The aims of this thesis are to reduce the complexity and increasethe accuracy of rotations carried out inthe fast Fourier transform (FFT) at algorithmic and arithmetic level.In FFT algorithms, rotations appear after every hardware stage, which are alsoreferred to as twiddle factor multiplications. At algorithmic level, the focus is on the development and analysisof FFT algorithms. With this goal, a new approach based on binary tree decompositionis proposed. It uses the Cooley Tukey algorithm to generate a large number ofFFT algorithms. These FFT algorithms have identical butterfly operations and data flow but differ inthe value of the rotations. Along with this, a technique for computing the indices of the twiddle factors based on the binary tree representation has been proposed. We have analyzed thealgorithms in terms of switching activity, coefficient memory size, number of non-trivial multiplicationsand round-off noise. These parameters have impact on the power consumption, area, and accuracy of the architecture.Furthermore, we have analyzed some specific cases in more detail for subsets of the generated algorithms. At arithmetic level, the focus is on the hardware implementation of the rotations.These can be implemented using a complex multiplier,the CORDIC algorithm, and constant multiplications. Architectures based on the CORDIC and constant multiplication use shift and add operations, whereas the complex multiplication generally uses four real multiplications and two adders.The sine and cosine coefficients of the rotation angles fora complex multiplier are normally stored in a memory.The implementation of the coefficient memory is analyzed and the best possible approaches are analyzed.Furthermore, a number of twiddle factor multiplication architectures based on constant multiplications is investigated and proposed. In the first approach, the number of twiddle factor coefficients is reduced by trigonometric identities. By considering the addition aware quantization method, the accuracy and adder count of the coefficients are improved. A second architecture based on scaling the rotations such that they no longer have unity gain is proposed. This results in twiddle factor multipliers with even lower complexity and/or higher accuracy compared to the first proposed architecture.


BACKGROUND
Ingested proteins are known to stimulate a rise in insulin and glucagon concentrations. In our effort to explain this effect, we have begun to measure the effect of individual amino acids.

OBJECTIVES
The objectives were to determine the effect of lysine ingestion on insulin and glucagon concentrations and whether the effect is moderated by glucose ingestion.

DESIGN
Thirteen healthy subjects were studied on 4 occasions. Water, 25 g glucose, 1 mmol lysine/kg lean body mass, or lysine plus glucose was given on separate occasions at 0800 after a 12-h fast. Serum lysine, glucose, insulin, and glucagon were measured during a 2.5-h period. The amount of lysine provided was equivalent to that present in a 672-g (24-oz) steak.

RESULTS
Lysine ingestion resulted in an approximately 3-fold increase in lysine concentration and in a small decrease in glucose concentration. When lysine was ingested with glucose, the 2.5-h glucose area response decreased by 44% (P < 0.02). Lysine alone increased the insulin area response modestly; the insulin increase when lysine was ingested with glucose was similar to that when only glucose was ingested. Lysine stimulated an increase in glucagon (P < 0.02), whereas glucose decreased glucagon.

CONCLUSIONS
Lysine ingestion results in a small decrease in serum glucose and an increase in glucagon and insulin concentrations. Lysine ingested with glucose dramatically attenuated the glucose-stimulated glucose response, but there was no change in insulin response. Whether similar effects will be observed with more physiologic doses of lysine remains to be determined.


Glycosphingolipids were isolated from kidneys, urethers, and bladders (including urethrae) of C3H/HeN mice. Binding was studied of a clinical isolate and recombinant strains of uropathogenic P-fimbriated Escherichia coli to these glycolipids. A series of receptor-active glycolipids with Gal alpha 4Gal in common, previously shown to be recognized by these bacteria, was identified by use of specific monoclonal antibodies, fast-atom bombardment and electron-impact mass spectrometry, and proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy: galabiosylceramide (Gal alpha 4Gal beta Cer), globotriaosylceramide (Gal alpha 4Gal beta 4Glc beta Cer), globoside (GalNAc beta 3Gal alpha 4Gal beta 4Glc beta Cer), the Forssman glycolipid (GalNAc alpha 3GalNAc beta 3Gal alpha 4Gal beta 4Glc beta Cer), Gal beta 4GlcNAc beta 6(Gal beta 3)GalNAc beta 3Gal alpha 4Gal beta 4Glc beta Cer, and Gal beta 4(Fuc alpha 3)GlcNAc beta 6(Gal beta 3)GalNAc beta 3Gal alpha 4Gal beta 4Glc beta Cer. The binding pattern for mouse kidney glycolipids differed from that for kidney glycolipids of man and monkey. In particular, the dominant 8-sugar glycolipid in the mouse was not detected in the primates. A second difference was found in the binding of E. coli to kidney glycoproteins on blots after electrophoresis; the mouse showed distinct receptor-active bands while human and monkey did not. These differences may be of relevance when using the mouse as a model for clinical urinary tract infection of man.


This paper tackles one of the greatest limitations in Machine Learning: Data Scarcity. Specifically, we explore whether high accuracy classifiers can be built from small datasets, utilizing a combination of data augmentation techniques and machine learning algorithms. In this paper, we experiment with Easy Data Augmentation (EDA) and Backtranslation, as well as with three popular learning algorithms, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Network (Bi-LSTM). For our experimentation, we utilize the Wikipedia Toxic Comments dataset so that in the process of exploring the benefits of data augmentation, we can develop a model to detect and classify toxic speech in comments to help fight back against cyberbullying and online harassment. Ultimately, we found that data augmentation techniques can be used to significantly boost the performance of classifiers and are an excellent strategy to combat lack of data in NLP problems.


This paper describes the low-complexity 14kHz bandwidth audio coding algorithm which has been recently standardized by ITU-T as Recommendation G.722.1 Annex C ("G.722.1C"). The algorithm is an extension to ITU-T Recommendation G.722.1 and a doubled form of the G.722.1 algorithm to permit 14 kHz audio bandwidth using a 32 kHz audio sample rate, at 24, 32, and 48 kbit/s. The G. 722.1C codec features very high audio quality, extremely low computational complexity, and low algorithmic delay compared to other state-of-the-art audio coding algorithms. This codec is suitable for use in video conferencing and teleconferencing, and Internet streaming applications as well as a general-purpose 14 kHz audio codec. Subjective test results from the Characterization phase of G 722.1C are also presented in the paper.


Total alcoholic extract of Desmodium gangeticum, which exhibited significant anti-inflammatory activity, was evaluated for the possible mode of action by studying its antioxidant potential in adjuvant-induced arthritic rats. Activity guided fractionation and isolation were carried out. The phenolics fraction showed maximum potency. Solid phase extraction followed by preparative HPLC of the active phenolic fraction yielded for the first time two potent antioxidant compounds, caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid, from this plant. The biological antioxidant defense system, involving superoxide dismutase, glutathione and catalase, showed a significant increase with their levels close to the normal control with a decrease in the lipid peroxide content upon administration of D. gangeticum extract (100 mg kg(-1)) and its phenolics (50 mg kg(-1)) in arthritic rats, thereby indicating the extracts antioxidant property under arthritic conditions.


Reviewing the scholarship on ethnic minorities in Vietnam, this essay identifies problems with the prevailing "carceral" approach that regards ethnic minorities as deprived of agency and as territorially circumscribed, disciplined subjects. New ethnographic and historical research demonstrates, to the contrary, that ethnic minorities have been active in the transformations of their worlds. The new scholarship situates contemporary minority transnational networks in the context of older translocal affiliations, identities, and livelihood strategies. The enduring anthropological preoccupation with official classificatory projects is questioned; instead, attention is given to popular identifications in circulation, and transition, among ethnic minorities and their proximate Others.


In spring, windblown dust storms originating in the deserts of Mongolia and China make their way to Taipei city. These occurrences are known as Asian dust storm (ADS) events. These ADS events lead to enhanced PM(10) levels over that contributed by the usual local sources. The objective of this study was to assess the possible associations of PM(10) with hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Taipei, Taiwan, during the period 1996-2001. We identified 54 dust storm episodes that were classified as index days. Daily COPD admissions on the index days were compared with admissions on the comparison days. We selected 2 comparison days for each index day, 7 days before the index days and 7 days after the index days. The effects of dust storms on hospital admissions for COPD were prominent 3 days after the event (relative risk = 1.057; 95% confidence interval = 0.982-1.138). However, the association was not statistically significant. There may not have been enough power to detect associations resulting from the inadequate sample size of COPD admissions on ADS events days. However, It seems worthwhile to pay more attention to the ADS events and health in the future.


This is the first report of papillary thyroid carcinoma combined with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) in Korea. MEN1 is a hereditary disease comprising neoplastic disorders such as pituitary, parathyroid and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, such as gastrinoma. But papillary thyroid cancer was never regarded as its component before in Korea. Herein we present a 39-year-old woman who manifested typical features of MEN1 with a coincidental papillary thyroid carcinoma. Although the family history of MEN1 was definite, her genetic analysis of DNA had revealed no germline mutation in MEN1 gene locus. Unidentified culprit gene unable us further genetic study to find LOH (loss of heterogeneity) in 11q13, the possible explanation of papillary thyroid carcinoma as a new component of MEN1. As we have first experienced a case of MEN1 combined with papillary thyroid carcinoma in Korea, we report it with the review of literature.


