Background Area-level measures of material deprivation are important for understanding health inequalities and used by governments to target funding to the most disadvantaged communities. The effectiveness of a measure in achieving these goals depends on how well it reflects actual deprivation and on its validity for any particular social group. We compare health inequalities using common small-area deprivation measures for all ages and for specific age groups to those using a new score. Methods Deprivation is measured using the Carstairs score and its components (male unemployment, overcrowding, no car ownership and low social class), the income domain of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, and a new score comprising employment, educational qualifications, socioeconomic classification (NS-SeC) and social renting. We use datazone (average population 800) level data from the 2001 and 2011 Scottish censuses for deprivation variables and self-reported health (evaluations of general health and presence of long-term illness). Age-standardised mortality rates (ASMR) are calculated for 2000–2002 and 2010–2012, and the health measures for the census years using the 2013 European Standard Population. We assess the relationship between self-reported health and individual components of the deprivation scores using correlation coefficients. Mortality rates are calculated for population-weighted deprivation quintiles for all ages and for different age groups. We then compare the relative index of inequality (RII) for different ages and deprivation measures. Results The different measures of deprivation are significantly associated with self-reported health for all ages, but correlation coefficients vary substantially. For most components of deprivation the correlation coefficients with long-term health problems and bad general health range from 0.75–0.85. But for overcrowding the coefficients were respectively 0.67 and 0.68 in 2001 and 0.53 and 0.55 in 2011. The RII for ASMR across all ages and for older age groups (50–54 and older) are fairly similar for the different deprivation measures, but substantial differences in RII are evident at younger ages. In 2001 the RII for men aged 20–24 is 0.59 (95% CI 0.32–0.89) when using no car ownership, while with no qualifications as the deprivation measure it is 1.84 (CI 1.58–2.09). Conclusion Across all ages the different deprivation measures mostly give very similar results, but substantial variation exists for younger age groups. Disagreements in RII for all cause mortality are large among those aged 20–24, meaning that some conventional measures (no car ownership) may significantly underestimate inequalities in health. The new area-based deprivation measure captures health inequalities among younger people more effectively.


Hyperuricemia (high levels of uric acid in the blood) can cause a buildup of monosodium urate crystals. Sudden increase may lead to gout attacks. Consumption of an unbalanced diet, intake of proteins containing high purine is one of the factors that affect gout arthritis. Based on data from medical records at the hospital Mohamad Palembang Hoesin and increase in the number of visits patients with gout, the cumulative incidence of gout reached 22 % after 5 years, the uric acid levels > 9 mg / dL. One of the efforts to help clients change behavior and accelerate the healing process that nutritional counseling is conducted face to face using leaflets media. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of low-purine diet counseling against uric acid levels in gout patients who were treated at the Hospital dr. AK Gani Palembang. Is a quasi-experimental study design, this study indicated that nutrition counseling with low-purine diet will help to change the behavior of people with gout in the diet to accelerate the reduction in uric acid levels. The average reduction in uric acid levels after being given a lowpurine diet counseling that is equal to 1.6 mg/dL and concluded that giving low-purine diet counseling are effective in lowering uric acid levels in patients with gout. Based on these results, low-purine diet counseling should be offered to patients with gout in an effort to motivate behavior change and reduction in uric acid levels. Nutrition counseling with Low-purine diet in patients with gout can change the eating habits of patients who eventually decreased the levels of uric acid.


The qualitative characterization of individual performance that is central to modern psychological theory is not adequately modeled by traditional psychometric theory that assumes, among other things, unidimensionality. In the present study, data are presented that are more adequately modeled by HYBRID, a model that incorporates both latent trait and latent class components. The latent classes were defined by a cognitive analysis of the understanding that individuals have for a circumscribed domain. In addition to providing a better statistical fit, the analysis also improves the amount of diagnostic information available for a given individual.


Underground coal mines emitting large quantities of methane to atmosphere is one of the sources of methane. Approximately 70% of the methane emitted from coal mines is released as the ventilation air methane (VAM). Unfortunately, due to the low methane concentration in ventilation air, its effective utilization is considerably low. However, the global warming potential of methane can be reduced up to 95% by oxidizing the methane. Energy recovery may be possible as the products of oxidization. In this work, the existing and developing methods, based on the oxidation of methane, are introduced with a discussion of the features of the methods of the mitigation and utilization of VAM. The main operational parameters of the methods such as combustion method, technical feasibility and engineering applicability were also discussed.


The study of professional identities in health and social care (H&SC) was last prominent in the 1980s, with social theorists and policymakers taking an interest the way in which identities and roles were formed. This thesis proposes that the study of professional identity in H&SC requires renewed attention, especially in the context of expectations that students will both train and work across professional boundaries. Specifically, the thesis questions whether experiences of interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice have any impact on perceptions of professional identity for those working in H&SC, and examines how socialisation processes influence the development of 'professional identities' as well as considering the implications for patient care. A case study of a large-scale interprofessional programme – the ALPS CETL – is also drawn upon to examine the long-term impact of IPE initiatives on the identities and roles of staff involved in interprofessional initiatives.
The empirical elements of this study consisted of surveys of practicing (n=288) and academic (n=31) staff, and interviews with participants drawn from the same groups (n=33). Drawing upon both thematic and narrative analysis of the data, the thesis argues that previous conceptualisations of professional identity aligned to a 'whole' profession do not relate to the way in which H&SC professionals actually perceive their identities. As respondents were far more likely to identify as being part of a branch or sub-group of a profession, it is proposed here that the concept of an 'intra-professional identity' is a more useful way to conceptualise the identity of H&SC professionals. More 'senior' professionals appeared to be more comfortable with their own professional identity, and with working across professional boundaries, than junior colleagues. This has implications for the way in which IPE is 'taught'. Finally, in order to address identified tensions between professional identities and cross-professional working, it is proposed that the concept of 'interprofessional responsibility' can and should be incorporated into the professional identities of all H&SC staff.


This case study examines household vulnerability and responses in relation to flooding in Udayapur district, Nepal. It describes how communities in this region deal with flooding and asks to what extent their preventive, coping, and adaptation measures have been successful in avoiding loss and damage. A 300-household survey, along with open interviews and focus group discussions, revealed a wide range of strategies that families adopt in relation to flooding. In situ measures - such as the construction of sand embankments, stonewalls, and bamboo fences - are frequently used measures to control floods and prevent impacts. The most common coping strategies in Udayapur district are outmigration for labour and reliance on non-food income, social networks, and external support. The results show that despite high adoption rates, for a majority of the households, preventive and adaptation measures are often not enough to avoid loss and damage.


Continuous and batch tests were conducted to evaluate fermentative biohydrogen production from starch wastewater via a mesophillic up-flow anaerobic staged reactor (UASR). The effects of organic loading rate (OLR) and food to micro-organisms ratio (F/M) on hydrogen yield (HY) and hydrogen production rate (HPR) were investigated. The bioreactor was continuously operated at a constant hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 6.7 h. The optimal OLR and F/M ratios were 54 g-COD/L.d and 1.4 g-COD/g-VSS.d, respectively. The maximum HY and HPR were 1.87 mol-H2/mol-glucose and 246 mmol-H2/L.d, respectively. Batch experimental results indicated that the optimal initial cultivation pH ranged from 5.5 to 6.5 with a hydrogen potential (P) of 1435-1420 mL-H2, while the initial substrate concentration of 20 g-starch/L showed a maximum HPR (Rm) of 300 mL-H2/h. Zero, 1st and 2nd order kinetic studies were used to develop a model of the experimental data. The 2nd order model adequately fitted with the experimental results (R2>0.97) better than those for a zero- or a 1st order kinetic reaction.


Differences between the conformations of the ligand-bound and unbound forms of proteins provide clues on deciphering residues that have a direct effect on binding mechanisms. Using molecular dynamic (MD) simulations as a basis, conformational changes that take place on time scales much slower than those accessible by MD may be investigated by supplementary methods such as perturbation response scanning (PRS). Since proteins are complex macromolecules, to sample their conformational energy landscapes we applied both global and local perturbations in different combinations. Global perturbations are related with environmental changes such as (i) different values of ionization strength of the solution which mimic the various salt environments experienced by the protein in vivo, (ii) or protonation of a group of residues to mimic a different pH environment. Local perturbations are related to specific point perturbations on protein such as, (i) protonation or (ii) mutation of a single residue to locate the points that controls a conformational change in proteins. In this work, the apo and holo (Fe3+ bound) forms of the periplasmic ferric binding protein systems (hFBP) of the gram negative bacteria haemophilus influenzae was selected as the model system. PRS studies showed us that D52 and D47 residues are the ones that give the highest value for the fractional contribution of the eigenvalue of the response matrix. Therewithal, using pKa calculations, a particular charged residue (D52) (out of a total of 98) was found to be the most sensitive to subtle pH variations in the physiological range. The effect of single point protonation (D52+) and mutation (D52A) is investigated via a series of MD simulations. The effect of IS (0.15 mM and ~0 mM) and pH (5 and 7.4 ) change is also studied to monitor the conformations sampled. For apo FBP, the kinetics of synergistic anion binding and release was monitored and was consistently manipulated by varying these conditions, while no apparent conformational change was observed in the protein. For holo FBP, protonated and Ala mutants of D52 consistently trigger opening of the iron binding site in an ensemble of simulations, while elevated IS consistently traps the closed forms. We categorized our series of MD trajectories as open, partially open, and closed due to coordination level and mapping of iron ion inside the active site. Our results lend clues as to how the environment versus single residue perturbations may be utilized for regulation of binding modes in hFBP systems.


