A study was conducted to investigate the effect of chitosan -1. on growth of
Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, the causal organism of anthracnose; 2.
mechanisms involved in controlling anthracnose disease; 3. biochemical
changes; 4. physico-chemical quality characteristics and extension of storage
life; 5. fruit surface study using SEM and 6. gaseous exchange of papaya fruit
during storage at 12 + 1°C. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance and
differences between treatments mean were determined by LSD. The results
revealed that mycelial growth of C. gloeosporioides was reduced significantly (P
≤ 0.05) at all concentrations as compared to the control. The maximum percent
inhibition in mycelium growth (100%) was obtained at 2% chitosan. Similarly,
conidial germination inhibition was 100% for 2.0% and 80.4% for 1.5% chitosan
coating. Microscopic studies revealed that when chitosan solution was brought
in direct contact with conidia there were marked deformities accompanied with
shrunken conidia cellular damage and finally death of the cells at 1.5 and 2% coatings. Chitosan (1.5%) was found highly effective in reducing of anthracnose
disease upto 93.0% during five weeks storage. The reduction was found to be
85.4% during four days of ripening after five weeks of storage. There was no
added advantage of 2.0% chitosan on disease reduction during storage. Marked
effect on reducing disease demonstrated the fungicidal effect of chitosan. In
addition to its direct microbial activity, the study strongly suggested that chitosan
induces a series of defense reactions through production of inducible
compounds such as phenols, peroxidase, chitinase and β-1, 3-glucanase in
papaya fruits with 1.5% chitosan showing greatest activities. 1.5% chitosan
coating showed maximum beneficial effect in reducing weight loss, maintaining
firmness, delaying changes in peel colour and the slowing changes in soluble
solids concentration (SSC) after five weeks of storage. Non-coated and 0.5%
coated fruits gave significantly higher SSC compared to fruits coated with higher
percentages of chitosan (1, 1.5 and 2%). The titratable acidity declined
throughout the storage period with slower rate in coated fruits.
Overall sensory assessment of quality after ripening showed fruits were
significantly better in quality when coated with 1.5% chitosan which were
assigned higher sensory score than 1% chitosan coated fruits. Two percent
coated fruits were rated as zero because of their inability to ripen.
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed that there were no deep cracks
on the surface of 1.5% chitosan coated fruits whereas in non-coated fruit cracks
were found on the surface after four weeks of storage.

Chitosan coatings significantly reduced respiration rate and ethylene evolution.
The coating also reduced oxygen and increased carbon dioxide level inside the
fruits, thus created modified atmosphere within fruits. Modification of
atmosphere was inversely proportional to the concentration applied. The two
percent chitosan extremely modified the atmosphere which might be the reason
for the fruits being unable to ripen when transferred to ambient temperature.
Treatment with 1.5% chitosan seems to produce ideal atmosphere for
maintenance of quality of papaya during storage.
The results from all experiments carried out in the study showed that 1.5%
chitosan coating reduced the anthracnose disease by 93.0% and extended
postharvest life upto five weeks while maintaining acceptable quality. One
percent resulted in poorer quality fruits as compared to 1.5% coated fruits. Two
percent chitosan seems non-physiological for Eksotika papaya-II in term of
maintaining quality. As a non-toxic, biodegradable byproduct from sea food,
chitosan has the potential to become a natural preservative for protecting
papaya fruits, thus assisting the goal of sustainable agriculture. Extension of
storage from up to five weeks would facilitate the export of fruits to long distance
markets by sea and thereby cost of export would be reducing making the fruits
more competitive in the world market.


A drought-induced gene, DIP3, encoding a chitinase III protein was isolated from the roots of upland rice by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Sequence analysis demonstrated that the cDNA and deduced protein showed high identity to Oryza sativa class III chitinase. The deduced protein contained a signal peptide sequence in the N-terminal region of 21aa and a conserved glycosyl hydrolase (GH) 18 domain. The secondary and 3D structures were analyzed and showed that it contained α-helix, β-sheets, extended strand and random coil structures and that it was approximately spheroidal. Real-time quantitative PCR analysis revealed that expression levels accumulated rapidly under different forms of abiotic stress (drought, salt and low temperature), peaked at different times and then decreased. These results implied that as a member of class III chitinases, DIP3 may function as a stress-induced protein involved in the regulation of plant stress response.


UNLABELLED
Fluid retention is a major characteristic of symptomatic, progressive heart failure when a main factor implicated in the pathogenesis of renal dysfunction is renal hypoperfusion. This may be a consequence of forward cardiac failure, resulting in a low cardiac output integrating poor left ventricular function secondary to myocardial impairment and increased resistance in the regional renal vasculature secondary to locally released vasoconstrictors, e.g. endothelin. So far, the role of the pulmonary circulation in perpetuating renal dysfunction in heart failure is unclear.

METHODS
We investigated the relationship of hemodynamic variables obtained during right heart catheterization and plasma big endothelin levels to renal function variables in 18 male patients aged 52 +/- 3 years, with heart failure in the NYHA function class III-IV, based on idiopathic causes in 8 and ischemic causes in 10 patients. Renal plasma flow (RPF) was established by paraaminohippurate (PAH) clearance and the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was measured by iothalamate clearance.

RESULTS
Plasma big endothelin (ET) levels were increased above the upper normal range (1.8 fmol/ml) in 16 out of 18 patients, averaging 5.0 +/- 0.8 fmol/ml (1.7-11.9 fmol/ml). Positive correlations to big ET plasma levels were detected with mean pulmonary pressure (r = 0.73, p < 0.001) pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (r = 0.56, p < 0.05) and pulmonary vascular resistance index (r = 0.69, p < 0.01). Glomerular filtration rate (70 +/- 7 ml/min) and renal plasma flow (358 +/- 36 ml/min) were considerably reduced and exhibited a tendency to correlate inversely with big ET levels (r = -0.46, p = 0.056 and r = -0.44, p = 0.069, respectively). Contrary to expectations, RPF did not correlate significantly with cardiac index, systemic vascular resistance index or arterial blood pressure. In contrast, significant correlations were detected of RPF with pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (r = -0.69, p < 0.01), mean pulmonary artery pressure (r = -0.65, p < 0.01), right atrial pressure (r = -0.47, p < 0.05) and right ventricular ejection fraction (r = 0.49, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The findings suggest a role for endothelin in renal vasoconstriction and accord well with the concept that in severe heart failure renal hypoperfusion--by volume retention--as well as increased endothelin synthesis--by pulmonary vasoconstriction--play a part in the increased pulmonary filling pressures.


The partial list colouring conjecture due to Albertson, Grossman, and Haas (2000) states that for every $s$-choosable graph $G$ and every assignment of lists of size $t$, $1 \leq t \leq s$, to the vertices of $G$ there is an induced subgraph of $G$ on at least $\frac{t|V(G)|}{s}$ vertices which can be properly coloured from these lists. In this paper, we show that the partial list colouring conjecture holds true for certain  classes of graphs like claw-free graphs, graphs with chromatic number at least $\frac{|V(G)|-1}{2}$, chordless graphs, and series-parallel graphs.


Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSC) are multipotent cells characterized by self-renewal, multilineage differentiation, and immunomodulatory properties. To obtain a gene regulatory profile of human MSCs, we generated a compendium of more than two hundred cell samples with genome-wide expression data, including a homogeneous set of 93 samples of five related primary cell types: bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSC), hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), lymphocytes (LYM), fibroblasts (FIB), and osteoblasts (OSTB). All these samples were integrated to generate a regulatory gene network using the algorithm ARACNe (Algorithm for the Reconstruction of Accurate Cellular Networks; based on mutual information), that finds regulons (groups of target genes regulated by transcription factors) and regulators (i.e., transcription factors, TFs). Furtherly, the algorithm VIPER (Algorithm for Virtual Inference of Protein-activity by Enriched Regulon analysis) was used to inference protein activity and to identify the most significant TF regulators, which control the expression profile of the studied cells. Applying these algorithms, a footprint of candidate master regulators of BM-MSCs was defined, including the genes EPAS1, NFE2L1, SNAI2, STAB2, TEAD1, and TULP3, that presented consistent upregulation and hypomethylation in BM-MSCs. These TFs regulate the activation of the genes in the bone marrow MSC lineage and are involved in development, morphogenesis, cell differentiation, regulation of cell adhesion, and cell structure.


Identifying any extra-hepatic excretion phenomenon in preclinical species is crucial for an accurate prediction of the pharmacokinetics in man. This is particularly the case for drugs with a small volume of distribution, as they require an especially low total clearance in order to be suitable for a once-a-day dosing regimen in man. In this study, three animal scaling techniques were applied for the prediction of the human renal clearance of 36 diverse drugs that show active secretion or net re-absorption: (1) direct correlations between renal clearance in man and each of the two main preclinical species (rat and dog), (2) simple allometry and (3) Mahmood's renal clearance scaling method. The results show clearly that the predictions to man for the methods are improved significantly when corrections are made for species differences in plasma protein binding. Overall, the most accurate predictions were obtained by using a direct correlation with the dog renal clearance after correcting for differences in plasma protein binding and kidney blood flow (R 2 = 0.84), where predictions on average were within 2 fold of the observed renal clearance values in human. investigate direct correlations with renal clearance in man, simple allometry, and Mahmood's approach using a normalising factor to assess the best method for predicting human renal clearance in man.