ABSTRACT This research addresses the limited studies which apply stakeholder theory to World Heritage Site (WHS) management and managerial theory to heritage management. WHS management highlights a context where sites rely on numerous interests uniting through goodwill. This is intensified by the multiple-ownership patterns which characterise many WHSs, necessitating a need for collective action. This study aims to explore how managers attempt to manage stakeholders and generate involvement and support. This study adopts a multiple case study approach, exploring three United Kingdom WHSs. Data were collected through interviews, documentation and physical artefacts. The analysis found that through representation, raising awareness and support, managers were able to generate stakeholder patronage. However, this required managers to look beyond informative engagement toward participatory means. Furthermore, the findings highlight the importance of the facilitators, time and money in successful stakeholder engagement. Lastly, conclusions, limitations and future research are offered. Underpinned by stakeholder theory, this paper contributes to the understanding of stakeholder engagement within WHS management and adds to limited empirical studies on multiple sites. This investigation found that engagement is constrained by managers' limited time and resources. Furthermore, participatory engagement is essential in fostering stakeholders' responsibility for site management and developing relationships with managers.


The main aim of this research paper was to ascertain the relationship between principal leadership practices and teacher commitment. The study was conducted using quantitative survey questionnaire to 384 secondary school teachers, ranging from band 1 to band 6 in Malaysia using multi stage stratified cluster random sampling. This study was using SPSS nonparametric analysis and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data. The study found that teacher commitment was high, especially in commitment in teaching work. The study also identified three significant predictors of principal leadership practices that could enhanced teacher commitment. Findings from this study can be used to tailor for the pre-service and in-service professional leadership programs for school principals. Principal leadership practices such as continuous improvement of instruction, cooperation and collaboration and school climate that impacting teacher commitment should be given more emphases in those programs. School bureaucracy, though it is highly centralized, was another matter of important with regard to teacher commitment


Abstract Communication, as a process, is essential to adequate nursing care; language is a key factor. This article reviews the aspects of language that impair, and those that improve, communication in the health care setting. Standards are cited, along with recommendations for developing optimal communication skills within nursing's professional practice area. This includes the importance of using interpreters when language is a barrier. (Insight 2001;26:57-60)


With the recent rise in electronic data, and the pressing time needs of daily life, there is scope for a good document clustering system that can divide a set of documents into similar topic clusters. A lot of different algorithms have been attempted towards this end, from statistical learning methods to neural networks. In more recent years, there has been a growing interest in collective intelligence as often displayed in nature by ants and birds. We would like to do a survey of this last field, and look for possible applications of algorithms in this area for the document clustering problem.


e Abstract—Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration and emergency department (ED) use share common risk factors, such as risk-taking behaviors, but little is known about the relationship between IPV perpetration and ED use or the effect of risk-taking on this relationship. Study Objectives: This study examined the relationship between IPV perpetration, risk-taking, and ED utilization among men in the general U.S. population. Methods: This cross-sectional study utilized data from the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, focusing on non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic male respondents 18 – 49 years of age cohabiting with a spouse or partner. Logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: Approximately 38% of IPV perpetrators reported ED use in the previous year, compared to 24% of non-perpetrators. Several risk-taking factors (e.g., perception of risk-taking, transportation-related risk-taking, and aggression-related arrest), alcohol and illicit drug use and abuse or dependence, and serious mental illness were positively associated with IPV perpetration. Men reporting IPV were 1.5 times (AOR 1.47, 95% CI 1.01–2.13) more likely than non-perpetrators to utilize the ED, after taking all factors into account. Drug abuse or dependence, transportation-related risk behaviors, and serious mental illness also were independently associated with ED use. Conclusions: The results indicate that men who perpetrate IPV are more likely than non-perpetrators to use ED services. These findings suggest that screening for IPV, as well as risk-taking and mental illness among men accessing ED services may increase opportunities for intervention and referral. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.


Variation in 14 horticultural traits of native octoploid Fragaria L. from North and South America was examined in a greenhouse. Significant levels of variation were found for all but a few of the traits at the species, subspecies, regional and genotypic level, with the highest amount of variation generally being partitioned among genotypes. Fragaria chiloensis (L.) Miller was superior to F. virginiana Miller for crown number, fruit weight, soluble solids and seed set, while Fragaria virginiana was superior for runner production, peduncle length, fruit number, fruit color and winter hardiness. Fragaria chiloensis ssp. pacifica Staudt had the highest soluble solids and among the earliest bloom dates, highest crown numbers and highest seed set. Fragaria chiloensis ssp. chiloensis f. chiloensis (L.) Duch. produced the largest fruit and among the earliest bloom dates and longest peduncles. Fragaria chiloensis ssp. chiloensis f. patagonica (L.) Duch. had among the highest crown numbers and the highest percentage seed set. Fragaria virginiana ssp. platypetala (Rydb.) Staudt produced the most crowns and its fruit ripened earliest. Fragaria virginiana ssp. glauca (Wats.) Staudt were the latest flowering, had the darkest fruit color and the most flowering cycles. Fragaria virginiana ssp. virginiana Duch. displayed the most winter dieback, the longest peduncles, and the highest flower and runner numbers. No significant differences were observed in any of the examined traits between F. chiloensis ssp. pacifica and F. chiloensis ssp. lucida, or F. virginiana ssp. grayana and F. virginiana ssp. virginiana. A number of individual genotypes were superior for more than one trait. CFRA 0024 possessed unusually high crown numbers, was extremely early blooming and displayed multiple fruiting cycles. CFRA 1121 had unusually long peduncles and much higher than average values for fruit weight, soluble solids, fruit color and seed set. CFRA 0094 was extremely early flowering and had much darker fruit color than most other F. chiloensis genotypes. CFRA 0368 flowered unusually early and had among the largest fruit. CFRA 0366 possessed unusually long peduncles and the largest fruit of any North American genotype. CFRA 0560 and CFRA 1369 had an unusual combination of multiple flowering cycles and high runner production. CFRA 1170 and 1171 were unusually late fruiting and had high numbers of large fruit on long peduncles. CFRA 1385 and JP 95-3-1 had extremely high flower numbers, long peduncles and large fruit.


The aim of supportive cancer care is to actively manage patients' physical, psychologic, and spiritual concerns, independent of prognosis. Complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) is increasingly gaining greater acceptance and support for its beneficial value in supportive cancer care. The utilization of CIM early in the cancer trajectory, during treatment and during survivorship periods, as well as during end of life, addresses a great number of unmet needs that patients affected by cancer raise. In addition, recent research supports the role that CIM has in reducing suffering and distress both physically and emotionally, as well as enhancing well-being in patients affected by cancer and their families. CIM is increasingly seen not only as an adjunctive add-on treatment or perhaps even as a luxury item for the affluent but actually as an important component in supportive cancer care for all patients. It addresses many aspects of care that sometimes are not being addressed with conventional means. With the increase in CIM-related research, as well as the increased clinical experience in oncology programs worldwide, CIM is gradually becoming an essential ingredient in supportive and palliative cancer care. In this narrative review, the authors look systematically at the contribution that CIM has in supportive care in each stage of the cancer trajectory, reflecting the needed role that CIM has in supportive care. The presented data will provide a sampling of the available clinical research for each of the broad stages being described.


RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The provision of information is now considered a major area in pharmacist-patient interactions. However, few reports have simultaneously evaluated patient and pharmacist perceptions with regard to the pharmacist's information provision. The aims were to clarify the perceptions of pharmacists and patients regarding information provision and the level of influence of those perceptions on patient satisfaction.

METHODS
A cross-sectional survey with respect to information provision was conducted for patients and pharmacists in community pharmacies in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. In total, 407 patient-pharmacist pairs were included in a t-test and multilevel analysis.

RESULTS
The levels of patient perception regarding information provision were significantly higher than the levels of pharmacist perception in all variables. The pharmacists' perceived level of information provision concerning medication effects had a negative and significant association with patient satisfaction, while the patients' perceived level of information provision by the pharmacist had a positive and significant association with patient satisfaction. Higher patient expectations regarding the level of information provision concerning medication side effects and older age of the pharmacist were adversely related to patient satisfaction. Both pharmacist and patient perceptions of the information provision by pharmacists personalized to the patient had positive associations with patient satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS
Pharmacist perceptions related to the information provision were not associated with patient satisfaction. The present study highlights accurate information provision, building good patient-pharmacist relationships, and improving pharmaceutical care in community pharmacy settings.


The location of the adjustable gastric band is indicated by the arrow. The orientation of the gastric band is now horizontal, and is no longer positioned at a left to right diagonal, supporting an anterior slip of the gastric band. Contrast that is outlining the left edge of the gastric band raised the question of a potential band erosion, but instead represents contrast in the fundus that is outlining the gastro-gastric plication that had been made with sutures. The absence of an eccentric dilation of the proximal gastric pouch does not exclude an anterior slip.
Corresponding author
Timothy Koch, Timothy Shope
Department of Medicine
Washington Hospital Center
USA


The sine with dwell (SWD) manoeuvre has received much attention within the context of vehicle stability testing. This manoeuvre is used in a test developed by the NHTSA, designed to certificate electronic stability control systems in light vehicles. The test is used in legislations as well as in consumer tests all over the globe. The SWD manoeuvre was designed using test vehicles on a test track and experimentally validated. The paper at hand uses optimal control theory to theoretically justify the use of the SWD manoeuvre to produce a severe lateral motion and over-steering based on steering input. It is shown that a manoeuvre similar to the SWD manoeuvre can be obtained from an optimal control problem using simple vehicle dynamics models. The optimal control method is further used to analyse the manoeuvre's robustness with respect to vehicle dimensions and tyre properties. It is shown that the manoeuvre is robust in dimensions, which theoretically motivates its application for various sizes of vehicles.


