The aesthetics of Persian language is the analysis of poems' figures of speech. When we are analyzing the diction of Persian poems, we find similes, metaphors, allusions, synecdoches and symbols or when we are speaking of the secondary objective of the poet or even we talk about the prosodic meter of a poetry; all are aesthetic analysis of Persian language. Seyfe Farghani is one of the greatest poets in Persian language, but his coincide with the great, Saadi, and his immigration to Minor Asia, were the causes of his remaining unknown; he has been not known as he should be in spite of his wits and harmonious lyrics. Therefore, this research has analyzed the structural aesthetics of Seyfe Farghani's lyrics, figures of speech and sensibility. This article also indicate the influence of Saadi Shirazi on this witty poet in 7 A.H.


Revered by Buddhists in the United States and China, Master Sheng-yen shares his wisdom and teachings in this first comprehensive English primer of Chan, the Chinese tradition of Buddhism that inspired Japanese Zen. Often mistunderstood as a system of mind games, the Chan path leads to enlightenment through apparent contradiction. while demanding the mental and physical discipline of traditional Buddhist doctrine, it asserts that wisdom (Buddha-nature) is innate and immediate in all living beings, and thus not to be achieved through devotion to the strictures of religious practice. You arrive without departing. Master Sheng-yen provides an unprecedented understanding of Chan, its precepts, and its practice. Beginning with a basic overview of Buddhism and meditation, 'Hoofprint of the Ox' detials the progressive mental exercises traditionally followed by all Buddhists. Known as the Three Disciplines, these procedures develop moral purity, meditiative concentration, and enlightening insight through the 'stilling' of the mind. Master Sheng-yen then expounds Chan Buddhism, recounting its centuries-old history in China and illuminating its fundamental tenets. He contemplates the nature of Buddhahood, specifies the physical and mental prerequisites for beginning Chan practice, and humbly considers what it means to be an enlightened Chan master. Drawing its title from a famous series of pictures that symbolizes the Chan path as the search of an ox-herd for his wayward ox, 'Hoofprint of the Ox' is an inspirational guide to self-discovery through mental transformation. A profound contribution to Western understanding of Chan and Zen, this book is intended for practicing Buddhists as well as anyone interested in learning about the Buddhist path.


This study explored the patterns of cocaine use and the lifestyles of users in Northern Ireland with the aim of providing the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) and treatment service providers with a better understanding of cocaine use in Northern Ireland. This primarily qualitative study was conducted in two phases. In Phase I a â?~Community Assessment Processâ?T was conducted to gain an understanding of the experiences of drug treatment professionals to cocaine use in Northern Ireland. In phase II 40 in-depth interviews were conducted with cocaine users. The study identified two types of cocaine user, these are recreational or socially integrated users and those referred for drug treatment who as a group was socially marginalized users. For the purposes of this study these users will be referred to as either recreational or treatment users. The demographic profiles of each type of user differed in a number of important respects. The recreational users were typically young, educated and anchored to a largely conventional lifestyle and whose pattern of non-work activities involved partying and drug use. Treatment users, on the other hand, generally had low level educational qualifications and were typically unemployed and living on state benefits. A number of the treatment users were either living in a hostel at the time of interview or had experienced homelessness at some time in their life. None of the recreational users reported any experience of homelessness. These distinctions, as well as differences between the groups in terms of their drug use patterns, preferences and practices, strongly suggest that in unravelling the nature of cocaine use and cocaine problems there is a need to look beyond the drug itself.


Background: The Department of Emergency Medicine (EM) provides critical medical care to patients at all times. Providing medical care, especially at night, has led physicians to work in alternating shifts. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the effect of alternating shifts on the quality of life and career satisfaction among emergency physicians (EP). Design: This was a multicenter, observational, cross-sectional study. Settings: EM departments of major government and private hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Methods: An e-survey-based study using a structured questionnaire was conducted on 234 board-certified EP in 2017. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software. Results: Most EM physicians (59.4%) were either satisfied or very satisfied in their career, with a majority (39.7%) admitting that shift alternations influenced their job satisfaction. While 52.6% of the physicians denied that shift alternations caused them to think about leaving EM, about 15% admitted that it is a major factor. Approximately, 40.6% of participating physicians believed that shift alternations moderately impacted their social and family life. About 88.1% of physicians believed that one or more medical conditions are primarily caused or aggravated by shift alternations; only 11.9% reported no direct impact on their health. Female physicians; singles; physicians with children, evening shifts, and higher number of shifts; and physicians with less years of experience reported less satisfaction. Physicians with equal distribution of shift times, older age, and more nonclinical hours or with part-time jobs showed more satisfaction. Conclusions: EM physicians report a moderate-to-major negative impact on their social, family, and healthy life due to the constant alternation of shifts. However, the effect did not cause them to think about leaving EM and most of them had high career satisfaction.


The report aims to provide basic information on conflict dynamics in cross-border communities of the Batken area for partner organisations implementing the project Improving Stability and Better Natural Resource Management in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The project involves the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP) Kyrgyz Republic and MSDSP Tajikistan; the Roza Otunbaeva Initiative; the Kyrgyz Public Foundation CAMP Ala-Too and UCA. The consortium of partner organisations is led by the Aga Khan Foundation. The research for this report was based on the premise that conflict in local communities can be attributed to contextual factors such as agricultural crisis, restricted movement of goods across borders, the militarisation of the border, migration, and problems surrounding natural resources management. These factors create certain vulnerabilities that lead to the emergence of tensions and conflict at the level of local communities. This report was completed within the framework of the project 'Improving Stability and Better Natural Resource Management in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan' by the University of Central Asia's Mountain Societies Research Institute (UCA MSRI). The material has been funded by the United Kingdom (UK) Government through UK Conflict Stability Security Fund; however the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government's official policies.


Meetings are effective if they meet the objectives of each person involved in the least amount of time possible. Different strategies are needed for different types of meetings. Different leadership styles are necessary depending on the members' personality preferences and the stages of the group's development. Good leaders know how to adapt to these preferences and stages.


We consider a Sturm–Liouville operator with an integrable potential q on the unit interval I=[0,1] . We consider a Schrödinger operator with a real compactly supported potential on the half line and on the line, where this potential coincides with q on the unit interval and vanishes outside I. We determine the relationships between eigenvalues of such operators and obtain estimates of eigenvalues in terms of potentials.


Purpose: To assess external validity of a framework, which was previously developed to predict the incidence of radiation‐induced pneumontis in patients following radiotherapy for lungcancer, by testing it on an alternate dataset (other than the one used to develop it). Methods: The study employed two independent datasets: 1) a Duke University dataset of 219 patients, of whom 34 were diagnosed with post‐radiotherapy pneumonitis; and 2) a Washington University (WashU) dataset of 219 patients, of whom 52 developed pneumonitis post‐radiotherapy. While the Duke dataset was used to develop the framework, the WashU dataset was used to assess its validity. The framework was based on a predictive model that combined results from four machine learning models into a single fused model using a Bayesian decision fusion methodology. The results of testing the framework on the WashU dataset was measured in terms of the area under ROC curve (AUC) and compared to the AUC value obtained by Mean LungDose (MLD) — a metric commonly used to discriminate between patients with and without pneumonitis. Results: The framework yielded an overall AUC of 0.84 for cross‐validated testing on Duke data. Six patient features were identified as most significant. They consisted of two dose features: EUD (a=1.3) and V30; and four non‐dose features: female gender, tumor in central lung location, adenocarcinoma, and chemotherapy prior to radiotherapy. Most notably, when tested on the WashU dataset, the framework yielded an AUC value of 0.73. In comparison, the AUC value obtained by employing MLD values was only 0.68. Conclusions: Based on testing with an independent dataset, the framework to predict the incidence of radiation‐induced pneumonitis appears to be fairly robust. The framework may potentially be used in the clinic to improve the treatment decision‐making process.


Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, local communities have been adapting to new political and socioeconomic realities. These changes have prompted dramatic outmigration among rural populations, especially in the Russian Arctic. Despite these changes, some communities remain viable, with some residents exploring new economic opportunities. This study uses findings from qualitative interviews to understand what factors shape community viability, interviewing residents and relevant regional stakeholders in two case areas in the Arkhangelsk oblast: the Solovetsky Archipelago in the White Sea and islands in the delta of the Northern Dvina River. The results indicate that community viability and the reluctance of community members to leave their traditional settlements are shaped by livelihoods, employment opportunities, and social capital. Social capital is characterized by such empirically identified factors as shared perceptions of change and a willingness to address changes, place attachment, and local values. We conclude that further development or enhancement of community viability and support for local livelihoods also depends on 1) bottom-up initiatives of engaged individuals and their access to economic support and 2) top-down investments that contribute to local value creation and employment opportunities.


All-inorganic perovskite materials (e.g. CsPbI2Br) have been demonstrated to be a promising candidate as the light absorber for solar cells because of their remarkable thermal stability. Herein, we develop a simple low-temperature solution process to carefully control the perovskite crystallization kinetics with enhanced mass transport during film deposition. It resulted in high-quality inorganic CsPbI2Br perovskite films to achieve a stabilized power conversion efficiency of 14.31% in the resultant planar heterojunction solar cell. Importantly, the as-prepared devices showed excellent thermal stability and light stability, wherein the devices maintained 83.58% of their original efficiency after 85 °C heat treatment for 500 h, and 90.33% of their initial efficiency with continuous light soaking for 500 h, respectively. Therefore, a universally feasible strategy is suggested to fabricate high-quality inorganic perovskite thin films for higher performance optoelectronic devices.