This paper attempts to find out the economic outcome of joint forest management (JFM) programme for forest fringe community belonging to marginal landholding, small landholding and landless agricultural households and government who jointly manage the forest protection activities based on a field survey in West Bengal. This empirical study suggests that the economic outcome of the JFM programme has been beneficial for both and this is due to the strict dominant cooperative strategy of community. Economically government was the worst sufferer for her restrictive policy. The higher economic outcome of the government is due to the cooperation of community whom government neglected earlier. However, cooperation yields an outcome preferred by both parties under JFM programme as they are able to negotiate before the start of the game and obtain binding commitments. This study also suggests that force or law can not effectively control the illegal collection of timber forest products for the poor agricultural households, which mainly depend on forest resources for livelihood security and that live below poverty line, until and unless a considerable increase in the income from legal forest products and forest wage income meet their livelihood security.


Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a prevalent disease and constitutes a substantial socio-economic burden. On the other hand, there is limited data about the cost of CAP in Turkey. This study investigated direct costs and related factors for hospitalised CAP patients. Direct hospitalisation costs and possible associated factors (age, sex, comorbidity, clinical and laboratory findings, smoking history, antibiotic usage within 3 months, length of hospital stay, ICU stay, PSI, CURB65, treatment success and medication groups such as antibiotics, steroids, immunosupressives) were assessed in a retrospective study of 106 patients admitted to a hospital ward due to CAP.The mean patient age was 60.4 yrs and 35.8% were female. Comorbidities were found in 87% and the most significiant comorbidities were DM, CAD and COPD. Eight (7.5%) patients needed ICU care. Overall CAP treatment success rate was 89.6%. Length of hospital stay (p=0.001, r= 0.78), use of antipseudomonal antibiotic combination (p=0.001), use of antibiotic within 3 months (p=0.001) and two or more hospitalisation days within 3 months (p=0.031) increased the costs but age, comorbidity, treatment success, ICU requirement, PSI and CURB65 scores did not increase the costs. In conclusion, this study provides cost estimates for the treatment of patients hospitalised with CAP. Major determinants of costs were length of hospital stay, use of antipseudomonal antibiotic combination, use of antibiotic within 3 months and two or more hospitalisation days within 3 months.


OBJECTIVE
Pregnancies of women with glucose tolerance disorders are still associated with high maternal and perinatal morbidity. In the present population-based study, we investigated the fetal and neonatal risks and complications in pregnancies of women with preconceptional and gestational diabetes in comparison with pregnancies of non-diabetic women.

METHODS
A total of 913,255 pregnancies with 926,685 newborns documented by the Perinatal Registry of Lower Saxony, Germany, between 1987 and 1999 was retrospectively evaluated. In particular, the obstetric parameters of 3439 women with preconceptional diabetes mellitus (PDM, n = 3485 neonates), 4051 women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM, n = 4155 neonates) and 905,765 non-diabetic women (NDM, n = 919.053 neonates) were analysed.

RESULTS
The diabetes groups had a higher rate of preterm birth < 31st week of gestation (PDM vs. NDM odds ratio [OR] 2.341; GDM vs. NDM OR 1.483) and between the 32nd and 37th weeks of gestation (OR 3.688 and 2.418, respectively). The incidences of pathological cardiotocograms (OR 1.519 and 1.258, respectively) and acidosis as indication for operative delivery (OR 5,015 and 2,102, respectively) were increased in the diabetes groups. There was a higher prevalence of birth weight > 4500 g (OR 2.775 and 2.742, respectively) and >95. percentile (OR 4.268 and 3.610, respectively) in newborns of diabetic women. The higher rate of umbilical arterial pH < 7.00 (OR 2.481 and 1.195, respectively) as well as Apgar score at 1 minute <7 (OR 2.971 and 1.897, respectively) indicated a poorer neonatal outcome in pregnancies of women with diabetes mellitus. The frequency of necessary intubation of the infants was significantly higher in the diabetes group (OR 3.384 and 1.317, respectively). There also was an increased prevalence of intrauterine fetal death in pregnancies of diabetic women (OR 4.197 and 2.511, respectively).

CONCLUSION
Pregnancies of women with diabetes mellitus are still correlated with higher perinatal risks and complications. The neonatal morbidity in pregnancies with gestational diabetes mellitus was more similar to that of pregnancies with preconceptional diabetes mellitus than to the morbidity in the group of non-diabetic women. Changes of the parameters within the observation period were the same in all three groups and therefore cannot be attributed to a primary more intensive prenatal care of diabetic women.


Rates of time preference (RTPs) of rural households in Indonesia, Zambia and Ethiopia have been measured using hypothetical questions about preferences for current versus future consumption. In general, the rates were found to be very high. Factors influencing or correlated with the personal rates of time preference were investigated through regression methods. OLS was the technique used in the estimation. Market imperfections, particularly in credit and insurance markets lead to variation in RTPs. Poverty in assets, or cash liquidity constraints, was leading to or correlated with higher rates of time preference. The poor are, therefore, less likely to invest in environmental conservation. In Zambia, independent estimates of risk preferences were made. More risk-averse people tended to have lower RTPs. The results support the hypothesis that poverty and/or liquidity scarcity lead to high RTPs. Poverty reduction may thus reduce the RTPs of the poor and reduce the 'intertemporal externality' due to high RTPs. The high average RTPs indicate, however, that complementary policies may be needed to ensure sufficient levels of investment in conservation. Another logical implication is that institutionalization of private property rights may not be a sufficient tool to initiate sustainable resource management.


A survey of implementations of the knowledge-based engineering approach in different technological sectors is presented. The main objectives and techniques of examined applications are pointed out to illustrate the trends and peculiarities for a number of manufacturing field. Existing methods for the development of these engineering systems are then examined in order to identify critical aspects when applied to manufacturing.

A new methodological approach is proposed to overcome some specific limitations that emerged from the above-mentioned survey. The aim is to provide an innovative method for the implementation of knowledge-based engineering applications in the field of industrial production.

As a starting point, the field of application of the system is defined using a spatial representation. The conceptual design phase is carried out with the aid of a matrix structure containing the most relevant elements of the system and their relations. In particular, objectives, descriptors, inputs and actions are defined and qualified using categorical attributes.

The proposed method is then applied to three case studies with different locations in the applicability space. All the relevant elements of the detailed implementation of these systems are described. The relations with assumptions made during the design are highlighted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The adoption of case studies with notably different applications also reveals the versatility in the application of the method.


A technique for studying the real-time effects of arterial wave reflections on the performance of the isolated left ventricle was investigated. Real-time arterial loading of an isolated ferret heart with an asymmetric T-tube wave transmission model was obtained with the use of a multiprocessor computer control system and a volume control linear motor pump. The multiprocessor computer system was programmed to compute the instantaneous aortic flow from the instantaneous ventricular pressure. The time integral of the flow was used as a command to the linear motor pump to control the instantaneous ventricular volume. This loading system allowed the imposition of a wide variety of vascular impedances on the ventricle by changing the parameters of the asymmetric T-tube model.


Graph mining has been studied in many fields for obtaining useful information from a graph by finding its characteristic substructures. For example, several methods for Web graph mining has been proposed. Some of these methods identify communities on the Web by finding complete bipartite graphs. Most methods for Web graph mining deal with only static graph structures whose nodes are pages and edges are links, that is, they utilize no time-series data of pages and links, such as the creation date of each page or link. The Web is dynamic, however, and the graph structure of the Web is changed dynamically over time. Therefore, it is expected that we can obtain more useful information by utilizing time-series data of pages and links. We propose a new technique for Web graph mining to utilize time-series data of pages and links, by introducing a node label reflecting the creation date of the page corresponding to the node. By applying our technique to graphs among blogs and news sites, we succeeded in identifying some characteristic patterns in them.


Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data from the Gallup World Poll for 126 countries over the 2006–2017 period and identify causal effects with (i) an event-study model that includes high-dimensional fixed effects, and (ii) instrumental-variables regressions that rely on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese government financing over time. Our results are nuanced and depend on whether we focus on subnational jurisdictions, countries, or groupings of countries. On average, we estimate that the completion of one additional development project in a recipient country increases public support for the Chinese government by more than 3 percentage points in the short run and 0.2 percentage points in the longer run. Abstract: Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data from the Gallup World Poll for 126 countries over the 2006–2017 period and identify causal effects with (i) an event-study model that includes high-dimensional fixed effects, and (ii) instrumental-variables regressions that rely on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese government financing over time. Our results are nuanced and depend on whether we focus on subnational jurisdictions, countries, or groupings of countries. On average, we estimate that the completion of one additional development project in a recipient country increases public support for the Chinese government by more than 3 percentage points in the short run and 0.2 percentage points in the longer run.


This study applied MARXAN to identify cost-efficient areas for biodiversity protection, within the Thy National Park in Denmark. Public authorities have requested a more systematic approach to managing public land, which identifies cost-effective solutions and potential trade-offs between economic cost and biodiversity benefits. The aim of this study was to support the local management staff in setting conservation targets and prioritizing their management efforts. This was addressed through the creation of two primary scenarios: i) applying uniform conservation targets to all biodiversity features, and ii) heterogeneous targets addressing various degrees of conservation importance. Four sub-scenarios were established for each primary scenario to investigate the im- plications of various conservation targets on conservation cost. Local data on red-listed species and habitat types were used to assess biodiversity benefits. Detailed cost estimates of required conservation actions were included. The results indicated that scenarios with uniform conservation targets provided more flexible networks of protected areas but contributed less to target achievement and a smaller share of selected planning units overlapped with current protected areas. Applying heterogeneous targets based on threat status resulted in a higher degree of target achievement and compactness, but provided less flexible networks. However, these networks may be more suitable for efficient management due to a higher level of clustering and spatial overlap with threatened species distributions.