Congress codified the unsettled tension between American civil rights law and American Indian tribal law, customs, and traditions in American Indian communities by enacting the Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA) in 1968. Concerned that individual rights were receiving short shrift in tribal courts and by tribal governments,Congress chose to apply a modified form of the Bill of Rights on tribal governments. In other words, Congress chose to impose American legal norms on Indian governments in order to protect those under tribal jurisdiction.As it had done previously in statutes such as the Indian Reorganization Act, Congress affirmatively sought to displace tribal law — and all the attendant customs and traditions, as well as Indian values — with American law. Ironically, after the Supreme Court interpreted ICRA in 1978, this law could only be interpreted and enforced by tribal courts. Tribal law and American civil rights law have been at odds in many tribal communities ever since, as tribal voters, legislatures, and courts have struggled with how (and whether) to apply American civil rights law in Indian country. In this chapter, I explore several questions relating to tribal courts, tribal governments, and the Indian Civil Rights Act. For example, do tribal decision makers (i.e., voters, legislatures, and especially courts) deviate from the state and federal government and court interpretations of the Bill of Rights in applying ICRA; and if so, how much and in what way? Do tribal decision makers apply or incorporate tribal law, customs, and traditions into their decisions relating to civil rights under ICRA (and tribal laws that incorporate ICRA's provisions); and if so, how? Are tribal decision makers truly bound by the provisions of the ICRA?The last question begs a final question: Does Congress have authority to force tribal decision makers how to decide civil rights disputes?


This study was a secondary data analysis of factors associated with alcohol-related child removal among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults enrolled in a clinical trial of an alcohol intervention. Among 326 parent participants, 40% reported ever having a child removed from their care in part because of the parent's alcohol use, defined here as alcohol-related child removal. Seventy-five percent of parents reported at least one separation during their own childhood (M = 1.3, SD = 1.0). In a multivariable analysis, alcohol-related child removal was associated with parental boarding school attendance. No relationship was found between alcohol-related child removal and alcohol intervention outcomes. Results may provide evidence of multigenerational child removal impacts of boarding schools on AI/AN adults receiving an alcohol use disorder intervention. Assessment of parental history of child removal by practitioners, strategies to prevent alcohol-related separation and to support reunification should be integrated into addiction treatment in AI/AN communities.


Cross-national statistical research based on "all country" data sets involves no deliberate selection and hence ignores the potential for endogenous selection bias. We show that these designs are prone to selection bias if existing units are subject to differential survival rates induced, in part, by treatment. Using rudimentary graph theory, we present survivorship bias as a form of collider bias, which is related to but distinct from selection on the dependent variable. Because collider bias is always relative to a specific causal model, we present a causal model of post-colonial sovereignty on the Arabian Peninsula, show that it implies survivorship bias in the form of false positives with respect to the political resource curse, and provide historical evidence confirming that the model correctly depicts the creation of sovereign countries on the Arabian Peninsula but not elsewhere. When we correct for endogenous selection bias, the effect of oil on autocratic survival is shown to be negligible. The study motivates the need to think more broadly about the nature of the data-generating process when making causal inferences with observational data and to construct statistical models that are sensitive to treatment heterogeneity and rooted in context-specific knowledge and qualitative inferences.


Abstract Background: Persistent trigeminal artery (PTA) is one of the carotid-basilar anastomoses and occasionally complicates vascular or neoplastic pathology. The aim of this study was to become more familiar with the anatomy associated with PTA using an endoscopic view. Material and Methods: PTA was incidentally encountered in a fresh cadaver. Purely endoscopic approaches via supraorbital (extradural and intradural routes), endonasal, and retrosigmoid routes were performed with 4-mm, 0- and 30-degree rigid endoscopes. Results: The PTA belonged to Salas's lateral type and Saltzman's type 1. The supraorbital extradural approach allowed good visualization of the origin and the cavernous portion of the PTA through the infratrochlear triangle. Using the endonasal route, the cisternal portion of the PTA and its confluence to the basilar artery were demonstrated after opening the clival dura; however, the origin of the PTA and the cavernous portion of the PTA were not sufficiently exposed even using a direct approach to the cavernous sinus. The retrosigmoid approach revealed the anatomical relationship among the PTA, trigeminal nerve, and abducent nerve in the petroclival region. Conclusion: These 3 endoscopic approaches provided a superb image of the PTA and contribute to the anatomical comprehension of PTA. Additionally, these approaches make us more familiar with an endoscopic view of PTA.


Angiokeratoma circumscriptum naviforme (ACN) are sharply circumscribed hyperkeratotic vascular lesions that are often located on the lower extremities. It is called as naevoid (naviforme) since it is seen at birth or after birth and it is the rarest type of angiokeratomas. ACN is not related with other systemic diseases. Lesions of the disease are usually located in the lower extremities and are unilaterally localized. In this article, we present a case of five-year-old boy with ACN. During dermatological examination, sharply circumscribed, about 10x20 cm sized, dark red colored, hyperkeratotic vascular lesions in zosteriform distribution on the right knee lateral were observed. ACN was diagnosed after histopathology and clinical examination. We presented this case since the disease is seen very rare and it had typical clinical manifestations.


Embodiment has become an important concept in many areas of cognitive science. There are, however, very different notions of exactly what embodiment is and what kind of body is required for what type of embodied cognition. Hence, while many nowadays would agree that humans are embodied cognizers, there is much less agreement on what kind of artifact could be considered embodied. This paper identifies and contrasts six different notions of embodiment which can roughly be characterized as (1) structural coupling between agent and environment, (2) historical embodiment as the result of a history of struct ural coupling, (3) physical embodiment, (4) organismoid embodiment, i.e. organism-like bodily form (e.g., humanoid robots), (5) organismic embodiment of autopoietic, living systems, and (6) social embodiment.


The 6th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections included some significant information on initial HIV therapy. Data from the Dupont 006 efavirenz (EFV)/AZT/3TC trial are provided in a table and demonstrate the excellent potency and durability of efavirenz. The Atlantic Trial compares three 3-drug regimens. Twenty-four week results are presented, including evidence that median increases in CD4 counts are similar between the groups. In addition, researchers from the conference presented 24-week data from two open trials of ABT 378 in combination with Ritonavir. This drug shows great tolerability and potency. Details from each trial are discussed.


STEM employability is a non-homogenous phenomenon with mixed outcomes for graduates from different disciplines. A myriad of factors may contribute to the diverse employability. Here we examine the heterogeneity of career and employability development focuses among different STEM student cohorts in the curricular context. We utilised a structured framework of Career Information Literacy (CIL) to map career and employability focuses of STEM students and employers. This paper presents findings from the Mathematics, Statistics, Physics and Astronomy cohort.

Data was collected from final year capstone unit students at a STEM faculty in an Australian university (N=517, response rate 44%). Of which, Maths, Stats, Physics and Astronomy (MSPA) students were analysed as a cohort (N=80, response rate 73%). Concurrent data collection took place with STEM employers and industry stakeholders who engaged this faculty in recruitment and employability activities (N=62, response rate 78%). Upon comparing student cohorts' focuses on career and employability development with their peers and employers, we found MSPA students differ from both their STEM peers and employers. Most other STEM student cohorts differ from employers, but not their peers. The implications point to a different career development need of this cohort to fully realise the benefits of their STEM education.


Wetlands in the Randstad addresses spatial interactions between biogeochemical cycles and land use, and focuses on Dutch wetlands as a model system to explore new approaches to the interactions between natural and societal processes in a rapidly developing metropolitan area. This issue is scientifically interesting. It is also highly relevant from an environmental perspective considering the widely recognised need to develop anticipatory approaches that take a comprehensive view of wetlands, the factors impacting them, and means for their protection. More particularly, the project will attempt to identify potential scientific benefits presently hidden between traditional disciplinary borders. Progress in gaining understanding of the system as a whole is hampered by the predominance of monodisciplinary approaches. By focusing on the gaps in knowledge between disciplines new insights will emerge that are relevant both for understanding the system as a whole and for making progress in the disciplinary field itself.
Nine individual research projects have been specified for Wetlands in the Randstad. Pairs of key researchers representing the adjacent disciplines will supervise the projects. The Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) will be responsible for the overall co-ordination of the programme and the development of the joint database and geographic information system.


Several studies demonstrate that theBCL-2 and BCL-XL antiapoptotic genes are variably expressed in plasma cells of patients with multiple myeloma (MM). However, the plasma cell expression of BAX protein, their major proapoptotic partner, has not been investigated. Our initial Western blot analysis of myeloma cell extracts also suggested patient variability in the expression of BAX, which was not altered by exposure to interleukin 6. To further investigate the significance of BAX expression, we performed immunohistochemistry on archival bone marrow biopsies and compared BAX staining to BCL-2 immunostaining. Expression was first evaluated in 104 patients with reactive plasmacytosis, monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance/smoldering MM, or active MM. An increase (P< 0.05) in expression of both BAX and BCL-2 was detected in MM patients compared with patients with reactive plasmacytosis. Patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance/smoldering MM had intermediate values. For correlations with outcome, expression was assessed in 43 patients at diagnosis who were treated with melphalan and prednisone; 30 at diagnosis who were treated with vincristine, Adriamycin, and dexamethasone; and 29 at relapse who were treated with second-line therapy. There was no correlation between BAX or BCL-2 expression and response to chemotherapy or duration of response or between BCL-2 expression and survival. However, patients who demonstrated extremely low plasma cell BAX expression had significantly increased survival. This was true for patients initially treated with melphalan and prednisone or vincristine, Adriamycin, and dexamethasone, as well as patients studied at relapse. BAX expression did not correlate with expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen used as a marker of proliferation. These data indicate a myelomaspecific increase in BAX expression in plasma cells and suggest that low BAX expression identifies a cohort of patients with long survival, which is not specifically associated with low proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression.


