The U.S. food system is rapidly changing, including the growth of mass merchandisers and dollar stores, which may impact the quality of packaged food purchases (PFPs). Furthermore, diet-related disparities exist by socioeconomic status (SES) and rural residence. We use data from the 2010–2018 Nielsen Homescan Panel to describe the nutritional profiles of PFPs by store type and to assess whether these vary by household urbanicity and SES. Store types include grocery stores, mass merchandisers, club stores, online shopping, dollar stores, and convenience/drug stores. Food and beverage groups contributing the most calories at each store type are estimated using survey-weighted means, while the associations of urbanicity and SES with nutritional quality are estimated using multivariate regression. We find that households that are customers at particular store types purchase the same quality of food regardless of urbanicity or SES. However, we find differences in the quality of foods between store types and that the quantity of calories purchased at each store type varies according to household urbanicity and SES. Rural shoppers tend to shop more at mass merchandisers and dollar stores with less healthful PFPs. We discuss implications for the types of store interventions most relevant for improving the quality of PFPs.


This paper addresses the make-up and the limitations of a multi-level governance approach in tackling issues of fuel poverty and energy transition connected to poverty in England. Although the English planning framework offers unparalleled opportunities for innovative governance arrangements, and although much has been done in this area by national and local authorities, there are important limitations to how English cities are tackling fuel poverty and energy transition in a context of energy transition coupled with deprivation. The case analysed is an archetypical formerly industrial city dealing with socio-economic and spatial regeneration issues and transferable lessons can be learned. The questions addressed in this paper are: How does a former industrial city in Northwestern Europe deal with energy transition in the face of relatively high levels of deprivation? What is the governance of energy transition in the case and how does it help deprived citizens achieve energy security, if at all? This paper relies on extensive fieldwork research, interviews with several stakeholders and policy analysis carried out for the 7th Framework PLEEC Project (Planning for Energy Efficient Cities). Preliminary conclusions point at the failing of governance arrangements to include vulnerable actors and the inadequacy of solutions found for deprived or vulnerable households in the renting sector.


In this paper, we present a Quality of Experience (QoE) based upon the analyze the key Quality of Service (QoS) parameters such as delay, jitter, throughput, packet loss, packet inspection in the mesh networks which executing the better approach for reconfiguration wireless mesh networks in the routing protocol. In this system evaluates the actual QoE level for each mesh node taking into an account to calculate QoS parameters and then this response as reducing the node broadcasting rate and investigating the problems of selecting in which links would be established that all nodes are connected for cost of constructions are minimized.


Background and Objective: Acute poisoning is a medical emergency. It is important to know the nature, severity and outcome of acute poisoning cases in order to take up appropriate planning, prevention and management techniques. This study aimed to assess the pattern and outcome of acute poisoning cases in a tertiary care hospital in Karnataka. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective hospital record-based study conducted in a tertiary care hospital attached to a medical institution in Karnataka. The study included 136 cases and data regarding age, sex, time elapsed after intake; circumstances of poisoning, name of the poisonous substance, chemical type, duration of hospitalization, severity and outcome were collected in the prestructured proforma. Results: Incidence was more common among males (75.4%) compared to females (24.3). Most cases of acute poisoning presented among 20- to 29-year age group (31.2%) followed by 12- to 19-year age group (30.2%). A majority of poisoning cases (36.0%) were due to organophosphorus compound (OPC). Total mortality was found to be 15.4%. Mortality rate due to corrosives was significantly high compared with OPC poisoning (χ2 = 4.12, P = 0.04). Of the 56 patients of OPC and carbamate poisoning, 13 patients (23.2%) had respiratory arrest and required respiratory support. Time lapse had a significant role on the mortality in cases of acute poisoning (χ2 = 10.9, P = 0.01). Conclusion: Poisoning is more common in young males. The overall mortality is substantially high, mainly contributed by self-poisoning with insecticides and corrosives. Early care in a tertiary care center may help to reduce mortality in India.


Fertilizer subsidies are again becoming a popular policy tool in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite their potential, little empirical research has been undertaken on how subsidies affect a farmer's decision to purchase commercial fertilizer. Because of this, there is a dearth of information on how fertilizer subsidy programs affect total fertilizer and commercial fertilizer use. This paper uses a double hurdle model with panel data from Malawi to answer these questions. It also uses a control function approach to deal with endogeneity of subsidized fertilizer in a commercial fertilizer demand equation. Our results indicate that subsidized fertilizer negatively impacts participation in commercial markets. Once the participation decision has been made however, demand for commercial fertilizer is driven by farm size, assets and fertilizer price and maize price rather than by whether a farmer received subsidized fertilizer. We calculate the average partial effects of subsidized fertilizer and find that on average, receiving one additional kilogram of subsidized fertilizer causes a farmer to purchase 0.20 fewer kilograms of commercial fertilizer. This indicates that fertilizer subsidies may adversely affect the demand for commercial fertilizer and also raise total fertilizer use by a somewhat smaller quantity than the quantity of fertilizer distributed through the subsidy program.


Employment of Epileptics During the war physically handicapped people previously considered to be unemployable were encouraged to train for essential work. Thousands of these took their places as wage-earners, and by April, 1950, the names of 15.078 epileptics appeared on the Register of Disabled Persons; of these, 13,563 were actually in work. This is particularly encouraging, as occupation and interest are direct anticonvulsants. The task of finding work for an epileptic now officially falls to the disablement resettlement officer, who is guided by the report he receives from the patient's own doctor at the time of registration. However, continued supervision and encouragement by a social worker is often a determining factor in keeping an epileptic at work. Also knowledge of the patient in his home surroundings, visits to prospective employers, and consultation with the patient's doctor do much to ensure that the individual epileptic is placed in work for which he is most suited.


The present invention relates to a method of securing an elastic band (13) between two material layers (14) which consist at least partially of meltable material. According to the invention, the elastic band is provided with perforations in the form of holes and/or slots. The band is placed between the two material layers and the layers are bonded together through the perforations by melting or fusing the layers together at locations opposite the perforations. The invention also relates to an elastic band which has been affixed in this manner and to a diaper which includes such a band.


Although a major site of transcription in heat shock, the Drosophila hsr omega gene does not encode any known heat shock proteins. Instead, studies of the hsr omega transcripts suggest that the RNA molecules, rather than encoded proteins, are the active products of this gene. The cytoplasmic RNA, omega 3, is spliced and polyadenylated and yet has only very small open reading frames (ORFs), and these are poorly conserved in different Drosophila species. Surprisingly, the work reported here leads us to conclude that one of the tiny ORFs in this RNA is translated. This ORF, designated ORF-omega, is notable in being the only ORF that shows sequence conservation in the three Drosophila species examined. However, translation of this ORF does not lead to detectable accumulation of the protein product. We suggest that ORF- omega may be an example of an unusual type of translated ORF. The act of translation itself may be important rather than the generation of a functional protein product. This nonproductive translation may play a role in regulation of cellular activities.


We present a system for planar augmented reality based on a new real-time affine region tracker. Instead of tracking fiducial points, we track planar local image patches, and bring these into complete correspondence, so a virtual texture can directly be added to them. Moreover, the local image patches can be extracted in an invariant way, even without any a priori information from previous frames. Hence, it is possible to use them as natural beacons, that can be used to recognize the scene and to identify the individual patches. This results in a powerful system that can work without artificial markers or fiducial points and with a minimal amount of user interference.


Bananas are cultivated in more than 120 countries throughout the tropics and subtropics, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) current statistics. In terms of total production the banana ranks after oranges, grapes, and apples, but when plantain production becomes the world's number one fruit crop. While commercial production of bananas is oriented to the fresh export trade destined mainly for temperate-zone markets, plantains and even unripe bananas—consumed boiled, fried, roasted, or even brewed—are a major staple food throughout the world.The fruits are picked when they are unripe and starch-rich, but when they ripen the starch turns into simple sugars (sucrose, glucose and fructose).Plantain juice is used as an antidote for snake bite. Studies in rats demonstrate effectiveness for stone lysis. The roots can arrest hemoptysis and possess strongly astringent and anthelmentic properties. Musa paradisiaca is available in tincture or capsule No toxicities and contraindication are reported in human yet.


This paper introduces the task of few-shot common action localization in time and space. Given a few trimmed support videos containing the same but unknown action, we strive for spatio-temporal localization of that action in a long untrimmed query video. We do not require any class labels, interval bounds, or bounding boxes. To address this challenging task, we introduce a novel few-shot transformer architecture with a dedicated encoder-decoder structure optimized for joint commonality learning and localization prediction, without the need for proposals. Experiments on re-organizations of the AVA and UCF101-24 datasets show the effectiveness of our approach for few-shot common action localization, even when the support videos are noisy. Although we are not specifically designed for common localization in time only, we also compare favorably against the few-shot and one-shot state-of-the-art in this setting. Lastly, we demonstrate that the few-shot transformer is easily extended to common action localization per pixel.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To describe and analyse to what extent the goals of the education in promoting culturally competent nursing care have been achieved from a student perspective.

BACKGROUND
As Sweden has transformed into a multicultural society over the past 50 years, there is a need to specify, at all levels of the nursing programme, transcultural concepts for the success of integration. A research-based didactic model was designed for the nursing programme at Malmö University and this was followed by investigations of its outcome.

DESIGN AND METHODS
The study is a prospective cohort study with an outcome analysis. A descriptive research study with a longitudinal design was performed, with the focus on Swedish nursing students' experiences of transcultural nursing knowledge and their attitudes before and after implementation of the didactic model. The students evaluate highly their competence to meet demands of multicultural health and medical service. Additionally, their ability to recognise and understand the consequences of international migration on health also received a high mean.

