Due to the revolution in the neurosciences and the growth in neuroscientific research, there has been a steady increase of attention on neuro-matters in science, society and culture. The brain and neuroscientific research remain at the centre of public and academic attention worldwide. Critical Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary (or better, post-disciplinary) space for the systematic exploration of neuroscientific research and neuro-matters. It is argued that Critical Neuroscience, as a recent addition to neuroscientific research, has the potential to develop as a genuine human science for the investigation of the role and influence of the brain on human phenomena. Together with the growing interest worldwide in neuroscientific research, engagement with neuro-matters in general asks for a critical engagement with one of the fastest growing areas of scientific research.


Objective: This study aimed to investigate the nasal findings in patients who tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and objectively evaluate the amount of nasal secretion and nasal clearance Methods: The study included 40 patients who tested positive and 40 volunteers who tested negative for COVID-19 infection The self-administered Turkish version of the sinonasal outcome test -22 (SNOT-22) questionnaire was used to evaluate the sinonasal findings, the nasal Schirmer test was used to evaluate the amount of nasal secretion, and the saccharin test was used to evaluate nasal clearance The results of both groups were compared Results: The SNOT-22 score averages were 23 3 +/- 14 5 and 11 2 +/- 11 7 for the COVID-19-positive group and COVID-19-negative controls, respectively In the COVID-19 positive group, SNOT-22 results were statistically significantly higher than those of the controls (p=0 001) The nasal Schirmer and nasal saccharin test results in the COVID-19-positive group were statistically significantly higher than those of the controls (p=0 002 and p=0 001) Conclusion: In patients who tested positive for COVID-19 infection, increased amounts of nasal secretion and prolonged nasal clearance time were observed They also had higher SNOT-22 scores than those of the negative controls Although these findings demonstrate that there may be changes in nasal functions in patients positive for COVID-19 infection, new studies are needed to elucidate the nasal effects in detail


Business units are increasingly able to fuel the transformation that digitalization demands of organizations. Thereby, they can implement Shadow IT (SIT) without involving a central IT department to create flexible and innovative solutions. Self-reinforcing effects lead to an intertwinement of SIT with the organization. As a result, high complexities, redundancies, and sometimes even lock-ins occur. IT Integration suggests itself to meet these challenges. However, it can also eliminate the benefits that SIT presents. To help organizations in this area of conflict, we are conducting a literature review including a systematic search and an analysis from a systemic viewpoint using path dependency and switching costs. Our resulting conceptual framework for SIT integration drawbacks classifies the drawbacks into three dimensions. The first dimension consists of switching costs that account for the financial, procedural, and emotional drawbacks and the drawbacks from a loss of SIT benefits. The second dimension includes organizational, technical, and level-spanning criteria. The third dimension classifies the drawbacks into the global level, the local level, and the interaction between them. We contribute to the scientific discussion by introducing a systemic viewpoint to the research on shadow IT. Practitioners can use the presented criteria to collect evidence to reach an IT integration decision.


This study aims first at improving volatility prediction using a machine learning model called support vector regression GARCH (SVR-GARCH) using selected 30 stocks listed on the S&P 500. The authors compare the prediction results of the SVR-GARCH model with the GARCH family models and find that SVR-GARCH outperforms these models based on the performance metrics. The second goal of this study is to calculate value-at-risk (VaR) using predictions obtained in the previous part. Moreover, backtesting is applied to check the accuracy of the VaR results. The findings suggest that using predictions obtained from the SVR-GARCH model boosts VaR calculations and hence provides better financial risk management. TOPICS: Big data/machine learning, risk management, simulations, statistical methods, VAR and use of alternative risk measures of trading risk, volatility measures Key Findings • Machine learning–based implementations in finance can lead to improved performance. • Volatility prediction based on the SVR-GARCH machine learning–based volatility prediction model outperforms traditional volatility prediction models, making it possible to have more accurate financial models. • Using volatility prediction in the value-at-risk model yields far better results, implying that, given the better-performing volatility model, it is likely to manage financial risk better than ever.


Starch is the major polysaccharide consumed by human being. It is not classified as a dietary fiber as it is digestible by the enzymes present in the saliva and small intestines. However, it is possible to modify starch with thermal and nonthermal techniques. High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) is a cold pasteurization technique that has increased application in food industry with minimum effect on nutritional quality of the food products. It is hypothesized that the use of HHP could be a modification strategy for starch. In this study, effects of different HHP parameters (400 and 500 MPa) at different temperatures (20, 30, and 40°C) for 5, 15, and 30 min on in vitro digestibility and physicochemical properties of cornstarch were studied by Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry. Results showed that HHP treatment increased slowly digestible starch (SDS) and rapid digestible starch (RDS) significantly with pressure and temperature (p < .05). In addition, it was shown that HHP treatment decreased the solubility and swelling power of the cornstarch and it is proposed that 30 min HHP treatment at 500 MPa and 40°C is the onset for cornstarch gelatinization according to NMR relaxometry results. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) is a nonthermal processing technology that is commonly used in the food industry for extending the shelf life of food products by destroying vegetative cells, enzymes, microorganisms effectively, and it can modify the starch so the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of different HHP parameters on in vitro digestibility and physicochemical properties of cornstarch by nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry.


A panel of ventilation experts assembled by OSHA and ACGIH concluded that dilution ventilation, used in virtually all mechanically ventilated buildings, will not control secondhand smoke in the hospitality industry (e.g., restaurants, bars, casinos). The panelists asserted that a new and unproved technology, displacement ventilation, offered the potential for up to 90% reductions in ETS levels relative to dilution technology. However, this assertion was not substantiated by any supporting data. Air cleaning was judged to be somewhere between dilution and displacement ventilation in efficacy, depending on the level of maintenance. The panel also failed to quantify the ETS exposure or risk for workers or patrons either before or after the application of the new technology. Panelists observed that building ventilation codes are not routinely enforced. They also noted the lack of recognized standards for acceptable ETS exposure as well as the lack of information on typical exposure levels. However, indoor air quality standards for ETS have been proposed in the scientific literature, and reliable mathematical models exist for predicting pollutant concentrations from indoor smoking. These proposed standards and models permit application of an indoor air quality procedure for determining ventilation rates as set forth in ASHRAE Standard 62. Using this procedure, it is clear that dilution ventilation, air cleaning, or displacement ventilation technology even under moderate smoking conditions cannot control ETS risk to de minimis levels for workers or patrons in hospitality venues without massively impractical increases in ventilation. Although there is a scientific consensus that ETS is a known cause of cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory diseases, although ETS contains 5 regulated hazardous air pollutants, 47 regulated hazardous wastes, 60 known or suspected carcinogens, and more than 100 chemical poisons, the tobacco industry denies the risks of exposure, opposes smoking bans, promotes ventilation as a panacea for ETS control, and works for a return to laissez-faire concerning smoking in the hospitality industry. Smoking bans remain the only viable control measure to ensure that workers and patrons of the hospitality industry are protected from exposure to the toxic wastes from tobacco combustion.


Motivations. There are RNA species produced by eukaryotes, classified as non-coding RNAs, which are not involved in translation, but play a major role in regulation of gene expression at the transcriptional, post-transcriptional and translational level. The small non-coding RNA (sncRNA) molecules, along with the Argonaute family of proteins, have been identified as key players in various forms of sequence-specific gene silencing, including RNA interference (RNAi), translational repression and heterochromatin formation. Next-generation sequencing methods have allowed researchers to quickly sequence and profile sncRNA populations. Recently, a new class of non-coding small RNAs has been found, named Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), which interact with Piwi and are produced by a Dicer-independent mechanism. These non-coding small RNAs regulate a series of small RNA-mediated mechanisms that modulate a large variety of biological processes, such as silencing of selfish DNA elements, development, genome stability, and DNA integrity maintenance. It was reported that piRNA-pathway disorders increase the repeats of retrotransposon and cause DNA damage, both common occurrence in tumorigenesis of germline and somatic cells. Currently, piRNAs have been identified in human cancer cells, regulated by the Hili protein and involved in carcinogenesis. Another report describes how piRNAs are aberrantly expressed in human cancer cells. Other small molecules playing a central role in many RNAi mechanism are: small-interfering RNAs (siRNA) and transcription initiation RNAs (tiRNAs). While it has not been definitively demonstrated that they play a causal role in human disease, this does not necessarily preclude the existence of disease-mediating siRNAs or tiRNAs. Recent studies showed as endogenous siRNAs are derived from naturally occurring double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) and have roles in the regulation of gene expression in mouse oocytes. On the other hand, tiRNAs are nuclear localized 18nt RNAs derived from sequences immediately downstream of RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) transcription start sites. Several reports have shown that tiRNAs are intimately correlated with gene expression, RNA polymerase II binding and behaviours, and epigenetic marks associated with transcription initiation, but not elongation. Methods. Small non coding RNAs sequences were obtained by sequencing human cancer cells RNA with an Illumina Genome Analyzer. In order to identify piRNAs expressed in the samples, we used the miRanalyzer tool with the reference databanks RNAdb and Rfam. Two databanks were filtered to reduce redundancies and integrated with data available in public repositories. Programs developed in house (using Perl and PHP languages) have been applied to identify piRNAs not yet annotated, called putative "ping-pong piRNAs". Software is based on the following experimental evidences: there are primary (p-piRNAs) and secondary (s-piRNAs) piRNAs; the initial cleavage site is located within the base-paired region 10nt downstream of the 5' terminal U of the p-piRNA and the resulting s-piRNAs are therefore distinguished by an A at position 10. Some s-piRNAs are expected to be reverse complementary to the original p-piRNA precursor transcript and may themselves be able to direct cleavage of these to recreate the original p-piRNA. During piRNA-guided cleavage of target transcripts a 19-mer product arises. Although 19-mers do appear to associate with Piwi proteins, the fact that they are not stabilized by 3' end methylation argues against their function as piRNAs. Their size and the apparent lack of the 3' end modification would allow them to load into Argonaute proteins and function in RNAi-like silencing as short interfering RNAs. Results have been compared using the recently developed program piRNApredictor, which uses a k-mer scheme to identify piRNA sequences, relying on the training sets of non-piRNA and piRNA sequences of five model species. Results. Starting from available tracks of human piRNAs, a non-redundant databank has been assembled removing sequences with ambiguous nucleotides and sequences mapping within the same locus of the human genome but annotated with different accession number. The databank has been used to identify piRNAs molecules in two distinct sequencing experiments, with different coverages. Some piRNAs are differentially expressed in samples respect to controls, revealing their possible involvement in breast cancer. The programs developed to identify piRNAs not yet annotated, produced by "ping-pong model", have been tested both with reference piRNA sequences and experimental data. Analysis of sequences reads highlights the presence of the three molecules produced during piRNA biogenesis: primary, secondary and 19-mer piRNA. Acknowledgements Research supported by: Fondazione con il Sud; Italian Association for Cancer Research; Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research; Regione Campania; University of Salerno; Fondazione Umberto Veronesi.


