Gliomas are the largest category of primary malignant brain tumors in adults, and glioblastomas account for nearly half of malignant gliomas. Glioblastomas are notoriously aggressive and drug-resistant, with a very poor 5 year survival rate of about 5%. New approaches to treatment are thus urgently needed. We previously identified an enzyme of fatty acid metabolism, very long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase 3 (ACSVL3), as a potential therapeutic target in glioblastoma. Using the glioblastoma cell line U87MG, we created a cell line with genomic deletion of ACSVL3 (U87-KO) and investigated potential mechanisms to explain how this enzyme supports the malignant properties of glioblastoma cells. Compared to U87MG cells, U87-KO cells grew slower and assumed a more normal morphology. They produced fewer, and far smaller, subcutaneous xenografts in nude mice. Acyl-CoA synthetases, including ACSVL3, convert fatty acids to their acyl-CoA derivatives, allowing participation in diverse downstream lipid pathways. We examined the effect of ACSVL3 depletion on several such pathways. Fatty acid degradation for energy production was not affected in U87-KO cells. Fatty acid synthesis, and incorporation of de novo synthesized fatty acids into membrane phospholipids needed for rapid tumor cell growth, was not significantly affected by lack of ACSVL3. In contrast, U87-KO cells exhibited evidence of altered sphingolipid metabolism. Levels of ceramides containing 18-22 carbon fatty acids were significantly lower in U87-KO cells. This paralleled the fatty acid substrate specificity profile of ACSVL3. The rate of incorporation of stearate, an 18-carbon saturated fatty acid, into ceramides was reduced in U87-KO cells, and proteomics revealed lower abundance of ceramide synthesis pathway enzymes. Sphingolipids, including gangliosides, are functional constituents of lipid rafts, membrane microdomains thought to be organizing centers for receptor-mediated signaling. Both raft morphology and ganglioside composition were altered by deficiency of ACSVL3. Finally, levels of sphingosine-1-phosphate, a sphingolipid signaling molecule, were reduced in U87-KO cells. We conclude that ACSVL3 supports the malignant behavior of U87MG cells, at least in part, by altering cellular sphingolipid metabolism.


Abstract. Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest
Resources Assessment shows an encouraging trend towards a decrease in
deforestation rates, but it also points out that since 1990 total forest
loss corresponds to an area the size of South Africa. Efforts to curtail
deforestation require reliable assessments, yet current definitions for what
a forest exactly is differ significantly across countries, institutions and
epistemic communities. Those differences have implications for forest
management efforts: they entail different understandings about where exactly
a forest starts and ends, and therefore also engender misunderstandings
about where a forest should start and end, and about how forests should be
managed. This special issue brings together different perspectives from
practitioners and academic disciplines – including linguistics, geographic
information science and human geography – around the problem of
understanding and characterizing forest. By bringing together different
disciplinary viewpoints, we hope to contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary
efforts to analyse forest change. In this introduction, we propose that
interrogating the relationship between forest definitions, boundaries and
ways of valuing forests constitutes a productive way to critically
conceptualize the trouble that forest is in.


In this thesis four separate problems in general relativity are considered, dividedinto two separate themes: coordinate conditions and perfect fluid spheres. Regardingcoordinate conditions we present a pedagogical discussion of how the appropriateuse of coordinate conditions can lead to simplifications in the form of the spacetimecurvature — such tricks are often helpful when seeking specific exact solutions of theEinstein equations. Regarding perfect fluid spheres we present several methods oftransforming any given perfect fluid sphere into a possibly new perfect fluid sphere.
This is done in three qualitatively distinct manners: The first set of solution generatingtheorems apply in Schwarzschild curvature coordinates, and are phrased in termsof the metric components: they show how to transform one static spherical perfectfluid spacetime geometry into another. A second set of solution generating theoremsextends these ideas to other coordinate systems (such as isotropic, Gaussian polar,Buchdahl, Synge, and exponential coordinates), again working directly in terms of themetric components. Finally, the solution generating theorems are rephrased in termsof the TOV equation and density and pressure profiles. Most of the relevant calculationsare carried out analytically, though some numerical explorations are also carriedout.


The time of action of the genes controlling the decrease of aldolase activity (21-23 hrs of development) and its subsequent increase (23-36 hrs) was determined by means of inactivation of the nuclei by actinomycin or heavy doses of irradiation at succesive developmental stages. There exist two distinct periods of gene activity; the former (15-18 hrs) determines the rapid fall of maternal aldolase activity and the latter (21-27 hrs) its subsequent replacement by embryonic aldolase. This result is confirmed by the data concerning the changes in aldolase heat resistance in the hybrids of the loach and tropical cyprinids. The genes controlling the synthesis of the new aldolase and the morphogenesis which takes place at the same developmental stages are functioning at different times, i.e. the biochemical and morphological differentiations may occur relatively independently.


Software-Defined Networking (SDN) allows control applications to install fine-grained forwarding policies in the underlying switches. While Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) enables fast lookups in hardware switches with flexible wildcard rule patterns, the cost and power requirements limit the number of rules the switches can support. To make matters worse, these hardware switches cannot sustain a high rate of updates to the rule table. In this paper, we show how to give applications the illusion of high-speed forwarding, large rule tables, and fast updates by combining the best of hardware and software processing. Our CacheFlow system "caches" the most popular rules in the small TCAM, while relying on software to handle the small amount of "cache miss" traffic. However, we cannot blindly apply existing cache-replacement algorithms, because of dependencies between rules with overlapping patterns. Rather than cache large chains of dependent rules, we "splice" long dependency chains to cache smaller groups of rules while preserving the semantics of the policy. Experiments with our CacheFlow prototype---on both real and synthetic workloads and policies---demonstrate that rule splicing makes effective use of limited TCAM space, while adapting quickly to changes in the policy and the traffic demands.


The properties of the weakly-coupling bound polaron, considering an influence of Rashba effect, which is brought about by the spin-orbit (SO) interaction, in an semiconductor triangular quantum well (TQW), have been studied by using the linear combination operator and the unitary transformation methods. We obtain an expression for the ground state energy of the weak-coupling and bound polaron in a TQW as a function of the coupling constant, Coulomb bound potential, and the electron areal density. Our numerical results show that the ground state energy of the polaron is composed of four parts, one part is caused by the electrons' own energy, the second part is caused by the Rashba effect, the third part occurs because of the Coulomb bound potential, and the last term is induced by the interaction between the electrons and LO phonons. The interactions between the orbit and the spin with different directions have different effects on the ground state energy of the polaron.


The aim of the present study is to determine the quality and to correlate with other different brands of pharmaceutical products marketed in Bangladesh for the healthcare of patients suffering from different respiratory inflammation like asthma, and auto-immune disorders. The experiment is done to evaluate and compare the physicochemical equivalence of different brands of Prednisolone 5mg tablet. These tablets were tested through statistical methods in accordance with the BP and USP like weight variation, thickness, hardness, friability, disintegration, in-vitro dissolution and HPLC assay. The in vitro dissolution studies of Prednisolone 5 mg tablets were carried out in pH 7 distilled water for 30 minutes using USP-II method whose absorbance were taken at 246 nm using UV spectrophotometry. Six samples showed poor in-vitro dissolution which were non-equivalent to the USP monograph specification giving Prednisolone content less than 75%. The percentage content of active ingredient of different brands were tested using HPLC assay. Samples showed values within the specifications (90-110%) except some of the companies. Two samples did not undergo disintegration at all when given in the disintegration tester. However, no major problem was found in others physical parameters like tablet weight variation, thickness, hardness and friability. Finally from the experiment we can conclude that 50% of the companies in the urban area are substandard, whereas 50% companies provide standard drugs.


An approach for parallel debugging that coordinates static analysis with efficient on-the-fly access anomaly detection is described. On-the-fly instrumentation mechanisms are being developed for the structured synchronization primitives of Parallel Computing Forum (PCF) Fortran, the emerging standard for parallel Fortran. The proposed instrumentation techniques guarantee that one can isolate schedule-dependent behavior in a schedule-independent fashion. The result is that a single-instrumented execution will either report sources of schedule-dependent behavior, or it will validate that all executions of the program on the same data compute the same result. When an instrumented execution is being used solely to find sources of schedule-dependent behavior, its cost can be reduced by slicing out computations that do not contribute to race conditions. Ongoing efforts to incorporate the proposed debugging approach in the ParaScope environment are described.<<ETX>>


Lactosylceramide sulfate and galactosylceramide sulfate were found to increase markedly in human renal cell carcinoma (adenocarcinoma) as compared to uninvolved tissue. Activities of two sulfotransferases toward galactosylceramide and lactosylceramide as substrates were significantly elevated in the carcinoma compared to the uninvolved tissue resulting in enhanced synthesis of the two sulfatides in the carcinoma. The elevation of the two sulfotransferases was parallel in most tumors, suggesting that the same enzyme is responsible for the enhanced synthesis of two sulfatides. No consistent difference in the activity of arylsulfatase A, which desulfates the two sulfatides, was observed between the carcinoma and uninvolved tissue. Both the present and previous results show that the increased synthesis of the sulfatide(s) due to elevated sulfotransferase activity could be a biochemical characteristic common to adenocarcinomas derived from different tissues.