This is an interesting case of a serious suicidal attempt of a patient and his care pathway that followed his management by different teams, the use of the mental health act 1983 and the difficulties faced by health professionals in managing this case in London busiest hospitals. A 22-year-old Turkish man is discussed who attempted to hang himself on the 25th May in front of his girlfriend with a belt, using the bed bars following an argument with her and he was intoxicated with alcohol. This case raises important issues and highlights the difficulties of assessing and offering treatment to patients with personality disorders as they present with impulsive and dangerous behaviours which can lead to their own death.


Mice homozygous for the lpr gene spontaneously develop massive lymphoproliferation and an associated lupus-like autoimmune disease. In addition, the total lymphoid organs from these mice express high levels of mRNA for the c-myb proto-oncogene. Since enhanced c-myb mRNA is normally observed in immature thymic lymphocytes but not normal peripheral T cells, this may be indicative of the abnormal maturation state of lpr T lymphocytes. To determine whether the abnormal Lyt-2-, L3T4- (double negative) T lymphocytes in lpr mice express high c-myb, we purified this population by complement-mediated lysis with anti-L3T4 and Lyt-2 antibody from B6/lpr lymph nodes. We found that increased c-myb mRNA is expressed by this double-negative subset. To assess whether the high level of c-myb correlated with the aberrant undifferentiated state of these cells, we examined the effects of T cell differentiation inducers, phorbol ester and calcium ionophore, on c-myb expression. We found that c-myb levels were depressed after phorbol ester and calcium ionophore treatment. Concomitantly, transcriptional activation of the interleukin 2 receptor gene and progression of these cells through the cell cycle were observed. Thus, in B6/lpr double-negative T cells, the regulation of c-myb, interleukin 2 receptor, and cell proliferation may be interrelated. A combination of Northern hybridization and nuclear run-on transcription assays revealed two levels at which c-myb can be regulated in the double-negative T cell subset. The gene is transcriptionally regulated in untreated cells, but on induction with phorbol ester and calcium ionophore, the gene is negatively regulated via post-transcriptional mechanisms.


The demographic revolution (demographic transition) is changing the reproductive strategy of the species Homo sapiens. The whole evolution of life on Earth, including social evolution since the beginning of human society, has led to this triumph of the K-strategy of reproduction. This universal revolution has a crucial importance for the present stage of human history. The cause-and-effect relationship between economic, social and demographic changes is discussed, the interpretation of changes in the mass reproductive or family behavior as primarily a direct consequence of economic, social or cultural shifts is contested. Such explanations are redundant since the main changes in demographic behavior are a response to the necessity of restoring the demographic equilibrium upset by an unprecedented decline in mortality. At the same time, such explanations lead to an underestimation of the impact of demographic change on economic, social and cultural dimensions of the development of modern societies. The demographic transition theory in its present form hinders the vision of this transition as an integral stand-alone process that has its own internal determinants and at the same time has a powerful impact on all social processes, including processes at the global level. The global logic of demographic transition theory is opposed to the widespread local logic, according to which this theory must be justified by the experience of each state. An attempt is made to overcome the current fragmentation in the description of the demographic transition and its splitting into multiple "transitions" and "revolutions", and to consider it as a cohesive process, that is, a sequence of inevitable major stages of a single global "chain reaction" initiated by an enormous decline in mortality.


This paper presents a thermodynamic analysis of the Air Bottoming Cycle (ABC) as well as the results of a feasibility study for using the Air Bottoming Cycle for gas turbine waste heat recovery/power generation on oil/gas platforms in the North Sea. The basis for the feasibility study was to utilize the exhaust gas heat from an LM2500PE gas turbine. Installation of the ABC on both a new and an existing platform have been considered. A design reference case is presented, and the recommended ABC is a two-shaft engine with two compressor intercoolers. The compression pressure ratio was found optimal at 8:1. The combined gas turbine and ABC shaft efficiency was calculated to 46.6 percent. The LM2500PE gas turbine contributes with 36.1 percent while the ABC adds 10.5 percent points to the gas turbine efficiency. The ABC shaft power output is 6.6 MW when utilizing the waste heat of an LM2500PE gas turbine. A preliminary thermal and hydraulic design of the ABC main components (compressor, turbine, intercoolers, and recuperator) was carried out. The recuperator is the largest and heaviest component (45 tons). A weight and cost breakdown of the ABC is presented. The total weight of the ABC package was calculated to 154 metric tons, and the ABC package cost to 9.4 million US$. An economical examination for three different cases was carried out. The results show that the ABC alternative (LM2500PE + ABC) is economical, with a rather good margin, compared to the other alternatives. The conclusion is that the Air Bottoming Cycle is an economical alternative for power generation on both new platforms and on existing platforms with demand for more power.


Abstract The aim of the present study was to analyse the nitric oxide (NO) levels in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) of patients with chronic periodontitis (CP) treated with probiotic-containing food supplements as an adjunct to initial periodontal therapy (IPT). The present study was a randomized, double blind clinical trial conducted in Yeditepe University Dental Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey. Thirty-six CP patients, with ≥2 nonmolar teeth in each quadrant with probing depth (PD) of 5–7 mm at proximal sites and radiologically detectable horizontal alveolar bone loss were randomized into two treatment groups. The test group received IPT + probiotic-containing food supplements, whereas the control group received IPT + placebo. GCF sampling was performed at the baseline and 3 and 6 months after treatment. The biochemical evaluation of NO in GCF was performed using the Griess colourimetric method. Statistical analysis was performed by using statistical software. Significant reductions in GCF volume and GCF NO levels were detected in each group after the treatments (p < 0.05). Intergroup comparison of the NO levels revealed statistically significant differences in favour of the test group at both 3 and 6-month evaluation periods (p < 0.05). Adjunctive usage of probiotic comprising food supplements to IPT yielded significant reduction of the NO levels compared to the control for up to 6 months of follow-up. The present study is registered at Thai Clinical Trials Registry (TCTR identification number: TCTR20171114003).


Determination is a remedy provided under contract for a party to discharge his
obligations upon breach by the other party. When the party to contract intends to
determine a contract, he must let the other party knows his intention to do so. He is
required to follow several procedures before he is said to determine the contract validly.
Standard forms and bespoke construction contracts usually provide procedures for
parties to contract to do so. Failure to adhere to the procedures may cause the
termination invalid and the repercussions of such failure is severe and of serious
consequences to the determining party. When one party exercises his intention to
determine a contract, the other party often seeks to destroy his intention by claiming non
compliance to procedural requirement for valid exercise of determination under the
contract. One party argues that he has followed the required procedures for service of
notice and the other party claims otherwise. This has led to numerous arguments and
disputes between the parties often end with arbitrations or litigations. The arbitrators and
courts are not helping either as decisions have not been consistent depending on how one
construes the ambiguous words. The underlying matter is the interpretation adopted by
arbitrators and courts in construing the ambiguous words. There are two commonest
methods of interpretations used by arbitrators and courts in construing commercial
contracts; by literal method or commonsense business method. Different interpretation
method conveys different decisions. The question is which one would be the appropriate
interpretation method for service of notice for determination in construction contract.
Hence, this research intends to identify the appropriateness between the two methods.
This research was carried out mainly through documentary analysis of law journals and
law reports. Eleven law reports from various jurisdictions were used in this research.
Result appears to indicate that commonsense business approach would be the
appropriate interpretation method for service of notice for determination in construction
contract. A concrete answer may not be found as the literal and commonsense business
methods for interpretation are built on different nature and most of all how one interpret
contracts depends on one's conception of contracts. Absolutely, there is no easy answer
to this. One thing is absolute is that employer or contractor considering to determine a
contract in construction contracts must follow the procedures strictly.


With the scientific and financial support from APN, the participants of the project performed kinds of activities based on the proposed research program. The participants of the project conducted research activities in order to reveal the variability of air-sea interaction feedback strength under different projects, such as current and global warming scenarios. The results from the research activities had been published in the peer-reviewed journal and some of the results been cited by IPCC AR5. This project also held a workshop with the purpose of enhancing the internal communication among project staffs, specifically for the discussion of disseminating the project outcome into the public as well as the police makers. The representative from the Monsoon Onset Monitoring and its Social Economy Impact (MOMSEI) project, pilot project of Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission /Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (IOC/WESTPAC), agreed to cooperate with this project and invited the project leader to join the relevant scientific activities for better spreading the project outcome to different research groups as well as potential scientific users. This project also contributes to enhance the international marine cooperation between China and Maldives, Indonesia. The new project, titled as "The Java Upwelling dynamic and the relevant ecosystem variation (JUV)", resulted from this project was supported for the next few years by SOA for better understanding the local climate variability over tropical Indian Ocean region, which will also give relative contribution to International Indian Ocean Expedition – 2 programs.


