See Article on Page 29-34

Obesity is an undesirable outcome of environmental and lifestyle changes in recent decades and a preventable factor for many chronic diseases, including osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, fatty liver disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, and some cancers [1]. The severity of obesity as a public health problem is dramatic. The increasing prevalence of obesity is not confined merely to Western populations. In Southeast Asia, including Korea, a marked increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity has been investigated over the last two decades. The prevalence of obesity is above 30% and the prevalence of severe obesity (body mass index [BMI], ≥ 30 kg/m2) has been steadily increasing in Korea [2]. This may be explained by lifestyle changes, including eating habits and lack of physical activity.

The prevalence of obesity in the United States has slowly increased since the beginning of the 20th century [3]. The recent trend of obesity in Korea has also grown slowly and is rather a decreasing tendency in women [2]. It is thought that structured learning programs for individuals that emphasize lifestyle modifications, including regular physical activity and diet education can provide modest weight loss, because there is relatively little known about population-based management and prevention of obesity [4]. However, we have not identified which age-groups in females are showing decreases in obesity prevalence and the reasons for this decrease.

In the current article entitled "Gender disparity in the secular trends for obesity prevalence in Korea: analyses based on the KNHANES 1998-2009," the authors assessed the secular trends and prevalence of obesity over the past 12 years in Korean adults aged ≥ 19 years using the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) I to IV, a nationally representative sample of the Korean population. They also investigated whether the changes in the prevalence of obesity differed by gender and 10-year age increments [5]. This study showed that the prevalence of obesity in Korean males progressively increased in all age groups. However, no significant trend was observed over the past 12 years for females. The prevalence of obesity in Korean females rather decreased significantly in the 30- to 39-year, 40- to 49-year, and 50- to 59-year subgroups, but increased in the 60- to 69-year and > 70-year female subgroups.

Although differences in study design and sampling make direct comparisons of the prevalence of obesity between Korean and other countries difficult, the results of this study are very distinctive. Similar findings were only reported from Japan in the 4th Asia-Oceania Conference on Obesity [6]. Yoshiike [6] examined trend analyses of obesity from the dataset of the National Health and Nutrition Survey in Japan from 1976 to 2004 and revealed that the prevalence of obesity using BMI values consistently increased in all age groups for men. However, the trends in women were markedly different across all age groups, with decreasing trends for women in their 20s to 40s and increasing trends in those over 60s years [6]. These findings are confusing because it had been thought that the increase of obesity by aging was a common phenomenon in Korea and other countries [7]. The causes of these trends reported in Korea and Japan are unclear but the trends could be partly explained by changes of lifestyle and body distortion due to social and cultural pressure in young women.

Individual, social and environmental factors have played a role in obesity trends [7-9]. Rapid economic growth in Korea has provided improved socioeconomic status, together with an abundance of food and this environment in Korea has been characterized as obesogenic. However, unfortunately, there was no consideration for the changes in social and environmental values that might directly or indirectly affect obesity in the present study [5]. Modest increases in BMI and waist circumference (WC) are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and an unprecedented increase in WC is of particular concern [9]. The prevalence of abdominal obesity in Korea shows similar trends for obesity by BMI in both genders [2]. This study also failed to confirm whether the changes of WC in women were similar across all age groups, with a decrease in obesity prevalence among young and middle-aged women. However, the results of this study are very promising for population-based multiple strategies for obesity.

The probable health benef its from a decrease in obesity are of considerable public health significance. Pharmacotherapy may be considered if lifestyle changes, such as diet and exercise intervention, are ineffective. However, most of the anti-obesity drugs that were approved and marketed have now been withdrawn due to serious adverse effects and orlistat is the only drug to have been approved for long-term use [10], though lorcaserin and the combination of phentermine and topiramate have recently been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Lifestyle modif ications are essential for both prevention and management of obesity; however, as we know, it is really difficult to succeed with community-based health promotion programs that emphasize lifestyle changes by promoting healthy eating habits and physical activity, because public health workers will probably be unable to fully understand many reasons, including regional differences that may affect health behaviors [7]. It would be necessary in future studies to examine individual behavioral and social environmental factors, including presence of parental obesity, marriage age, international marriages, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, internet communications, education, occupation, socioeconomic status, urban-rural differences, eating behaviors including the compositions and patterns of food intake, and physical activity including transportation by motor car and use of labor-saving devices which might influence the trends of BMI and WC differentially with gender and age.


Background: Physical activity has been effective in enhancing quality of life (QOL) of older adults over relatively short periods of time. However, little is known about the longterm effects of physical activity and even less about the possible mediators of this relationship.Purpose: We examined the mediating effects of psychological variables on the relationship between physical activity and global QOL (satisfaction with life) in older adults over a 4-year period.Methods: Participants (N = 174, M age = 66.7 years) completed a battery of psychosocial measures at 1 and 5 years following enrollment in a 6-month randomized controlled exercise trial.Results: Panel analysis conducted within a covariance modeling framework indicated that physical activity was related to self-efficacy, physical self-esteem, and positive affect at 1 year, and in turn, greater levels of self-efficacy and positive affect were associated with higher levels of QOL. Analyses indicated that changes in physical activity over the 4-year period were related to increases in physical self-esteem and positive affect, but only positive affect directly influenced improvements in QOL.Conclusions: The findings lend support to the position that physical activity effects on QOL are in part mediated by intermediate psychological outcomes and that physical activity can have long-term effects on well-being.


Data on soil organic carbon stock in wooded grassland is important for assessing its contribution towards offsetting greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration. Understanding the effect of topography and vegetation cover types on soil organic carbon stocks is therefore essential for adopting suitable strategies for reducing greenhouse gases emissions but little has been done to ascertain this. This study was conducted during the long (LRS) and short rainy seasons (SRS) of 2016 in Ilmotiok to determine the effects of topography and vegetation cover at different depths in the wooded grasslands of Laikipia County, Kenya. Randomized completely block design was used; the main plot was topographical zones (TZ); mid slopes (MS), foot slope (FS), toe slope (TS) and subplots vegetation cover (VC); tree (T), grass (G), bare (B). Soil samples were collected to a depth of 50 cm at an interval of 10 cm using soil auger. The samples were analyzed for texture, bulk density (BD) and soil organic carbon. The bulk density was highest under FS*B at 0-10 cm with a mean of (0.88gcm -3 and 0.97 gcm -3 ) for LRS and SRS respectively as compared to other TZ. The lowest bulk density was observed for MS*GR at 0-10 cm (0.78 gcm -3 SRS and 0.86 gcm -3 LRS) in comparison to the other VC. Highest SOC concentration (1.21 MgHa -1 and 1.10 MgHa -1 ) was recorded under TS*G at 0-10 as compared to 40-50 (0.52 MgHa -1 and 0.40 MgHa -1 ) whereas the lowest (0.92 MgHa -1 and 0.91 MgHa -1 ) was recorded on MS*B at 0-10 cm and 0.39 MgHa -1 and 0.28 MgHa -1 and at 40-50 for the LRS and SRS respectively. The same trend was observed for SOCs highest (9.72 MgHa -1 and 9.90 MgHa -1 ) for TS*G at 0-10 cm and (5.11 MgHa -1 and 5.66 MgHa -1 ) at 40-50 cm and lowest under SU*B at 0-10 (7.66 and 7.11 MgHa -1 .) and (3.19 and 2.60) MgHa -1 LRS and SRS respectively. The results from this study indicates that topography and vegetation cover of the wooded grassland has an influence on soil organic carbon stocks. Grass vegetation act as a sink to carbon stock therefore revegetation using grass is highly recommended.


OBJECTIVE
Patients undergoing noncardiac surgery are at risk for postoperative cardiovascular complications. Literature regarding the ability of the Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI), functional capacity, and stress testing to predict perioperative cardiac events is scarce. The authors examined the association of these parameters with perioperative cardiac events and their additive ability to predict these outcomes.

DESIGN
This was a single-center retrospective study conducted at the Cleveland Clinic.

SETTING
Hospital.

PARTICIPANTS
Patients undergoing noncardiac surgery.

INTERVENTION
Patients underwent stress testing.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
The primary outcome of interest was major adverse cardiac events (MACE). The study cohort included 509 patients with a predominantly good functional status, as defined by estimated metabolic equivalents (METSe), which was ≥4 in 83% of the patients. The addition of preoperative stress testing, when indicated based on the RCRI and functional class limitation, only modestly improved discrimination of risk for postoperative outcomes (METSe + RCRI + positive stress test-C statistic 0.77 for MACE; 0.84 for 1-year mortality) compared with the combination of functional capacity (METSe) and RCRI (C statistic 0.70 for MACE; 0.79 for 1-year mortality). A surprisingly high prevalence of false negative stress tests (negative stress tests in patients who later had presence of obstructive coronary disease on angiography) was noted, but the C statistic for MACE remained unchanged, even when no false negative results were assumed.

CONCLUSIONS
In a cohort of patients with predominantly good functional status and intermediate-to-high RCRI scores, addition of a preoperative stress test was of only moderate value in predicting postoperative cardiovascular outcomes compared with a combination of functional class and RCRI.


Backward propagation of errors (backpropagation) is a method to minimize objective functions (e.g., loss functions) of deep neural networks by identifying optimal sets of weights and biases. Imposing constraints on weight precision is often required to alleviate prohibitive workloads on hardware. Despite the remarkable success of backpropagation, the algorithm itself is not capable of considering such constraints unless additional algorithms are applied simultaneously. To address this issue, we propose the constrained backpropagation (CBP) algorithm based on a pseudo-Lagrange multiplier method to obtain the optimal set of weights that satisfy a given set of constraints. The defining characteristic of the proposed CBP algorithm is the utilization of a Lagrangian function (loss function plus constraint function) as its objective function. We considered various types of constraints--binary, ternary, one-bit shift, and two-bit shift weight constraints. As a post-training method, CBP applied to AlexNet, ResNet-18, ResNet-50, and GoogLeNet on ImageNet, which were pre-trained using the conventional backpropagation. For all cases, the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on ImageNet, e.g., 66.6%, 74.4%, and 64.0% top-1 accuracy for ResNet-18, ResNet-50, and GoogLeNet with binary weights, respectively. This highlights CBP as a learning algorithm to address diverse constraints with the minimal performance loss by employing appropriate constraint functions.