For the production of urethane prepolymer, the effect of process parameters such as diisocyanate MDI and polyol TDI was tested. In this paper, design of experiments has been adopted for studying the effect of the process parameters on the improvement of NCO and viscosity of pre-polymer. As a result of comparison of different parameters, the effect of polyol was stronger than that of isocyanate in comparison of reactivity according to the amounts of isocyanate and polyol. Especially, NCO and viscosity of pre-polymer affected a product safety.


Clients originally requesting sex without condoms: Women warning clients on AIDS: AIDS and prostitution To the Editor: With the recent hysteria surrounding the spread of AIDS into the general community (which means beyond the homosexual subcultures), and especially in view of the traditional assumption of prostitutes as a point of departure for any new or fresh outbreaks of diseases of a sexually transmitted kind, it might be helpful to your readers to become acquainted with some facts about the prostitute community. On September 5, 1984, I conducted a survey among inner city prostitutes; I was aided in this study by members of the Australian Prostitutes Collective. Questions relating to use of prophylactic devices, rotation of medical checks, testing for AIDS, and the extent of response by the client group to prevention from disease, were asked of 85 women prostitutes. The response by the women approached to these rather personal questions was excellent 100% in fact, as the total of 85 answered. Of this sample, 74% were street prostitutes; the rest were working either in the East Sydney brothels or in Kings Cross parlours. The results are as follows. Precautions taken: Condoms: 85 Wash and douche: 37 Dry sex: 5 Weekly: 32 Fortnightly: 24 Thrice-weekly: 3 Monthly: 21 Now-and-again: 5 Less than a month ago: 14 A month ago: 27 Longer than a month: 12 Intending to soon: 29 No intention: 3 Yes: 83 No: 1 Not recorded: I Yes: 77 No: 6 Not recorded: 2 Clients who still 75fJ1o of men: 4 insist on sex 50fJIo of men: 11 without condoms 25fJ1o of men: 28 in spite of A few of the men: 34 warnings: Not recorded: 3 The figures demonstrate that prostitutes have responded extremely well to the publicity on AIDS. All of them said they use condoms, and a significant number also wash and douche; most have regular medical checks, and over half do so more often than once a month; 63tlJo of the sample had already volunteered for an AIDS screening test, and nearly all of the rest had intentions of so doing. The client group approached the women intending to have sex without a prophylactic, but, after warning them that they might contract AIDS, most of the women said that a quarter or fewer of the men still refused to engage in intercourse using a condom. The prostitutes claimed that two weeks earlier more than 50tIJo of the men would have persisted in requesting sex without preventatives in spite of warnings, so that the decrease by more than half this figure in a fortnight might be considered as due to the persistent education of the men by these women. The overall response by prostitutes and the progressively more positive approach by the men toward "safe-sex" methods indicates a reducing risk for contracting AIDS in the groups popularly considered as high-risk involved in prostitution.


This paper is in three parts. The first part engages in a discussion of the nature of professionalism, rejecting a normative view in favour of seeing professionalism as a shifting phenomenon; a profession is whatever people think it is at any particular time (Hanlon, 1998 cited in Whitty, 2008). "Potentially, it also liberates us to conceptualise and work towards alternative conceptions of professionalism Thus, it allows us to consider what might be appropriate 'prospective identities' for teachers in the current conjuncture (Bernstein, 1996)" (Whitty, 2008: 32).
The second part of the paper reports on the findings of a PhD research project into the improvisatory nature of teacher expertise. The data is taken from a series of comparative case studies (Thomas, 2011) of seven experienced teachers working in secondary schools in the South West of England and who have been identified as being expert within their school setting. Constant comparative methods of analysis have been used to draw out themes from the data. This has contributed to a grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) that identifies the nature of teacher expertise.
The findings that arise from the data are that teacher's expertise is best expressed as continually evolving practice, a process as opposed to an end state that reflects a prototype model (Sternberg and Horvath, 1995). Advanced professional practice is best described as a 'teacher with expertises' and this is preferable to the term 'expert teacher'. The data shows that teacher expertise is fundamentally improvisatory through being socially constructed (Burr, 2003; Shotter, 2008; Gergen, 2009) and that this has a positive impact on the quality of teaching. The improvisational nature of teacher expertise is derived from four processes: the expression of tacit knowledge, relational and interactional practice, personalisation of the learning environment and self-reflection leading to the continual adaptation of pedagogy.
The third part of the paper discusses these findings within the context of a growing field of research on expert teaching (Goodwyn, 2011 ) and creative teaching (Sawyer, 2011) that views improvisation not as an incidental or accidental activity but as fundamental part of a teachers professional sense of identity. In a conclusion, the knowledge claims from this research are applied to frame a new model of teacher professionalism, a possible 'prospective identity' for teachers that is drawn from contemporary practice and newly emerging discourses concerning teacher expertise.


Mn0.50-xZn0.50CuxFe2O4 (where x = 0.0 - 0.3) ferrites have been synthesized by auto combustion method. X-ray diffraction patterns reveal that all compositions are of single phase cubic spinel structure. The lattice parameter decreases with the increase in Cu2+ content obeying the Vegard's law. The bulk density, average grain size, initial permeability, Neel temperature and saturation magnetic induction of Mn0.50-xZn0.50CuxFe2O4 increased with increasing Cu2+content. It is observed that both density and initial permeability increase with increasing sintering temperature. The maximum initial permeability is found to be 1061 which is almost four times greater than that of the parent composition. The resonance frequency of all the samples shifts towards the lower frequency as the permeability increases with Cu2+ content. It is observed from B-H loops of Mn0.50-xZn0.50CuxFe2O4 that coercivity decreases and retentivity increases with Cu2+ content. Possible explanations for the observed magnetic properties with various Cu2+ contents are discussed.


Purpose: Brow ptosis commonly occurs with aging. Minimally invasive techniques are varied and include neurotoxin paralysis of eyebrow depressors and internal brow pexy. The authors present a modification of the traditional brow-pexy surgery which incorporates weakening of the lateral eyebrow depressor, the orbicularis oculi muscle, to synergistically influence brow position. Methods: This retrospective review includes 44 brows in 22 patients treated over a 14-month period. All patients underwent surgery by a single surgeon (RM) at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The surgical technique includes partial orbicularis resection to augment the traditional internal brow pexy. Preoperative and postoperative photographs were analyzed using ImageJ software. Results: This procedure has been successfully performed on 44 brows in 22 patients with no complications and a high satisfaction rate. ImageJ analysis demonstrates an average elevation of 2.42 mm of the lateral tail of the brow with improved brow contour, volume, and symmetry. Conclusions: The "Tuck and Rise" has proven a simple, minimally invasive, and effective technique to volumize and elevate the lateral tail of the eyebrow.


The minimum wage is an essential issue for workers in Indonesia. Employers still apply the minimum wage to all workers, regardless of their experience. Further, the calculation of the minimum wage is still based on an estimate for single workers. This calculation can mean that a worker is unable to meet the daily needs of their dependent family. Workers in Indonesia are trapped in debt and poverty. The minimum wage in Indonesia is intended as a safety net to prevent workers from falling into poverty, with workers' welfare the responsibility of the state.  This study aims to examine the role of the state in determining the minimum wage policy. The outcomes of this process cannot be separated from the strength of workers and employers to communicate their interests. As a semi-peripheral country within the international division of labour, the minimum wage policy in Indonesia is influenced by the interests of international capital. This qualitative study uses the capitalist state theories of Miliband, Poulantzas, and Jessop to examine the role of the state and worker-employer relations, and the influence of the international market on determining minimum wage policy in Indonesia -with world-systems analysis also drawn on to investigate the international market context.  Overall, this study proves that wage rates are the result of the struggle of the agency, i.e. workers, employers, and government personnel through various institutions, regulatory products and laws. The various regulations and institutions of the state ensure that the struggle between these interest groups takes place in a way that does not endanger capitalism as the prevailing economic and political system. For workers, the struggle for increased wages occurs at two levels. Firstly through tripartite institutions -Institutions where workers, employers and government representatives negotiate wages and other industrial relations issues- and laws that are created by the state to limit struggles around the wage rate. Secondly, through a larger, democratic space in strikes or demonstrations are staged. Employers mostly pursue their interests through parliamentary, tripartite institutions and through occupying prominent positions in government structures. International markets affect the determining of wage policy through the actions of international and regional institutions that provide access to overseas debt, and who stipulate the conditions to be followed by the Indonesian government in receipt of this debt.


Abstract Coastal development can alter the natural dynamics of beach environments, with strong implications for associated biota. Sea turtles nest on oceanic beaches and often depend upon a specific range of conditions for successful nesting. In the case of the critically endangered leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), we know little regarding what features they select for nest sites, including how they respond to anthropogenic development. We examined relationships between leatherback nest frequency, beach environments, and tourism development at Playa Grande, Costa Rica, the location of the largest current nesting population in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Developed beach sections had shallower slopes, lower pH, and less air-filled pore space, but higher water content and salinity than undeveloped areas. Developed areas were also comprised of more sand in the smaller grain size classes relative to undeveloped sections. Leatherback nesting was positively correlated with deepness of the offshore approach, beach slope and elevation, pH, and sand in intermediate size classes (0.025-mm diameter), but negatively correlated with sand in the smallest silt size class (< 0.0625-mm diameter). Leatherback nesting frequency was 3.4 times higher in undeveloped sections of the beach relative to developed areas, while nonnesting emergences were 2.6 times more likely in developed relative to undeveloped areas. It is apparent that coastal development has impacted beach environments with consequences for leatherback nest site distribution. It is likely that additional development of the beach under mixed-management plans to support a growing tourist industry will further degrade the attractiveness and quality of the beach for leatherback nesting.