Power factor in an AC electrical power system is described as the ratio of the actual power passing though the load to the virtual power flowing through the circuit or the cosine angle of the potential and charge of an AC circuit. A phase difference O exists between the potential and charge of an AC circuit and cosine which is called the circuit's power factor. Suppose we get an inductive circuit we generally get the lagging by the voltage and that will be called a lagging power factor. And suppose we get the capacitive circuit then the current will be leading by the voltage and that will be referred as a leading power factor. The usage of power electronic system has reached to a new application stage that include residential, commercial, and aerospace and many others. Power electronic interfaces e.g. Switch Mode Power Supplies (SMPS) have proved to be superior over traditional linear power supplies. However their nonlinear behavior puts a question mark on their efficiency. The current drawn by the SMPS from the line is distorted resulting in a high Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and low Power Factor (PF). Other adverse effects on the power system includes increased magnitudes of neutral current in three phase systems, overheating of transformers and induction motors etc. Therefore there is a continuous need of power factor improvement and reduction of line current harmonics. A large range of PFC circuits have been proposed with diverse operating modes to solve the situation. These PFC circuits adjust the waveforms of the current in the input side so that the maximum power can be tapped from the supplies. For every equipment the load should try to match a resistive one as closely as possible, only then the PF will be near to unity as there will be reduction of reactive power in the circuit. The current in this situation is free from all the lower as well as higher order harmonics thus copies the input voltage waveform. So this causes the current in the circuit to be at the lowest possible value to do the same work. As a result, the losses associated with circuit are reduced. Hence the consumption in power is reduced greatly. Boost converter accomplishes this active power-factor correction (ACMC) in discontinuous as well as in continuous modes. Simulation of a single phase bridge converter without using any converter is performed first. Then a current control circuit and a voltage control circuit were added to the boost converter which improved the input THD. This project aims to develop a circuit for power factor improvement using two Boost converters connected in parallel. It is based on the power sharing method to improve the current quality and to reduce the switching losses. In this method current in one circuit has to keep up with the one in parallel to it.


The lower deposition rate for high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) compared with direct current magnetron sputtering for the same average power is often reported as a drawback. The often invoked reason is back-attraction of ionized sputtered material to the target due to a substantial negative potential profile, sometimes called an extended presheath, from the location of ionization toward the cathode. Recent studies in HiPIMS devices, using floating-emitting and swept-Langmuir probes, show that such extended potential profiles do exist, and that the electric fields Ez directed toward the target can be strong enough to seriously reduce ion transport to the substrate. However, they also show that the potential drops involved can vary by up to an order of magnitude from case to case. There is a clear need to understand the underlying mechanisms and identify the key discharge variables that can be used for minimizing the back-attraction. We here present a combined theoretical and experimental analysis of the problem of electric fields Ez in the ionization region part of HiPIMS discharges, and their effect on the transport of ionized sputtered material. In particular, we have investigated the possibility of a 'sweet spot' in parameter space in which the back-attraction of ionized sputtered material is low. It is concluded that a sweet spot might possibly exist for some carefully optimized discharges, but probably in a rather narrow window of parameters. As a measure of how far a discharge is from such a window, a Townsend product ΠTownsend is proposed. A parametric analysis of ΠTownsend shows that the search for a sweet spot is complicated by the fact that contradictory demands appear for several of the externally controllable parameters such as high/low working gas pressure, short/long pulse length, high/low pulse power and high/low magnetic field strength.


The importance at the end of life of developing effective communication and meeting information needs is recognised as being central to enhance patient and family centred experience. This qualitative study aimed to explore understanding of the disease, preferences regarding end-of-life planning, and views on communication and coordination of care in patients with Progressive Idiopathic Fibrotic Interstitial Lung Disease (PIF-ILD). Twelve semistructured in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted among PIF-ILD patients and carers attending two London hospitals. Six Interviews were also conducted among health professionals from one London Hospital, a palliative care service and primary care. There was good understanding of the terminal nature of the disease among both patients and carers, but a poor understanding of prognosis, and how the disease would manifest at the end stages. Both patients and carers expressed a wish to receive more information from clinicians. Health professionals recognised the difficulty of balancing information needs with maintaining hope. No participants were aware of any palliative care input, and no participants had considered important end-of-life issues, such as preferred place of care and preferred place of death. Our work shows that palliative interventions need to be developed for this group of patients which should aim to improve communication and coordination of care, while facilitating discussions surrounding information needs and important end-of-life preferences.


AIDII: 50 years of Occupational Hygiene in ItalyThe Italian Association of Industrial Hygienists (AIDII) celebrated the 50th anniversary of its foundation on 16 November 2019 in Milan.Since its foundation, AIDII promoted - in a harmonized way from the end of the 90s with its interregional territorial sections - the development, depth and dissemination of Industrial Hygiene with the aim of protecting the health and well-being of workers and the general population.The "interdisciplinary vocation", as demonstrated by the directive boards that have been succeeded, is evident not only through the different training education and professionalism of the prevention figures who adhere to it, but also from the initiatives often carried out in collaboration with other Institutions, Associations and Scientific Societies. Fixed appointments - in addition to the National Conference (since 1975) and the "Fundamentals of Industrial Hygiene" course – are "Le Giornate di Corvara" organized by the Triveneta Section (since 1995) and "Incontri Mediterranei di Igiene Industriale", organized by the South Section that reached the 7th edition in 2019.In 1976 AIDII set up its own periodical Journal "Il Giornale Italiano di Igiene Industriale" which, through various editorial forms, led to the current "Italian Journal of Industrial and Environmental Hygiene" (IJOEHY). The traditional translation of the ACGIH volume "Threshold Limit Values and Biological Exposure Indices" was distributed to members in 2019 in the printed form to symbolically accompany the celebration of the 50th anniversary of AIDII.The foundation, in 1986, of the Institute for the Certification of Industrial Hygienists (ICII) began a path that evolved up to the Institute for the Certification of Prevention Figures (ICFP), today compliant with the UNI CEI EN ISO IEC 17024 and UNI 11711 standards and recognized internationally by the National Accreditation Recognition Committee (NAR) of the International Occupational Hygiene Association (IOHA). Among the peculiar activities of the last decade, the participation in various research, cooperation and awareness-raising projects, with national and international partnerships, intended to deepen some occupational hygiene issues and to share good hygiene practices. Flagships, the role played in the International Associations, the active participation in the IOHA Board, the organization in 2010 of the 8th International Scientific Conference IOHA in Rome and the IOHA presidency covered by an AIDII past-President from 2009 to 2010.The proactive role of the Secretarial staff, of the members of the national and territorial Directive boards and of the Members allowed us to perceive in advance the problems, trends and changes taking place, in order to plan appropriate improvement actions in good time. Fundamental, especially in the last period, the presence on the Social Networks which allows AIDII to increase contacts with all its interlocutors.
As Dario Fo said "Culture cannot be achieved if one does not know one's own history". The history of AIDII gives the opportunity, to new and future generations of Industrial Hygienists, to know what has changed and what new innovations have brought us to the present day. History determines the sense of identity and belonging; personally I feel within myself the existence of shared values, which come from a common past into the Association.The main objective of the "November 16th day" was to trace the events that have seen AIDII protagonist on the territory, nationally and internationally, with initiatives and activities that represent the history and the bases for Industrial Hygiene today and tomorrow; the open challenge of the inclusion of the Industrial Hygienist in the current regulatory framework of the global management of the environment, health and safety (EHS) policy.In order to make participate all Members who were unable to attend the important event of November 16th, I have the honor and pleasure to present this current issue of the IJOEHY, dedicated, in content, to the publication of some contributions presented at the meeting. Someone will think that the contents are not scientific, in reality each line of each work demonstrates the great sense of belonging and the willingness of the Authors to transmit their knowledge in the field of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene and their experiences within AIDI.The reaching of an important milestone, which not everyone can boast, spurs us to further objectives: the traditional and qualified training initiatives will continue with national and territorial courses and seminars, shortly we will release new monographic volumes, we will enhance the website and the online Journal, we will promote an interlocution with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies. On the internal organizational front, we will continue to systematize the activities with the publication of Procedures and Guide Documents, we will review the Regulations to harmonize them with each other and adapt them to the new legislative requirements and we will implement our relations with other Associations and Scientific Societies, with Institutions and Universities.What we are living today and what we will live tomorrow will be the subject of the history of the next 50 years and perhaps the celebration of the next event will start from this issue of our Journal.


OBJECTIVE
To describe a modified approach to neurologic examination of African pygmy hedgehogs (Atelerix albiventris).

ANIMALS
12 adult hedgehogs (7 males and 5 females).

PROCEDURES
Aspects of the standard neurologic examination of dogs and cats were evaluated for use with awake hedgehogs, and modified approaches to evaluating their normal behavior and mentation, select cranial nerves and refexes, and gait were then identified. Behavioral analysis and gait analysis were performed by using video recordings of hedgehogs in a novel environment. Performability and repeatability of all feasible aspects of the neurologic examination were assessed.

RESULTS
Most aspects of the standard neurologic examination could be successfully performed, with repeatable results. However, certain aspects, especially those evaluating the pelvic limbs, were more difficult to perform successfully or were less repeatable. All hedgehogs lacked a menace response but displayed a contraction of the frontodorsalis muscle. Facial sensation testing was unreliable.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The entire standard neurologic examination could not be performed in hedgehogs. However, many aspects could be performed, and together they provided baseline data for neurologic examination of this species.