The significance of coherently scattered radiation in radiographic imaging is investigated using the Monte Carlo simulation technique. Recent data on the form factor of liquid water, which takes into account intermolecular interference effects, have been used for the calculation of the coherent differential cross section. The spatial distribution of scattered radiation in the detection plane was calculated separately for coherent and incoherent single and multiple scattering. In the pencil beam geometry, it is found that coherent scattering leaving the object, (a) is almost exclusively single scattering, (b) is concentrated near but not exactly at the transmitted primary beam and (c) dominates over multiple incoherent scattering in this region even for thick objects and polyenergetic radiation. Some consequences concerning the performance of grids, the choice of phantom materials and a new imaging method are given.


Bed bugs pose a nontrivial threat to the hospitality industry. Hotels often engage in reactive practices to protect their business from further economic loss due to bed bugs although proactive measures, such as housekeeping inspection, professional inspections, and mattress encasements, may be more appealing to travelers and cost-effective. Using data collected from a national survey of US travelers, this study shows that travelers have the highest willingness to pay for mattress encasements and professional inspections. Although this premium varies considerably based on traveler characteristics and attitudes, and not all of them prefer to know about the practices, a large proportion of travelers have positive willingness to pay for these proactive practices. Overall, for leisure traveling, individuals who have business travel experiences for the previous year are willing to pay significantly higher than those who have never traveled for business in the previous year.


AIM
to know the prevalence of liver steatosis in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients and evaluate whether its presence was associated with a more progressive disease.

METHODS
a cross-sectional study was conducted in Cipto Mangunkusumo and Medistra Hospitals, Jakarta on CHB patients between 2007 and 2009. Data on patients' demography, anthropometry, liver function test and hepatitis B serology were collected. Hepatic steatosis was assessed by liver biopsy and graded as mild (<33%), moderate (33-66%) or severe (>66%). Fibrosis stage and necroinflammatory activity were assessed according to the METAVIR system.

RESULTS
one-hundred and seventy four patients were enrolled; 99 (56.9%) among them were men. Patients' mean age was 39.9 ± 10.69 years. About 56% of cases were HBeAg negative. The prevalence of liver steatosis was 29.9%. Patients with liver steatosis had significantly higher body mass index (25.1 ± 3.3 vs. 22.7 ± 3.33 kg/m2, p<0.001) and waist circumference (88.3 vs. 79.0 cm; p<0.001). No association between liver steatosis and HBeAg status (p=0.736). There were no differences of log HBV-DNA levels (5.72 ± 1.993 vs. 6.07 ± 2.077; p=0.675) and liver stiffness (8.3 ± 6.28 vs. 9.5 ± 10.18 kPa) between patients with and without liver steatosis. The presence of significant fibrosis (61.5% vs. 69.7%; p=0.295) and necroinflammation (63.5% vs. 65.6%; p=0.789) was not differed between patients with and without liver steatosis.

CONCLUSION
liver steatosis was found in 30% of chronic hepatitis B patients. Its presence was mostly associated with central obesity. Unlike chronic hepatitis C, liver steatosis in chronic hepatitis B was not related to a more progressive disease.


INTRODUCTION
Several studies assessed the influence of a low birth weight on bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), but not all could find a significant association. Our aim was to assess the association between low birth weight and BPD in preterm infants, prospectively recruited at 11 level III Portuguese neonatal centers.

METHODS
Obstetrical and neonatal data on mothers and preterm infants with gestational ages between 24 and 30 weeks, born during 2015 and 2016 after a surveilled pregnancy, were analyzed. Neonates were considered small for gestational age (SGA) when their birthweight was below the 10th centile of Fenton's growth chats and BPD was defined as the dependency for oxygen therapy until 36 weeks of corrected age. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS ® statistics 23 and a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS
Out of 614, a total of 494 preterm infants delivered from 410 women were enrolled in the study; 40 (8.0% ) infants with SGA criteria. SGA were more often associated with a single pregnancy, had greater use of antenatal corticosteroids, increased prevalence of gestational hypertensive disorders, C-section, rupture of membranes below 18 hours, rate of intubation in the delivery room, use of surfactant treatment, oxygen therapy, mechanical ventilation need, BPD, cystic periventricular leukomalacia, nosocomial sepsis and pneumonia; had lower prevalence of chorioamnionitis, and lower Apgar scores. The multivariate analysis by logistic regression, adjusted for BPD risk factors revealed a significant association between SGA and BPD: OR = 5.2 [CI: 1.46-18.58]; p = 0.01.

CONCLUSION
The results of this study increase the scientific evidence that SGA is an independent risk factor for BPD.


Helicobacter pylori treatment is becoming a challenge in light of increasing antimicrobial resistance and falling eradication rates. This is a cause for concern based on the complications of H. pylori infection, which include gastric and peptic ulcers, gastric cancer, and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. This review discusses recent data assessing the current treatment options for H. pylori infection and the importance of considering the prevalence of antibiotic resistance at a regional level when choosing an appropriate therapy. Alternatives to the standard first-line treatment, such as bismuth and non-bismuth quadruple therapies, are outlined and rescue therapies involving levofloxacin and rifabutin are also reviewed.


Selected samples of healthy people (804 males, 796 non-pregnant females and 400 pregnant women) were questioned about present and previous urinary symptoms. Mid-stream specimens of urine were cultured quantitatively. Symptoms in the males occurred more frequently in the presence of ;significant bacteriuria', but the numbers were too small to allow statistical analysis. Among the non-pregnant females frequency or burning micturition was found more frequently in those who had significant bacteriuria than in those whose urinary bacterial counts were low; for nocturia this difference was statistically significant (p <0.001).Of the pregnant women, comparison of those who had significant bacteriuria with those whose urine was normal showed that diurnal and nocturnal frequency, and loin pain, occurred more frequently in those with significant bacteriuria (for each of these symptoms p <0.0.1).These results suggest that the recent onset of nocturia is the most reliable symptom of urinary tract infection. There remain, however, many people with urinary symptoms and with low urinary bacterial counts in whom other causes for the symptoms should be sought.


The use of a constrained hidden Markov model for the segmentation of syllables and syllable classes in continuous speech is described. The implementation involves a combination of phonological knowledge, speaker-adaptable features, vector quantization, and a hidden Markov modeling technique. Syllable classes are represented as hidden Markov model states, and phonotactic constraints are used to define state connections. A robust observation sequence is obtained from the decision planes of two single-layer neural networks, which are used to make voiced/unvoiced and (syllabic) nucleus/nonnucleus classifications, respectively. Speaker-independent tests, conducted on a broadcast quality database, revealed a syllable class recognition rate of 96.5% and a detection rate of 97.1% for syllables.<<ETX>>


Modern containerized distributed systems, such as big data storage and processing stacks or micro-service based applications, are inherently hard to monitor and optimize, as resource usage does not directly match hardware resources due to multiple virtualization layers. For instance, interapplication traffic is an important factor in as it directly indicates how components interact, it has not been possible to accurately monitor it in an application independent way and without severe overhead, thus putting it out of reach of cloud platforms. In this paper we present an efficient black-box monitoring approach for gathering detailed structural information of collaborating processes in a distributed system that can be queried for various purposes, as it includes both information about processes, containers, and hosts, as well as resource usage and amount of data exchanged. The key to achieving high detail and low overhead without custom application instrumentation is to use a kernel-aided event driven strategy. We validate a prototype implementation by applying it to multi-platform microservice deployments, evaluate its performance with micro-benchmarks, and demonstrate its usefulness for container placement in a distributed data storage and processing stack (i.e., Cassandra and Spark).


In animal models, immunity to cryptococcal infection, as in many chronic fungal and bacterial infections, is associated with a granulomatous inflammatory response, intact cell-mediated immunity, and a Th1 pattern of cytokine release. To examine the correlates of human immunity to cryptococcal infection in vivo, we analyzed immune parameters at the site of infection over time and assessed the rate of clearance of infection by serial quantitative cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) fungal cultures in 62 patients in a trial of antifungal therapy for HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis. CSF IL-6, IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-8 were significantly higher in survivors compared with nonsurvivors. There were negative correlations between log TNF-α, IFN-γ, and IL-6 levels and baseline cryptococcal CFU. Log IFN-γ, G-CSF, TNF-α, and IL-6 were correlated positively with the rate of fall in log CFU/ml CSF/day. In a linear regression model including antifungal treatment group, baseline CFU, and these cytokines, only treatment group and log IFN-γ remained independently associated with rate of clearance of infection. The results provide direct in vivo evidence for the importance of quantitative differences in IFN-γ secretion in human immune control of granulomatous infections, and increase the rationale for adjunctive IFN-γ in the treatment of refractory HIV-associated cryptococcosis.


A spot-test of cooling after the finish-rolling was performed for the typical H-beam and the temperature field during the process and residual stress in the beams after the cooling were measured. By using finite element method, the cooling temperature-field of the H700×300 H-beam was simulated and the thermal stress distribution formed in this process was calculated by using thermo-mechanical coupling function. The simulation results matched well with the data obtained on the spot. The accurate description performed in this paper for the temperature field and residual stress distribution of H-beam during cooling process is especially helpful to the manufacture plant. According to the results the reasonable technical parameters can be constituted to control the temperature of the beam in the cooling process and reduce the residual stress in the final product.