Hydra is a full-scale industrial CFD application used for the design of turbomachinery at Rolls Royce plc., capable of performing complex simulations over highly detailed unstructured mesh geometries. Hydra presents major challenges in data organization and movement that need to be overcome for continued high performance on emerging platforms. We present research in achieving this goal through the OP2 domain-specific high-level framework, demonstrating the viability of such a high-level programming approach. OP2 targets the domain of unstructured mesh problems and enables execution on a range of back-end hardware platforms. We chart the conversion of Hydra to OP2, and map out the key difficulties encountered in the process. Specifically we show how different parallel implementations can be achieved with an active library framework, even for a highly complicated industrial application and how different optimizations targeting contrasting parallel architectures can be applied to the whole application, seamlessly, reducing developer effort and increasing code longevity. Performance results demonstrate that not only the same runtime performance as that of the hand-tuned original code could be achieved, but it can be significantly improved on conventional processor systems, and many-core systems. Our results provide evidence of how high-level frameworks such as OP2 enable portability across a wide range of contrasting platforms and their significant utility in achieving high performance without the intervention of the application programmer.


This paper presents a modified rational function modeling technique for high speed circuits. It models the scattering parameters (S-parameters) of high speed circuits with modified rational functions. S-parameters can be directly measured or simulated using traditional circuit simulation tools, and the poles and residues of modified rational functions are determined by a vector fitting algorithm. Compared to the traditional rational functions, far fewer poles are needed. With the modified rational functions, the time-domain-reflectometry, time-domain-transmission waveforms and output signals of high speed circuits can be easily expressed in closed-forms, providing a simple way to do quasi-analytic time domain analysis of measured microwave structures. The presented modeling technique is demonstrated for a differential transmission channel on a high-speed electrical backplane


: Dental identification of unknown bodies is a well known and widely used method of identification and is especially valuable when other means of identification such as visual recognition and finger prints are not possible. Traditionally, dental identification essentially depends on a comparison of the dental restorations present in the teeth of the deceased with the dental records of a missing person. Difficulties are encountered in some cases when either or both of these elements are not sufficiently available to permit reliable identification. Serious damage to or complete destruction of restorations and disintegration of dental tissues as the result of extreme environmental changes, failure to recover all teeth and their included restorations, and incomplete dental records may frustrate the identification process. An ominous challenge to dental identification however, is the result of the dramatic improvement in dental health in many countries due to the implementation of public health measures such as fluoridation with a consequent reduction in dental caries and restorations. This paper offers some suggestions which may help to overcome some of these difficulties and explores some applications of new technology to the problems of dental identification in the future.


Excerpt] One of the major goals of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB, P.L. 107-110), is to raise the achievement of students who currently fail to meet grade-level proficiency standards. Because student achievement is widely believed to depend largely on the quality of instruction, the law also contains provisions designed to improve teacher quality. These provisions establish professional credentials for teachers and charge states and school districts with developing plans to improve teacher quality. According to the law, these plans must ensure that all core subject-matter courses are taught by a highly qualified teacher and that poor and minority students have equal access to quality instruction. To be deemed highly qualified, NCLB requires that teachers possess a baccalaureate degree and a state teaching certificate, and that teachers also demonstrate subject-matter knowledge for their teaching level. Elementary school teachers must show knowledge of basic elementary school curricular areas. Middle and secondary school teachers must demonstrate a high level of competency in all subject areas taught. Demonstration of subject-matter knowledge and competency may be shown by passing a state certification exam or licensing test in the relevant subject(s). This report examines implementation of the NCLB requirement and examines the extent to which schools achieved the law's goal of placing a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. After describing the highly qualified teacher requirement in detail, the report analyzes data from a national survey of schools conducted a year before NCLB became law. These data suggest that as many as four out of five teachers met the NCLB requirement prior to its enactment. Data reported throughout implementation of the law indicate that the proportion of highly qualified teachers increased each year, but that no state has reached 100%. In addition, analysis of these data also support concerns about the equitable distribution of teaching quality between poor and nonpoor schools. This report concludes with a discussion of teacher quality issues that may be considered as the ESEA reauthorization process unfolds. Several of these issues have been the subject of waiver authority exercised by the Secretary of Education under both the current and previous administrations. Congress has also taken up these issues along with reauthorization of the rest of the ESEA. This report will be updated as significant legislative developments occur.


Democratic governments rely on participation by all citizens for balanced and equitable election outcomes. What maintains voter turnout, this central aspect of democratic health? Civic duty is a powerful force in getting citizens to the polls, and yet it has often been misunderstood or neglected in empirical studies. By contrast, political theory has developed a rich literature on the obligations of democratic citizens. We show that a new statistical model based on political theorists' analysis of duty substantially improves the understanding of turnout in Japan and South Korea.


Executives around the globe are investigating the benefits that cloud computing can deliver above and beyond cost savings. What is its contribution to competiveness - through improved agility, expanded business networks, and enhanced decision-making? At the same time, the organizational factors inhibiting or supporting cloud computing adoption are poorly understood. This paper builds on Tornatzky et al.'s Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) frame-work to investigate the factors influencing cloud computing adoption. Another objective pursued is to conceptualize and understand how IT governance processes and structures moderate those factors. Our augmented TOE framework is developed in a set of hypotheses that are tested in a quantitative study of 24 global enterprises across various industries. Our results indeed indicate that the technology and organization context affect implementation decisions. A discussion and identification of next research steps round off the paper.


An impressive increase in the application of cellulases in various fields over the last few decades demands extensive research in improving its quality and large-scale production. Therefore, the current investigation focuses on factors relevant for optimal production of cellulase byAspergillus nigerisolated from forest soil.Throughout this study, the fungal strainAspergillus nigerwas maintained under the submerged condition for a period of 7 days at 120 rpm rotational speed. Various physical and chemical conditions were employed in examining their influence on cellulase production by the selected fungal strain. After appropriate incubation, culture filtrates were withdrawn and checked for FPase, CMCase, and β-D-glucosidase activities.The optimum pH and temperature for cellulase production were found to be 5.0 and 32°C, respectively. Among the various carbon sources tested in the present study, amendment of lactose in the medium yielded peak values of FPase (filter paperase) and CMCase (Carboxy-methyl cellulase) whereas fructose supported the higher titers of β-glucosidase. Among the nitrogen sources, profound FPase and CMCase activity were recorded when urea was used but higher β-glucosidase activity was noticed when yeast extract was added. Various natural lignocellulosic substrates like bagasse, coir, corncob, groundnut shells, litter, rice bran, rice husk, sawdust and wheat bran were tested to find out the induction of cellulase. Among the lignocelluloses, sawdust and litter served as good substrates for cellulase production byAspergillus niger.In gist, the outcome of this study sheds light on the cellulolytic potentiality of the fungal strainAspergillus nigerpromising in its future commercial applications which may be economically feasible.


The present thesis investigates socializing practices that take place among pupils during group-work sessions in Swedish junior high schools. The pupils, who were video recorded during such sessions, were supposed to work on common assignments, but quite often digressed into so-called off-task talk Most of the present analyses focus on such digressions.More specifically, the purpose of the thesis was to study pupils' moral practices. Through the staging of such practices, the pupils could be seen to be 'doing morality in school'. A basic assumption was that social norms are best seen when the participants themselves identify transgressions of these norms. Three communicative genres in which moral practices become plainly visible were chosen as the basis for analysis: (i) teasing, (ii)gossiping, and (iii) so-called 'suhteaching', that is, sequences of talk where at least one pupil is positioned as a deputy teacher. Sequences of these genres were transcribed in detail, and a conversational approach was applied for the purpose of close analyses of moral practices.The findings are presented in four articles. The first article focuses on on gender socialization and illustrates the fine details of how boys and girls orient to gender in teasing practices. It also shows that cross-gender teasing is far more common than same-gender teasing. In the second article, the dialogic architecture of teasing is analyzed, showing that pupils often rely on their co-participants in the staging of teases, and that they employ a rich repertoire of responce strategies: account work, denial, minimal responses, playing along with the teasing, retaliation, and proactive work. The third article focuses on gossiping, and more specifically on how gossip sometimes serves as remedial action for incidents or states of affairs that can be seen as degrading for the primary gossiper's social standing. Finally, the fourth article analyzes so-called 'sub-teaching' and resistance to such subteaching. Regardless of whether pupils are positioned as subteachers or position themselves, subteaching is ultimately always a collaborative affair.Together the four studies show some of the skills that pupils must master in order to participate successfully in group interaction. Ultimately, pupils' (local) standing largely depends upon acquiring such skills. The conclusion is that school is perhaps not foremost a place where you learn a set of moral norms, but an arena where you learn to practically manage yourself in and through talk-in-interaction.


Adrenal incidentalomas are masses accidentally discovered while conducting radiological examinations for other purposes. A major part of adrenal incidentalomas are non-functional adenomas. Silently developing Cushing's syndrome or pheochromocytoma can be observed in adrenal incidentalomas. However, coexistence of Cushing's syndrome and pheochromocytoma at the same time in the same case is quite rare. In the present study, an atypical adrenal incidentaloma case is presented, whose laboratory examinations were compatible with Subclinical Cushing's syndrome, urinary catecholamine metabolites were normal, but who histopathologically had pheochromocytoma diagnosis.


