Infectious diseases that either occur uniquely or more commonly in steamy and subtropical regions, are either more widespread in the tropics or extra tricky to prevent or control. The citizens who are the majority exaggerated by these diseases are frequently the poorest populations, whose residence is in remote, rural areas, urban slums or conflict zones. Neglected tropical diseases persevere under circumstances of scarcity and are intense approximately solely in poor populations in the developing world. The designation "tropical diseases" arise at no meticulous date and was slowly merge, as microorganisms came to be recognized as the underlying factor of diseases and had their broadcast mechanisms elucidate. In practice, the term is often taken to pass on to infectious diseases that flourish in burning, moist circumstances, such as malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, Chagas disease, African trypanosomiasis, and dengue. A number of the organisms that grounds tropical diseases are bacteria and viruses, conditions that may be recognizable to the majority people as these types of organisms' grounds sickness common. Fewer well recognized are those more compound organisms usually referred to as parasites. Global warming donates in introducing and scattering more diseases internationally, but in short term; it defiantly would not reason any epidemic circumstances by itself.


For many years, algal limestone bodies have been known in the Point Peak and San Saba Members of the Wilberns Formation (Late Cambrian (Dresbachian) to Early Ordovician) in the Llano Uplift region of central Texas, but they have never been studied in detail. The relationships between environment, fossil algae, and algal structures are not well understood, and the descriptive terminology is becoming more complicated. The writer has examined algal macrostructures along with their corresponding microfabrics and fossil algae from a paleoecologic viewpoint. Several previously unknown microfabrics have been found that reflect the growth patterns of various algal taxa in response to different hydrologic conditions. For example, fossil algae with wispy or tufted growth forms are found in nonlaminated algal macrostructures (limited hydrologic stress) while laminated macrostructures such as stromatolites exhibit tightly laminated microfabrics (considerable hydrologic stress). The various environmentally produced structures are found commonly in sequences that depict the long-term paleoecologic history of the algal reefs from their inception (commonly in the sublittoral) to their culmination (commonly in the intertidal). Four different genera of fossil algae, Girvanella, Epiphyton, Renalcis and Nuia , were found in this study.


Abstract Ground filtering algorithms mainly focus on filtering LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) point clouds owing to their intrinsic characteristics to classify ground and non-ground points. However, the acquisition and processing of LiDAR data is still costly. Compared to LiDAR technology, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) are cheap and easy to use. In this study, the performances of five widely used ground filtering algorithms (Progressive Morphological 1D/2D, Maximum Local Slope, Elevation Threshold with Expand Window, and Adaptive TIN) were investigated by conducting qualitative and quantitative evaluations on UAV-based point clouds. Evaluation results indicated that the Adaptive TIN algorithm presented the best performance. The result of the Adaptive TIN algorithm was interpolated by using a MATLAB script to generate the DTM (Digital Terrain Model). Field measurements indicated that using UAV-based point clouds may be a reasonable alternative for LiDAR data, depending on the characteristics of the study area.


In experimental aesthetics the relationship between the arts and cognitive neuroscience has gained particular interest in recent years. But has cognitive neuroscience indeed something to offer when studying the arts? Here we present a theoretical frame within which the concept of complementarity as a generative or creative principle is proposed; neurocognitive processes are characterized by the duality of complementary activities like bottom-up and top-down control, or logistical functions like temporal control and content functions like perceptions in the neural machinery. On that basis a thought pattern is suggested for aesthetic appreciations and cognitive appraisals in general. This thought pattern is deeply rooted in the history of philosophy and art theory since antiquity; and complementarity also characterizes neural operations as basis for cognitive processes. We then discuss some challenges one is confronted with in experimental aesthetics; in our opinion, one serious problem is the lack of a taxonomy of functions in psychology and neuroscience which is generally accepted. This deficit makes it next to impossible to develop acceptable models which are similar to what has to be modeled. Another problem is the severe language bias in this field of research as knowledge gained in many languages over the ages remains inaccessible to most scientists. Thus, an inspection of research results or theoretical concepts is necessarily too narrow. In spite of these limitations we provide a selective summary of some results and viewpoints with a focus on visual art and its appreciation. It is described how questions of art and aesthetic appreciations using behavioral methods and in particular brain-imaging techniques are analyzed and evaluated focusing on such issues like the representation of artwork or affective experiences. Finally, we emphasize complementarity as a generative principle on a practical level when artists and scientists work directly together which can lead to new insights and broader perspectives on both sides.


Abstract The frequent representation of the mind as a potentially secure enclosure in Old English poetry has unrecognized implications for interpretation. The mind as imagined by Anglo-Saxon poets exhibits both capabilities of an enclosure: containment and exclusion; but the most common image is one of containment, specifically of reified thoughts, knowledge or discourse as figurative treasure objects. This model's interaction with traditional value systems invests it with ethical meaning: what is inside or outside of the mind either should or should not be allowed to pass through its boundary. Mental valuables are closely analogous to material wealth and are subject to the same imperatives for their management and use. The poetry also reflects anxiety about the privacy of the individual mind, which allows the accumulation and concealment of a perverse hord of deceit, sin or folly that can cause social harm through a failure of containment.


Research on childhood epilepsy has predominantly used quantitative methodologies to examine the impact of epilepsy on young people and their families. These studies generally give a negative picture of the condition, which is at odds with a strengths-based social work perspective, and provide little understanding of young people's experiences of living with epilepsy. A systematic review of qualitative studies that explored young people's perspectives was conducted. Inclusion criteria were as follows: young people ages 13 to 18 years diagnosed with epilepsy, qualitative data collection methods, studies published in English-language peer-reviewed journals, and gray literature. Of 501 abstracts identified, 52 full-length texts were reviewed, with 17 studies being included for final analysis. The emergent themes were seizures and medications; relationships; issues and concerns involving their families, peers, and schools; and young people's reactions to epilepsy. It is essential to understand issues presented by young people for improving practice and developing services, as these issues highlight areas for potential social work interventions. It is also essential to adopt a strengths perspective when considering these findings and implications for hospital social work, as young people's experiences were not always negative.


There is an increasing demand for fast charging and high capacity lithium ion batteries. However, conventional Li-ion battery chemistries cannot meet the stringent requirements of these demands due to the poor performance of graphite anodes, especially on safety during fast charging. Finding the right anode material that can replace conventional graphite while providing high capacity is very challenging. Today, lithium titanium oxide (LTO) is considered one of the most attractive anode materials that can provide the desired ultra-fast charging ability (>10C) with high safety. However, it has many serious drawbacks when compared to the existing graphite anodes, including poor intrinsic conductivity, narrow electrochemical window, etc. Extensive research has been done to overcome these problems, especially in developing new LTO composite materials with reduced graphene oxide. However, even these methods have rapid capacity fading at high current densities, >5C, due to increased internal resistance and polarization losses. Here, we demonstrate an effective way to improve LTO composite materials by developing unique nanoengineered three-dimensional frameworks with hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) addition. Li-ion cells with h-BN incorporation exhibit excellent performance and operational stability, especially at fast and ultra-fast charging rates, >10C.


The level of yield among sweet potato farmers is on a decline; low output and yield differences was observed, indicating the existence of inefficiency in production systems and variations in input utilization. Efficiency in resource use must be sustained in order to improve productivity and maximize farm output. This study therefore analyzed the technical efficiency of sweet potato production. Multi-stage sampling techniques were adopted in selecting 94 respondents for this study. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier production function. The socioeconomic variables of the respondents affected their farm efficiency and level of farm output. The estimated ratio of the L/R test was 0.579; indicating a goodness of fit of the frontier model and thus a rejection of the null hypothesis. The coefficients of sweet potato seeds (vines) (0.362) and labour (0.439) were positive and statistically significant at 5% level of probability, while the coefficients of farm size (-1.333), fertilizer (-0.452) and herbicides (-0.766) were negative but statistically significant at 5% level of probability. The inefficiency model revealed that the coefficient of farm capital (-0.172), education (-2.281), access to credit (-0.472), farming experience (-0.639), extension contact (-0.733) and membership of cooperatives (-0.396) were negative and statistically significant at 5% level of probability. The mean technical efficiency was 0.62 (62%) implying that the sweet potato farmers in the study area were not producing at optimal capacity. The constraints identified significantly affected sweet potato production in the study area. Subsidizing input costs; sensitizing farmers on appropriate farming practices, cooperative formation and efficiency in resource utilization; improving access to agricultural inputs, technology, farm capital, credit and extension services, market linkages, farm labour supply and the development of indigenous technologies in sweet potato production are strongly recommended.


In this study, a three-dimensional discontinuous Galerkin isogeometric analysis framework is presented for the analysis of composite laminates. Non-uniform rational B-splines are employed as basis functions for both geometric and computational implementations. From a practical point of view, modeling with multiple non-uniform rational B-spline patches is required in many different applications due to the complexity of computational domains. Then, a special numerical technique is necessary to couple different non-uniform rational B-spline patches to carry out the isogeometric analysis. In this study, therefore, one of the discontinuous Galerkin methods, namely, symmetric interior penalty Galerkin formulation is utilized to deal with multi-patch isogeometric analysis applications. In order to show the applicability of the proposed framework, composite laminates under sinusoidally distributed load with different stacking sequences are studied in the numerical examples. The predicted results are compared with those obtained by the three-dimensional elasticity solutions and various numerical models available in the literature.