Increasing the utilization of many-core systems has been one of the forefront topics these last years. Although many-cores architectures were merely theoretical models few years ago, they have become an important part of the high performance computing market. The semiconductor industry has developed Graphical Processing Units (GPU) systems that provide access to many cores (i.e: Larrabee, Fermi or Tesla) that can be used for General Purpose (GP) computing. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a scheduling strategy for GPU and many-core architectures for HPC environments. Specifically, our strategy is a variant of the backfilling scheduling policy with resource sharing considerations. We propose a scheduling strategy that considers the differences between GP processors and GPU computing elements in terms of computational capacity and memory bandwidth. To do this, our approach uses a resource model that predicts how shared resources are used in both GP and GPU/many-core elements. Furthermore, it considers the differences between these elements in terms of performance. First, it models their differences in terms of computational power and how they share the access to the node's memory bandwidth. Second, it characterizes how the processes are allocated to the GPU. Using this resource model, we design the Power Aware resource selection policy, which we combine with the Less Consume scheduling policy. Our strategy tries to allocate jobs aiming at reducing the memory contention and the energy consumption. Results show that the scheduling strategies proposed in this work are able to save over 40\% of energy and improve the system performance up to 30\% with respect to traditional backfilling strategies.


Sparse deep neural network (DNN) accelerators exploit the intrinsic redundancy in data representation to achieve high performance and energy efficiency. However, sparse weight and input activation arrays are unstructured, and their processing cannot take advantage of the regular data-access patterns offered by dense arrays, thus the processing incurs increased complexities in dataflow orchestra-tion and resource management. In this work, we first present the importance of the data reduction mechanism, i.e. , how partial sums are accumulated spatially or temporally , a perspective that has not been fully explored in current literature. Motivated by the reduction analysis, we propose Stitch-X, a novel DNN inference accelerator architecture that can stitch together sparse weights and input activations for parallel execution. Specifically, Stitch-X employs a novel dataflow that leverages both spatial and temporal reduction to balance energy efficiency and dataflow control complexity. Moreover, Stitch-X adopts a new runtime Parallelism Discovery Unit (PDU) to efficiently extract fine-grained parallelizable operations from irregular sparse data arrays to enable a higher performance over a wide range of input data densities and for a variety of DNN layers. Our evaluations show that Stitch-X consistently achieves a 3 . 8 × speedup and improves energy-delay-squared-product (ED 2 P) by a factor of 10 . 3 × over an efficient, dense DNN accelerator. Compared to a state-of-the-art sparse DNN accelerator, Stitch-X delivers 1 . 6 × better performance. A silicon prototype of the Stitch-X architecture is scheduled for April 2018.


A Ka-band microstip patch antenna with the functions of switchable pattern is presented. The antenna structure is composed of three rectangular patches and four radio frequency microelectro-mechanical system (RF MEMS) switches. The switches are placed to connect the center patch with other two ones, with two switches on the top edge of the center patch and others on the bottom edge. By controlling the states of the RF MEMS switches, the proposed antenna can radiate two patterns. Moreover, the switchable functions are operated at the same frequency band with a bandwidth of 30.9%. Simulated results by Ansoft HFSS are given.


The physical properties of the vector potential were considered in terms of the problem of bioactivity of electromagnetic fields. A possible primary mechanism underlying the effect of vector potentials on elementary processes of charge transport were considered by analogy with the well-known Aharonov-Bohms and Josephsons effects. The possibility of using the curl-free vector potential for "force-free" information effect on biochemical processes in the living cell was grounded. The technical possibilities of creation of vector potential free of magnetic field in laboratory are discussed.


This report discusses the power supply and quench protection system selected for the MICE superconducting coupling and focusing magnets. First, the MICE focusing and coupling magnet parameters are presented. Second, the report describes passive quench protection systems for these focusing and coupling magnets. Thermal quench-back from the magnet mandrel, which is a key to the MICE magnet quench protection system, is also discussed. A system of diodes and resistors is used to control the voltage to ground as the magnet quenches. Third, the report presents the magnet power supply parameters for MICE magnets.


Can environmental law actually achieve environmental conservation or implement an environmental ethic in practice? The environmental movement has been captured by a legal centralist perspective, which asserts that legal institutions and processes are integral to achieving environmental conservation and environmentally ethical behavior. This article uses a case study of the Mono Lake Committee to explore the role of law in the Committee's success in substantially reducing Los Angeles' water appropriations from Mono Lake's feeder streams and the subsequent restoration of the Lake's unique and valuable environment. The Mono Lake effort is an ideal case study because it involved the landmark case National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, in which the California Supreme Court adopted an innovative legal theory that water rights are subject to the public trust in the environmental conditions of navigable waters. National Audubon has been ranked by legal scholars and environmentalists as among the most important environmental law cases of the twentieth century. This case study demonstrates that legal institutions and environmental law, while important, are insufficient to achieve actual conservation outcomes, even when environmentalists win major litigation victories. Sustained, effective conservation outcomes depend on: 1) the ecology and psychology of place; 2) public participation, education, and engagement; 3) politics; and 4) creative, collaborative problem-solving. The most significant role of law is to upset settled expectations and entitlements that inhibit innovation and negotiated problem-solving. This article makes a case for the inter-relationship of multiple forces and factors in achieving environmental conservation and in developing society's environmental ethics. It also makes a case for futher multi-disciplinary study using insights from many different disciplines to map the complex interaction of multiple legal, political, social, cultural, psychological, economic, ecological, educational, policy and planning, and ethical forces in environmental conservation.


Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), and marigold (Tagetes patula L.) transplants were grown from seed in leached and unleached media containing 0%, 25%, or 50% (by volume) peat and/or fresh or aged spent mushroom compost with 50% vermiculite. Reduced growth and symptoms of ammonium toxicity were seen in transplants grown in fresh spent mushroom compost. Transplants grown in 0% or 25% compost were larger than those grown in 50%, probably due to high salinity in 50% compost. Leaching reduced media soluble salts and generally improved plant yields. K and Ca were higher and P and Mg were lower in the tissue of transplants grown in spent mushroom compost than of those in the peat-lite control mix. High quality transplants were produced in 25%, aged spent mushroom compost, while acceptable plants of slightly reduced quality were produced in 50%, aged compost.


Abstract Group-foraging ravens scatter-hoard when they are competing for food and, to some extent, also raid the caches made by others. We investigated the effects of observational spatial memory on individual caching and raiding tactics. With captive ravens, we found visual observation was essential for locating and raiding the caches of conspecifics. Both captive and free-ranging ravens, food cachers as well as potential cache raiders, responded to each other's presence. Cachers withdrew from conspecifics and most often placed their caches behind structures, obstructing the view of potential observers. Raiders watched inconspicuously and kept at a distance to cachers close to their cache sites. In response to the presence of potential raiders or because of their initial movements towards caches, the cachers frequently interrupted caching, changed cache sites, or recovered their food items. These results suggest that ravens, regardless of whether they act as cachers or raiders, are capable of withholding information about their intentions and, hence, manipulate the other bird's attention either to prevent or to achieve social-learning opportunities. Such interactions may qualify as 'tactical' deception and may have created a considerable pressure selecting for social cognition in ravens. Copyright 2002 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .


Background As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries have adopted measures of social distance, with the childhood population being one of the main focus of attention in these measures. Methods A rapid scoping review was carried out by searching PubMed to know if children are more contagious than adults, and the proportion of asymptomatic cases in children. Google Scholar and MedRxiv/bioRxiv were also searched. The time period was restricted from 1 December 2019 until 28 May 2020. Only studies published in English, Italian, French or Spanish were included. Results Fourteen out of 1099 identified articles were finally included. Studies included cases from China (n=9 to 2143), China and Taiwan (n=536), Korea (n=1), Vietnam (n=1), Australia (n=9), Geneva (n=40), the Netherlands (n=116), Ireland (n=3) and Spain (population-based study of IgG, n=8243). Although no complete data were available, between 15% and 55%–60% were asymptomatic, and 75%–100% of cases were from family transmission. Studies analysing school transmission showed children as not a driver of transmission. Prevalence of COVID-19 IgG antibody in children <15 years was lower than the general population in the Spanish study. Conclusions Children are not transmitters to a greater extent than adults. There is a need to improve the validity of epidemiological surveillance to solve current uncertainties, and to take into account social determinants and child health inequalities during and after the current pandemic.


The control of concurrent access to shared resources is an important feature of both centralized and distributed operating systems. In conventional systems, exclusive access is the rule while concurrent access is the exception. Dataflow computer systems, along with an applicative style of programming, provide an execution environment in which this philosophy is reversed. In these latter systems, it is necessary to reexamine the manner in which synchronization of access to shared resources is specified and implemented. A basic design for a dataflow resource manager is reviewed, illustrating the clear separation between access mechanism and scheduling policy. The semantics of the access mechanism is based solely on the principle of data dependency. Specifications are presented for a general scheduler to further constrain or order accesses to the resource. Using ``open path expressions'' as a very high-level specification language for synchronization, it is shown how to automatically synthesize a scheduler as a distributed network of communicating modules.