The problem of multi-way satellite relaying is discussed in this letter. A new transmission method is proposed to improve the performance of the considered system. Further, it is well known that for detecting the transmitted data in a multi-way relaying system, global channel state information (CSI) is required at each earth station (ES). Due to nonreciprocal channels and high value of latency, it is very difficult to estimate the channel gains at respective ESs. A method of training is proposed to estimate the channel gains. Detection of data is performed by replacing exact CSI by estimated CSI in decision metric. Analytical results of the proposed system are obtained by using moment generating function (MGF) approach. An approximate closed-form expression of MGF is obtained by ignoring higher order noise terms. The symbol error rate and diversity order of the proposed system are derived by using MGF expression.


Filamentous or biopolymer producing microorganisms are currently gaining importance due to their huge potential regarding worldwide sustainability issues. An economic industrial screening of these organisms is essential for determining the best producing microbial strains or fermentation conditions. It is known that filaments and biopolymers massively influence viscosity of the fermentation broth, thereby affecting the oxygen supply for microorganisms. In literature, the influence of viscosity is well documented for the oxygen transfer in stirred tank fermentations, however, little is known about the influence of viscosity on gas/liquid oxygen transfer in shake flask cultures. Even the effective shear rate in shake flasks was never systematically investigated, although it influences the apparent viscosity, mixing as well as mass and heat transfer. Since unknown oxygen transfer rates and unknown effective shear rates pose the risk of screening and producing under unfavorable conditions, this work addresses this lack of knowledge. Four objectives were pursued within this study. First, measurements and numerical simulations of the oxygen transfer in liquid films adhering on shake flask walls were conducted as a function of viscosity and film thickness. Thereby, the suitability of the widely applied film theory of Higbie was studied. It was demonstrated that Higbie's film theory does not apply for cultivations which occur at viscosities up to 10 mPa·s. For the first time, it was experimentally shown that the maximum oxygen transfer capacity OTRmax counter-intuitively increases in shake flasks when viscosity is increased from 1 mPa·s to 10 mPa·s, leading to an improved oxygen supply for microorganisms. Additionally, the OTRmax at viscosities of up to 80 mPa·s is not significantly lower than the OTRmax at waterlike viscosities. This is contrary to stirred tanks, where the oxygen supply is steadily reduced to only 5% at 80 mPa·s. Second, a first shear rate correlation for shake flasks – valid for a wide range of pseudoplastic flow behaviors, shake flask sizes and operating conditions – was developed as a function of viscosity on the basis of Buckingham's π-theorem and experimental data. It was found that effective shear rates in shake flasks commonly cover a range from 20 s -1 to 2000 s -1 . The precise applicability of the developed shear rate correlation was demonstrated for three different shake flask fermentations. Depending on the broth's flow behavior, the effective shear rate in shake flasks is at least 1.55 times higher than that in stirred tank reactors operated at the same volumetric power input, leading to a potentially 50% lower apparent viscosity in shake flasks. Third, a novel concept of microtiter plates (MTP) in 96-well, 48-well and 24-well format was developed preventing spill-out of the rotating liquid even at high shaking frequencies and high filling volumes. In spite of the fact that high filling volumes per well are often desirable for offline analytics during screening procedures, as yet, low filling volumes per well have to be adjusted to prevent spill-out and to overcome insufficient oxygen transfer in conventional MTPs. In prototypes of the newly developed MTP, preliminary measurements of the OTRmax were conducted using a sulfite system. With respect to the OTRmax, the advantages of the novel MTP could clearly be displayed for ranges of filling volume and shaking frequency where conventional MTPs spill out: Whereas extreme shaking conditions are needed for the novel 96-well type to reach a higher OTRmax compared to the conventional one, the novel 48-well and 24-well formats are already advantageous at moderate shaking conditions. This is due to the influence of the surface tension which becomes less dominant the larger the well diameter is. The biocompatibility of the novel MTP type was proven by Escherichia coli fermentations. Due to higher achievable oxygen transfer rates and, thus, faster C-source consumption compared to cultures in the conventional MTP, the new MTP even showed the potential of shortening the fermentation time. Hence, a suitable MTP concept was found for applications in high-throughput screenings where high sample volumes are required. Fourth, a scale-down was conducted requested by an industrial collaboration partner. To achieve time and cost efficient high-throughput for strain screening, an established shake flask protocol was scaled down into MTP. An approach based on an oxygen-consuming sulfite system was applied to ensure equal OTRmax-values in MTPs and shake flasks. Obtained sulfite datasets were used to identify operating conditions leading to the same oxygen supply for the model organism Trichoderma reesei in shake flasks and 24-well MTPs. For 24-well MTPs, the shake flask OTRmax of 20 mmol/L/h of the industrial protocol was obtained under the following optimal operating conditions: 1 mL filling volume per well, 200 rpm shaking frequency and 50 mm shaking diameter. With the identified operating conditions almost identical oxygen transfer rates and product concentrations were measured in shake flasks and 24-well MTP cultures as a function of fermentation time. The proposed sulfite approach is a fast and accurate means to scale-down established screening procedures into MTPs to achieve high-throughput. The obtained insights into oxygen transfer and effective shear rates in viscous systems are valuable for explaining existing deviations in screening and production results. Ultimately, by means of consistent scale-up and scale-down procedures, economic bioprocess development is facilitated with the results of this study.


Film history cannibalises images, expropriates themes and techniques, and decants them into the contents of our collective memory. Movie memories are influenced by the (inter)textuality of media styles – Fredric Jameson has gone so far as to argue that such styles displace 'real' history. The Civil Rights Movement made real history but the Movement struggle was also a media event, played out as a teledrama in homes across the world in the 1950s and 1960s, and it is being replayed as a cinematic event. The interrelationship of popular memory and cinematic representations finds a telling case study in the civil rights era in the American South. This chapter assesses what films made after the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s express about the failure of the Movement to sustain and be sustained in its challenges to inequality and racist injustice. It argues that popular cultural currency relies on invoking images present in the sedimented layers of civil rights preoccupations but that in the 1980s and 1990s movies also tap into 'structures of feeling'. Historical verisimilitude is bent to include what Tom Hayden called in 1962 'a reassertion of the personal' as part of the political, but it is also bent to re-present the Movement as a communal struggle in which ordinary southern white people are much more significant actors in the personal and even the public space of civil rights politics than was actually the case. Historical facts as we retrieve and interpret them are only one facet of the movie-made Movement.


Independent verification of the accuracy of data from Event Data Recorders (EDRs) is useful when using the information to help reconstruct a crash. To this end, the accuracy of the EDR function of the Airbag Control Module (ACM) was tested on 2010 and 2011 Toyota Camry sedans during straight line operation. During steady state operation, and maximum ABS-braking runs starting from approximately 80 km/h (50 mph), and 113 km/h (70 mph), non-deployment events were artificially induced to store event data. Following each run, the EDR was imaged using the Bosch Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) system. The CDR reported speed values were compared to Racelogic VBox differential GPS speed records. Data recorders were also used to monitor the vehicle Controller Area Network (CAN) bus traffic, including the indicated speed, brake pressure, engine RPM, and accelerator pedal position. The speed and RPM reporting algorithms stated in CDR Data Limitations were confirmed. Exemplar graphs of EDR-reported speed/brake/RPM/accel pedal data versus GPS speed and CAN bus data are presented and discussed. The timing of the reported data with respect to the event is also discussed. The difference between vehicle speed recorded by the EDR and the GPS speed during steady state operation varied from +0.4 to −2.3 km/h, with the EDR typically reporting lower than the GPS. During heavy braking the difference in speed was observed to be from −7 to +15 km/h, with wheel slip causing negative differences, and time delay since the last CAN bus update causing positive differences. Language: en


This study was conducted to determine the organic constituents and to test the antioxidant activity and toxicity of gaharu fruit pulp extract (Aquilaria malaccensis Lamk.). Gaharu fruit pulp extract was obtained through Microwave Assisted Extraction (MAE) method and then extracted with a solvent with different polarity, namely ethyl acetate and n-hexane. The obtained yield of ethyl acetate extract of the gaharu fruit pulp was 40.827% w/v, whereas 0% w/v in n-hexane extract, therefore, no further test for n-hexane extract, so that the n-hexane extract was not tested for the next stage. The results of the organic constituents of the ethyl acetate extract of gaharu fruit pulp showed flavonoids, saponins, glycosides, phenols and tannins. Antioxidant activity testing was carried out using the DPPH method with vitamin C as a positive control. The results of the antioxidant activity test showed that IC50 of ethyl acetate extract of gaharu fruit pulp and vitamin C were 143.789ppm and 13.797ppm, respectively. Extracts from microwave-assisted maceration that were partitioned with ethyl acetate solvent were categorized into moderate antioxidants because the IC50 value was between 101-150ppm, while vitamin C was categorized as a strong antioxidant because the IC50 value was between 0-100ppm. Toxicity testing was also carried out on ethyl acetate extract of gaharu fruit pulp using the BSLT method. The results of the toxicity test of the ethyl acetate extract of gaharu fruit pulp showed activity with an LC50 value of 11.282ppm. Based on this research, the ethyl acetate extract of gaharu fruit pulp is considered to have an anticancer potential.