We consider the at least version of the Generalized Minimum Spanning Tree Problem, denoted by L-GMST, which consists in finding a minimum cost tree spanning at least one node from each node set of a complete graph with the nodes partitioned into a given number of node sets. We describe new integer programming formulations of the L-GMST problem and establish relationships between the polytopes corresponding to their linear relaxations.


In Thailand, pesticide use has increased exponentially over the past 15 years causing critical public health concern. We used a geographic information system and applied a remote sensing method in an integrated manner on land use data to model the spatial patterns of pesticide exposure. We also used toxicological data to quantify the health effects in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) attributed to pesticide use in Thailand.  We found that 56%of the total population (35,144,284 persons) had potential pesticide drift at their residences. Pesticide exposure was mostly due to glyphosate and paraquat applied to rice farms and atrazine applied to sugarcane farms, which were more widespread in the central and northeastern regions of the country. The total burden caused by pesticide use equated to 10,045 DALYs, of which more than half (52%) was due to use of paraquat. Regarding policy implications, all relevant sectors should work on reducing paraquat use in crop fields. Reduction of pesticide exposure should be placed as the top priority for making health-related pesticide management policies.


PURPOSE
Diarrhea is a prominent feature of fluorouracil (5FU) gastrointestinal toxicity, especially when 5FU is combined with leucovorin (LV) or interferon (IFN). No treatment for this condition has been well defined, although drugs, such as diphenoxylate or loperamide, generally are used. The efficacy of octreotide in the treatment of 5FU-induced diarrhea recently has been reported. We performed a randomized trial that compared octreotide with loperamide, the drug most commonly used for therapy for this disorder.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Forty-one patients with grade 2 (four to six stools per day) or grade 3 (seven to nine stools per day; National Cancer Institute toxicity criteria) diarrhea after chemotherapy with a 5FU-containing regimen for colorectal cancer in 28 cases, gastric cancer in six cases, pancreatic cancer in five cases, and breast cancer in two cases, were entered onto the study. Twenty-one patients received octreotide at a dosage of 0.1 mg subcutaneously twice per day for 3 days, and 20 patients received loperamide 4 mg orally initially and then 2 mg every 6 hours for 3 days. The two arms were comparable for age, sex, and primary tumor. Patients were evaluated for response each treatment day; all patients were assessable.

RESULTS
Diarrhea resolved in 19 patients in the octreotide arm (one within the first day; four within the second day; and 14 within the third day) versus only three (all after the third day of therapy) in the loperamide arm (P < .005). Median frequency of stools in the 3 days of therapy was four, three, and zero in the octreotide arm and five, five, and five in the loperamide arm. No side effects were observed in both arms. Ten patients on the loperamide arm and only one on the octreotide arm required hospitalization for parenteral replenishment of fluids and electrolytes.

CONCLUSION
Octreotide seems to be more effective than loperamide in control of diarrhea and elimination of the need for replenishment of fluids and electrolytes.


Background and Aim: Natural antioxidants have gained unique attention in recent years. Because of the carcinogenicity of synthetic compounds, there is a dearth for antioxidants from natural origin. Currently, seagrasses, the marine plants have gained attention for their secondary metabolites. Hence, the present study aims to examine in vitro antioxidant activity of both leaf and rhizome extracts of six seagrass species and has not yet been investigated. Methods: Crude methanolic extracts of leaf and rhizome obtained, were evaluated for total phenolic contents using Folin-Ciocalteaus method. Antioxidant potential of seagrass extracts were evaluated using total antioxidant activity, DPPH, FRAP, ABTS assay, H 2 O 2 and NO 2 scavenging assay and the phenolic compounds present in potent extracts were profiled by HPLC. Results: Maximum phenolic content and antioxidant activity was exhibited by leaf and rhizome extracts of C. rotundata followed by H. uninervis. Higher DPPH radical scavenging activity was found in leaf (78.84 ± 0.87) and rhizome extracts (75.480 ± 0.97) of C. rotundata and the lowest scavenging activity was found in the leaf and rhizome extracts of H. ovata (12.01 ± 0.63 and 5.769 ± 1.14). Among six species, C. rotundata exhibited higher radical scavenging activity containing the potential phenolic compounds. Conclusion: Present study portrays that leaf and rhizome extracts of C. rotundata acts as a potential source of antioxidant compounds with predominant presence of caffeic acid and ρ-coumaric acid that paves a way for the application of these compounds in both food and pharmaceutical industries as a multipotent antioxidant.


Considerable work dealing with analysis of oil-well waters of other areas has been published, but to the knowledge of the author, none has been published dealing specifically with the waters of this area. While the waters dealt with in this paper are not far different from the waters of the Midcontinent area as a whole, there are certain differences which are noticeable. For instance strontium is found in the top waters of the Eldorado, Kansas field. None has been found in this area. The sulphate content of the top water here is very high. Both apparently cause trouble at times. This illustrates the importance of this study. As development is progressing in this area analytical work will be of value. The main objectives of this investigation were to determine the amount of variation in concentration of salts, not only within a geologic formation, but the variation in concentrations at different points over the area studies; to determine the importance of water analysis for identification of waters in producing wells of this area; and to ascertain whether any valuable elements or compounds were present and, if so, in what quantities.


Abstract Humanitarian organizations dealing with migrants have long prioritized such people according to legal and institutional categories, therefore focusing on those fleeing conflict, violence or persecution. In a departure from this tradition, it was recommended at the 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent that the Movement should take an inclusive approach towards addressing the humanitarian dimension of migration, irrespective of the status of the migrants of concern. This article discusses the shift towards such an approach, and how it has been implemented in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' migration policy.


The paper presents an adapted experimental setup to study the residual shear strength properties of clays under unsaturated state conditions. This issue is of geotechnical concern in stability analysis of slopes in fissured rocks with unsaturated clayey fills and also, in a more fundamental way, as an indicator of microstructural changes of clays undergoing drying paths. To this end, a commercial ring shear apparatus (Bromhead type) was instrumented and adapted to control total suction in a wide range by using vapor transfer technique. In addition, by using simulation-aided techniques, the time evolution of suction at local state and axial deformation was studied to overcome the experimental difficulty associated with the determination of the suction equalization time. The simulated equalization period agreed well with the experimental information based on a mechanical stabilization criterion (time required to attain vertical strain rates lower than 0.1%/day). Relevant test results showing the main capabilities of the adapted apparatus are presented, which bring up the important changes observed in residual friction angle when testing a clayey soil at different hydraulic states (total suctions ranging from nearly 0 up to 140 MPa).


STORER, J. B., MITCHELL, T. J., AND ULLRICH, R. L. Causes of Death and Their Contribution to Radiation-Induced Life Shortening in Intact and Ovariectomized Mice. Radiat. Res. 89, 618-643 (1982). Shortening of mean life span and tumor incidence were investigated in intact or ovariectomized BALB/c and RFM female mice exposed to y irradiation. In the intact mice, radiationinduced life shortening was considerably greater than in the ovariectomized mice. Both a "dose-independent" and a "dose-dependent" component of life-shortening injury were demonstrated in the intact animals. Ovariectomy abolished the dose-independent component. Classes of tumors were categorized as lethal or incidental on the basis of prevalence in randomly sacrificed and moribund animals. Once this classification was made, the corrected incidence of disease categories was estimated and the relative risk of death as a function of dose was calculated for each class of diseases. The dose-independent life shortening in intact mice was due solely to nonneoplastic causes of death. In both strains, the dose-dependent component of life shortening (the only one present in ovariectomized animals) was due entirely to lethal neoplasms. In the RFM mice, the overwhelming cause of death from neoplasms was from tumors of the reticular tissues. In the BALB/c strain, reticular tissue tumors and lethal solid tumors contributed about equally. Ovariectomized animals were more resistant to radiationinduced tumors. These findings support the conclusion that host factors play a major role in the expression of tumors and the conclusion of other authors that radiation-induced life shortening (except of intact female mice of some strains) is due primarily to the induction of lethal neoplasms.


The article discusses economic risks as a form of uncertainty actualization that characterizes the management decisions quality. An approach to modeling and managing the company's risks which is based on a step-by-step process of identifying the most significant risks and their factors on the basis of simulation modeling and developing management decisions to minimize the economic loss and to minimize the frequency of risk events when it is impossible to completely prevent risks is proposed. This approach was applied in the transport company and demonstrated an economic effect of its implementation.


Sex chromosomes are known from a minority of flowering plants (angiosperms), and from some haploid plants, but the sex-determining chromosomes of many dioecious plants (i.e. species with the sexual stage individuals being either purely male or female) are either unstudied, or are not morphologically different between the two sexes. Both these observations and the taxonomically scattered distribution of species with sex chromosomes suggest that many plant sex chromosome systems evolved recently and independently in different taxa. A fundamental characteristic of sex chromosome pairs is possession of a nonrecombining region. Some plants may be in an early stage of evolving separate sexes, so that this has not yet evolved. Other plants appear to have small nonrecombining regions, or 'proto-sex chromosomes', whereas a few species have cytologically detectable sex chromosome heteromorphism, and probably have large nonrecombining regions. With modern molecular approaches, these different states can now be identified and studied.

Key Concepts:

The evolution of separate sexes (males and females) from an initial state in which individuals have both sex functions requires mutations of at least two genes.

Sex chromosome pairs are defined as homologous chromosomes (that pair in meiosis, and part of the pair recombines) but which also include a nonrecombining region involved in sex determination.

During the evolution of separate sexes, after male- and female-sterility mutations arise, selection will promote reduced recombination between the different genes, in order to avoid producing sterile individuals (with both male- and female-sterility mutations) that will arise through recombination between the genes.