Niobium-containing diamond-like carbon films (a-C:H:Nb) were deposited in a hybrid plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and direct-current magnetron sputtering (DCMS) process, using a niobium target in an argon/acetylene atmosphere on industrial polyimide foil, spin-coated polyimide foil, and alumina substrates. While the coating on the industrial foil tends to crack, the thin films on the spin-coated polyimide and the ceramic substrates showed good adhesion, as well as a smooth and dense topography. Investigations of the electrical properties revealed their suitability as biocompatible sensor materials in strain gauges, with a gauge factor of up to 3.2 and a temperature coefficient of the electrical resistance (TCR) of −200 ppm/K.


Nodularin (NODLN) is a cyclic pentapeptide hepatotoxin produced by the cyanobacterium Nodularia spumigena, which forms extensive blooms during the summer in the Baltic Sea. Nodularin was detected in liver, muscle and/or feather samples of several common eiders (Somateria mollissima) from the Gulf of Finland (northern Baltic Sea) in 2002–2005. Published information on the adverse effects of NODLN in marine birds is scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxicity of NODLN, and determine the concentrations of NODLN in liver and muscle tissue in mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) exposed to N. spumigena. Mallards received a single or multiple exposure via oral gavage with an aqueous slurry containing toxic N. spumigena. Dosages ranged from 200 to 600 µg NODLN per kg body weight (bw). There were minimal histopathological changes in liver tissue, and brain cholinesterase activity did not differ among treatment groups. Concentrations of NODLN measured by LC-MS in liver varied between approximately 3–120 µg kg−1 dry weight (dw) and ducks receiving multiple exposures had significantly greater liver toxin levels than ducks receiving the two lowest single exposures. In muscle, NODLN concentrations were approximately 2–6 µg kg−1 dw, but did not differ significantly among exposure groups. This is the first in vivo lab study examining the effects and bioaccumulation of NODLN from N. spumigena in birds. The mallards in this study were resistant to adverse effects and did not bioaccumulate substantial levels of NODLN at the doses given.


The oil and gas industry has seen unexpected failures of sour service carbon steel pipelines in the recent past. Below par performance of girth welds and line pipe material have been identified as the root causes of such failures. Although mechanized welding can achieve good consistency, the weld region is more heterogeneous as compared to base material, which can lead to inconsistencies and poor weld performance. Overall, the effects of welding parameters on performance of carbon steel pipeline girth welds for sour service are not well understood. Furthermore, industry is moving towards more challenging environments, such as production of hydrocarbons from ultra-deepwater, which further necessitates the need to improve welding practices for additional high criticality applications. Many of the critical parameters for sour service performance will also improve general weld performance for ultra-deepwater. So, there is a clear need to understand the effects of various welding parameters on weld properties and performance.
 This effort aims at assessing the effects of key welding parameters on performance of girth welds to develop improved welding practice guidelines for sour service pipeline applications. In this study, several API X65 grade line pipe girth welds were made using commercially available welding consumables. The effects on weld root performance of preheat, wire consumable chemistry, hot pass tempering, single vs. dual torch, copper backing, root pass heat input, metal transfer mode, pipe fit-up (root gap, misalignment) were studied. Generally, carbon steel welds with hardness 250HV or below are considered acceptable for sour service. So, detailed microhardness mapping and microstructural characterization were conducted to evaluate the performance and reliability of welds. It was evident that the welding parameters studied have a significant impact on root performance. Preheat and pipe fit-up showed the most significant impact on weld root performance. Based on the results and understanding developed with this study, recommendations for industry are provided through this paper to improve reliability of pipeline girth welds in sour service application.


Two different methodologies were utilized to compare, analyze, and fractionate the soluble proteins of four Portuguese white wines made from Arinto, Bical, Fernao Pires, and Vital grape varieties. First, a new, simple, rapid and sensitive methodology consisting of a desalting step (5 min) of the wine under investigation, to remove salts and other low molecular mass contaminants which may interfere with the proteins during the analytical procedures, and a fractionation step (15 min) involving ion exchange fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC): anion exchange chromatography on the Mono Q column of the FPLC, previously equilibrated with 50 m M ethanolamine buffer, pH 9.5, or cation exchange chromatography on the Mono S column of the FPLC, previously equilibrated with 50 m M formate buffer, pH 3.5, using suitable, continuous salt gradients to elute the wine proteins. This methodology is rapid (20 min), does not require prior concentration or purification of the proteins (which, besides being time consuming, may cause modification or denaturation of the proteins), and has the additional advantage of allowing the recovery of the isolated proteins in their native form. Second, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis performed under reducing, denaturing conditions, followed by silver staining. This technique allows the estimation of molecular masses. The wines contained polypeptides with molecular masses ranging from 15.5 to 69 kDa. However, only six polypeptides were common to all four wines, namely the 15.5, 17, 20, 21.5, 24.5, and 69 kDa polypeptides. Both methods are sensitive, but the electrophoresis-based technique gives a higher resolution, is time consuming, destructive and more complex to perform. In contrast, the FPLC technique is non-destructive and very simple and rapid to perform.


This essay surveys the literature on Chapter 11. I start by discussing the objectives by which the performance of corporate reorganization rules is to be judged and then consider the fundamental problem of valuation that arises in corporate reorganization. I next turn to examine the performance of the prevailing bargaining-based approach to reorganization, both in terms of its effect on total reorganization value and in terms of its effect on the division of this value. Finally, I examine the two alternative approaches that have been put forward to the approach of existing rules - that of auctioning the reorganized company's asset (put forward by Baird (1986) and Jensen (1991) and that of using options to reorganize the company's ownership (put forward by Bebchuk (1988)).


Two related ethnographic research projects on mathematics teacher education in Sweden are presented in this paper. They represent a response to recent policy developments that reaffirm the value of authoritative subject studies content as the central and most important component in the professional knowledge base of would-be teachers and concomitant increases in the amount of subject studies in teacher education. These policy changes, in Sweden at least, lack scientific research support and the article argues that these policies need to be seriously rethought, as the increased emphasis on subject content may undermine the development of key professional skills.


Today, tuberculosis (TB) is still one of the major threats to humankind, being the first cause of death by an infectious disease worldwide. TB is a communicable chronic disease that every year affects 10 million people and kills almost 2 million people in the world. The main key factors fueling the disease are the progressive urbanization of the population and poverty-related socioeconomic factors. Moreover, the lack of effective tools for TB diagnosis, prevention, and treatment has decisively contributed to the lack of an effective model to predict TB spread. In Nigeria, the rapid urbanization along with unprecedented population growth is causing TB to be endemic. This paper proposes a mathematical model to evaluate TB burden in Nigeria by using data obtained from the local TB control program in the community. This research aims to point out effective strategies that could be used to effectively reduce TB burden and death due to TB in this country at different levels. The study shows that efforts should be oriented to more active case finding rather than increasing the treatment effectiveness only. It also reveals that the persistence of the disease is related to a large number of latently infected individuals and quantifies the lives that could be saved by increasing the notification rate using active case finding strategy. We conclude that undiagnosis is the bottleneck that needs to be overcome in addition to the incorporation, improvement, and/or strengthening of treatment management and other essential TB control measures in Nigeria.


Estimation of residual hydrocarbon saturation remains an outstanding challenge in formation evaluation and core analysis. Standard interpretation methods for nuclear-resistivity logs cannot distinguish between mobile and residual hydrocarbon saturation. In extreme cases, fluid pumpout or production testing are the only options to ascertain whether the reservoir's in-situ hydrocarbon is mobile. We develop a new method to distinguish mobile from residual hydrocarbon and to quantify residual hydrocarbon saturation. The method combines modeling of resistivity and nuclear logs with the physics of mud-filtrate invasion to quantify the effect of residual hydrocarbon saturation on both nuclear and resistivity logs. This strategy explicitly takes into account the different volumes of investigation of resistivity and nuclear measurements and does not assume that the near-borehole region is flushed to the level of residual hydrocarbon saturation. The method begins with an initial multi-layer petrophysical model which is constructed via standard procedures of well-log interpretation and core measurements. Thereafter, we simulate the physics of mud-filtrate invasion and the corresponding resistivity, density, and neutron logs. Initial estimates of residual hydrocarbon saturation and parametric relative permeability are refined until achieving a good agreement between simulated and measured neutron and density logs. Next, we refine initial estimates of water saturation, porosity, and permeability until securing a good match between numerically simulated and measured resistivity logs. The method of interpretation considers two specific options for implementation: (1) quantification of the influence of residual hydrocarbon saturation on the radial distribution of fluid saturation due to invasion, and (2) appraisal of invasion effects on the vertical distribution of fluid saturation within a flow unit that exhibits both hydrocarbon and water saturation in capillary equilibrium. Application examples are described for the cases of tight-gas sand reservoirs invaded with water-base mud (WBM) and oil-bearing reservoirs invaded with oil-base mud (OBM). In the case of tight-gas sands, our method explains the marginal productivity of deeply invaded beds that exhibit cross-over between density and neutron logs. For a 15-porosity unit formation, when the residual gas saturation increases by 10 saturation units, the cross-over between neutron and density logs increases by 2.4 porosity units. Interpretation results indicate measurable sensitivity of nuclear logs to residual hydrocarbon saturation in cases of deep WBM invasion due to immiscibility between invaded and in-situ fluids. However, the accuracy of the method decreases with increasing values of both hydrocarbon pore volume and hydrocarbon density. In the case of OBM invasion, reliable estimations of residual hydrocarbon saturation are possible with relative density differences above 15 percent between mud filtrate and in-situ hydrocarbon.


BACKGROUND
Despite advances in robotic-assisted technology for cardiac and peripheral vascular interventions, a robotic-assisted platform for neurovascular intervention is not yet available.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the feasibility of the CorPath® GRX robotic-assisted platform (Corindus Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts) for neurovascular interventions through preclinical study.