The U.S. corporate bond market underwent a fundamental change with the introduction of TRACE in 2002. Beginning on that date, bond dealers were required to report all trades in publicly-issued corporate bonds to the National Association of Security Dealers, which in turn made transaction data available to the public. In this paper, we assess the impact of the increase in transparency on the corporate bond market. Investors have benefited from the increased transparency, through substantial reductions in the bid-ask spreads that they pay to bond dealers to complete trades. Conversely, bond dealers have experienced reductions in employment and compensation, and dealers' trading activities have moved toward alternate securities, including syndicated bank loans and credit default swaps. The primary complaint against TRACE is that trading is more difficult as dealers are reluctant to carry inventory and no longer share the results of their research. In essence, the cost of trading corporate bonds decreased, but so did the quality and quantity of the services formerly provided by bond dealers. The debate regarding optimal transparency of the corporate bond markets continues, and the question of what degree of transparency in security markets is desirable will remain the subject of study and debate for the foreseeable future.


The decline in the interest in ethical theory is first outlined, as a background to the author's discussion of principlism. The author's own stance, that of a communitarian philosopher, is then described, before the subject of principlism itself is addressed. Two problems stand in the way of the author's embracing principlism: its individualistic bias and its capacity to block substantive ethical inquiry. The more serious problem the author finds to be its blocking function. Discussing the four scenarios the author finds that the utility of principlism is shown in the two scenarios about Jehovah's Witnesses but that when it comes to selling kidneys for transplantation and germline enhancement, principlism is of little help.


Increasing numbers of police departments equip officers with dashboard or body cameras. Advances in technology have made it easy for police to create and preserve videos of their citizen encounters. Videos can be important pieces of evidence; they may also serve to document police misconduct or protect officers from false allegations. Yet too often, videos are lost, destroyed, or never made, often depriving criminal defendants of the only objective evidence in a case. When this happens, there is not always a consequence to the prosecution. This Essay explores this problem of enforcement by examining how different states are compelling law enforcement to make and preserve videos through a combination of legislation and judicial intervention.


Beef producers need to continually incorporate new information and adopt new technology to effectively manage production costs. Oklahoma State University began a Master Cattleman program with this need in mind. Understanding technology adoption by producers requires identifying current management practices. Data from a survey developed as part of the Master Cattleman program document current practices. Management practices were examined for two groups; producers with smaller herds who are less dependent on the beef enterprise for family income, and producers with larger herds who are more dependent on beef. Results clearly show that size and dependence on the beef enterprise matters when considering a broad spectrum of beef management practices.


The Landsat archive of thermal data (Landsats 4, 5 and 7) has gone through a rigorous calibration assessment and update. However, in order to be useful to most users the calibrated sensor reaching radiance must be corrected to surface temperatures by first compensating for atmospheric effects and then emissivity variations. The USGS is exploring the possibility of producing a LST product through a joint program with RIT (the atmospheric compensation component) and JPL (the emissivity compensation component). This paper addresses the atmospheric compensation component for an initial North American pilot study. In particular, the results of a comparison of retrieved water surface temperature (where emissivity is well known) and truth temperatures for over 800 sites are presented. The errors are broken down by cloud conditions with extremely good results for cloud-free conditions (errors less than 1 K). The results of the error assessment for North America by cloud class are presented along with a discussion of potential quality data for a LST product. An initial assessment of the LST errors observed for Landsat 8 bands 10 and 11 are also presented. The next steps on this effort include testing of a global atmospheric compensation approach and full integration of the atmospheric and emissivity compensation tools into an operational LST product.


Vehicle geo-localization based on monocular visual Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) remains a challenging issue mainly due to the accumulation errors and scale factor drift. To tackle these limitations, a common solution is to introduce geo-referenced information into the visual SLAM algorithm. In this paper, we propose two different bundle adjustment processes that merge both GPS measurements and "Digital Elevation Model" (DEM) data. Proposed solutions are devoted to ensure an accurate and robust geo-localization in both rural and urban environment. Experiments on synthetic and large scale real sequences show that, in addition to the real-time (i.e. about 30 Hz) performances, we obtain an accurate 6DoF localization.


Collagen-based biomaterials are expected to become a useful matrix substance for various biomedical applications in the future. By taking advantage of the crystallographic data of the triple-helical peptide T3-785, a collagen-like peptide whose homotrimeric structure presents large conformational similarity to the human type III collagen, we present a quantum biochemistry study to unveil its detailed binding energy features, taking into account the inter-chain interaction energies of 90 amino acid residues distributed into three interlaced monomers. Our theoretical model is based on the density functional theory (DFT) formalism within the molecular fragmentation with conjugate caps (MFCC) approach. We predict the individual relevance (energetically) of the amino acid triplets Pro–Hyp–Gly, Ile–Thr–Gly, Ala– Arg–Gly and Leu–Gly–Ala, as well as the influence of the N-terminal, central and C-terminal regions, looking for the integrity of the collagen's triple helix. We found that the amino acid residues comprising the peptide T3-785 have an interaction energy that depends not only on the chemical nature of the side chain, but also the surrounding solvent molecules and inter-chain intermolecular interactions. The energy profile of this collagen-model molecule depicts a character essentially attractive to its conformational stability, encouraging research focusing on the development and synthesis of artificial collagen with high stability for bioengineering applications.


In this article, the development of a system for collecting and assessing best community-based health promotion practices for dissemination is described. The key system components are (a) a protocol for identifying meritorious practices, (b) criteria for assessing those practices, and (c) an assessment procedure. A key informant process was used to identify interventions, and interviews were conducted to acquire detailed information on them. Categories of criteria pertaining to (a) effectiveness, (b) plausibility, and (c) practicality were developed for assessing practices. Application of the criteria led to selected practices' being designated as "best," "promising," or "to be tracked."


In our general equilibrium model, the variety of specialized service links affects international production fragmentation in manufacturing. Decreases in cost of education or fixed cost of service links raise the relative supply of skilled workers, increase service specialization, and decrease the price of aggregate services. Consequently, the market for service- and skill-intensive component manufacturing enlarges, raising relative demand for skilled workers. Empirically, endogenous change in international outsourcing rather than skill-biased technological progress is the main reason for a modest decline in wage gap despite the rapid rise in relative supply of skilled workers in Singapore from 1978 to 2000.


Splicing is a crucial post-transcriptional processing event that entails the removal of non-coding intervening sequences (introns) from eukaryotic pre-mRNA and the ligation of the coding sequences (exons). It is carried out in a two-step reaction by the spliceosome, a giant and highly dynamic protein-rich ribonucleoprotein (RNP) enzyme. The spliceosome consists of five major subunits, U1, U2, U4/U6 and U5 snRNPs and multitude of non-snRNP proteins. The active center of the spliceosome only develops de novo on the pre-mRNA by a stepwise assembly of U snRNPs that is driven by several DExD/H-box ATPases/RNA helicases. Major structural and compositional rearrangements are required to render the spliceosome catalytically competent for promoting the two steps of splicing. The enzyme Brr2 plays a major role in this catalytic activation process. Brr2 is an exceptionally large DExH-box protein (ca. 250 kDa), and is a member of the Ski2-like RNA helicases in the spliceosome that stands out both structurally and functionally among other splicesosomal DExD/H-box proteins. It is composed of two putative helicase cassettes fused in tandem. Each helicase cassette contains conserved dual-RecA-like domains, flanked by a winged helix (WH) domain and a Sec63 homology unit of unknown function that may bestow specific properties upon the helicase. Brr2 is an integral component of the U5 snRNP and unlike other spliceosomal helicases it is preassembled with one of its substrates, the U4/U6 snRNPs, before recruitment to the pre-spliceosome. Furthermore, Brr2 remains stably associated with the splicesosome to function again during the disassembly step of the spliceosome. Thus, the RNPase activity of Brr2 needs to be reliably controlled to facilitate its multiple usages in the spliceosome. Indeed, Brr2 forms a stable complex with two U5 snRNP proteins, a large scaffolding protein Prp8 and the EF-2 like GTPase Snu114, both of which have been implicated in the regulation of Brr2 activity. In human, several mutations within Brr2 and the C-terminal tail of Prp8 cause a severe type of retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a progressive retinal dystrophy. It was hitherto unclear how Brr2 structurally and functionally adopts these capabilities and how the regulatory role of Prp8 on Brr2 can lead to a precise timing of the spliceosome activation and thus U4/U6 RNA unwinding by Brr2. In addition, the molecular basis of the way in which several RP-linked mutations in Brr2 and Prp8 may lead to the disease retinitis pigmentosa remained poorly understood. In this work, a crystal structure of the C-terminal Sec63 unit of Brr2 solved in collaboration with V. Pena and M. Wahl revealed the first insight into the structural similarity of the Brr2 helicase units with the DNA helicase Hel308. Guided by the Hel308 structure, the architecture of both Brr2 helicase cassettes could be modeled as a composite dual Hel308-like helicase. Functional roles for various predicted structural elements of Brr2 were then validated by mutational analysis in vitro and in living yeast cells. The results supported the idea that in analogy to Hel308 a conserved β-hairpin loop in the RecA-2 domain of the N-terminal helicase cassette may act as a strand separation device, during unwinding of U4/U6 RNAs.
More recently, the crystal structure of a larger fragment of human Brr2, encompassing both helicase cassettes, solved in collaboration with K. Santos and M. Wahl, revealed an extensive interaction surface between the C-terminal cassettes (respectively, Brr2NCand Brr2CC), and provided a framework for a detailed structure-based mutational analysis of Brr's enzymatic activities. It could be shown that only the isolated Brr2NC harbors ATPase and helicase activities and that it threads single-stranded RNA through a central tunnel and across a helix-loop-helix domain during duplex unwinding. Although the Brr2CC is inactive on its own, it strongly stimulates the activity of the N-terminal cassette. Mutations of amino acid residues involved in the communication between the two cassettes, as well as mutations that interfere with the nucleotide-binding pocket of Brr2CC, strongly affected ATPase and/or helicase activities of the enzyme. Thus, while the Brr2CC does not seem to engage RNA, it binds ATP and acts as an intramolecular cofactor to stimulate Brr2NC helicase activity. Using various U4/U6 mutant constructs I was also able to show that Brr2 interacts with the single-stranded region of U4 preceding U4/U6 stem I (the U4 central domain), and translocates in a 3' to 5' direction along the U4 strand to unwind the U4/U6 stem I first.
In the second part of the work for this thesis I investigated the roles of the C-terminal RNase H-like (RH) and Jab1/MPN-like domains of Prp8 in the regulation of Brr's enzymatic functions. Using UV-induced RNA-protein crosslinking and RNA structure probing methods I could show that the RNase H domain of Prp8 forms a specific complex with U4/U6 snRNAs in vitro, where it binds to a single-stranded region of U4 preceding U4/U6 stem I. Using mass spectrometry, RNA-protein crosslinks could be mapped at the base of a hairpin loop (β-finger) of the RH domain. Moreover, I was able to show that the Prp8 RNase H domain interferes with Brr2-mediated U4/U6 unwinding by sequestering Brr2's targeting site, indicating that the RH domain negatively regulates Brr2 function and acts as a keeper to prevent premature activation of the spliceosome. These findings also support the idea that the Prp8 RH domain acts as a platform for the handover of the 5'-splice site from U1 to U6 snRNA prior to the activation step.
The Prp8 Jab1 domain is a ubiquitin-binding domain that comprises a globular domain followed by a protruding C-terminal tail, which is partly unstructured in the isolated Jab1 domain, and which represents a hotspot for mutations leading to retinitis pigmentosa. Using biochemical in vitro assays, I was able to show that the Jab1 domain binds only to the N-terminal helicase cassette and inhibits the helicase and ATPase activities of Brr2 by preventing Brr2 loading onto its RNA substrate U4/U6. Upon deletion of the unstructured C-terminal 16 amino acids, Jab1Δ16 now strongly stimulated Brr2's ATPase and helicase activities, suggesting that the C-terminal tail of Jab1 may interfere with Brr2's RNA binding capacity. The crystal structure of Brr2 in complex with the intact Jab1 domain, which was obtained in collaboration with M. Wahl, revealed the molecular basis for the biochemical observations. Jab1 rests with its globular part primarily on the IG-like domain of Brr2NC while the C-terminal tail interacts with the RNA binding motifs of the RecA domains, thus occluding the RNA binding tunnel of the N-terminal helicase cassette. I was also able to show that under conditions favoring RNA binding, the full-length Jab1 domain acts as a coactivator of Brr2, enhancing the coupling of ATP hydrolysis to duplex unwinding and the processivity of the helicase. This delicate regulation requires the dual-cassette organization of Brr2 and is not observed with the isolated N-terminal helicase cassette. Finally, I have investigated the effect of various RP-linked mutations in the Prp8 Jab1 domain on the regulation of Brr2's activities in vitro and on the stability of tri-snRNP formation, cell viability and pre-mRNA splicing in vivo in yeast cells. Taken together, the results obtained uncover the mechanism underlying a unique dual-mode regulation of a superfamily 2 helicase by a protein cofactor and reveal that its disruption constitutes a disease principle underlying certain forms of retinitis pigmentosa.


