASE gain of SLD devices has not been systematically studied particular to further explain the multiple-state emission observed in fabricated devices. In addition a unique gain estimate was achieved where the excited state gain clamps prior to the ground state due to approaching saturation levels. In our results, high current densities in long sectioned active regions achieved sufficient un-truncated gain that show evidence of excited state emission has been observed.


A multi-category psychometric function (MCPF) is introduced for modeling the stimulus-level dependence of perceptual categorical probability distributions. The MCPF is described in the context of individual-listener categorical loudness scaling (CLS) data. During a CLS task, listeners select the loudness category that best corresponds to their perception of the presented stimulus. In this study, CLS MCPF results are reported for 37 listeners (15 normal hearing, 22 with hearing loss). Individual-listener MCPFs were parameterized, and a principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify sources of inter-subject variability and reduce the dimensionality of the data. A representative "catalog" of potential listener MCPFs was created from the PCA results. A method is introduced for using the MCPF catalog and maximum-likelihood estimation, together, to derive CLS functions for additional participants; this technique improved the accuracy of the CLS results and provided a MCPF model for each listener. Such a technique is particularly beneficial when a relatively low number of measurements are available (e.g., International Standards Organization adaptive-level CLS testing). In general, the MCPF is a flexible tool that can characterize any type of ordinal, level-dependent categorical data. For CLS, the MCPF quantifies the suprathreshold variability across listeners and provides a model for probability-based analyses and methods.


: The Argyll Robertson (AR) pupil has been defined as a pupil that is small and constricts poorly to direct light but briskly when a target within reading distance is viewed (''light-near dissociation''). Most descriptions of the AR pupil do not mention segmental iris sphincter constriction, or slow, sustained constriction with a near vision effort. Such features are considered typical of the light-near dissociation of Adie syndrome and of neuropathic tonic pupils, where damage to the ciliary ganglion or ciliary nerves is believed to be the mechanism. Because the AR pupil lacks these features, it has been attributed to a dorsal midbrain lesion that interrupts the pupillary light reflex pathway but spares the more ventral pupillary near reflex pathway. However, lesions in this region have not been reliably demonstrated in syphilis. Resolving the issue about the location of the syphilitic lesion that produces the AR pupil will depend on careful examination of patients with tech-niques designed to disclose segmental palsy of the iris. If segmental iris sphincter palsy is found and the light-near dissociation has tonic features, one must conclude that the mechanism of the pupil disorder is a ciliary (peripheral) rather than a midbrain (central) denervation. Until better evidence settles the local-ization of the AR pupil, it is appropriate to screen patients with bilateral tonic pupils for syphilis.


ABSTRACT The manufacturing industry needs to increase productivity and flexibility to stay competitive. This requires more adaptable and versatile production capabilities. It is expected that dynamic systems, consisting of mobile robots, will be particularly prominent in manufacturing environments where it is difficult to move components and products in a flexible manner. This paper compares the relative advantages of a dynamic, mobile robot-based system with traditional dedicated automation systems. The study uses simulations to evaluate several representative scenarios with different product supply bottlenecks, interference among mobile robots and mixes of products inspired by the aerospace industry. The results show that mobility enables higher resource utilisation and increased flexibility. This highlights the potential operational advantages mobile robot-based systems would offer and gives clear justification to continue the development of dynamic, self-organising production systems based on mobile robots.


Summary Studies characterizing typical honeys are carried out with the goal of establishing standards for marketing. In the case of tropical honeys, few studies exist which allow for establishing a typology and popularizing these honeys, partly because the diversity of tropical ecosystems makes it difficult to obtain typical honeys. We have initiated a search for typical honeys in Mexico and Guatemala, and we evaluate the possibility of characterizing them. The types of honey studied were: campanita or campanilla (Ipomoea purpurea), mantequilla or acahual (complex of Asteraceae), hevea (Hevea brasiliensis), and laurel (Cordia alliodora). We determined the principal physico-chemical and sensory characteristics and validated physico-chemical differences through a multivariate analysis, which demonstrated that the parameters explaining the differences were electrical conductivity, free and total acidity, and pH. We defined the botanical origin of each type of honey by this principal pollen and identified whether it was floral or extrafloral.


The rapid flow of information and the abundance of text data on the Internet have brought about the urgent demand for the construction of monitoring resources and techniques used for various purposes. To extract facets of information useful for particular domains from such large and dynamically growing corpora requires an unsupervised yet transparent ways of analyzing the textual data. This paper proposed a hybrid collocation analysis as a potential method to retrieve and summarize Taiwan-related topics posted on Weibo and PTT. By grouping collocates of 臺灣 'Taiwan' into clusters of topics via either word embeddings clustering or Latent Dirichlet allocation, lists of collocates can be converted to probability distributions such that distances and similarities can be defined and computed. With this method, we conduct a diachronic analysis of the similarity between Weibo and PTT, providing a way to pinpoint when and how the topic similarity between the two rises or falls. A fine-grained view on the grammatical behavior and political implications is attempted, too. This study thus sheds light on alternative explainable routes for future social media listening method on the understanding of cross-strait relationship.


This article presents Part of Speech tagging for Nepali text using General Regression Neural Network (GRNN). The corpus is divided into two parts viz. training and testing. The network is trained and validated on both training and testing data. It is observed that 96.13% words are correctly being tagged on training set whereas 74.38% words are tagged correctly on testing data set using GRNN. The result is compared with the traditional Viterbi algorithm based on Hidden Markov Model. Viterbi algorithm yields 97.2% and 40% classification accuracies on training and testing data sets respectively. GRNN based POS Tagger is more consistent than the traditional Viterbi decoding technique.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the prevalence of intestinal parasites and rates of stool testing compliance, as well as associated patient characteristics, among newly arrived refugees at the Mosaic Refugee Health Clinic in Calgary, Alta.

DESIGN
Retrospective chart review.

SETTING
Primary care clinic for refugee patients.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 1390 new refugee patients at the clinic from May 1, 2011, to June 30, 2013.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Stool ova and parasite test completion and proportion of positive test results.

RESULTS
Of 1390 patients, 74.1% (95% CI 71.7% to 76.4%) completed at least 1 stool ova and parasite test. Among those completing tests, 29.7% (95% CI 26.9% to 32.6%) had at least 1 positive result. Patients aged 6 to 18 years were more likely to have positive test results (38.5%, 95% CI 32.2% to 45.0%) than patients aged 19 to 39 were, as were those last residing in Asia (36.4%, 95% CI 30.4% to 42.8%) or sub-Saharan Africa (30.9%, 95% CI 26.8% to 35.1%), compared with those arriving from the Middle East. Giardia lamblia, Blastocystis hominis, Dientamoeba fragilis, and Entamoeba histolytica or Entamoeba dispar were the most prevalent parasites. If B hominis and D fragilis are excluded because of their lower potential to cause harm, the overall prevalence was 16.3%.

CONCLUSION
Given the high compliance of patients submitting stool ova and parasite tests and a high prevalence of positive test results in some refugee groups, targeted screening should be considered in newly arrived refugees at greater risk of intestinal parasites.