Abstract Sepsis represents one the main cause of death in patients admitted to the intensive care. Biomarkers offer an alternative approach to the diagnostic and prognostic evaluation and improve the outcomes. Angiopoietin 2 (Ang-2) and Tyrosine kinase 2 (Tie-2) are biomarkers which may be involved in sepsis, Ang-2 being responsible for vascular remodelling while Tie-2 is their endothelial receptor. The aim of the study: To assess the Ang-2, Tie-2 and Ang-2/Tie-2 ratio serum levels in septic and non-septic patients and to investigate the independent value of circulating Ang-2, Tie-2, and Ang-2/Tie-2 ratios as predictors of prognosis in critically ill medical patients. Study design: The study included 74 adults admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). The patients were separated in two groups: Group A [sepsis: n=40] and Group B [no-sepsis: n= 34] patients. Serum levels of Ang-2 and Tie-2 were determined in the first 12 hours after admission and were correlated with ICU severity scores, APACHE II, SOFA and SAPS and with the death rate. Results: Group A gave significantly higher values (p=0.01), for serum Ang-2 (11.07±9.21 ng/ml) compared to Group B (6.18±5.28 ng/ml). The level of Tie-2 was also higher (11.03±5.12 ng/ml) in Group A compared to Group B (9.46±4.99 ng/ml) (p=0.19). In Group A, the Ang-2/Tie2 ratio showed higher values than Group B (p=0.02). There was a positive association between severity scores (APACHE II, SAPS, and SOFA) and Ang-2, and Ang-2/ Tie-2 ratio, but not for Tie2. Conclusions: In our study Ang-2 and Ang-2/Tie-2 ratio serum levels had independent diagnostic value in patients with sepsis, as measured on admission.


Results of a convincing causal statistical inference related to socio-economic phenomena are treated as especially desired background for conducting various socio-economic programs or government interventions. Unfortunately, quite often real socio-economic issues do not fulfill restrictive assumptions of procedures of causal analysis proposed in the literature. This paper indicates certain empirical challenges and conceptual opportunities related to applications of procedures of data depth concept into a process of causal inference as to socio-economic phenomena. We show, how to apply a statistical functional depths in order to indicate factual and counterfactual distributions commonly used within procedures of causal inference. The presented framework is especially useful in a context of conducting causal inference basing on official statistics, i.e., basing on already existing databases. Methodological considerations related to extremal depth, modified band depth, Fraiman-Muniz depth, and multivariate Wilcoxon sum rank statistic are illustrated by means of example related to a study of an impact of EU direct agricultural subsidies on a digital development in Poland in a period of 2012-2019.


Based on the transfer matrix method, the recursion of an electromagnetic wave propagating in an asymmetric Kerr nonlinear medium is analytically formulated, from which the rectification effect is clearly presented. The effects on the rectification region of the linear part and nonlinear coefficient of permittivity are both studied, and the energy densities before and after rectification are discussed. We use a rectifying factor to describe the intensity of the rectification effect. The result shows that every transmission peak is divided into two parts when the symmetry is broken, and nonlinear asymmetry has a more significant effect on the rectification effect than the linear asymmetry. The rectification intensity and area will be enlarged when the asymmetry factor is increased in a certain range.


Background: Delayed facial palsy (DFP) after microvascular decompression (MVD) in patients with hemifacial spasm (HFS) is not uncommon, but the cause remains unknown. Objectives: To assess whether intraoperative electromyography (EMG) and brainstem auditory evoked potential (BAEP) can predict DFP after MVD. Methods: Between September 2009 and February 2011 we examined 86 patients, 9 of whom (10.4%) developed DFP after MVD on the same side. All patients underwent MVD and were followed-up for a median period of 13 months (range 6–22). We retrospectively examined intraoperative facial EMG and BAEP findings using our MVD patients' registry. We excluded secondary HFS and immediate postoperative facial palsy after MVD in this study. We assessed the prevalence and clinical characteristics of DFP and compared EMG and BAEP findings between DFP and non-DFP groups. Results: All patients recovered completely, with a mean time to recovery of 37.8 days (range 22–57). There were no significant differences between DFP and non-DFP patients in terms of the amplitude and latency of intraoperative EMG and BAEP. Conclusion: The usefulness of intraoperative facial EMG and BAEP is limited and cannot predict DFP after MVD for HFS. We speculate that DFP after MVD is not associated with permanent nerve damage according to the EMG findings.


Aims
The suitability of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), compared with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), for patients with complex multivessel coronary artery disease (MVCAD) remains a contentious topic. While the body of evidence regarding the clinical effectiveness of these revascularization strategies is growing, there is limited evidence concerning their long-term cost-effectiveness. We aim to critically appraise the body of literature investigating the cost-effectiveness of CABG compared with PCI using stents, and to assess the quality of the economic evidence available.

Methods and results
A systematic review was performed across six electronic databases; Medline, Embase, the NHS Economic Evaluation Database, the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, the health technology assessment database, and the Cochrane Library. All studies comparing economic attractiveness of CABG vs. PCI using bare-metal stents (BMS) or drug-eluting stents (DES) in balanced groups of patients were considered. Sixteen studies were included. These comprised studies of conventional CABG vs. BMS (n = 8), or DES (n = 4); off-pump CABG vs. BMS (n = 2), or DES (n = 1); and minimally invasive direct CABG vs. BMS (n = 2). The majority adopted a healthcare payer perspective (n = 14). The incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) reported across studies varied widely according to perspective and time horizon. Favourable lifetime ICERs were reported for CABG in three trials. For patients with left main coronary artery disease, however, DES was reported as the dominant (more effective and cost-saving) strategy in one study.

Conclusion
Overall, CABG rather than PCI was the favoured cost-effective treatment for complex MVCAD in the long term. While the evidence base for the cost-effectiveness of DES compared with CABG is growing, there is a need for more evaluations adopting a societal perspective, and time horizons of a lifetime or 10 or more years.


More and more genomes are being sequenced, and to keep up with the pace of sequencing projects, automated annotation techniques are required. One of the most challenging problems in genome annotation is the identification of the core promoter. Better core promoter prediction can improve genome annotation and can be used to guide experimental work. Comparing the average structural profile of transcribed, promoter and intergenic sequences demonstrates that the core promoter has unique features that cannot be found in other sequences. We show that unsupervised clustering by using self-organizing maps can clearly distinguish between the structural profiles of promoter sequences and other genomic sequences. An implementation of this promoter prediction program, called Pro- SOM, is available and has been compared with the state-of-the-art.


Journalistic objectivity is the ideal that reporting should be based purely on facts without allowing a journalists' personal values, beliefs, and emotions into a story. However, in today's changing media environment, the principle of objectivity continues to be questioned. The present study examines the objectivity of local journalistsimmediately following the Eastern Japan Great Earthquake. In particular, we discuss the Kahoku Shin pōposter project in the city of Onagawa, where extensive earthquake damage occurred. One of the findings is that, in a departure from objectivity, journalistic compassion is a great tool for connecting with the local community and forassisting with the recovery effort in the area.


Crit Care Med 2016 • Volume 44 • Number 12 (Suppl.) from the individual models. Hispanic ethnicity (p=0.012) and African American race (p=0.007) were significantly associated with greater PTG. Having a history of PTSD was associated with less PTG (p=0.019). Income was no longer significant in the final model.Conclusions: Results indicate that African American and Hispanic family members experience more PTG resulting from their loved one's hospitalization, while those with a history of PTSD have less. Though it is logical that previous poor outcomes after a stressor (i.e., PTSD) would be at odds with growth, interestingly, minority racial and ethnic background are typically considered risk factors for worse outcomes after a stressful event, such as seeing a family member in an ICU. Additional study is warranted to further understand this relationship and translate this research into clinical application.


The examination of variation of elastic modules in single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is the aim of this paper. Full nonlinear spring-like elements are employed to simulate specific atomic structures in the commercial code ABAQUS. Carbon atoms are attached to each node as a mass point using atomic mass of carbon atoms. The influence of dimensions such as variation of length, diameter, aspect ratio and chirality is explored separately on the variations of young's and shear modules. It is observed that the effect of dimensions after a critical aspect ratio in nanotubes is negligible. Also, the influence of chirality on the elastic modules for same dimensions is observable. The results are compared with experimental results and theoretical data. © 2012 IAU, Arak Branch. All rights reserved.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of the study is to figure out the status of tinnitus management program (TMP) being conducted in India, to estimate the use of different tinnitus management program, to study the role of various professionals involved and document the current practices of audiologist in country.

DESIGN
A questionnaire on "tinnitus management survey" was developed and distributed to 150 institutions all over India.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
The return rate of the Questionnaire was 32.6%, 7 were received from Medical Colleges (MCs) and 42 from speech and hearing clinics (SHCs). Hence, the rates of TMP have not taken up appropriately in the various hospitals and clinics as yet. 71.4% SHCs have the provision of TMP, 74.28% of the institutes have less than 50% of the patients improving with the TMP, involving Audiologists in 62.85% of the institutes. 54.28% of the institutes opted for Tinnitus Masking out of the various tinnitus management programs. Outside funding for TMP was not received by 91.42% of the institutes. 60% of the institutes were provided TMP with hearing aids. 71.42% of the SHCs feel TMP is partially helpful to tinnitus sufferers thus funding should be undertaken by the Government for ensuring effectual program all over India.


The comparison between carbon fiber reinforced different matrixes composites was studied in this work. Carbon fiber reinforced phenolic resin composite and carbon fiber reinforced benzoxazine resin composite were made by pultrusion processing. Bending strength test and charpy impact strength test were taken to characterize the toughness of different composites, and scanning electronic micro-scopy(SEM) was applied to evaluate the interfacial properties between carbon fiber and different matrixes. It was shown that compared with carbon fiber reinforced phenolic composite, carbon fiber reinforced benzoxazine composite had better performance in toughness and interfacial property. Bending strength and toughness were mainly depending on the property of matrixes, interfacial property was determined by carbon fiber and matrixes.


The nature of professional development in early childhood education has recently been reconceptualised, with accompanying changes in policy and practice. This paper draws from teacher education literature to define the components of continuing professional development practices in the context of early childhood education practice. By relating these components to one another, the authors describe a central concept for the growth of early childhood educators: dispositional development, the process by which teachers develop professional dispositions that are intertwined with their daily practices. Analysis, reflection and documentation of teacher work within the sociocultural context of children and families they work with shape these dispositions. The paper provides two detailed examples of the dispositional development practices the authors participated in as early childhood faculty within a university-centre partnership in the Midwestern US. The authors envisage that dispositional development responds to the concerns of early childhood teachers and orients them in a professional and conceptual process for growth.