Objective Maximal cytoreduction to no residual disease is an important predictor of prognosis in patients with advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer. Preoperative prediction of outcome of surgery should guide treatment decisions, for example, primary debulking or neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by interval debulking surgery. The objective of this study was to systematically review studies evaluating computed tomography imaging based models predicting the amount of residual tumor after cytoreductive surgery for advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer. Methods We systematically searched the literature for studies investigating multivariable models that predicted the amount of residual disease after cytoreductive surgery in advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer using computed tomography imaging. Detected studies were scored for quality and classified as model derivation or validation studies. We summarized their performance in terms of discrimination when possible. Results We identified 11 studies that described 13 models. The 4 models that were externally validated all had a poor discriminative capacity (sensitivity, 15%–79%; specificity, 32%–64%). The only internal validated model had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.67. Peritoneal thickening, mesenterial and diaphragm disease, and ascites were most often used as predictors in the final models. We did not find studies that assessed the impact of prediction model on outcomes. Conclusions Currently, there are no external validated studies with a good predictive performance for residual disease. Studies of better quality are needed, especially studies that focus on predicting any residual disease after surgery.


Subject review In the nineties of the previous century, the European Union achieved, through introducing the New and Global Approach to technical harmonization and standardization, a significant improvement in the approach to conformity assessment of products, by integrating the requirements for technical products safety into the process of its designing. This was achieved by preventive analysing and quantifying of risk levels in the design process with the objective of determining the scope of the needed safety systems. On the other hand, we have witnessed a rapid development and implementation of holistic approaches to risks management in enterprises, unified in the modern business practice by the name of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). Going along that line, the paper presents the basis of the EU New and Global Approach and gives an approach to integrating New Approach Directives risk assessment into the holistic approach of risks management in organization, such as ERM.


A three-dimensional (3D) magnetic property testing system has been completed and successfully used to measure 3D hysteresis loci of soft magnetic material. This paper presents the techniques to characterize soft magnetic materials under 3D magnetic excitations in detail. Using three couples of excitation coils controlled by a computer to generate the magnetic fields in three orthogonal axes, various types of flux density loci, such as circular or elliptical rotating vectors of flux density with any given orientations in 3D space, can be obtained. Based on 3D finite element analysis and a comparative study, a sandwich arrangement comprising a sample, guard pieces, and search coils with double-layer structure was proposed. Compared with the conventional surface search coils, this arrangement can significantly improve the accuracy of measurement. The comprehensive calibration process and the experimental results of the 3D hysteresis loci of soft magnetic composite materials are also presented.


For decades, the technical problem of selecting optimal transmission gear ratio has been researched for various ground vehicles based on different selection criteria depending on a particular vehicle application; criteria of terrain mobility, traction and acceleration performance, engine power utilization and fuel efficiency have been widely in use. Innumerable analytical and experimental research results and data were implemented in thousand different transmission designs. Today, this unique information about the number of gears in transmission, and value of gear ratios make a field for (i) a research analysis of engineering efficiency of different transmission designs, which were in operation for decades, and (ii) developing more efficient analytical methodologies to select the number of gears and transmission gear ratios and, furthermore, continuously, in-real time control power transfer from the vehicle energy source to the wheels.This paper considers the first, of the above-listed problems in detail with applications to various terrain vehicles and then specifically to off-road wheeled vehicles. The analysis presented in the paper, envelops simple random samples of up to 50 vehicles. It starts from WW2 military vehicles, goes to off-road trucks of 1980s and finally compares modern dump trucks and other terrain vehicles of several major world OEMs. The paper presents an analytical method, computational algorithm and results of a study in which, the efficiency of conventional analytical methodologies are evaluated using actual data on fuel consumption and characteristics of transmissions, vehicle engines, driveline and running gear systems and payloads. To serve this purpose, actual data of each vehicle is compared with analytical data of the vehicle, computed using the conventional methods, with focus on gear/velocity ratios and average fuel consumption at each transmission gear. The fuel consumption analysis was carried out by computing vehicle transport capacity as a function of the average velocity and mass of the payload for each vehicle.The result shows a distinct change of behavior in gear design methodology between post war and present day vehicles. It was a determined divergence from the initial trends, which were based on either the geometrical progression method or arithmetic method for selecting the number of transmission speeds and the values of gear ratios. This resulted in not only having a wide range of speed characteristics of automatic transmission over a few manual gears, but also, as discovered in this study, lead to increased fuel consumption of some vehicles in all range of speeds.The WW2 vehicles designed with manual transmission have gear ratios are closely aligned to analytically calculated geometric progression. Same behavior is observed in the off-road vehicles of 1980's. Here, with a manual transmission, the trend is more towards less number of gears and with large interval between speed ratios. This of course gives a better fuel efficiency, but leads to trade off in lower average vehicle velocity.The transmission design for modern day dump trucks is also very close to the geometric progression approach. The other modern off-road trucks, as discovered in the analysis, follow an arithmetic progression. Although this results in smooth transmission, but fuel efficiency is compromised significantly, compared to dump trucks.It is important to note that a design based on geometric progression, would result in same speed distribution with less number of gears and better fuel efficiency. For a modern day terrain trucks, to have an optimum combination of both characteristics, it is important to consider all the parameters affecting velocity ratios and fuel consumption and incorporate an efficient analytical methodology to stay competitive, in the rapidly evolving market of all terrain vehicles.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


In this paper, the problem of exponential stability for Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy delay systems with delayed impulses is addressed. By means of the time-dependent Lyapunov function method combined with Razumikhin technique, a sufficient condition expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) is obtained for exponential stability of T-S fuzzy delay systems with delayed impulses. The derived stability condition depends both on the lower bound and the upper bound of impulsive intervals, which is robust with respect to small impulse input delays. By solving a set of LMIs, an impulsive state feedback controller can be easily constructed. Two numerical examples are discussed to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical findings.


"Acceptance of induced abortion as a device of family planning among the Pati Rabha of Boko area [India] was studied. Out of 345 couples, practising various family planning devices, 86 (24.93%) accepted induced abortion. Of the total 629 conceptions of these 86 women, 137 (21.78%) conceptions were terminated by induced abortion.... The highest percentage (18.24%) of the induced abortion was done at the 6th order of pregnancy, 62.79% of the women accepted the induced abortion only once in their reproductive period. Most (91.86%) of the acceptors were illiterate and all of them were house wives." Consideration is given to the use of traditional methods of inducing abortions.


Background: Obese individuals frequently experience weight stigma and this is associated with psychological distress and difficulties. The process of external devaluation can lead to negative self-perception and evaluation and some obese individuals develop "internalized weight stigma". The prevalence of weight stigma is well established but there is a lack of information about the interplay between external and internal weight stigma. Aims: To synthesize the literature on the psychological effects of weight stigma into a formulation model that addresses the maintenance of internalized weight stigma. Method: Current research on the psychological impact of weight stigma was reviewed. We identify cognitive, behavioural and attentional processes that maintain psychological conditions where self-evaluation plays a central role. A model was developed based on clinical utility. Results: The model focuses on identifying factors that influence and maintain internalized weight stigma. We highlight the impact of negative societal and interpersonal experiences of weight stigma on how individuals view themselves as an obese person. Processing the self as a stigmatized individual is at the core of the model. Maintenance factors include negative self-judgements about the meaning of being an obese individual, attentional and mood shifts, and avoidance and safety behaviours. In addition, eating and weight management behaviours become deregulated and maintain both obesity and weight stigma. Conclusion: As obesity increases, weight stigma and the associated psychological effects are likely to increase. We provide a framework for formulating and intervening with internalized weight stigma as well as making therapists aware of the applicability and transferability of strategies that they may already use with other presenting problems.