CONCLUSIONS
The study revealed the knowledge and experience acquired by Swedish students in transcultural nursing. The assumption was that a visible development of knowledge should occur during the three years of education. Interpreting the findings, such effectiveness can be found and hopefully the students will be able to give holistic nursing care based on a person's individual culture.


Ultra slow motion intelligent training (USMIT) is a specific training program for precision in coordination. USMIT aims to prevent both the acute and chronic motor cortex fatigue syndrome and to increase motor precision. The basic principle of USMIT is that performing an ultra slow motion with a constant speed (10-25mm/s) using the upper and lower limbs leads to persistence of high precision in motor coordination. This type of training seems to be innovative for the sports domain. Similar training at a higher motion speed (100mm/s) is used to maintain or increase muscle strength. Material and method. A male volunteer aged 39 years, with good sports abilities (table tennis, basketball, swimming, billiards, mountain biking, roller skating, badminton, skiing and tennis) used the four basic exercises of USMIT within a specific schedule during a period of one year. The four training periods were: (1) basic training (Reversed Push-Ups) for months 1-2, (2) general training (Reversed Push-Ups, Pseudo-Cycling, ButterFly, Ultra Slow Squats) for months 3-6, (3) no training for months 7-8, (4) personal training program (Reversed Push-Ups, Pseudo-Cycling, ButterFly, Ultra Slow Squats) for months 9-12. No specific tennis training was allowed during the year, except for the testing sessions. To adjust motion speed, a computerized system for the Cartesian motion analysis (KinectX Pro 1.0) was designed and used. To learn the training program, a computer application was developed (USMIT 1.0). Three evaluations were used: (1) an initial psychological evaluation, (2) a continuous evaluation with KinectX Pro, (3) a field evaluation during three specific tennis training sessions, at start, after 6 months and at the end of the study (we recorded the number of repeated forehand shots until error at submaximal effort and a phenomenological analysis was made in dialog with the tennis partner). Results. Field evaluation showed a significant improvement of precision in motor coordination, predicted by the KinectX Pro test evolution. Phenomenological analysis revealed new complex technical abilities and lower exercise endurance. These promising outcomes should be confirmed by 4 to 6-month prospective group studies.


The closed-loop performance of a ball-screw drive is usually limited by a resonance in which the carriage oscillates in the direction of motion as the screw undergoes longitudinal and torsional deformation. By means of the finite element method (FEM), a model of ball-screw system dynamics is presented by taking into account the distributed inertia of the screw and the compliance and damping of thrust bearings, nut and coupling. Transmission ratio is modeled using DOFs (degree of freedoms) constraint equation. The model is found to accurately predict the transfer function from motor torque to carriage position. Comparing the predicted responses with experiments performed on a pair of ball-screw drives, the resonance frequency is misestimated as much as 5% in the worst case.


An Inertial Navigation System (INS) can easily track position, velocity and orientation of any moving vehicle. Generally, deterministic errors are present in an uncalibrated Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) which leads to the requirement of an accurate estimation of navigation solution. These inertial sensors, thus, needs to be calibrated to reduce the error inherent in these systems. By mathematical model of IMU including both accelerometer and gyroscope is utilized for the purpose of error calibration. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Human Opinion Dynamics (HOD) Optimization based calibration techniques have used to obtain error parameters such as bias, scale factor and misalignment errors.


We propose a new measure of the economic importance of each innovation. Our measure uses newly collected data on patents issued to US firms in the 1926 to 2010 period, combined with the stock market response to news about patents. Our patent- level estimates of private economic value are positively related to the scientific value of these patents, as measured by the number of citations that the patent receives in the future. Our new measure is associated with substantial growth, reallocation and creative destruction, consistent with the predictions of Schumpeterian growth models. Aggregating our measure suggests that technological innovation accounts for significant medium-run fluctuations in aggregate economic growth and TFP. Our measure contains additional information relative to citation-weighted patent counts; the relation between our measure and firm growth is considerably stronger. Importantly, the degree of creative destruction that is associated with our measure is higher than previous estimates, confirming that it is a useful proxy for the private valuation of patents.


The management of data while maintaining its utility and preservation of security scheme is a matter of concern for the cloud owner. In order to minimize the overhead at cloud service provider of applying security over each document and then send it to the client, we propose a layered architecture. This approach maintains security of the sensitive document and privacy of its data sensitivity. To make a balance between data security and utility, the proposed approach categorizes the data according to its sensitivity. Perseverance of various categorization requires different algorithmic schemes. We set up a cloud distributed environment where data is categorized into four levels of sensitivity; public, confidential, secret, top secret and a different approach has been used to preserve the security at each level. At the most sensitive layers i.e. secret and top secret data, we made a provision to detect the faulty node that is responsible for data leakage. Finally, experimental analysis is carried out to analyze the performance of the layered approach. The experimental results show that time taken (in ms) in processing 200 documents of size 20 MB is 437, 2239, 3142, 3900 for public, confidential, secret and top secret data respectively when the documents are distributed among distinct users, which proves the practicality of the proposed approach.


The aim of a minimally invasive spine surgery is to decrease the collateral damage to the surrounding soft tissue, while performing the same task as that of a conventional open spine surgery. With widening of applications of the tubular retractor system, complications are prone to occur while performing surgery using tubular retractors. The aim of this review was to assess the spectrum of complications that are associated with tubular access spine surgery. A systematic review in English language literature on PubMed for clinical outcomes or complications in minimally invasive spine surgery using tubular retractors was carried out. A total of 11 articles were filtered from 2010 to 2018. Articles that were excluded were those with focus on open spine surgery, surgeries without using tubular retractors, Destandau technique, and endoscopic spine surgeries. The studies were divided into discectomy, decompressions, and fusions. Overall complications that were observed in the review were incidental durotomy, neurodeficits, infection, instability, reherniation, implant malposition, pulmonary embolism, hematoma, and urinary retention. The manifold advantages that are offered by the tubular retractor system include decreased iatrogenic tissue damage, decreased probability of surgical wound infections, decreased chances of instability, and rapid ambulation of the patients, providing an impetus to the number of day care procedures being performed for spine conditions. The complication profile in this review is comparable to the open spine surgeries except the risk of higher radiation hazard in minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion surgery but more high-quality randomized studies are required.


ARPA-E helps to translate cutting-edge inventions into technological innovations that could change how we use, generate and store energy. In just seven years, ARPA-E technologies are demonstrating technical and commercial progress, surpassing $1.25 billion in private sector follow on funding. In this video, ARPA-E Director Dr. Ellen D. Williams highlights an exciting project from Stanford University that is developing a radiative cooling technology that could enable buildings, power plants, solar cells and even clothing to cool without using electric power or loss of water. This project is just one example among ARPA-E's 400+ innovative technologies that are reimagining energy and helping to create a more secure, affordable and sustainable American energy future.


Forest information is requested at many levels and for many purposes. Sampling-based national forest inventories (NFIs) can provide reliable estimates on national and regional levels. By combining expensive field plot data with different sources of remotely sensed information, from airplanes and/or satellite platforms, the precision in estimators of forest variables can be improved. This paper focuses on the design-based model-assisted approach to using NFI data together with remotely sensed data to estimate forest variables for small areas, where the variables studied are total growing stock volume, volume of Norway spruce (Picea abies), and volume of broad-leaved trees. Remote sensing variables may be highly correlated with one another and some may have poor predictive ability for target forest variables, and therefore model selection and/or coefficient shrinkage may be appropriate to improve the efficiency of model-assisted estimators of forest variables. For this purpose, one can use modern shrinkage estimators based on lasso, ridge, and elastic net regression methods. In a simulation study using real NFI data, Sentinel 2 remote-sensing data, and a national airborne laser scanning (ALS) campaign, we show that shrinkage estimators offer advantages over the (weighted) ordinary least-squares (OLS) estimator in a model-assisted setting. For example, for a sample size n of about 900 and with 72 auxiliary variables, the RMSE was up to 41% larger when based on OLS. We propose a data-driven method for finding suitable transformations of auxiliary variables, and show that it can improve estimators of forest variables. For example, when estimating volume of Norway spruce, using a smaller expert selection of auxiliary variables, transformations reduced the RMSE by up to 10%. The overall best results in terms of RMSE were obtained using shrinkage estimators and a larger set of 72 auxiliary variables. However, for this larger set of variables, the use of transformations yielded at most small improvements of RMSE, and at worst large increases of RMSE, except in combination with ridge and elastic net regression.


In Malawi, some parts of the country, such as Balaka District in Southern Malawi, are particularly prone to erratic rains with poor soil productivity. In the 2015/2016 rainy season some learning centres (LCs) focusing on pigeon-pea (Cajanus cajan) – maize (Zea mays L) rotations were established in four sections of Ulongwe Agriculture Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Balaka District to enhance  soil fertility, nutrition and income diversification for increased resilience to production under erratic rain condition. Up to 132 plots of pigeon were established in 2005/2016 season. Of these 44 fields were sampled for yield, biomass, plant stand and 32 sites for soil data. In the second season of 2016/17, a maize fertilizer response trial with five rates of NPKS (0, 23:21:0+4S, 46:21:0+4S, 69:21:0+4S, and 92:21:0+4S) was super-imposed in the 44 fields, where farmers incorporated pigeon pea residues, a parallel study conducted in a nearby, adjacent field. In the first season, rainfall was low and erratic. Three dry spells (>10 non-rainy days) were recorded in two of four rain gauge stations, and two dry spells in one station. The soil test results showed low P, K and N status. Pigeon pea plant stand was low, with an average of 2.22 plants m-2 compared to an expected 4.44 plants m-2. Grain yields and stover weights were quite variable with a mean of 442 and 1698 kg/ha, respectively.  In the second season maize yields grown in both old pigeon pea or continuous maize plots gave a linear response to fertilizer. The gains from pigeon rotation averaged 620, 308, 496 and -1072 for Chibwana Nsamala, Hindahinda, Mulambe and Chitseko sections respectively. The highest recorded yield was 4049 kg/ha from Hindahinda.