We report, for the first time to our knowledge, high-power femtosecond traveling-wave optical parametric amplification by use of periodically poled KTiOPO(4) . With a single pass through a 4-mm-long sample of 1.23-mm thickness we achieved 40% internal conversion efficiency and 5microJ of single-pulse idler energy near 3.8microm , using only 75microJ of energy from the output of a conventional 1-kHz Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier. The 210-fs-long idler pulses were almost transform limited. We discuss the specific problems encountered in high-power parametric conversion, such as unwanted quasi-phase-matched upconversion processes for polarization configurations that utilize the largest (d(33)) nonlinear coefficient and the related formation of color centers (gray tracking) in KTiOPO(4) .


AIM
To share our experience with idiopathic intracranial hypertension.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
All patients believed to have pseudotumor cerebri underwent a fundus oculi examination to confirm the existence of papillary stasis and lumbar puncture (LP) to measure cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure. Patients who did not respond to medical treatment underwent fundus oculi examinations at 3-week intervals. Patients with CFS pressures exceeding 240 mm H2O underwent at least three LPs at 3-day intervals. Patients with higher CFS pressures were treated surgically.

RESULTS
The mean patient age was 40.8 (range 31-58) years and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 30.9 (range 28.8-36.4) kg/m2. Papillary stasis was observed in 15 (46.8%) cases. The mean initial CSF pressure was 455.6 (range 360-560) mmHg, and after a mean of 4.3 (range 3-6) repeat measurements, this decreased to 213.4 (range 160-320) mmHg (Table I). Complications in our series included a lumbar pouch in three patients, and an abdominal pouch, meningitis, and abdominal migration in one patient each.

DISCUSSION
Surgical treatment of idiopathic intracranial hypertension is necessary when the intracranial pressure does not decrease despite medical treatment and repeat LP.

CONCLUSIONS
Idiopathic intracranial hypertension is a clinical syndrome of unclear pathogenesis that is closely related to obesity.

KEY WORDS
Cerebrospinal fluid, Idiopathic intracranial hypertension, Pseudotumor cerebri, Obesity.


The author submitted the scheme of physiotherapeutic treatment of total Achilles tendon rupture after the surgery. He also referred to experiences of others authors. After the surgery and limb's immobilization physiotherapy begins, which aim is to decrease pain, swelling and to cut down the perturbation of peripheral circulation. Isometric exercises, tuition of walk with crutches is made to relieve the limb. An important element is mobilization of scar after surgery and measures for lymphatic drainage. Series of exercises vectored on return of function of joint and whole limb are important after wound healing and taking immobilization off. Electric stimulation of muscles and proprioception exercises are applied. Hydrotherapy, selected massage techniques of triceps muscle and scar mobilization are recommended. Gradually, functions of joint, including a range of movement, kinesthesia as well as deep proprioception sensitivity are brought back. It is possible to bring back step by step a correct walk with its determinants. During the third phase we pursue to bring back the strength of muscles, especially muscles of lower legs. Exercises are made as static, then isokinetic and finally concentric-eccentric training. We have to apply a lot of repetitions of equivalent exercises. Bringing into line with age the level of endurance, general efficiency as well as force is important. Exercises with load control are realized, to bring back fast run with changes of directions, jumps, dynamic, polymetric movements in the last period (5-6 months after the surgery). Finally we pursue to restore a physical efficiency of the whole body.


The management of multi drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) is a lengthy process that involves medical treatment for a period of at least 18-24 months that includes compulsory hospitalisation for a period of at least six months. MDR TB is, however, associated with poor treatment outcomes in South Africa. Although Occupational therapy's philosophy focusses on the use of occupation to promote health and well-being, the occupational engagement and adaptation of patients hospitalised for MDR TB have never been explored. This article reports on a qualitative study that was aimed at exploring the occupational adaptation of adults with MDR TB while undergoing long term hospitalisation at a hospital in the Western Cape. An exploratory and descriptive research design employing an interpretive research approach was utilised in the study.  Data collection methods included participant diaries, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and a focus group discussion. All data were analysed through thematic analysis.  The findings highlighted several occupational adaptation strategies adopted by the participants while hospitalised. Certain environmental demands were, however, perceived as infringing upon their occupational choices and influencing their occupational identity and competence. It was recommended that the hospital adopt an occupational therapy programme that focusses on occupational enrichment to facilitate occupational adaptation. Key Words :  MDR TB, long-term hospitalisation, Occupation, Occupational Adaptation, Occupational enrichment.


Chemokine CCL2 acts through CCR2 and causes extravasation of activated macrophages into the inflamed areas. Moreover, it modulates inflammatory response in the injured nervous system and plays role in the activation of neuronal regeneration program. Surgical procedures were performed under aseptic conditions in 12 rats. The first group (CNI, n=4) underwent a compression of right sciatic nerve (NI), the NI of second group was cut (NIT, n =4). Rats were left to survive for 7 days. Naive rats (n=4) were used as control group. Rats were sacrificed and the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) were removed bilaterally in segments L4 and C7. CCL2, GAP43 and ED1+ macrophages were detected by indirect immunohistochemical method under the same conditions. The intensity of CCL2, GAP43 immunofluorescence (IF) and a ratio of ED1+ immunostained areas and areas containing the neuronal bodies were analyzed. The CCL2 and GAP43 IF intensity was significantly increased bilaterally in the DRG neurons of L4 and C7 segments after both CNI and NIT. The increase of CCL2 in the DRG neurons was followed by infiltration of activated ED1+ macrophages. The increase of CCL2 detected in all DRG neurons of L4 and C7 segments after both CNI and NIT with subsequent extravasation of activated ED1+ macrophages and enhanced levels of GAP43 suggested direct or indirect activation of the neuronal regeneration program also in the neurons of remote cervical DRG after peripheral nerve injury. Our results support the idea of systemic reaction of DRG neurons alongside neuroaxis to unilateral nerve injury.


Multi-level power conversion has been receiving increasing attention in the past few years for high power applications. The unique structure of the multi-level voltage source converter (VSC) allows it to reach high voltages with low harmonics without the use of transformers or series-connected, synchronised switching devices. The diode clamped multi-level VSC with its simple configuration and control structure finds application as distribution STATCOM (D-STATCOM) in custom power conditioners. This inverter has emerged as a solution for high power applications. The main purpose of the proposed diode clamped D-STATCOM is that it injects reactive power in shunt with a distribution feeder. It reduces the effect of short-term voltage sags, swells and momentary interruptions in the distribution system. This paper presents the multi-level D-STATCOM configuration consisting of a three level voltage source converter, a DC energy storage device, a coupling transformer and associated control circuits. The control is based on sinusoidal PWM and only requires the measurement of the RMS voltage at the load point. PSCAD/EMTDC simulation tool is used for modeling and simulation. Extensive simulation results are presented to verify the superiority of multi-level D-STATCOM with two level D-STATCOM.


In this article, we examine the shifting policies of sending country states towards communities living abroad, demonstrate the ways in which these are redefining the relationship between the state and its territorial boundaries, and highlight how these reconfigure conventional understandings of sovereignty, citizenship and membership. We begin by delineating the different types of policies that sending states are adapting in order to break down categories like "global nations policies" and to identify similarities and differences between states. We then suggest some possible explanations both for the convergence we see on the "repertoire" of policies that states employ and divergence we see in how far states are willing to go to ensure that migrants remain enduring long-distance membership. We draw on material from several countries, but look most closely at Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.


AIM
To elucidate genetically determined character of cardiovascular pathology with realization of its clinical manifestations at systemic, organ and tissue levels in patients with connective tissue dysplasia (CTD) at obstetric-gynecological setting.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This study involved 614 women with classified and non-classified forms of CTD including 268 primigravidas, mean age 24.8 ± 3.46 yr (group 1) and 346 gynecological patients with genital prolapse, mean age 44.5 ± 10 yr (group 2). Each group was divided into subgroups 1A and 2A with predominant clinical manifestations on the part of the stromal-muscular component and 1B and 2B with the predominance of the vascular component. The methods used included laboratory analysis, ECG, ultrasound, echocardiographic , X-ray, combined urodynamic studies, MGT and laser flowmetry.

RESULTS
Prolapse of mitral valve (PMV) was diagnosed in 100 and 88.3% of the patients in groups 1 and 2 respectively with regurgitation in 1-2 valves in 140 (52.1%) and 143 (47.7%) ones, primary varicosis in 41 (15.2%) and 136 (39.5%), mixomatous degeneration in 65 (24.3%) and 107 (30.9%), predisposition to tissue hemorrhage in 37 (13.8%) and 64 (18.5%), vegetovascular dystonia in 50 and 60%. Patients of subgroup 1A with joint hypermobility and PMV exhibited a higher degree of uterine maturity (4.6 ± 1.75 scores). Rapid labor correlated with apical forms of genital prolapse (subgroups 1A, 2A); in the latter subgroup, they occurred in 83% ofthe patients, grade III rectocele occurred in 62.5%, protrusion and relaxation of pelvic floor in 50%. Pathology of the anorectal segment of pelvic diaphragm was diagnosed in more than 50% of the parous and nulliparous women (subgroups 1A and 2A). End diastolic volume was 102.7 ± 31.08 and 65.7 ± 59.48 ml in subgroups 2A and 2B respectively in association with a decrease of left ventricle mass to 135.6 ± 36.6 and 168.5 ± 86.97 g Hyperemic bloodflow prevailed in subgroup 1A while microcirculation index increased to 6.6 ± 1.84, perfusion coefficient to 2.2 ± 0.91, variation coefficient to 28.9 ± 5.46, relative HF amplitude to 21.9 ± 5.1 (control: 18.3 ± 1.29).