The existence of evolutionary strata (see Glossary) shows that recombination suppression between sex chromosomes has occurred in several distinct events, at different times, and the main hypothesis to explain this is that sexually antagonistic polymorphisms may arise in the recombining regions of sex chromosome pairs, and that this situation again generates selection for reduced recombination.

Keywords:

chromosome heteromorphism;
genetic sex determination;
haploid plants;
nonrecombining region;
transposable element


During the past 20 years the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has developed five different lidar for space, and has successfully used them in orbital missions to map Mars, the Earth, the Moon and Mercury. Although similar in some ways, each of these lidar has had a different combination of measurement requirements, payload constraints, and operational environments. Together they have improved space-based laser measurement technologies and advanced planetary science. This paper gives a brief overview of these instruments, their measurement approaches and designs, and some highlights from their scientific observations.


Objective: We aimed to investigate the oxidative stress status in a population of women with untreated major depressive disorder. Methods: Fifty-four female patients with untreated major depressive disorder and 68 female healthy controls were included in the study. A Sociodemographic Form, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) were applied to all the participants. Fasting blood samples were collected from all participants to assess serum thiol/disulphide levels and their pairwise ratios. Results: Native thiol levels were significantly higher and disulphide levels were lower in patients as compared to controls, while total thiol levels were not significantly different between the groups. Disulphide/native thiol and disulphide/total thiol ratios were significantly lower, while the native thiol/total thiol ratio was significantly higher, in the patient group than the control group. There was a negative correlation between HAM-D score and disulphide level, disulphide/native thiol ratio, and disulphide/total ratio, while there was a positive correlation between HAM-D score and native/total thiol ratio, in the patient group. Discussion: This is the first study to investigate dynamic thiol/disulphide homeostasis in women with untreated major depressive disorder. Our results showed dynamic thiol/disulphide homeostasis shifts towards thiol formation which implies an antioxidant reaction in women with untreated major depressive disorder.


Contractile properties were determined for muscles from three species ofAntarctic fish with broadly similar activity patterns:Trematomus hansoni, Notothenia rossii and Chaenocephalus aceratus. C. aceratus differs from theother species in that the genes for the respiratory pigments are not expressed. Red and white fibres were isolated from the pectoral fin adductor and trunkmuscles, respectively. Fibre segments were chemically skinned with the nonionicdetergent Brij-58. All experiments were carried out at 0°C. Maximum isometric tensions (Po) were 6.6–7.1 Ncm−2for red, and 21.4–25.1 Ncm−2 for white muscle fibres. The force-velocity (P-V) characteristics of musclefibres were determined by step isotonic releases. Unloaded contraction velocities (muscle lengths s−1, Los−1) were 0.7 for red, and 0.9?-1.1 for white fibres. Maximum mechanical power outputs (Wkg−1 muscle for white muscle), calculated using Hill9s equation for muscle shortening, were 26.7 (T.hansoni), 15.7 (N. rossii) and 22.7 (C. aceratus). Corresponding values forred pectoral muscle fibres were around 4.2 Wkg−1 for all three species. Maximum activities of enzymes of carbohydrate utilization (hexokinase, phosphofructokinase, lactate dehydrogenase), fatty acid metabolism (carnitine palmitoyl transferase, 3-OH acyl CoA dehydrogenase) and aerobicmitochondrial metabolism (cytochrome oxidase) were measured in musclehomogenates from C. aceratus and N. rossii at 0°C. Red pectoral musclefibres from C. aceratus and N. rossii had similar activities of cytochromeoxidase, carnitine palmitoyltransferase and glycolytic enzymes. Hexokinaseactivities were two times higher in the red fibres of C. aceratus than N. rossii, suggesting a greater capacity for aerobic glucose utilization in the former species. In spite of the lack of respiratory pigments, the metabolic and mechanicalcharacteristics of the swimming muscles in C. aceratus apppear to be similarto those of other Notothenioids. Power outputs and enzyme activities ofAntarctic fish muscle measured at 0°C are comparable to those for temperatespecies measured at 15 or 25°C, indicating a high degree of cold-adaptation ofboth energy-producing and energy-utilizing pathways.


Under stress conditions, obtained in the field or experimentally induced, changes occur in the nature and intensity of affective processes (emotions, motivations). Symmetrical changes occur under opposite (comfort) conditions. One of the first procedures for determining temporary stress states consists of administering difficult logical tasks (15 minutes), with erroneous or ambiguous feedback and social pressure. For example, some very difficult Raven Matrices were individually assigned to participants. The first two authors later found another procedure equally effective and even more advantageous for certain aspects: the "drawing recollection" of personal stressful experiences. The corresponding comfort treatments are, firstly, a progressive relaxation session in penumbra; or, in the second case, the "drawing recollection" of personal pleasant and positive experiences. To assess the emotional changes, we prepared seven-point bipolar scales centering on the main opposing emotions. As regards motivations, we used a list of nine motivational systems [1]. The whole set of items made up the so-called Self-Appraisal Scales, administered before and after a specific treatment, thereby obtaining a measure through the differences between the two successive assessments. Factor analyses were conducted for selecting the main emotional and motivational factors. Affective reverberations on cognitive processes were also studied and measured.


Over the past decade, avoiding deforestation has become a central element of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The focal point of this has been the incentive-based mechanism of REDD+, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. A key notion in REDD+ is to establish incentives for developing countries to reduce their forest-related carbon emissions by creating and recognising a financial value for the carbon not emitted into the atmosphere. REDD+ has changed how tropical forests are managed, but has also been the source of much contestation. The effects of deforestation go beyond carbon emissions, leading some actors to argue that biodiversity or socioeconomic factors, and not carbon, should be the priority of managing deforestation. This thesis demonstrates that words, and the way we make sense of deforestation, matter. They matter because they prioritise certain underlying ideas, notions and understandings, while neglecting others. These, in turn, shape the way we approach deforestation. Using argumentative discourse analysis (Hajer 1995), I explore the role of deforestation in global climate politics along the following overarching research questions: 1) which are the dominant storylines and discourses on REDD+ and 2) how are storylines and discourses articulated and manifested in REDD+? My key conceptual and analytical tool in addressing these questions is discursive storylines. In short, these are condensed figures of speech through which actors make sense of complex issues without recourse to comprehensive and cumbersome explanations. They are organised around certain discourse(s) and manifested through certain practices. My empirical focus is on the UNFCCC negotiations on REDD+. The main sources of data were texts in the form of UNFCCC official documents, as well as a wealth of secondary material. In addition, I attended six UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COPs) and intercessional-meetings, and conducted 38 semi-structured interviews. The analysis has lead to four academic papers. Paper I maps the key storylines and discourses on REDD+; Paper II explores a 'new' emerging discourse which is entering the REDD+ debates; Paper III analyses the technical debates on monitoring forest carbon flows in REDD+ and connects them to key storylines; and Paper IV analyses the operationalisation of social safeguards in REDD+ and how REDD+ is legitimised. A key result identifies REDD+ as dominated by an ecological modernisation discourse and a more marginalised civic environmental discourse. As a consequence of this dominance, the role of deforestation in global climate politics is characterised by the following aspects: favouring of commodification of forest carbon over ecological and social aspects; a global rather than a local focus; an emphasis on market instruments at the expense of alternative options; a reliance on experts and technology rather than local based knowledge. My results further illustrate how the two dominant discourses permeate into different practices in REDD+, e.g. how forest carbon monitoring practices operationalisation of social safeguards both contribute to and are embedded in the overarching discursive debates on REDD+. Moreover, analysing the emergence of a third discourse, the integrated landscape approach discourse, this thesis argues that while the new discourse may have gained credibility and legitimacy, it has yet to impose its logics and rationales on REDD+ in a profound way.


Trichinellosis is a rare parasitic zoonosis in the European Union. Meat from backyard pigs was the common source for a trichinellosis outbreak caused by Trichinella spiralis, which occurred in France and Serbia in the beginning of 2017. An epidemiological study was conducted in France and Serbia to determine the extent of the outbreak, to identify its source and to implement control measures. Three cases were exposed in Serbia and brought back to France pork delicatessen which they shared with relatives and friends. Around 47 individuals were exposed to the parasitised meat in France and Serbia and 20 cases of trichinellosis were reported (nine in France and 11 in Serbia). Nine of them were female. The diagnosis was delayed, in part because the parasitosis was not known by most physicians, which led to complications in the French cases such as facial paralysis and pulmonary embolism. Health alerts and survey networks are indispensable at a European level to control the disease.


For $n\geqslant 5$, we prove that every $n\times n$ matrix $\mathcal{M}=(a_{i,j})$ with entries in $\{-1,1\}$ and absolute discrepancy $\lvert\mathrm{disc}(\mathcal{M})\rvert=\lvert\sum a_{i,j}\rvert\leqslant n$ contains a zero-sum square except for the split matrices (up to symmetries). Here, a square is a $2\times 2$ sub-matrix of $\mathcal{M}$ with entries $a_{i,j}, a_{i+s,s}, a_{i,j+s}, a_{i+s,j+s}$ for some $s\geqslant 1$, and a split matrix is a matrix with all entries above the diagonal equal to $-1$ and all remaining entries equal to $1$. In particular, we show that for $n\geqslant 5$ every zero-sum $n\times n$ matrix with entries in $\{-1,1\}$ contains a zero-sum square.