METHODS
The robotic system was tested for its ability to accurately navigate a variety of common neurovascular devices in an in Vitro flow model and in a live, anesthetized pig, under conditions and following procedures appropriate for clinical intervention. An access catheter was introduced manually at the equivalent of the common carotid artery in both models. Endovascular wires and catheters were navigated through the external and internal carotid artery and posterior cerebral vasculature under robotic assistance, using 0.014 in guidewires, 2.4F/1.7F microcatheters, bare-metal stents, and embolic coils.

RESULTS
All procedures in both the flow and porcine models, including navigation, wiring, and deployment of the stent and coils, were performed successfully with no technical complications. There was no evidence of extravasation, dissection, thrombosis, or other vascular injury when angiography was compared before and after the live-animal procedure.

CONCLUSION
This is the first study to demonstrate that use of a robotic-assisted platform is feasible for intracranial neurovascular intervention. The robotic system was successful at navigating and deploying the small-gauge devices specific to neurovascular procedures. Given the potential benefits of robotic-assisted surgery for the patient and the surgeon, further investigation is warranted for this indication.


The new millennium saw Roger Hall take over the editorship of Heart . The journal had recently changed its title to signal its international ambitions, and no one could argue that these have not been fulfilled. Heart now receives submissions from around the world—only a minority emanating from the UK—and is able to publish ⩽15% of the original research articles it receives. The high quality content is ever more widely cited, and with its rated Education section—edited by Peter Mills and shortly to be made available to the European Society of Cardiology membership—has seen Heart established firmly in the top five clinical cardiac journals based on the impact factor scores. Meanwhile, the web-based submission system has speeded the handling of papers, whereas OnLine First has ensured that research and review articles appear electronically within days of acceptance, simultaneous listing in PubMed and other reference collections allowing almost immediate citation. The facility for rapid communication for papers of outstanding interest is an additional asset, …


porary with Averroes] ", not even the period of early Islam. What now prevails is distinctly second best: the rule of laws and of interpreters of laws, the parceling of political governance to the separate hands of warrior and judge (81. 1-8) '. This is a perfectly legitimate interpretation; it does not, however, seem to me to be very cogently argued in the introduction, which is rather allusive and disjointed and consequently difficult to follow. The notes to the Hebrew text are concise and sensible. I question the value of including in the glossary, in brackets, ' the Arabic term or terms Averroes presumably used '. I should not presume that these were necessarily the terms used; in a number of cases it seems to me that other terms are equally, or more, likely to have been used.


Secondary trading in the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market came into its own in 2003 and has continued at a robust pace in 2004. One reason is the significant increase in resources available for analyzing outstanding CDOs, chiefly the availability of CDO-specific cash flow models. This article provides a step-by-step guide to evaluating a secondary CDO. The authors pay particular attention to two popular analytical methods: net asset value analysis and cash flow modeling. These two techniques have improved investors? understanding of CDOs and therefore secondary-market liquidity. The authors suggest a methodology to produce a range of constant annual default rates for the purpose of modeling structured-finance-backed CDOs and suggest some negotiating points for primary CDO purchasers to ensure the liquidity of their CDOs in the secondary market.


This paper reviewed the researches on the carbonyl compounds emission and uptake by plants, and discussed the compensation point of the bidirectional exchange of carbonyl compounds between plants and atmosphere. The uptake by leaf stomata and stratum corneum is the principal way for the purification of air aldehydes by plants. After entering into plant leaves, most parts of carbonyl compounds can be metabolized into organic acid, glucide, amino acid, and carbon dioxide, etc. , by the endoenzymes in leaves. The exchange direction of the carbonyl compounds between plants and atmosphere can be preliminarily predicted by the compensation point and the concentrations of ambient carbonyl compounds. This paper summarized the analytical methods such as DNPH/HPLC/UV and PFPH/GC/MS used for the determination of carbonyl compounds emitted from plants or in plant leaves. The main research interests in the future were pointed out, e. g. , to improve and optimize the analytical methods for the determination of carbonyl compounds emitted from plants and the researches on systems (e. g. , plant-soil system), to enlarge the detection species of carbonyl compounds emitted from plants, to screen the plant species which can effectively metabolize the pollutants, and to popularize the phytoremediation techniques for atmospheric


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to help identify factors to assess which elderly patients are likely to experience problems with physical and psychological functioning in association with cancer or its treatment.

DESCRIPTION OF STUDY
A study was undertaken with a sample of 420 patients with cancer who were between the ages of 65 and 98 years and had received an incident diagnosis of breast, colon, lung, or prostate cancer. An analysis of covariance technique was used to determine how cancer site, treatment type, stage of disease, gender, age, comorbidity, symptom severity, and pre-diagnosis levels of physical functioning were related to physical functioning deficit, and how all of these in turn influenced patient depressive symptomatology.

RESULTS
Pre-diagnosis physical functioning, symptom severity, and days since surgery were significant predictors of physical functioning deficit. Patients who had been treated only with surgery experienced greater physical functioning deficits than did patients who had received both surgery and adjuvant therapy. This apparent anomaly was partly explained by the time interval from surgery to interview. Higher levels of symptom severity, lower levels of prior physical functioning, and greater physical functioning deficits all predicted higher levels of depressive symptomatology.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
In the care of elderly patients with cancer, it is important for healthcare providers to consider the pre-diagnosis levels of physical functioning of patients with cancer to understand and anticipate the physical and psychological consequences of cancer and its treatment. Equally important is the proper management of patient symptoms in maximizing both the physical and psychological quality of life.


3551 Background: In preclinical models, VEGF, mTOR, and EGFR inhibitors have anti-tumor and anti-angiogenesis effects as monotherapies and in combination. B inhibits VEGF; E inhibits mTOR; P inhibits EGFR. There is also potential for interaction between the pathways. Previously BE and BE + erlotinib were evaluated and showed signs of clinical activity.

METHODS
Patients (pts) with refractory advanced solid tumors were accrued in a phase I dose escalation of B + E + P on a 28d cycle. Dose levels are shown in the table below. DLT was defined as any treatment-related grade 4 heme, grade 3/4 non-heme adverse event (AE), or receiving <85% any study drug in Cycle 1. Blood, skin, and tumor biopsies pre- and on-treatment were collected for correlative biomarkers of angiogenesis.

RESULTS
At this time, 12 pts (3M: 9F) are evaluable for toxicity; 9 for efficacy. Median age: 54 years (range 23-72). 9 of 12 pts had prior B exposure. Dose level 1 was expanded due to 1/3 DLT, with total of 3/6 DLT (Grade (Gr) 3 mucositis (n=2), Gr3 hypokalemia (n=1)). Dose level -1 had 3/3 DLT (Gr3, Gr4 mucositis (n=2), Gr3 non-acneform rash (n=1)). Dose level -2 had 0/3 pts DLT. Gr 3-4 related toxicities in cycle 2+: hypokalemia (n=4); hypophosphatemia (n = 1); hypomagnesemia (n = 1); diarrhea (n=1); hoarseness (n=1). Other events of interest were: Gr1-2 mucositis (n=7); Gr1 hyperlipidemia (n=5); Gr1-2 hyperglycemia (n=4); Gr2 hypertension (n=2); Gr1-2 neutropenia (n=5); Gr1-2 thrombocytopenia (n=5). 8/9 evaluable pts had SD as best response (median 26 wks, range 8+ to 32+ wks): 1 pt with pancreatic cancer and progression on 2 prior EGFR inhibitors had prolonged 32+ wk SD. There was 1 minor response (23.3%) in a pt with bevacizumab-refractory ovarian cancer (32+ wks). No CR or PR were seen.

CONCLUSIONS
B + E + P at full doses has dose limiting toxicities of rash and mucositis. B 10 mg/kg q2wks + E 5 mg q48h + P 4.8 mg/kg q2wks is the maximum tolerated dose. This dose is currently being expanded in 20 patients with extensive pre- and on-treatment biomarker analyses. Updated clinical and biomarker data will be presented. [Table: see text] [Table: see text].


Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a relatively common genetic disorder with heterogeneity in mutations, forms of presentation, prognosis and treatment strategies. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is recognized as the most common cause of sudden cardiac death that occurs in young people, including athletes. The clinical diagnosis is complemented with the ecocardiographic study, in which an abnormal myocardial hypertrophy of the septum can be observed in the absence of a cardiac or systemic disease (arterial systemic hypertension, aortic stenosis). The annual sudden mortality rate is 1% and, in selected populations, it ranges between 3 and 6%. The therapeutic strategies depend on the different subsets of patients according to the morbidity and mortality, sudden cardiac death, obstructive symptoms, heart failure or atrial fibrillation and stroke. High risk patients for sudden death may effectively be treated with the automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.


Two new facts motivate this long-run assessment of India's exports and growth. First, since the early 1990s, India has posted the world's third-highest growth rate in overall and manufacturing exports, which has been critical to India's overall growth performance. Contrary to perception, India has been an exemplar of the export-led growth model. Second, this aggregate performance has, however, co-existed with an underperformance in unskilled manufacturing exports. This has resulted in at least $140 billion in "missing" unskilled economic activity annually. A cross-country gravity perspective suggests that India is a "normal" exporter and importer of goods and services, but an under-exporter of manufacturing goods. Going forward, India's unusual, endowment-defying specialization could limit export dynamism. Having not traversed the Lewis curve for unskilled manufacturing, the curve for skilled exports is threatening to turn up as skilled labor becomes scarce.<br>


Anaemia is frequent in patients with IBD. Iron deficiency anaemia [IDA] and anaemia of chronic disease [ACD] are the most common subtypes and warrant a different treatment approach.
 The ESPGHAN/ NASHGAN position paper on Anaemia in Children with IBD describes cut-off values on ferritin, transferrin saturation [TSAT] and ferritin index (soluble transferrin receptor/log10(ferritin)) [sTfR-F], to distinguish between IDA and ACD. However, cut-off values for sTfR-F and hepcidin are based on adult data.
 In this exploratory study we used a data driven approach to define different anaemia groups, using hepcidin and sTfR-F and studied differences between groups and their response to iron suppletion therapy. Insights contribute to a better description of ACD and IDA in a pediatric population.