CONCLUSION
CTD is always realized at the level of cardiovascular system. Its form and the type of dysregulation of suprasegmental CNS regions are genetically determined and inter-related In combination with minor cardiac abnormalities, they determine the type of hemodynamics including microcirculation and the degree of dysmorphism in the form of disorders in pelvic organs and structures including changes in the stromal-vascular histion level. The type of hemodynamics (microcirculation) determines dysregulatory processes in cells and intercellular matrix with the development of pathomorphological changes in the form of rheologic disturbances, vasculitis, thickening and loosening of basal membrane, smooth cell dystrophy, swelling of collagen fibers, loss of their elasticity, and reduction of the collagenous network.


Common sense tells us that drilling, testing, and grading have nothing to do with how babies, children, and adults really learn. And research backs this up. Students who had been asked to write regularly without being taught to punctuate, for instance, ended a term not only writing but punctuating much better than students in a neighboring class who had been regularly drilled, tested, and graded solely on punctuation. This must be the most tedious, least rewarding, and least effective teaching that students have to endure. But false theory, political pressures, business opportunism, and harried administrators have persuaded us to accept this bureaucratic travesty of teaching as the real think. "Insult to Intelligence" focuses particularly on children learning to read and write, the area in which Smith has made his reputation. But his six-point manifesto on learning and teaching is applicable at every level of education, and in the context of America's ongoing struggle to upgrade the teaching profession and to raise national standards of literacy, his book is nothing less than a call to arms.


The displacement, stress, and strain distributions of railway embankments on the soft deltaic deposit of the Ganges–Brahmaputra floodplain are investigated. A numerical model developed in general-purpose finite element software is used to simulate the design train load on a deltaic deposit for a 100 km/hr rail speed. The numerical analysis analogy is grounded in the spring model, where a beam under the unit load is modeled based on the Winkler foundation model concept. In the moving load simulation on soil, the static point load relating to the axle load is assigned in the form of a dynamic multiplier, determined using auxiliary software. The calculated shear force in terms of the influence line is applied as a dynamic multiplier. The numerical results demonstrate that under a dynamic train load, the loose ballast undergoes larger and more erratic displacement than the subballast. Comparative analysis between varying subballast stiffnesses shows that stiffer subballast yields smaller displacements. Moreover, a high subballast stiffness can counterbalance the potential of forming permanent deformation by generating lower strains. However, a stiffer subballast does not play a prominent role in reducing the displacement of ballast or vertical stresses. The subgrade is found to carry the maximum load, withstanding the maximum vertical stress; thus, the importance of using an improved subgrade with higher stiffness is also observed. A greater subgrade stiffness improves its load-carrying capacity but fails to reduce the tension responsible for the lateral spreading of the soft subsoil. To reduce the high radial strain, the effects of improving the stiffness properties of two immediately adjacent soft soil layers are numerically investigated. The improvement of subsoil alone is effective in reducing the radial strain, whereas the improvement of both subgrade and subsoil produces further reductions. The critical train speed generating the maximum displacement is identified as 120 km/hr, and the dynamic velocity amplitude decreases with depth. Finally, an allowable limit of rail embankment settlement on a soft deltaic deposit is observed.


Doner is a kind of kebab which is produced after marinating meat and spitting the fat with marinated meat then cooked in the doner cooker. Doner is our traditional product that is consumed gladly and its production is growing day by day in our country and in different countries of the world. The increasing demand for this product, which is unique to our country, has led researchers to work on doner and to raise awareness of consumers. When the limited number of studies are examined, it is concluded that the chemical properties of the doners presented to consumption in Turkey are generally in conformity with the standards, but their microbiological characteristics vary and can have risks for health. In addition to the studies related to doners offered for sale, it has been observed that there are studies in the direction of identifying and developing the factors that affect the quality of doners, however, in recent years formulation development studies have intensified. In this study, studies on doner were compiled and doner production, quality characteristics of doners offered for sale, the effects of different factors on doner production and product properties development researches were investigated, in this way it was intended to provide a collective overview to our traditional product doner.


System-level simulation has been widely used to evaluate system performance. Simulation methodologies have also been comprehensively discussed in different organizations or institutions. Most of the simulation methodologies proposed, however, mainly focus on one area of specific technologies. How to evaluate the performance of multiple air interface systems (e.g., cdma2000, WCDMA, WiMAX, and their evolutions) in a fair and comprehensive manner has not been addressed extensively. This article presents a unified simulation methodology, including fading channel models, system configurations, and how to consider technology-dependent algorithms such as scheduling, overhead modeling, interference margin definition, and resource allocation based on system loading. This article uses this framework to compare three major existing radio technologies: cdma2000 1x EV-DO Rev. A, WCDMA HSPA, and mobile WiMAX based on 802.16e. Key simulation results based on our suggested system models and settings are presented and analyzed. It is shown that under our unified framework, the two CDMA systems exhibit higher spectrum efficiency than mobile WiMAX, especially on the downlink, while mobile WiMAX provides a higher peak rate.


In the current, highly competitive marketplace, customer demand is a major factor in the product design process. Most firms make an effort to indicate that their products differ from the competitors' products. The purpose of this paper is to understand customers' expectations of and technical requirements for e-stores and to evaluate most popular e-stores in Turkey (i.e., ES1, ES2, ES3). In this study, the authors aim to understand the customer expectations and technical requirements by using quality function deployment (QFD). To prepare the house of quality (HoQ), the authors surveyed 20 experts who are customers who have elite membership (their expenses for these e-stores are more than regular customers and have elite cards) of the three e-stores and academicians. After creating the HoQ, the authors employ fuzzy linear regression to evaluate the relationships between customer expectations and technical requirements and among technical requirements themselves. Finally, the authors use zero-one goal programming (ZOGP) to select the most desirable e-store.


Creating a value proposition for an information system (IS) is challenging: often consideration must be given to a broad set of users and range of individuals which may be directly or indirectly impacted by what can be both tangible and intangible factors. This becomes further complicated for large-scale deployments involving a number of disparate stakeholder groups and across multiple co-operating or competing organizations. Unfortunately, this is exactly the context within which many healthcare IS solutions must operate. A diverse set of arguments is being used by the different players variously seeking to design, develop, procure, implement and operate the IS solutions. This paper explores how the value proposition for IS in healthcare can be created, providing examples of different approaches in use. It discusses the relative merits of four different approaches favoring one which appears to provide the most expedient and robust method - here termed 'pragmatic modeling'.


The field trial of Virginia type tobacco (Hevesi-9) was set in irrigation conditions, in the vicinity of Brzi Brod village, Niãava River's valley, on the alluvium soil type. Water consumption for evapotranspiration, at the irrigated variant and the control one, was calculated for each month and the whole vegetation period, by making the balance between water consumption from the soil layer to 2m under the ground, total precipitation amount in the vegetation and water added by irrigation. Hydro-phyto-meteorological indexes of Virginia type tobacco were calculated in regard to air temperature, relative air humidity, air humidity deficiency, sunshine duration and global radiation. Among the six meteorological elements (the above mentioned five and wind speed) analyzed in the studied period, the highest level of correlation with tobacco ETP was shown by air temperature (r=0.88), so the use of hydro-phyto-termic index could be recommended for calculation of potential evapotranspiration in irrigation practice.


It is well-known that devastating earthquakes have struck the Southwest coast of the Japanese Islands repeatedly in the past. Of these earthquakes, those that occurred in the Nankai Trough region are very significant, because they have caused extreme hazards in these coastal areas due to large tsunamis. In order to detect tsunamis in the earthquake source areas, JAMSTEC deployed the seafloor seismic network, DONET in 2010. The DONET system consists of an array of 20 stations in total, each of which are composed of multiple types of sensors, including strong-motion seismometers and quartz pressure gauges. The recorded data are transferred to a land station through a fiber-optic cable in real time. We have developed a web application system, REIS (Real-time Earthquake Information System) that provides seismic waveform data to some local governments close to the Nankai Trough. The main purpose of REIS is to inform local government officers as to what has actually occurred in the Nankai trough region when there is a large earthquake. REIS itself is not designed to issue early tsunami warnings, but it should be useful for local government officers to get every possible piece of information to quickly assess large earthquakes. We have ensured that the display of real-time waveform data from DONET is performed with a maximum delay time of approximately 2 seconds, even though we do not use dedicated internet connection at the REIS users' sites. This delay time is considered appropriate to allow local government officers to promptly identify current seismic activity around Nankai Trough region. In 2016, the network has been enlarged to the west of DONET and about 30 new stations, DONET2, are added to the network. We have renovated the REIS system so that it may handle additional seismic waveform data without any problems. Also, since April 2016, the ownership of DONET has officially transferred to the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED). JAMSTEC has a contract for the operation of DONET with NIED and will keep the operation of REIS and event data system as it is.


The declining share of beef in total U.S. meat consumption has motivated industry-wide efforts to improve average beef quality through more effective coordination among the various market participants. Increased use of explicit "grid" pricing mechanisms over the last decade represent initial efforts at improved coordination. More recent efforts include animal-specific carcass data collection, with subsequent transmission to feeders and the relevant cow/calf operations, and improved "source verification" procedures aimed at (among other things) reducing the overall cost of medical treatment for live animals. None of these organizational innovations is costless, and indeed a number of significant barriers must be overcome before more widespread adoption of such practices takes place. This paper takes a detailed look at one organization's attempts to overcome some of these barriers, and provides a qualitative assessment of this and other potential organizational responses.