Studies of the Sydney–Gunnedah–Bowen Basin (SGBB), one of the largest extensional rift sedimentary basins on the east coast of Australia, lack an understanding of the 3D upper crustal structure. Understanding of the subsurface structure is essential for many areas of resource exploration, development and management, as well as scientific research. Geological models provide a way to visualise and investigate the subsurface structure. The integrated regional scale gravity modelling approach, which uses boreholes and seismic data constraints, provides an understanding of the upper crustal structure and allows the development of a 3D geological model which can be used as the architectural framework for many different applications. This work presents a 3D geological model of the SGBB developed for application in high resolution thermal models. It is the culmination of geological surfaces derived from the interpolation of previous regional scale 2D gravity models and numerous borehole records. The model outlines the basement structure of the SGBB and provides information on depth to basement, depth to basal volcanics and thickness of overlying sediments. Through understanding the uncertainties, limitations, confidence and reliability of this model, the 3D geological model can provide the ideal framework for future research.


Semantic search has been one of the major envisioned benefits of the Semantic Web since its emergence in the late 90's [1]. Our demo shows a proposal towards this goal. One way to view a semantic search engine is as a tool that gets formal queries (e.g. in RDQL, RQL, SPARQL, or the like) from a client, executes them against an ontology-based knowledge base, and returns tuples of ontology values (resources) that satisfy the query [2]. While this conception of semantic search brings enormous advantages already, our work aims at taking a step beyond this. In our view of Information Retrieval in the Semantic Web, a search engine returns documents, rather than (or in addition to) exact values, in response to user queries. The engine should rank the documents, according to concept-based relevance criteria. The overall retrieval process is illustrated in Figure 1 (see [3] for more details of our research).


The relationship between laboratory based study and the actual practice of engineering design is very important. For research activity, laboratory based studies have an important role. The problem is the difficulty of relating laboratory study to practice, it is thus important to fully understand this relationship. To address this, an observational method is proposed that focuses on characterizing the activities and behaviors of designers in practice. The method has been developed to provide rich context, whilst avoiding information overload. The proposed method is then critically discussed with respect to the issues particularly affecting empirical design research, such as contextualization, validity and repeatability. Finally, the paper highlights the potential importance and impact of the method for developing the relationship between practice and laboratory based experiments.


The aim of this study was to determine the patterns of growth of Bali cattle body dimensions. The study used completely randomized design consisting of three factors, i.e., sex, growth period and the time of measurement. The main factors are sex (entire male/bull and female) and the period of growth (aged 0-4 months, aged 5-9 months, aged 10-14 months, aged 15-19 months, aged 20-24 months and aged 25-29) and each combination of sex and growth period had six replicates, thus number of cattle used was 2 x 6 x 6 = 72 heads. The sub-factor is the time or frequency of measurement, which is performed once every month as often as five times; hence the data obtained everybody dimensions are 2 x 6 x 6 x 5 = 360 pieces.Results of the study showed that there were no differences in body dimensions of the entire male (bull) and the female calves at birth. However, the more mature of the entire male calves the larger the size of their body dimensions compared to those of the females calves. Both the entire male and female cattle had a sigmoid growth curve. The inflection points of dimension growth curves of the female were achieved at earlier age compared to those of the entire male cattle. Each dimension had its respective inflection point at which the growth rates of the body dimensions started to decrease. Growth rates of the length dimensions of the both sexes began to decrease (slower) before they reached 5 months of age, excepted the horns that reached a slower rate after 10 months of age. Height dimensions growth rates of the both sexes started to decline before they reached 4 months of age. Growth rates of the entire male and female circumference dimensions were achieved after they aged 4 months and before 4 months, respectively. Chest and waist depths growth rates of the entire males became slower after 3 months of age while those of the females before 2 months old. Growth rates of neck depths of the entire males decreased at the age of 7.8 months, while those of the females at the age of 4.1 months. Growth rates of the head and cheek depths of the both sexes became slower before they reached 3 months of age, while those of the neck widths were slower after 6 months of age. Growth rates of the chest, waist and ass widths entire male and female calves became slower after 4 months and before 4 month of age, respectively.


Background: Readmission after community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is common but knowledge about risk factors is limited. Objective: To investigate whether haemoglobin, white blood cell count (WBC), urea, sodium, albumin, and C-reactive protein (CRP), measured at discharge in patients with CAP are associated with 30-day readmission. Methods: This study was a Danish, retrospective, multi-centre, cohort study of patients hospitalised with CAP. The outcome was all-cause, unplanned, 30-day readmission. Biomarkers were measured at discharge and evaluated as categorical variables in the statistical analyses: For WBC, urea, and CRP, the highest quartile was compared to the 3 lowest quartiles (reference), and for haemoglobin, sodium, and albumin, the lowest quartile was compared to the 3 highest quartiles (reference). Sub-distribution hazard ratios (sHR) were calculated for biomarkers and baseline variables using regression models with death without readmission as a competing risk. Results: Of the 1149 patients discharged alive, 184 (16.0 %) were readmitted within 30 days. Elevated WBC (sHR: 1.50; 95 % CI, 1.07-2.11), low albumin (sHR: 1.78; 95 % CI, 1.24-2.54) and the presence of ≥ 2 co-morbidities (sHR: 1.74; 95 % CI, 1.15-2.64) were independently associated with readmission. When combining co-morbidities, WBC and albumin, there was an increasing risk of readmission for patients with 1, 2 or 3 risk factors with sHR of 1.76 (95 % CI, 1.25-2.49), 2.59 (95 % CI, 1.71-3.93) and 6.15 (95 % CI, 3.33-11.38), respectively. Conclusion: WBC and albumin measured at discharge were independently associated with 30-day readmission in patients with CAP.


A critical issue in the examination of the effects of treatments on health-related quality of life is how to determine whether a particular change is clinically relevant. One approach is the so-called anchor-based method derived from patient or clinician estimates of minimal change (the Minimally Important Difference or MID). At issue, however, is whether this criterion provides a meaningful way to differentiate between beneficial and ineffective treatments. In this paper, I show that the likelihood that a patient will benefit from treatment, or alternatively, the number of patients in a given cohort who will benefit from treatment, can be predicted with considerable precision from the Effect Size, and the particular choice of MID bears almost no relation to the projected benefit. To examine the relation between the threshold of minimal difference, the effect size of treatment, and the likelihood that a patient will benefit from treatment, a simulation based on a normal distribution was used to compute the proportion of patients benefiting for various values of the ES and the MID. The agreement of the simulation with empirical data from four studies of asthma and respiratory disease was examined. The simulation showed a near-linear relationship between ES and the likelihood of benefit, which was nearly independent of the value of the MID. Agreement of the simulation with the empirical data was excellent. Introducing moderate skew into the distributions had minimal impact on the relationship. The proportion of patients who will benefit from treatment can be directly estimated from the effect size, and is nearly independent of the choice of MID. Effect size- and anchor-based approaches provide equivalent information in this situation. There appears to be little utility in the notion of the MID as an absolute indicator of clinically important treatment effects.


The causal exclusion problem is often considered as one of the major difficulties for which non-reductive physicalists have no easy solution to offer. Some non-reductive physicalists address this problem by arguing that mental properties are to some extent causally autonomous. If this is the case, then mental properties will not be causally excluded by their physical realizers because causation, in general, is a relation between properties of the same level. In this paper, I argue that the response from causal autonomy cannot be successful for two reasons. First, it does not offer a satisfactory explanation for how mental particulars can have causal efficacy in a non-reductive physicalist framework. Second, the causal considerations underpinning this response do not really support the conclusion that mental properties are causally autonomous.


: This was a case-comparison study to determine whether there was any association between non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) and cognitive impairment in subjects over the age of 65 years. Forty-eight non-insulin dependent diabetic males were compared with eighteen non-diabetic age & sex-matched controls. There was significantly higher cognitive impairment in the diabetic group compared to the control group when cognitive function was tested using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). However, after adjustment for confounding variables such as hypertension and cerebrovascular diseases there was no significant association between NIDDM per se and cognitive impairment. Other risk factors of cognitive impairment may be investigated.


Due to the ever increasing popularity of mobile devices, and the growing number of pixels in digital photography, there becomes a strain on viewing one's own photos. Similar to Desktop PCs, a common trend occurring in the mobile market to compensate for the increased computational requirements is faster and multi-processor systems. The observation that the number of transistors in integrated circuits doubles approximately every 18-24 months is known as Moore's law. Some believe that this trend, Moore's law, is plateauing which enforces alternate methods to aid in computation. This thesis explores supplementing the processor with a dedicated hardware module to reduce its workload. This provides a software-hardware combination that can be utilized when large and long computations are needed, such as in the decompression of high pixel count JPEG images. The results show that this proposed architecture decreases the viewing time of JPEG images significantly.


Research summary: Although prior research has suggested that equity ties are important for business groups, less attention has been paid to the specific mechanisms through which equity ties create value. We develop a framework that specifies how centralization of intragroup equity ties affects the performance of group affiliates. We use the exogenous shock of the 2008 financial crisis and a difference-in-differences analysis of 51,730 observations of business group affiliates in Taiwan to show that centralization of equity ties enhances affiliate performance, but such effects weaken when the environment becomes turbulent. Moreover, we find that listed affiliates obtain fewer benefits from centralization than unlisted affiliates. Overall, our study deepens scholarly understanding of not only how groups create value, but also how value is differentially appropriated among affiliates.