 Data from the multi-centre prospective POPEYE study (NTR4487) consisting of a paediatric IBD population was used. Subjects with anaemia (haemoglobin [Hb] < 2 standard deviations [SD] below the mean of a healthy age reference group) with baseline ferritin, TSAT, hepcidin, sTfR-F and erythrocyte sedimentation rate [ESR] values were selected. Summary statistics of these biomarkers were generated for the data-driven groups and compared with existing characteristics for IDA and ACD groups. At baseline subjects received oral or intravenous iron repletion therapy, Hb was determined at baseline and 1 month after iron therapy. Kmeans was used, an unsupervised clustering algorithm using Euclidean distance, to divide data points into k clusters based on sTfR-F and hepcidin.

 Mean age was 13.6 (2.5 SD) years, and mean standardized Hb value -3.2 at baseline for 47 subjects. Data driven groupings using Kmeans (k=3) were based on baseline hepcidin and sTfR-F (figure 1).
 Group 1 shows characteristics indicative for IDA, with mean ferritin <15µg/l, TSAT < 20% and sTfR-F > 2. Group 2 shows signs suggestive for inflammation since ferritin, hepcidin and ESR were increased (mean ESR 28,5 mm/h [23,2 SD]); this group could be characterized as ACD. Group 3 could not be related to a specific anaemia type.
 Mean standardized Hb increase 1 month after iron repletion for 37 patients, was 2,9 (SD 0,8), 0,8 (0,7 SD), 1,3 (1,1 SD), for group 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

 Explorative data-driven analysis of a real-world data set showed that hepcidin and sTfR-F can be used to characterize groups that relate to ACD and IDA in a paediatric population. Children with high sTfR-F and low hepcidin possibly benefit more from iron repletion therapy (group 1), compared to when hepcidin is high (group 2). If validated in a larger patient population this determination could contribute to the development of diagnostic algorithms that support targeted therapy.


In April 2010, Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) was commissioned by Cheshire West and Chester Council on behalf of the partnership of Cheshire West and Chester Council, Chester Renaissance, Chester Cathedral and the North West
Development Agency, to conduct a programme of archaeological evaluation to the south and west of Chester Cathedral (centred on SJ 4057 6642), as a prerequisite to the proposed development of these areas. This area lies within Chester's Area of Archaeological Importance (AAI), and an earlier OA North archaeological desk-based assessment suggested that significant Roman, medieval and post-medieval belowground
remains might be found across this area, forming part of the Roman fortress and a medieval and post-medieval cemetery.
In order to investigate the site, eight evaluation trenches were excavated (Trenches 2a, 2b, 2c, 3, 4a, 4b, 4c and 4d), which were distributed to the south-east and south-west
of the cathedral. In addition, a second phase of archaeological evaluation entailed the excavation of seven test pits (Test Pits 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11; Trenches 5a and 5b), as part of a programme of geotechnical investigation. These test pits were located to the south-east and south-west of the cathedral, whilst two test pits were also excavated to the west of the cathedral, in Abbey Square.
The earliest identified remains were located in Trenches 2a and 2d, and possibly Trench 3, and seemingly represented the remains of substantial stone-walled buildings that may have been associated with the Roman Legionary fortress. Significantly, all of the trenches and test pits, apart from Trench 5a, also contained disarticulated human remains, associated with a burial horizon, which probably formed part of an extensive post-medieval cemetery. Other concomitant remains included articulated burials (Trenches 2a, 2b, 2d, and 3) and charnel pits (Trench 3). In addition, one possible medieval burial was identified (Trench 2d), contained within a stone cist, though it is anticipated that further medieval inhumations may be present across the study area.


ObjectiveTo investigate whether Twitter data can be used as a proxy for the surveillance of the seasonal influenza epidemic in France and at the regional level.IntroductionSocial media as Twitter are used today by people to disseminate health information but also to share or exchange on their health. Based on this observation, recent studies showed that Twitter data can be used to monitor trends of infectious diseases such as influenza. These studies were mainly carried out in United States where Twitter is very popular1-4. In our knowledge, no research has been implemented in France to know whether Twitter data can be a complementary data source to monitor seasonal influenza epidemic.MethodsFor this exploratory study, an R program allowing to the collection, pre-processing (geolocation and classification) and analysis of Tweets related to influenza-like illness was developed.CollectionStream API was used to collect Tweets in French language that contained terms "grippe","grippal", "grippaux" without to specify geolocation coordinates.Pre-processIn order to identify Tweets localized in France, a combination of automated filters has been implemented. At the end, were retained:● Tweets with geolocation coordinates in France (GPS coordinates, country code, country, place name)● Tweets whose place indicated in user's profile matched with a city, department or region of France● Tweets included FR-related time zone but excluding all Tweets reporting a FR time zone but a non-FR place-code.In the second time, a support vector machine (SVM) classifier was used to filter out noise from the database. To train the classifier, 1500 Tweets were randomly sampled. Each of these 1500 training Tweets was manually inspected and tagged as valid or invalid according to the likelihood that they indicated influenza-like illness. This hand-tagged training set was converted to vector representation using their term-frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) scores. These TF-IDF vectors were then input to the SVM for training. To evaluate performances of the classifier: accurency, recall and F- measure were calculated from a 1000 randomly sampled Tweets manually tagged.AnalysisData collected over the period from August 8, 2016 to March 26, 2017 were compared to those of the French syndromic surveillance system SurSaUD® (OSCOUR® and SOS Médecins network)5 by Spearman's rank correlation coefficient.EthicalIn accordance to the National Commission on Informatics and Liberty, information about user account were removed in database except location variables. Usernames contained in the text of the tweet have also been deleted.ResultsOver the study period, the system collected 238,244 influenza-related Tweets of which 130,559 were located in France. After a cleaning step, 22,939 Tweets were classified by the algorithm as an influenza-like illness (ILI). The performances of the classifier were 0.739 for accuracy, 0.725 for recall and 0.732 for F-measure. Figure 1 shows that the weekly number of ILI Tweets follows the same trend as the weekly number of ED visits and physicians consultations for ILI. Regardless of data source, Spearman's correlation coefficients were positive and statistically significant at the national level and for each region of France (Table 1).ConclusionsThis exploratory study allowed to show that Twitter data can be used to monitor the epidemic of seasonal influenza in France and at regional level, in complementarity with existing systems. The system needs to be improved to confirm the trends observed during the next influenza epidemic.References1.Broniatowski DA, Paul MJ, Dredze M. National and local influenza surveillance through Twitter: An analysis of the 2012-2013 influenza epidemic. PLoS One. 2013;8(12):e83672.2.Gesualdo F, Stilo G, Agricola E, Gonfiantini MV, Pandolfi E, Velardi P, et al. Influenza-like illness surveillance on Twitter through automated learning of naïve language. PLoS One. 2013;8(12):e82489.3. Paul MJ, Dredze M, Broniatowski D. Twitter improves influenza forecasting. PLoS Curr. 2014;6.4. Allen C, Tsou MH, Aslam A, Nagel A, Gawron JM. Applying GIS and machine learning methods to Twitter data for multiscale surveillance of influenza. PLoS One. 2016;11(7):e0157734.5. Ruello M, Pelat C, Caserio-Schönemann C, et al. A regional approach for the influenza surveillance in France. OJPHI. 2017;9(1):e089.


A new scheme for the representation of objects, the successive spherical approximation (SSA), facilitates the rapid planning of collision-free paths in a dynamic, three-dimensional environment. The hierarchical nature of the SSA allows collisions to be determined efficiently while still providing an exact representation of objects. The rapidity with which collisions can be detected, less than one second per environment object per path, makes it possible to use a generate-and-test path-planning strategy driven by human conceptual knowledge to determine collision-free paths in a matter of seconds on a Sun 3/180 computer. A hierarchy of rules, based on the concept of a freespace cell, is used to find heuristically satisfying collision-free paths in a structured environment. >


Open access: www.balimedicaljournal.org and ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/b j The quality of life in the treatment of maxillofacial fractures using open reduction: A prospective study Nyoman Ayu Anggayanti1*, Endang Sjamsudin2, Tantry Maulina2, Aulia Iskandarsyah3 Purpose: To assess the impact of open reduction on quality of life in patients with maxillofacial fractures. Methods: A prospective study of 15 patients admitted to a general hospital in Bandung for maxillofacial trauma from October 2017 through February 2018 was conducted. Trauma severity was assessed using facial injury severity scale (FISS) score, while the quality of life was assessed using Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) -14 questionnaires at one day before surgery (T0) and 14 (T1) and 60 days (T2) after surgery. Results: Male (3.92±1.89) and younger patients (3.89±1.69) had a greater mean FISS score than their respective counterparts. The most common areas involved in maxillofacial fractures were mandible body (80%) and dentoalveolar (46.67%). The overall quality of life was worse in younger patients as indicated with a higher mean OHIP-14 score. There was a disparity in the domain of interest where younger patients (17-30 years) had more concern over psychological discomfort, whereas older patients (31-50 years) were more concerned about physical disability. Both qualitative and quantitative improvement in quality of life was observed in the follow-up period. Consistent and statistically significant improvement in mean OHIP-14 score before intervention (20.80±5.94), 14 days post-intervention (17.93±4.68), and 60 days post-intervention (14.67±3.42) was observed. Conclusion: Open surgery approach yielded a good outcome in quality of life improvement. Further study on demographic factors, timing, and quality of life domain affected in maxillofacial fractures is recommended.


Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant source of concern in the pediatric population. It has been estimated that close to 500,000-700,000 pediatric TBI incidents occur within the United States alone, with majority occurring in early childhood ( 15 years). The management of TBI depends on its severity. It is the prevention of worsening of the secondary injury that is often targeted during the medical management. Given that TBI poses such a huge health risk, further understanding is required for adequate management of pediatric patients with TBI; especially due to the fact that their brain is still developing and has not completely matured.


Implementation of an electronic medical record system increases efficiency of health services, quality of care and patient satisfaction. Successful implementation depends on multiple factors; one of which is users' response to EMR. This study aimed to assess physicians and nurses' views on the use, quality and user satisfaction with EMR at a tertiary care center in Karachi, Pakistan. Since its inception the Hospital is accredited for being Pakistan's first paperless hospital. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire to evaluate use, quality and user satisfaction with EMR. The questionnaire assessed: 1) computer related experience; 2) perceptions regarding EMR use; 3) quality of EMR system and 4) level of satisfaction with EMR system. The response rate was 75% nurses and 61% physicians. It was found that 80% of the respondents used EMR to obtain results of patients' investigations and test reports. 81.6% respondents were of the opinion that the EMR System provides the needed information about patients and reported their satisfaction with the accuracy of the system. Concerning user satisfaction with EMR, 94.6% of EMR users believed that EMR is a useful system and 90.8% agreed on its significance for the better care of the patients. Type of respondents emerged as a significant correlate with overall users' satisfaction (p < 0.05). 90% respondents emphasized on a user-friendly EMR system and adequate training on its usage. Besides respondents, gender and computer related experience have also significantly correlated with various aspects of use, quality and user satisfaction with EMR (p < 0.05). We were unable to correlate age with satisfaction with an EMR. EMR implementation positively effects workflow and practice efficiency in a hospital. This study provides a systematic evaluation of various d imens ions of EMR and its correlates which is essential to understand reasons and barriers for success, and methods to increase success in EMR implementation. Hospital management should ensure the availability of technical expertise along with adequate training of HMIS staff.


We report the case of a 21-year-old female who presented with severe disabling low back pain radiating to both buttocks for 1 year. She was initially diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) based on her complaints of persistent low back pain with bilateral sacroiliitis found on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the sacroiliac joints. Despite testing negative for HLA-B27 and lack of other positive imaging to support the diagnosis, she was still treated presumptively as a patient with this disease. These symptoms were debilitating to the point where she withdrew from college, discontinued horseback riding, developed depression, and required antidepressant treatment. She did not improve with oral non-steroid antiinflammatory drugs, neuropathic and opiate pain medications, or a trial of Etanercept (Enbrel). She then presented to our outpatient physiatry office for a second opinion. Her axial low back pain was exacerbated with positions of increased disc load (sitting/lifting/forward bending), and the physical exam was positive for painlimited spine range of motion in flexion greater than extension and dural tension signs. Therefore, a clinical impression was formed that her pain may be more related to an internally disrupted disc (IDD) than AS. This diagnosis was further supported when she failed to obtain any relief with fluoroscopically guided bilateral sacroiliac joint injections. MRI of the lumbar spine was ordered, which revealed a small posterior annular fissure at L5-S1 that was later confirmed as the pain generator with provocative discography. The patient's pain and function improved transiently with a caudal epidural steroid injection and were significantly alleviated with two serial intradiscal platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections. The patient returned to college, discontinued anti-depressant and pain medications, and resumed all activities 1 year from the second PRP injection. Additionally, she has had no further treatment of her presumed AS.


BACKGROUND: It is postulated that increased knowledge of patients about diabetes as well as a positive attitude will lead to improved glycaemic control and better outcome. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge and attitude of diabetic patients in a tertiary hospital in Enugu and the relationship with their glycaemic control. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done using a structured questionnaire to obtain socio-demographic data and assess knowledge and attitude to diabetes on consecutive patients attending the outpatient clinic in a tertiary hospital. Responses were scored with equal weighting. The fasting blood glucose of the patients was measured and recorded. RESULT: There were 51(60.7%) females and 33 (39.3%) males, with majority (63.1%) in the age range 41 -64 years and 32(38.1%) had only primary education. The mean knowledge score was 6.19 ± 2.08 and 33(39.3%) demonstrated good knowledge. Knowledge did not differ between males and females (p=0.34), but was highest in those with tertiary education (p = 0.02). Positive attitude to the condition was recorded in 63(75%) subjects. There was poor correlation between knowledge and attitude (r = -0.161, p= 0.14). Those with good knowledge scores were 2 times more likely to have good glycaemic control compared with those with poor knowledge; OR = 2.015, p = 0.02. There was no significant difference between the glycemic control of those with good attitude and those with poor attitude (p= 0.08). CONCLUSION: Although overall knowledge was poor, patients had a good attitude to their illness. Knowledge, but not attitude was significantly positively associated with glycemic control.


The establishment of the Wastewater Treatment Plant of Athens is considered as the main factor contributing to the improvement of water quality and recovery of the marine ecosystem in Saronicos gulf as it removes significant percentage of pollutants entering the gulf, including heavy metals. The comparison of concentrations of dissolved and particulate copper during 1993, 1994 (before the operation of the plant) and 1998, 1999 and 2000 (after the beginning of the operation) revealed that some changes in the distribution of copper occurred because of this major change concerning the pollution sources of the gulf. The effects are both direct, like the increased concentrations in the sediments near Psitalia and the slight decrease of mean values of dissolved copper and indirect, associated with the decrease of dissolved oxygen in the deep water of the western basin, i.e. the decrease of dissolved copper in this layer and the increase of copper concentrations in surface sediments. The general conclusion of this study is that the overall picture of copper pollution of the gulf has differentiated but not radically changed.


A logical framework and its implementation should serve as a flexible tool for specifying, simulating, and reasoning about formal systems. When the formal systems we are interested in exhibit state and concurrency, however, existing logical frameworks fall short of this goal. Logical frameworks based on a rewriting interpretation of substructural logics, ordered and linear logic in particular, can help. To this end, this dissertation introduces and demonstrates four methodologies for developing and using substructural logical frameworks for specifying and reasoning about stateful and concurrent systems.
Structural focalization is a synthesis of ideas from Andreoli's focused sequent calculi and Watkins's hereditary substitution. We can use structural focalization to take a logic and define a restricted form of derivations, the focused derivations, that form the basis of a logical framework. We apply this methodology to define SLS, a logical framework for sbubstructural lbogical sbpecifications, as a fragment of ordered linear lax logic.
Logical correspondence is a methodology for relating and inter-deriving different styles of programming language specification in SLS. The styles we connect range from very high-level specification styles like natural semantics, which do not fully specify the control structure of programs, to low-level specification styles like destination-passing, which provide detailed control over concurrency and control flow. We apply this methodology to systematically synthesize a low-level destination-passing semantics for a Mini-ML language extended with stateful and concurrent primitives. The specification is mostly high-level except for the relatively few rules that actually deal with concurrency.
Linear logical approximation is a methodology for deriving program analyses by performing abstract analysis on the SLS encoding of the language's operational semantics. We demonstrate this methodology by deriving a control flow analysis and an alias analysis from suitable programming language specifications.
Generative invariants are a powerful generalization of both context-free grammars and LF's regular worlds that allow us to express invariants of SLS specifications in SLS. We show that generative invariants can form the basis of progress-and-preservation-style reasoning about programming languages encoded in SLS.


Men tend to be less selective than women when evaluating and pursuing potential romantic partners. The present experiment employed speed-dating procedures to test a novel explanation for this sex difference: The mere act of physically approaching a potential romantic partner (vs. being approached), a behavior that is more characteristic of men than of women, increases one's attraction to that partner. This hypothesis was supported in a sample of speed daters (N = 350) who attended a heterosexual event where either men (eight events) or women (seven events) rotated from one partner to the next while members of the other sex remained seated. Rotators were significantly less selective than were sitters, which meant that the tendency for men to be less selective than women at events where men rotated disappeared at events where women rotated. These effects were mediated by increased self-confidence among rotators relative to sitters.


High performance computer networks allow companies to share data and technology electronically and thus collaborate in virtual enterprises. One barrier to such collaboration is the lack of interoperability among the application systems of different companies-the data produced by the systems at one company cannot be read by those at another. The National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIP) Consortium was formed to address this problem. The article describes three layered protocols being developed by the NIIP data protocol team.


Abstract The effect of the prospective pre-school teachers' digital story preparation on their technological pedagogical content knowledge self-confidence is proposed to be determined in mix method designed study. During the research, prospective pre-school teachers determined their objectives for a digital story, wrote scenarios, selected audio and visual materials, created and presented their digital stories. The qualitative and quantitative data were obtained through technological pedagogical content knowledge self-confidence scale and open-ended metaphorical question as pre- and post-tests. In quantitative and qualitative data analysis, t-test for the dependant samples and inductive content analysis were conducted. The findings demonstrated the prospective pre-school teachers' digital story preperation increased their self-confidence on TPCK. It was inferred from the metaphors that the prospective pre-school teachers perceived self-confidence on TPCK as a guide and a vital necessity. Data analysis results indicated digital story preparation had positive effect on the prospective pre-school teachers' selfconfidence on TPCK.