Hu-Lu-Ba-Wan (HLBW) is a Chinese herbal prescription used to treat kidney deficiency. The aim of this study was to explore the effect and mechanism of HLBW on diabetic nephropathy (DN) in type 2 diabetic rats. The rat model of DN was established by being fed a high-fat diet and intravenous injection of streptozotocin. Then, HLBW decoction was administered for 16 weeks. Blood glucose level, lipid profile, renal function, 24-hour total urinary protein, and albumin content were examined. Renal morphology and superoxide anion levels were evaluated. The activity of nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) and protein kinase C-alpha (PKC-α) related genes expression in renal tissue were also determined. Our data demonstrated that HLBW significantly improved hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and proteinuria in diabetic rats compared with those of control group. HLBW also alleviated glomerular expansion and fibrosis, extracellular matrix accumulation and effacement of the foot processes. Additionally, HLBW reduced superoxide anion level, NADPH oxidase activity, the protein and mRNA expressions of p47phox, and the protein expression of phosphorylated PKC-α in renal tissue. These results suggest that HLBW is effective in the treatment of DN in rats. The underlying mechanism may be related to the attenuation of renal oxidative stress via PKC-α/NADPH oxidase signaling pathway.


The developmental, individual-difference, relationship-based model (DIR), a theoretical and applied framework for comprehensive intervention, examines the functional developmental capacities of children in the context of their unique biologically based processing profile and their family relationships and interactive patterns. As a functional approach, it uses the complex interactions between biology and experience to understand behavior and articulates the developmental capacities that provide the foundation for higher order symbolic thinking and relating. During spontaneous 'floor time' play sessions, adults follow the child's lead utilizing affectively toned interactions through gestures and words to move the child up the symbolic ladder by first establishing a foundation of shared attention, engagement, simple and complex gestures, and problem solving to usher the child into the world of ideas and abstract thinking. This process is illustrated by a case example of a young boy on the autism spectrum interacting with his father during 'floor time' over a 3 year period.


ABSTRACT The variety of restriction semigroups may be most simply described as that generated from inverse semigroups (S, ·, −1) by forgetting the inverse operation and retaining the two operations x+ = xx−1 and x* = x−1x. The subvariety B of strict restriction semigroups is that generated by the Brandt semigroups. At the top of its lattice of subvarieties are the two intervals [B2, B2M = B] and [B0, B0M]. Here, B2 and B0 are, respectively, generated by the five-element Brandt semigroup and that obtained by removing one of its nonidempotents. The other two varieties are their joins with the variety of all monoids. It is shown here that the interval [B2, B] is isomorphic to the lattice of varieties of categories, as introduced by Tilson in a seminal paper on this topic. Important concepts, such as the local and global varieties associated with monoids, are readily identified under this isomorphism. Two of Tilson's major theorems have natural interpretations and application to the interval [B2, B] and, with modification, to the interval [B0, B0M] that lies below it. Further exploration may lead to applications in the reverse direction.


The purpose of this study was to investigate challenges emanating from school based selection and recruitment of secondary school teachers in Mombasa County faced by Board of Governors (BOG). Although the Government of Kenya has strategies to enhance equality and distribution of teachers in Kenya, there have been challenges in decentralisation of teachers' recruitment in Kenya public secondary schools. Objective number one was to determine factors affecting teachers' recruitment in secondary schools. Objective number two was to establish criteria used by BOG in selection and recruitment of secondary school teachers. Objective number three was to establish personnel and political factors that affect BOG members in their role of selection and recruitment of teacher's recruitment. Objective number four was to determine other challenges BOG faced in teachers' recruitment and how they were resolved. The research question one was, what are the factors affecting teacher's recruitment in public secondary schools? Research question two was, what are the criteria used by BOG in recruitment of secondary school teachers in public schools? Research question three was what are the personnel and political factors affecting BOG members in their role of teacher's recruitment? Research question four was what are the other challenges that face BOG in teacher's recruitment? Research question five was how were the challenges that faced BOG in teachers' recruitment resolved? In the Conceptual Framework model the independent factors are challenges facing school based teachers' recruitment in public secondary schools in Mombasa County. The dependent factors are efficiency in teachers' recruitment, even distribution of teachers and retention of teachers in schools. The intervening variable is the school based recruitment policy. The study population was the thirty secondary schools in the County. All these schools contributed the target population of the study. Twelve schools were randomly selected to participate in the study. Simple random sampling was used to select ten teachers from each school. Twelve principals from these schools were included in the sample. This gave a total sample of one hundred and thirty two subjects. The study employed descriptive survey design. Questionnaires were used for collecting data. Reliability was tested by subjecting the instruments to a pilot study through the split half technique and then using Spearman Brown formula to compute a reliability coefficient which was established at 0.72. Results were analysed using counts, percentages, frequency distribution tables, bar graphs and pie charts. The researcher found out that there were challenges affecting BOG while carrying out their recruitment duties in public secondary schools. These challenges include inadequate capacity at County and school level to manage the recruitment process resulting in tribalism, nepotism, sectionalism, and irregularities in the exercise. Political interference and invested interests in BOG members was another challenge.The study found out that these challenges hindered the recruitment exercise. The study recommends to the Ministry of Education to come up with transparent and credible recruitment policy guidelines to ensure fairness and justice is done to all the applicants for the teaching jobs. The MOE to ensure that BOG members have a certain minimum qualifications for them to be appointed. Teachers unions should be involved in the recruitment exercise to ensure fairness to all applicants. A representative from TSC should be present during the recruitment process to ensure recruitment guidelines are strictly followed. Standardized interview questions should be formulated for all the applicants for teaching job.


Over the last two decades, the educational use of digital devices, including digital assessments, has become a regular feature of teaching in primary education in the Netherlands. However, researchers have not reached a consensus about the so‐called "mode effect," which refers to the possible impact of using computer‐based tests (CBT) instead of paper‐and‐pencil‐based tests (PBT) to assess student performance. Some researchers suggest that the occurrence of a mode effect might be related to the type of device used, the subject being assessed and the characteristics of both the test and the students taking the test. The international TIMSS 2019 Equivalence Study offered the opportunity to explore possible performance differences between a PBT and a tablet assessment in mathematics and science among Dutch primary school students. In the spring of 2017, the TIMSS PBT and tablet test were administered to 532 grade‐four Dutch students. Item response theory was used to explore potential mode effects. This exploration revealed no significant differences in the student ability scales between the paper and the tablet tests for mathematics and science. Also, no systematic mode effects were found for the items with high reading demand. A marginal difference was found for girls outperforming boys on the TIMSS tablet test, although no gender differences in achievement were found for the PBT.


Two new rapid methods for measuring adrenaline in human blood serum have been established. Both methods use HEK 293 cells, from which two stable cell lines were developed - one cell line was transfected with the Epac1-camps sensor (HEK 293 Epac1-camps) and one with an α1B- adrenergic receptor (HEK 293 α1B).
Adrenaline levels are determined indirectly– via binding of adrenaline on a specific adrenergic receptor (β2 and α1B) at the constructed HEK 293 cells and the subsequent release of the second messengers cAMP (HEK 293 Epac1-camps via β2 adrenergic receptor) and respectively Ca2+( HEK 293 α1B via α1B adrenergic receptor).
Intracellular cAMP release was detected by measuring changes in FRET-ratio, which occurs when cAMP binds on the cyclic nucleotide binding domain of the Epac1-camps sensor which is coupled with the fluorescent proteins yellow fluorescent protein YFP and the cyan fluorescent protein CFP. CAMP-binding causes a lower energy transfer between YFP and CFP, so called FRET, which can be measured by fluorescence microscopy.
However Ca2+ release, after cell stimulation with adrenaline, effects a change of fluorescence intensity in fura-2 labeled HEK 293 α1B cells. It is caused by the formation of a chelate complex consisting of fura-2 and Ca2+, which has a different fluorescence intensity than free fura-2.

With the help of these two methods it is possible to indirectly determine adrenaline levels. After testing the transfected cells and preparing dose response curves for each method for reading the sensitivity and evaluating unknown adrenaline samples, both methods were applied to human blood serum. The data shows that it is possible to determine an unknown concentration of adrenaline in human blood serum using both methods. Compared with other methods and procedures the cAMP measurement has an advantage in measuring time. Moreover it is to a small extent superior to the Ca2+ measurement in sensitivity and stability.

These findings form an interesting basis for further investigation and standardization in particular concerning the cAMP measurement via FRET. Furthermore the intracellular release of cAMP or Ca2 + in the signal transduction is not only be caused by adrenaline but also by other molecules, so these established methods can be used in the diagnosis of other molecules.


This paper shows that health is an important determinant of labor market vulnerability during large economic crises. Using data on adults during Sweden's unexpected economic crisis in the early 1990s, we show that early and later life health are important determinants of job loss after the crisis, but not before. Adults who were born with worse health (proxied by birth weight) and those who experience hospitalizations (and especially so for mental health related issues) in the pre-crisis period, are much more likely to lose their jobs and go on unemployment insurance after the crisis. These effects are concentrated in the private sector that happened to be more affected by the crisis. The results hold while controlling for individual education and occupational sorting prior to the crisis, and for controlling for family level characteristics by exploiting health differences within twin pairs. We conclude that poor health (both in early life and as adults) is an important indicator of vulnerability during economic shocks.