 Key words: Pigeon peas, Cajanus cajan, green manures, maize response to nitrogen.


Due to technological advancement, the utilization of internet and mobile connections in Indonesia to perceive rapid growth in recent years. A major development in particular lies within the field of e-commerce, marketplace, and digital portal applications. Extensive advancement within the abovementioned fields led to the involvement of the Indonesian government and private companies in which collecting and processing Indonesian citizens' personal data took place. Multitude issues relating to data protection regimes arose due to such acts as Indonesian data protection legislations are considered inadequate for their overlapping and vague aspects. These issues obtained numbers of apprehension from the Indonesian government as well as experts within this field with regard to the urgency of having a sufficient data protection law. Plenty of countries have competent data protection laws that have implemented the required elements, for instance, the European Union and Singapore. Accordingly, data protection laws from those countries will play an important role in providing a perfect example for the drafting of an advanced Indonesian data protection law that is uniform and encompassed all required aspects of data protection regimes without neglecting profound deliberation relating to the pitfalls.


The World Bank has, over the past two years, revisited its rural development strategy and in turn developed a new one, through a renewed commitment to sound development in the rural sector, and seeks to encompass farmers and their communities alike, as well as policymakers. This report gathers applied and practical research related to agriculture and the environment in the developing world, summarizing current knowledge through specific examples, stating the approaches and conditions which worked or not, and the reasons for failure. The observations and findings suggest that environmentally sound increases in productivity will be harder to achieve than in the past, though a significant potential for attaining these increases do exist. To this end, reforms are necessary, so that policy and institutional frameworks support an intensified sustainable agriculture, conducive to an environment that gives way to technological innovation. The authors in this report, review subjects from, integrating environmental concerns in rural development policies, natural resources degradation, small-farmer decisionmaking, to agricultural trade reforms, research initiatives, property regimes, etc. Institutional and social perspectives, together with technical issues and perspectives are also analyzed through various subjects in this volume.


Summary The case of a 27-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus and development of an autoantibody against factor VIII during an exacerbation of her underlying disorder is described. Attempts to eliminate the antibody with high dose gammaglobulin and repeated courses of cyclophosphamide failed, whereafter she received cyclosporine in increasing doses. When therapeutic serum levels of cyclosporine were achieved (150-350 ng/ml) the inhibitor rapidly decreased and disappeared with a concomitant normalization of the factor VIII levels. Treatment with cyclosporine was subsequently reduced and discontinued after one year, and at present no inhibitor is detectable. In view of the successful results with cyclosporine treatment in 4 of 6 previous cases and in all 3 previous cases with autoimmune disorders, this regimen should be evaluated in a systematic manner as a potential first line drug in patients with acquired hemophilia and an underlying autoimmune disorder.


PURPOSE
Despite suboptimal results, angioplasty of femoropopliteal arterial lesions has been a mainstay of endovascular therapy for many years. The recent introduction of cryoplasty marks a potential advance in the ability to effectively treat peripheral arterial atherosclerotic stenoses. This article presents the results of a prospective, multicenter trial that evaluated the efficacy of cryoplasty for femoropopliteal disease.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
One hundred two patients with claudication and lesions of the superficial femoral and popliteal arteries of no greater than 10 cm were studied. All patients were treated with a primary strategy of stand-alone cryoplasty with use of the PolarCath cryoplasty system. The primary endpoints of the study were acute technical success and clinical patency at 9 months. Technical success was defined as the ability to achieve residual angiographic stenosis no greater than 30% and residual stenosis less than 50% by duplex ultrasound (US) imaging. Clinical patency was defined as freedom from target lesion revascularization within 9 months. Primary patency was defined by a duplex US systolic velocity ratio no greater than 2.0.

RESULTS
A total of 102 patients were enrolled at 16 centers. Of those treated, 31% had diabetes and 31% were active cigarette smokers. The majority of the lesions were confined to the superficial femoral artery (84.3%) and 14.7% presented with total occlusions. The mean vessel diameter treated was 5.5 mm +/- 0.5, the mean stenosis diameter was 87% +/- 10%, and the mean lesion length was 4.7 cm +/- 2.6. The technical success rate was 85.3% with a mean residual stenosis after cryoplasty of 11.2% +/- 11.2% (P < .05 vs baseline). Clinical patency in this group was 82.2%, as only 16 patients required target lesion revascularization during the 9-month surveillance period. Primary patency determined by duplex US was 70.1%.

CONCLUSIONS
Cryoplasty demonstrated a high degree of acute angiographic success and a low frequency of target lesion revascularization. The patency rate observed compares favorably to that previously documented with conventional angioplasty.


TiO2 was coated onto mesoporous silica SBA-15 by hydrolysis of tetrabutyl titanate to prepare 15 wt% TiO2@SBA-15 composites (15TS). The 15TS composites retain the mesostructure of the SBA-15 host, and TiO2 was highly dispersed and uniformly coated. 5 wt% Pt nanoparticles supported on 15TS were employed for liquid-phase selective hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde (CAL) to cinnamyl alcohol (COL). Compared with the Pt catalyst supported on pristine SBA-15, the Pt/15TS catalyst afforded higher activity and selectivity to COL. Furthermore, the modification of the Pt/15TS catalyst by FeOx can greatly improve the activity and selectivity to COL. As a result, the Pt–FeOx/15TS catalyst displayed excellent selectivity to COL (around 84.5%) at nearly complete CAL conversion. Of particular note is that further calcination of the Pt–FeOx/15TS catalyst precursor in air at 773 K before reduction would greatly enhance the catalytic performance. Consequently, the TOF reached 3.06 s−1 with a selectivity to COL of 86.4% over the Pt–FeOx/15TS-773 catalyst. Moreover, the Pt–FeOx/15TS-773 catalyst can also be reused about eight times without distinct loss in activity or selectivity. Based on characterization by XPS and H2-TPR, the important promotion effect of FeOx and strong metal–support interaction played key roles in preferential adsorption and activation of CO bonds in CAL.


This document contains the results of the physical impact assessment for tourism within the context of the PESETA project. Tourism is a multi-billion euro industry that is highly dependent on climate resources. Climate change may provoke shifts in tourist flows, with large economic implications. The report details the methodology applied and data used for the physical impact assessment for light outdoor activities and for winter sports. For the first category, the focus is on thermal conditions, for the second category on the availability of snow. The assessment shows that climate change is projected to have significant impacts on the physical resources supporting tourism in Europe. In the mountainous regions, snow reliability is very likely to decrease further, putting ski resorts at lower altitudes at risk. In summer, southern Europe will experience climatic conditions that are less favorable to tourism than the current climate. At the same time, countries in the North, which are the countries of origin of many of the current visitors of the Mediterranean, will enjoy better conditions in summer, as well as a longer season with good weather. In particular in southern Europe, the worsening situation resulting from deteriorating thermal conditions is further aggravated by increasing water shortages. Peak demand from tourism coincides with peak demand from agriculture, residential areas, the energy sector and nature. It also coincides with the summer dip in water supply, which will very likely be deepened by climate change.


Cloud computing is a serious technological creation in the area of information systems development that supplies the benefits of self-service applications, source mixing, and wide network access. Nowadays, cloud computing to support fastness, easy combination, and low-cost of distributed applications in dissimilar environments have become increasingly famous. Therefore, service combination is a growing method that proliferates the number of applications of cloud computing by reusing attractive services. In this article, we survey the service composition mechanisms such as all clouds, base cloud, smart cloud, COM2 and clustering algorithms which have been used in the cloud environments. Service composition methods can be applied in two main environments: single and multicloud where due to the importance of multi-cloud environments (MCE), some existing and important methods are analyzed in the multi-cloud environment in this article. This paper also provides a discussion of existing methods in terms of running time and finding the optimal cloud composition. Obtained results showed the performance of each method in some terms.


This study proposes two multimodal frameworks to classify pathological voice samples by combining acoustic signals and medical records. In the first framework, acoustic signals are transformed into static supervectors via Gaussian mixture models; then, a deep neural network (DNN) combines the supervectors with the medical record and classifies the voice signals. In the second framework, both acoustic features and medical data are processed through first-stage DNNs individually; then, a second-stage DNN combines the outputs of the first-stage DNNs and performs classification. Voice samples were recorded in a specific voice clinic of a tertiary teaching hospital, including three common categories of vocal diseases, i.e. glottic neoplasm, phonotraumatic lesions, and vocal paralysis. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed framework yields significant accuracy and unweighted average recall (UAR) improvements of 2.02–10.32% and 2.48–17.31%, respectively, compared with systems that use only acoustic signals or medical records. The proposed algorithm also provides higher accuracy and UAR than traditional feature-based and model-based combination methods.


Objectives Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We investigated the association between smoking behavior and genetic variations in the D2 dopamine receptor (DRD2), which mediates nicotine dependence. To assess the specificity of genetic effects, we also investigated other reward-motivated characteristics (obesity, alcohol consumption). Methods Four single nucleotide polymorphisms in DRD2 were genotyped in 2374 participants selected randomly from the screening arm of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial after stratifying by sex, age, and smoking status. Smoking, obesity, and alcohol consumption were assessed by questionnaire. Single nucleotide polymorphism and haplotype associations were estimated using odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals derived from conditional logistic regression models, adjusted for race/ethnicity. Results DRD2 polymorphisms were associated with the risk of remaining a current smoker and obesity. Current smokers were more likely than former smokers to possess the variant TaqIA allele (rs♯1800497) in a dose-dependent model (ORCT=1.2, ORTT=1.5, P for linear trend=0.007). The DRD2 haplotype T-C-T-A [TaqIA(C/T)−957(T/C)−IVS6-83(G/T)− −50977(A/G)] was more common among current than former smokers (OR=1.3, P=0.006), particularly among heavy smokers (21+ cigarettes per day; OR=1.6, P=0.006), and was more common among obese than normal weight individuals (OR=1.4, P=0.02). Conclusions Genetic variation in DRD2 is a modifier of the reward-motivated characteristics, smoking and obesity. As fewer than 15% of smokers who attempt to quit are able to maintain abstinence for greater than 3 months, our results support that DRD2 is an appropriate molecular target for smoking cessation treatments. Our results further support evaluation of DRD2 antagonists for obesity therapies.