Objectives This study assessed the extent of educational and income inequalities in self-rated health (SRH) in the German adult population between 2003 and 2012 and how these inequalities changed over time. Design Repeated cross-sectional health interview surveys conducted in 2003, 2009, 2010 and 2012. Setting and participants The study population was the German adult population aged 25–69, living in private households in Germany. In total 54 197 randomly selected participants (2003: 6890; 2009: 16 418; 2010: 17 145; 2012: 13 744) were included. Main outcome measures SRH was assessed with one single question. Five answer categories were dichotomised into good ('very good' and 'good') versus poor ('moderate', 'poor', 'very poor') SRH. To estimate the extent of the correlation between absolute and relative inequalities in SRH on the one hand, and income and education on the other; slope indices of inequality (SII) and relative indices of inequality (RII) were estimated using linear probability and log-binomial regression models. Results There were considerable and persisting educational and income inequalities in SRH in every survey year. Absolute educational inequalities were largely stable (2003: SII=0.25, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.30; 2012: 0.29, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.33; p trend=0.359). Similarly, absolute income inequalities were stable (2003: SII=0.22, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.27; 2012: SII=0.26, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.30; p trend=0.168). RII by education (2003: 2.53, 95% CI 2.11 to 3.03; 2012: 2.72, 95% CI 2.36 to 3.13; p trend=0.531) and income (2003: 2.09. 95% CI 1.75 to 2.49; 2012: 2.53, 95% CI 2.19 to 2.92; p trend=0.051) were equally stable over the same period. Conclusions We found considerable and persisting absolute and relative socioeconomic inequalities in SRH in the German adult population between 2003 and 2012, with those in lower socioeconomic position reporting poorer SRH. These findings should be a concern for both public health professionals and political decision makers.


Abstract Plate tectonics is the organizing paradigm of geosciences, but it is also conceptually complex, and students often struggle with developing a system level understanding of the earth. This article reports on research designed to create a characterization of the different levels of sophistication around plate tectonics in the form of a learning progression for middle grades (grades 6–9). A learning progression is an educational research construct that can guide curriculum, assessment, and instruction by creating a description not just of students' misunderstandings but of a sequential pattern of increasingly sophisticated and productive student conceptions. This article reports on research findings from a 7-year National Science Foundation-funded project focused on the teaching and learning of earth and space science, which engaged in hundreds of conceptual interviews with students in diverse contexts across the state of Pennsylvania. This article focuses on the implications for higher education faculty in geosciences with regard to the preparation of students, the likely alternative conceptions they may hold, and hence instructional approaches to help their ideas mature toward a normative scientific understanding.


Objective. In the present study the aim was to establish the efficacy of 30 mg/kg single dose secnidazol in calves naturally infected with Giardia duodenalis. Materials and methods. In an attempt to perform original study a total of 18 calves, from various breed, age and of both sexes were enrolled. Diagnosis was based on detection of trophozoit and/or cysts on fecal flotation among calves naturally infected with G. duodenalis , besides by use of rapid diagnostic test kits working with solid phase immunochromatographic principles and β-giardin nested- Polymerase Chain Reaction aplication. Cyst count per gram of feces were performed among days 0., 3., 7. and 10 in all cases. On days 0 and 10 hematological (WBC, RBC, HCT, MCHC, PLT) and serum biochemical (ALT, AST, creatinine, urea) values were determined. Results. Two different groups of calves composed of secnidazole group (n:9) and control group (n:9) were enrolled. Among calves enrolled in treatment group secnidazole was administered at a single dosage of 30 mg/kg perorally on day 0, whereas control group were left without any active ingredient. Cyst count per gram feces,  hematological and serum biochemical values were analyzed among groups and intragroup comparisons. Giardia duodenalis assemblage A3 was detected in all 18 calves. On days 3., 7., and 10 there was significant  (P˂0.001) reduction in cyst excretion; whereas evaluation of mean geometric cyst excretion revealed 100% reduction on days 7 and 10. Among two group statistical analysis of hematological and serumbiochemical variables revealed no statistical significance on days 0 and 10 . Conclusion. In conclusion secnidazole at a single dose of 30 mg/kg might be practically appliable, reasonably priced, safety, completely effective and causing rapid recovery treatment protocole for therapy of calves with Giardiasis.


Background and Objectives The aim was to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic impact of the conventionally used autoantibodies (IgG) anti-CCP and IgM rheumatoid factor (RF) as well as IgA and IgG RF in the first ever collected cohort of Sudanese rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Materials and Methods 264 consecutive RA patients (87% females) diagnosed according to the 1987 ACR criteria attending two rheumatology centres in Khartoum between December 2008 and September 2010 were included, together with 168 healthy Sudanese blood donor controls. Autoantibody levels were investigated in Uppsala, and RF specificity levels aligned to the anti-CCP specificity (97.6%). Results Anti-CCP was elevated in 52% (131/252) of the patients, a figure not different from what has been found in Sweden (57%, Rönnelid ARD 2005; p = 0.2). Among the Sudanese RA patient, 57.2%, 51% and 49.8% had IgA, IgM and IgG RF, respectively. The areas under the Receiver Operator Characteristics (ROC) curves were 0.94 for anti-CCP, and 0.95, 0.82 and 0.85 for IgA, IgG and IgM RF, respectively. IgG RF was associated with young age (p = 0.0005) and lower age of disease onset (p < 0.0001), as well as with higher total number of affected joints (p = 0.03). Hand deformities like swan neck deformity (p = 0.0001) and boutonnière deformity (p = 0.02) were also primarily associated with IgG RF. Association with the other investigated autoantibodies were weaker or absent. The prognostic impact of IgG RF was not secondarily dependent on anti-CCP, as the correlation between anti-CCP was stronger for IgM RF (r = 0.49) and IgA RF (r = 0.31) than for IgG RF (r = 0.23). Conclusions The occurrence of anti-CCP in Sudanese RA patients does not differ from Sweden. In contrary to what has been found in Caucasian RA populations, IgA RF is a diagnostically more sensitive marker than anti-CCP IgG RF is the strongest marker for bad prognosis, and associated with early disease onset.


Severe orofacial pain often is diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia, with little distinction made as to which type--typical or atypical. In addition, osteonecrosis of the jaws quite often produces symptoms which mimic trigeminal neuralgia. Unless diagnosed correctly, a patient suffering from a condition of "dead bone" may be referred for unnecessary neurosurgery. The general dentist often is the one doctor who can make the proper diagnosis and guide the patient toward the proper treatment.


Competitive positioning is a central, yet understudied, topic in strategy. Understanding positioning requires understanding two distinct mappings: how underlying policies are transformed into positions, and how positions are transformed into market performance. A complete treatment of positioning requires incorporating organizational design in the presence of policy interdependence; consumer choice in the presence of trade-offs among multiple product attributes; and competitive interactions among firms. We develop a model that integrates these elements. We show that in a multiattribute setting, trade-offs have critical, nonmonotonic effects on a range of strategy questions including the relationship between positions that are operationally efficient and those that remain viable in the face of competition as well as the concentration of market share in the industry. Of particular interest are implications for firm heterogeneity. We show that increases in business policy interdependence can decrease positioning heterogeneity among firms in an industry, depending on the nature of trade-offs. We also show that the relationship between strategy heterogeneity and positioning heterogeneity is moderated by the extent of policy interdependence.

This paper was accepted by Bruno Cassiman, business strategy.


This note disseminates key lessons learned from the World Bank financed project in the Republic of Yemen, monitoring and evaluation of the poverty reduction strategy paper and reform programs, which established and operationalized a poverty reduction strategy monitoring unit. The approaches used, such as a study tour to Uganda, focused international training sessions, and the successful work on improving and minimizing the number of indicators, provide some lessons learned for other countries seeking to build monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity. Policy makers learned from Uganda's good practices of connecting accountability with resource allocation and of the importance of a strong and independent statistics office. The Republic of Yemen's experience also illustrates the value of having a powerful M&E champion to support such a significant initiative. Finally, the inclusion of civil society organizations in the planning process and in M&E outputs, especially on the central level and on policy matters, increased popular support and was an important factor in building M&E capacity.


Considerable progress has been made recently in the areas of ship-to-ship transfer at sea and in salvage operations with the use of large marine fenders. These fenders can absorb the tremendous kinetic energy of two moving ship masses and transform it into potential energy. In the last ten years, the most commonly used energy absorbing media has been a pressurized air bladder or penumatic structure. In this case, the energy is absorbed primarily by raising the pressure of the air within this structure. This has been generally acceptable but problems have arisen with the requirement for inflation of the structure, with maintenance of safety valves, and with the possible adverse consequences of an inflatable fender rupturing under pressure. In response to these problems and others, the SEA CUSHION marine fender has been developed. Unlike pneumatic fenders, the SEA CUSHION is filled with a flexible closed-cell foam which is specially formulated to absorb impact energy. The SEA CUSHION method of energy absorption may be likened to the compression of a spring since the foam exhibits a spring-like behavior. Unlike the pneumatic fender, the pressure inside the foam fender does not rise significantly when compressed and there is no need for relief valves or inflation valves. Since the closed-cell foam is much more efficient in absorbing energy than air, a SEA CUSHION fender has approximately 30 percent greater energy absorption than a pneumatic fender of equal size. Also, at the same energy absorption level, a SEA CUSHION fender has approximately 20 percent less reaction force than an identically sized penumatic fender. The SEA CUSHION is also lightweight, rugged (operates even if punctured), safe, and uses long-life high quality materials.