The study presents an analysis of results of a laboratory experiment, conducted in 2015 to assess compliance behaviour in India. The experiment evaluates responses of 133 participants, to changes in key policy instruments like tax rate, penalty rate and audit probability. We find that changes in policy parameters generate varied responses across taxpayers. Audit probability is the only policy instrument that generates relatively consistent response. Further, the results show that individuals can be divided into those who respond to change in audit probability and those who respond to other policy variables, suggesting that no single policy would be adequate to induce suitable behavioural changes in all taxpayers.


ABSTRACT Confidence intervals for regional economic impacts resulting from changes in saltwater sportfishing harvest limits are calculated using a stated preference model of sportfishing participation and a social accounting matrix (SAM) for southern Alaska. Confidence intervals are constructed to account for two types of input variation in impact estimates—sample variation in sportfishing-related expenditures and stochastic variation from parameters in the recreation participation model. For five of six policy scenarios examined, estimated impacts are not statistically different from zero. Tests for differences in estimated impacts between scenarios show that no statistical differences are found whenever stochastic variation is considered (statistical differences occur only when sample variation alone is accounted for). Due to the lack of statistical differences in this case, a comparison of economic impacts does not provide a clear-cut preferred alternative, and consequently other economic and non-economic criteria for evaluating policy scenarios should bear greater weight in policy decisions. JEL Codes: R11, Q51, Q22, Q58.


We appreciate the commentary by Robarge et al. (2017) regarding our recent feature article on the potential trade-offs between clean air and clean water (Smith et al. 2017). The purpose of our article was to further the discussion on the causes of the divergent soluble phosphorus (SP) and total phosphorus (TP) loading trends that have been observed in Western Lake Erie Basin tributaries (Baker et al. 2014; Jarvie et al. 2017). In 2014, shortly after the Toledo, Ohio, water crisis, we put together a list of 25 "potential causes" of increased SP loading to Lake Erie, with changing atmospheric deposition chemistry as one of the potential causes listed (Smith et al. 2015). Since the writing of that article, numerous studies investigating several of the "potential causes," including tile drainage, soil test P levels, nutrient management, and tillage practices, have been conducted. While we acknowledge that many factors have likely contributed to changing SP loading trends, examining the potential impact of individual and combinations of factors, including the effects of changes in atmospheric deposition, will be fundamental to improving P management and equipping producers with the necessary tools to decrease P losses to Lake Erie and other sensitive waterbodies. We concluded…


Book synopsis: How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1980s shape contemporary British fiction?

Setting the fiction squarely within the context of Conservative politics and questions about culture and national identity, this volume reveals how the decade associated with Thatcherism frames the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis, and Graham Swift, of Scottish novelists and new diasporic writers. How and why 1980s fiction is a response to particular psychological, social and economic pressures is explored in detail. Drawing on the rise of individualism and the birth of neo-liberalism, contributors reflect on the tense relations between 1980s politics and realism, and between elegy and satire. Noting the creation of a 'heritage industry' during the decade, the rise of the historical novel is also considered against broader cultural changes. Viewed from the perspective of more recent theorisations of crisis following both 9/11 and the 21st-century financial crash, this study makes sense of why and how writers of the 1980s constructed fictions in response to this decade's own set of fundamental crises.


The general scheme for teleportation of a multi-particle d-level quantum state is presented when m pairs of partially entangled particles are utilized as quantum channels. The probabilistic teleportation can be achieved with a successful probability of d-1∏N=0(CN0)2/dM,which is determined by the smallest coefficients of each entangled channels.


Human enhancer of zeste 2 (EZH2) protein belongs to the multiprotein polycomb repressive complex 2, which also includes suppressor of zeste 12 (SUZ12) and embryonic ectoderm development (EED). The polycomb repressive complex 2 complex possesses histone methyltransferase activity mediated by the Su(var)3-9, enhancer of zeste, and trithorax domain of EZH2, which methylates histone H3 on lysine (K)-27 (H3K27). In the present studies, we determined that treatment with the hydroxamate histone deacetylase inhibitor LBH589 or LAQ824 depleted the protein levels of EZH2, SUZ12, and EED in the cultured (K562, U937, and HL-60) and primary human acute leukemia cells. This was associated with decreased levels of trimethylated and dimethylated H3K27, with concomitant depletion of the homeobox domain containing HOXA9 and of MEIS1 transcription factors. Knockdown of EZH2 by EZH2 small interfering RNA also depleted SUZ12 and EED, inhibited histone methyltransferase activity, and reduced trimethylated and dimethylated H3K27 levels, with a concomitant loss of clonogenic survival of the cultured acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) cells. EZH2 small interfering RNA sensitized the AML cells to LBH589-mediated depletion of EZH2, SUZ12, and EED; loss of clonogenic survival; and LBH589-induced differentiation of the AML cells. These findings support the rationale to test anti-EZH2 treatment combined with hydroxamate histone deacetylase inhibitors as an antileukemia epigenetic therapy, especially against AML with coexpression of EZH2, HOXA9, and MEIS1 genes. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(12):3096–104]


OBJECTIVE
We investigated whether men's social confidence in an initial, opposite-sex chatting context can be improved through a video tutorial and the extent to which being perceived as socially confident results in being seen as more romantically desirable and worthy of future contact.

METHOD
Women chatted with men who had received or not received a tutorial on how to handle speed-dating chats (Study 1: N = 129; Study 2: N = 60) or with male targets selected for having high versus moderate confidence in handling initial, opposite-sex encounters (Study 3: N = 46).

RESULTS
Tutorial-trained men felt more confident going into the chats and they, as well as male targets selected for their confidence, were perceived by female chat partners to be higher in social confidence, status, and dominance. However, only perceptions of social confidence were further associated with being perceived as more romantically desirable (as a short-term mate) and worthy of future contact.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings indicate that social confidence is trainable and that other-perceived social confidence can impact the outcomes of social interactions.


Turkey is a country that embraces many migrants from Africa and the Middle East especially in the last 10 years due to its geopolitical position. The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey as of February 2019 is reported to be 3.644.342. In particular, benefiting from the most basic human rights such as nutrition, education and health of migrants is an issue given the importance by the Republic of Turkey. In this context, important cultural differences arise for the immigrants. Language is an important obstacle to access to health services, especially in Arabic speaking patients. In order to facilitate access to health services and to improve the quality, a project has been developed covering the training and employment of medical interpreters and patient guides by the Turkey's Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization. With this project, 960 medical translators were employed and trained 2016 to 2019. The research provides an evaluation covering the training phase of this project. In this context, the aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program. In the study, an interactive training program, including medical terminology, health sector organization of Turkey, communication skills and medical ethics was implemented to the bilingual interpreters and patient guides. Participants completed a 50-question pre-test and post-test designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Training was deemed successful as all participants scored higher on the post-test than the pre-test. The results obtained from the research include important lessons that guide the planning of similar trainings.


Hydatid cyst is one of the five most diagnosed zoonotic diseases in the Mediterranean region. However, intramuscular localisation is very rare. It is reported that muscular involvement constitutes 1–5.4% of all Echinococcus infections. Here we would like to report an unusual case of hydatid cyst in the gluteus muscle, which had been treated with both surgical and medical treatment.


Scale dissolvers for CaSO4, are composed of chelants, including aminocarboxylates or phosphonates, and can contain lower concentrations of other chemical additives (enhancers) that improve dissolution. We investigate the effectiveness of enhancers, whose function is to increase the dissolution rate, by examining the effect of substituted acetates. The objective is to elicit the chemical properties that make an enhancer effective, identify costs, safety considerations, and validate their application and limitations for field use.
 Two types of mineral anhydrite and nine enhancer agents were used in static dissolution tests. Thin slabs were soaked in dissolver fluids, including a converter agent, at a pH between eight and ten. The enhancer concentration spanned 0.5, 5, and 10% w/v and probed both the catalytic and inhibitory effects. The dissolver was selected and optimized based on a customized screening methodology. Tests with mass/volume ratios of 0.1 and 0.02 were employed to fit mass-loss data to a kinetic model and rank the general rates of dissolution, which indicate there is a favorable chemical enhancer type of additive.
 Mass-loss rates using two types of anhydrite, obtained at 200°F from one to six hours, indicate strong enhancer activity. Distinctive effects are found depending on the chemical substituent on the enhancer agent. Dissolution of anhydrite shows significantly different rates at 1 hour and mass-limiting effects with no differentiation for m/v = 0.02 at four hours and nearly a similar initial rate at one hour for m/v = 0.1. A significant differentiation is observable after one hour. Inhibitory effects are discernable at high concentrations (10% enhancer). The type of substrate also shows differences in dissolution activity among blue and grey anhydrite. We found a strong correlation with the dissolver enhancer chemical type, indicating a chemical class of agents that could have applicability in descaling operations. The enhancers have been ranked by health and safety characteristics and cost to assess the feasibility of use in oilfield environments.
 The use of enhancer agents in scale dissolver fluids can provide dissolution within one to four hours, helping shorten the shut-in period for this treatment. Tests show that including highly polarizable agents can lead to faster dissolution of anhydrite.