One of the most important considerations to be considered in the design of energy efficient buildings is the thickness of the insulation to be applied to the building. In this study the existing building stock in Turkey has been investigated depending on parameters such as the height and the area. A model building has been created covering all of these buildings. Fuel emission reduction of combustion system was calculated in the case of insulation applied to this model building. Heat loss of the existing building stock and exhaust emissions and the contribution to the country's economy with the model building methodology are also determined. The results show that the optimum insulation thicknesses vary between 3.21 and 7.12 cm, the energy savings vary between 9.23 US$/m2 and43.95 US$/m2, and the payback periods vary between 1 and 8.8 years depending on the regions. As a result of the study when the optimum insulation thickness is applied in the model building, the total energy savings for the country are calculated to be 41.7 billion US$. And also total CO2 emissions for the country are calculated to be 57.2 billion kg CO2 per year after insulation.


The Corn Belt has experienced a rapid expansion of corn-based ethanol plants. This has provided researchers the opportunity to examine the relative importance to the renewable fuels industry of several location factors previously identified as important to agro-industries. Using probit regressions, this study identifies the factors significant to ethanol firms' location decisions in the four-state study area of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska. In Iowa and Illinois, where corn is largely ubiquitous, firms move beyond corn supply to consider other localized factors in their decision-making process. Factors such as rail access, population density, and proximity to blending terminals emerge as significant considerations. Probit regressions comparing states reveal the competitive advantages that each offers to ethanol firms. The importance of the findings to economic development professionals is discussed and areas for future research are suggested.


ABSTRACT Gregory, B.R.B.; Reinhardt, E.G., and Gifford, J.A., 2017. The influence of morphology on sinkhole sedimentation at Little Salt Spring, Florida. Sedimentary processes are important for understanding sinkhole records of climate and sea-level change. This study examines Little Salt Spring (LSS), an hourglass-shaped sinkhole near the SW coast of Florida, to determine the influence of sinkhole morphology on sedimentation. An 8.27-m core recovered from LSS was subsampled at 2-cm intervals for particle-size, loss-on-ignition, and stable-isotope analyses (δ13C, δ15N, and C:N ratios). Nineteen radiocarbon dates provide chronology and sediment accumulation rates over the past approximately 13,500 cal. YBP. Particle size shows alternating periods of coarse and fine sediment from 6600 to 13,500 cal. YBP and coarser sediment from 0 to 6600 cal. YBP. Organic matter (OM) and carbonate content (CC) are initially low (<5%) but increase after about 10,000 cal. YBP to 60 and 15%, respectively. High C:N ratios (∼35), low δ15N (7.5‰), and low δ13C (−25‰) values were found between approximately 9000 and 13,500 cal. YBP but decreased afterward. Based on these sedimentary characteristics, sedimentation is classified into two phases. In Phase 1 (8000–13,500 cal. YBP), water level is low, with sedimentation dominated by input of allochthonous clastic sediment from surrounding areas. In Phase 2 (present–8000 cal. YBP), a higher water level and an increasingly sunlit open water area encouraged productivity, resulting in deposition of autochthonous, organic-rich sediment. Comparisons between the LSS site and an idealized model of sinkhole sedimentation forced solely by water level shows that both water level and karst basin physiography in LSS have influenced deposition.


The software license is one of the most important non-executable pieces of any software system. However, due to its non-technical nature, developers often misuse or misunderstand software licenses. Although previous studies reported problems related to licenses clashes and inconsistencies, in this paper we shed the light on an important but yet overlooked issue: the use of non-approved open-source licenses. Such licenses claim to be open-source, but have not been formally approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). When a developer releases a software under a non-approved license, even if the interest is to make it open-source, the original author might not be granting the rights required by those who use the software. To uncover the reasons behind the use of non-approved licenses, we conducted a mix-method study, mining data from 657K open-source projects and their 4,367K versions, and surveying 76 developers that published some of these projects. Although 1,058,554 of the project versions employ at least one non-approved license, non-approved licenses account for 21.51% of license usage. We also observed that it is not uncommon for developers to change from a non-approved to an approved license. When asked, some developers mentioned that this transition was due to a better understanding of the disadvantages of using an non-approved license. This perspective is particularly important since developers often rely on package managers to easily and quickly get their dependencies working.


Respiratory and cutaneous adverse reactions to mint can result from several different mechanisms including IgE-mediated hypersensitivity, delayed-type hypersensitivity (contact dermatitis), and nonimmunologic histamine release. Reactions to cross-reacting plants of the Labiatae family, such as oregano and thyme, as well as to the chemical turpentine, may clue the clinician in on the diagnosis of mint allergy. Contact dermatitis can result from menthol in peppermint. Contact allergens have been reported in toothpastes, which often are mint-flavored. Allergic asthma from mint is less well-recognized. A case of a 54-year-old woman with dyspnea on exposure to the scent of peppermint is presented in whom mint exposure, as seemingly innocuous as the breath of others who had consumed Tic Tac candies, exacerbated her underlying asthma. This case highlights the importance of testing with multiple alternative measures of specific IgE to mint, including skin testing with mint extract, and skin testing with fresh mint leaves. Additionally, this cases suggests that asthma can result from inhaling the scent of mint and gives consideration to obtaining confirmatory pre- and postexposure pulmonary function data by both impulse oscillometry and spirometry.


Partial polarization of the Raman radiation combined with variations in the transmittance of the monochromator for radiation having different directions of polarization will lead to errors in the recorded intensity. The magnitude of these errors may vary with the age of the Raman source and with changes in the geometrical relations between the sample and the source. A properly oriented mica quarter-wave plate will reduce these errors to a negligible value in a Cary model 81 Raman spectrophotometer.


The Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) instrument that flew on the Astro-H observatory was designed to perform imaging and spectroscopy of x-rays in the energy range of 0.2 to 13 keV with a resolution requirement of 7 eV or better. This was accomplished using a 6x6 array of x-ray microcalorimeters cooled to an operating temperature of 50 mK by an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR). The ADR consisted of three stages in order to operate using either a 1.2 K superfluid helium bath or a 4.5 K Joule-Thomson (JT) cryocooler as its heat sink. The design was based on the following operating strategy. After launch, while liquid helium was present (cryogen mode), two of the ADR's stages would be used to single-shot cool the detectors, using the helium as a heat sink. When the helium was eventually depleted (cryogen-free mode), all three ADR stages would be used to continuously cool the helium tank to about 1.5 K, and to single-shot cool the detectors (to 50 mK), using the JT cryocooler as a heat sink. The Astro-H observatory, renamed Hitomi after its successful launch in February 2016, carried approximately 36 liters of helium into orbit. Based on measurements during ground testing, the average heat load on the helium was projected to be 0.66 mW, giving a lifetime of more than 4 years. On day 5, the helium had cooled to <1.4 K and ADR operation began, successfully cooling the detector array to 50 mK. The ADR's hold time steadily increased to 48 hours as the helium cooled to a temperature of 1.12 K. As the commissioning phase progressed, the ADR was recycled (requiring approximately 45 minutes) periodically, either in preparation for science observations or whenever the 50 mK stage approached the end of its hold time. In total, 18 cycles were completed by the time an attitude control anomaly led to an unrecoverable failure of the satellite on day 38. This paper presents the design, operation and on-orbit performance of the ADR in cryogen mode as the foreshortened mission did not provide an opportunity to test cryogen-free mode.