The wind chill or Equivalent Effective Temperature (EET) is the thermic sensation that a person feels when being exposed to a certain combination of temperature from the air, relative humidity and wind velocity. The objective of this investigation was directed to determine the possible incidence of the EET upon the larval density of Anopheles mosquitoes in Villa Clara province, Cuba. The Climatological data were compiled from the Yabu station in Santa Clara, and a total of 5 370 measurements were included in a database every three hours, using the aggregate function of the Statistical Package of Social Science software version 13 (SPSS), from January 1 st , 2011 to September 30 th , 2013. A long term forecast (1 year of advance) was made to obtain EET and the Anopheles larval density in the locality of Santo Domingo was modelled. These entomological data were taken at the same time but monthly, so the EET data were converted to monthly scale to be correlated with the monthly data of the larval density. The result was a 97.1 % of variance with a standard error (SE) of 3.57 °C for the model of the EET with a year of anticipation; therefore, the tendency in time was significant. The modeling also included the Anopheles larval density of mosquitoes in Santo Domingo, Villa Clara province, observing an increase of the EET, while the Anopheles mosquito larvae also increased. The most important variables in the model were the EET that were back in 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 16, 24, 40 for the previous year; that is to say 2 920, 2 921, and so on, which explained a strong contagion among the data. EET correlation compared with itself in previous year was high; therefore, it may be used as a predictable variable. The anophelinic density in Santo Domingo explained the 66 % of the variance, with a SE of 0.66 larvae.m -2 . The tendency of the Anopheles larval density was to diminish. In conclusion, EET has an important impact in larval density of Anopheles with EET increase associated with larval density increase.


This study evaluated mowing regimes, changes in native and non-native plant communities, deer presence in the research plots,and public perception of various management practices on ROWs. No significant difference was found in the height of vegetation 3 weeks after each mowing between research plots mowed 4 times per year and plots mowed only once per year in uplands or lowlands. Native plants increased in plots mowed once per year and deer preferred the frequently mowed plots where clovers and vetches had been seeded. Increasing the carrying capacity of the lowlands with more extensive plantings of clover and vetch may attract deer, thus encouraging them to browse and use the underpasses beneath bridges and making the ROWs safer. The public survey found strong support for wildflowers on ROWs and a distaste for litter. Further, respondents would tolerate a less manicured ROW if it saved money, made the roads safer, and hid litter.


Abstract The most abundant minor hemoglobin component in human red cells is Hb AIc which is formed by the non-enzymatic condensation of glucose with the N-terminus of the beta-chain to form a stable ketoamine linkage. This adduct is increased in patients with diabetes mellitus and provides a useful index of diabetic control. In addition, glucose forms covalent attachments with lysine residues on both the alpha and beta chain, although these adducts are not readily separable by ordinary electrophoretic and chromatographic techniques. Additional minor hemoglobin components are formed by adducts with sugar phosphates. Nonenzymatic glycosylation also occurs on other proteins, particularly those with long turnover times and exposure to high concentrations of glucose. Examples include the proteins of the red cell membrane, albumin and lens crystallins. This phenomenon may be important in the pathogenesis of the long term control of diabetes.


We introduce a new approach called the enhanced multistage homotopy perturbation method (EMHPM) that is based on the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) and the usage of time subintervals to find the approximate solution of differential equations with strong nonlinearities. We also study the convergence of our proposed EMHPM approach based on the value of the control parameter h by following the homotopy analysis method (HAM). At the end of the paper, we compare the derived EMHPM approximate solutions of some nonlinear physical systems with their corresponding numerical integration solutions obtained by using the classical fourth order Runge-Kutta method via the amplitude-time response curves.


Abstract. Dehydration in the Antarctic winter stratosphere is a well-known phenomenon that is annually observed by satellites and occasionally observed by balloon-borne measurements. However, in situ measurements of dehydrated air masses in the Antarctic vortex are very rare. Here, we present detailed observations with the in situ and GLORIA remote sensing instrument payload aboard the German aircraft HALO. Strongly dehydrated air masses down to 1.6 ppmv of water vapor were observed as far north as 47° S in an altitude between 12 and 13 km in the lowermost stratosphere. The dehydration can be traced back to individual ice formation events above the Antarctic Peninsula and Plateau, where ice crystals sedimented out and water vapor was irreversibly removed. Within these dehydrated stratospheric air masses, filaments of moister air reaching down to the tropopause are detected with the high-resolution limb sounder, GLORIA. Furthermore, dehydrated air masses are observed with GLORIA in the Antarctic lowermost stratosphere down to 7 km. With the help of a backward trajectory analysis, a midlatitude origin of the moist filaments in the vortex can be identified, while the dry air masses down to 7 km have stratospheric origins. Antarctic stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) and transport of dehydrated air masses into the troposphere are investigated. Further, it is shown that the exchange process can be attributed to several successive Rossby wave events in combination with an isentropic exchange of air masses across the thermal tropopause. The transport into the troposphere is caused by air masses that are detached from the potential vorticity (PV) structure by Rossby wave breaking events and subsequently transported diabatically across the dynamical tropopause. Once transported to the troposphere, air masses with stratospheric origin can reach near-surface levels within several days.


Abstract Background & Aims: PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homologue deleted from chromosome 10) is a dual-specificity phosphatase implicated in embryonic development, intestinal cell proliferation and differentiation, and tumor suppression. The transcription factor Cdx-2 is critical in intestinal development and homeostasis, and its expression is altered in colorectal cancers. However, the regulation of the Cdx-2 gene has not been entirely elucidated. Here, we hypothesize that Cdx-2 may be a target of PTEN signaling in the intestine. Methods: The expression patterns for Cdx-2 and PTEN along wild-type mouse colon, as well as in colon tumors occurring in Pten +/− mice, were examined. The effect of PTEN or phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibition and tumor necrosis factor α on Cdx-2 messenger RNA and protein expression, Cdx-2 DNA binding activity, and the promoter activity of the Cdx-2 gene was analyzed in human colon cancer cell lines. Results: Cdx-2 expression correlates with PTEN along the length of the murine colon and in colonic polyps that develop in Pten +/− mice. In colon cancer cells, PTEN stimulates Cdx-2 protein expression and the transcriptional activity of the Cdx-2 promoter. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibition by wortmannin or by a dominant-negative phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase mimics the Cdx-2 stimulation by PTEN. Inversely, cell treatment by tumor necrosis factor α decreases Cdx-2 expression. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibition by PTEN or wortmannin has an inverse effect compared with tumor necrosis factor α on the balance between the p50 and p65 subunits of nuclear factor κB. p65 inhibits the activity of the Cdx-2 promoter, whereas p50 prevents p65 action. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the intestinal Cdx-2 homeobox gene is a target of PTEN/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling and tumor necrosis factor α signaling via nuclear factor κB–dependent pathways. GASTROENTEROLOGY 2002;123:1163-1178


For the past several years, different strategies have been developed to design and fabricate Au/TiO2 nanostructures for solar-light-driven applications. Owing to the localized surface plasmon resonance properties of Au, Au/TiO2 nanostructures display extraordinary features including enhanced visible light harvesting, hot electron injection, and Schottky barriers to minimize back electron transfer; these factors maximize device performance. In this report, novel free-standing immobilized TiO2 and multisegmented Au/TiO2 nanorod arrays (NRAs) were successfully fabricated with a template-assisted electrodeposition technique to examine several physical phenomena like the Schottky barrier height (SBH), photoelectron generation, as well as the mechanism of hot electron transfer. Pristine TiO2 NRAs exhibit amorphous behaviour with strong absorption under UV-light; however, for Au/TiO2 NRAs, transverse and longitudinal plasmon modes were observed under visible light, which correlates closely with our theoretical predictions. The reduced binding energy of Au 4f7/2 and concurrent increase in the Ti3+–O species observed with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is direct evidence for charge transfer from oxygen vacancies in TiO2 to Au segments. XPS analysis on valence band maxima (VBM) helps us to determine an SBH of 0.23 eV at the interface between the Au and TiO2 segments. The low value of SBH is attributed to the high density of oxygen vacancies in TiO2 due to the amorphous structure, and is very close to the theoretical literature value. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) measurements showed 4× improved photoelectron generation in Au/TiO2 NRAs in comparison to pristine TiO2 NRAs. This improvement is attributed to the hot electron injection, plasmonic resonance energy transfer (PRET) and efficient charge separation and migration due to the small SBH at the interface of Au and TiO2. Our results concluded that novel immobilized multisegmented (Au/TiO2) NRAs have great potential for solar-light-driven applications.


This paper considers an improved single-user detection technique for asynchronous direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems using long sequence spreading (random-CDMA) Most of the known detection schemes for DS-CDMA suffer from either poor performance under power-imbalance (near-far like) conditions, excessive complexity, or incompatibility with systems employing long sequence spreading. To address these problems, this paper considers a signal-to-noise ratio maximizing linear time-invariant filter for one-shot bit symbol detection exploiting some information about the interferers. This filter, referred to as the chip-delay locked matched filter (CLMF), exploits the cyclostationarity in multiple-access interference, and it can offer good near-far resistance while remaining suitable for systems with long sequence spreading. The CLMF requires knowledge of interferers chip delays and signal powers; however, knowledge of their pseudonoise sequences is unnecessary. This paper also demonstrates the improvement in performances offered by the CLMF over other single-user receivers such as the conventional matched filter and noise-whitening matched filter performance is evaluated in terms of probability of outage for single-rate and dual-rate DS-CDMA systems using bandwidth-efficient chip pulses, over a single-path additive white Gaussian noise channel. Errors in the interferer chip delay estimates degrade the CLMF performance. However, if the root-mean-square value of these errors is less than 5% of the chip interval, then this degradation is small.


Some applications in remote sensing require estimating a field containing a discontinuity whose exact location is a priori unknown. Such fields of interest include sea surface temperature in oceanography and soil moisture in hydrology. For the former, oceanic fronts form a temperature discontinuity, while in the latter sharp changes exist across the interface between soil types. To complicate the estimation process, remotely sensed measurements often exhibit regions of missing observations due to occlusions such as cloud cover. Similarly, water surface and ground-based sensors usually provide only an incomplete set of measurements. Traditional methods of interpolation and smoothing for estimating the fields from such potentially sparse measurements often blur across the discontinuities in the field.