Managerial summary: Our research speaks directly to owner-managers of business groups with respect to creating an optimal equity network structure that binds the affiliated firms of the group. Our findings suggest to managers that the overall structure of equity ties in a business group has major implications for the performance of the affiliate firms of the group, and the network structure within the group should be designed deliberately and thoughtfully on an on-going basis. In particular, control through centralized equity ties is performance-enhancing in normal periods, but such control may be counterproductive as turbulence increases in business environments, or as the number of listed group firms increases. Hence, owner-managers may consider optimizing the network structure by lowering the degree of centralized equity ties under such circumstances, or at a minimum, lowering centralized control. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Road removal is being used to mitigate the physical and ecological impacts of roads and to restore both public and private lands. Although many federal and state agencies and private landowners have created protocols for road removal and priorities for restoration, research has not kept pace with the rate of removal. Some research has been conducted on hydrologic and geomorphic restoration following road removal, but no studies have directly addressed restoring wildlife habitat. Road removal creates a short-term disturbance which may temporarily increase sediment loss. However, long-term monitoring and initial research have shown that road removal reduces chronic erosion and the risk of landslides. We review the hydrologic, geomorphic, and ecological benefits and impacts of three methods of road removal, identify knowledge gaps, and propose questions for future research, which is urgently needed to quantify how effectively road removal restores terrestrial, riparian, and aquatic habitat and other ecosyste...


SIR,-In a recent American case-report and review of the literature on Haemophilu(s influenzce cellulitis, published in a British journal, Rasmussenl stated that this syndrome had not been reported in the European literature. In fact, one case had been mentioned in a paper from Oxford albout haemophilus epiglottitis.2 In the light of Rasmussen's commnents we wish to report two further cases of H. influenzae type b infection recognized in Oxford in the past few weeks.


Characterizing the near-surface is an important part of solving seismic static problems. It is also a critical step as input for more general iterative inversion methods applied to land seismic data. In the case of converted waves this becomes even more true due to the large magnitudes of the shear-wave statics. Here we propose two solutions based on the inversion of traveltimes in the near-surface. First we address the problem of the parameterization of the inversion. Results show that performing the inversion in the rayparameter domain removes the ambiguities that exist in the raypath-angle domain. The first model we invert is based on transmission traveltimes solely in the low velocity zone. This applies to the inversion of uphole data, but introduces the requirement that multiple offsets be recorded. Secondly, a solution based on the difference in reflection traveltimes between receivers is proposed. This solution may be useful for inverting traveltimes retrieved by interferometric techniques. Due to the complexity of the partial derivatives of the forward modelling operator for this case we decided against local descent-based methods, adopting instead a simulated annealing inversion method. This is also justified by the complex topography of the objective function. Performing a representative number of iterations of the proposed algorithm successfully retrieves the true parameters of the model. Since traveltime differences were used, the inverted parameters only allowed us to compute changes in the depth of the base of the near-surface rather than its absolute value. This can be fixed through a calibration process given the depth of the low velocity zone for at least at one receiver location. Near term plans include extending the results to the full 2D problem and testing on the CREWES 2014 Priddis data set.


Considerable attention has been devoted to investigating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicidality in military veterans, but nonsuicidal high-risk behaviors (HRBs), like reckless driving, are underexplored and contribute to elevated rates of premature death in this population. This study is the 1st to employ a structural equation modeling approach to investigate relationships between PTSD symptoms, suicidality, and HRBs in veterans. Data for this study were drawn from a sample of veterans living in Southern California. A multipronged sampling strategy was used to recruit 2,422 veterans, who completed an online battery. A structural equation model examining direct and indirect effects between 4 PTSD symptom factors, a suicidality factor, and an HRB factor was fitted to the data. We found positive direct effects for reexperiencing and negative cognitive–mood symptoms on suicidality and for hyperarousal symptoms on HRBs. We found a negative direct effect for avoidance on suicidality. Suicidality demonstrated a positive direct effect on HRBs. We detected positive indirect effects for reexperiencing and negative cognitive–mood symptoms on HRBs and a negative indirect effect for avoidance on HRBs through the suicidality pathway. Results show that distinct PTSD symptom clusters are associated with different risk profiles in military veterans. High rates of HRBs with the potential for lethal outcomes evident in our sample demonstrate the need for nuanced screening procedures. Veterans who do not meet full clinical criteria for PTSD may be at risk for premature mortality from suicide and HRBs in the context of reexperiencing, negative cognitive–mood, and hyperarousal symptoms.


Abstract Aim To describe the experience of relatives of residents with dementia residing in locked‐down nursing homes during the first outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic, concerning their relationships with nurses and the nursing care applied. Methods A qualitative descriptive study was carried out and purposive sampling was applied. Participants were first‐ and second‐degree relatives of residents with dementia, who lived permanently in a nursing home and who were admitted prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Sixteen participants, of which 10 were women (mean age 57.1 years), participated in the study. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews and reflective notes, using a digital platform. An inductive thematic analysis was carried out. This study was approved by the University Research Ethics Committee and followed the COREQ guidelines. The Guba and Lincoln criteria (credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability) were applied for quality control. Results Families' relationships with nurses before the first wave relied on closeness and involvement in care. Families had difficulty maintaining a close relationship with nurses due to turnover and lack of time. The nursing care applied in the first wave resulted in limited family access to the nursing home, limited contact time with residents, and limited close physical contact. Conclusions The first outbreak has affected the relationships among relatives and nurses in nursing homes. Changes should be made in the organization of care within nursing homes in order to adapt to restrictions due to the pandemic.


Objectives This paper reviews the current state of the published peer-reviewed literature related to return-to-work (RTW) interventions that incorporate work-related problem-solving skills for workers with sickness absences related to mental disorders. It addresses the question: What is the evidence for the effectiveness of these RTW interventions? Design Using a multiphase screening process, this systematic literature review was based on publically available peer-reviewed studies. Five electronic databases were searched: (1) Medline Current, (2) Medline In-process, (3) PsycINFO, (4) Econlit and (5) Web of Science. Setting The focus was on RTW interventions for workers with medically certified sickness absences related to mental disorders. Participants Workers with medically certified sickness absences related to mental disorders. Interventions RTW intervention included work-focused problem-solving skills. Primary and secondary outcome measures RTW rates and length of sickness absences. Results There were 4709 unique citations identified. Of these, eight articles representing a total of six studies were included in the review. In terms of bias avoidance, two of the six studies were rated as excellent, two as good and two as weak. Five studies were from the Netherlands; one was from Norway. There was variability among the studies with regard to RTW findings. Two of three studies reported significant differences in RTW rates between the intervention and control groups. One of six studies observed a significant difference in sickness absence duration between intervention and control groups. Conclusions There is limited evidence that combinations of interventions that include work-related problem-solving skills are effective in RTW outcomes. The evidence could be strengthened if future studies included more detailed examinations of intervention adherence and changes in problem-solving skills. Future studies should also examine the long-term effects of problem-solving skills on sickness absence recurrence and work productivity.


The purpose of this study was to examine how the prognosis of patients who presented with a recent ischemic event referable to a 70% to 99% stenosis of one carotid artery (ipsilateral) was altered by stenosis and occlusion of the contralateral carotid artery. The benefit of performing carotid endarterectomy on the recently symptomatic artery, in the presence of contralateral artery disease, was also examined. A total of 659 patients were grouped into one of three categories according to the extent of stenosis in the contralateral carotid artery: less than 70% (559 patients), 70% to 99% (57 patients), and occlusion (43 patients). Strokes that occurred during the follow-up period were designated as ipsilateral if they arose from the same carotid artery as the symptom for which the patient had been entered into the study. Medically treated patients with an occluded contralateral artery were more than twice as likely to have had an ipsilateral stroke at 2 years than patients with either severe (hazard ratio: 2.36; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.00-5.62) or mild-to-moderate (hazard ratio: 2.65; 95% CI: 1.43-4.90) contralateral artery stenosis. The perioperative risk of stroke and death was higher in patients with an occluded contralateral artery (4.0% risk) or mild-to-moderate (5.1% risk) contralateral stenosis. Regression analyses indicated that the results were not affected by other risk factors. An occluded contralateral carotid artery significantly increased the risk of stroke associated with a severely stenosed ipsilateral carotid artery. Despite higher perioperative morbidity in the presence of an occluded contralateral artery, the longer-term outlook for patients who had endarterectomy performed on the recently symptomatic, severely stenosed ipsilateral carotid artery was considerably better than for medically treated patients.


This book focuses on the rules-based multilateral trading system established by the World Trade Organization, with particular emphasis given to the rich and detailed jurisprudence developed by the WTO's Appellate Body. After introductory chapters on international economics, international law, and US and EU constitutional and institutional issues relating to international trade regulation, the book explores the WTO's structure and takes a detailed look at its dispute settlement system. The heart of the book then treats the basic GATT rules on (i) trade liberalization (tariffs and quotas), (ii) non-discrimination (MFN and national treatment and the exceptions for FTAs, health and conservation), (iii) standards and (iv) trade remedies (safeguards, dumping and subsidies). Additional chapters cover trade in services, intellectual property issues, investment issues and several other trade-related issues. The new 6th edition offers a basic understanding of the international economic syste


The central focus of this study was to examine how individual difference factors could be used to explain various levels of consumer support for a specific sport property. The present study extends the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) in order to enhance current understanding of consumer motives in relation to sport in general and women's competitive sport in particular. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the 54-item Sport Interest Inventory, measuring 14 individual difference factors related to spectator interest in soccer. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that five motivational characteristics?a) sport interest, (b) team interest, (c) vicarious achievement, (d) role modeling, and (e) entertainment value—explained 54% of variance in level of spectator support for women's professional soccer. These results suggest that augmenting traditional spectator measures offers a better understanding of motivational characteristics in different sport situations and of the impact these motivations have on behavior. Implications for marketers of women's professional sports and of sports in general are discussed.