The 2019 Shuicheng landslide was a typical landslide in that failure occurred in the slope deposits and there was a close correlation with the antecedent rainfall. The initiation mechanism was analysed using field investigations, laboratory tests and numerical simulations and the characteristics of mass movement were quantitatively assessed. The numerical results indicated that the infiltration of rainfall decreased the shear resistance of the slope and increased the pore water pressure and soil weight, resulting in a large deformation of the slope and a gradual deterioration in its stability. After saturation, as the pore water pressure coefficient (ru) approached 0.3, the overall safety factor decreased to 1 and failure eventually occurred. Quantitative mass assessment showed that the unique terrain aggravated the erosion and entrainment effects and that the inclusion of loose material and water promoted the movement of the debris avalanche by changing it into a fluidized state, resulting in a much larger landslide volume with a long runout distance. As a result, the volume of the failed mass, which was calculated by an unmanned aerial vehicle and terrestrial laser scanning modelling techniques to be c. 4.7 × 105 m3 in the source area, almost quadrupled to >2.0 × 106 m3.


INTRODUCTION
Data suggest that ED is still an underdiagnosed and undertreated condition. In addition, it seems that men with ED are unsatisfied about their relationship with their physician and with the available drugs.

AIM
The study aims to identify health-related characteristics and unmet needs of patients suffering from erectile dysfunction (ED) in big 5 European Union (EU) nations (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and UK).

METHODS
Data were collected from the 2011 5EU National Health and Wellness-Survey on a population of 28,511 adult men (mean age: 47.18; SD 16.07) and was focused on men (5,184) who self-reported ED in the past 6 months. In addition, the quality of life (QoL) and work productivity/activity were explored.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Health-related QoL (HRQoL) and work productivity were measured with SF-12v2 and WPAI validated psychometric tools.

RESULTS
One in every 20 young men (age 18-39) across 5EU experienced ED in the past 6 months. About half of men (2,702/5,184; [52%]) with ED across all ages did not discuss their condition with their physician. Interestingly, among those men who did discuss their condition with their physician, 68% (1,668/2,465) do not currently use medication. These findings were more evident in the age group of 18-39 years. Only 48% (2,465/5,184) had a closer relationship with their physician, suggesting that this quality of relationship may be unsatisfactory. Compared with controls, ED patients have a significantly higher intrapsychic and relational psychopathological comorbid burden and relevant decreasing in HRQoL, with a significantly higher impairment on work productivity/activity.

CONCLUSION
Data suggest that there is a need for a new therapeutic paradigm in ED treatment which images the achievement of a new alliance between physician and patient. Hence, alternative drug delivery strategies may reduce the psychological and social impact of this disease.


AIMS
This meta-analysis aims to quantify the association of reduced coronary flow with all-cause mortality and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) across a broad range of patient groups and pathologies.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We systematically identified all studies between 1 January 2000 and 1 August 2020, where coronary flow was measured and clinical outcomes were reported. The endpoints were all-cause mortality and MACE. Estimates of effect were calculated from published hazard ratios (HRs) using a random-effects model. Seventy-nine studies with a total of 59 740 subjects were included. Abnormal coronary flow reserve (CFR) was associated with a higher incidence of all-cause mortality [HR: 3.78, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.39-5.97] and a higher incidence of MACE (HR 3.42, 95% CI: 2.92-3.99). Each 0.1 unit reduction in CFR was associated with a proportional increase in mortality (per 0.1 CFR unit HR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.04-1.29) and MACE (per 0.1 CFR unit HR: 1.08, 95% CI: 1.04-1.11). In patients with isolated coronary microvascular dysfunction, an abnormal CFR was associated with a higher incidence of mortality (HR: 5.44, 95% CI: 3.78-7.83) and MACE (HR: 3.56, 95% CI: 2.14-5.90). Abnormal CFR was also associated with a higher incidence of MACE in patients with acute coronary syndromes (HR: 3.76, 95% CI: 2.35-6.00), heart failure (HR: 6.38, 95% CI: 1.95-20.90), heart transplant (HR: 3.32, 95% CI: 2.34-4.71), and diabetes mellitus (HR: 7.47, 95% CI: 3.37-16.55).

CONCLUSION
Reduced coronary flow is strongly associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality and MACE across a wide range of pathological processes. This finding supports recent recommendations that coronary flow should be measured more routinely in clinical practice, to target aggressive vascular risk modification for individuals at higher risk.


This research was carried out to develop a model governing seepage losses in sewage sludge drying bed. The model will assist in the design of sludge drying beds for effective management of wastes derived from households' septic systems. In the experiment conducted this study, 125kg of sewage sludge, 90.7% moisture content was thoroughly mixed and intermittently into a sand drying bed of dimensions 1.0m length, 0.3m width, 0.8m depth including overboard and having a 50mm diameter drain pipe. Seepage were measured at 24 hours intervals for 15 days, after which seepage model was derived from first principles based on the concept that seepage is inversely proportional to time. The model is in the form and for this model, two cases exist, cases I and II respectively. For case I, as time, tends to infinity (i.e. t →∞) at which point seepage has completely stopped (i.e q s =0) and the seepage curve intercepts the x-axis so that the intercept a = 0, data generated was modeled first by calibration using odd number values of seepage corresponding to 1 to 15 days. Coefficient of correlation after calibration was found to be r=-0.8474, and after verification using even number values of seepage corresponding to 2 to 14days, r =0.8474 was the coefficient of correlation between measured and calculated quantities of seepage which validates the model. For seepage model case II, this was at the initial stage of application of sludge into the drying bed at which point seepage was still taking place so that the intercept , then 'a' was determined by trial and error. Again, calibration and verification was done as in case I and correlation of measured and calculated seepage gave r=0.972, this high value of 'r' validates the model. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v34i1.8


The distribution of lexical stress is sensitive to the weight of rhythmic units such that heavier units more strongly attract stress. This paper addresses the question: what is the rhythmic unit relevant for weight computation? The traditional approach links weight to the syllable : weight is computed over the syllable rime (review in Blevins 1995), possibly with limited onset-sensitivity (Kelly 2004, Gordon 2005, Ryan 2013). I present experimental data which challenge this view, and support a recently proposed non-syllable-based alternative according to which weight is computed over the total vowel-to-vowel interval (Steriade 2012). Using a nonce word production paradigm, I test how likely participants are to stress the initial vs. final vowel in bi-vocalic sequences, manipulating the consonantal interlude separating the two vowels between a single C (e.g. aka ) and CC cluster ( akra ). Initial stress is more likely with CC than C -- medial consonants contribute weight to pull stress to the initial vowel, CC contributing more weight than C. This is incompatible with syllable constituency which parses C/CC in the onset of the final syllable ( a.ka , a.kra ), and supportive of interval constituency which parses C/CC in the initial interval ( ak*a , akr*a ).


Medicine is an ever-changing science, and the pace of this change has been rapid in recent years. A researcher in an academic institution is now obliged to publish their research work for career advancement with recognition, access to grants, fellowships, etc., as secondary objectives. Besides, it is paramount for anyone engaging in active clinical practice to remain up to date with recent advances in the field. Hence, it is the author's responsibility to publish authentic data with integrity as it helps modulate opinions on a wide platform globally in today's digital age. While the pressure to publish is immense, it is vital to have a system of checks and balances before publishing and adhere to good research practices because a wrong step may bring lasting discredit to the authors. This article attempts to provide an overview for novice researchers regarding how to select an appropriate journal for publication, evaluate it in view of its reach and relevance, and how to avoid predatory journals. The article also briefly outlines the various databases available, peer-review process, important journal metrics such as impact factor and indexing, and the concept of open access in a simple language to enable young authors to select the best journal for publishing their work.


The epidemiology of drug-induced renal disorders is a complex topic. Drug-associated nephrotoxicity accounts for 18 - 27% of all acute kidney injury cases in US hospitals. Medications can affect all aspects of the kidney, and drugs that are associated with renal dysfunction are used commonly in clinical practice. The article reviews six major mechanisms of drug-induced renal dysfunction as well as lists the major medications involved. NSAIDs, aminoglycosides, amphotericin B and calcineurin inhibitors are just some examples of drugs that contribute to renal dysfunction. The medical community must be aware of patient risk factors for nephrotoxicity, as well as the drug's inherent nephrotoxic potential, when prescribing and administering medications.


During the application specific system design process, the designer has to take early decisions for selecting the optimal system components from the available huge design alternatives. To obtain the optimal design configuration from the available design alternatives, an efficient Design Space Exploration (DSE) process is required. This paper extends our previous work by integrating Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) based design space pruning methodology with the proposed heuristic algorithm for appropriate selection of memory configuration during the system design process. A complete and well structured DSE strategy has been formulated through the combination of BBN and heuristic approaches. The BBN performs design space pruning from the available huge design alternatives, resulting in near Pareto-optimal solution. The proposed heuristic algorithm performs the selection of the most optimal cache options. This paper mainly focuses on integrating the BBN with the proposed heuristic algorithm for providing efficient DSE strategy that aids the system designers during the application specific system design process. The experimental results in support of the proposed heuristic show a considerable reduction in the number of simulations required for covering the design space and also the algorithm finds the most optimal cache configurations for the given application with less number of iterations.