BACKGROUND Mass campaigns with oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) have brought the world close to the eradication of wild poliovirus. However, to complete eradication, OPV must itself be withdrawn to prevent outbreaks of vaccine‐derived poliovirus (VDPV). Synchronized global withdrawal of OPV began with serotype 2 OPV (OPV2) in April 2016, which presented the first test of the feasibility of eradicating all polioviruses. METHODS We analyzed global surveillance data on the detection of serotype 2 Sabin vaccine (Sabin‐2) poliovirus and serotype 2 vaccine–derived poliovirus (VDPV2, defined as vaccine strains that are at least 0.6% divergent from Sabin‐2 poliovirus in the viral protein 1 genomic region) in stool samples from 495,035 children with acute flaccid paralysis in 118 countries and in 8528 sewage samples from four countries at high risk for transmission; the samples were collected from January 1, 2013, through July 11, 2018. We used Bayesian spatiotemporal smoothing and logistic regression to identify and map risk factors for persistent detection of Sabin‐2 poliovirus and VDPV2. RESULTS The prevalence of Sabin‐2 poliovirus in stool samples declined from 3.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.5 to 4.3) at the time of OPV2 withdrawal to 0.2% (95% CI, 0.1 to 2.7) at 2 months after withdrawal, and the detection rate in sewage samples declined from 71.0% (95% CI, 61.0 to 80.0) to 13.0% (95% CI, 8.0 to 20.0) during the same period. However, 12 months after OPV2 withdrawal, Sabin‐2 poliovirus continued to be detected in stool samples (<0.1%; 95% CI, <0.1 to 0.1) and sewage samples (8.0%; 95% CI, 5.0 to 13.0) because of the use of OPV2 in response to VDPV2 outbreaks. Nine outbreaks were reported after OPV2 withdrawal and were associated with low coverage of routine immunization (odds ratio, 1.64 [95% CI, 1.14 to 2.54] per 10% absolute decrease) and low levels of population immunity (odds ratio, 2.60 [95% CI, 1.35 to 5.59] per 10% absolute decrease) within affected countries. CONCLUSIONS High population immunity has facilitated the decline in the prevalence of Sabin‐2 poliovirus after OPV2 withdrawal and restricted the circulation of VDPV2 to areas known to be at high risk for transmission. The prevention of VDPV2 outbreaks in these known areas before the accumulation of substantial cohorts of children susceptible to type 2 poliovirus remains a high priority. (Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization.)


Thermal similarity of objects of various configuration is defined by equality of their stationary surface average temperatures in the Earth shadow that is equivalent to equality of their effective irradiance coefficients by own thermal radiation of the Earth. Cone, cylinder and sphere are chosen among standard configurations. Unlike two last figures, calculation of irradiance coefficient for conic object is the most difficult and contains a number of uncertainties. The method of calculation for integrated and effective irradiance coefficients of space object with a conic form is stated which is typical for fragments of spacecrafts. Integrated irradiance coefficients define the average thermal balance on a lateral surface of the cylinder and cone, and also full power balance on a sphere surface. Effective irradiance coefficients define a full falling specific stream of the Earth's radiation on the whole surface of cylindrical or conic object taking into account their bases. By data about effective irradiance coefficients, the average stationary temperatures of space objects in the Earth shadow are defined, as well as on the trajectory part illuminated by the Sun taking into account two additional components of power balance direct sunlight and reflected by the Earth. Researches were conducted in the height change range for an orbit from 200 to 40000 km depending on a tilt angle of the cylinder and cone axis relative to zenith-nadir line. Similarity conditions for the cylinder and cone are defined at equal ratio sizes of the figure height to base diameter.


Consulting sessions in the writing center occur at a unique time during the writing process. Generally, a student will bring in an entire draft of a paper– oftentimes with the idea that it is completely finished–for a tutor to look over. Thus, we do not have the advantage of engaging the student over the entire writing process but only during a small sliver in medias res. Approaching a student writer in the middle of his or her work as opposed to either extremes of chronological time–namely, the beginning or the end–limits a consultant's ability to engage the student effectively in a sequential, temporal sense.


Journal contact details The contact details for the administration and production of the Journal have reverted to: Mail: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, PO Box 351, North Melbourne, Victoria 3051. Street deliveries: c/Substitution Pty Ltd, 1st Floor, 484 William Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3003. Phone: (03) 9329 3535 Fax: (03) 9329 3550 E-mail: email@example.com The joys and trials of Journal editorship


In this research, we describe an actuation and control system designed for geared electromagnetic motors, which is characterized by its simple implementation, fast response to external input loads, reliable human-machine interaction features, no need for previous set-up or calibration from user to user and high portability due to the reduction of weight and space used. By the implementation of the proposed system, an electromagnetic motor can become a multitasking, wearable actuation system capable of: detecting the user's intentions regarding motion, tracking the limbs with minimal force interaction within a wide bandwidth and also providing controllable assistance and resistance forces to the user's movements, without the use of any biological signal. Validation of the proposed approach is shown by the construction of a powered orthosis for the knee, used to test the system's performance under real human motion conditions. The proposed system was tested on one healthy subject by measuring electromyographic levels both with and without the orthosis, under controlled flexion and extension cycles. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in detecting the user's intentions regarding motion, reducing and increasing muscular activity when configured for assistance and resistance, respectively, and also increasing the transparency of the actuation system when perfect tracking of the limbs is needed.


Adding propositional quantification to the modal logics K, T or S4 is known to lead to undecidability but CTL with propositional quantification under the tree semantics (QCTL) admits a non-elementary Tower-complete satisfiability problem. We investigate the complexity of strict fragments of QCTL as well as of the modal logic K with propositional quantification under the tree semantics. More specifically, we show that QCTL restricted to the temporal operator EX is already Tower-hard, which is unexpected as EX can only enforce local properties. When QCTL restricted to EX is interpreted on N -bounded trees for some N ≥ 2, we prove that the satisfiability problem is AExppol-complete; AExppolhardness is established by reduction from a recently introduced tiling problem, instrumental for studying the model-checking problem for interval temporal logics. As consequences of our proof method, we prove Tower-hardness of QCTL restricted to EF or to EXEF and of the well-known modal logics such as K, KD, GL, K4 and S4 with propositional quantification under a semantics based on classes of trees.


The high cardiovascular morbidity and mortality associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD) cannot be explained entirely by traditional risk factors. Urea spontaneously dissociates to form cyanate, which modifies proteins in a process referred to as carbamylation. Carbamylated low-density lipoprotein (cLDL) has been shown to have all of the major biological effects relevant to atherosclerosis, including endothelial cell injury, increased expression of cell adhesion molecules, and vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation. Recent studies indicate that cLDL leads to endonuclease G activation, which participates in cellular injury. In addition, cLDL has been shown to enhance generation of oxidants. Limited human data have demonstrated high levels of cLDL in hemodialysis patients, with the highest levels in patients who have atherosclerosis. In 2 separate clinical studies, plasma levels of carbamylated protein independently predicted an increased risk of coronary artery disease, future myocardial infarction, stroke, and death. Future prospective studies to examine the association and/or predictive value of cLDL and studies to establish cause-effect relationship in patients with CKD are needed.


The capacity of the downlink channel is a major bottleneck for applications based on remote sensing hyperspectral imagery (HSI). Data compression is an essential tool to maximize the amount of HSI scenes that can be retrieved on the ground. At the same time, energy and hardware constraints of spaceborne devices impose limitations on the complexity of practical compression algorithms. To avoid any distortion in the analysis of the HSI data, only lossless compression is considered in this study. This work aims at finding the most advantageous compression–complexity trade-off within the state of the art in HSI compression. To do so, a novel comparison of the most competitive spectral decorrelation approaches combined with the best performing low-complexity compressors of the state is presented. Compression performance and execution time results are obtained for a set of 47 HSI scenes produced by 14 different sensors in real remote sensing missions. Assuming only a limited amount of energy is available, obtained data suggest that the FAPEC algorithm yields the best trade-off. When compared to the CCSDS 123.0-B-2 standard, FAPEC is 5.0 times faster and its compressed data rates are on average within 16% of the CCSDS standard. In scenarios where energy constraints can be relaxed, CCSDS 123.0-B-2 yields the best average compression results of all evaluated methods.


Furfural residues produced from the furfural industry were investigated as a substrate for lactic acid production by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF). Alkaline peroxide was used for delignification of furfural residues to improve the final lactic acid concentration. The residue was treated with 1.3% to 1.7% hydrogen peroxide at 80 °C for 1 h with a substrate concentration of 3.33%. SSF of furfural residues with different delignification degrees were carried out to evaluate the effect of delignification degree on lactic acid production. Using corn hydrolysates/ furfural residues as substrates, SSF with different media were carried out to investigate the effect of lignin on the interaction between enzymes and lactic acid bacteria. Lactic acid bacteria had a negative effect on cellulase, thus resulting in the reduction of enzyme activity. Lignin and nutrients slowed down the decreasing trend of enzyme activity. A higher delignification resulted in a slower fermentation rate and lower yield due to degradation products of lignin and the effect of lignin on the interaction between enzymes and lactic acid bacteria. For the purpose of lactic acid production, a moderate delignification (furfural residues with the lignin content of 14.8%) was optimum.