Most practical automotive problems require the design of experiments (DoE) over a number of different operating conditions to deliver optimal calibration parameters. DoE is especially crucial for automotive engine calibration problems due to its increasing complexity and nonlinearity. As the complexity of the system increases, the DOE applications require a significant amount of expensive testing. However, only a limited number of testings are available and desired. The current work addresses this issue by presenting an adaptive DoE method based on Bayesian optimization to find optimal parameter settings with a significantly reduced number of physical testings (or function evaluations). To further improve optimization efficiency, this work presents a new approach: Concurrent Bayesian optimization, which searches for optimal DoE under multiple operating conditions simultaneously. The method utilizes a surrogate model and a novel concurrent evolutionary multiobjective optimization method: concurrent NSGA-II, to solve adaptive DoE in multiple operating conditions with a limited number of function evaluations. The experimental study is carried out on a gasoline engine calibration problem using a high fidelity GT-SUITETM engine model. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm by optimizing engine performance with a significantly reduced number of expensive testings to achieve accurate optimal solutions. The method simultaneously performs engine calibration at eight different operating conditions using only 500 - 600 testings, compared to the traditional approach, where each operating condition requires 300 - 500 testings independently to achieve optimal results.


This research evaluates the ascorbic acid loss of vegetables prepared in a hospital cook-chill plated system. The ascorbic acid loss of three vegetable samples (carrots, peas and potatoes) were measured at various points in the cook-chill system and analysed using the DCPIP method. Substantial losses for all vegetables were identified at the cooking and regeneration stages. The ascorbic acid levels of the selected vegetables when raw ranged from 6 to 10 mg/100 g sample. At the end of the food service cycle the ascorbic acid content of the vegetables was reduced to 1.7-5.8 mg/100 g sample. The largest percentage loss of ascorbic acid, i.e. 76%, was found in mashed potatoes. Peas incurred the least percentage loss, i.e. 42%. This progressive deterioration during the cook-chill plated catering system causes an insubstantial presence of ascorbic acid in the food served to hospitalised patients.


The sudden proliferation of drive-in theatres in America following World War II has long been attributed to the urban exodus to the suburbs and the growth of car culture. Looking closely at David Milgram's Boulevard Drive-in Theatre in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and his legal quest for first-run programming, this article offers a supplementary history of the political-economic landscape of the period. The result is a more complete understanding of the historical forces behind the drive-in and its sudden rise to significance. Characterised by Congressional industry-friendly laws and allocations that quietly dismantled the commercial model of the 'whirlpool' city, this era simultaneously witnessed a reformulation of the film industry's long-standing exhibition model. Hollywood exhibition, supporting and supported by vertical integration, was also built on such a conceptualisation of urban organisation. After the war, however, film exhibition was taken away from the Hollywood studios by a law-interpreting judiciary that was the political obverse of their law-making contemporaries. The American drive-in movie theatre and entrepreneurs such as Milgram that drove its post-war boom were the inadvertent beneficiaries of this unique post-war political-economic dynamic that opened up a space for them in both America's cities and its motion picture industry.


We are interested in sonifying the molecular structures of amino acids. This paper describes the context and the first design choices for our approach. So far, we believe an amino acid molecule is too complex to be perceived at once. Therefore, we have designed an interactive form of sonification in which the listener navigates through the molecule over the network of carbon atoms. We describe our different approaches and discuss the topic of immediacy: the time it takes to recognize the structure surrounding the listener's position while navigating. Furthermore, we touch upon the question how many atoms we can sonify simultaneously and the role auditory masking plays in this context. To overcome auditory masking, we propose to use irregular but easy to recognize sounds. We conclude with an interest in a three-dimensional navigation environment using general molecular structures for further research and development.


Macrofauna are known to have a significant effect on intertidal
sediment stability and biogeochemical properties. A series of manipulative in
situ mudflat studies at Breydon Water, Great Yarmouth, UK investigated the
effect of biodiversity on selected biogeochemical sedimentary properties
related to mudflat sediment stability including the sediment erosion threshold
and relative erosion rate, microphytobenthos biomass and health, sediment
particle size and size distribution, sediment water content, chlorophyll a and
b concentration, and colloidal carbohydrate concentration. Mudflat sediment
macrofaunal biomass was removed using cryo-defaunation and the
abundances of three common mudflat species Hediste diversicolor, Hydrobia
ulvae and Corophium volutator manipulated to examine different aspects of
macrofaunal biodiversity including species identity, density, biomass
distribution, and richness. An additional laboratory study enabled two and
three dimensional high resolution visualisation of fluid and particle mixing as
a result of organism sediment bioturbation.
Species identity was found to have a significant effect on sediment
properties. The three species have distinct bioturbatory actions with
consequences for sediment stability. In some circumstances a single
organism was found to have as great an effect on selected ecosystem
processes as a whole community. Variations in species density significantly
changed the effect of the species on the measured sedimentary processes.
Species richness effects were negatively interactive, with species mixtures
underyielding in comparison to their monoculture counterparts. Changes in
species biomass distribution and richness resulted in significant context
dependent changes to sediment properties, moderated by inter- and intraspecific
interactions. Species were also observed to exhibit a functional
abundance threshold, below which they did not contribute significantly to
ecosystem processes. Temporal and spatial variability observed in the
experiments emphasised the potential of environmental and abiotic factors to
also influence ecosystem processes. Investigating these subtle aspects of
biodiversity will be key in the determination of the relationship between
biodiversity and ecosystem processes.


The epithelial cadherin gene (CDH1) has been identified as a tumor suppressor gene located within the 16q22.1 region. The CDH1 gene encodes a transmembrane glycoprotein involved in cell to cell adhesion and loss of CDH1 expression contributes to increased proliferation, invasion and metastasis in breast carcinoma. No mutation in CDH1 have been identified in invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), suggesting that, other inactivation mechanisms are responsible for IDC oncogenesis. In order to analyze the role of promoter methylation in CDH1 gene inactivation in breast cancer, the CpG methylation status of Ecadherin promoter region by bisulfite sequencing PCR (BSP) was investigated. 10 CpG sites [nucleotide (nt) 863, 865, 873, 879, 887, 892, 901, 918, 920 and 940] in the promoter region were screened for methylation. The CDH1 methylation was detected in 94% (47 to 50) of breast tumors which was associated with higher tumor grade (p = 0.035), tumor stage (p = 0.000) and tumor metastasis (p = 0.000). There was also a significant correlation between tumor stage, grade and metastatic status with sites of methylation (p = 0.000). The data indicate that CDH1 promoter methylation might be a potential mechanism for epigenetic silencing of CDH1 in primary breast cancer suggesting a valuable molecular marker for detection of breast cancer progression. Key words: Breast cancer, E-cadherin, methylation pattern, tumor stage, tumor grade.


Thanks to DNA interesting structure and its key role in the formation of life, many studies have been carried out on its properties and applications that have heretofore brought about great advances in science and technology such as biomedicine, agriculture, artificial intelligence, and even telecommunication. Topological solitons can be simulated through DNA strands when they are detached and they can travel along these strands because of DNA extremely high length/width ratio. Here, we investigate the topological soliton propagation through DNA strands and dispersion relation by employing the Yakushevich method and modifying a potential term in strand interaction. This paper also makes a comparison between our model's results and previously achieved results.


Numerical simulation by CFD was carried out to understand the hot current behavior in a tunnel with longitudinal ventilation. It becomes clear that fire source modeling is very important because the hot current behavior is strongly affected by the fire source position and is sensitive to methods in the modeling of the fire source. The flame area which has developed from the fire source is an area of chemical reaction caused by combustion. Even if grids in the vicinity of the fire source are made fine, it was difficult to simulate the heat generation area with consideration to this chemical reaction through using a method for setting the heat release rate simply on the fire source surface. Therefore, we proposed a method adopting the knowledge on flame shape under the longitudinal ventilation and incorporating it into numerical simulation and it showed a good agreement with the experimental results. It was shown through experiments in a tunnel with longitudinal ventilation that the hot current developed toward the tunnel center downwind from the fire source near a wall. The cause was investigated by numerical simulation and it became clear from the results that the spiral air by the fire plume created a vortex in the crevice between the wall and the plume.


In this study, we examined changes in levels of pre service teachers' reflective writing and tried to identify links between these changes and pre service teachers' success in teaching. Participants were two groups of pre-service special education teachers that taught in two different special education settings: learning difficulties classes and multiple and profound intellectual disabilities classes. Data collection was performed during two consecutive academic semesters, including a monthly structured journal about teaching events during field experience and summative grades, assessing pre service teachers' teaching activities for each semester. Journal analysis referred to three reflective levels of explanations, descriptive, comparative and critical. Results indicated that both groups improved in descriptive levels of explanations, but only one group improved in higher levels of reflective (comparative and critical) explanations. Differences between the two groups were explained in context of different settings in field experience, lack of former knowledge and experience in one group, participants' characteristics and different supervisor's responses to the journals. These differences explain the higher levels of reflective thinking in one group. A positive correlation was found between grades in field experience and descriptive and comparative explanations in the first semester for both groups. In the second semester, field experience grades correlated only with critical explanations, meaning that only those who reached critical level of explanations also improved their teaching acts correspondently. These results point towards a professional developmental relation between reflective writing and teaching during teacher education process.