We study the relationship between investor relations disclosure and analyst forecast properties in Australian firms, a setting dominated by small firms with limited analyst coverage and requiring continuous disclosure of price sensitive information. We find increasing disclosure in the time period investigated is associated with greater accuracy in firms disclosing fewer items. Disclosure was unrelated to forecast dispersion, possibly due to the low analyst following. In periods of uncertainty, the investor relations awards effectively discriminated quality from quantity of disclosure. These findings highlight the importance of active communication with analysts, particularly in firms providing less disclosure and during periods of uncertainty.


As smart phones are getting powerful multimedia devices, with a plethora of sensors, they are the perfect enablers for Augmented Reality, allowing users to see the real world through a magic lens. Augmented Reality applications and services have been typically utilized in a limited number of domains, while adding new content is typically a privilege of developers, as programming skills are required for linking to existing clients or systems. In this paper we study how power users and small businesses can bring their content, advertizing and general data to an Augmented Reality view, with minimal effort. We present three prototyped approaches based on the Image Space mirror world service.


This chapter provides an overview of police organizational approaches to enhancing the quality of evidence obtained from adult and child victims of sexual assault, and reviews the degree to which actual organizational strategies are aligned with the guidance on what constitutes recommended (ideal) practice. The long-standing gap between best practice interview technique – as taught in training curricula – and actual practice in the field is a dominant theme in contemporary interviewing research. Based on our understanding of current research on investigative interviewing as well as international police interviewer training practices, we provide an overview of key criteria for evidence-based practice along with a list of common limitations that inhibit adherence to best interviewing practice. The chapter is structured around four main elements that are essential for promoting good interviewing. These elements include: (a) an evidence-based interview framework, (b) opportunities for skill development, (c) quality assurance for interviewer and organizational performance, and (d) a reliable method of recording verbal evidence.


Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?1


There is an intense debate over whether fuel economy standards or fuel taxation is the more efficient policy instrument to raise fuel economy and reduce CO2 emissions of cars. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of standards and fuel prices on new-car fuel economy with the aid of cross-section time series analysis of data from 18 countries. We employ a dynamic specification of new-car fuel consumption as a function of fuel prices, standards and per capita income. It turns out that standards have induced considerable fuel savings throughout the world, although their welfare impact is not examined here. If standards are not further tightened then retail fuel prices would have to remain at high levels for more than a decade in order to attain similar fuel savings. Finally, without higher fuel prices or tighter standards, one should not expect any marked improvements in fuel economy under 'business as usual' conditions.


Due to its high mortality, incidence and disability rates, ischemic stroke poses heavy economic burdens to families and society. Zuogui Pill (ZGP) is a classic Chinese medicine for tonifying the kidney, which is effective for the recovery of neurological function after ischemic stroke. However, Zuogui Pill has not been evaluated for its potential effects on ischemic strokes. Using network pharmacology, the research aimed to explore the mechanisms of Zuogui Pill on ischemic stroke, which were further validated in SH-SY5Y cells injured by oxygen and glucose deprivation/reperfusion (OGD/R). Network analysis of Zuogui Pill identified 86 active ingredients and 107 compound-related targets correlated with ischemic stroke. Additionally, 11 core active compounds were obtained, such as Quercetin, beta sitosterol, and stigmasterol. Most of the compounds have been proven to have pharmacological activities. Based on pathway enrichment studies, Zuogui Pill may exert neuroprotection through MAPK signaling, PI3K-Akt signaling and apoptosis, as well as enhance neurite outgrowth and axonal regeneration effect via mTOR signaling, p53 signaling and Wnt signaling pathways. In vitro experiment, the viability of ischemic neuron treated with Zuogui Pill was increased, and the ability of neurite outgrowth was significantly improved. Western blot assays shown that the pro-neurite outgrowth effect of Zuogui Pill on ischemic stroke may be relate to PTEN/mTOR signal pathway. The results of the study provided new insights into Zuogui Pill's molecular mechanism in treatment of ischemic stroke, as well as clinical references for its use.


Intensive forest harvesting has increased in Fennoscandia over the last few decades. Similar developments may follow throughout Europe as renewable energy replaces fossil fuels. The international literature suggests that intensive harvesting could increase ecological risks to yield, carbon stores, soil fertility, and biodiversity, but geographically specific knowledge is sparse in many countries, and results do not extend beyond 5–30 years after harvesting. We use Denmark as a case for discussing future directions. Forest history is described, and research on ecological effects and their inclusion in governance is reviewed. Denmark was almost completely deforested by the early 1800s, but centuries of afforestation have resulted in a current forest cover of 14.3%. Research commonly uses stem‐only harvesting as a reference against which to compare intensive harvesting impacts, but pristine forests would be a more useful reference for ecological processes and biodiversity. However, pristine forests are almost non‐existent in Europe, and non‐intervention, self‐regulating forests provide an alternative. Governance and positions of non‐governmental organizations in Denmark focus more on general forest management impacts and conservation of light‐demanding biodiversity associated with historic coppicing and grazing than on intensive harvesting. The energy sector drives the development of new governance to verify forest biomass sustainability, but the national knowledge base for such verification is limited. As part of a larger solution, we suggest establishing a network of non‐intervention, self‐regulating forests that can serve as a reference for long‐term research and monitoring of intensive harvesting impacts. This would support the application of adaptive management strategies, and continuous improvements of best management practice guidelines. WIREs Energy Environ 2016, 5:588–610. doi: 10.1002/wene.206


Several influential hypotheses in plant-herbivore and herbivore-predator interactions consider the interactive effects of plant quality, herbivore diet breadth, and predation on herbivore performance. Yet individually and collectively, these hypotheses fail to address the simultaneous influence of all three factors. Here we review existing hypotheses, and propose the tri-trophic interactions (TTI) hypothesis to consolidate and integrate their predictions. The TTI hypothesis predicts that dietary specialist herbivores (as compared to generalists) should escape predators and be competitively dominant due to faster growth rates, and that such differences should be greater on low quality (as compared to high quality) host plants. To provide a preliminary test of these predictions, we conducted an empirical study comparing the effects of plant (Baccharis salicifolia) quality and predators between a specialist (Uroleucon macolai) and a generalist (Aphis gossypii) aphid herbivore. Consistent with predictions, these three factors interactively determine herbivore performance in ways not addressed by existing hypotheses. Compared to the specialist, the generalist was less fecund, competitively inferior, and more sensitive to low plant quality. Correspondingly, predator effects were contingent upon plant quality only for the generalist. Contrary to predictions, predator effects were weaker for the generalist and on low-quality plants, likely due to density-dependent benefits provided to the generalist by mutualist ants. Because the TTI hypothesis predicts the superior performance of specialists, mutualist ants may be critical to A. gossypii persistence under competition from U. macolai. In summary, the integrative nature of the TTI hypothesis offers novel insight into the determinants of plant-herbivore and herbivore-predator interactions and the coexistence of specialist and generalist herbivores.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Brachial plexus block is the preferred anesthetic technique for upper limb surgery. Although less commonly used, the infraclavicular brachial block may have some advantages. In this study we present the results of 50 patients submitted to infraclavicular plexus block by the antero posterior approach with the aid of a nerve stimulator. METHODS: Fifty patients, aged 17 to 87 years, physical status ASA I and II, scheduled for upper limb orthopedic surgery, were submitted to brachial plexus block by the infraclavicular approach. All blocks were performed with the help of a peripheral nerve stimulator starting at 1 mA. When an adequate hand, forearm or arm muscle contraction was obtained the current was decreased until the disappearance of the response. If there was no response with a stimulus above 0.6 mA, the needle was relocated in search for a better response. If response persisted with a stimulus below 0.5 mA, 50 ml of 1.6% lidocaine with epinephrine 1:200,000 were injected. The following parameters were evaluated: block onset time, surgery duration, tourniquet tolerance, sensory and motor block duration, complications and side effects. RESULTS: Blockade was effective in 94% of patients; mean onset time was 8.78 min, surgical mean duration was 65.52 min, tourniquet tolerance was 100%, mean sensory block duration was 195.56 min and mean motor block duration was 198.86 min. There has been one vascular puncture. There were no clinical signs or symptoms of toxic effects of local anesthetics and vasoconstrictors. No patient showed blockade side effects. CONCLUSIONS: Infraclavicular plexus block provides an effective anesthesia for upper limb surgery. The use of a nerve stimulator helps the technique to be both highly successful and safe: no pneumothorax or any other major complication were observed. The local anesthetic solution used provided an adequate and safe anesthesia.


In this paper, a method which specifies the signboard region and extracts the charactersinside the signboard is proposed.We usually take notes not to forget what we should leave to memory.But it is often that the task is too troublesome. Our aim is the development of a new input-interface soas to input texts froma picture.Most of signboards are composed of almostmonochromatic region. Onthe basis of this observation, image segmentation using color information is applied, and then we getsome binary images by applying threshold for each segmented region. Each binary image is enclosedby the smallest circumscribed square. The signboard region is specified according to distribution andarea of the white pixels inside the square. As a result of experiment, we confirmed the effectivenessof the proposed method.