This paper examines the issue of horizontal inequalities in Vietnam over the past 20 years. Using data from three recent Vietnam population censuses (1989, 1999, and 2009) and three Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (1998, 2008, 2012), we estimated numerous measures on inequalities between different 'ethnic' groups against several welfare indicators. Our results show that horizontal inequality matters in Vietnam, in particular for ethnicity, region, and rural/urban groups. While there has been an improvement in horizontal inequality in education, this paper shows little change in other welfare indicators, in particular poverty. We also found that horizontal inequality does matter for poverty reduction in Vietnam and it needs more attention when designing poverty policies in the future.


Cusps of three second permanent molar teeth belonging to Pan, Pongo and Homo respectively, were chosen where enamel cross striations were easily observed and measured using polarizing light microscopy. Prisms were tracked outwards on photomontages from the dentine horn to the surface of the tooth just lateral to the central gnarled enamel over the cusp tip. Approximately monthly zones of enamel formation were identified and mean cross striation spacings calculated for each zone within each of the three cusps and for the whole of each cusp in total. Enamel secretion rates ranged from 2.5 to 6.5 microns per day with an overall mean value in Pan and Homo of 4 microns per day and of 4.4 microns per day in Pongo for the cuspal enamel. Two of these cusps (of Pan and Pongo) and another of a third permanent molar of Homo were selected for further analysis. Four methods were employed to estimate cuspal enamel formation time. (i) Total counts of enamel cross striations were made through the lateral cuspal enamel on photomontages. The points in the dentine and at the enamel dentine junction (EDJ) corresponding to the end of cuspal enamel formation were defined using incremental and accentuated markings. (ii) Measurements of the average daily rates of dentine formation in each cusp were divided by the length of the axial cuspal dentine formed to give the time of cuspal dentine formation. (iii) A cumulative prism length was calculated close to the EDJ to the end of cuspal enamel formation and divided by the mean cross striation repeat interval along the EDJ to give an estimate of cuspal enamel formation time. (iv) A cumulative time for cuspal enamel formation along the EDJ was calculated by summing successive extension rates for known lengths of the EDJ. This was computed using the formula derived by Shellis (Archs. oral Biol. 29: 697-705, 1984) based on the average daily rate of enamel secretion, the angle of the prisms to the EDJ and the angle of the incremental lines to the EDJ. Each of these methods gave results to within 5% or 10% of a average value for cuspal enamel formation time derived for each cusp. There was no clear indication of additional enamel decussation in any of the cusps studied beyond that recorded in the total counts of cross striations as the prisms were tracked in two dimensions through the lateral cuspal enamel. The results of this study suggest that any one of the methods outlined here may give equivalent estimates of cuspal enamel formation if suitable incremental markings exist in the region being studied.


Facilities such as interprocess communication and protection of shared resources have been added to operating systems to support multiprogramming and have since been adapted to exploit explicit multiprocessing within the scope of two models: the shared-memory model and the distributed (message-passing) model. When multiprocessors (or networks of heterogeneous processors) are used for explicit parallelism, the difference between these models is exposed to the programmer. The p4 tool set was originally developed to buffer the programmer from synchronization issues while offering an added advantage in portability, however two models are often still needed to develop parallel algorithms. The authors provide two implementations of Linda in an attempt to support a single high-level programming model on top of the existing paradigms in order to provide a consistent semantics regardless of the underlying model. Linda's fundamental properties associated with generative communication eliminate the distinction between shared and distributed memory.<<ETX>>


This paper proposes a generalized model based on the granular computing to recognize and analyze the traffic congestion of urban road network. Using the method of quotient space to reduce the attributes associating with traffic congestion, the identification of traffic congestion evaluation system is established including 3 first class indexes and second class indexes of 11. The weight of evaluation indexes are sorted by value in descending order, which are calculated based on rough set theory. In order to improve the efficiency of traffic congestion identification, the appropriate granular is determined by the model parameter μ. When μ is larger, the identification is more effective and the run time of model is longer conversely. Experiments show when the value of μ is between 0.8 and 0.98, the effect of traffic congestion identification is comprehensive optimal.


The C horizon is the deepest soil layer that is technically unweathered, similar to the rest of the regolith beneath the bottom of the pedon. In New England, the C horizon formed from the retreat of the glaciers eroding bedrock and depositing an unsorted and unstratified glacial till on the surface. This research evaluated the hydrologic and chemical role of the C horizon, inclusive of underlying regolith, in a forested watershed at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF) in New Hampshire. Results suggest that the C horizon at HBEF is extensive and heterogeneous. Traditional concepts of basal till offer a limited role for the C horizon in watershed hydrology, but the C horizon appears to make a significant contribution to the hydrologic cycle in this watershed system. Hydraulic conductivity across B/C horizon boundaries does not decrease with depth indicating a hydrologic contribution of the C horizon to watershed hydrology. There was no evidence of marked differences in mineralogy among study sites based on weathering studies, although no conclusions could be drawn about the chemical contribution of the C horizon without further analysis and information on mineralogy. However, the presence of water flow paths through the C horizon means that this zone in the regolith contributes to watershed hydrology, and causes us to consider the effects of mineral weathering in the C horizon on deep water and its relative contribution to surface water chemistries. Future studies should be conducted with the aim of refining our understanding of the mineral composition of the C horizon and its relative importance in ground water chemistry.


The aim in this study was to determine and analyze the wooden furniture business prospects in Sub Arga Makmur. This research using descriptive analysis. Results of this research is the length of a business carried on in the wooden furniture business unit Arga Makmur District of average between 1015 years, namely by 60%. The average amount of labor which is owned by each business unit wooden furniture in Arga Makmur District of average between 1-3 labor as many as 19 business units or about 63.3%. The amount of capital spent by the wooden furniture business in Arga Makmur District of Rp 10,000,000, - with a business turnover of wood furniture production bekisar Rp 10,000,000, - s/d Rp 15.000.000, - per month. The entrepreneurs receive income ranges between Rp 2.000.000, - s/d Rp 3,000,000, - per month. In addition, the wooden furniture business in District Arga Makmur is also able to open the field of business and labor intensive. Constraints faced by businesses wood furniture is a lack of education employers and labor, the lack of market infrastructure, lack of technology used. Pengelolahan wood furniture businesses in the district Arga Makmur still simple. However, the wooden furniture business in Sub Arga Makmur able to provide considerable benefits to employers and can increase local economic development. Business opportunities will be made better if the constraints faced in running a business is able to overcome with good.


Debates on how sex, gender, and sexual identity relate to intimate partner violence (IPV) are longstanding. Yet the role that measurement plays in how we understand the distribution of IPV has been understudied. We investigated whether people respond differently to IPV items by sex and sexual identity and the implications this has for understanding differences in IPV burdens. Our sample was 2,412 randomly selected residents of Toronto, Canada, from the Neighborhood Effects on Health and Well-being (NEHW) study. IPV was measured using short forms of the Physical and Nonphysical Partner Abuse Scales (20 items). We evaluated the psychometric properties of this measure by sex and sexual identity. We examined whether experiences of IPV differed by sex and sexual identity (accounting for age and neighborhood clustering) and the impacts of accounting for latent structure and measurement variance. We identified differential item functioning by sex for six items, mostly related to nonphysical IPV (e.g., partner jealousy). Males had higher probabilities of reporting five of the six items compared to females with the same latent IPV scores. Being female and identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual were positively associated with experiencing IPV. However, the association between female sex and IPV was underestimated when response bias was not accounted for and outcomes were dichotomized as "any IPV." Common practices of assuming measurement invariance and dichotomizing IPV can underestimate the association between sex or gender and IPV. Researchers should continue to attend to gender-based and intersectional differences in IPV but test for measurement invariance prior to comparing groups and analyze scale (as opposed to binary) measures to account for chronicity or intensity.


Cl- conductances were studied in an immortalized cell line (DC1) derived from rabbit distal bright convoluted tubule (DCTb). The DC1 clone was obtained after transfection of primary cultures of DCTb with pSV3 neo. RT-PCR experiments showed the presence of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) mRNA in the DC1 cell line. Using the whole cell patch-clamp technique, we recorded a linear Cl- conductance activated by forskolin (FK). This conductance was insensitive to DIDS and corresponded to a CFTR-like channel conductance. Fluorescence experiments with 6-methoxy-1-(3-sulfonatopropyl)quinolinium (SPQ) showed that FK induced an increase in Cl- efflux and influx in DC1 cells similar to that observed in cultured DCTb cells.125I-efflux experiments performed on DC1 cells grown on collagen-coated filters showed that exposure of the monolayer to FK led to an increased125I-loss through the apical membrane only. The addition of 10 μM adenosine activated a linear conductance identical to that recorded with FK and corresponding to the CFTR-like conductance. This conductance was also activated by 5'-( N-ethylcarboxamido)adenosine and CGS-21680 and inhibited in the presence of 8-cyclopentyl-1,3-diproxylxanthine (DPCPX). This Cl- conductance could also be activated by guanosine 5'- O-(3-thiotriphosphate) (GTPγS). The addition of protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor to the pipette solution inhibited the development of the current activated by CGS-21680. Finally,125I-efflux showed that adenosine induced an apical efflux mediated through basolateral A2 receptors. Overall, the data show that the DC1 cell line expressed an apical CFTR Cl- conductance that could be activated by adenosine via A2A receptors located in the basolateral membrane and involving G protein and PKA pathways.