Sexual precocity, evidence of secondary sexual characteristics before the age of 9 years in boys and 8 years in girls, can be distressing for families and challenging for primary care physicians. In this article, I discuss the most common causes of early sexual development and provide an algorithm for the initial evaluation of such children. The information presented here is not intended to be a complete guide to the diagnosis of disorders resulting in sexual precocity, but rather is designed to aid in the initial evaluation and facilitate the identification of those children who would benefit from referral to a pediatric endocrinologist.


A review of the literature published in 2011 on topics relating to wastewater treatment innovations in the areas of modeling, instrumentation, automation and optimization of wastewater treatment is presented.


Abstract Electrospun materials are good candidates for the design of tissue regeneration scaffolds as they can simulate the natural surroundings of tissue cells. The study proposes electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL)/cefuroxime (CFU) scaffolds for human cell culture and investigates the influence of the antibiotic content on scaffold morphology, thermal and mechanical properties. The increase in the CFU concentration resulted in the reduction of fiber diameter and number of deformations. It also influenced the reduction of scaffold thermal enthalpies and improved scaffold break strength. With regard to cell growth, the scaffolds showed precedence in greater colonization of the HeLa cells. Finally, these scaffolds showed compatibility with standard human cell lines, and thus they can be used for the repair of damaged tissues.


Tropical regions in developing countries are thought to be significant sources of organochlorine pesticides in the global context, owing to high rate of use and only a recent production ban or restriction on application of these pesticides. In the present paper, DDT and HCH in eight 210Pb-dated sedimentary cores from the Pearl River Delta, South China, were analyzed in order to reconstruct the time trends of these persistent organic pollutants in this tropical region. The sedimentary inventories of sigmaDDT and sigmaHCH through the cores ranged from 36.6 to 1109.5 ng/cm2 and from 11.2 to 226.3 ng/cm2, respectively, and their spatial distribution implies that the water flows from the Humen, Jiaomen, Hongqili, and Hengmen outlets rather than the Xijiang flow from Modaomen outlet, supplied the major historical input of DDT to the estuary. Although a production ban of technical HCH and DDT was imposed in China in 1983, their sedimentary fluxes display increasing trends or strong rebounds in the 1990s as recorded in the core profiles, characteristic of the increasing ratios of (DDE + DDD)/DDT and DDE/DDT. It is suggested that an enhanced land soil runoff in the process of large-scale land transform, as well as a higher river water flow in early 1990s, had mobilized these pesticides from soil to the sedimentary system in the region.


In this paper we present a new method for nonlinear compensation of mismatches, e.g. additive noise, on clean and noisy speech recognition. We were inspired by the human recognition system in development and implementation of a new Bidirectional Neural Network (BNN). This procedure, results in improvement of input features and consequently increasing the overall recognition accuracy. The feedforward weights of this network are trained using both clean and noisy speech features. The results demonstrate significant improvements in clean and especially noisy speech recognition accuracy compared to reference model trained on unimproved features.


In an attempt to prove whether beta-endorphin diurnal rhythm existed in neonates, 17 infants with a mean (+/- SD) gestational age of 31.7 +/- 4.8 weeks and a birth weight of 1,790 +/- 898 g were studied at a mean postnatal age of 3.3 +/- 0.5 days. Plasma samples were obtained from a pre-existing umbilical arterial line at 09.00 h, noon and 15.00 h. Mean plasma concentrations of beta-endorphin were 68.3 +/- 27.7, 54.5 +/- 13.7, and 45.1 +/- 10.8 pg/ml, respectively. Highly significant (p = 0.0002) variation of plasma beta-endorphin concentration was observed in these neonates suggesting the presence of a diurnal rhythm of beta-endorphin in neonates. It is important to specify the time of collection of blood samples for determination of opiates in neonates.


The proto-oncogene products c-Fos and c-Jun heterodimerize through their leucine zippers to form the AP-1 transcription factor. The transcriptional activity of the heterodimer is regulated by signal-dependent phosphorylation and dephosphorylation events. The stability of c-Fos was found to also be controlled by intracellular signal transduction. In transient expression and in vitro degradation experiments, the stability of c-Fos was decreased when the protein was dimerized with phosphorylated c-Jun. c-Jun protein isolated from phorbol ester-induced cells did not target c-Fos for degradation, which suggests that c-Fos is transiently stabilized after stimulation of cell growth. v-Fos protein, the retroviral counterpart of c-Fos, was not susceptible to degradation targeted by c-Jun.


Ocean circulation can govern relationships between physical, biogeochemical and ecological processes and determines the connectivity between regions. As such, a variety of oceanographic problems can be addressed using a Lagrangian modelling approach. This thesis utilises velocity output from a high resolution ocean general circulation model and a Lagrangian particle tracking programme to address three topics: the global-scale efficiency of regional geoengineering by iron fertilisation; the role of natural iron fertilisation in phytoplankton blooms; and the connectivity of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to upstream anthropogenic impacts. Artificial ocean iron fertilization (OIF) enhances phytoplankton productivity and is being explored as a means of sequestering anthropogenic carbon within the deep ocean for an extended period (e.g., the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's standard 100 year time horizon). This study assessed the impact of deep circulation on sequestered carbon in the Southern Ocean, a high-nutrient low-chlorophyll region known to be iron stressed. The Lagrangian particle tracking approach was employed to analyze water mass trajectories over a 100 year simulation. By the end of the experiment, for a sequestration depth of 1000 m, 66% of the carbon had been re-exposed to the atmosphere, taking an average of 37.8 years. These results emphasized that successful OIF is dependent on the physical circulation, as well as the biogeochemistry. Following on from the long-term impact of the wider Southern Ocean circulation, the local circulation around three Southern Ocean islands was considered. In exception to the typically High Nutrient, Low Chlorophyll conditions of the Southern Ocean, phytoplankton blooms occur annually downstream of the Kerguelen Plateau, Crozet Islands, and South Georgia, fertilized by iron-rich shelf waters. The Lagrangian particle tracking approach was used to investigate if advection could explain the inter-annual variability observed in the blooms in satellite ocean colour data. The results suggest that advection can explain the extent of each island's annual bloom, but only the inter-annual variability of the Crozet bloom, therefore suggesting that other factors, such as silicate limitation or the timing of mixed layer deepening, may also determine the inter-annual variability of the downstream blooms. Finally, the method was applied to assess the remoteness of four MPAs: Pitcairn, South Georgia, Ascension, and the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which were established to conserve important ecosystems. However, MPAs may be at risk of `upstream' human activity, such as marine pollution. Thus, improved understanding of exactly where upstream is, and on what timescale it is connected, is important for monitoring and future planning of MPAs. By reverse Lagrangian particle tracking, circulation `connectivity footprints' are produced for each MPA, revealing on annual timescales, that Pitcairn was not connected with land, whereas there was increasing connectivity for waters reaching South Georgia, Ascension, and BIOT. Such footprints are an inherent property of all MPAs, and need to be considered for all current and future MPAs.


In this paper, a novel approach to the problem of estimating the heavy-tail exponent α >; 0 of a distribution is proposed. It is based on the fact that block-maxima of size m scale at a rate m1/α for independent, as well as for a number of dependent data. This scaling rate can be captured well by the max-spectrum plot of the data that leads to regression based estimators for α. Consistency and asymptotic normality of these estimators is established for independent data under mild conditions on the behavior of the tail of the distribution. The proposed estimators have an important computational advantage over existing methods; namely, they can be calculated and updated sequentially in an on-line fashion without having to store the entire data set. Practical issues on the automatic selection of tuning parameters for the estimators and corresponding confidence intervals are also addressed. Extensive numerical simulations show that the proposed method is competitive for both small and large sample sizes, robust to contaminants and continues to work under the presence of substantial amount of dependence. The proposed estimators are used to illustrate the close connection between long-range dependence and heavy tails over an Internet traffic trace.


Clinical supervision has long been a hallmark of social work practice, but recent changes to the practice context has threatened its survival. The changing face of social services, brought on by the growing neoliberal ideology in North America, has led to a drastic change in social work practice, and to the availability of clinical supervision. How well is undergraduate social work education keeping pace with the CUlTent practice reality? This qualitative study involved an analysis of the introductory texts used at the schools of social work in Ontario, combined with interviews completed with five hospital social workers. The goal was to explore the notion of clinical supervision for social workers in hospitals, their cun·ent practice reality, and the message that is provided to new social workers through the introductory textbooks used in undergraduate programs. The text analysis revealed that the discourse of available supervision is deeply imbedded in the materials used in introductory social work courses, and helps to set up an expectation about supervision as being both necessary and available in social work practice. The interview participants discussed a very different practice reality. In hospitals where program management has occurred, there is no fOlmal clinical supervision available. These changes have led to feelings of isolation, regular use of infOlmal consultation, an increase in unpaid work, and fears about the surveillance aspect of supervision. The disconnect between the messaging available to students and the reality of social work practice in hospitals pointed to several important implications including: a need for hospitals to recognize the benefits of formal supervision; the suggestion to explore group supervision as an alternative; and a push for schools of social work to teach the reality of practice settings, and to continue to teach students to be self advocates for their own professional development.