Cryptochromes are a family of flavoproteins found in organisms ranging from Arabidopsis to man. Across phylogeny, these proteins have been used for pleiotropic functions ranging from blue-light-dependent development in plants and blue-light-mediated phase shifting of the circadian clock in insects to a core circadian clock component in mammals. Review of the roles of cryptochromes in model organisms reveals several common themes: Multiple cryptochrome family members within individual organisms have redundant functions; cryptochromes used in photic entrainment pathways of the circadian clock are partially redundant with other photopigments; and cryptochromes may function in circadian phototransduction and core clock mechanisms in the same organism, with different functions in different tissues. The present review summarizes recent research on the functions of cryptochrome in the circadian timekeeping and photic entrainment pathways.


Purpose: Food security is one of the main goals for sustainable development having an important position in determining the government policies. The main objective of this study is to analyze the role of stakeholders in corn farming business efficiency by 1) analyzing the efficiency of small-scale corn farming in Grobogan Regency, Central Java and 2) analyzing the role of stakeholders in increasing food security. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a mixed method, a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The analytical tool used was Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), regression analysis, and stakeholder analysis with a focus on convergence and divergence among stakeholders. Findings: The calculation results show that as many as 18 (30%) corn farming has been efficient. The main stakeholders' role was found between the Agriculture office and farmers' associations. Practical implications: The results show a close relationship and communication among actors. Furthermore, the actors share the same objectives so that the convergence path is mutually supportive and synergistic. Originality/value: The study provides a new discourse in an effort to improve agricultural efficiency in developing countries by analyzing the closeness between actors and modeling farmers' access to agricultural resources and governance.


The scope, complexity and interrelatedness of environmental problems presents a difficult challenge to policymakers. To date, public policies have been responsive largely to particular matters of public concern. They have typically been ad hoc, sectoral and segmental. Their administration has been charged to various agencies, each with its special mission. In consequence, governments have often acted to cross purposes; small results have often been ineffectual and, as often, unnecessarily expensive. Incremental innovation is seldom able to affect significantly the tendencies of the larger system of public policy and administration within which it is undertaken. Inasmuch as no country has had long experience with administration of environmental policy, a comparison of different approaches to environmental problems is useful. Direct transfers of method from one country to another may seldom be practicable, yet there may be lessons learned from the diverse experience of governments addressing similar problems. A comprehensive and radical institutional experiment in environmental policy has been initiated in the government of New Zealand. The New Zealand experiment may illuminate the effects of institutional structure on the implementation of policy. The relationships between constitutional principles, policy priorities and administrative structures have never been clear. The problems of coping with multiple environmental trends, their causes and their consequences justify efforts to find more effective methods of policymaking. Copyright 1993 by The Policy Studies Organization.


A phase shift technique using capacitive source degeneration (CSD) is presented for LC quadrature voltage-controlled oscillators (QVCO), where capacitively degenerated differential pairs are used to couple the LC tanks to implement a phase-shifted transconductance and negative input resistance to compensate resonator losses, and to minimize the flicker noise contributions. The CSD technique not only introduces excess phase shift to eliminate undesired bi-modal oscillation, but inherently provides a large coupling ratio to improve quadrature phase accuracy. Compared to existing phase-shift LC-QVCOs, the proposed CSD-QVCO presents excellent phase accuracy and power efficiency. A prototype of the QVCO was fabricated in TSMC 0.18-μm CMOS technology. The measured phase noise is -120 dBc/Hz at 3-MHz offset from 5-GHz carrier, with a power consumption of 6.4 mW from a 1.2-V supply.


To set-up a rate-dependent dynamic hysteresis model, eddy current loss in giant magnetostrictive material is represented by the loss in eddy current impedance. By combining static Jiles-Atherton hysteresis model, the equivalent circuit of giant magnetostrictive material is built, the relationship between eddy current impedance and magnetic field and magnetization is derived and the maximum eddy current impedance of the material is clculated. Effective magnetic permeability is applied to estimate the eddy current impedance as exciting rate or frequency gets high. Simulation and experiment results of exciting frequencies at 5Hz,10Hz,20Hz, are compared, showing experiment results are coincident with simulation ones, in term of magnitude order and tilt direction. It is demonstrated that effective permeability is feasible for eddy current impedance estimation and eddy current impedance-based dynamic Jiles-Atherton hysteresis model is able to reflect practical dynamic hysteresis.


Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a muscle wasting, invariably fatal genetic disease caused protein truncating mutations, commonly frame‐shifting deletions of one or more exons in the dystrophin gene that abolish functional dystrophin expression. Induced exon‐skipping therapy using splice‐switching antisense oligonucleotides (AO) has been explored in the treatment of DMD and is currently the only treatment that has been shown to unequivocally slow progression of the disease over several years. In this study, we explored novel nucleic acid chemistries such as anhydrohexitol nucleic acid (HNA), cyclohexenyl nucleic acid (CeNA), altritol nucleic acid (ANA) and Twisted Intercalating Nucleic Acids (TINA) and evaluating their exon‐skipping efficacy in vitro in the H2K mdx mouse cell line. We have designed, synthesised and tested the AOs to induce exon 23 skipping in Dmd pre‐mRNA. We also characterized critical properties of the AOs such as melting temperature with complementary RNA, stability against enzymatic activity, and cytotoxicity by WST‐1 assays. Overall, our results showed that all modified‐AOs efficiently induced exon 23 skipping in H2K cells in vitro, showed high nuclease resistance and no obvious toxicity. In addition, HNA, CeNA and ANA‐modified AOs also limited the unfavourable dual exon 22/23 skipping product. In conclusion, our study highlights the importance of exploring novel antisense chemistries in improving the scope of exon‐skipping therapy, and further systematic investigation of locked nucleic acid (LNA)‐modified AO‐based exon‐skipping is currently underway.


We use a large and rich administrative household panel data set to estimate labour supply responses for a large number of subgroups in the Netherlands. The identification of the parameters benefits from a major tax reform in the data period. We uncover large differences in behavioural responses. In particular, we find differences in labour supply responses between households with and without children that are much bigger than suggested by previous studies that had to pool these household types in the estimation of preferences. An efficient tax-benefit system should take the substantial heterogeneity in behavioural responses into account.


Study about theory and algorithms for constrained optimization usually assumes that the feasible region of the optimization problem is nonempty. However, there are many important practical optimization problems whose feasible regions are not known to be nonempty or not, and optimizers of the objective function with the least constraint violation prefer to be found. A natural way for dealing with these problems is to extend the constrained optimization problem as the one optimizing the objective function over the set of points with the least constraint violation. Firstly, the minimization problem with least constraint violation is proved to be an Lipschitz equality constrained optimization problem when the original problem is a convex optimization problem with possible inconsistent conic constraints, and it can be reformulated as an MPEC problem. Secondly, for nonlinear programming problems with possible inconsistent constraints, various types of stationary points are presented for the MPCC problem which is equivalent to the minimization problem with least constraint violation, and an elegant necessary optimality condition, named as L-stationary condition, is established from the classical optimality theory of Lipschitz continuous optimization. Finally, the smoothing Fischer-Burmeister function method for nonlinear programming case is constructed for solving the problem minimizing the objective function with the least constraint violation. It is demonstrated that, when the positive smoothing parameter approaches to zero, any point in the outer limit of the KKT-point mapping is an L-stationary point of the equivalent MPCC problem.


This study attempted to investigate the nature of Korean youths' ethnic identity by asking the choice of names in varieties of socio-cultural and interpersonal situations. Respondents were 93 Korean students, born in Japan, attending Japanese colleges, and participating in a meeting held by a Korean association at the time of the survey. The results showed that while approximately a quarter of the respondents chose only their Korean names (type I ) , the rest chose their Korean names with Japanese pronunciation (type II) , or Japanese names (type III) along with their Korean names depending on the situation. The choice of names was related to psychololgical conflicts felt in a given situation : They tended to choose the name that caused less conflicting feelings. Their fundamental ethnic identity appeared strong regardless of the different types of the use of names although the maintenance of their ethno-cultural factors was the weakest among those occasionally choosing Japanese names. The results were discussed in relation to socio-cultural and interpersonal nature of identity, and the concept of situational shifting of ethnic identity was introduced.


Abstract : The use of porous gel-silica matrices as host materials for optical sensors, catalyst supports, and organic-inorganic composite materials has received increased attention over the past several years. Porous, optically transparent hosts have several advantages over traditional materials for these applications. Large surface areas inherent in sol-gel derived silica increase the interaction area for surface mediated reactions while large pore volumes enhance the introduction of organic or inorganic modifiers or analyzates into the glass substrate. The ability to produce larger pores in these materials increases the permeability and environmental stability of the substrates and enhances the introduction of second phases as modifiers. Greater permeability also increases the responsiveness of sensors and efficiencies of catalyst materials. Previous efforts have produced and characterized gel-silica matrices with average pore diameters from 2.4nm to 20nm. With recent advances, gel-silica matrices have now been fabricated with average pore diameters as large as 80nm using conventional drying techniques. The introduction of CO2 supercritical drying of matrices has enhanced the ability to specifically tailor the surface area and pore volume. The feasibility of doping with metal salts and colloids has been demonstrated as well as the ability to produce dense silica optical components.