Two potentialobstacles to using agarose gel electrophoresis for the fractionation of viruses and related particles are: (a) adherence of the sample to the gel during electrophoresis, and (b) the prolonged procedures necessary for determining whether or not particles stained with nucleic acid‐specific stains have their nucleic acid in a packaged state. It is demonstrated that adherence of positively charged tail fibers of bacteriophage T7 to agarose gels is the probable cause of a previously described (Serwer, P. and Pichler, M. E., J. Virol. 1978, 28, 917–928) sample concentration‐dependent spreading of bands formed by bacteriophage T7 during agarose gel electrophoresis (concentration effect). Procedures for screening preparations of agarose for nonadherence of particles are described and use of these procedures has resulted in the finding that the concentration effect is decreased or eliminated for T7 in preparations of agarose designed for low electro‐osmosis. In addition, it has been shown that after electrophoresis, the intensity with which bacteriophage T7 (and other DNA bacteriophages) stains with the nucleic acid‐specific stain, ethidium bromide, is increased by ejecting DNA from the interior of T7; this increase in staining intensity is used to recognized bands formed by particles with packaged DNA.


Abstract Numerous field studies were conducted in commercial nurseries in Tennessee from 1996 through 1999 to evaluate chemical and biological treatments, application timing and rates, and method of application for control of early instars of Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica Newman. Insecticide treatments included bifenthrin, bendiocarb, chlorpyrifos, carbaryl, fipronil, halofenozide, imidacloprid, permethrin, tefluthrin, thiamethoxam, and trichlorfon. Biological treatments included entomopathogenic nematodes (Heterorhabditis bacteriophora HP88 or H. marelatus), Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner subspecies japonensis Buibui strain, and Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin. All treatments were applied on the soil surface or injected into the soil around the base of each tree. Tree type and size varied among and within tests, however, the sampling unit (61-cm-diameter root ball) remained the same throughout all tests. The biological treatments provided poor-to-moderate control (0–75%) of Japanese beetle larvae. Imidacloprid was the most frequently evaluated insecticide and achieved 91–100, 87–100, 83–100, and 41–100% control with applications in May, June, July, and August, respectively. Halofenozide treatments were not significantly different from imidacloprid treatments with one exception. Halofenozide provided 60–87, 85–100, and 82–92 control with applications made in June, July, and August, respectively. Fipronil and thiamethoxam were evaluated to a lesser extent but both performed similarly to imidacloprid. Most other insecticide treatments were less successful in reducing numbers of Japanese beetle larvae and with few exceptions achieved <50% control.


Cases of violent behavior during sleep have been reported in the literature. However, the incidence of violent behavior during sleep is not known. One epidemiological study showed that approximately 2% of the general population, predominantly males, presented violent behavior while asleep. In the present study, the authors describe clinical and medico-legal aspects involved in violent behavior investigation. Violent behavior refers to self-injury or injury to another during sleep. It happens most frequently following partial awakening in the context of arousal disorders (parasomnias). The most frequently diagnosed sleep disorders are REM behavior disorder and somnambulism. Violent behavior might be precipitated by stress, use of alcohol or drugs, sleep deprivation or fever.


By establishing firmly-based states in various places and regions the Turkish nation, has continued to exist uninterrupted since the 7th century B.C. up to the present day always looking for a religion befitting its both national and individual character. On the strength of this various Turkish clans and groups in different regions, have embraced religions such as Animism, Shamanism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism etc. For example, Khazar (Caspian) Turks, who founded a state on the coast of the Caspian Sea, to which they gave their name, accepted Christianity in 508. Furthermore, Islam began to spread amongst them when the Arabs attacked the Caucasus at the end of the 7th century A.D. This state of which Balanjar was the capital accepted Judaism as the offical religion. The Gagauz Turks who live in Rumania today are Orthodox Chirtians. They conduct services in their church in Turkish. Turkish states of Turkestan, began accepting Islam as their official religion towards the end of the 10th century A.D. The first Turkish Muslim state (Which existed from 840-1212) was that of the Karahanlis. The Turkish people, who set up this state, which was also called Ilek Hanlar, became Muslims collectively at the end of the 10th century. (in 940 A.D.) Turkish states after this date were all Muslim.


Raman spectroscopy has been developed as a complementary tool to X-ray and thermal methods for phase equilibrium studies of new materials. Raman measurements for mixtures as a function of mole fraction can give the composition for congruently and incongruently melting compounds. Stable and metastable compounds may be identified by comparison to the characteristic spectra obtained from the rapidly quenched or slowly cooled samples from the melts. The presence of longitudinal optic ( LO ) modes in the Raman spectrum provides a method to identify non-linear crystals. Temperature induced phase transitions can be followed by the measurement of the Raman spectra as a function of temperature. Kinetic information may be obtained for phase transitions with slow conversion. -- For the first time Raman spectroscopy has been applied to systematically investigate the structural phase transitions in binary nitrate systems. The binary nitrate systems studied in the present work are KNO3-RbNO3 , NaNO3-KNO3 , LiNO3-MNO3 ( M = K, Rb, Cs ), and AgNO3-MNO3 ( M = K, Rb, Cs ). -- Raman studies of the KNO3-RbNO3 system indicated that rubidium ion may substitute for potassium ion up to 67 mol% in the KNO3 II crystal and up to 80 mol% in the KNO3 III crystal. The substitutional crystals retained the transitions of phase I to III to II of KNO3 on cooling and the metastable property of KNO3 III at room temperature. Chemical substitution of this type was used for a lattice dynamical analysis of potassium nitrate to assign the bands in the external vibrational region. The results supported the assignment of the 52 cm-1 band in KNO3 II to a mode primarily due to translatory motion of cations against anions. A transition of the KNO3 III structure to the RbNO3 IV structure was observed for crystals containing 80 and 90 mol% RbNO3. The R3m microscopic structure in the KNO3 III solid solutions seemed to become disordered when Rb ̄ was more than 50 mol% in the substitutional crystal. These structural details offer a possible explanation for the abnormal solid solubility in the KN03-RbN03 system. -- Raman spectra were measured for mixed crystals of NaNO3-KNO3 quenched from different temperatures. Temperature dependent Raman spectra were measured to actually follow the phase transitions. The Raman studies indicated that there existed limited solid solutions Nal1-xKxNO3 (NaII) and (KIll) as well as the R3m solid solution and there existed structural phase transitions of the R3m solid solution to these limited solid solutions in addition to exsolution of the components from the R3m solid solution. It was suggested that two vertical lines be added to the published phase diagram, one to indicate the solid solution Na0.95K0.05NO3 (NaII) and the other to indicate the solid solution N0.15K0.85NO3 (KIll). Three slightly different structures were found for the R3m solid solution below the solidus: in the NaN03 terminal phase the solid solution behaved like NaNO3 I, in the KNO3 terminal phase the solid solution behaved like KNO3 I, in the intermediate concentration phase the solid solution was in a new disordered state. The new disordered state was quenchable and the Raman studies suggested that it was caused by phase separation of the NaNO3 I and KNO3 I structures on a microscopic or submicroscopic scale. The existence of the three slightly different structures suggested that NaNO3-KNO3 was a limited solid solution system rather than a continuous solid solution system. -- Raman studies of the LiNO3-KNO3 system revealed a new compound KLi(NO3)2 which could exist in a narrow temperature range just below the solidus and in the vicinity of equimolar point. The existence of the new compound suggested that LiNO3-KNO3 is a simple syntectic system with a congruently melting compound instead of a eutectic system. -- The fact that the congruently melting compounds KLi(NO3)2, RbLi(NO3)2 and CsLi(NO3), had very similar Raman spectra in both external and internal vibrational regions suggested that they have the same structure. A detailed analysis of the Raman spectra revealed that in the crystals the lithium ion was tetrahedrally coordinated by the nitrate ions to form polymeric complexes in which part of the nitrate ions acted as unidentate ligands and the other part acted as bidentate ligands. The heavier alkali metal ions acted as counterions. -- Raman studies of the compounds KAg(NO3)2 and RbAg(NO3)2 were consistent with the published crystal structure. There existed polymeric complexes of silver and nitrate ions and the nitrate ions acted as both unidentate and bidentate ligands. Potassium or rubidium ions acted as counterions. Raman studies suggested that the Li-NO3 complexes in KLi(NO3)2, RbLi(NO3)2 and CsLi(NO3)2 were similar to the Ag-NO3 complexes in KAg(NO3)2 and RbAg(NO3)2. However, the nature of the bond in the lithium complexes was predominately ionic while the nature of the bond in the silver complexes was considerably covalent. -- Judged by the notable differences in Raman spectra, the coordination geometry of Ag-NO3 changed dramatically in CsAg(NO3)2. The weak Rayleigh wing and a well separated band at 224 cm-1 suggested that the polymeric complexes in KAg(NO3)2 may have broken down to form simple and discrete entity in CsAg(NO3)2.