Prevention and management of postoperative ocular inflammation with corticosteroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been evaluated in several randomised controlled trials (RCTs). However, neither consensus regarding the efficacies of different regimens nor established guidelines are currently available. This has resulted in different practice patterns throughout the world. A systematic literature review found that for the management of postcataract inflammation nepafenac produced a positive outcome in three of three RCTs (3/3), as did ketorolac (1/1), bromfenac (7/7), loteprednol (3/3) and difluprednate (6/6), but not flurbiprofen (0/1). A single study found that betamethasone produced inconclusive results after retinal detachment (RD) surgery; ketorolac was effective (1/1) after vitrectomy, but triamcinolone was ineffective (0/1) after trabeculectomy. A two-round Delphi survey asked 28 international experts to rate both the inflammatory potential of different eye surgeries and their agreement with different treatment protocols. They rated trabeculectomy, RD surgery and combined phacovitrectomy as more inflammatory than cataract surgery. Vitrectomies for macular hole or epiretinal membrane were not deemed more inflammatory than cataract surgery. For trabeculectomy, they preferred to treat longer than for cataract surgery (NSAID + corticosteroid three times a day for 2 months vs 1 month). For vitrectomy alone, RD surgery and combined phacovitrectomy, the panel preferred the same treatment as for cataract surgery (NSAID + corticosteroid three times a day for 1 month). The discrepancy between preferred treatment and perception of the eye's inflammatory status by the experts for RD and combined vitreoretinal surgeries highlights the need for RCTs to establish treatment guidelines.


We present a multi-dimensional indexing approach for fast sequence similarity search in DNA and protein databases. In particular, we propose effective transformations of subsequences into numerical vector domains and build efficient index structures on the transformed vectors. We then define distance functions in the transformed domain and examine properties of these functions. We experimentally compared their (a) approximation quality for k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) queries, (b) pruning ability and (c) approximation quality for E-range queries. Results for k-NN queries, which we present here, show that our proposed distances FD2 and WD2 (i.e. Frequency and Wavelet Distance functions for 2-grams) perform significantly better than the others. We then develop effective index structures, based on R-trees and scalar quantization, on top of transformed vectors and distance functions. Promising results from the experiments on real biosequence data sets are presented.


This paper presents a low-complexity algorithm and architecture to compute power spectral density (PSD) using the Welch method. The Welch algorithm provides a good estimate of the spectral power at the cost of high computational complexity. We propose a new modified approach to reduce the computational complexity of the Welch PSD computation for a 50% overlap. In the proposed approach, an N/2-point FFT is computed, where N is the length of the window and is merged with the FFT of the previous N/2-point to generate an N-point FFT of the overlapped segment. This requires replacing the windowing operation as a convolution in the frequency domain. Fortunately, the frequency-domain filtering requires a symmetric 3-tap or 5-tap FIR filter for raised cosine windows. The proposed method needs to compute ( L+1) N/2-point FFTs instead of L N-point FFTs, where L is the number of overlapping segments. In the proposed novel merged FFT approach, the even samples are computed exactly, while the odd samples require a shift by a half-sample delay and are estimated using a bidirectional fractional-delay filter. The complexity reduction comes at the cost of slight performance loss due to the approximation used for the implementation of the fractional-delay filter. The performance loss is about 8% using fractional-delay filter with 2 multipliers. A novel architecture is presented based on the proposed algorithm. The proposed architecture not only consumes 33% less energy compared to the original method but also reduces the latency by about 44% for 8 overlapping segments. Further a low-complexity architecture is presented to compute a special case of the short-time Fourier transform based on the proposed PSD computation algorithm.


We study the time evolution of the entropy of a collapsing charged spherical domain wall, from the point of view of an asymptotic observer, by investigating the entropy of the entire system (i.e. charged domain wall and radiation) and induced radiation alone during the collapse. By taking the difference, we find the entropy of the collapsing charged domain wall, since this is the object which will form a black hole. We find that for large values of time (times larger than $tf_-/R_+\approx8$), the entropy of the collapsing domain wall is a constant, which is of the same order as the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.


Abstract Longitudinal administration of neuropsychological instruments are often used to assess age-related changes in cognition. Informative loss to follow-up may bias the results of these studies. Herein, we use auxiliary data to adjust for informative loss to follow-up. In the Einstein Aging Study, memory was assessed annually in a community sample of adults age 70+, free of dementia at baseline, using the free recall from the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test, and via telephone using the Memory Impairment Screen for Telephone (the auxiliary data). Joint linear mixed models were used to assess how the effect of the APOE ε4 genotype may be affected by informative missingness in the in-person data. A total of 620 EAS participants contributed 2085 person years of follow-up to the analyses. Memory decline rates estimated in joint models were 19% greater in ε4 negative participants and 27% greater in ε4 positive participants compared to traditional approaches; the effect of APOE ε4 on memory decline was 37% greater. Joint modeling methods can help address bias caused by informative missing data in the estimation of the effect of risk factors on cognitive change, and may be applicable to a broader range of outcomes in longitudinal aging studies. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–6)


In this paper we show that a small amount of bit stream features can be used to accurately estimate the energy consumption of state-of-the-art software and hardware accelerated decoder implementations for four different video codecs. By testing the estimation performance on HEVC, H.264, H.263, and VP9 we show that the proposed model can be used for any hybrid video codec. We test our approach on a high amount of different test sequences to prove the general validity. We show that less than 20 features are sufficient to obtain mean estimation errors that are smaller than 8%. Finally, an example will show the performance trade-offs in terms of rate, distortion, and decoding energy for all tested codecs.


We carried out a review of the literature on Campylobacter pylori-associated gastritis and nonulcer dyspepsia (NUD) to determine whether or not symptoms related to these conditions can be measured reliably and whether or not any study to date has shown that treatment alters symptoms. Search strategies consisted of online Medline searching, a forward search of three articles using the Science Citation Index, a manual search of five gastroenterological journals, and a fully recursive search of cited references. Inclusion and quality criteria were applied to all retrieved studies. Nine of 23 studies did not fulfill the inclusion criteria. Of the 14 studies analyzed, two measured symptoms reliably. Neither showed a therapeutic benefit on symptoms. The difficulties encountered in conducting such studies and the methods of recording symptoms reliably are discussed. We conclude that to date, no treatment is of proven benefit in the relief of symptoms associated with C. pylori gastritis and NUD.


Thresholds for profile detection using 3‐component complexes were measured at different frequency regions. The frequency ratio of adjacent components was fixed at 1.37. In the standard spectrum, all components were equal in level. In the standard‐plus‐signal spectrum, the center component was increased in level. The overall level of the standard was randomly selected from the range 45–65 dB SPL on each presentation. Thresholds were estimated using a maximum‐likelihood procedure in a two‐alternative, forced‐choice task. The center frequency of the complex was varied from 250 to 4000 Hz. The results from three observers show that as the center frequency of the complex increases it is more difficult to detect the signal−the threshold at 4000 Hz was nearly 20 dB above that at 250 Hz. Possible explanation for these results are discussed. [Research supported by NIH and AFOSR.]


Adults communicate using a variety of nonverbal behaviors, but not all of these behaviors are commonly used by children. When do children transition to using nonverbal means to communicate more like adults? Though there is some evidence such change occurs during the preadolescent period, no single study has examined change in the use of nonverbal behaviors across this age range. Further, though the peer context is increasingly important to the developing preadolescent, conversations with friends have been largely overlooked as a context for children's developing nonverbal communication. This study aimed to address these gaps in the literature by providing a descriptive picture of children's use of three nonverbal behaviors, gesture, eye gaze, and facial expressions, during dyadic interaction with a friend. Particular emphasis was placed on the use of behaviors that are typical of adult conversation, such as abstract gestures and looking at a partner while the partner is speaking. Thirty-three children were observed interacting with a same-sex peer in two settings (planning an event and sharing a snack) longitudinally in 4th and 6th grade. The production of children's gesture, gaze, and facial expressions was recorded. Results indicated that use of the majority of communicative behaviors, particularly those behaviors that are common in adult interactions, increased across the preadolescent period. However, there were context effects, such that different patterns of developmental change emerged in planning and conversation settings. These findings suggest that, though communication is sensitive to changing contexts, preadolescent children produce behaviors typical of adult interactions with increasing frequency by the end of this period. Much like other systems, then, the nonverbal system appears to change during preadolescence.


Leopoldo Lopez is a prisoner of conscience. The prosecution, relying on two forensic linguists' expert reports, claimed that the politician's discourse was the direct cause of the violence on February 12, 2014 in Caracas. I analyzed the Condemnatory Sentence issued by the prosecution following Shuy's "Inverted Pyramid" heuristic (2013; 2014). I found opposing agendas and schemas as well as confIicting representations of speech acts. Linguistic analysis of his allegedly criminal speeches also demonstrates a wide divergence between the ways they are perceived by the prosecution and defense. Lopez's discourse indicates that he considered these speech events as political discourse (Chilton, 2004); examination of the language he actually used does not support the government's accusation that Lopez was encouraging public violence.


The robustness of image segmentation has been an important research topic in the past few years as segmentation models have reached production-level accuracy. However, like classification models, segmentation models can be vulnerable to adversarial perturbations, which hinders their use in critical-decision systems like healthcare or autonomous driving. Recently, randomized smoothing has been proposed to certify segmentation predictions by adding Gaussian noise to the input to obtain theoretical guarantees. However, this method exhibits a trade-off between the amount of added noise and the level of certification achieved. In this paper, we address the problem of certifying segmentation prediction using a combination of randomized smoothing and diffusion models. Our experiments show that combining randomized smoothing and diffusion models significantly improves certified robustness, with results indicating a mean improvement of 21 points in accuracy compared to previous state-of-the-art methods on Pascal-Context and Cityscapes public datasets. Our method is independent of the selected segmentation model and does not need any additional specialized training procedure.