We investigate the interaction of molecular hydrogen with light-element-based n-doped hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanostructures and moreover explore the bond exchange mechanism for spillover of atomic hydrogen using dispersion-corrected density functional theory (DFT-D) calculations. A number of doped configurations were tested and it has been found that co-doping of C and O on h-BN sheet significantly increases the adsorption energy of molecular H2. The charge transfer from the n-doped h-BN surface to H2 is found to be the reason for the higher interactions that boosted the binding energy. In addition, the doped h-BN surfaces act as catalysts and dissociate the H2 molecule with a very low activation barrier, but the migration of the resulting H atoms on the surface requires high energy. In order to facilitate easy and fast migration of H atoms, we introduce the bond exchange mechanism using external mediators i.e. borane (BH3) and gallane (GaH3) molecules which serve as secondary catalysts and help in lowering the migration barrier, leading to the formation of a hydrogenated surface. The partially hydrogenated surface in turn can also act as a hydrogen storage material, with a higher propensity to adsorb hydrogen molecules when compared to the unhydrogenated surface. Hence the surface proposed in this work can be used to store a substantial quantity of hydrogen as an energy source with easy adsorption and desorption kinetics.


(AUV) paths which best exploit complex current data, from computational estuarine model forecasts, while also avoiding obstacles. In particular we examine the possibilities for a novel type of AUV mission deployment in fast flowing tidal river regions which experience bi-directional current flow. These environments are interesting in that, by choosing an appropriate path in space and time, an AUV may both bypass adverse currents which are too fast to be overcome by the vehicle's motors and also exploit favorable currents to achieve far greater speeds than the motors could otherwise provide, while substantially saving energy. The AUV can " ride " currents both up and down the river, enabling extended monitoring of otherwise energy-exhausting, fast flow environments. The paper discusses suitable path parameterizations, cost functions and optimization techniques which enable optimal AUV paths to be efficiently generated. These paths take maximum advantage of the river currents in order to minimize energy expenditure, journey time and other cost parameters. The resulting path planner can automatically suggest useful alternative mission start and end times and locations to those specified by the user. Examples are presented for navigation in a simple simulation of the fast flowing Hudson River waters around Manhattan.


This thesis investigates rolling circle replication. In particular it investigates the activity of the initiation complex with proteins all from the same species and the biochemical steps in the termination. In rolling circle replication, the two strands are asynchronously copied, one simultaneously with unwinding of the parent plasmid. An initiator, RepD, binds specifically to the double-stranded origin, nicks one strand, forming a covalent bond with the 5′-end. This nicking opens up a short singlestranded region, allowing PcrA helicase and a polymerase to bind and begin unwinding and replication. After travelling all around the plasmid, probably as a single protein complex, RepD then does a series of strand exchanges to close the two plasmid circles. In previous work, PcrA was from B. stearothermophilus, while the polymerase and RepD were S. aureus. Successful preparation of S. aureus PcrA and a B. stearothermophilus-Staph PcrA chimera enabled characterisation of activity when all proteins in the initiation complex are from the same species. This is achieved using fluorescent biosensors in both steady-state and real time assays, along with agarose gel assays. Initiation of rolling circle replication and the movement of the complex along DNA are well understood, however little has been known about the termination. At termination RepD plays a vital role. This thesis proposes and tests a mechanism for termination, involving a series of nicking and ligation reactions, mediated by RepD. A combination of measurements with whole plasmids and oligonucleotide models were used to elucidate the series of events at each stage. In particular, by following individual processes in real time, the sequence and identity of biochemical steps could be defined. Quench-flow rapid mixing enabled real-time measurements. The identity of species was determined by combinations of gel assays, Mass Spectrometry and CD spectrometry, in particular


Received: Revised: Accepted: Published online: July 20, 2018 February 14, 2019 February 15, 2019 April 06, 2019 A 2-year old, 14-kg intact female Jindo dog was referred with a 1-month history of anorexia, weight loss, lethargy, and melena. On physical examination, the patient had pale mucous membranes and a low body condition score. Radiographic and ultrasonographic examinations revealed a large mass containing mineral density materials and peritoneal free fluid within the abdominal cavity. Fine-needle aspiration of the mass-like lesion was performed and the cytologic interpretation was gastrointestinal lymphoma. The diagnosis was gastrointestinal lymphoma with septic peritonitis. The decision was taken to resect the mass. Abdominal exploration revealed a large amount of septic fluid and a hollow structural mass adherent to the omentum on the antimesenteric duodenal border. Duodenal resection and anastomosis was performed. Histopathologic examination noted largely effaced tissue architecture and confirmed lymphoma. Immunohistochemical staining indicated that the mass was a high-grade B-cell lymphoma. This is the first description of canine duodenal diverticulum with malignancy. ©2019 PVJ. All rights reserved


Purpose

Many leisure boat manufacturers have thrived on designing and building highly customized boats based on longstanding traditions of craftsmanship. To achieve efficient value chains, it is not enough to optimize each process step, but also important to achieve a smooth flow through the dependencies between each process steps. The purpose of this paper is to focus on assessing enablers and disablers for operational integration in a craft-oriented small enterprise.

Design/methodology/approach

One case company has been studied, to identify enablers and disablers for operational integration in the value chain. The research methodology is based on semi-structured interviews with selected persons from different levels within the company.

Findings

The results indicate the importance of management promotion and support of integration and a strong relationship between foremen and operators. Furthermore, to avoid functional myopias, mechanisms to encourage horizontal integration could be useful. Small company and informal culture make integration easier. However, to further establish a common standardized platform, could be necessary. Even small physical barriers in the layout were experienced to affect the integration negatively.

Research limitations/implications

This has been an exploratory study of one single craft-oriented enterprise; hence it is difficult to generalize.

Practical implications

Based on empirical findings from the case study, recommendations on how to achieve better operational integration will be presented.

Originality/value

The research initiative provides knowledge experience of operational integration from a case study in one company within craft and artisan sector in Norway.


The paper draws on a study aiming to work with practitioners' perspectives to support involvement through family services. Data were collected from a cluster sample of practitioners conducting father groups in south-west England. The paper focuses upon working with their perspectives. Two issues in their perspectives were associated with 'masculinity' and 'blocks' preventing father involvement. Using an interventionist-based method known as the 'change laboratory', conducted through a series of development work research (DWR) workshops, practitioners reflected on contradictions in their practice. Implications from the study suggest that, first, if practitioners identify contradictions with which they work, they can explore possibilities for developing their work. Second, being an involved father may be played out differently in terms of identity, according to social and cultural contexts. By implication, practitioners can help fathers to express themselves in several identities and support them in their understanding, through being part of a group.


Over the past two decades, financial market crises with similar features have occurred in different regions of the world. Unstable cross-market linkages during financial crises are referred to as financial contagion. We simulate the transmission of financial crises in the context of a model of market participants adopting various strategies; this allows testing for financial contagion under alternative scenarios. Using a minority game approach, we develop an agent-based multinational model and investigate the reasons for contagion. Although contagion has been extensively investigated in the financial literature, it has not been studied yet through computational intelligence techniques. Our simulations shed light on parameter values and characteristics which can be exploited to detect contagion at an earlier stage, hence recognising financial crises with the potential to destabilise cross-market linkages. In the real world, such information would be extremely valuable to develop appropriate risk management strategies.


The unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) is one of the major custom power solutions, which is capable of mitigating the effect of supply voltage sag at the load end or at the point of common coupling (PCC) in a distributed network. It also prevents the propagation of the load current harmonics to the utility and improves the input power factor of the load. The control of series compensator (SERC) of the UPQC is such that it injects voltage in quadrature advance to the supply current. Thus, the SERC consumes no active power at steady state. The other advantage of the proposed control scheme is that the SERC can share the lagging VAR demand of the load with the shunt compensator (SHUC) and can ease its loading. The UPQC employing this type of quadrature voltage injection in series is termed as UPQC-Q. The VA requirement issues of SERC and SHUCs of a UPQC-Q are discussed. A PC-based new hybrid control has been proposed and the performance of the UPQC-Q is verified in a laboratory prototype. The phasor diagram, control block diagram, simulations and experimental results are presented to confirm the validity of the theory.


The distribution of ceramic paste inner stress was studied based on the dynamic wavelet analysis in this paper. According to the pressure signal between the vacuum pug mill and ceramic paste, the distribution of ceramic paste inner stress could be obtained. By adjusting the motor speed of vacuum pug mill, the mutational pressure signal and transient pressure signal from the head wall of vacuum pug mill were extracted, and then the time resolution and frequency resolution were adjusted by WT so that the pressure signal could be analyzed real-timely. Experimental results showed that WT can be used to analyze the different dynamic performance about the pressure signal between the vacuum pug mill and ceramic paste and its time delay was only equivalent to the width of mother function of WT, it ensured the rapidity of measurement about the distribution ceramic paste inner stress.


Microstructures, tensile properties and work hardening behavior of friction stir welded (FSWed) AA2219-T62 aluminum alloy (in its one-third bottom slice of a 20 mm thick plate) were evaluated at different strain rates. While the yield strength was lower in the FSWed joint than in the base metal, the ultimate tensile strength of the FSWed joint approached that of the base metal. In particular the FSW resulted in a significant improvement in the ductility of the alloy due to the prevention of premature failure caused by intergranular cracking along the second-phase boundary related to the presence of the network-like grain boundary phase in the base metal. While stage III and IV hardening occurred after yielding in both base metal and FSWed samples, the FSW led to stronger hardening capacity and higher strain hardening exponent and rate due to the enhanced dislocation storage capacity associated with the microstructural change after FSW. The fracture surface of the FSWed joint was mainly characterized by dimples and tearing ridges along with micropores.