Abstract CP (Cetylpyridinium)-exchanged smectite was manufactured by the cationic exchange reaction of Na-smectite with CP. The adsorption behaviour shows a typical L-type isotherm representing continuous and stable adsorption in excess of twice the cation exchange capacity of CP. CP-smectite shows a strong interlayer (d001) expansion to 40.2 Å when an amount of CP equivalent to 140% of the CEC is exchanged into smectite. CP-smectite is characterized by strong alkalinity (pH 9.3), low swelling (4.5 ml/2 g), low viscosity (3.9 mPa s), and strong and fast flocculation. These characteristics are in striking contrast to Na-smectite except for the alkalinity. CP-smectite shows no signs of desorption of the organic species under varying pH conditions (pH 2−12). Desorption is slight even when washed three times with DH2O (distilled water). Pyrolysis of CP-smectite begins at 250°C and ends at 400°C. These stable and persistent characteristics and the relatively low price of CP point to the likely increased use of CP-smectite as an organoclay.


This experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of polyamines on growth, flowering and corm production of 'Golden Wave' and 'Blue Sea' cultivars of freesia. For this purpose, freesia plants were sprayed at 35, 70 and 100 days after planting with concentrations of 0.5 and 1 mM of putrescine, spermidine and spermine and distilled water (control). The factorial experiment was performed in a completely randomized design with 3 replications and 2 pots for each replicate. Results showed that spermine treatment delayed flowering time. But spermidine treatment accelerated flowering and also increased leaf length, flowering stem height, inflorescence height, diameter and length of florets and number of lateral stems in both cultivars. Maximum number of corms was obtained in spermidine treatment. But, plants treated with putrescine had more corm weight and diameter than other treatments and control. Polyamines increased leaves nutrient concentration. The highest nitrogen concentration (2.39 and 2.37 percent) was observed in putrescine and spermine treatments and the highest concentration of phosphorus (0.47 and 0.46 percent), potassium (3.1 and 3.03 percent) and zinc (51.31 and 50.3 mg/L) was obtained in spermidine and putrescine treatments. Almost all polyamines increased magnesium concentration of leaves. The results of this study revealed that polyamines, and especially spermidine and putrescine, could increase yield and improved quality of flower and corm of freesia.


The New Horizons Regional Education Center (NHREC) in Hampton, VA sought and received NASA funding to support its participation in the 1999 FIRST Robotics competition. FIRST, Inc. (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization which encourages the application of creative science, math, and computer science principles to solve real-world engineering problems. The FIRST competition is an international engineering contest featuring high school, government, and business partnerships.


Cellular redox changes have emerged as a pivotal and proximal event in cancer. PKI 166 is used to determine the effects of redox sensitive inhibition of EGFR, metastasis and apoptosis in epidermoid carcinoma. Cytotoxicity study of PKI 166 (IC50 1.0 microM) treated A431 cells were performed by MTT assay for 48 and 72 hrs. Morphological analysis of PKI 166 treated A431 cells for 48 hrs. revealed the cell shrinkage, loss of filopodia and lamellipodia by phase contrast and SEM images in dose dependent manner. It has cytotoxic effects through inhibiting cellular proliferation, leads to the induction of apoptosis, as increased fraction of sub-G1 phase of the cell cycle, chromatin condensation and DNA ladder. It inhibited cyclin-D1 and cyclin-E expression and induced p53, p21 expression in dose dependent manner. Consequently, an imbalance of Bax/Bcl-2 ratio triggered caspase cascade and subsequent cleavage of PARP, thereby shifting the balance in favour of apoptosis. PKI 166 treatment actively stimulated reactive oxygen species (ROS) and mitochondrial membrane depolarization. It inhibited some metastatic properties of A431 cells supressing colony formation by soft agar assay and inhibition of MMP 9 activity by gelatin zymography and western blot analysis. PKI 166 inhibited growth factor induced phosphorylation of EGFR, Akt, MAPK, JNK and colony formation in A431 cells. Thus the inhibition of proliferation was associated with redox regulation of the caspase cascade, EGFR, Akt/PI3K, MAPK/ ERK and JNK pathway. On the other hand, increased antioxidant activity leads to decreased ROS generation inhibit the anti-proliferative and apoptotic properties of PKI 166 in A431 cells. These observations indicated PKI 166 induced redox signalling dependent inhibition of cell proliferation, metastatic properties and induction of apoptotic potential in epidermoid carcinoma.


We need large digital archives to preserve scholarly content for generations to come, and we need them now. Deciding who should do the archiving, what to archive, where in the scholarly community archiving should be undertaken, and how to do it successfully, is starting to come into focus. A brief review of the scholarly digital archiving efforts underway reveals some commonality of intent. This can be contrasted with a clear need for decisions regarding the scope of what should be digitally archived and, ultimately, how archives in their many forms might be best constructed. While exploring how we might archive digital material, we can turn our attention to which critical success factors to consider in adopting any archiving solution. These factors include their governance (community), economic stability, technical soundness, their community acceptability, and ease of use. Several current solutions are examined within this framework.


Indonesia has potential hydro energy around 70000 MW which has been used around 6% (3529 MW). One of the development constraint is the stream velocity in Indonesian rivers is relative low. It causes bigger turbine dimension needed to achieve power which is desired.  An alternative is to utilize adiffuser, which is a device that could accelerate the fluid flow in order to give more energy to the turbine. Based on contiunity equation, diffuser can increase velocity by ratio of cross-section area. It can be  used to achieve expected power as long as it is not too much reduce the pressure. This research is conducted in 0.566 m/s of water velocity with Darrieus turbine with hydrofoil NACA 0018, height 0.74 m, radius 0.17 m, chord 0.11 m and 3 number of blades. The performance (Cp) was determined by numerical and experimental without and with diffuser NACA 11414 2.5R for variation of angle 8o, 16o, and 20o. Both of those result showed that the best performance of NACA 11414 2,5R is on angle 16o which numerically has stream velocity 0,91 m/s of water and 7 times of Cp, while experimentally has 0,891 m/s of water velocity and 3,16 times of Cp. This diffuser could improve the power generated by the turbine and increase the turbine efficiency.


Background: Over the past decade, following the discovery that developing brain of immature animals was affected by anesthetic agents, the safety of general anesthesia (GA) in early life has been questioned. Objectives: We investigated the association between anesthesia exposure in children and ADHD development. Methods: This case-control study was conducted at pediatric psychology clinic of our institution and a pediatric neurology private clinic during 2019. Firstly the responsible resident of anesthesiology separated new ADHD cases. Then a questionnaire was filled out through an almost 10 minute's telephone interview. Finally, frequency distribution of GA was compared between ADHD cases and controls. Results: Finally, the data from 210 children were analyzed. Among 105 ADHD cases, 19% had a history of a procedure requiring GA while it was 3.8% in control group. Comparing the two groups a significant difference was observed regarding the age of receiving GA (P = 0.004), gender (P < 0.001), the history of receiving GA (P = 0.001) and the number of anesthesia exposures (P = 0.001). According to logistic regression analysis, male gender (P = 0.001) OR 3.11 (95CI = 1.63 - 5.93) and age (P = 0.003) OR 0.92 (95CI = 0.87 - 0.97) were significant predictors of early exposure to GA and ADHD development. Conclusions: It was revealed that early exposure to GA might be a risk factor for later developing ADHD. Boys might be more sensitive to the long term adverse effects of anesthetic agents than girls. Further prospective well-planned studies are needed to confirm these findings.


A naturally occurring fatty acid-requiring Butyrivibrio sp. (strain S2), isolated from the ovine rumen, deacylates plant galactolipids, phospholipids and sulpholipids to obtain sufficient fatty acid for growth. Growth in vitro was promoted by adding to the growth medium a single straight-chain saturated fatty acid (C13 to C18) or vaccenic acid. Palmitoleic and oleic acids also supported growth but gave lengthy lag phases probably due to their toxicity. Linolenic and linoleic acids supported good growth but they were completely hydrogenated to trans-11-octadecenoic acid which was incorporated into the bacterial complex lipids. No chain elongation, chain shortening or desaturation of the added fatty acids occurred and all were substantially incorporated into bacterial lipids of the plasmalogen type, partially as a new type of hydrophobic grouping derived from two molecules of fatty acid. The absence of fatty acid unsaturation poses the question of the maintenance of membrane fluidity within this bacterium.


The previous CEA corrosion code COCHISE provided satisfactory simulations of in-reactor corrosion of the fuel cladding when used in its validity range. In contrast, it could lead to hazardous predictions if applied out of this range due to the strongly linked parameters mainly based on the analysis of French pressurized water reactor (PWR) data. To predict the oxidation kinetics for new operating conditions or new materials, the CEA and EDF decided to develop a new model, named CORCY, which is based on a more phenomenological approach and uses separate parameters deduced from analytical experiments. The aim of this paper is to present the new model for Zircaloy-4 in PWR. The phenomenological approach is described. It is based on out- and in-pile data. Typically, since (1) the oxidation kinetics of zirconium alloys in autoclave are periodic, and (2) the oxide films formed in autoclave, in out-of-pile loop, and in-reactor all exhibit periodic lateral cracks with a period similar to the oxide thickness to transition, the oxidation kinetics in CORCY are characterized by a cyclic repetition of semi-parabolic law. Each model parameter is detailed. They are deduced separately from (a) oxidation tests performed in autoclave on fresh alloys to determine their kinetics; (b) oxidation tests performed in the out-of-pile corrosion loops Corail and Reggae to quantify the effects of thermo-hydraulic conditions; (c) data provided by Testing Material Reactors (OSIRIS and Halden reactor) during isothermal oxidation to determine the effects of irradiation; and (d) oxidation tests performed on pre-hydrided alloys to take into account the accelerated corrosion phase occurring, in reactor, for Zircaloy-4 at high burn-up. After describing both the phenomenological approach and the different model parameters, a comparison of measured and calculated corrosion data from French PWRs at a burn-up up to 65 GWd/tU is provided.