Lagerstroemia species family Lytharceae, a popular Indian medicinal plant, has long been used in ayurvedic system of medicine. The plant has been found to possess diverse number of pharmacological activities. The present paper gives an account of pharmacological activities. The review reveals that wide range of phytochemical and pharmacological activities. The review reveals that wide range of phytochemical constituents have been isolated from the plant and it possesses important activities like anti- inflammatory, antipyretic, analgesic, antihyperglycemic, and antioxidant. Various other activities anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antiviral, antineoplastic and osteoblastic activities has also been reported. These reports are very encouraging and indicate that herb should be studied more extensively for its therapeutic benefits. Clinical trials using Lagerstroemia (Banaba) for variety of combinations in different formulations should also be conducted.


This research contributes to a body of well established, albeit typically anecdotal, understanding across the UK further education sector that suggests there are significant limitations regarding the effectiveness of curriculum middle managers' leadership practice.

If further education provision is to keep up with or exceed expectations from industry, government inspections and other stakeholders, then a deeper more evidence-based understanding of this pivotal role is needed. This includes an assessment of motivating factors that drive-up effectiveness in the role, as well as an exploration of the barriers faced in practice. Ultimately, the work presents initiatives, which aim to best release the full potential of those in this role. It can be argued that finding ways to unlock this potential is of national importance.

The impact of government intervention and financial constraints has created further impetus for FE colleges to increase efficiency and to reduce costs. Curriculum middle managers are both policy implementers and change makers and it is argued in this study that curriculum middle managers have the most difficult and challenging job within a further education college.

The success of the role of the curriculum middle manager and their leadership practice is therefore critical in a college's ability to realise its two most important strategic outcomes. Firstly, that a college operates with financial efficacy, and secondly that ongoing quality improvement in teaching, learning and assessment results in high student success rates, which are recognised by external stakeholders such as Ofsted.

This research follows a constructivist research methodology framed within an interpretive hermeneutic. Focusing upon a detailed case study of a medium-size further education college, it utilises empirical data primarily derived from semi- structured interviews, documentary material and field observation of 14 curriculum middle managers. Particular attention is paid in the study to the key role of the curriculum middle manager in raising standards of teaching, learning and assessment to improve student success rates, whilst having to operate within an environment of increasing challenge and austerity.

The findings derived from the experiences of curriculum middle managers suggest that, i) curriculum middle managers are having to operate at a relentless pace to meet unrealistic expectations, ii) senior managers are operating a top- down communication strategy with very little consideration of the feedback from curriculum middle managers, iii) curriculum middle managers experience a lack of meaningful staff development training when appointed and no training needs analysis is undertaken to support newly appointed curriculum middle managers and, most importantly, iv) the wealth of teaching and learning knowledge, expertise and experience is very often not embraced by the senior managers when new strategies are devised to improve the student experience.

The findings suggest that senior managers have a significant role to play in supporting curriculum middle managers and ensuring that these individuals are fully valued and that their expertise is embedded within a culture of true consultation in order to energise and release the inherent potential within the role. Conclusions identify a range of practical considerations and examples for senior managers and further education leadership to consider in order to help address this phenomenon. The findings explore future implications for policy and practice within the further education sector, and for the related theoretical literature, along with suggestions for further research.


The aims of this study are to determine the influences of attitude formation, behavior, and satisfaction, with specific reference to the products of the food and beverage industry of Southeast Asia. This study employs the theoretical frameworks of the Theory of Planned Behavior and others to understand the psychological processes that take place between forming beliefs and actual consumption. The key findings reveal that consumers are influenced by both the traditional food attributes such as quality, price, and availability, while also extraneously influenced both by perceived family influence and perceived societal influence in their attitude formation. These factors, through the proposed model of study, were also statistically proven to influence behavioral intention of the sample group through willingness to purchase. In addition, satisfaction with prior purchase was also shown to be a determinant of consumer attitude, while the determinants of expected satisfaction were inconclusive. The results of the modelling and analyses of this study indicate the necessity for the concurrent development of innovative marketing strategies and quality improvements in the industry as it follows its projected growth course and outward expansion.


Atomic Oxygen Effects on Particulate Contamination and Short Beam Strength of Carbon Composites Iviarlee Litzinger In order to design a successful space system, the unique challenges of the space environment it will operate in must be considered during the design process. Atomic oxygen (AO) is a detrimental environrnental effect found in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) that affects spacecraft surfaces by oxidizing and eroding material over time: particularly polymers. Carbon fiber/ epoxy composites are a commonly used spacecraft material affected by AO exposure. Carbon composites arc used as a structural material, such as on solar panels; their large surface area therefore is a potential contamination source to sensitive components. The Space Environments and Testing Lab at California Polytechnic State University , San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO) includes an apparatus that can simulate AO in the LEO environment. This apparatus was used to expose carbon composite samples to AO before being tested for short beam strength to measure the effect on material properties. Results showed no significant difference in short beam strength for a 24-hour AO exposure compared to unexposed samples, but a 4% decrease for samples with a 48-hour exposure. Previous work at Cal Poly SLO found that AO-exposed composite generated particulate contaminants. Tape lift tests and mass measurements of samples were conducted before and aft.er AO exposure to characterize the particulate contamination generated and percent mass loss. It. wa.s found that AO exposure increased the percent mass loss by 1.5% for 24-hour exposure and 3% for 48-hour exposure. The tape lift percent area coverage increased by 2.5% near sample ends and 0.:35% in the middle after AO exposure.


Only a small number of primary intracranial neoplasms have been observed in mammals and birds. Either they do not occur as frequently in lower animals as they do in man or they are overlooked. The latter is a probable explanation, as only a small number of animals that die of natural causes come to necropsy and because of the difficulty of opening the cranium with inadequate equipment this part of the examination generally is omitted. Slye, Holmes and Wells, in 1931, reviewed the literature on intracranial and cord tumors of lower animals and found only 36 cases reported. Twenty-six of these were intracranial tumors, 11 of which were in the hypophysis. They at that time reported 4 new cases of primary intracranial neoplasms, 3 occurring in mice of the Slye stock and one in a green parrakeet (Agatornis pullaria). The neoplasms found in the mice were: an endothelioma of a cerebral peduncle, a papillomatous growth in the ependyma of the lateral ventricle, and an infiltrating adenoma of the hypophysis. The tumor observed in the parrakeet was an adenoma in the hypophysis. In their summary these writers mention that it is especially noteworthy that only one seemingly conclusive report of a cerebral glioma in an animal could be found. Dawes, in 1930, reported two intracranial neoplasms in dogs. One was an ependymal glioma in the right lateral lobe of the cerebellum; the other was described as a small, reddish brown tumor in the left and central lobes of the cerebellum, adjacent to the roots of the seventh and eighth cervical nerves. Feldman, in his monograph on neoplasms of domesticated animals, mentions no new cases. Because of this seemingly infrequent occurrence of intracranial neoplasms in lower animals, the following cases are reported, one a cerebral glioma in a dog, and the other a pinealoma in a silver fox (Vulpes fulvus).


Triggered star formation in bright rims and shells is reviewed. Shells are commonly observed in the Milky Way and other galaxies, but most diffuse shells seen in HI or the infrared do not have obvious triggered star formation. Dense molecular shells and pillars around HII regions often do have such triggering, although sometimes it is difficult to see what is triggered and what stars formed in the gas before the pressure disturbances. Pillar regions without clear age gradients could have their stars scattered by the gravity of the heads. Criteria and timescales for triggering are reviewed. The insensitivity of the average star formation rate in a galaxy to anything but the molecular mass suggests that triggering is one of many processes that lead to gravitational collapse and star formation.


In the present work, fast repair after combined irradiation by fast electrons and alpha particles was studied in diploid yeast cells Saccharomyces cerevisiae of wild-type XS 800 and its radiosensitive mutant XS 1898. It was shown, that the fast repair significantly contribute to detected survival of the wild-type cells, while this repair is absent in XS 1898 mutant cells. An efficiency of the fast repair under combined irradiation (electrons + alpha particles), assessed on DMF of alpha particles, is lower, than that under irradiation by electrons and alpha particles separately.


Pregnancy can be complicated by affective or psychotic illnesses severe enough to threaten the health and life of both mother and fetus. In many cases, nonbiological interventions like psychotherapy or hospitalization in a supportive milieu will be insufficient, and use of a psychotropic drug will be indicated. This paper outlines the characteristics of maternal and fetal physiology that influence drug risks and then reviews the specific risks and benefits associated with antipsychotics, antidepressants, and lithium.


In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for an anthropomorphic change agent to motivate pre-service teachers to integrate technology into teaching and learning. This agent is designed with a hybrid persona that simulates a mentor and plays both motivation and companion roles. Based on the theoretical grounding in motivation and change agency and related research, we propose that a computer-based change agent will impact pre-service teachers' attitudes toward technology integration and improve their abilities to be effective users of educational technology. The impact on learning and instruction is explained as a process of changing perceptions and concerns about the value of using technology to support their learning. We build on models of innovation-decision processes and attributes of adoption of innovation and concern-based adoption. Practical considerations for the design of a virtual change agent are provided with respect to appearance, voice and emotional expression. Further research is also discussed, especially regard to empirical validation of specific components of the framework and longitudinal studies of teacher attitudes.


The true armyworm is a migratory pest from the southern U.S. that feeds on the leaf tissue of early and late vegetative corn. Adult true armyworm moths are attracted to fields that contain living ground cover, which include fields with grassy weeds or cover crops such as rye or grass. Fields that are minimum, no-till, or contain a cover crop should be scouted for true armyworms in May and June (Fig. 1). Upon arrival, the female moth will lay eggs onto the living ground cover. After hatching, the young larvae will feed on these plants until the plants are completely consumed or removed with herbicides. When the initial host plants are no longer available, the larvae will then move to corn. True armyworm larvae are identified by dull orange stripes found on each side of their body (Fig. 2). In addition to the six legs found on the thorax of the true armyworm, they also have four prolegs with dark bands on their abdomen (Fig. 3A). True armyworms are also identified by the network of black lines present on their orange head capsule (Fig. 3B). On injured plants, larvae can generally be found in the whorl of the plant.