Millions of American children are primarily raised by people other than their parents, and millions more will be raised by third parties for some period of their childhood. In most such situations, informal arrangements negotiated by family members provide for these kinship networks to care for children effectively. But many cases require some formal legal arrangement. To enable third parties to obtain necessary services and benefits for children in their care whose parents are absent and to protect children from an abusive or neglectful parent, third parties need the opportunity to seek formal legal custody. States currently have widely varying means of adjudicating child custody disputes between parents and third parties. This article argues that states should enact statutes that follow three primary points. First, due to the wide range of situations, described in the article, in which a third party custody order may be necessary, states should permit a broad set of individuals to seek custody. Concerns that broad standing provisions would lead to a flood of meritless lawsuits are not borne out by actual data in states that have had nearly unlimited standing. Second, recognizing the constitutional primacy of the parent-child relationship, states must hold third parties to a high substantive standard, and require them to prove that parental custody would harm the child in some way. Any lesser standard - such as a best interests of the child standard applied in some states - insufficiently protects relationships between parents and children. Third, recognizing that the core parental right of the care, custody and control of a child is at stake, states should generally hold third parties to a clear and convincing burden of proof. Most states apply a preponderance burden or have not specified a burden. One exception should apply: When a third party has acted as a parent for a significant time and a child's birth parent has not done so, then that parent's constitutional rights are diminished, society's interest in maintaining the long-term bond between the parent and third party is enhanced, and a lower burden of proof should apply.


To gather information on special population groups pregnant women, military men, truck drivers, sex workers through testing for common STDs and making inquiries regarding sexual practices and attitudes using a rapid assessment methodology. The studies: (i) are the first ever reliable source of STD prevalence data in these countries, (ii) raise awareness of policy-makers as to the magnitude of common STDs and unsafe sexual behavior among certain population groups, (iii) validate STD treatment guidelines, (iv) increase capacity in clinical and epidemiological skills, and (v) help to effectively treat study participants for common STDs. These studies, although simple and rapid in design compared to community-based household surveys, are still a challenge to perform in the low resource setting of most African countries. Ensuring high quality standards for laboratory testing and adequate supplies of drugs, and mobilizing truck drivers and sex workers requires a high degree of planning and resourcefulness.


Research about antimicotic action of essential oils has been made for long time, but still little knowledge is available. Thus, there is particular interest especially for those postharvest pathogens that are difficult to be controlled. Some research emphasized high potential of essential oils to be used successfully against postharvest pathogens instead synthetic fungicides. Among the pathogens controlled by essential oils are known Botrytis cinerea, Penicillium italicum and Penicillium digitatum. The aim of this research was to assess the capacity of lavender and oregano essential oils to inhibit the mycelial growth of Penicillium expansum and Botrytis cinerea. Tests were made with oils in different concentrations and pathogens were isolated from the fruits skin and grown on specific medium being assessed the rate of mycelial growth. For both Penicillium expansum and Botrytis cinerea the rate of mycelial growth for control (no treated) was 0.29-0.30 mm/h. When 10 ml of essential oils were used it was observed that the rate of mycelial growth was very low for both pathogens, respectively 0,016 and 0,008 mm/h for Botrytis cinerea and 0,017 și 0,005 mm/h for Penicillium expansum. The inhibition rate was up to 90% for both pathogens, respectively 92,5% when lavender oil was applied, respectively 97.22% for oregano oil treatment. The results of the study emphasized that lavender and oregano essential oil had a significant impact on the inhibition on the growth of Botrytis cinerea și Penicillium expansum which can be an effective option for biological control of postharvest pathogens, substituting chemical fungicide control.


Learning complex structures from stimuli requires extended exposure and often repeated observation of the same stimuli. Learning induces stimulus-dependent changes in specific performance measures. The same performance measures, however, can also be affected by processes that arise because of extended training (e.g., fatigue) but are otherwise independent from learning. Thus, a thorough assessment of the properties of learning can only be achieved by identifying and accounting for the effects of such processes. Reactive inhibition is a process that modulates behavioral performance measures on a wide range of time scales and often has opposite effects than learning. Here we develop a tool to disentangle the effects of reactive inhibition from learning in the context of an implicit learning task, the alternating serial reaction time (ASRT) task. Our method highlights that the magnitude of the effect of reactive inhibition on measured performance is larger than that of the acquisition of statistical structure from stimuli. We show that the effect of reactive inhibition can be identified not only in population measures but also at the level of performance of individuals, revealing varying degrees of contribution of reactive inhibition. Finally, we demonstrate that a higher proportion of behavioral variance can be explained by learning once the effects of reactive inhibition are eliminated. These results demonstrate that reactive inhibition has a fundamental effect on the behavioral performance that can be identified in individual participants and can be separated from other cognitive processes like learning.


ABSTRACT Life history theory – which considers the influence of environmental factors that occur over the course of an organism's life in determining patterns of development and behavior – has been used to provide insight into the cause and interpretation of a wide variety of individual differences traits. Recent research has added individual differences in mate value to this list, such that high mate value has been correlated with a slow life history strategy. The current research replicated and further explored this relationship across two studies. Consistent with previous research, Study 1 demonstrated a moderate correlation between life-history strategy and a general assessment of self-perceived mate value. Study 2 expanded this investigation to include a multifactor assessment of self-perceived mate value and provided evidence that the relationship between mate value and life history strategy may be moderated by mate value trait heritability. Specifically, the relationship between mate value and life history strategy was found to be significantly stronger for those mate value traits with the lowest heritability estimates. Results are interpreted and discussed in terms of facultative calibration of evolved psychological mechanisms and conditional behavioral strategies.


This work presents the methodological study, processing and optimization of novel, technologically acceptable procedure for in situ coating of polypropylene (PP) mesh (used for hernia treatment) with physico-chemically, mechanically and micro-structurally different gelatin (GEL) scaffolds to assess implant composite biocompatibility impact. In order to systematically follow the experimental work progress and respective achievements, whole research path is subdivided into three main sections.
In the first section, the procedure for fabrication of gradiently micro-porous GELscaffolds on the cryo-unit's cooling plate surface, using spatiotemporal and temperature- controlled gelation and freezing, followed by lyophylizaton was studied. Subsequently, cross-linking procedure using different molarities of reagents (EDC and NHS) and reaction media (100% PBS or 20/80% PBS/EtOH mixture) was performed for variable time extensions (1-24 h), rendering scaffolds physico-chemical properties. In this way, scaffolds with micro-structures having porosity gradient from 100 µm to 1000 µm and pores with rounded to ellipsoid morphology were formed, which, in combination with ethanol (EtOH) addition in cross-linking media modulates the swelling capacity towards twice lower percentages (~600%) comparing with scaffolds cross-linked in 100% PBS. Whilst the presence of EtOH reduce the cross-linking kinetic by retaining the scaffolds' micro-structure formed during freezing, the 100% PBS and higher EDC molarity resulted in 40% cross-linking degree, being expressed as a thermal resistance up to 73 °C. The presented integral fabrication procedure was shown to allow tuning of both, the physical and micro-structural properties of scaffold, utilized in preparation of materials for specific biomedical applications.
In the second part, the complex relation between surface and interface-related physico-chemical properties and gradient micro-structuring of 3D GELscaffolds, being fabricated by simultaneous temperature- controlled freeze-thawing cycles and in situ cross-linking using variable conditions (pH and molarity of carbodiimide reagent) and fibroblast cells viability (by tracking of their spreading and morphology) was established. Rarely- populated cells with rounded morphology and small elongations were observed on scaffolds with apparently negatively- charged surface with a lower cross-linking degree (CD) and consequently higher molecular mobility and availability of cell-recognition sequences, in comparison with the prominently- elongated and densely- populated cells on a scaffold's with positively- charged surface, higher CD and lower mobility. Surface micro-structure effect was demonstrated by cell's vacuolization and their pure inter-communication being present on scaffold's bottom side with smaller pores (25±19 µm) and thinner pore walls (9±5 µm), over the air- exposed side with twice bigger pores (56±38 µm) and slightly thicker pore walls (12±6 µm). Strong correlation of preparation conditions (pH and reagents molarity) with CD (r2=0.96) and moderate correlation with local molecular mobility (r2 =-0.44), as well as micro-structure features being related to temperature gradient, imply on possibility to modulate scaffold's properties in a direction to guide cell's viability and most likely its genotype development.
The third part presents an innovative strategy for the fabrication of bio-active PPmesh-GELscaffold composites with a potential for abdominal hernia treatment, where mesothelial cells in-growth have to be stimulated together with fibroblasts on-site proliferation, while formation of fibrin-developing, viscera-to-abdominal wall adhesions should be reduced, together with bacteria- related infections. In this respect, the plasma pre-activated PPmesh was coated with micro-structured GELscaffold, with pore size in 50 µm to 100 µm range at the upper-side and loosely- porous network at the composite bottom side, being modulated by sample thickness and freezing end- temperature applied. Simultaneously, the


This paper analyzes the problems in traditional manufacturing and assembly, puts forward the Estimation Indication for Cost of Quality Losing in an optimization assembly which will be based on RFID. Though this assembly is a kind of selective one, the whole production will be according to the law of interchangeability. The quality of assembly will be raised, but the cost of manufacturing will be decreased or not increased.


Various approaches have been proposed to manage the nonlinearities associated with the unconfined flow equation and to simulate perched groundwater conditions using the MODFLOW family of codes. The approaches comprise a variety of numerical techniques to prevent dry cells from becoming inactive and to achieve a stable solution focused on formulations of the unconfined, partially‐saturated, groundwater flow equation. Keeping dry cells active avoids a discontinuous head solution which in turn improves the effectiveness of parameter estimation software that relies on continuous derivatives. Most approaches implement an upstream weighting of intercell conductance and Newton‐Raphson linearization to obtain robust convergence. In this study, several published approaches were implemented in a stepwise manner into MODFLOW for comparative analysis. First, a comparative analysis of the methods is presented using synthetic examples that create convergence issues or difficulty in handling perched conditions with the more common dry‐cell simulation capabilities of MODFLOW. Next, a field‐scale three‐dimensional simulation is presented to examine the stability and performance of the discussed approaches in larger, practical, simulation settings.