We study the problem faced by an online navigation platform that wishes to improve the total cost experienced by drivers in the road network, i.e., minimize the total travel time of vehicles on the streets. The platform has access to a fixed fraction of the traffic and needs to route it in a manner that improves the overall conditions in the network, both for platform users and non-users. This setting has been studied in the context of designing Stackelberg strategies for selfish routing games. An additional consideration for a routing platform in this setting is that it should ensure a positive experience for its users. The reasons for this are twofold: (a) the platform has a customer-service provider relationship with its users and (b) the users will opt out of following the platform's recommendations if they are systematically poor and the overall routing optimization effort will fail. This aspect is not explicitly addressed in standard Stackelberg algorithms and, in particular, some of them (e.g., Largest Latency First) move in the opposite direction of assigning user traffic to the most expensive paths so that the (selfish) non-user traffic can utilize the better part of the network. To address this challenge we formulate a weighted version of the Stackelberg routing problem in which the delay experienced by non-users of the platform is discounted by some parameter β < 1. We study natural algorithms for this problem and provide provable guarantees in the form of constant approximation ratios for various settings. In simulations with real graphs, data-induced delay functions, and realistic demands, we exhibit that such strategies improve the experience of both platform users and independent traffic in the road network and extract the trade-off between providing high quality service to the platform's users and improving the overall total cost.


Many techniques have been proposed in recent years for in situ soil characterization, and among them, acoustic methods have been revealed to be particularly promising. These methods are based on measurements of the propagation velocities of seismic, sonic, and ultrasonic waves. However, in granular and porous mediums, velocities depend on the state of the saturation of the soil in a complex and not yet fully understood way. In this paper, a refined mathematical model to account for the effects of many soil properties such as porosity, bulk modulus, and pressure on acoustic wave velocity is proposed and investigated. The model has been validated by an experimental comparison between the measured and calculated values of velocities, using a kind of sand of known characteristics. A custom measurement system has been developed and realized for this purpose. The proposed model has potential applications in various areas, including geothermal resource evaluation, petroleum exploration, environmental protection, and archaeological and cultural site protection.


The Entrepreneurship process is established throughout the world as successful tool for social and economic development of rural people. Multiple factors are responsible for propagating entrepreneurship such as motivation and individual skill, social and cultural environment where entrepreneurship is fostered and the challenges or problems one entrepreneur is facing. This study is an endeavor towards assessing the impact of multiple factors on entrepreneurial growth and it has also highlighted the significant factors having influencing relationships within. The study has come out with findings that, multiple factors play significant role for the growth of rural entrepreneurship rather individual factors which has a lesser impact on growth.


We present an on-line list-mode image reconstruction system using GPUs for a surgical PET imaging probe system. We used the nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ and CUDA to reconstruct images. The proposed system can generate a three-dimensional image from simulated data in 70 msec. We also compared the processing time with respect to the number of LORs per subset. We are working on optimizing the CUDA code to reduce the processing time. The data for image reconstruction were obtained from Monte Carlo simulations. The PET imaging probe system provides intermediately reconstructed 3-dimensional images online in order to detect small tumors or remnants of surgically removed tumors either during surgery or preoperatively. The on line image reconstruction requires high speed computation. Even multi-processor computers may not satisfy the requirement. Fortunately, currently available GPUs provide high speed computation. We are exploring a variant of one-pass list-mode OSEM in conjunction with GPU-based coding to provide real time image reconstruction. We present intermediately reconstructed images by consecutively applying a non-overlapping data window or an overlapping data window on data. The PET probe system itself consists of a segment of a conventional PET scanner and a small, high-resolution PET detector equipped with a position-tracker. Coincidence lines-of-response (LORs) are collected between the two detectors. The imaging probe's proximity to the lesions and the small size crystals in the probe contribute to high spatial resolution. The continuously updated 3D image is reprojected in real-time onto a plane whose orientation is driven by the tracking system. Based on the intermediate images and the preoperative PET scans, surgeons can survey suspicious regions in detail. If online reconstruction and display are achievable, the PET imaging probe can be viewed as a handheld, clinician-guided camera capable of seeing the distribution of the radiotracer. Note that the probe suffers from an inherent limited angle tomography problem. However, because we are interested in the FOV that is close to the PET imaging probe, the effect of limited angle tomography may not be so severe. The GPU based image reconstruction system will be integrated with a prototype PET imaging probe. While computation speed is not yet sufficient, it can be improved by using high-end GPUs and optimized CUDA code.


Our phylogenetic analysis based on 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequences and chemotaxonomic analyses showed that Nocardioides simplex ATCC 13260, ATCC 19565, and ATCC 19566 are more closely related to the genus Rhodococcus, especially Rhodococcus erythropolis, than to the genus Nocardioides. N. simplex ATCC 13260 and N. simplex ATCC 19565 and ATCC 19566 exhibited levels of 16S rDNA similarity of 99.4 and 100%, respectively, to R. erythropolis DSM 43066T. Strains ATCC 13260, ATCC 19565, and ATCC 19566 had mesodiaminopimelic acid in their peptidoglycan and MK-8(H2) as their predominant menaquinone. These three strains produced cellular fatty acid patterns similar to those of R. erythropolis strains rather than those of Nocardioides species. Therefore, N. simplex ATCC 13260, ATCC 19565, and ATCC 19566 should be reclassified as strains of R. erythropolis Gray and Thornton 1928.


Equivalent dipole polarizabilities are a succinct way to summarize the inductive response of an isolated conductive body at distances greater than the scale of the body. At any time lag or frequency, an equivalent dipole polarizability response is comprised of nine parameters: six specifying an equivalent dipole polarizability matrix (which is symmetric) and three specifying the apparent location of the body center. Smith and Morrison have given equations for calculating uncertainties in equivalent dipole polarizability and position based on analysis of an iterative linearized inversion. Here, the root mean squared uncertainty in polarizability is weighted and summed over a number of control points and minimized using an evolutionary algorithm for a number of instrument designs. Three families of designs are presented: single-transmitter systems for use on a two-dimensional grid of positions with negligible error in relative instrument location, two-transmitter systems for use on a line of positions with negligible error in relative instrument location, and three-transmitter systems for stand alone use. Results for the one- and two-transmitter systems are strongly degraded by errors in instrument position, whereas the three-transmitter systems are insensitive to instrument positioning errors.


Informal caregiving is a potentially attractive alternative to formal care but may entail health costs for the caregiver. We examine the mental and physical health impact of providing informal care and disentangle the caregiving effect – the effect of caring for someone in need – from the family effect – the effect of caring about someone in need. We account for potential endogeneity in the caregiving decision and control for previous health status using Arellano-Bond difference GMM models. We use four waves (2010-2013) of panel data from the Dutch Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (STREAM). We find that caregiving harms the mental health of caregivers; this effect is mainly present for spousal caregivers. A negative health shock of a family member also has a direct negative effect on mental health, providing evidence of a family effect. These findings imply that most studies may have overestimated the negative health effects of caregiving by not accounting adequately for the family effect. As the caregiving effect differs strongly between various types of caregivers, policies to counteract this effect should specifically target subgroups of caregivers that carry the largest burden of informal caregiving.


The Institute for Nuclear Safety and Protection (IPSN) launched the "Tournemire" program, in 1988. One of its aims is to understand and characterize the fluid transfer processes in argillaceous rocks. They are interesting rocks for the long-term storage of nuclear waste. To this purpose, the IPSN installed an experimental site in a tunnel, which gives access to a 250 m-thick Toarcian and Domerian shale unit near Tournemire (Aveyron, France) (fig. 1). The fluids, in this type of rock with very low intrinsic permeability, 10-14 m/s [Boisson et al., 1998], used to flow (calcite crystallizations in fractures), and still flow, principally in the fractures [Barbreau et Boisson, 1993 ; Boisson, 1995] formed during the tectonic history of the formation. In order to constrain the history of fluid flow in the formation, it was necessary to characterize the tectonic fracturing and to identify the tectonic events responsible, on the one hand, for the apparition of the fractures and, on the other hand, for their eventual reactivation. The method used was a microtectonic and kinematic analysis.

The studied area belongs to the western border of the Causses basin, a Permian-Mesozoic basin trending N-S. The slightly monoclinal series in this area range from the Trias, discordant westward on the Permian formations of the St-Affrique basin, to the lower Kimmerigian locally present on the Larzac plateau (fig. 1). The upper Liassic shales (Domerian, Toarcian) are between two limestone and dolomite formations. Two major (regional-scale) ESE-WNW reverse faults, the Cernon fault and the St-Jean-d'Alcapies fault, cross the area. Their offsets may reach several hundred meters. These two faults limit an ESE-WNW trending block where the experimental site is located.

The tectonic fractures in the area result from two main tectonic phases. Phase 1, extensional, occurred during the Mesozoic and comprises three episodes (fig. 2). The first episode, characterised by an E-W extension (fig. 3), did not produce significant structures in the Toarcian shales. The second episode, with a NW-SE extension direction (fig. 4 and fig. 5), occurred during the diagenesis of the shales. It led to the development of calcareous nodules. These nodules are considered to be "mode I" fractures formed in association with fluid expulsion during the sediment compaction (fig. 4). The last episode has a N-S direction, (fig. 7) and is probably late Jurassic in age [Macquar, 1973 ; Bles et al., 1989 ; Martin et Bergerat, 1996]. It produced E-W conjugate normal faults (fig. 6) and two perpendicular sets of extensional joints trending E-W and N-S.