ABSTRACT
 This introductory paper for the special issue on Reconstructing the International Peace Architecture (IPA) in the Asian Century outlines the background to, the objective and the scope of, and the key contributions of the special issue. A fundamental problem that each contributor has underlined is the inability of the existing IPA to effectively cope with emerging counter-peace challenges in the face of the rise of Asian powers and the global geopolitical rivalry. This special issue seeks to address the following questions: (1) how would the rise of Asian powers affect global power's framing of peace, and its international and local hybridity within the IPA; (2) how might the interests of the Global North, Emerging Powers, and the Global South be addressed simultaneously or be integrated with the IPA; and (3) how global institutions such as the United Nations might incorporate non-Western values, customs, norms and standards into their doctrines and practices of peacebuilding? This paper offers some speculations about peacebuilding, statebuilding and development assistance in the new international relations in which China plays a major role.


The purpose of this paper is to examine mainly the syntactic, but also some semantic, properties of kes kathta construction in Korean and other similar constructions such as moyang-ita, kes-ita, and pa-ita. I will argue that sentences containing such constructions are to be analyzed as being 'subjectless' and at the same time that subjectlessness in these sentences constitutes one of the features of the Korean language that distinguishes it from such Indo-European languages as English, French and German.


This article argues that repossession of land by community members and land reform is vital to support the rural poor and to ensure the sustainability of the commons. Repossession requires bottom-up initiatives, social mobilization and external interventions. The case is a study of oil palm plantations in Tanah Laut Regency, South Kalimantan, Indonesia. The mangroves and lowlands in Tabanio and Ujung Batu have always been governed by indigenous ( adat ) laws. Through local government consent and partnership, in 2007 an oil palm plantation company under the Kintap Jaya Watindo (KJW) holding group obtained the right to privatize and convert + 900 hectares of lowland into plantations, resulting in ecological devastation and a loss of livelihood. This land grab led to conflicts with community members due to deception, unfavorable incorporation of community members into their schemes, unwanted land conversion and horizontal conflicts between communities. Increased commercialization of local oil palm resources, monetary compensation, and construction of basic infrastructure such as roads and latrines led to spiraling conflicts. Intimidation by local government officials and elites worsened conflict and in 2011 community members burned the plantation, leading to the company's withdrawal. Subsequently, social institutions and local rules have played a role in protecting coastal resources on behalf of the community, recognizing collective identity and social and ecological responsibilities. Behavioral change and innovative power structures are locally sensitive and environmentally appropriate. Key Words: land grabbing, land reform, agricultural differentiation, extractive institution, exclusion, adverse incorporation, inclusion, power, common law


We count the number of alignments of $N \ge 1$ sequences when match-up types are from a specified set $S\subseteq \mathbb{N}^N$. Equivalently, we count the number of nonnegative integer matrices whose rows sum to a given fixed vector and each of whose columns lie in $S$. We provide a new asymptotic formula for the case $S=\{(s_1,\ldots,s_N) \:|\: 1\le s_i\le 2\}$.


Why did people mobilize for the Arab Spring? While existing research has focused on the roles of authoritarian regimes, oppositional structures, and social grievances in the movement, these explanations fail to address differences in the behavior of individuals, overlooking the fact that even when millions mobilized for the Arab Spring, the majority of the population stayed at home. To investigate this puzzle, this book traces the reasoning processes by which individuals decided to join the uprisings or to refrain from doing so. Drawing from original ethnographic interviews with protestors and non-protestors in Egypt and Morocco, Dornschneider utilizes qualitative methods and computational modeling to identify the main components of reasoning processes: beliefs, inferences (directed connections between beliefs), and decisions. Bridging the psychology literature on reasoning and the political science literature on protest, this book systematically traces how decisions about participating in the Arab Spring were made. It shows that decisions to join the uprisings were "hot," meaning they were based on positive emotions, while decisions to stay at home were "cool," meaning they were based on safety considerations. Hot Contention, Cool Abstention adds to the extensive literature on political uprisings, offering insights on how and why movements start, stall, and evolve.


Algorithms verifying the covariance matrix of the Kalman filter innovation sequence are compared with respect to detected minimum fault rate and detection time. Four algorithms are dealt with: the algorithm verifying the trace of the covariance matrix of the innovation sequence; the algorithm verifying the sum of all elements of the inverse covariance matrix of the innovation sequence; the optimal algorithm verifying the ratio of two quadratic forms of which matrices are theoretic and selected covariance matrices of Kalman filter innovation sequence; and the algorithm verifying the generalized variance of the covariance matrix of the innovation sequence. The algorithms are implemented for longitudinal dynamics of an aircraft, and some suggestions are given on the use of the algorithms in flight control systems.


The compatibility between underwater-washout admixture(AWA) and two different types of superplasticizers, polycarboxylate-type and naphthalene-based, was studied. The results showed that, there were different compatibilities between AWA and different superplasticizer, but the differences were not apparent. Compatibility of AWA with polycarboxylate superplasticizer was better than that of naphthalene superplasticizer. When the solid content is same, the difference of compatibility between AWA and different brand polycarboxylate-type superplasticizer was very slight. The underwater concrete with good anti-washout performance, good fluidity, self-compacting ability and corrosion resistance can be prepared easily through the reasonable compound. However it was difficult to solve the retarding problem and the contradiction between good fluidity and strength of the non-dispersible underwater concrete.


Accurate segmentation of retinal blood vessels is an essential task for diagnosis of various pathological disorders. In this paper, a novel method has been introduced for segmenting retinal blood vessels which involves pre-processing, segmentation and post-processing. The pre-processing stage enhanced the image using contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization and 2D Gabor wavelet. The enhanced image is segmented using geodesic operators and a final segmentation output is obtained by applying a post-processing stage that involves hole filling and removal of isolated pixels. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on the publicly available Digital retinal images for vessel extraction (DRIVE) and High-resolution fundus (HRF) databases using five different measurements and experimental analysis shows that the proposed method reach an average accuracy of 0.9541 on DRIVE database and 0.9568, 0.9478 and 0.9613 on HRF database with healthy, diabetic retinopathy (DR) and glaucomatous images respectively.


Background Clinical papers so flawed that they are eventually retracted may put patients at risk. Patient risk could arise in a retracted primary study or in any secondary study that draws ideas or inspiration from a primary study. Methods To determine how many patients were put at risk, we evaluated 788 retracted English-language papers published from 2000 to 2010, describing new research with humans or freshly derived human material. These primary papers—together with all secondary studies citing them—were evaluated using ISI Web of Knowledge. Excluded from study were 468 basic science papers not studying fresh human material; 88 reviews presenting older data; 22 case reports; 7 papers retracted for journal error and 23 papers unavailable on Web of Knowledge. Overall, 180 retracted primary papers (22.8%) met the inclusion criteria. Subjects enrolled and patients treated in 180 primary studies and 851 secondary studies were combined. Results Retracted papers were cited over 5000 times, with 93% of citations being research related, suggesting that ideas promulgated in retracted papers can influence subsequent research. Over 28 000 subjects were enrolled—and 9189 patients were treated—in 180 retracted primary studies. Over 400 000 subjects were enrolled—and 70 501 patients were treated—in 851 secondary studies which cited a retracted paper. Papers retracted for fraud (n=70) treated more patients per study (p Conclusions Many patients are put at risk by retracted studies. These are conservative estimates, as only patients enrolled in published clinical studies were tallied.


Various types of slow earthquakes, including slow slip events (SSEs, Heki and Kataoka, 2008, Nishimura, 2014), very low frequency earthquakes (VLFEs, Ando et al. 2012, Nakamura and Sunagawa, 2015), and low frequency earthquakes (LFEs, Nakamura, submitted), are detected along the southern part of the Ryukyu Trench, Japan. In this area, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations have been newly installed since 2010 by Kyoto University in addition to the stations operated by Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. This study applies a modified Network Inversion Filter to these GNSS time series from March 2010 to February 2013, to estimate the spatio-temporal evolution of slow slip on the plate interface in detail. Five SSEs with Mw 6.6–6.8 and durations of 30–100 days are found during this period. The main slip region of the five SSEs are similar, located beneath the northwestern side of the Iriomote island. In contrast to the similarity in the spatial location, our detailed analysis newly clarifies the difference in the temporal evolution among the events; three SSEs suddenly accelerated to the maximum slip rate, and the other two SSEs showed a slow acceleration for 20–50 days. The spatial relationship among the SSEs, LFEs, VLFEs, and tsunamigenic earthquake, is complementary along the trench, depending on the depth; tsunamigenic region in the shallowest part, weakly coupled region of VLFEs and LFEs with depths shallower than 30 km, and SSEs deeper than 30 km, reflecting the depth variation of physical properties. VLFEs are sometimes activated 10–20 days after the onset of SSEs that initiate with slow acceleration phase, although the number of SSEs is too small to assert this correlation. Since new GNSS stations are planning to be established, additional data and further analyses will possibly make the correlation clear in the future.