Learning policies that generalize across multiple tasks is an important and challenging research topic in reinforcement learning and robotics. Training individual policies for every single potential task is often impractical, especially for continuous task variations, requiring more principled approaches to share and transfer knowledge among similar tasks. We present a novel approach for learning a nonlinear feedback policy that generalizes across multiple tasks. The key idea is to define a parametrized policy as a function of both the state and the task, which allows learning a single policy that generalizes across multiple known and unknown tasks. Applications of our novel approach to reinforcement and imitation learning in real-robot experiments are shown.


The purpose of any training system or organisation is to produce a trained person who can successfully perform specific tasks in the workplace. If these tasks cannot be performed to a required standard, then the training has failed. In fact, the quality control process of ensuring that a particular course meets the job requirements, by investigating the trained person on the job, is arguably the most important phase in a training system. After all, if a person performs well in the workplace there is probably nothing significantly wrong with the training course, and any necessary corrective measures will be concerned more with the efficiency of the training. Despite the importance of this process, external evaluation (or 'validation') has been neglected in the past and only now is gaining the recognition it deserves. Current training legislation (NSW, 1989) attempts to ensure quality training in a cooperative industrial context. For the future, much will depend on the emphasis policy makers place on quality control, and in particular on validation (Bright, 1990). This paper describes the validation process and demonstrates that a relatively simple and cost-effective validation unit can be of considerable benefit to any organisation involved in training.


Objectives: To observe the road traffic accidents pattern across the states in India and to conclude whether the expenditure on road and transportation infrastructure is really justified with the traffic safety across the country. To decide the road safety policies across the states in India using backward elimination approach of regression model. Methods/Analysis: This study attempts to show statistical relations between road traffic accidents with predictive variables; number of vehicles registered, total length of roads, total number of road accidents and total expenditure on transportation infrastructure in the states of India. Time series data covering the period 2001 to 2013 was used on yearly road traffic accidents and other predictive variables for all 28 states of India. Findings: In recent decades, road accidents are becoming one of the most growing concerns in India. As mentioned in report of Ministry of Road Transport & Highways Government of India, road accidents impose significant costs which are about 3% GDP for India since 1999 to 2000. In 2004, India was 9th leading cause of death and expected to be 5th leading cause of death by 2030 worldwide. These facts are enough to catch attention of Government agencies and researchers towards safer traffic solutions. The results from the analysis shows few findings like expenditure on transportation infrastructure may not be an important predictive variable for road traffic accidents for pan India situations. Finally, if all the states of India partitioned in different clusters according to the behavior of states, the study states that there exists a strong positive correlation between road traffic accidents, number of vehicles registered and total length of roads. The relationship found to be statistically significant at 5% level of significance for each cluster of states. Applications/Improvements: The results obtained in study can assist transportation departments and Government bodies to implement better strategies across the country to ensure road traffic safety and reduce losses in terms of money and infrastructure costs.


This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and insomnia symptoms among frontline health workers during the corona virus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic in Bangladesh and to compare these between medical and allied health workers. We conducted a cross-sectional survey between June and August 2020. A total of 479 health care professionals participated in the study. Anxiety and depression were measured using Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was measured by primary care post-traumatic stress disorder score (PC-PTSD score), and insomnia was measured by Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). We performed logistic regression to assess risk factors associated with psychological symptoms. Overall, prevalence of anxiety, depression, PTSD and insomnia symptoms were 17.6%, 15.5%, 7.6% and 5.9%, respectively. Compared to allied health workers, doctors had significantly higher prevalence of symptoms of anxiety: doctor versus allied health care worker; 21.1% vs 06%, (OR= 4.19; 95% CI= 1.88-9.35; p <0.001); depression: 18% vs 6.8%, (OR= 2.99; 95% CI= 1.40-6.42; p 0.005); PTSD: 9.4% vs 1.7%, (OR= 5.96; 95% CI= 1.41-25.11; p 0.015) and insomnia: 7.4% vs 0.9%, (OR= 9.22; 95% CI= 1.24-68.4; p 0.03),respectively. The logistic regression analysis showed pre-existing medical illness as a predictor of anxiety (OR= 2.85; 95% CI= 1.71-4.76; p <0.001) and depressive symptoms (OR= 2.29; 95% CI= 1.39-3.77; p 0.001). Working more than 6(six) weeks in COVID-19 dedicated hospitals was significantly associated with PSTD symptoms (OR= 2.83; 95% CI= 1.35-5.93; p 0.006) and insomnia (OR= 2.63; 95% CI= 1.15-6.02; p 0.022). Our study demonstrated a high prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and insomnia among Bangladeshi frontline health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
BSMMU J 2021; 14 (COVID -19 Supplement): 22-29


The inversion algorithm is an event-driven logic simulation technique that is competitive with levelized compiled code simulation even at extremely high activity levels. Previous versions of the algorithm have been limited to two-valued simulation. The three-valued inversion algorithm represents a radical redesign of the algorithm to permit three-valued simulation. The three-valued scheduling technique is significantly more complex than that of the two-valued algorithm, as is the procedure for collapsing simultaneous events. The three-valued algorithm is also capable of converting portions of the simulation from three-valued to two-valued once stable binary values have been achieved. This permits significant enhancements in the performance of the algorithm. Experimental data shows that, like the two-valued algorithm, the three-valued algorithm is competitive with two-valued levelized compiled code simulation.


Background: The repair of inguinal hernias has seen an evolution over the past few decades and more research on the same is still underway. Though laparoscopy has gained widespread acceptance in today's era of surgery, there is still a debate between laparoscopic and open hernia mesh repair. Methods: A randomized prospective study was conducted in the Department of General Surgery Netaji Subhas Medical College and Hospital,Bihta, Patna, Bihar, India For 8 months to compare laparoscopic hernioplasty and Lichtenstein's open mesh repair. The study consisted of 100 subjects with unilateral or bilateral inguinal hernia and they were randomly allocated into either group. Various parameters like duration of surgery, intra and post-operative complications, post-operative pain, recurrence, stay in the hospital and resumption of daily activities were compared. Results: Out of the 100 patients, 24 had bilateral inguinal hernia and the rest 76 had unilateral. 14 patients with bilateral hernia underwent laparoscopic repair and 10 underwent open mesh repair. 36 patients with unilateral hernia underwent laparoscopic hernioplasty and 40 underwent open mesh repair .The mean operative time for unilateral open hernioplasty was 46.86 mins and bilateral was 91.10 mins whereas, for unilateral laparoscopic hernioplasty it was 65.18 mins and bilateral was 120.55 mins .post-operative complications, like wound infection was noted in 14% (7 out of 50 patients) and 18% had seroma formation (9 out of 50 patients) in the open hernioplasty group. In laparoscopic hernioplasty group, 2% (1) had wound infection but, seroma formation was noted in 12% (6 out of 50 patients). Urinary retention was noted 20 % of open hernioplasty group (10 out of 50) and 6% of laparoscopic hernioplasty group (3 out of 50 patients). Conclusion: Laparoscopic hernioplasty is more beneficial than Lichtenstein's open hernia mesh repair as it is safer, with faster recovery, lesser post-operative complications and reduced morbidity.


We consider routing and wavelength assignment in wavelength-routed all-optical networks (WAN) with circuit switching. The conventional approaches to address this issue consider the two aspects of the problem disjointly by first finding a route from a predetermined set of candidate paths and then searching for an appropriate wavelength assignment. We adopt a more general approach in which we consider all paths between a source-destination (s-d) pair and incorporate network state information into the routing decision. This approach performs routing and wavelength assignment jointly and adaptively, and outperforms fixed routing techniques. We present adaptive routing and wavelength assignment algorithms and evaluate their blocking performance. We obtain an analytical technique to compute approximate blocking probabilities for networks employing fixed and alternate routing. The analysis can also accommodate networks with multiple fibers per link. The blocking performance of the proposed adaptive routing algorithms are compared along with their computational complexity.


A binocular aircraft periscope has been constructed and flight tested. The periscope provided a 70-degree true field of view at a magnification of 1× and mechanically operated azimuth and declination prisms scanned 180 degrees. Flight instruments were included in the field of view. The periscope was installed in the nose of a B-17 aircraft together with a duplicate set of controls. Twenty impartial U. S. Air Force pilots carried out most routine flight operations competently. It is concluded that flight by this type periscope is feasible even by subjects with minimal training.


Abstract Familial dysautonomia (FD) is an autosomal recessive congenital neuropathy that is caused by a mutation in the gene for inhibitor of kappa B kinase complex-associated protein (IKBKAP). Although FD patients suffer from multiple neuropathies, a major debilitation that affects their quality of life is progressive blindness. To determine the requirement for Ikbkap in the developing and adult retina, we generated Ikbkap conditional knockout (CKO) mice using a TUBA1a promoter-Cre (Tα1-Cre). In the retina, Tα1-Cre expression is detected predominantly in retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). At 6 months, significant loss of RGCs had occurred in the CKO retinas, with the greatest loss in the temporal retina, which is the same spatial phenotype observed in FD, Leber hereditary optic neuropathy, and dominant optic atrophy. Interestingly, the melanopsin-positive RGCs were resistant to degeneration. By 9 months, signs of photoreceptor degeneration were observed, which later progressed to panretinal degeneration, including RGC and photoreceptor loss, optic nerve thinning, Müller glial activation, and disruption of layers. Taking these results together, we conclude that although Ikbkap is not required for normal development of RGCs, its loss causes a slow, progressive RGC degeneration most severely in the temporal retina, which is later followed by indirect photoreceptor loss and complete retinal disorganization. This mouse model of FD is not only useful for identifying the mechanisms mediating retinal degeneration, but also provides a model system in which to attempt to test therapeutics that may mitigate the loss of vision in FD patients.