Traumatic inferior vena cava (IVC) lesions account for approximately 25% of abdominal vascular injuries and are among the most challenging and lethal lesions sustained by trauma patients. Whether caused by blunt or penetrating mechanisms of injury, the overall mortality rate is up to 92%; as many as 50% of  the patients with those injuries die before reaching medical care, and the mortality rate among patients who arrive to a trauma center, with signs of life and/or receive operative treatment, ranges between 20% and 57% (1).
Retrohepatic Vena Cava (RHVC) injuries (RHVCI) are extremely rare and as such both the treating trauma surgeon, as well as the vascular surgeon, lacks the necessary experience to deal with such complicated injuries. The mortality rates secondary to these injuries are extremely high, even with damage control management concepts application. Improving the outcome of these injuries remains a significant challenge of modern trauma care (2, 3).
The treatment of RHVCI confronts the treating surgeon, with major obstacles, which raises from the anatomic location of the RHVC at the posterior aspect of the liver and the abundancy of bridging veins between the RHVC and the liver. These anatomic obstacles creates a major technical challenge of gaining proximal and distal control, in proximity to the injured RHVC. This many times necessitates abdominal as well as thoracic exposure in order to gain proper control.
The average trauma, as well as the vascular, surgeons are not familiar with handling such complex injuries. This is even truer as referred to the new generation of vascular surgeons, whose experience with open vascular surgery, mainly in such extreme situations, decreases with the increasing usage of endovascular techniques (4).
 The advancements in endovascular techniques have introduced new alternatives to traditional open repair strategies. In many cases, RHVCI treatment requires exploration of a retro-hepatic hematoma, which might be the single thing that prevents free venous rupture and as such, it should be avoided.  Venous balloon occlusion is a novel endovascular strategy that may be particularly advantageous in those circumstances as a bridging maneuver, for proximal and distal control, during hybrid repair. Our case in unique since it highlights the option of total endovascular treatment, using arterial treatment concepts, to treat this extremely challenging injury.


Recent work has addressed the problem of detecting relevant claims for a given controversial topic. We introduce the complementary task of Claim Stance Classification, along with the first benchmark dataset for this task. We decompose this problem into: (a) open-domain target identification for topic and claim (b) sentiment classification for each target, and (c) open-domain contrast detection between the topic and the claim targets. Manual annotation of the dataset confirms the applicability and validity of our model. We describe an implementation of our model, focusing on a novel algorithm for contrast detection. Our approach achieves promising results, and is shown to outperform several baselines, which represent the common practice of applying a single, monolithic classifier for stance classification.


Taking into account the environmental awareness and ever-growing restrictive regulations over contamination, the study of new lubricants or lubricant additives with high performance and low toxicity over the traditional lubes to reduce the negative impact on the environment is needed. In this chapter, the current literature on the use of ionic liquids, particularly protic ionic liquids, as high-performance lubricants and lubricant additives to different types of base lubricants are reviewed and described. The relation between ionic liquids structures and their physicochemical properties, such as viscosity, thermal stability, corrosion behavior, biodegradability, and toxicity, is elaborated. Friction reduction and wear protection mechanisms of the ionic liquids are discussed with relation to their molecular structures and physicochemical properties.


An Adaptive particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed. Algorithm combines with pareto local search (PLS) method and adaptively adjusts flying time. During the search process, our algorithm can enhance the local search ability of particle swarm optimization (PSO) thought adding random perturbation to local search. The flying time of every particle in our algorithm can adaptively adjust with the evolutionary generations. Some optimization tests of the standard benchmark function confirm that our method has a stronger ability of global optimization.


While offering tax incentives to attract foreign direct investment has become a global phenomenon and part of economic globalization in the 1990s, it also is political and controversial. But the political determinants of tax incentive policies have rarely been analyzed. This article fills this gap by making two contributions. First, I offer a theory that explains how political regime type influences tax incentive policy in the cross-national setting. Second, I evaluate the theory with a statistical analysis of 52 developing countries. The findings support my main theoretical expectations. Countries with better rule of law offer lower levels of tax incentives, and the effect is stronger for more democratic countries. In democracies, FDI inflows are negatively associated with the level of incentives. Autocratic regimes maintaining restrictions on foreign entry adopt lower levels of incentives than those without restrictions. I discuss the policy implications of these findings.


This paper examines the information content of the U.S. term structure of interest rates on the market for real estate investment trusts (REITs) by decomposing the term structure of U.S. Treasury yields into two components that reflect the expectations factor and the maturity premium. We show that the expectations factor component of the U.S yield curve has significant explanatory power over return volatility in REIT stocks, both in the U.S. and globally, even after controlling for stock market trading activity. The expectations factor is generally found to have a positive effect on REIT market volatility, more significantly for the U.S. and Japanese REITs, highlighting the role of global funding conditions (via expected short rates) on return fluctuations in real estate markets. Comparing the findings for the pre- and post-global crisis periods, however, we find that the U.S. term structure has largely lost its explanatory power over global REIT markets, implied by largely insignificant effects during the post-global crisis period. The findings highlight the changing dynamics in REIT investments in the aftermath of the 2018 global credit crunch, possibly due to the slowdown of investments in the real estate sector globally, and suggest that investors will have to focus more on the idiosyncratic risk factors that drive these markets.


This paper focuses on police investigations conducted by small teams of officers as they usually work on solving violent crimes. Collaboration and communication are important aspects as well as connecting pieces of information that become known to the officers over time. This is an important application domain of knowledge management, and in particular hypertext. We present a prototypic application, Socs, that permits the intuitive connecting of information on a space. It supports emergent and dynamic knowledge structures, fosters communication, awareness and notification services, enables multiple trails of thought in parallel (i. e., thought experiments), as well as versioning with easy access to previous states. As a complement to the database and network analysis driven applications available today, we propose a tool for criminal profiling or crime scene analysis supporting small teams of officers in knowledge structuring and collaboration.


In this paper we investigate how query response delays and document download delays affect user interactions within a search system. Guided by Information Foraging Theory and Search Economic Theory, five competing hypotheses relating to the behaviours of searchers in the presence of delays are considered and examined in the context of ad-hoc topic retrieval. A between-subjects laboratory study with 48 undergraduate subjects was conducted. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that varied the type of delay experienced. When faced with query response delays, subjects did not examine more documents per query as expected. However, when the total amount of time spent per query (a combination of delay and querying time) increased, subjects did examine more documents per query. When faced with document download delays, subjects did not spent more time within documents. Subjects however did spend longer within documents when subjected to both query and document delays. We found a strong and significant correlation between query time (independent of delay) and the interactions of subjects in terms of the number of queries posed, the number of documents examined, and the depth to which subjects went. These findings contrast with previous works on how delays affect search behaviour, and suggest that the theory needs to be refined to make more credible predictions relating to search behaviours.


Public transfers of food aid are intended largely to support vulnerable populations in times of stress. We use high frequency panel data among Ethiopian and Kenyan pastoralists to test the efficacy of food aid targeting under three different targeting modalities, food aid's responsiveness to different types of shocks, and its relationship to private transfers. We find that self-targeting food-for-work or indicator-targeted free food distribution more effectively reach the poor than does food aid distributed according to community-based targeting. Food aid flows do not respond significantly to either covariate, community-level income or asset shocks, nor to idiosyncratic, household-level income or asset shocks. Rather, food aid flows appear to respond mainly to more readily observable rainfall measures. Finally, food aid does not appear to affect private transfers in any meaningful way, either by crowding out private gifts to recipient households nor by stimulating increased gifts by food aid recipients.


Background/Objectives: The objective of the article is to analyze the adopted legal norms in the field of land legal relationships and assess their effectiveness in terms of practical application. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The general scientific dialectical method enabled to consider the problem of the RF land legislation reforming at the modern stage, substantiate advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to the study of this issue, to demonstrate amendments in the RF land legislation depending on a combination of internal and external factors affecting it. Methods of formal logic have allowed characterizing the changes in the land sector at the modern stage. Findings: The obtained results prove that the amendment in the RF land legislation will adversely affect the social, investment and productive climate of the RF in the absence of the practice of applying the introduced changes. Based on the study the authors conclude that the adopted innovations in the field of land legal relationships require additional interpretation. The conducted analysis of judicial practice helps to identify the most problematic legislative norms and determine the spheres of land legal relationships, in which there is a stable law enforcement practice established. The identified problems affect the state of the land reform legislation, and also exert negative impact on its practical application, including the judiciary practice. Applications/Improvements: In the absence practice of the applying the introduced amendments the conceptual amendment of the land laws of the RF negatively affects the social, investment and productive climate of our country. It can be stated that amendments in land legislation of the RF, occurring with regular constancy, do not clarify the situation in the judicial practice, thus no clear and unified mechanism for law enforcement of land and legal norms is formed. Through our analysis of judicial practice, it is possible to identify the most problematic legislative norms and determine the spheres of land legal relationships, in which there is a stable law enforcement practice established.


The operation of a human organization requires dozens of everyday tasks to ensure coherence in organizational activities, to monitor the status of such activities, to gather information relevant to the organization, to keep everyone in the organization informed, etc. Teams of software agents can aid humans in accomplishing these tasks, facilitating the organization's coherent functioning and rapid response to crises, while reducing the burden on humans. Based on this vision, this paper reports on Electric Elves, a system that has been operational, 24/7, at our research institute since June 1, 2000. Tied to individual user workstations, fax machines, voice, mobile devices such as cell phones and palm pilots, Electric Elves has assisted us in routine tasks, such as rescheduling meetings, selecting presenters for research meetings, tracking people's locations, organizing lunch meetings, etc. We discuss the underlying AI technologies that led to the success of Electric Elves, including technologies devoted to agenthuman interactions, agent coordination, accessing multiple heterogeneous information sources, dynamic assignment of organizational tasks, and deriving information about organization members. We also report the results of deploying Electric Elves in our own research organization.