This paper examines abnormal stock returns around the publication of 1,167 reports issued by 26 brokerage firms on 37 small caps admitted to listing on the Italian stock market from 2003 to 2011. The focus is on small caps going public because, for such firms, information asymmetries may be severe and, therefore, analyst reports should be particularly valuable to the market. Several hypotheses are tested. First of all, the market impact is computed for the whole sample and for each recommendation category (buy, hold and sell). The exercise is repeated by controlling for the presence of contemporaneous news, by taking into account only the initiations of coverage and by selecting only the changes in recommendations. The results obtained through a standard event study methodology show that analyst reports on small caps are informative for the market, although the price impact differs across the samples considered. For the whole sample of reports, the cumulative abnormal returns estimated over a three-day event window around the publication date are statistically significant for buy and hold recommendations only (0.98% and -0.83% respectively); however after eliminating contaminating events only buys are significant (1.13%). In addition the buy recommendations included in the initiation of coverage sample turn out to convey information to the market (1.50%); the highest price impact, however, is estimated for the upgrades included in the revisions of recommendation sample (2.19%). The second result of the paper is that information leakage is not widespread, given that abnormal returns are almost never significant before the report date. Therefore, on average, the timing of the market reaction to financial research dissemination does not signal tipping or selective disclosure.


The intellectual heritage of the Italian Renaissance rivals that of any period in human history. Yet even as the social, political, and economic history of Renaissance Italy inspires exciting and innovative scholarship, the study of its intellectual history has grown less appealing, and our understanding of its substance and significance remains largely defined by the work of nineteenth-century thinkers. In The Lost Italian Renaissance, historian and literary scholar Christopher Celenza argues that serious interest in the intellectual life of Renaissance Italy can be reinvigorated-and the nature of the Renaissance itself reconceived-by recovering a major part of its intellectual and cultural activity that has been largely ignored since the Renaissance was first "discovered": the vast body of works-literary, philosophical, poetic, and religious-written in Latin. Produced between the mid-fourteenth and the early sixteenth centuries by major figures such as Leonardo Bruni, Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino, and Leon Battista Alberti, as well as minor but interesting thinkers like Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger, this literature was initially overlooked by scholars of the Renaissance because they were not written in the vernacular Italian which alone was seen as was the supreme expression of a culture. This lack of attention, which continued well into the twentieth century, has led interpreters to misread key aspects of the Renaissance. Offering a flexible theoretical framework within which to understand these Latin texts, Celenza explains why these "lost" sources are distinctive and why they are worthy of study. What will we really find among the Latin texts of the Renaissance? First, Celenza contends, there are a limited number of intellectuals who deserve a place in any canon of the period, and without whom our literary and philosophical heritage is diminished. Second, and more commonly, this literature establishes the intellectual traditions from which such well-known vernacular writers as Machiavelli and Castiglione emerge. And third, these Latin texts may contain strands of intellectual life that have been lost altogether. A groundbreaking work of intellectual history, The Lost Italian Renaissance uncovers a priceless intellectual legacy suggests provocative new avenues of research.


BACKGROUND
The pattern of weight gain during pregnancy among HIV-infected women is largely unknown. Multivitamin supplementation was shown to be effective in preventing adverse pregnancy outcomes among HIV-positive women. These protective effects could be mediated in part by an improvement in the pattern of gestational weight gain.

OBJECTIVE
We examined the effects of multivitamin and vitamin A supplements on weight gain during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy among HIV-infected women.

DESIGN
We enrolled 1075 pregnant, HIV-1-positive women from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Using a 2-by-2 factorial design, we assigned each woman to 1 of 4 regimens: multivitamins (thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, and vitamins B-6, B-12, C, and E), vitamin A, multivitamins including vitamin A, or placebo. The women took these oral supplements daily and were weighed monthly until the end of pregnancy.

RESULTS
The mean rate of weight gain was 306 g/wk during the second trimester and 247 g/wk during the third trimester. During the third trimester, average weight gain was significantly greater (by 304 g; 95% CI: 17, 590; P = 0.04) and the risk of low rate of weight gain (<or= 100 g/wk) was significantly lower (relative risk: 0.73; 95% CI: 0.58, 0.93) in women who received multivitamins than in women who did not. Multivitamins including vitamin A were protective against low weight gain during the second trimester compared with multivitamins alone.

CONCLUSION
Multivitamin supplementation during pregnancy improves the pattern of weight gain among HIV-infected women.


For the first time two cases are described with disturbances of binocular vision caused by subjective perception of positive scotomata in the amblyopic eye. The visual strain of working at a terminal leads to a slight increase in the squint angle; as a result, a paracentral scotoma may shift into the middle of the binocular visual field and impair the image quality of the fixing eye. Amblyopic subjects presenting with these symptoms are disqualified from working at VDUs. However, not every amblyopic is affected.


Tissues from Coffea arabica, C. congensis, C. dewevrei and C. liberica collected in Colombia, Hawaii and at a local plant nursery in Maryland were sampled for the presence of fungal endophytes. Surface sterilized tissues including roots, leaves, stems and various berry parts were plated on yeast-malt agar. DNA was extracted from a set of isolates visually recognized as Penicillium, and the internal transcribed spacer region and partial LSU-rDNA was amplified and sequenced. Comparison of DNA sequences with GenBank and unpublished sequences revealed the presence of 11 known Penicillium species: P. brevicompactum, P. brocae, P. cecidicola, P. citrinum, P. coffeae, P. crustosum, P. janthinellum, P. olsonii, P. oxalicum, P. sclerotiorum and P. steckii as well as two possibly undescribed species near P. diversum and P. roseopurpureum. Ochratoxin A was produced by only four isolates, one isolate each of P. brevicompactum, P. crustosum, P. olsonii and P. oxalicum. The role these endophytes play in the biology of the coffee plant remains enigmatic.


The ability to precisely position functionality in three-dimensional space is a long term goal for our group. Some progress has been made so far. Using oligomers of our bis-amino acids, we are able to control the distance between two groups, ranging from 2-4nm. Also we are able to control shape and curvature by incorporating monomers that make bends or kinks. There are many potential applications. Some of the most powerful are described in the following pages. We have made a bivalent ligand for Cholera Toxin varying the number of monomers and found that all bivalent molecules that bind more tightly than the natural ligand GM1. The oligomeric scaffold is rigid and the linker contains about 5 rotatable bonds. We have made bivalent vancomycins and bivalent D-Ala-D-Ala, each consisting of linkers of between 1-6 building blocks. These molecules should be capable of associating into matched or mismatched bivalent pairs. In addition, we have made large macrocycles capable of forming a binding pocket. Ligands for these receptors will be identified using phage display. Also, our rigid chiral scaffolds have been studied to determine the influence of chirality on the efficiency of electron transfer. Finally, a scaffold detergent was synthesized, with the application of solubilization of membrane proteins in mind. These are all promising applications of our unique technology and will be explored further in the future.


Study was attempted to produce stress-life curve of the zirconium tube under the cyclic pressurization and to analyze its behavior. The internal pressurization machine was devised and the low cycle fatigue test at the zirconium cladding tube was carried out. The result showed that the O'Donnell and Langer relationship can be fitted to the fatigue behavior of the zirconium cladding under the cyclic pressurization, where the fatigue limit of the Zircaloy-4 at 350oC was shown at 341.6MPa. From the analysis of the diametral changes and the fractographic observation, a combined creep-fatigue interaction rather than a pure fatigue had an influence on the failure of the zirconium cladding under the cyclic pressurization at 350oC.


The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers curricula for the preparation of teachers of French (http://catalog.illinois.edu/ undergraduate/las/academic-units/french-italian/curriculum-preparatoryteaching-french), German (http://catalog.illinois.edu/undergraduate/las/ academic-units/german/curriculum-preparatory-teaching-german), Latin (http://catalog.illinois.edu/undergraduate/las/academic-units/classics/ teach-latin), and Spanish (http://catalog.illinois.edu/undergraduate/ las/academic-units/spanish-portuguese/teaching-spanish-major) and concentrations in East Asian Languages and Cultures for the teaching of Japanese and Mandarin Chinese (http://catalog.illinois.edu/ undergraduate/las/academic-units/east-asian-languages/ba-east-asianlanguages-cultures).


This study aims to investigate the effect of informal care received from the children, understood as the instrumental component of social support, on the cognitive functioning of elderly parents. As the correlation between informal care and cognitive functioning is likely to be driven by reverse causality or unobserved heterogeneity, we use instrumental variables (IV) approach with the gender ratio of the children as an instrument for the amount of informal care that parents receive from their children. Results from the IV models on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe highlight a significant negative effect of the amount of informal care provided by the children on cognitive functioning of the mothers. This hints that too much support may result in passive behaviors of the elderly, which in turn is detrimental for their cognitive functioning.


This paper focuses on the development of an effective cluster validity measure with outlier detection and cluster merging algorithms for support vector clustering (SVC). Since SVC is a kernel-based clustering approach, the parameter of kernel functions and the soft-margin constants in Lagrangian functions play a crucial role in the clustering results. The major contribution of this paper is that our proposed validity measure and algorithms are capable of identifying ideal parameters for SVC to reveal a suitable cluster configuration for a given data set. A validity measure, which is based on a ratio of cluster compactness to separation with outlier detection and a cluster-merging mechanism, has been developed to automatically determine ideal parameters for the kernel functions and soft-margin constants as well. With these parameters, the SVC algorithm is capable of identifying the optimal number of clusters with compact and smooth arbitrary-shaped cluster contours for the given data set and increasing robustness to outliers and noise. Several simulations, including artificial and benchmark data sets, have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed cluster validity measure for the SVC algorithm.


Energy is at the heart of most critical economic, environmental and developmental issues facing the world today. Clean, efficient, affordable and reliable energy services are indis pensable for global prosperity. Energy management and optimization solution can help reduce energy costs while improving mill operational performance. Therefore, the focus of this chapter is on energy-related issues and it discusses dedicated technological solutions to the growing global needs for sustainable development. In addition, there are a number of other issues, including the latest innovations in terms of clean energy in industry and infrastructure, and improving operational efficiency will be discussed in this chapter.