This report updates the 2004 recommendations by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) regarding the use of influenza vaccine and antiviral agents (CDC. Prevention and control of influenza: recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices [ACIP]. MMWR 2004;53[No. RR-6]:1-40). The 2005 recommendations include new or updated information regarding 1) vaccination of persons with conditions leading to compromise of the respiratory system; 2) vaccination of health-care workers; 3) clarification of the role of live, attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) in vaccine shortage situations; 4) the 2005-06 trivalent vaccine virus strains: A/California/7/2004 (H3N2)-like, A/New Caledonia/20/99 (H1N1)-like, and B/Shanghai/361/2002-like antigens (for the A/California/7/2004 [H3N2]-like antigen, manufacturers may use the antigenically equivalent A/New York/55/2004 virus, and for the B/Shanghai/361/2002-like antigen, manufacturers may use the antigenically equivalent B/Jilin/20/2003 virus or B/Jiangsu/10/2003 virus); and 5) the assessment of vaccine supply, timing of influenza vaccination, and prioritization of inactivated vaccine in shortage situations. A link to this report and other information can be accessed at http://www.cdc.gov/flu.


Hydrogen has been pointed out to be the energy source of the future. So far its production was
estimated to derivate 96 % from fossil fuels. However, the increase of environmental problems and
the dwindling of the oil reserves are two big reasons to change the hydrogen production. The alkaline
water electrolysis, associated with renewable energies, has been reported as one way to solve the
problems of hydrogen production and in parallel resolving the intermittent availability of renewable
electrical power. But, to become effective and economically attractive, it is necessary to develop
high-performance electrocatalytical electrodes that are suitable for the intermittent process.
Raney nickel (Raney-Ni) is one of the most promising electrocatalytic materials. The addition of
different compounds into Raney-Ni electrodes can improve its catalytic efficiency as well as its longterm
stability. Despite the variety of coated electrodes preparation, Vacuum Plasma Spraying (VPS)
has shown to originate the best electrochemical performance electrodes in alkaline water
electrolysis.
Due to the slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the development and optimization
of anode electrodes is of critical importance. Electrochemical measurements and analytical analysis
were made to study the catalytic efficiency and long-term stability of adding to Raney-Ni electrode
perovskite (La0.6Sr0.4CoO3 (LSCoO3 or LSC) and La0.6Sr0.4Fe0.8Co0.2O3 (LSCF)), cobalt oxide (Co3O4) and
NiAlMo (nickel aluminium molybdenum).
The final results show that adding perovskite and cobalt oxide to Raney-Ni improved the catalytic
efficiency and long-term stability. However, further tests must be done to assess the effective logterm
stability of the proposed Raney-Ni modifications.


Four different solvents were used to study their efficiency on pigments extraction from three different algal species of Chlorella vulgaris, Spirulina platensis and Nannochloropsis oculata. Dimethylsulfoxide, acetone, ethanol and methanol were used in the extraction process. The experiment was performed in both of fresh and oven dried algal samples. Chlorophylls a, b, total chlorophyll and total carotene concentrations were determined spectrophotometrically and by HPLC technique. The spectrophotometric method revealed that, dimethylsulfoxide surpasses all other used solvents in all species and all pigments in fresh samples except for chlorophyll a of N. oculata, whereas acetone was more effective than the others in fresh and dry sample. For the dried sample of C. vulgaris, methanol gave the maximum extractability with chlorophyll a while chlorophyll b and total chlorophyll were found be maximum in dimethylsulfoxide solvent. In Spirulina, methanol represented the maximum chlorophyll a and total chlorophyll for the dried samples. Total carotene was found to be higher in ethanol solvent with both C. vulgaris and N. oculata but dimethylsulfoxide surpasses the other solvents with S. platensis. HPLC results emphasized that, acetone surpasses all other used solvent in fresh samples and methanol was ideal solvent in dry samples of C. vulgaris. Dimethylsulfoxide represented the maximum chlorophyll a and total carotene with Spirulina in both samples. Methanol was the best solvent for extraction of all pigments with N. oculata except with A¢-carotene of dry sample, ethanol was the best solvent.


Hereditary prolongation of the Q-T interval is associated with ventricular dysrhythmias. Children with hereditary prolongation of the Q-T interval may have symptoms that seem related to a neurologic abnormality. Two families had members who had been treated with phenytoin sodium for seizures and had died suddenly when the medication was discontinued. Children in both families were found to have prolongation of the Q-T interval. A history of seizures or of seizures in the family may be an indication of hereditary prolongation of the Q-T interval.


Trypanosoma brucei infection produced an acute and fatal disease in Nigerian mongrel dogs due to a rapidly developing anaemia. Infected dogs responded with increased reticulocytosis, which was not sustained with chronicity. In comparison the response to artificially-induced haemolytic anaemia was progressive, marked and sustained. The anaemia of T. brucei infection of dogs was either normocytic normochromic in acute infection or microcytic normochromic in chronic infection. Artificially-induced haemolytic anaemia was either macrocytic normochromic or normocytic normochromic. The erythropoietic potential of plasma in vivo in mice increased in T. brucei-infected dogs except at the terminal parasitaemia. The anaemia in Trypanosoma brucei-infected dogs is therefore initially responsive but becomes poorly involved with chronicity.


Friction testing of elastomers in lubricated contact is discussed with a focus on developing experimental arrangements that can produce worthwhile results. Practical issues unique to elastomers are covered as well as their solutions, including contact mechanics, material response to loading, contact edges, oil absorption, cleaning and specimen geometry. A critique of reciprocating laboratory testing machines, including high‐frequency short stroke and low‐frequency long stroke friction and wear machines, is conducted for their usefulness, as is critical analysis of a wide variety of specimen configurations with the aim of helping the laboratory experimenter to overcome many of the pitfalls associated with testing of elastomers in lubricated conditions. Results from experiments using various testing arrangements are analysed, and it is found that the synthetic ester and mineral oil used produced similar results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Using the developed hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform for weapon system under impact load excitation and a novel large-scale single-ended MR damper without the accumulator, impact tests for the special designed long-stroke magnetorheological recoil damper were done and its dynamic performances under different impact loads and input current were examined in this paper. Model of damping force was established by using the model reference adaptive control method. Its dynamic performances of MR damper under model reference adaptive control strategies were analyzed by numerical simulations and tests. Experimental results show that the model reference adaptive control method could reduce its peak value of recoil damping force to 27.33% and its peak value of stroke to 48.75%, and its adjustability of damping force could be well applied for its impact resistance design of gun recoil mechanism.


This report presents the interview project conducted as part of the composite project 'Nontraditional
participation and pathways' funded by the National Arts Learning Network (NALN).

The interview project investigates participants' experience and understanding of work and study pathways in Art and Design and their perceptions of postgraduate level study as part of these pathways. Our micro-level data analysis investigates how the experience and perceptions of our participants are mediated by the established knowledge and definitions of the larger contexts of cultural sector and creative industries which are generated by policy-level discussions and commentaries.

The research employs a narrative-discursive approach to the interview process and to the interpretation and analysis of interview material.


1Department of Nursing, College of Medicine and Health Science, Jigjiga University, Jigjiga, Ethiopia; 2Department of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Science, Jigjiga University, Jigjiga, Ethiopia; 3Department of Population and Family Health, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia Background: Tuberculosis and undernutrition are the public health concerns of people living in middle and low-income countries. When patient develops TB, undernutrition is not only a risk factor for progression of latent TB infection to active disease, but also intensifies the risk of drug toxicity, relapse and death. Nutritional supplementation in patients with TB is associated with faster sputum conversion, higher cure and treatment completion rates, and body-weight gain. Objective: To find out the magnitude of undernutrition and associated factors among adult tuberculosis patients in jigjiga public health facilities. Methods and Materials: A facility-based cross-sectional study design was applied. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire while anthropometric measurements were collected in their scale measurements. The data were entered into an Epi-data version 3.1, then were exported and analyzed using SPSS v20. Bivariate logistic regression was done to assess the association between the outcome variable and the independent variables, value <0.25 was considered as a candidate for multivariate logistic regression at 95% CI. In multivariable logistic regression analysis, the level of statistical significance was declared at a p-value less than 0.05. Results: The magnitude of undernutrition was 44.3% [95% CI (38.2, 49.7)]. Sex (female) [AOR=1.769, CI=1.035, 3.024], educational status [AOR=3.939, CI=2.285, 6.792] and being Bedridden [AOR=3.718, CI=1.115, 12.394) were predictors of Undernutrition among adult tuberculosis patients. Conclusion: The magnitude of undernutrition among adult patients with TB was high in the area. Overall routine appropriate nutrition assessment and support should be given to undernourished patients with TB. The level of education about nutrition should be improved by counseling on a balanced diet to all patients with TB and particularly for female patients. Appropriate nutrition support should be provided to undernourished TB patients, and more focused on those who are bedridden.