Objective. The quality of online anticancer drug interaction information varies among online drug databases. We describe the creation of OncoRx-IQ, a tool which assesses the information quality of online drug databases for anticancer drug interactions, and a pilot study done with the tool. Design. OncoRx-IQ was designed in the form of a questionnaire containing 25 questions in three quality domains, separated into two sections (Section A: content accuracy and Section B: ease-of-use and reliability). Each question was scored based on the number of options assigned. Setting. A pilot study utilizing this tool was done on four drug databases (Drugs.com, Drug Digest, Medscape and Micromedex). Statistical analyses of the composite and domain scores were done using descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation coefficient and Friedman and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Participants. Six pre-registration pharmacists participated in the pilot study. Main Outcome Measures. The drug databases were evaluated based on the accuracy of their drug interaction content, usability and reliability, as well as their overall quality. Results. Micromedex (66.9%) and Drug Digest (35.8%) were the highest and lowest scoring databases, respectively. Micromedex scored the highest in all quality domains (content accuracy 56.3%, ease-of-use 75.0% and reliability 73.6%), whereas Drug Digest scored the lowest in content accuracy (8.0%) and reliability (48.2%). Conclusions. We have created and pilot-tested OncoRx-IQ, a quality assessment tool, which helps clinicians systematically evaluate the quality and information accuracy of drug databases for anticancer drug interaction information. We hope this tool can lay the groundwork for future long-term evaluation of online drug interaction information.


Webster states that a disaster is "a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction." Pick one of the following disasters to research and become part of through story.


This study aims to investigate the effects of ramipril (RPL) on endothelial dysfunction associated with diabetes mellitus using cultured human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) and a type 2 diabetic animal model. The effect of RPL on vasodilatory function in fat-fed, streptozotocin-treated rats was assessed. RPL treatment of 8 weeks alleviated insulin resistance and inhibited the decrease in endothelium-dependent vasodilation in diabetic rats. RPL treatment also reduced serum advanced glycation end products (AGE) concentration and rat aorta reactive oxygen species formation and increased aorta endothelium heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression. Exposure of HAECs to high concentrations of glucose induced prolonged oxidative stress, apoptosis, and accumulation of AGEs. These effects were abolished by incubation of ramiprilat (RPT), the active metabolite of RPL. However, treatment of HAECs with STO-609, a CaMKKβ (Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase kinase-β) inhibitor; compound C, an AMPK (AMP-activated protein kinase) inhibitor; and Zn(II)PPIX, a selective HO-1 inhibitor, blocked these beneficial effects of RPT. In addition, RPT increased nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor-2 (Nrf-2) nuclear translocation and activation in a CaMKKβ/AMPK pathway–dependent manner, leading to increased expression of the Nrf-2–regulated antioxidant enzyme, HO-1. The inhibition of CaMKKβ or AMPK by pharmaceutical approach ablated RPT-induced HO-1 expression. Taken together, RPL ameliorates insulin resistance and endothelial dysfunction in diabetes via reducing oxidative stress. These effects are mediated by RPL activation of CaMKK-β, which in turn activates the AMPK-Nrf-2-HO-1 pathway for enhanced endothelial function.


Quantitative cytochemical and morphometric methods were used to investigate cytochrome oxidase activity and sizes of bodies and nuclei of Purkinje's cells in the medical nodulus and upper central lobule of the vermis obtained from rats sacrificed in 5-6 hours of landing after the 14-day SLS-2 mission of NASA space "shuttle" Columbia (STS-58). The reduced cytochrome oxidase activity was explained by suppression of the functional activity of Purkinje's cells in microgravity. Results of the investigations suggest weakening of the regulatory effect of the vermis Purkinje's cells on giant neurons of the dorsocaudal segment of Deiters nucleus. They also strengthen the earlier hypothesis that space flight decays the inhibitory effect of nodulus Purkinje's cells on the medial vestibular nucleus for the reason of change in the "velocity storage" in mammals during and after flight.


In this study, the analysis and design of a single phase five-level parallel inductor multilevel current source inverter (MCSI) with energy recovery circuit is presented. The proposed inverter operates in a continues-conduction-mode (CCM) and the objective is to obtain sinusoidal output current with a low current total harmonic distortion (THD). In recent active developments, the current fed-converters have increasingly become popular because of their inherent advantages over voltage fed-converters. However, the existing current multilevel inverter topologies have many weak points and unpractical to be realized for some applications due to large DC link input inductor size, the complexity in balancing the sharing inductor currents, high switching frequency operation for power switches, low output efficiency and complex circuit structures with excessive count of components. Almost all the reported topologies apply redundancy switching technique with the different switching state combinations to achieve balancing of the sharing inductor current or intermediate current level. However, to ensure the effectiveness of the redundancy switching technique, the input DC current needs to be constant with a small current ripple. Therefore, a large size of DC link inductor is needed to achieve the constant input DC current. In contrast with the existing topologies, the proposed energy recovery circuit in this study provides a simple switching technique to balance the intermediate inductor currents with single switching state for each output current level in the operation of multilevel inverter current source (MCSI) topology. In addition, a chopper circuit with a smaller inductor size is employed and integrated with the inverter in order to replace the large and bulky DC link inductor. As a result, a simple converter structure for a five-level multilevel current source inverter (MCSI) can be achieved. This work has been focused to overcome the weak points of existing multilevel current source topologies by proposing a parallel inductor with energy recovery scheme for a five-level MCSI topology. The comprehensive analysis study between the existing topologies and the proposed topology has been made. The results shows that the proposed MCSI with energy recovery scheme has improved some of the drawbacks of the existing MCSIs such as circuit structure and inductor current balancing technique and also improved the performance and efficiency of the inverter. The performance and the characteristic of the proposed topology is analyzed through computer simulation and verified by experiment.


The endosomal trafficking system is a network of highly coordinated cellular pathways that control the growth and function of cells. The coordination of secretion and endocytosis in cells is one of the primary drivers of polarized growth, where new plasma membrane and cell wall components are deposited at the growing apex. In plants, one of the cell types exhibiting polarized growth are the root hairs. Root hairs are regulated extensions of epidermal cells called trichoblasts and are essential for anchorage, absorption of water and nutrients, and plant-microbe interactions. In this thesis, I characterize a previously undescribed protein involved in retromer function and endosomal trafficking pathways that regulate tip growth in root hairs of Arabidopsis thaliana. The large retromer complex functions in recycling receptors in endosomal trafficking pathways essential for diverse developmental programs including cell polarity, programmed cell death, and shoot gravitropism in the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. I have characterized VPS26C, a novel member of the large retromer complex, that is essential in maintaining root hair growth in Arabidopsis. We used Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) analysis to demonstrate thatVPS26C interacts with previously characterized core retromer subunits VPS35A and VPS29. Genetic analysis also indicates that vps26c suppresses the root hair growth and cell wall organization phenotypes of a null mutant of the SNARE VTI13 that localizes to early endosomes and the vacuole membrane, indicating a crosstalk between the VPS26C-retromer and VTI13-dependent vesicular trafficking pathways. Phylogenetic analysis was used to show that VPS26C genes are present in most angiosperms but appear to be absent in monocot genomes. Moreover, using a genetic complementation assay, we have demonstrated that VPS26C shares deep conservation of biochemical function with its human ortholog (DSCR3/VPS26C). We also used an affinity purification-based proteomic analysis to identify proteins associated with VTI13 in young seedlings. Preliminary results suggest that a number of proteins linked to cell plate organization in plants are associated with the VTI13 proteome, emphasizing the potential role of this pathway in new cell wall biosynthesis/organization. Additionally, we have identified endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-body proteins, involved in plant defense response pathways, suggesting that either the VTI13 endosomal trafficking pathway is functioning in plant defense responses, or the ER-body proteins have additional independent function(s) in Arabidopsis roots that depend on VTI13. In summary, I have described a novel retromer complex essential for polarized growth in Arabidopsis. VPS26C is an ancient gene and shares sequence and functional homology between human and Arabidopsis. vps26c is a genetic suppressor of the vti13dependent root hair growth and cell wall organization pathways. Proteomic analysis of VTI13 endosomes in young seedlings suggests that a number of proteins associated with cell plate formation are associated with VTI13 compartments, supporting the genetic analysis described here and serves as a starting point to further describe the role of this pathway in controlling polarized growth in plants.


To study the effect of circulation small peptides concentration on mRNA expression in small intestine, graded amount of soybean small peptides (SSP) were infused into lactating goats through duodenal fistulas. Peptide-bound amino acid (PBAA) concentration in arterial plasma and the mRNA expression of PepT1 was detected in the current study. The results showed that concentrations of all peptidebound amino acids (PBAA) increased and the activity of PepT1 in duodenum tissue was enhanced by SSP infusion. The PepT1expression in duodenum tissue was significantly increased with the increment of amounts of SSP infusion (P<0.05). That in ileum tissue was increased with the increment of the amounts of SSP infusion; the increment of Pep T1 expression was significant only in the 180 g/d treatment (P<0.05). mRNA abundance of PepT1 in jejunum tissue was 1.1 to 1.8 to 2.4 times in SSP infusion group as compared with the control group. In the 120 and 180 g/d treatment, the difference of PepT1 expression in jejunum was significant (P<0.05). The data suggested Pep T1 expression in duodenum, ileum and jejunum tissue was enhanced by an increase in circulation small peptide concentration, and the duodenum might be a main position of small peptides absorption in intestine.


Objective : To determine any association between varying degrees of dental fluorosis and dental caries in children aged 12-15 years in a rural community in Kenya. Design : Descriptive cross-sectional study. Setting : A rural school in the central province of Kenya. Subjects : Two hundred and twenty five primary school children aged 12-15 years consisting of 100 males and 125 females. Results : A total of 225 children were included in the study, of these 125 were males and 100 were females and the age range was 12-15 years with a mean of 13.28 + 1.11SD. The prevalence of caries was 39.1% and the mean DMFT of the sample population was 1.51 + 2.25SD. The mean decayed component was 1.48 and none of the children had any filled teeth. The mean DMFT of the children with fluorosis and those without fluorosis was 1.44 and 1.55 respectively. Conclusion : There was no association between dental fluorosis and dental caries. Though there was no association between dental fluorosis and caries experience.