Clutch fill control is critical for automotive transmission performance and fuel economy, including both automatic and hybrid transmissions. To ensure proper function of the transmission systems, it is important to have a precise and robust clutch fill process. Current clutch fill control is realized in an open loop fashion, due to the lack of a pressure or position sensor in the clutch chamber. To improve the accuracy and robustness of this system, a new clutch control mechanism is proposed, which includes an internal feedback structure without a pressure or position sensor. First, the design and working principles of the new mechanism are presented. Second, the advantages of the internal feedback mechanism are analyzed and shown to be superior to the traditional clutch fill mechanism. To this end, the dynamic model of the new mechanism is formulated. Through a series of simulations and case studies, the new clutch control mechanism is demonstrated to be effective, efficient, and robust for solving the clutch fill and engagement control problem.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


The paper explores how guests and hosts are represented in online travel reviews about Moscow. Tourism provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the sociocultural background of other nations and potentially to improve international relations. Moscow, the capital of Russia, is sometimes viewed as an unfriendly or unsafe destination and the Russian Government aims to increase the popularity of the city. However, there are concerns that modern tourism discourse contributes to the maintenance of asymmetrical guest-host power relations. Guests are often accused of consumerism while hosts are frequently backgrounded or represented as servants or cultural markers. Such representation can lead to client-servant attitude and even cause discrimination against hosts. While online travel reviews are considered an important genre of tourism discourse, most studies analyse the representation of people in promotional or media discourse. Considering that multimodality is an integral feature of tourism discourse and that the analysis of discourse patterns allows exploring the meanings widely shared by the society, the study utilizes a corpus-assisted multimodal approach by analysing the representation of people in headlines, texts, images and image captions of a corpus of online travel reviews. The analysis corroborates previous conclusions that guests tend to be represented as consumers enjoying themselves while hosts are perceived as friendly servants. However, the study provides evidence that tourists can background not only hosts but also themselves or other tourists. Moreover, the results reveal that in contrast to promotional and media discourse, guests can also portray themselves as active, solving problems while sometimes representing guests as rude or unwelcoming. The results also show that the representation of people can vary across the modes of the same document. The study concludes that user-generated tourism discourse reveals a complex picture and can express resistance to the dominant institutional imagery.


Feeding free-ranging native animals is a form of wildlife-based tourism that is particularly popular in Australia as a result of the cryptic nature of many native species. The colony of Mareeba rock-wallabies (Petrogale mareeba) at 'Granite Gorge', North Queensland, where tourists feed a spatially defined subset of animals daily, was studied to determine the effects of provisioning on their behaviour and body condition. Provisioned P. mareeba had higher activity levels, including higher aggression levels, and spent more time performing contact behaviours (including mutual and non-mutual allogrooming) than did non-provisioned animals. Possible explanations for increased aggression include competition over provisioned food and territorial defence. Increased contact behaviours may serve to reduce tension caused by provisioning. The diurnal activities of the provisioned rock-wallabies were dictated by the activities of tourists. Provisioned rock-wallabies emerged from their shelters to receive food much earlier each afternoon than did the unprovisioned animals. The level of autogrooming exhibited by the provisioned wallabies was much higher than that of the unprovisioned animals, presumably as a thermoregulatory response to the high afternoon temperatures. Although provisioned P. mareeba feed more, their higher activity levels explain the lack of difference in the body condition between the two groups.


Phytoplankton structure of six lotic systems from the province of Buenos Aires (Argentina). The phytoplankton structure of six lotic systems: Rodriguez, El Gato, El Pescado, Bunirrigo, Juan Blanco streams and Samborombon River was analyzed. Surveys were carried out seasonally from May 1997 to June 1998. Sample sites were established at 2 or 3 points depending on the length of the systems, from the headwaters to the mouths (E1 to E3). Physical and chemical variables (pH, temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, transparency) were measured and alkalinity, suspended matter and nutrients were determined at each sampling site. Species composition, species richness, species dominance, diversity and evenness were assessed. Pennate diatoms and Chlorophyceae (Chloroccocales) were the best represented groups. The class Cyanophyceae was dominant in 60 % of the samples and the class Bacillariophyceae was subdominant in 42 % of the samples. The Samborombon River showed the minimum and maximum phytoplankton densities of the six systems during the period studied. Differences in specific composition were observed in E2 and E3 of El Gato and Rodriguez streams and in E3 of Bunirrigo stream, related to human impact. Mesosaprobic indicator species, such as Nitzschia palea, N. umbonata, Gomphonema parvulum , Navicula cryptocephala, Euglena acus, Strombomonas scabra, Crucigeniella rectangularis and Dictyosphaerium pulchellum, were found. In sampling sites E3 of El Pescado and Bunirrigo streams and Samborombon River, centric diatom species such as Aulacoseira granulata , Actinocyclus normanii, Cyclotella meneghiniana and other algae (Merismopedia tenuissima , Ulothrix aequalis, U. subconstricta ) increased their densities. Diversity and richness indexes showed a non-defined pattern.


This essay analyzes the role of Public Administration (PA) within the Lisbon Agenda (LA), both on the EU and the Member States' level and as concerns both the administration of the LA and general PA. It argues that overall, PA has been neglected or reduced to policy, finance, and a simple strife for 'modernization' and 'innovation' in the LA and the surrounding discourse until very recently, which is all the worse because without high-quality PA, the success of the LA is impossible. The essay suggests that, when PA reforms are discussed, they generally follow the old-fashioned approach of the New Public Management, which by now has proven to be a failure. It is argued that, rather, a successful PA strategy for the LA has to heed the principles of the Neo-Weberian State, which in addition to everything else is particularly appropriate for any innovation-based development agenda.


Dynamic observations have driven the course of imaging biology ever since the first bacterial motility was observed in the late sixteenth century. Continuous imaging of time dependent bacterial motion events is a rapidly emerging biomedical research discipline that extends such observations in living subjects to track the cell trafficking to a more meaningful dimension. Use of paramagnetic properties of nanoparticle may be defined as the visual representation, characterization, and quantification of bacterial processes at the subcellular levels within intact living microorganisms. It is a novel multidisciplinary field, in which the images produced reflect cellular and molecular pathways and in vivo mechanisms of metabolic changes present within the context of physiologically authentic environments. The term "bacterial delivery" and nanobio-imaging" implies the convergence of localized bacterial tracking by using paramagnetic agents sitting inside bacteria using multiple image-capture techniques, basic cell/molecular biology, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology, medical physics, biomathematics, and bioinformatics into a new imaging paradigm.


The methodology for predicting the transient mixing rate is presented for a direct injection, quiescent chamber diesel. The mixing process is modeled as a zero-dimensional, large-scale phenomena which accounts for injection rate, cylinder geometry, and engine operating condition. As a demonstration, two different injection schemes were investigated for engine speeds of 1,600, 2,100, and 2,600 rpm. In the first case, the air-fuel ratio was fixed while the injection rate was allowed to vary, but for the second case, the injection duration was fixed and the air-fuel ratio was allowed to vary. For the former case, the resulting mixing rate was also compared with the experimentally determined fuel burning rate. These two quantities appeared to be correlated in some manner for the various engine speeds under investigation.


ABSTRACT
Gabapentinoid (GABA) prescribing has substantially increased while opioid prescribing has decreased since the 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines restricted opioid prescribing for chronic pain. The shift to GABA assumes equal analgesic effectiveness to opioids, but no comparative analgesic effectiveness data exist to support this assumption. We compared GABA to opioids by assessing changes in pain interfering with activities (activity-limiting pain) over time in patients with chronic pain. We used 2017 to 2019 data from a 20% national sample of Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with chronic pain who initiated a GABA or opioid prescription for ≥30 continuous days and received home health care in the study year. The main outcome was the difference in reduction in pain score from pre- to post-prescription assessments between the 2 groups. Within a 60-day window before-and-after drug initiation, our sample comprised 3208 GABA users and 2846 opioid users. Reduction in post-prescription scores of pain-related interference with activities to less-than-daily pain was 48.1% in the GABA group and 41.7% in the opioid group; this remained significant (odds ratio = 1.29, 95% confidence interval: 1.17-1.43, P < 0.0001) after adjustment for patient demographics and comorbidities. The adjusted difference in reduced pain-related interference score between the 2 groups was -0.10 points on a 0 to 4 scale (P = 0.01). Gabapentinoid use had greater odds of less-than-daily pain post-prescription, in a dose-dependent manner. Thus, GABA use was associated with a larger reduction in chronic pain than opioids, with a larger effect at higher GABA dosage. Future research is needed on functional outcomes in patients with chronic pain prescribed GABA or opioids.