This thesis addresses how verbal comprehension is affected by seeing the speaker and in particular when the speaker is an animated virtual speaker. Two people visually co-present – one talking and the other listening, trying to comprehend what is said – is a central and critical scenario whether one is interested in human cognition, communication or learning. Papers I & II are focused on the effect on comprehension of seeing a virtual speaker displaying visual speech cues (lip and head movements accompanying speech). The results presented indicate a positive effect in the presence of background babble noise but no effect in its absence. The results presented in paper II also indicate that the effect of seeing the virtual speaker is at least as effective as seeing a real speaker, that the exploitation of visual speech cues by a virtual speaker may require some adaptation but is not affected by subjective perception of the virtual speakers' social traits. Papers III & IV focus on the effect of the temporal coordination of speech and gesture on memory encoding of speech, and the feasibility of a novel methodology to address this question. The objective of the methodology is the precise manipulating of individual gestures within naturalistic speech and gesture sequences recorded by motion capture and reproduced by virtual speakers. Results in paper III indicate that such temporal manipulations can be realized without subjective perception of the animation as unnatural as long as the shifted (manipulated) gestural movements temporally overlap with some speech (not pause or hesitation). Results of paper IV were that words accompanied by associated gestures in their original synchrony or gestures arriving earlier were more likely to be recalled. This mirrors the temporal coordination patterns that are common in natural speech-gesture production. Paper V explores how factual topics are comprehended and approached metacognitively when presented in different media, including a video of an animated virtual speaker with synthesized speech. They study made use of an interface where differences in information transience and navigation options are minimized between the media. Results indicate improved comprehension and a somewhat stronger tendency to repeat material when also seeing, compared to only listening to, the virtual speaker. Instances of navigation behaviours were, however, overall scarce and only tentative conclusions could be drawn regarding differences in metacognitive approaches between media. Paper VI presents a virtual replication of a choice blindness experimental paradigm. The results show that the level of detail of the presentation of a virtual environment and a speaker may affect self-reported presence as well the level of trust exhibited towards the speaker. The relevance of these findings is discussed with regards to how comprehension is affected by visible speakers in general and virtual speakers specifically, as well as possible consequences for the design and implementation of virtual speakers in educational applications and as research instruments. (Less)


Non-volatile and programmable logic devices are desirable for future reconfigurable computer on chip. Spintronic logic devices, which use both electron spin and charge, can satisfy these requirements. Moreover, small device size, low power consumption, fast switching speed and programmable "on the fly" make it the most promising candidate for the next generation logic devices. First, this paper reviews the different types of spintronic logic devices. Secondly, we review the proposal and experimental demonstration of the magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and giant magnetoresistance element (GMR) based logic devices with the focus on the development of single MTJ logic device with programmable functions and a MTJ-based full-adder logic circuit. Thirdly, a new generation of spintronic logic devices based on spin torque transfer switching mechanism (or so-called current-induced-magnetization switching) is introduced. The last part gives an outlook of future prospective of spintronic logic devices and challenges.


Art has the ability to influence a child's worldview. This analysis looks at how the images in children's books may impact girls' gender beliefs about their future role in society, in particular, in science and engineering. In children's books, the art, not the text, often primarily defines the message (and the effects) according to picture book theory. This paper explored science-oriented (informational) children's books. Such books are focused on "real life" not fiction, and therefore, expose children to future roles and careers. As such, they can combat negative stereotypes before the first critical drop-out point for girls in science, namely before their transition to middle school. This paper did a pictoriallyfocused mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) content analysis of Sibert and Orbis Pictus award-winning informational (non-fiction) children's books, and used the textual information only as a secondary source for role identification. The analysis found moderate to severe gender bias in both the frequencies of male to female images and in the stereotyping of roles. These findings were in line with current and past research that has focused instead on fictional award-winning books.


Compared with ternary sets comprising two distinct conventional machines, i.e. a pump and a turbine, reversible pump-turbine units permit considerable reduction in the capital cost of pumped storage schemes provided power demands for pumpwise and turbinewise operation are similar and provided also that time of transition between modes is not a decisive factor. On the other hand, reversible sets rotating either way pose several problems, a major one being the best way to effect pumpwise start-up, more especially when unit power is high. A number of possible procedures are examined and, in each case, advantages, disadvantages and application constraints are stated. Start-up procedures available may be classified as in Figure 1 (table). From the turbine standpoint, start-up may be carried out with the runner either wet or dry. Wet runner start-up is clearly the simpler of the two, although high starting torque is required to overcome the drag of the water. Dry start-up has the disadvantage of requiring expensive compressed-air equipment for dewatering the runner. When unit power is large, the majority of the start-up procedures call for a dry runner. The curves of Figure 2 show the general shape of the variation of pump-turbine drag torque with speed of rotation for wet and dry runners. These curves also point up the advantages of supplying oil at the thrust bearing. Choice between wet and dry modes depends largely on torque available and torque required. As for the choice of the best start-up procedure for a reversible unit, this is by no means a simple matter since it depends on a large number of criteria, the most important being as follows : (i) Characteristics of the unit to be started up, i.e. power, inertia, driving couple, drag couple, reactance, time constants, etc. (ii) Characteristics of the network : short-circuit power, acceptable voltage drop, line and transformer design, etc. (iii) Times allowed for changing from pumping to generation and vice versa. (iv) Number of units required for turbine and pump operation. (v) Local conditions on site e.g. ease of installation of a special unit or possibility of connecting up with a unit in a neighbouring plant suitable for back-to-back start-up. When technically feasible, direct synchronous start-up is the simplest, most economical procedure. However, the present trend towards increased reversible unit power seems likely to create problems. These will be concerned not only with the design and construction of the machines but also with network operation. Such problems may lead to preferential use of other start-up procedures. Start-up under reduced voltage may sometimes have advantages. This is an economical method (especially when reactance coils are used for voltage reduction) which is well suited to fast machines with low start-up reactance. However, use of this method should be confined to machines with low drag torques. Asynchronous start-up motors on the same shaft are suited to most cases. However, this is an expensive solution especially if the plant is made up of several sets. None of the other methods are valid except in rather special cases. However, it is worth noting that progress with the static converter may make this technique competitive with others in cases where schemes use large numbers of sets. No method is perfect and for a given problem several solutions are possible.


In this numerical study, supersonic combustion of kerosene in three model combustor configurations is investigated. To this end, 3-D, compressible, turbulent, nonreacting, and reacting flow calculations with a single step chemistry model have been carried out. For the nonreacting flow calculations, the droplet diameter distribution at different axial locations, variation of the Sauter mean diameter, and the mixing efficiency for three injection pressures are presented and discussed. In addition, the effect of turbulent dispersion on the mixing efficiency is studied using a stochastic model in conjunction with the two-equation shear stress transport k-ω turbulence model. For the reacting flow calculations, contours of heat release and axial velocity at several axial locations are used to identify regions of heat release inside the combustor. Combustion efficiency predicted by the present results is compared with earlier predictions for all the combustor models. Furthermore, the predicted variation of static pressure along the combustor top wall is compared with experimental data reported in the literature. Calculations show that the penetration and spreading of the fuel increases with an increase in the injection pressure. Predicted values of the combustion efficiency are more realistic when the spray model is used for modelling the injection of the fuel. The importance of the mixing process, especially for a liquid fuel such as kerosene, on the prediction of heat release is discussed in detail.


In this paper, we propose a timestamp series approach to defend against Sybil attack in a vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) based on roadside unit support. The proposed approach targets the initial deployment stage of VANET when basic roadside unit (RSU) support infrastructure is available and a small fraction of vehicles have network communication capability. Unlike previously proposed schemes that require a dedicated vehicular public key infrastructure to certify individual vehicles, in our approach RSUs are the only components issuing the certificates. Due to the differences of moving dynamics among vehicles, it is rare to have two vehicles passing by multiple RSUs at exactly the same time. By exploiting this spatial and temporal correlation between vehicles and RSUs, two messages will be treated as Sybil attack issued by one vehicle if they have the similar timestamp series issued by RSUs. The timestamp series approach needs neither vehicular-based public-key infrastructure nor Internet accessible RSUs, which makes it an economical solution suitable for the initial stage of VANET.


The characteristics of surface antigens in canine hepatocellular carcinoma (cHCC) have not been clarified. The objective of this study was to investigate surface antigens, which are considered as stem/progenitor or cancer cell markers, in cHCC cell lines. Expression of various antigens including CD29, CD34, CD44, CD90, CD133 and Dlk-1 was assessed in four cHCC cell lines by flow cytometry. CD44, CD133 and Dlk-1 expression was detectable in all cell lines, and three cell lines expressed CD29. These results indicate that CD29, CD44, CD133 and Dlk-1 have potential as suitable markers in cHCC identification, suggesting that these findings will contribute to the establishment of an early diagnostic tool for the identification of hepatocellular maturation processes.


Yan73, a teinturier (dyer) grape variety in China, is one of the few Vitis vinifera cultivars with red-coloured berry flesh. To examine the tissue-specific expression of genes associated with berry colour in Yan73, we analysed the differential accumulation of anthocyanins in the skin and flesh tissues of two red-skinned grape varieties with either red (Yan73) or white flesh (Muscat Hamburg) based on HPLC-MS analysis, as well as the differential expression of 18 anthocyanin biosynthesis genes in both varieties by quantitative RT-PCR. The results revealed that the transcripts of GST, OMT, AM3, CHS3, UFGT, MYBA1, F3′5′H, F3H1 and LDOX were barely detectable in the white flesh of Muscat Hamburg. In particular, GST, OMT, AM3, CHS3 and F3H1 showed approximately 50-fold downregulation in the white flesh of Muscat Hamburg compared to the red flesh of Yan73. A correlation analysis between the accumulation of different types of anthocyanins and gene expression indicated that the cumulative expression of GST, F3′5′H, LDOX and MYBA1 was more closely associated with the acylated anthocyanins and the 3′5′-OH anthocyanins, while OMT and AM3 were more closely associated with the total anthocyanins and methoxylated anthocyanins. Therefore, the transcripts of OMT, AM3, GST, F3′5′H, LDOX and MYBA1 explained most of the variation in the amount and composition of anthocyanins in skin and flesh of Yan73. The data suggest that the specific localization of anthocyanins in the flesh tissue of Yan73 is most likely due to the tissue-specific expression of OMT, AM3, GST, F3′5′H, LDOX and MYBA1 in the flesh.