It is now a common practice to compare models of human language processing by predicting participant reactions (such as reading times) to corpora consisting of rich naturalistic linguistic materials. However, many of the corpora used in these studies are based on naturalistic text and thus do not contain many of the low-frequency syntactic constructions that are often required to distinguish processing theories. Here we describe a new corpus consisting of English texts edited to contain many low-frequency syntactic constructions while still sounding fluent to native speakers. The corpus is annotated with hand-corrected parse trees and includes self-paced reading time data. Here we give an overview of the content of the corpus and release the data.


Biaxial compression model tests on rockmass containing intermittent joints under plane stress condition were carried out in this study, where the laser speckle photo technique was used for measuring the displacement field. The results obtained have indicated that the laser speckle method was effective and the measuring value was about 14% less than the measuring value of dial gauges. Based on the displacement field and the principal stress field which were measured by laser speckle photo technique, dial gauges and strain gauges, the angle of wing incipient crack, the evolution of stress field at the joint tip and the path of crack extension were deeply studied. The deformation and failure characteristics, including the fracture mechanism of rockmass, were also analyzed in this study.


Summary We have recently developed the technology to identify and characterize the human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I-restricted, CD8 + cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response to hepatitis B virus (HBV)-encoded antigens in patients with acute viral hepatitis. CTL are expanded in vitro by stimulation with HBV-derived synthetic peptides and selected by restimulation with a panel of HLA-matched stable transfectants that express the corresponding HBV protein. We have recently reported the existence of an HLA-A2-restricted, CD8 + CTL response to an epitope located between residues 18 and 27 of the HBV nucleocapsid core antigen (HBcAg). We now report the discovery of a CTL epitope located between HBcAg residues 141 and 151 that completely overlaps a critical domain in the viral nucleocapsid protein that is essential for its nuclear localization and genome packaging functions as well as processing of the precore protein. The CTL response to this epitope is dually restricted by the HLA-A31 and HLA-Aw68 alleles, which, unexpectedly, appear to use a common binding motif based on the results of alanine substitution and competition analysis, and the binding properties of these two alleles predicted from their known primary sequence, and from the three-dimensional structure of HLA-Aw68. We have also demonstrated that the HBV-specific CTL response to this epitope is polyclonal during acute viral hepatitis, since these two restriction elements can present the HBcAg 141-151 epitope to independent CTL clones derived from a single patient; and that the CTL response is multispecific, since HLA-A2restricted and HLA-Aw68-restricted CTL responses to HBcAg 18-27 and HBcAg 141-151, respectively, have been identified to coexist in another patient. The foregoing argue against the emergence of CTL escape mutants as a significant problem during HBV infection, especially at this locus, where mutations might be incompatible with viral replication. Finally, our data suggest an association between the HBV-specific CTL response and viral clearance, and they have implications for the design of immunotherapeutic strategies to terminate HBV infection in chronically infected patients.


The carotid bodies were stimulated in the anesthetized pig-tailed macaque monkey (Macaca nemestrina) using i) brief injections of cyanide or CO2-equilibrated bicarbonate solution into a common carotid artery, and ii) longer perfusion with hypoxic hypercapnic blood in vascularly isolated chemoreceptor preparations. In spontaneously breathing animals, brief stimulations of the chemoreceptors consistently caused an increase in pulmonary ventilation, bradycardia, and an increase in femoral vascular resistance. When the same chemoreceptor stimulus was superimposed during the apneic period, reflexly evoked by stimulating either the central ends of the superior laryngeal nerves or the nasopharynx, the respiratory stimulation was absent or minimal, but the bradycardia and vasconstriction were greatly enhanced and exceeded the summed responses of separate stimulation of the chemoreceptors and one or the other of the upper-airways inputs. With sustained stimulation of the carotid bodies, hyperventilation, tachycardia, and femoral vasodilatation occurred due to overriding respiratory mechanisms. When superior laryngeal nerve stimulation was superimposed on this response, apnea occurred and tachycardia was reversed to bradycardia, and femoral vascular resistance increased above resting level. The interaction of autonomic responses resulting from chemoreceptor stimulation and from increases in the upper-airways inputs are qualitatively similar in the monkey and in subprimate species. Those involving specifically cardioinhibitory vagal responses are, in part at least, dependent on mechanisms related to the concomitant changes in respiration.


Objective:Antiretroviral-naive HIV-positive individuals contribute to the transmission of drug-resistant viruses, compromising first-line therapy. Using phylogenetic inference, we quantified the proportion of transmitted drug-resistance originating from a treatment-naive source. Methods:Using a novel phylotype-based approach, 24 550 HIV-1 subtype B partial pol gene sequences from the UK HIV Drug Resistance database were analysed. Ongoing transmission of drug resistance amongst HIV-positive individuals was identified as phylotypes of at least three sequences with at least one shared drug resistance mutation, a maximum intra-clade genetic distance of 4.0% and a basal branch support at least 90%. The time of persistence of the transmission chains was estimated using a fast least-squares molecular clock inference approach. Results:Around 70% of transmitted drug-resistance had a treatment-naive source. The most commonly transmitted mutations were L90M in the protease gene and K103N, T215D and T215S in reverse transcriptase. Reversion to wild type occurred at a low frequency and drug-independent reservoirs of resistance have persisted for up to 13 years. Conclusion:These results illustrate the impact of viral fitness on the establishment of resistance reservoirs and support the notion that earlier diagnoses and treatment of HIV infections are warranted for counteracting the spread of antiretroviral resistance. Phylotype-based phylogenetic inference is an attractive approach for the routine surveillance of transmitted drug resistance in HIV as well as in other pathogens for which genotypic resistance data are available.


Media studies have investigated the ability of audience's sociodemographic variables to predict media preference and selective exposure. Yet the roles that religion and politics play in the Arab media scene has largely been overlooked in the literature, despite the importance of this market. Using stratified random sampling, we surveyed 784 Lebanese viewers who shared their level of interest in watching 8 different TV genres and subgenres. Through logistic regression models, we analyzed eight sociocultural variables and their ability to predict the audience's genre preference. The findings clearly showed that religion and political affiliation are strong predictors of genre preference in a diverse partisan context. Our exploratory empirical work provides critical contribution to media preference research and genre studies and provides insights to help media producers schedule the best mix of programs anchored in audience analysis.


Civil-law systems do not generally grant testamentary freedom without limitations. Often, the most significant constraints on the freedom to dispose of assets on death derive from legislative provisions that protect the interests of close family members by way of a forced share, even against the wishes of the deceased. These restrictions can be more or less extensive. In the case of Italy, they are significant, both in terms of how little the testator can sometimes freely dispose of, whether on death or during her lifetime, and in terms of the limited degree of autonomy with which she can modify or reduce the forced share in the estate and enter into agreements with those entitled to a forced share. This chapter provides an historical overview of forced heirship in Italy and examines its main features as well as the mechanisms that are in place to protect forced shares. It evaluates the various proposals to reform forced heirship, including proposals to abolish forced heirship altogether, none of which have been implemented. It argues that Italian law in this area is in an unsatisfactory state, for not only do forced heirship provisions impinge on a person's freedom of testation and her freedom to make gratuitous transfers during her lifetime, they also affect the interests of donees and other third parties, ultimately hampering the free movement of goods. What is more, the provisions that are in place, including those on the calculation of the forced share and on anti-avoidance, are of considerable complexity. A reform of the area is therefore highly desirable.


Medieval and early modern records show certain practices were common in traditional European aquaculture. These, combined with advice in coeval treatises on agricultural management, demonstrate how European agroecosystems linked terrestrial and aquatic operations to pursue a net energy gain in their outputs. Critical reading of three distinct bodies of sources: early modern European agricultural manuals, literature on fish culture compiled in western Latin Christendom, and managerial records of fourteenth-through seventeenth-century fish culture enterprises establishes two new understandings. First, land manages took self-conscious measures to integrate their arable and pond cultures with the aim of conserving and recycling essential nutrients. Second, agricultural handbooks from this period both reflected traditional practices of illiterate peasant farmers (and hence their "traditional ecological knowledge") and informed certain managerial decisions.


Ensembles of randomized decision trees, known as Random Forests, have become a valuable machine learning tool for addressing many computer vision problems. Despite their popularity, few works have tried to exploit contextual and structural information in random forests in order to improve their performance. In this paper, we propose a simple and effective way to integrate contextual information in random forests, which is typically reflected in the structured output space of complex problems like semantic image labelling. Our paper has several contributions: We show how random forests can be augmented with structured label information and be used to deliver structured low-level predictions. The learning task is carried out by employing a novel split function evaluation criterion that exploits the joint distribution observed in the structured label space. This allows the forest to learn typical label transitions between object classes and avoid locally implausible label configurations. We provide two approaches for integrating the structured output predictions obtained at a local level from the forest into a concise, global, semantic labelling. We integrate our new ideas also in the Hough-forest framework with the view of exploiting contextual information at the classification level to improve the performance on the task of object detection. Finally, we provide experimental evidence for the effectiveness of our approach on different tasks: Semantic image labelling on the challenging MSRCv2 and CamVid databases, reconstruction of occluded handwritten Chinese characters on the Kaist database and pedestrian detection on the TU Darmstadt databases.