In recent work [Coretti et al., J. Chem. Phys., 2018, 149, 191102], a new algorithm to solve numerically the dynamics of the shell model for polarization was presented. The approach, broadly applicable to systems involving adiabatically separated dynamical variables, employs constrained molecular dynamics to strictly enforce the condition that the force on the fast degrees of freedom, modeled as having zero mass, is null at each time step. The algorithm is symplectic and fully time reversible, and results in stable and efficient propagation. In this paper we complete the discussion of the mechanics of mass-zero constrained dynamics by showing how to adapt it to problems where the fast degrees of freedom must satisfy additional conditions. This extension includes, in particular, the important case of first principles molecular dynamics. We then consider the statistical mechanics of the mass-zero constrained dynamical system demonstrating that the marginal probability sampled by the dynamics in the physical phase space recovers the form of the Born-Oppenheimer probability density. The effectiveness of the approach and the favorable scaling of the algorithm with system size are illustrated in test calculations of solid Na via orbital-free density functional dynamics.


ABSTRACT The actin motor protein non-muscle myosin II (NMII) acts as a master regulator of cell morphology, with a role in several essential cellular processes, including cell migration and post-synaptic dendritic spine plasticity in neurons. NMII also generates forces that alter biochemical signaling, by driving changes in interactions between actin-associated proteins that can ultimately regulate gene transcription. In addition to its roles in normal cellular physiology, NMII has recently emerged as a critical regulator of diverse, genetically complex diseases, including neuronal disorders, cancers and vascular disease. In the context of these disorders, NMII regulatory pathways can be directly mutated or indirectly altered by disease-causing mutations. NMII regulatory pathway genes are also increasingly found in disease-associated copy-number variants, particularly in neuronal disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Furthermore, manipulation of NMII-mediated contractility regulates stem cell pluripotency and differentiation, thus highlighting the key role of NMII-based pharmaceuticals in the clinical success of stem cell therapies. In this Review, we discuss the emerging role of NMII activity and its regulation by kinases and microRNAs in the pathogenesis and prognosis of a diverse range of diseases, including neuronal disorders, cancer and vascular disease. We also address promising clinical applications and limitations of NMII-based inhibitors in the treatment of these diseases and the development of stem-cell-based therapies. Summary: Non-muscle myosin II (NMII) contributes to diverse diseases, including neuronal disorders, cancer and vascular disease. We address the role of NMII in disease pathology and highlight promising clinical applications of NMII inhibitors for disease and stem-cell-based therapies.


This thesis project is an interaction design study, which studies how finger touch gestures can be used as expressive alternatives to text comments on social networking sites. In the study qualitative research methods and a user-centred approach are used. The study collects literature on how emotion is modeled in Human-computer Interaction and how emotion can be expressed through touch. The popular social networking site Facebook is used as a case study of user behavior on social networking sites and as a starting point for the design of the interaction. A user study was conducted with two participants with much experience of the mobile Facebook application.The results of the study are five design ideas that are based on previous in the research area and from feedback from the participants of the user study. The interaction of two of the design ideas were developed into simple web prototypes to see if the functionality could be implemented. This thesis project is an exploratory beginning on the use of finger touch gestures for expression of emotions social networking sites. These design ideas will have to be developed into usable prototypes and tested with users in future research.


This paper presents a robotic system for steering under real-time fluoroscopic guidance a flexible needle in soft tissue. Given a target and possible obstacle locations, the computer calculates the flexible needle-tip trajectory that avoids the obstacle and hits the target. Using an inverse kinematics algorithm, the needle base maneuvers required for a tip to follow this trajectory are calculated, enabling a robot to perform controlled needle insertion. Assuming small displacements, the flexible needle is modeled as a linear beam supported by virtual springs, where the stiffness coefficients of the springs can vary along the needle. Using this simplified model, the forward and inverse kinematics of the needle are solved analytically, enabling both path planning and path correction in real time. The needle shape is detected in real time from fluoroscopic images, and the controller commands the needle base motion that minimizes the needle tip error. This approach was verified experimentally using a robot to maneuver the base of a flexible needle inserted into a muscle tissue. Along the 40-mm trajectory that avoids the obstacle and hits the target, the error stayed below the 0.5-mm level. This study demonstrates the ability to perform closed-loop control and steering of a flexible needle by maneuvering the needle base so that its tip achieves a planned trajectory.


A bimodal porous hydroxyapatite (HAp) body with high flexural strength was prepared through slip casting. HAp fine powder used in this study was synthesized by wet milling, drying and heating of a mixture of calcium hydrogen phosphate di-hydrate and calcium carbonate. The synthesized HAp powder was 0.320.05 μm in size and 38.10.8m2/g in specific surface area. The slip was prepared by adding deflocculant and foaming reagent. The optimum value for the minimum viscosity in the present HAp slip with respect to its solid loading and the optimum amount of the deflocculant were studied. The total porosity of the specimens obtained from a slip of 48 wt% HAp solid loading is in the range of 49 – 61vol %, and the resultant porous HAp sintered body had large spherical pores of 300 -m with interconnecting rectangular voids. Many small pores in the size range of 2-3 -m or below were observed in the specimen obtained by heating at 1100, and 1200 . The flexural strength of the bimodal porous HAp ceramics sintered at 1200 C showed a large value of 17.6 MPa, with a porosity of 60.5vol.


To the Editor: We read with interest the article by Drzymalski et al. published in a recent issue of Anesthesiology. The authors assessed the effect of a cognitive aid on reducing the use of sugammadex and its associated costs using an interrupted time series analysis. We are fortunate to work in a department that provides quantitative neuromuscular blockade monitoring in every anesthesia workstation. In fact, we have been faced with cases of prolonged neuromuscular blockade and reversal with rocuronium and sugammadex that would have been overlooked without monitoring. We prize the use of quantitative monitoring as the body of evidence that demonstrates the importance of train-of-four ratio of 0.9 or greater has long been present. Furthermore, recent evidence is building towards an adequate level of reversal with a train-of-four ratio of 0.95 or greater. We appreciate the value of these measures in a setting where only qualitative neuromuscular blockade monitoring is available and applaud the authors for accomplishing their main objective. The authors state that new peripheral nerve stimulators were purchased and placed in every anesthetizing locations. We would like to understand why quantitative monitors were not selected for acquisition if you had a budget and operational peripheral nerve stimulators were available in every station before the month of intervention. Our concern is that the reduction in use of sugammadex, derived from the intervention, was aided by better monitoring equipment, not previously available. In fact, the authors found that the decrease in costs was due to a decreased use of sugammadex but also from neuromuscular blocking drugs and reversal agents. Could this finding be due to an increase in monitoring or simply because fewer general anesthetics with neuromuscular blockade were performed? According to the authors' cognitive aid, every patient should receive a reversal agent (from 4 mg/kg sugammadex with 0 to 1 twitches to 20 mcg/kg neostigmine with 4 twitches without fade). The article does not present the number of neostigmine administrations preor postcognitive aid, but one should expect an increase in use and costs postintervention. Regarding sugammadex administrations, the article states that the postintervention monthly rate of sugammadex administration was 4 per 1,000 general anesthetics with a nonsignificant P. We do not understand the meaning of this statement as that information contradicts the information presented in the figures. Concerning the adverse respiratory events, the authors cautiously state that significant changes were not observed. Although that can be a statistically sound statement, the regression of the interrupted time series analysis seems to be less fitted when evaluating the adverse respiratory events. One can notice that the highest value of adverse respiratory events was, in fact, recorded in the postintervention period. Despite all of our considerations, we find the published article of very high quality. We congratulate the authors for accomplishing their goals, reducing costs without having a negative impact on patients' outcomes, and urge the use of such measures in places where qualitative measurement of neuromuscular blockade is not available.


The holothurians from the southern end of the Caribbean area are incompletely known. CLARK (1919) discussed a few specimens taken from Tobago, British West Indies, and DEICHMANN (1926) prepared a report on the holothurians from the Barbados-Antigua Expedition. ADA TEN BROEKE (1927) listed 7 holothurians from Curacao, collected by C. J. VAN DER HORST. This list constituted the first mention of holothurians from the area. CLARK (1933) listed one additional specimen in his "Handbook of the Littoral Echinoderms of Porto Rico and the Other West Indian Islands". ENGEL (1939), included three additional sea cucumbers in his report on the echinoderms which were gathered by P. WAGENAAR HUMMELINCK. Neither ENGEL (1939) nor TEN BROEKE (1927) described their specimens. I have found three additional species new to the fauna of the above islands. Two of these specimens, Thyoneria cognata and Trachythonidium occidentale are the first Dendrochirota to be reported from the Netherlands Antilles. After this report has been completed, ELISABETH DEICHMANN (1963) produced a short survey of the 'Shallow water Holothurians known from the Caribbean Waters' in which several new data are to be found gathered from material which was collected by WAGENAAR HUMMELINCK in 1948/49 and 1955.


Higher rates of stroke, major hemorrhage, and death among black patients receiving warfarin, compared with white patients, is likely related to poorer anticoagulation control. The research team investigated patient-level and site-level factors that might account for this group difference. A summary measure of anticoagulation control (percent time in therapeutic range [TTR]), patient characteristics, and site-level process of care measures were obtained for 9572 black and 88 481 white patients at the Veterans Health Administration. The research team studied disparity in TTR adjusting for patient and site characteristics. Mean unadjusted TTR for black patients was 6.5% lower than for white patients (P < .001). After accounting for the younger age of blacks, greater degrees of medication use, hospitalization, poverty, living in the South, and 11 other patient characteristics, only 2.0% of this racial disparity persisted. Process of care measures had minimal additional effect. These findings may inform efforts to reduce this racial disparity in achieving good anticoagulation control.