Following the bichromatic sub-Doppler cooling scheme on the D1-line of 40K recently demonstrated in (Fernandes et al. 2012), we introduce a similar technique for 7Li atoms and obtain temperatures of 60 uK while capturing all of the 5x10^8 atoms present from the previous stage. We investigate the influence of the detuning between the the two cooling frequencies and observe a threefold decrease of the temperature when the Raman condition is fulfilled. We interpret this effect as arising from extra cooling due to long-lived coherences between hyperfine states. Solving the optical Bloch equations for a simplified, \Lambda-type three-level system we identify the presence of an efficient cooling force near the Raman condition. After transfer into a quadrupole magnetic trap, we measure a phase space density of ~10^-5. This laser cooling offers a promising route for fast evaporation of lithium atoms to quantum degeneracy in optical or magnetic traps.


Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) often have usage constraints, such as restrictions on call order or call conditions. API misuses, i.e., violations of these constraints, may lead to software crashes, bugs, and vulnerabilities. Though researchers developed many API-misuse detectors over the last two decades, recent studies show that API misuses are still prevalent. Therefore, we need to understand the capabilities and limitations of existing detectors in order to advance the state of the art. In this paper, we present the first-ever qualitative and quantitative evaluation that compares static API-misuse detectors along the same dimensions, and with original author validation. To accomplish this, we develop MuC, a classification of API misuses, and MuBenchPipe, an automated benchmark for detector comparison, on top of our misuse dataset, MuBench. Our results show that the capabilities of existing detectors vary greatly and that existing detectors, though capable of detecting misuses, suffer from extremely low precision and recall. A systematic root-cause analysis reveals that, most importantly, detectors need to go beyond the naive assumption that a deviation from the most-frequent usage corresponds to a misuse and need to obtain additional usage examples to train their models. We present possible directions towards more-powerful API-misuse detectors.


To investigate the anisotropic dielectric properties of layer-structured bismuth-based ferroelectrics along different crystal directions, we fabricate devices along different crystal orientations using highly c-axis oriented Bi3.25La0.75Ti3O12 (BLT) thin films on (001) LaAlO3 (LAO) substrates. Experimental results have shown that the dielectric properties of the BLT films are highly anisotropic along different crystal directions. The dielectric constants (1MHz at 300 K) are 358 and 160 along [100] and [110], respectively. Dielectric nonlinearity is also detected along these crystal directions. On the other hand, a much smaller dielectric constant and no detectable dielectric nonlinearity in a field range of 0-200 kV/cm are observed for films along [001] when c-axis oriented SRO is used as the bottom electrode.


Albeit numerous countries relied on contact-tracing (CT) applications as an epidemic control measure against the COVID-19 pandemic, the debate around their effectiveness is still open. Most studies indicate that very high levels of adoption are required to stop disease progression, placing the main interest of policymakers in promoting app adherence. However, other factors of human behaviour, like delays in adherence or heterogeneous compliance, are often disregarded. To characterise the impact of human behaviour on the effectiveness of CT apps we propose a multilayer network model reflecting the co-evolution of an epidemic outbreak and the app adoption dynamics over a synthetic population generated from survey data. The model was initialised to produce epidemic outbreaks resembling the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and was used to explore the impact of different changes in behavioural features in peak incidence and maximal prevalence. The results corroborate the relevance of the number of users for the effectiveness of CT apps but also highlight the need for early adoption and, at least, moderate levels of compliance, which are factors often not considered by most policymakers. The insight obtained was used to identify a bottleneck in the implementation of several apps, such as the Spanish CT app, where we hypothesise that a simplification of the reporting system could result in increased effectiveness through a rise in the levels of compliance.


For more than two decades following the publication of the MOSFET scaling theory, CMOS engineers focused their efforts on scaling down the physical size of CMOS transistors. The opportunity for scaled CMOS to break into high-end applications came when the industry worked together to established voltage standards below 5 volt. Two of the limits of CMOS scaling were reached in the early 2000's: high tunneling current through the thin gate insulator and high device off current. Today, device engineers focus primarily on technology innovations for continued device performance improvement from one generation to the next.


Gastropods are known to secrete mucus for a variety of purposes, including locomotion, reproduction, adhesion to surfaces, and lubrication. A less commonly known function of mucus secretion in this group involves its use as a defence against predation. Among the terrestrial slugs, mucus that serves this particular purpose has been studied for only a handful of species under laboratory conditions, where it is thought to be produced for self-fouling or to make individuals difficult to consume. However, the mechanisms of how these defensive secretions operate and their effectiveness in deterring predation in the natural world have not be described in much detail. In this study, we provide evidence of adhesive mucus secretions in the red triangle slug (Triboniophorus graeffei) as an adaptation against predation. Field observations of a large red-eyed green tree frog (Litoria chloris) trapped in the mucus secretions of a nearby T. graeffei revealed that this mucus serves to incapacitate predators rather than just simply as an overall deterrence. Mechanical stimulation of T. graeffei under laboratory conditions revealed that adhesive secretions were produced from discrete sections of the dorsal surface when disturbed, leading to the production of a highly sticky and elastic mucus that was unlike the thin and slippery mucus used during locomotion. The adhesiveness of the defensive secretions was strengthened and reactivated when in contact with water. This appears to not only be the first description of defensive mucus production in this slug species but one of the first natural observations of the use of adhesive defence secretions to incapacitate a predator. The biomechanical properties of this mucus and its ability to maintain and strengthen its hold under wet conditions make it potentially useful in the development of new adhesive materials.


The aim of this study was to evaluate short- and long-term outcome in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), who received an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) prior to surgery. Between January 1990 and June 2004, all patients (n=154) who received an IABP prior to on-pump CABG in our center were included. Patients received the IABP for vital indications (i.e. either unstable angina refractory to medical therapy or cardiogenic shock; group 1: n=99) or for prophylactic reasons (group 2: n=55). A Cox proportional hazards model was used to identify predictors of long-term all-cause mortality. Compared with the EuroSCORE predictive model, observed 30-day mortality in group 1 (15.2%) was slightly higher than predicted (10.3%). A decrease in 30-day mortality occurred in group 2 (median predicted mortality was 7.2% and observed was 0%). Cumulative 1-, 5-, and 6-year survival was 82.8+/-3.8%, 70.1+/-4.9%, and 67.3+/-5.1% for group 1 vs. 98.2+/-1.8%, 84.0+/-5.6% and 84.0+/-5.6% for group 2 (Log-rank: P=0.02). Logistic EuroSCORE (HR 1.03 [1.01-1.05], P=0.007) was an independent predictor of long-term all-cause mortality.


Red tide is the term used in Florida (USA) and elsewhere to describe a type of marine harmful algal bloom (HAB) that grows out of control and produces neurotoxins that adversely affect humans, birds, fish, shellfish, and marine mammals. HABs are becoming more abundant, extensive, and closer to shore, and longer in duration than any time in recorded history. Our objective is to review the effects the multifold components of aerosolized coal fly ash as they relate to the increasing occurrences of HABs. Aerosolized coal fly ash (CFA) pollutants from non-sequestered coal-fired power plant emissions and from undisclosed, although "hidden in plain sight," tropospheric particulate geoengineering operations are inflicting irreparable damage to the world's surface water-bodies and causing great harm to human health (including lung cancer, respiratory and neurodegenerative diseases) and environmental health (including major die-offs of insects, birds and trees). Florida's ever-growing toxic nightmare of red tides and blue-green algae is a microcosm of similar activity globally. Atmospheric deposition of aerosol particulates, most importantly bioavailable iron, has drastically shifted the global plankton community balance in the direction of harmful algae and cyanobacterial blooms in fresh and salt water. Proposed geoengineering schemes of iron fertilization of the ocean would only make a bad situation unimaginably worse. Based on the evidence presented here, the global spread of harmful algae blooms will only be contained by rapidly reducing particulate air pollution both by implementation of universal industrial particulate-trapping and by the immediate halting of jet-sprayed particulate aerosols. Corrective actions depend not only on international cooperation, but on ending the deadly code of silence throughout government, academe, and media on the subject of ongoing tropospheric aerosol geoengineering. Long-standing weather control, climate intervention, and geoengineering operations have come to threaten not only all humans but the entire web of life on Earth.


Analytical results are presented which characterize the behavior of a dc-biased, two-dimensional circular array of overdamped Josephson junctions subject to increasing levels of disorder. It is shown that high levels of disorder can abruptly destroy the synchronous functioning of the array. We identify the transition boundary between synchronized and desynchronized behavior, along with the mechanism responsible for the loss of frequency locking. Comparisons with recent results for arrays with rectangular lattice geometries are described.


Introduction: Current literature lacks detailed understanding of the reimbursement framework of medication adherence enhancing interventions (MAEIs). As part of the ENABLE COST Action, the EUREcA ("EUropen REimbursement strategies for interventions targeting medication Adherence") study aimed to provide an in-depth overview of reimbursed MAEIs currently available in European countries at national and regional levels and to pave the way for further MAEIs to be implemented in the future. Methods: A web-based, cross-sectional survey was performed across 38 European countries and Israel. The survey questionnaire was developed as a result of an iterative process of discussion informed by a desk review. The survey was performed among invited ENABLE collaborators from June to July 2021. Besides descriptive analysis, association between country income and health care expenditure, and the availability of reimbursed MAEIs were also assessed. Results: The survey identified 13 reimbursed MAEIs in nine countries: multi-dose drug dispensing (n = 5), medication review (n = 4), smart device (n = 2), mobile application (n = 1), and patient education (n = 1). The median GDP per capita of countries having ≥1 reimbursed MAEI was significantly higher compared to countries having no reimbursed adherence intervention (33,888 EUR vs 16,620 EUR, respectively; p = 0.05). Conclusions: Our findings highlight that to date only a small number of MAEIs have been reimbursed in European countries. Comprehensive health technology assessment recommendations and multi-stakeholder collaboration could help removing barriers related to the implementation and reimbursement of MAEIs.