Introduction The Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinics (RACPC) system has become an important way of assessing patients who present with chest pain to their primary care physician. Based on standard protocols up to 50% are discharged with a diagnosis of non-cardiac pain and re-assured. This abstract reviews the longer term outcomes of such patients. Aims and Objectives We sought to determine the proportion of patients discharged from the University Hospital of Leicester (UHL) RACPC with non-cardiac chest pain, and retrospectively determine the outcomes of these patients specifically with regards to mortality, re-admission with acute coronary syndromes or re-attendance at a cardiology outpatient clinic. Methods All patients reviewed in the UHL RACPC and discharged with a diagnosis of non-cardiac chest pain between 2010 and 2013 were followed-up for 1 year. Data regarding hospital readmission was obtained from UHL Hospital Episode Statistics. The coded diagnosis for cardiac readmissions was confirmed with review of discharge summaries. Clinic letters and investigations were reviewed for patients who were subsequently referred to cardiology outpatients following discharge from RACPC. Results Of 7066 patients seen in the RACPC clinic between 2010–2013. 3253 were discharged with a diagnosis of non-cardiac chest pain (46.0%), and consistent/year (2010-2011%–45.8%, 2011-2012%–47.0%, 2012-2013%–45.2%). Outcomes are summarised in fig 1. Follow-up was 12 monthsfor death and re-admission, and 6 months for re-attendance at cardiology OP clinic. Readmission: The 12 month acute readmission rate for patients discharged was 1.4% (44/3253) with most for non-cardiac causes (28 patients). Only 8 patients were readmitted for acute coronary syndromes (0.24% of discharged patients). Non-ACS cardiac admissions (8 patients) were predominantly for arrhythmias (table 1). None of the patients readmitted with ACS or non-ACS cardiac condition died within 1 year of discharge from RACPC. Re-attendance at cardiology outpatients: 28 patients (0.86%) were seen in the cardiology outpatient clinic 6 months following discharge from RACPC. 74% of these patients underwent further cardiac investigations (fig 2), however only 7 patients were diagnosed with ischaemic heart disease (0.2% of patients discharged from RACPC). Mortality: 11 patients (0.3%) died within one year of discharge from the RACPC. Median time from RACPC attendance to death: 210 days (IQR=128 – 285 days). The causes of death included metastatic cancer (4), Large PE secondary to pancreatic cancer (1), acute haemorrhagic pancreatitis (1), Sepsis (2). One recorded death from MI was in the context of sepsis, DKA and CVA. Conclusions These data show that thorough and accurate assessment of patients with chest pain in the RACPC leads to good outcomes with a subsequent very low hospital admission rate for ACS These are reassuring data. Abstract 98 Table 1 Diagnosis following non-ACS readmission Number of patient (%) Arrhythmia (AVNRT, AVRT, AF or Atrial Flutter) – confirmed or suspected 5 (62.5%) Chest pain–stable angina 1 (12.5%) Chest pain – pericarditis 1 (12.5%) Out of Hospital Arrest – normal coronaries 1 (12.5%) Heart Failure 0 Total 8 (100%)Abstract 98 Figure 1Abstract 98 Figure 2


The literature on moral licensing usually considers two sequential moral decisions such as lying and donating which involve no real effort. We complement this literature by substituting the second stage with a real-effort task. Subjects first decide whether to take money designated for charity and then proceed to two real-effort tasks, where payoffs are either donated or given to the subjects. Subjects taking the money perform relatively worse in the pro-social task, suggesting that stable preferences dominate moral licensing. We highlight the importance of controlling for ability and effort costs. Results prevail when taking the money is potentially punishable.


BACKGROUND
Pediatric medical experiences are potentially traumatic but may lead to psychological growth.

OBJECTIVE
The study objective was to synthesize the published literature regarding posttraumatic growth (PTG) in parents and patients with serious pediatric illness (SPI) into a conceptual model.

METHODS
We systematically searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and Sociological Abstracts in December 2012 to identify articles on stress or trauma caused by medical events with PTG as an outcome, reviewing articles pertaining to the pediatric population. We additionally reviewed articles outside pediatric medicine that described a model of PTG.

RESULTS
Of the 605 articles identified, 55 met inclusion criteria, 26 of which examined parents or pediatric patients. Parents and children may experience PTG following medical trauma through a combination of cognitive and affective processing of their subjective experience. Components of SPI-PTG are unclear, but may include greater appreciation of life, improved interpersonal relationships, greater personal strength, recognition of new possibilities in one's life course, spiritual or religious growth, and reconstruction of a positive body image. Individual characteristics, and the level of social support, may affect the likelihood that SPI-PTG will occur. SPI-PTG in siblings and other family members has not been well studied.

CONCLUSIONS
SPI-PTG is an important but understudied and inadequately understood phenomenon affecting children with SPI and their family members. Research should focus on clarifying SPI-PTG domains, creating measurement instruments, assessing SPI-PTG across the pediatric age range and among family members, and improving our understanding of and ability to positively intervene regarding the cognitive processes of rumination, sense making, and benefit finding.


In China, which is facing economic reform and the rapid development of small-scale industries, various occupational hazards are reappearing. The problems are related to the ignorance of the managers and the workers, a lack of capital, the insufficiency of occupational health services, and the transfer of some hazardous work from large factories in the cities to small plants in the towns and villages. The change in life-style, especially in smoking habits, has aggravated occupational hazards. The problems may be solved by renewing the concept of health among the managers and workers, enforcing legislation related to occupational hazards, strengthening health personnel training, and reinforcing health education and self-help.


The goal of my PhD was to propose an efficient approach for emotional impact recognition based on CBIR techniques (descriptors, image representation). The main idea relies in classifying images according to their emotion which can be "Negative", "Neutral" or "Positive". Emotion is related to the image content and also to the personal feelings. To achieve our goal we firstly need a correct assessed image database. Our first contribution is about this aspect. We proposed a set of 350 diversifed images rated by people around the world. Added to our choice to use CBIR methods, we studied the impact of visual saliency for the subjective evaluations and interest region segmentation for classification. The results are really interesting and prove that the CBIR methods are useful for emotion recognition. The chosen desciptors are complementary and their performance is consistent on the database we have built and on IAPS, reference database for the analysis of the image emotional impact.


Water impinging jet has been widely used in cooling of hot steel plate at steelmaking processes. The effects of staggered arrays on water impinging jet cooling were mainly investigated at fixed jet Reynolds number of 35,000 and nozzle-to-plate distance of 100 mm. The time-and space-resolved heat flux was experimentally measured with different staggered geometric array configurations which are considered to 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D, 8D, and 10D, respectively. The heat flux were measured by a novel experimental technique that has a function of high-temperature heat flux gauge in which is used to measure the heat flux distributions on the hot surface. The qualitative flow visualization showed complex behavior for staggered array configuration, which exhibits a radial flow interaction issuing from adjacent nozzles. The results show that the maximum area-averaged heat flux was observed at S/D = 4. This was caused by the radial interaction between adjacent jets which affects different boiling heat transfer on a hot steel plate. In this study, the measured heat flux curves are also provided to a benchmark data for designing a new type of accelerated cooling equipment for plate mill.


Caspases are key effectors of programmed cell death in metazoans. In Drosophila, four caspases have been described so far. Here we describe the identification and characterization of the fifth Drosophila caspase, DECAY. DECAY shares a high degree of homology with the members of the mammalian caspase-3 subfamily, particularly caspase-3 and caspase-7. DECAY lacks a long prodomain and thus appears to be a class II effector caspase. Ectopic expression of DECAY in cultured cells induces apoptosis. Recombinant DECAY exhibited substrate specificity similar to the mammalian caspase-3 subfamily. Low levels of decaymRNA are ubiquitously expressed in Drosophila embryos during early stages of development but its expression becomes somewhat spatially restricted in some tissues. During oogenesisdecay mRNA was detected in egg chambers of all stages consistent with a role for DECAY in apoptosis of nurse cells. Relatively high levels of decay mRNA are expressed in larval salivary glands and midgut, two tissues which undergo histolysis during larval/pupal metamorphosis, suggesting that DECAY may play a role in developmentally programmed cell death inDrosophila.


YBa2Cu3O7−δ (YBCO) films with Zr doping have been prepared successfully by the trifluoroacetate metal–organic deposition (TFA-MOD) method through dissolving Zr acetylacetonate in the precursor solution. Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) nanoparticles were detected in the doped YBCO films by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). From the analysis of XRD ω and φ scans, the doped films have better out-of-plane and in-plane textures than those of the un-doped YBCO film. Although the doped YBCO films have a lower critical transition temperature (Tc) than that of un-doped YBCO film, a very significant enhancement of critical current density (Jc) is displayed as compared to the un-doped film at high applied fields. A high Jc near 106 A cm−2 at 1 T and a Jc of 105 A cm−2 at 5 T were observed in 6% doped Zr film, which are 5 times and 25 times the Jc values of the un-doped film in the same applied fields, respectively, indicating an optimal defect density created by 6% Zr doping.


There have been many advances in the pathology of intestinal tumours since the publication of the Third Series Intestines Fascicle in 2003, but many of the foundations of intestinal tumour diagnosis remain tried and true. Tubular adenomas are still tubular adenomas, but better understanding of serrated polyps has been a key advance in the years since the publication of the Third Series volume. Additionally, developments in molecular biology of colorectal carcinoma have allowed for targeted therapy and refinements to our evaluation of Lynch syndrome, which was termed hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal carcinoma (HNPCC) in the past. Our understanding of other polyposis syndromes has similarly blossomed in the past 15 years. Neuroendocrine tumours have been reclassified in the 2010 World Health Organization classification of gastrointestinal tumours. The molecular basis of gastrointestinal stromal tumours of the intestines has been a subject of great interest as well. In producing this update, this group of authors has enjoyed working together in gathering images and information to update this edition of the Intestines atlas. In doing so, we stand on the shoulders of giants before us, namely Drs. Robert H. Riddell, Robert E. Petras, Geraint T. Williams, and Leslie H. Sobin. While many areas of intestinal tumour pathology are without controversy, the classification and nomenclature for appendiceal tumours remain a subject of debate, including among ourselves. We have attempted to offer information on the various divergent viewpoints where they exist for this topic and others. Our efforts have been synergistic, and we hope that readers will enjoy the many interesting illustrations that we were able to amass.