The second major tectonic phase corresponds to the "pyrenean" compression. The [sigma]1 directions vary from NE-SW to NW-SE, with two major pulses striking N020-N030 and N160-N170 (fig. 2, fig. 9 and fig. 10). The N020-N030 direction corresponds to the paroxysm of the "pyrenean" phase, dated as late Middle Eocene [Arthaud et Laurent., 1995]. It reactivated major faults and formed associated folds (fig. 8). Numerous fractures due to the N160-170 compressional event are concentrated principally in the center of the block bordered by the ESE-WNW major faults (fig. 2). Chronological criteria indicate that the direction of compression rotated counter-clockwise during the "pyrenean" compressional phase (fig. 11).

A third compression direction (N130) has been evidenced, for example, by N030 trending tension gashes cross-cut by N130 trending gashes (fig. 12). The significance of this last tectonic event is unclear. It is mainly observed in the west drift of the experimental site (fig. 1C), and could result of the re-orientation of the stresses at this site close to an important shear zone.

Three sets of joints, trending N020, N160 and N090 (fig. 13 and fig. 14) have been recognized. The joints are classically extensional fractures that propagate perpendicular to the minimum principal stress [sigma]3 [Endelger, 1985 ; Pollard et Aydin, 1988 ; Rives, 1992]. In strike-slip regimes, such fractures strike parallel to the maximum principal stress [sigma]1. The average N020, N160 and N090 joints thus very probably are created respectively during the N020 pyrenean strike-slip event, N160 strike-slip event and N-S Mesozoic extension. The established chronology between the different compressional episodes involves the reactivation of the N020 and N160 fractures may have caused only senestral strike slip. However, the presence of dextral strike slip on some vertical planes trending N-S, not associated with conjugate planes but with E-W vertical planes indicates their origin is not related to the "Pyrenean" phase. Consequently, we assumed that a set of N-S joints created during the extensive phase, in the same time as the E-W joints.

An elasticity theory model gives an account of field observations on this type of fractures. The model proposed by Caputo [1995] describes the geometry of networks, of joints as a function of the tectonic regime (fig. 15). Two coeval sets of joints form under the same tectonic event. For an extensive stress state, the two sets are orthogonal to each other. Under strike slip regimes, two orthogonal sets form but one of the two sets forms horizontally (parallel to the bedding planes when the stratification is horizontal). The mechanism involves a stress permutation between [sigma]3 and [sigma]2 in the vicinity of the first fracture zone at the moment of failure. The network of orthogonal joints (N-S and E-W) appeared under the N-S extensive event.

We show two sets of joints with the same orientation formed at two different ages (fig. 16). Their differentiation was possible with the chronology of the deformation, which was determined by the microtectonic analysis. The pre-existing fractures, originated before the "pyrenean" phase, necessarily influenced the expression and the distribution of the fractures associated with the "pyrenean" phase. These pre-existing fractures must be taken into account to understand and constrain the fluid circulations in the Toarcian shales.


The title of this research is : A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS ON METAPHORSON CIGARETTE ADVERTISEMENTS. The objective of this study is to analyse the use of metaphor in cigarette advertisement in the view off pragmatic. This  is due to the cigarette advertisement is not allowed to advertise their products because cigarette is very dangerous for the cobsumer's health. Therefore, the advertisers use metaphors to hide  the real meanings. Thus, teenagers or youths will find difficulties in interpreting the meanings of metaphors used in cigarettes advertisement. This is qualitative research, therefore,  it uses descriptive methods using the theories  of Yule's, Levinson's, and Thomas. Yules's  and Thomas describe about the functions of the illocutionary force of the speech acts; while Nielson and Storik describe the classification of metaphors, added by Levinson's theory that describes  about kinds of metaphors and the way too interpret their meanings. After the analysis was executed, the writer found that directives and reoresentatives are mostly used in cigarette advertisement, while in the classification of metaphors, personification are mostly used and kind of metaphors that are mostly used in cigarette advertisement are nominal metaphors.


Continuous use of phosphorus (P) fertilizers has created severe environmental concerns. Control of non-point source of P contamination is the biggest challenge. In current study, residues from the water treatment facilities (WTR) and blast furnace slag (BFS) were tested for their ability to reduce the P runoff. Residues from water treatment facilities have been extensively tested under crop or grass cover but less is know when applied to bare lands. Similarly, BFS has been studied for its use as a filtering material in wastewater treatment plants, but its use on agricultural lands for P control has not been reported yet. A silty clay loam soil was amended with BFS and WTR at the rate of 50 g kg -1 soil. Chemical P was applied at the rate of 400 kg ha -1 . Bared soil surface with two roughnesses (low and high) was exposed to two artificial rainfall intensities (35 and 75 mm h -1 ). Each treatment was exposed to three rainfall events with a constant rainfall depth of 70 mm. Results of the study showed that, regardless of rainfall intensity and soil roughness, dissolved reactive P (DRP) reduced over the runoff time from both amended pots while from control pots an increasing trend was observed. Water treatment residues reduced the mean DRP concentration by 27.3% and DRP load by 32% as compared to un-amended plots. Though the trend was declining but P concentrations were higher from BFS amended plots compared to control. DRP concentrations were lower under high rainfall intensity than low rain intensity due to the dilution factor. This study affirms the ability of WTR to reduce the P mobility from bare soils as well however further studies are needed to test the effectiveness of BFS under filed conditions.


Almost all existing controllers for nonholonomic mobile robots are designed without considering the actuator dynamics. This is because the presence of the actuator dynamics increases the complexity of the system dynamics, and makes difficult the design of the controller. In this paper, we propose a simple adaptive control approach for path tracking of uncertain nonholonomic mobile robots incorporating actuator dynamics. All parameters of robot kinematics, robot dynamics, and actuator dynamics are assumed to be uncertain. For the simple controller design, the dynamic surface control methodology is applied and extended to mobile robots that the number of inputs and outputs is different. We also adopt the adaptive control technique to treat all uncertainties and derive adaptation laws from the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.


Background The protease inhibitors (PI) boceprevir and telaprevir are associated with new adverse events (AEs) which can reduce quality of life. Purpose To evaluate the safety of triple therapy with PI in monoinfected patients with genotype 1 hepatitis C virus (HCV). Materials and methods A prospective observational study of patients with triple therapy for chronic HCV infection from November 2012 to April 2013. We recorded the following clinical variables: age, sex and baseline laboratory values (haemoglobin (Hb), platelets, neutrophils) and the management of the AEs at each visit to the pharmaceutical care consultation. Results We included 16 patients, 15 men (93.7%) with a mean age of 55 years. The PI used: 8 patients with telaprevir and 8 with boceprevir. The mean laboratory values before treatment were: Hb = 15.2 g/dl, platelets = 149 × 10 3 /mm 3 , neutrophils/mm 3 = 2766. Only 5 patients started treatment with abnormal laboratory values: 3 with thrombocytopenia, 2 with neutropenia and one of these also with anaemia. Three patients were excluded from the analysis of AEs. AEs reported: anaemia: 46.2% (6/13) grade 1, 15.4% (2/13) grade 2, 15.4% (2/13) grade 3 and 7.6% (1/13) grade 4. Management strategies included: ribavirin dose reduction 38.5% (5/13), blood transfusions 15.4% (2/13) and erythropoietin administration 23.1% (3/13). Regarding thrombocytopenia: 30.7% (4/13) grade 1, 38.5% (5/13) grade 2 and 7.6% (1/13) both grade 3 and grade 4. The dose of peginterferon was reduced in 1 patient due to AEs and another due to weight adjustment. Taste disorders increases from week 4, reaching to 38% (5/13). Anorectal disorders were reported with both PI (23%; 3/13 patients) in the first 4 weeks, decreasing afterwards. The itchy rash reached its peak incidence (53%) from week 8. Conclusions No patients had to discontinue triple therapy due to the reported adverse events. Anaemia and thrombocytopenia were the AEs with the highest incidence and clinical importance in treatment. No conflict of interest.


It is believed that India will soon have the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases of any country. Some reports project that 37 million people will be infected within the next two decades. Sadly, few studies have examined the legal claims of those who suffer with this disease in this, the world's largest democracy. In this article, I systematically examine how the courts in India have responded to rights-based claims brought by people who have HIV. The conventional wisdom is that the Indian judiciary frequently protects the rights of the poor, the under-represented, and the ill. But my findings reveal that, at least for people with HIV, the courts have not extended to this group full constitutional protection. The implications of this conclusion force us to revisit whether the courts in India best safeguard the rights of others who are disadvantaged.


Person reidentification, which matches person images of the same identity across nonoverlapping camera views, becomes an important component for cross-camera-view activity analysis. Most (if not all) person reidentification algorithms are designed based on appearance features. However, appearance features are not stable across nonoverlapping camera views under dramatic lighting change, and those algorithms assume that two cross-view images of the same person can be well represented either by exploring robust and invariant features or by learning matching distance. Such an assumption ignores the nature that images are captured under different camera views with different camera characteristics and environments, and thus, mostly there exists large discrepancy between the extracted features under different views. To solve this problem, we formulate an asymmetric distance model for learning camera-specific projections to transform the unmatched features of each view into a common space where discriminative features across view space are extracted. A cross-view consistency regularization is further introduced to model the correlation between view-specific feature transformations of different camera views, which reflects their nature relations and plays a significant role in avoiding overfitting. A kernel cross-view discriminant component analysis is also presented. Extensive experiments have been conducted to show that asymmetric distance modeling is important for person reidentification, which matches the concerns on cross-disjoint-view matching, reporting superior performance compared with related distance learning methods on six publically available data sets.