The overall prevalences of microvascular complications and their association with dietary, clinical, and metabolic characteristics have been studied in 503 Mexican type II diabetic subjects. Average daily dietary intakes were 1866 kcal, 46.5% as carbohydrate, 13.7 mmol cholesterol, 8.7 g fiber, and a polyunsaturated/saturated fat ratio of 0.98. Prevalence rates of microvascular and metabolic complications were as follows: background retinopathy 12.3%, exudative retinopathy 24.2%, proliferative retinopathy 8.1% (1% blind, 4% able to read large print only), 9.1% of patients had cataract, 15.9% nephropathy, and 40.8% peripheral neuropathy. In addition, 3.6% had experienced transient lower motor neuron facial paralysis and 0.2% oculomotor paralysis. Patients with retinopathy had a longer mean duration of diabetes, were less obese at the time of examination, and had higher initial and mean blood pressures and higher mean fasting blood glucose levels when compared with those without retinopathy. Similar differences were observed between groups with and without nephropathy except that mean blood glucose levels were similar in the two groups. The presence of peripheral neuropathy was associated with longer duration of diabetes, less obesity, higher mean blood pressure and mean blood glucose levels, and lower hemoglobin concentration. Patients treated with diet alone had significantly lower prevalences of all three microvascular complications but they also had significantly shorter duration of diabetes and lower mean blood glucose levels. However, multivariate analyses on the subgroup of 360 patients who had repeated fasting blood glucose measurements for at least 5 yr demonstrated associations between retinopathy and duration of diabetes, mean blood pressure and mean blood glucose, and percent calories from carbohydrate. Nephropathy was associated with duration, percent calories from carbohydrate, and mean blood pressure. Neuropathy was related to duration, hemoglobin concentration, and mean blood glucose. The significance of these results and dissociation of risk factors for macro- and microvascular disease in this group of patients is discussed.


The purpose of this document is to analyze the Circular Economy (CE) model from the point of view of the resources and capacities of the organization. How is the application of the Circular Economy model related to Strategic Management? At first glance, it seems that the CE is operating within an operational level with a social impact, but it also has implications that allow us to think that it can be used as an internal resource of the company that, if applied in the right way, can become a competitive advantage, in other words, the application of the CE is related to Strategic Management through the point of view based on resources and capabilities. Therefore, the present investigation has a descriptive-correlational nature, which was analyzed through Peng's VRIO framework.


Purpose

Due to the ever increasing concern toward sustainability, suppliers nowadays are evaluated on the basis of environmental performances. The data on supplier's performance are not always available in quantitative form and evaluating supplier on the basis of qualitative data is a challenging task. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the selection of suppliers by evaluating them on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature on sustainability, green supply chain and lean practices related to supplier selection is critically reviewed. Based on this, a two phase fuzzy goal programming approach integrating hyperbolic membership function is proposed to solve the complex supplier selection problem.

Findings

Results obtained through the proposed approach are compared to the traditional models (Jadidi et al., 2014; Ozkok and Tiryaki, 2011; Zimmermann, 1978) of supplier selection and were found to be optimal as it achieves higher aspiration level.

Practical implications

The proposed model is adaptive to solve real world problems of supplier selection as all criteria do not possess the same weights, so the managers can change the criteria and their weights according to their requirement.

Originality/value

This paper provides the decision makers a robust framework to evaluate and select sustainable supplier based on both quantitative and qualitative data. The results obtained through the proposed model achieve greater satisfaction level as compared to those achieved by traditional methods.


Executive Summary

Introduction

• This research about mothers' early experiences of infant feeding was developed following discussions about South Gloucestershire's public health priorities for breastfeeding; current services supporting breastfeeding; and relatively low breastfeeding continuation rates.
Background and context

• Breastfeeding is recognised as the optimal way to feed infants from birth and exclusive breastfeeding is recommended until about six months of age, with the introduction of complementary feeding when babies are developmentally ready, usually around six months.

• The support, promotion and protection of breastfeeding is a national and local priority. In 2014/15, initiation of breastfeeding in South Gloucestershire, was 77.1% while continuation was 47.8%. The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment in 2016, highlighted the need to obtain the views of mothers on their experience of support for breastfeeding.

Research question

• The research question was: What are the experiences of mothers (with a focus on support) in South Gloucestershire in relation to infant feeding in the first 6-8 weeks?

Methods

• The research design adopted a purposive sampling strategy, based on criteria sampling, with mothers that had; experience of breastfeeding in the first 6-8 weeks of their baby's life, a baby up to 6 months of age and were engaged with a Children's Centre. We recruited mothers who met all three criteria.

• Support for the research was obtained from Midwifery, Health Visiting and Children's Centres managers. Baby and Me groups were visited to invite participation; 53 mothers expressed an interest and 24 mothers selected randomly were interviewed. An information sheet, consent form and interview schedule were developed.

• NVivo was used to support data management and analysis in which themes were identified. Data protection requirements were adhered to throughout the research. The research had ethical approval from both South Gloucestershire Council and the University of the West of England.

The findings

Findings from this project suggest that there are three 'critical stages' in supporting a mother to breastfeed and in her experience of breastfeeding; within these the main themes emerging from this research are discussed:

• Support before birth:

o Preparation antenatally for breastfeeding does not prepare women for the reality.
o Many mothers would have liked information about expressing milk and bottle-feeding before they become mothers.

• Support around the time of the birth:

o In hospital, after the birth, some mothers receive conflicting messages and don't always feel supported.
o Birth experience can influence early experiences of breastfeeding.

• Support once at home:

o On return home, Health Visitors are generally perceived as supportive although contact can be minimal.
o Breastfeeding support groups suit some women but are not available when needed.
o Family, friends and other networks are a key source of support and advice for many mothers
o Many women seek support from other sources including online groups and apps although telephone helplines were not much used.

Recommendations

A number of recommendations are made; these are mainly directed towards South Gloucestershire Council but are also of relevance to the wider partnership of health and community and voluntary sector agencies.

Recommendations concern the promotion and protection of breastfeeding; the mental and emotional health and wellbeing of women; consistent evidence-based personal and timely support; mothers awareness of differing professional roles; evaluation of breastfeeding groups and; consistent approach to signposting women to websites, apps and social media; and quality assurance of resources and workforce development.


More accurate machine learning models often demand more computation and memory at test time, making them difficult to deploy on CPU- or memory-constrained devices. Model compression (also known as distillation) alleviates this burden by training a less expensive student model to mimic the expensive teacher model while maintaining most of the original accuracy. However, when fresh data is unavailable for the compression task, the teacher's training data is typically reused, leading to suboptimal compression. In this work, we propose to augment the compression dataset with synthetic data from a generative adversarial network (GAN) designed to approximate the training data distribution. Our GAN-assisted model compression (GAN-MC) significantly improves student accuracy for expensive models such as deep neural networks and large random forests on both image and tabular datasets. Building on these results, we propose a comprehensive metric—the Compression Score—to evaluate the quality of synthetic datasets based on their induced model compression performance. The Compression Score captures both data diversity and discriminability, and we illustrate its benefits over the popular Inception Score in the context of image classification.


The role of women in family businesses is explored in the paper. Although recognised as generally very important players, the role of women is oft en defined as invisible in business decision-making, supportive in men's traditional business domains and only rarely adequately recognised and rewarded. The paper explores possible differences in the views of men and women who manage small family firms. Their attitudes opposing the traditional business roles of women, different views on managerial, ownership and transition issues and possible gender discrimination are examined. The findings support the paradigm of a different, more feminine style of management, while signs of discrimination are not clearly revealed.


The goal of the project is to research new technologies and ways to create high speed and high performance applications in order to deal with GeoSpatial data. The research data set used is GEO-located Tweets. Twitter is chosen for its high data amount, accessibility and because of its relevance to cellular network optimization. Beyond the research part of the project, the end product will be used to increase cellular trace accuracy through the use of the highly accurate GEO-located-Tweets.The result of the final product is showing great potential. An interactive web map rendering 700 million Tweets up to a 10 by 10 meter resolution within seconds, while also allowing the user to pan and navigate the map without any performance issues. The scope of the project includes the entire process, from aggregating Tweets with a Java program, storing them in a PostgreSQL+PostGIS database, creating maps and GIS-files with MapServer, to presenting Maps and serving downloadable files in a Django web application utilizing OpenLayers. The used procedures are explained and justified in great detail throughout this report. All products used in the project are licensed under the open source initiative and are therefore free to use by anyone. The report also includes suggestions, relevant products, research projects and algorithms for future development and research.