ABSTRACT
Based on data from the 2013 Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) groups of adolescents to young adults (15-24) have sedentary lifestyles (sedentary / lack of physical activity) of 52%. Lack of physical activity can lead to health risks especially the complications of non-communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart problems. This study aims to determine the relationship of physical activity and its determinants. This study uses a quantitative method with a cross-sectional study design. A total of 846 FIKES UHAMKA students participated in this study. Data collected by filling out the questionnaire by students. Data analysis used the chi square test to determine the relationship between physical activity and its determinants and logistic regression to determine the predictors of physical activity. This study provides results that the average Metabolic Equivalent (MET) score is 1420.33 ± 2384.297. Respondents who have low physical activity by 47.8%, moderate physical activity by 39.6% and high physical activity by only 12.6% of respondents. There is a significant relationship between gender, work status, availability of sports facilities, lecturer support, and perception of sports on physical activity. Active physical activity is more common in male sex respondents, students who are already working, the availability of sports facilities at home or the surrounding environment, the invitation of lecturers to exercise and a good perception of sports. The results also showed that respondents who did not work, did not have sports facilities at home, and had a poor perception of sports were predictors of having passive / mild physical activity.
 Keywords : Perception, Attitude, Environment, Sports Facilities, Physical Activity of Students


An important objective of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGP) is to curb rural out-migration. This paper on the basis of a micro-level field investigation wants to investigate the effectiveness of this programme to reduce the intensity of migration of the rural poor households to urban areas. The survey area is a mono-cropping area but job in the private non-farm employment in the locality is available moderately. Besides that, the geographical distance between the surveyed villages and the nearby urban or semi-urban areas is small which indicates very low cost of migration of the daily migrant. Incidentally, all the migrants in our sample villages are daily migrants. The local farm, average private non-farm wage and the average wage rate in the nearby urban informal sector is more than MGNREGP piece-rate. Hence seeking employment here through MGNREGP is not exogenous but endogenous in nature. In this background, it is proved that 'motivation' is a factor which influences the local MGNREGP job card holders to secure more person-days of employment through MGNREGP and the households who could secure more person-days of employment through MGNREGP are less prone to migrate from their native village.


ABSTRACT In semi-automated vehicles, non-speech sounds have been prevalently used as auditory displays for control transitions since these sounds convey urgency well. However, there are no standards of specifications for warning sounds so that diverse non-speech sounds are being employed. To shed light on this, the effects of different non-speech auditory warnings on driver performance were investigated and quantified through the experimental study and human performance modeling approaches. Twenty-four young drivers drove in the driving simulator and experienced both handover and takeover transitions between manual and automated modes while performing a secondary task. The reaction times for handover and takeover, mental workload, and subjective responses were reported. Overall, a traditional warning sound with many repetitions and an indicator sound with decreasing polarity outperformed and were preferred. Additionally, a mathematical model, using the Queuing Network-Model Human Processor (QN-MHP) framework, was applied to quantify the effects of auditory warnings' acoustic characteristics on drivers' reaction times in response to takeover request displays. The acoustic characteristics, including the fundamental frequency, the number of repetitions, and the range of dominant frequencies were utilized in modeling. The model was able to explain 99.7% of the experimental data with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.148. The present study can contribute to establishing standards and design guidelines for takeover request displays in semi-automated vehicles.


SIR,-Now that you have perpetrated in print (17 September, p. 655) a gibe which has been doing a round in psychiatric circles for some years past (Does the Community Care ?), is it not time that the overworked phrase received a precise definition? It is not clear why a long-stay unrecovered psychotic who is excellently cared for in a good large psychiatric hospital should not be considered as in the care of the community, whereas a similar type of patient who is cared for in no better fashion in a small local-authority hostel should be considered " in community care." In either case, directly or indirectly, the financial burden falls on the community. A far more important criterion is whether individual members of the community take a personal interest and help the patients in some practical manner. Here the progressive psychiatric hospital can claim a higher level of " community care." A flourishing League of Friends, a good liaison with other voluntary organizations such as the Women's Voluntary Service and the Women's Institutes, enables individual members of the community to give active help and participate in the care of a long-stay patient. It is doubtfuA whether small hostels receive such attention. Moreover, these hostels seem to be somewhat in the nature of white elephants, being almost half unoccupied. Would it not be wiser to spend the limited money available in increasing the inadequate numbers of mental welfare officers and social workers rather than on bricks and mortar, so that strictly genuine community care would be further encouraged -namely, to enable more harmless unrecovered psychotics to live in a family situation at home, be it with relatives, with friends, or with enthusiastically minded strangers as at Gheel ? This would give the phrase community care an authentic significance, and it would cease to be the target of gibes.-I am, etc.,


Small noncoding RNAs carry out a variety of functions in eukaryotic cells, and in multiple species they can travel between cells, thus serving as signaling molecules. In mammals multiple small RNAs have been found to circulate in the blood, although in most cases the targets of these RNAs, and even their functions, are not well understood. YRNAs are small (84-112 nt) RNAs with poorly characterized functions, best known because they make up part of the Ro ribonucleoprotein autoantigens in connective tissue diseases. In surveying small RNAs present in the serum of healthy adult humans, we have found YRNA fragments of lengths 27 nt and 30-33 nt, derived from the 5'-ends of specific YRNAs and generated by cleavage within a predicted internal loop. Many of the YRNAs from which these fragments are derived were previously annotated only as pseudogenes, or predicted informatically. These 5'-YRNA fragments make up a large proportion of all small RNAs (including miRNAs) present in human serum. They are also present in plasma, are not present in exosomes or microvesicles, and circulate as part of a complex with a mass between 100 and 300 kDa. Mouse serum contains far fewer 5'-YRNA fragments, possibly reflecting the much greater copy number of YRNA genes and pseudogenes in humans. The function of the 5'-YRNA fragments is at present unknown, but the processing and secretion of specific YRNAs to produce 5'-end fragments that circulate in stable complexes are consistent with a signaling function.


The massive proliferation of state of the art interfaces into the automotive sector has triggered a revolution in terms of the technological ecosystem that is found in today's modern car. Accordingly, on the one hand, we find dozens of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) running several hundred MB of code, and more and more sophisticated dashboards with integrated wireless communications. On the other hand, in the same vehicle we find the underlying communication infrastructure struggling to keep up with the pace of these radical changes. This paper presents MixCAN (MIXed data authentication for Control Area Networks), an approach for mixing different message signatures (i.e., authentication tags) in order to reduce the overhead of Controller Area Network (CAN) communications. MixCAN leverages the attributes of Bloom Filters in order to ensure that an ECU can sign messages with different CAN identifiers (i.e., mix different message signatures), and that other ECUs can verify the signature for a subset of monitored CAN identifiers. Extensive experimental results based on Vectors Informatik's CANoe/CANalyzer simulation environment and the data set provided by Hacking and Countermeasure Research Lab (HCRL) confirm the validity and applicability of the developed approach. Subsequent experiments including a test bed consisting of Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ systems equipped with CAN communication modules demonstrate the practical integration of MixCAN in real automotive systems.


This study demonstrates the successful pre-clinical testing of a new pharmacological approach in the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using Rho-kinase-(ROCK)-inhibition. The Rho/ROCK signal cascade represents an important pathway for signal transduction in axonal de- and regeneration which has already been successfully modulated in other neurodegenerative diseases. Using the SOD1(G93A) mouse model, this experimental study included different treatment cohorts of transgenic mice starting at day 50 with ROCK inhibitors Fasudil or Y-27632, respectively. Day 50 represents the pre-symptomatic phase in SOD1(G93A) transgenic animals when axonal degeneration is already detectable. In detail, this proof-of-principle study evaluates whether treatment with ROCK inhibitors can increase survival and ameliorate locomotor functions in ALS mice. Continuous and frequent neurological evaluations (clinical scoring) as well as analyses of motor function (Rotarod- and Hanging-Wire Test) were implemented. In comparison to the treatment control group, a female cohort treated with daily Fasudil 30 mg/kg (body weight) showed a significantly longer survival and in addition a significantly delayed decrease in motor performance as evaluated in the Rotarod test. Treatment of male mice was not able to yield similarly significant results implying that gender may play an important role in ROCK inhibition. An exploratory analysis of an alternative treatment with the ROCK inhibitor Y-27632 at a low dosage with daily 2 mg/kg (body weight) did not show significant differences in comparison to control treatment. The medical treatment was tolerated well in all study groups. In summary, the study shows that treatment with ROCK inhibitors using optimized dosages can yield significant beneficial results in female ALS mice with respect to survival and locomotor function. Further studies should focus on the optimization of ROCK inhibitor dosage and should also evaluate later treatment initiation at motor symptom onset. If the utility of ROCK inhibition in ALS models is further corroborated it should be quickly considered as a treatment option also for human ALS patients because Fasudil is an already clinically approved medication in stroke patients for the treatment of vasospasms.


The study was undertaken to identify the constraints of native cattle genetic resource conservation at the farm level along with their features of breeding system and profitability. Five different study sites like south-west, northern hills, industrial zone, north-west and mid-region were selected representatively from all over the country. A total of 280 cattle farmers from the selected regions were interviewed. A multiple regression model was fitted to know the impact of contributing factors on lactation characteristics of cows. The double log linear model was also used to explore the input-output relationship of milk production. Average milk yield was 1.78 and 5.64 liter per day per cow respectively for native and crossbred cow. Contribution of age, order of lactation and stage of lactation were predictable in native cattle but not in crossbreds. Livestock farming contributed 36.4 percent of total income of the farmers studied. A crossbred cattle farming was profitable but native cattle farming was non-profitable. Indigenous cattle were preferred over crossbred due to their superior adaptability to local environmental stresses, rearing ease, low input, lesser proneness to disease and availability of native bull for mating. Per farm average number of milch cow was found to be reduced day by day and maximum number was 4 in a farm during the period 2006-07. Major causes of reduction were the non-profitability, crisis of feed, lack of investment, introduction of exotic breed etc. Responded farmers had no clear idea on conservation of native cattle.