The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) has for several years used the largest longitudinally merged database of student achievement data in the USA. to generate estimates of school system, school, and teacher effects on indicators of student learning in a number of subjects, including reading comprehension. A Learning Information System (LIS) (not to be confused with an Integrated Learning System) is a formative, curriculum based, criterion referenced assessment delivered and scored by computer, which provides detailed feedback in different forms for different stakeholders. The Accelerated Reader (AR) LIS for reading comprehension of real ("trade") books captures the data for each student on the length and difficulty of each book, and the student's percent correct response on the assessment. It aims to help teachers promote and manage effective reading practice. AR data on 62,739 students from grades 2 to 8 in Tennessee schools was merged with the TVAAS teacher effects database, and relationships between these independently obtained measures explored. This illuminated some factors in teacher management of the quality and quantity of student reading practice which could be causative in improving reading comprehension, and the impact of implementation integrity of the LIS.


OBJECTIVE
To establish the nature and extent of the practice of conscious sedation by Senior Dental Surgeons in the Health Board Dental Service (HBDS) in the Republic of Ireland and to determine the barriers to the use of conscious sedation.

DESIGN
Postal questionnaire survey.

SETTING
The Health Board Dental Service in the Republic of Ireland in 2002.

SUBJECTS AND MATERIALS
Questionnaires were sent to fifty-five Senior Dental Surgeons working in the HBDS.

RESULTS
Fifty questionnaires (90.9%) were returned. Less than a quarter of Senior Dental Surgeons reported current sedation use in their area. Oral sedation was the most commonly used method with few using relative analgesia and less using intravenous sedation. Forty percent of Senior Dental Surgeons surveyed reported receiving training in conscious sedation as an undergraduate. Nearly 60% of those surveyed reported using conscious sedation in a previous employment. All respondents said the main barrier to the use of conscious sedation in the HBDS was the lack of training opportunities on the subject in Ireland.

CONCLUSIONS
Conscious sedation techniques other than oral, are used to a very limited extent in the HBDS in Ireland. There is great interest amongst Senior Dental Surgeons in the increased use of conscious sedation techniques. A lack of training opportunities is the main barrier to the expansion of their use.


Life cycle employment of minority labor migrants who entered Norway in the early 1970s diverges from that of natives. Immigrant employment was nearly complete during early years but declined to 50% by the year 2000 (compared to 87% for a native comparison group). We find that immigrant employment is particularly sensitive to the business cycle and that economic downturns of the 1980s and 1990s accelerated their labor market exit. We trace part of the decline to migrants being overrepresented in shrinking industries. But we also identify welfare disincentives that contribute to poor life cycle employment performance of immigrants with many dependent family members.


The ability to effectively innovate and develop new products is a vital core competency that any company must possess if it is going to be profitable and experience growth. At the same time, the innovation and effective new product development process is one of the most challenging to nurture and shepherd through to successful completion. It involves a combination of high risk and high return; mission critical importance; and immense scientific, engineering, and financial hurdles. But ultimately, the greatest paradox that surrounds successful new product development is the need for free, unfettered creativity to complement tremendous systematic discipline.


CONTEXT
There is limited research concerning the relationship between social determinants of health, including race, healthcare access, socioeconomic status (SES), and physical environment; and, concussion nondisclosure in college-athletes. However, in high school athletes, disparities have been noted, with Black athletes attending under-resourced schools and lacking access to an athletic trainer (AT) disclosing fewer concussions.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether concussion nondisclosure disparities exist by 1) race, 2) SES, and 3) AT healthcare access prior to college; and to understand the differential reasons for concussion nondisclosure between Black and White college-athletes.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional Setting: College athletics Participants: 735 college-athletes (84.6% White, 15.4% Black) Main Outcome Measures: Participants completed a questionnaire that directly assessed concussion nondisclosure, including reasons for not reporting a suspected concussion. With the premise of investigating social determinants of health, race was the primary exposure of interest. The outcome of interest, nondisclosure, was assessed with a binary (yes/no) question, "Have you ever sustained a concussion that you did not report to your coach, athletic trainer, parent, teammate, or anyone else?"

RESULTS
Overall, among White and Black athletes 15.6% and 17.7% respectively reported a history of concussion nondisclosure. No significant differences were found by race for distributions of history of concussion nondisclosure (p=0.57). Race was not associated with concussion nondisclosure when evaluated as an effect modification measure or confounder; and, no significant associations were noted by SES or high school AT access. Differences by race for reported reasons for nondisclosure were found for: "At the time I did not think it was a concussion" (p=0.045) and "I thought my teammates would think I am weak" (p=0.03) with Black athletes reporting these more frequently than White athletes.

CONCLUSIONS
These data help to contextualize race and its intersection with other social determinants of health that could influence concussion nondisclosure outcomes in college-athletes.


We investigated the structural and electronic/spin configurations of a film of the Co tetrakis(1,2,5-thiadiazole) porphyrazine (CoTTDPz) molecule adsorbed on the Au(111) surface by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). CoTTDPz has a structure similar to that of the Co phthalocyanine molecule, but the benzene ring of the isoindole of the phthalocyanine molecule is replaced by the pentagon moiety of 1,2,5-thiadiazoles that has an S atom at the apex. We find an ordered molecular lattice with a threefold symmetry where a nearest-neighbor distance of 1.30 nm was measured, which is significantly smaller than that observed for the metal Pc molecule. The unit cell of the lattice contains two molecules that are rotated by 60° relative to each other. With the configuration achieved by this rotation, the neighboring molecules can form a stronger interaction through bonding between the S atom at the apex of one molecule and the N atom of the other (the N atom that is bridging the thiadiazoles). The strong interaction between the molecule and the substrate appears in the spin state examined by the detection of the Kondo resonance, which is formed by the screening of an isolated spin by the conduction electron. Even though the existence of the spin was confirmed for the bulk and thick films of this molecule, no Kondo features are detected for the molecules in the first, second, and third layers of the films. However, the isolated molecule in the third layer showed an intriguing combination of the Kondo feature and an inelastic excitation feature caused by a spin-flip process.


Capnography in Clinical Practice, J. S. Gravenstein, David A. Paulus and Thomas J. Hayes; Butterworths Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 345, Ryde, N.S.W. 2113; $35.00; 235 X 155; pp. 158. This small volume has grown from the manual accompanying a videotape on capnography produced at the University of Florida and was prepared for the U.S.A.-based Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation. The book is presented in three parts of similar length and deals with the Clinical, Physiological and Technical Perspectives of Capnography. Its arrival is timely especially in the light of the current wider acceptance and introduction of clinical carbon dioxide monitoring. In the first part the authors describe the carbon dioxide waveform, how it can be displayed at slow and fast speed and how it can be analysed. The influence of the type of breathing circuit used and the effect of various types of equipment failure are discussed. They follow this with a short chapter on clinical applications regarding the proper placement of endotracheal tubes, the detection of apnoea, monitoring the adequacy of ventilation and the early diagnosis of malignant hyperpyrexia. The second part is a theoretical treatment of carbon dioxide production and transport in the body, the relevant gas laws and ventilationperfusion ratios. In the final part the authors discuss the techniques used and physical laws concerned in clinical carbon dioxide measurement. The principles, advantages and limitations of the three types of measurement, infrared spectroscopy, radiation scattering and mass spectrometry are covered in detail. They conclude with a discussion of the sidestream versus the mainstream gas sampling technique. A useful book for those who need to know about carbon dioxide measurement and a must for the Department Library. ANTHONY ILSLEY Flinders Medical Centre, S.A.


Ampullariidae include the largest of all freshwater snails and are of ecological, evolutionary and anthropogenic importance in Southeast Asia (SEA). Native ampullariids belonging to the genus Pila face various threats but are understudied, with their species taxonomy being confused and data on their distributions being scarce. We provide a comprehensive update on the nomenclature, status and distribution of Pila species in Thailand, based on DNA barcoding and geometric morphometric analysis of recently collected material. We confirm that at least five Pila species are extant in Thailand: Pila virescens, P. celebensis, P. turbinis, P. gracilis and P. pesmei. Pila celebensis, which has distinctive egg masses among all the known Southeast Asian Pila, appears to be sister to a clade comprising other SEA and some African Pila. Our results suggest that Pila may have dispersed into SEA on at least two separate occasions. Two singletons collected from northern and eastern Thailand may constitute separate species, but this requires further study. Intraspecific diversity of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene was relatively high for P. celebensis, P. gracilis and P. pesmei (maximum uncorrected p-distances varied from 7% to 9%), and may include cryptic species. Conversely, P. virescens showed low intraspecific p-distances (c. 0%) among clades collected from different localities. This strongly suggests that introductions by humans may be the major cause of this pattern, and our own observations—we found that this species is being cultured and is commonly sold in markets for human consumption—are consistent with this. Pila turbinis was the rarest species, with live snails being collected from only two localities. Throughout Thailand, invasive confamilial Pomacea species appear to be replacing native Pila species, particularly in the Chao Phraya basin. While Thai Pila exhibit surprisingly high genetic diversity, with cryptic species likely being present, widespread invasive snails pose a major threat to their survival and urgent conservation action is needed.


The state-of-the-art Data-Peeler algorithm extracts closed patterns in n-ary relations. Because it refines a lower bound and an upper bound of the pattern space, Data-Peeler can, in some circumstances, guarantee that a region of the pattern space does not contain any closed n-set satisfying some relevance constraint, allowing the algorithm to not perform any further pattern search in that region. If it is so, this region is left unexplored and some time is saved. Not all constraints enable such a pruning of the pattern space but both the monotone and the anti-monotone constraints do. This article shows that a minimal (resp. maximal) cover of some arbitrary groups of elements is anti-monotone (resp. monotone). As a consequence, Data-Peeler may prune the search space with those constraints and efficiently discover many different patterns. For instance, it can list the so-called straddling biclusters, which cover at least some given portions of every group. It can also discover closed n-sets that discriminate a group from the others, what has potential applications to supervised classification.