Dear Sir, We read the letter to the editor by Meng et al. [1] regarding the randomized controlled trial (RCT) by Ng et al. [2] comparing hand-assisted laparoscopic colectomy (HALC) with total laparoscopic colectomy for right colon cancer published in Colorectal Disease in 2012. We are puzzled by their interpretation of its conclusions, which reported no advantage for HALC. Specifically, we noted that there was no significant difference in surgical site infection (SSI) rates, despite recent evidence suggesting that superficial incision SSI rates following HALC were significantly higher than after open surgery [3]. Moreover, adhesive small bowel obstruction (SBO) was not reported by Ng et al. at the 5-year follow-up, but it seems reasonable to expect higher rates following HALC, which entails direct surgical manipulation of the intra-abdominal organs. We would also like to comment on the use of the term 'total laparoscopic' colectomy referred to by Meng et al. [1] and Ng et al. [2]. In actual fact the approach described by both authors should be referred to as laparoscopic-assisted colectomy, which includes an extracorporeal anastomosis [4]. This is in contrast with the term totally laparoscopic right colectomy with intracorporeal anastomosis, which is well described [5,6].


The idea of community underlies much of the more participative, if not experiential, approaches to management education and development. More recently the idea has entered the conceptual vocabulary of the `learning organization'. The appeal of community lies in its implied promise of solidarity, belonging, and a sense of personal significance. But these promises can mask darker tendencies towards coercion and the assimilation of differences. This article offers a critique of the notion of community. It proposes an alternative basis for a management pedagogy in which differences are the grounds for debate, dispute and understanding, rather than the reason for assimilation or exclusion.


ABSTRACT The inter-slot radiometric discrepancy (IRD) causes serious inconsistency in geostationary ocean colour imager (GOCI) radiometric products across the neighbouring slots. An accurate IRD correction is essential for generating operational ocean colour products, but it remains a challenging task because of its dynamic variation irrespective of sensor's optical mechanism. The IRD is caused due to the variation in time, location, viewing geometry, and electrical sensitivity of the sensor, which result in a radiometric discontinuity in the radiance distribution between the slot images observed at the top of atmosphere (TOA). Atmospheric correction of erroneous TOA radiance (Lt, Level-1 product) leads to noisy and degraded remote-sensing reflectance (Rrs, Level-2 product) products that limit ocean colour work. To improve the quality of Level-2 products (such as Rrs and chlorophyll), radiometric bias caused due to the IRD error in Level-1 product level needs to be removed. In the present study, a practical method for correcting the IRD effects is developed and tested on several GOCI radiometric products. The method is applied to TOA radiance data from all the slots based on a variable gain factor (). The gain factors for every slot are calculated with linear statistical and Lagrangian interpolation methods and applied consistently across the slot images provided by the GOCI sensor. In the absence of in situ data for these chosen images, GOCI results are compared with the corresponding MODIS-Aqua data. The proposed method is found to be effective in terms of reducing the radiance discontinuity for different slot pairs of the GOCI image, with mean relative differences of less than 0.1% and 2% for the Level-1 and Level-2 products, respectively. Despite its successful application to GOCI data, this method can be extended to similar sensors which rely on the slot-wise reception of ocean colour information over a large area.


Execution of applications on upcoming high-performance computing (HPC) systems introduces a variety of new challenges and amplifies many existing ones. These systems will be composed of a large number of "fat" nodes, where each node consists of multiple processors on a chip with symmetric multithreading capabilities, interconnected via high-performance networks. Traditional system software for parallel computing considers these chip multiprocessors (CMPs) as arrays of symmetric multiprocessing cores, when in fact there are fundamental differences among them. Opportunities for optimization on CMPs are lost using this approach. We show that support for fine-grained parallelism coupled with an integrated approach for scheduling of compute and communication tasks is required for efficient execution on this architecture. We propose Phoenix, a runtime system designed specifically for execution on CMP architectures to address the challenges of performance and programmability for upcoming HPC systems. An implementation of message passing interface (MPI) atop Phoenix is presented. Micro-benchmarks and a production MPI application are used to highlight the benefits of our implementation vis-à-vis traditional MPI implementations on CMP architectures.


This research proposes an Iterative Dynamic Programming (IDP) algorithm that generates an optimal supervisory control policy for Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) considering transient powertrain dynamics. The proposed algorithm tries to solve the 'curse of dimensionality and the 'curse of modeling' of conventional Dynamic Programming (DP). The proposed IDP algorithm iteratively updates the DP formulation using a machine learning (ML) based powertrain model. The ML model is recursively trained using the outputs from the driving cycle simulation with a high-fidelity model. Once the reduced model converges to the high-fidelity model accuracy, the resulting control policy yields a 9.1% Fuel Economy (FE) improvement compared to the baseline non-predictive rule-based control for the UDDS driving cycle. A conventional DP control strategy based on a quasi-static powertrain model and a perfect preview of future power demand yields 14.2% FE improvement. However, the FE improvement reduces to 5.7% when the policy is validated with the high-fidelity model. It is concluded that capturing the transient powertrain dynamics is critical to generating a realistic fuel economy prediction and relevant powertrain control policy. The proposed IDP strategy employs targeted state-space exploration to leverage the improving state trajectory from previous iterations. Compared to conventional fixed state-space sampling methods, this method improves the accuracy of the DP policy against discretization error. It also significantly reduces the computational load of the relatively high number of states of the transient powertrain model.


The laboratory report is a core assessment task in undergraduate science curricula that challenges students to concisely report laboratory activities using appropriate, discipline-specific genre conventions as well as integrating readings into their writing. In a crowded curriculum with a diverse student population, an online approach was developed to address supporting students in their writing in the discipline of physiology. A collaborative team comprising discipline staff, language and learning specialists and IT pedagogical designers came together to design, develop and implement the online report writing resource known as FLERT (Flexible Electronic Report writing Tool). FLERT is comprised of two interactive components: a literacy component and a discipline-specific component. Both are structured in a format similar to that of a laboratory report. While writing, students can move between report sections in FLERT as they perceive the need. This paper reports on the collaborative design and development approach of the team, the implementation process and evaluation of FLERT. Overall, users found both components of FLERT user-friendly and easy to navigate. Students rated the site strongly in terms of their increased understanding and confidence in report writing and content understanding. Students who used FLERT had significantly higher report marks than non-users.


OBJECTIVE
To compare, in a 4-week clinical trial, the efficacy of class 1 Elastic Compression Stockings (pressure at the ankle 10 to 15 mmHg) to that of Placebo Stockings (pressure at the ankle 3 to 6 mmHg) in women consulting in general practice for mild, symptomatic, chronic venous insufficiency of the lower limbs.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
This was a 4-week multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted on two parallel groups of patients presenting with mild chronic venous insufficiency grade C(1-3S) E(p) A(S1-5) according to the CEAP classification. Treatment efficacy was assessed by the following criteria: global impairment as assessed at each visit on a visual analogue scale (primary efficacy parameter), Quality of Life measured by the CIVIQ questionnaire, symptoms index (sum of individual scores for pain, limb heaviness, paresthesias, cramps and evening limb oedema), limb volume measured by volumetry, and the evolution of global impairment during the course of the trial as assessed by repeated auto-evaluations on visual analogue scales. Compliance was assessed by the number of days patients wore the stockings for at least ten hours per day. Treatment tolerability was assessed by the record of the possible adverse events.

RESULTS
Three hundred and forty one patients were included in total. Statistically significant differences were observed on global score of quality of life in favour of class 1 Elastic Compression Stockings group. In the subgroup of patients with evening limb oedema at inclusion, the decrease of limb volume noted with class 1 Elastic Compression Stockings was all the more marked that evening limb oedema was more pronounced at baseline. A good compliance was observed in 76% to 80% of patients according to the treatment group. Tolerability of class 1 Elastic Compression Stockings was comparable to that of the Placebo Stockings.

CONCLUSIONS
After four weeks of treatment, compression with class 1 Elastic Compression Stockings allows a statistically significant improvement of Quality of Life and a decreasing of limb oedema in patients presenting with mild chronic venous insufficiency of the lower limbs. Moreover, the tolerability of class 1 Elastic Compression Stockings was confirmed by the high level of patient compliance.


We focus on the stock price reaction to convertible bond offering made by financial institutions and find that the cumulative abnormal return over the three day interval around convertible bond issuance is 1.41 percentage higher than that for non-financial institutions. This result supports our hypothesis that since financials are heavily regulated, the market is less likely to assume that the issuance of convertible bond by financials signals information that are overvalued. Our results remain robust after controlling for a number of firm-, issue-, and market-specific characteristics as well as the level of short selling pressure induced by convertible bond arbitrageurs.


ABSTRACT Regular moderate physical activity (PA) has been linked to beneficial adaptations in various somatic diseases (e.g. cancer, endocrinological disorders) and a reduction in all-cause mortality from several cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric diseases. This study was designed to investigate acute and prolonged exercise-induced cardio- and neurophysiological responses in endurance runners competing in the Munich Marathon. ReCaP (Running effects on Cognition and Plasticity) is a multimodal and longitudinal experimental study. This study included 100 participants (20–60 years). Six laboratory visits were included during the 3-month period before and the 3-month period after the Munich marathon. The multimodal assessment included laboratory measurements, cardiac and cranial imaging (MRI scans, ultrasound/echocardiography) and neurophysiological methods (EEG and TMS/tDCS), and vessel-analysis (e.g. retinal vessels and wave-reflection analyses) and neurocognitive measurements. The ReCaP study was designed to examine novel exercise-induced cardio- and neurophysiological responses to marathon running at the behavioral, functional and morphological levels. This study will expand our understanding of exercise-induced adaptations and will lead to more individually tailored therapeutic options.