Judicial recourse to constitutional law sources from abroad has been likened to the process of bricolage, coined by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, this refers to the 'borrowing from materials readily at hand.' Building on the idea of constitutional borrowing, this paper aims to take account of the role dominant culture plays in constitutional interpretation, in particular, the values associated with economic globalization. If resort to comparative constitutional sources is on the rise, dominant political culture will likely have the effect of limiting the stock of tools available to judges. The author argues that, in an age of economic globalization, the 'buyer-seller' model of constitutional interpretation will be one of the principle interpretative sources readily at hand. This is a model which valorizes market relations of free and mutual exchange, ideas familiar to U.S. constitutional law particularly in the Lochner era. It is argued that this market model has emerged as an important mode of interpretation in Canadian constitutional law since 1982. This is suggested by an examination of recent decisions in the realms of federalism, Charter rights, Aboriginal rights, though not all cases can be explained in this way. Nor is this a phenomenon isolated to Canada; rather, it is to be expected that the buyer-seller model will have universal appeal, for it appears to be the best available method of securing economic success in an era of intense competition between national states for foreign capital.


Weakly-supervised temporal action localization aims to detect action boundaries in untrimmed videos with only video-level annotations. Most existing schemes detect tem-poral regions that are most responsive to video-level classification, but they overlook the semantic consistency between frames. In this paper, we hypothesize that snippets with similar representations should be considered as the same action class despite the absence of supervision signals on each snippet. To this end, we devise a learnable dictionary where entries are the class centroids of the corresponding action categories. The representations of snippets identified as the same action category are induced to be close to the same class centroid, which guides the network to perceive the semantics of frames and avoid unreasonable localization. Besides, we propose a two-stream framework that in-tegrates the attention mechanism and the multiple-instance learning strategy to extract fine-grained clues and salient features respectively. Their complementarity enables the model to refine temporal boundaries. Finally, the developed model is validated on the publicly available THUMOS-14 and ActivityNet-1.3 datasets, where substantial experiments and analyses demonstrate that our model achieves remark-able advances over existing methods.


In this thesis the central aim is to identify and appreciate a fuller understanding of possible market imperfections in the insurance market: I have focused on contributing to the existing empirical tests to determine the presence of asymmetric information, such as moral hazard and adverse selection. Further to this the intention is to explore and improve plausible policy implications in order to make adjustments to market welfare. In particular, the empirical analysis is enriched using 'car insurance panel data sets' obtained from two major Korean car insurance companies. In the first chapter I review the detailed descriptions of the Korean car insurance market, and the data sets from the Korean car insurance companies are presented. Then, using the Korean data sets, I implement three pioneering empirical models for application within the field of empirical insurance economics. Namely: the conditional correlation approach (probit model/bivariate probit model) the occurrence dependence approach (duration model) and the Granger causality approach (dynamic bivariate probit model). In the second chapter I have sought to detect the presence of moral hazard via the introduction of a regulatory change that occurred in the Korean car insurance market in the year 2000. Then using logit and nonparametric estimation I have investigated whether there was any change in accident rates between, before, and then after the introduction of a stronger incentive system. In the last chapter - with an aid of an improved, more substantive, data set - I have investigated the presence of asymmetric information that is from a different direction from that previously employed within the literature. Firstly, with regards to the 'moral hazard problem', I have worked on the relationship between the purchase of coverage for damage to the policyholder car and the stated car value. Due to the presence of a 'missing data problem', I have implemented a bounds approach in estimating car value distribution. Secondly, regarding the identification of adverse selection I have introduced a simple conditional variance test to see whether there is a difference in risk level across policyholders.


Software vulnerabilities are the root cause of a wide range of attacks. Existing vulnerability scanning tools are able to produce a set of suspects. However, they often suffer from a high false positive rate. Convicting a suspect and vindicating false positives are mostly a highly demanding manual process, requiring a certain level of understanding of the software. This limitation significantly thwarts the application of these tools by system administrators or regular users who are concerned about security but lack of understanding of, or even access to, the source code. It is often the case that even developers are reluctant to inspect/fix these numerous suspects unless they are convicted by evidence. In this paper, we propose a lightweight dynamic approach which generates evidence for various security vulnerabilities in software, with the goal of relieving the manual procedure. It is based on data lineage tracing, a technique that associates each execution point precisely with a set of relevant input values. These input values can be mutated by an offline analysis to generate exploits. We overcome the efficiency challenge by using Binary Decision Diagrams (BDD). Our tool successfully generates exploits for all the known vulnerabilities we studied. We also use it to uncover a number of new vulnerabilities, proved by evidence.


Our purpose was to determine if the introduction of prospective payment according to diagnosis related groups (DRGs) was associated with any adverse effect on the nutritional status of patients undergoing massive resections for head and neck cancer. The hypothesis was that malnourished patients, in particular those admitted since prospective payment was instituted, would be less well nourished at the time of surgery due to shortened preoperative stays, and, therefore, they would have more postoperative complications than malnourished patients admitted before DRGs. We compared 59 male patients with cancer of the head and neck admitted for massive resections before the introduction of DRGs with 61 similar patients admitted after the introduction of DRGs. These patients were classified as being either malnourished or well nourished. Nutritional status did not differ significantly at admission but was worse at surgery after the introduction of DRGs. In malnourished patients, complication scores were over two times higher after the introduction of DRGs. We conclude that malnourished patients have not fared as well since the prospective payment system was introduced and that other ways need to be devised so malnourished patients can be treated, such as adjusting DRG payments or providing preadmission nutritional support.


Cardiac glycosides (CGs) are used primarily for cardiac failure and have been reported to have other effects, including inhibition of viral replication. Here we set out to study mechanisms by which CGs as inhibitors of the Na-K-ATPase decrease influenza A virus (IAV) replication in the lungs. We found that CGs inhibit influenza virus replication in alveolar epithelial cells by decreasing intracellular potassium, which in turn inhibits protein translation, independently of viral entry, mRNA transcription, and protein degradation. These effects were independent of the Src signaling pathway and intracellular calcium concentration changes. We found that short-term treatment with ouabain prevented IAV replication without cytotoxicity. Rodents express a Na-K-ATPase-α1 resistant to CGs. Thus we utilized Na-K-ATPase-α1-sensitive mice, infected them with high doses of influenza virus, and observed a modest survival benefit when treated with ouabain. In summary, we provide evidence that the inhibition of the Na-K-ATPase by CGs decreases influenza A viral replication by modulating the cell protein translational machinery and results in a modest survival benefit in mice.


The development of magic-angle spinning dynamic nuclear polarization (MAS DNP) has allowed atomic-level characterization of materials for which conventional solid-state NMR is impractical due to the lack of sensitivity. The rapid progress of MAS DNP has been largely enabled through the understanding of rational design concepts for more efficient polarizing agents (PAs). Here, we identify a new design principle which has so far been overlooked. We find that the local geometry around the unpaired electron can change the DNP enhancement by an order of magnitude for two otherwise identical conformers. We present a set of 13 new stable mono- and dinitroxide PAs for MAS DNP NMR where this principle is demonstrated. The radicals are divided into two groups of isomers, named open (O-) and closed (C-), based on the ring conformations in the vicinity of the N-O bond. In all cases, the open conformers exhibit dramatically improved DNP performance as compared to the closed counterparts. In particular, a new urea-based biradical named HydrOPol and a mononitroxide O-MbPyTol yield enhancements of 330 ± 60 and 119 ± 25, respectively, at 9.4 T and 100 K, which are the highest enhancements reported so far in the aqueous solvents used here. We find that while the conformational changes do not significantly affect electron spin-spin distances, they do affect the distribution of the exchange couplings in these biradicals. Electron spin echo envelope modulation (ESEEM) experiments suggest that the improved performance of the open conformers is correlated with higher solvent accessibility.


Yona Wallach introduced to Hebrew poetry an innovative discourse on gender and sexuality. The article claims that one of the issues that preoccupied Wallach throughout her poetic career was that of female sexual subjectivity, of the ways in which a woman can occupy the position of a sexual subject. From the outset, her approach to this question was radically different from that of her predecessors in Hebrew poetry, and the answers she devised changed with the evolution of her poetics, leading her eventually to a performative understanding of gender that anticipated formulations generated by feminist and queer thought in the 1990s. Beginning with a comparison of Wallach's "Cornelia" to Dahlia Ravikovitch's "Mechanical Doll" that highlights the refusal of the former to identify with the traditional feminine position of objectification and victimization, the paper proceeds to show her appropriation of a male voice in order to produce sexual discourse. In her later poetry Wallach develops an understanding of gender as non-dichotomous, performative, and fluid, one that enables her to produce sexual discourse in the first person feminine. This understanding receives overt expression in her didactic poems, but it is also enacted performatively in the sexual fantasy poems of the book Wild Light.


Abstract This paper examines the involvement of Western powers in the politics of Caucasus and Mesopotamia regions around the beginning of the 20th century. It attempts to identify the ideological background of the respective historical events whirled around the geopolitical and geo-economics aspirations of the super powers of that era. The motives of the relevant tremendous investments and campaigns undertaken do not always coincide with the rhetoric and the rationale provided by politicians and spokesmen favoring the expeditions. On one hand scholars were metaphorically reviving the clash of civilizations or the crusades re-launch, while on the other hand politicians and businessmen were taking advantage of the cultural stereotypes in order to facilitate colonial interests and energy resources acquisition. All the way from the early British interventions in the Middle East to the causes of the "fragile" Treaty of the Sèvres, this study emphasizes on the industrial countries' needs for oil along with the rivalry among the Great Powers for the resources control in the region. In addition, the analysis ends at the present time with a focus on the periodicity of the events taking place in repetition under similar patterns. The projection to the present times involves newly designed energy strategies for the Eastern Mediterranean basin, involving Cyprus in an alternative way to transfer energy toward Southern Europe.