Experimental science often has to cope with systematic errors that coherently bias data. We analyze this issue on the analysis of data produced by experiments of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN as a case of supervised domain adaptation. Systematics-aware learning should create an efficient representation that is insensitive to perturbations induced by the systematic effects. We present an experimental comparison of the adversarial knowledge-free approach and a less data-intensive alternative.


The hypothesis that equine laminitis is caused by thrombosis of vessels in the laminar corium (dermis) was investigated. Hemostatic alterations were evaluated by determining platelet count, platelet survival, platelet adhesiveness to vascular subendothelium, activated clotting time, and whole blood recalcification time. Thrombosis of vessels in the hoof wall was evaluated by scintigraphic studies of the hoof wall after administration of indium-111 (111In)-labeled platelets, contrast arteriography, and histologic examination. Platelet count remained constant before and at the onset of lameness; however, survival of 111In-labeled platelets was shortened. Scintigraphy of affected feet revealed accumulation of 111In-labeled platelets distal to the coronary band. Arteriography of disarticulated saline-perfused feet revealed marked reduction in blood supply to affected hooves. Histologic examination of the laminar dermis disclosed variable numbers of microthrombi in dermal veins of affected feet from 3 of 4 ponies with laminitis. Whole blood recalcification time was shortened at 8 hours after administration of carbohydrate and was prolonged at the onset of laminitis. Activated clotting time was prolonged at 32 hours after carbohydrate administration and at the onset of lameness. Plasma endotoxin-like activity was detected in 1 of 4 affected ponies. These data confirm that microvascular thrombosis existed at the onset of lameness in ponies with carbohydrate-induced laminitis and indicate that systemic coagulopathy may have preceded development of thrombosis.


During filtration of a fluid-solid mixture, a filter cake composed of solids is formed on the upstream side of the permeable interface-the filtrate or clean fluid passes through but not the solids. This paper describes a multi-dimensional calculation framework to carry out numerical simulations of growth and deformation of a filter cake. Two examples of cake growth and deformation phenomena of interest to the oil industry are the sticking of drill string within a wellbore and the sealing of wellbore sections by expandable packers. The calculation algorithm is based on the algebraic slip mixture model, involving the solution of a non-linear transport equation for solids concentration and the mass- and momentum-conservation equations of the mixture for the velocity and pressure field. The matrix stress and flow permeability are expressed as functions of solids concentration. The viscosity in the momentum equations is modeled using the Bingham approach and proportionality between yield stress and solids matrix pressure. Velocity and pressure fields are split into filtration and deformation components, thus permitting a stable calculation scheme. The simulated results match reasonably experimental observations.


Twenty three patients with 25 subchondral bone cysts have been treated by the authors. Clinical and radiological appearances of these rare lesions, were typical enough to allow, in most cases, the diagnosis. The lesions appeared as well limited subchondral defects adjacent to normal joint. The treatment was based on curettage followed or not by cancellous bone graft. The pathogenesis of this lesion is still unknown. Many hypothesis are discussed.


Moisture is the cause of many building deterioration problems, and rain is the prevalent source of moisture to building envelopes. Little information has to date been published on the mechanisms of water infiltration through openings in facades that also includes quantitative information to help demonstrate infiltration phenomena. A better understanding of the mechanisms that govern water entry through openings present on vertical surfaces such as cladding will lead to improvement in watertightness performance of building components, provide enhanced knowledge of boundary conditions needed to complete hygrothermal simulations, and render a more scientific approach to the design watertightness test protocols. In this paper, a quantification of the driving forces is offered and qualitative analyses of interacting phenomena is presented that help characterize water ingress through openings in facades. Experimental research was done on two types of openings in a vertical polycarbonate plate similar in configuration to deficiencies on exterior cladding: round holes (1 mm, 4 mm and 8 mm diameter), and three slits (2 mm wide, under different angles). These deficiencies made in the plate had dimensions calculated to cover a range of capillary pressures and these were subjected to a simulated wind driven rain by means of pressure differences and water spray. Pressure differences of 0, 200, 400, 600 and 800 Pa were applied, in combination with typical water spray rates used in test protocols (2.0 L/min.-m² and 3.4 L/min.-m²). The driving forces for water ingress are gravity, pressure differences, kinetic energy of film flow, capillary action and the surface tension of the meniscus. The capillary pressure at a specific temperature is mainly determined by the dimensions of the deficiencies and the contact angle of water on the substrate. The results of the experiments clearly indicated that the capillary pressure introduced a threshold for water ingress: water entry rates were predominantly defined by the geometry of the deficiencies in relation to the contact angle. Furthermore, the surface tension of the meniscus on the interior side of the front plate defines a pressure threshold that strongly affects the way water may infiltrate through openings; and it offers interesting insights in the effect of static and dynamic boundary conditions on infiltration rates.


The study of prizes awarded to books in the 1990s by leading humanities scholarly associations tells much about the disciplines, publishing, and libraries during that decade. This article examines data on prize-winners of the American Historical Association, the American Musicological Society, the College Art Association, and the Modern Language Association. For the prize-winners, it reports the distribution of winners among publishers and universities; extent of cross-disciplinary publishing; degree of co-authorship; trends in library acquisitions of print versions; and accessibility of electronic versions. The University of California Press and the faculty at the university's Berkeley campus ranked first; the American Historical Association awarded nearly half of its prizes to books classified outside history; there was little co-authorship; library holdings appeared to decline over the decade; and roughly 15 percent of prize-winners were available through netLibrary by the summer of 2001.


Age and growth estimates for the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) in the western North Atlantic Ocean (WNA) were derived from band pair counts on the vertebral centra of 81 specimens collected between 1963 and 2010. We used two previously published criteria to interpret band pairs and assessed the validity of each method using Δ14C levels from a recent bomb radiocarbon validation study and existing Δ14C reference chronologies in the WNA. Although both criteria produced age estimates consistent, to varying degrees, with different reference chronologies, only one was considered valid when life history information was used to select the appropriate reference chronology and minimum/maximum ages based on bomb carbon values were taken into consideration. These age estimates, validated up to 44 years, were used to develop a growth curve for the species, which was best described using the Schnute general model (sexes combined). These results indicate that white sharks grow more slowly and live longer than previously thought.


The case involves an athletic director at a fictitious mid-sized university (Northwestern Midwest College) who is thinking about how to enhance the productivity of the investments in the various sports programs on his campus. Using concepts from marketing, this athletic director develops a series of ideas, which could be used to reshape the allocation of resources within the athletic division at his university. Faced with the need to effectively manage enrollments, endowments and the branding of their institutions, colleges and universities are looking to successful sports programs as one way to further differentiate their institution in the marketplace. For smaller and some medium-sized institutions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to field a cadre of successful sports programs which both generate both positive revenues and national exposure for the institution. As a result, some of these schools are beginning to think more critically about the portfolio of sports teams which represent the institution, in an effort to increase the efficacy of those institutional investments.


In recent years many libraries have made their early music prints and manuscripts available online as 'digital facsimiles'. These are raster images that are not amenable to automatic searches for content, but require a human reader to browse them by eye. For lute music, an international team under the direction of Tim Crawford is currently building a new repository that stores the musical content in addition to the images, thereby opening the door to new levels of music research based on music information retrieval. This article describes the building of the corpus, its content and some of the possible fascinating use cases.


Nowadays the global tendency towards physical activity reduction and an augmented dietary intake of fats, sugars and calories is leading to a growing propagation of overweight, obesity and lifestyle-related diseases, such diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia and metabolic syndrome. In particular, obesity, characterized as a state of low-level inflammation, is a powerful determinant both in the development of insulin resistance and in the progression to type 2 diabetes. A few molecular targets offer hope for anti-obesity therapeutics. One of the keys to success could be the induction of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) in abdominal white adipose tissue (WAT) and the regulation of cytokine secretions from both abdominal adipose cells and macrophage cells infiltrated into adipose tissue. Anti-obesity effects of fucoxanthin, a characteristic carotenoid, exactly belonging to xanthophylls, have been reported. Nutrigenomic studies reveal that fucoxanthin induces UCP1 in abdominal WAT mitochondria, leading to the oxidation of fatty acids and heat production in WAT. Fucoxanthin improves insulin resistance and decreases blood glucose levels through the regulation of cytokine secretions from WAT. The key structure of anti-obesity effect is suggested to be the carotenoid end of the polyene chromophore, which contains an allenic bond and two hydroxyl groups. Fucoxanthin, which can be isolated from edible brown seaweeds, recently displayed its many physiological functions and biological properties. We reviewed recent studies and this article aims to explain essential background of fucoxanthin, focusing on its promising potential anti-obesity effects. In this respect, fucoxanthin can be developed into promising marine drugs and nutritional products, in order to become a helpful functional food.


Because of the similarity of the clinical pictures and the blood changes in late rickets and in infantile rickets, it has been assumed that the metabolic disturbances are probably identical. The antirachitic treatment so readily successful in infantile rickets, however, seems much less efficient in some cases of late rickets. For this reason a detailed study of the mineral metabolism of such children seemed advisable. The present report is concerned with the mineral metabolism of two children, 12 and 13 years of age, respectively, who presented clinical roentgenologic and chemical evidence of active rickets, and of one child of 12 years who was used as a control. Both of the rachitic children showed definite roentgenologic evidence of healing during the period of study. SUMMARY OF CASES A summary of the histories follows: Case1.—The patient, C. K., a white girl, aged 12 years, was brought to the hospital because of