The purpose of this paper is to comprehend the competency and competency models at workplace settings, its significance to human resource development in terms of knowledge, skills and abilities. In the management literature, the competency based approach has grown through McClelland (1973) seminal paper "testing for competencies rather than intelligence" as to argue the traditional approach to measure performance using aptitude and content test. Evidence had also indicated that competency can lead to effective job performance. The practice of competency base approach has resulted with the expansion of term, models of specific profession also the application. This paper discusses the previous competency literature with greater interest on the field of competency, competency models and technical vocational education and training in Malaysia specific for vocational teaching profession. This study suggests that competency modelling can contribute to the effectiveness of vocational teacher education and to address competency gaps issues. Competency modelling for vocational teaching is still is in its infancy however the lack of competent teachers is a challenge for Malaysia to reach a better income levels in future.


The author examines the experience of various economic groupings of African countries with regard to unrestricted migration among member countries. After an introduction Section II "examines the nature of labour mobility (migration) during the colonial period. Section III is devoted to an analysis of the provisions for free labour movement/mobility within some African regional economic groupings. The nature and pattern of labour migration is looked at in section IV. In section V the effects or impact of labour migration on national and regional economies are examined. Section VI attempts an analysis of the socio-economic problems which arise from labour mobility. In section VII some substantial issues are examined. The final section attempts to formulate some policy recommendations." (EXCERPT)


The authors believe that the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court contains serious breaches of EU law and is manifestly erroneous. The German judges refuse to apply the CJEU's judgment and arrogate the power to assess the legality of European Central Bank (ECB) decisions and to review the reasoning of the CJEU, which they qualify as being 'unintelligible and arbitrary' for the sole purpose of declaring it 'ultra vires'. They use the principle of proportionality in a legally incorrect way, ignoring the difference in scope between the latter and the principle of conferral. They make highly questionable use of the principle of democracy and of economic analysis to assess the merits of ECB decisions. A careful analysis of the judgment leads us to wish for the initiation of an infringement procedure.
Breach of EU law by the judiciary conferral, democratic principle, dialogue between courts, EU competences, infringement procedure, manifest error, primacy, proportionality, ultravires


The glassy state and the character of the liquid-glass transition from undercooled liquid to amorphous solid is one of the biggest challenges of our time. In spite of significant progress we still cannot explain accurately the sudden solidification of undercooled liquids on the atomic scale. In the present paper we present an analytical theory of the dependence of the glass transition temperature on the rate of cooling: the glass transition temperature increases with increasing cooling rate but does not exceed some upper limit. At almost zero cooling rates (hypothetical reversible transformation of the liquid into glass) the glass transition temperature reduces to a critical temperature, similar to a phase transition temperature.


Evaporative air cooler is an effective device in cooling private houses in Iraq, and used commonly in this country for many reasons, the mean one is due to the lack in power supply. An evaporative cooler of 5000 cfm capacity (8500 m3/hr.) was studied under extremely hot Iraqi weather. The outdoor temperature was varied from 30 to 60oC, while the outdoor relative humid was varied from 10 to 60%. The results showed that Relative humidity affect both effectiveness and exergy efficiency more than another key variables, the exergy of water circulated in evaporator cooler was spend in destruction the exergy of hot air. The more destruction in exergy through evaporative cooler gives the higher exergy efficiency. The exergy efficiency of the cooler was deteriorated significantly in hot and humid weather.


Abstract This article confronts present main stream planning approaches against the perspective of ecological sustainability, as relevant for Rule of Law countries and based on a modern environmental law approach. It discusses the setting and implementation of environmental goals against the general experience of massive implementation deficits regarding environmental policies all over the world. In this confrontation, environmental planning, with at least some principles picked up from New Zealand's Resource Management Act, and much more taken from modern environmental law theory on legal operationalisation, is compared to adaptive management approaches which also allow for modifying the environment related goal if implementation fails or seems very difficult. The concept of adaptive environmental planning (AEP) is suggested as a possible road to choose for planning for sustainability, while maximizing development within the framework legally defined by means of environmental limits. This article presents five criteria, all of which must be met by AEP planning. One of these relates to a planning hierarchy which, among other things, leads to the conclusion that coastal planning, if it is intended to aim at sustainability, can not be dealt with in isolation, although such planning might have to meet very complex problems at the regional level.


This article  is a preliminary concept of a research on the company specific advantage. A study on sustainable competitive advantage is a study which attracts researchers on doing strategic mangemen and marketing management researchs, since its potency to explore how long term company performance can be produced and increased. Most studies focus on the advantage from the point view of company resources basic,  and only  few of them explore competitive advantage of end user.  The concept of business strategy, recently, refers to what customer's need, hope and feel, on the contrary,   the source of short term characteristic advantage only focuses on the result and options that are achieved in the certain time. While,  competitive strategic advantage, with long-term customer's orientation,  focuses on the future goal and concentrates in the present and future result. The basic implementation and formula of strategy is a process and mechanism of how company achieves and maintains sustainable benefit


The source coding scheme for the experimental research prototype that is currently being designed to demonstrate the digital coding of high-definition television (HDTV) for transport within the proposed broadband integrated services digital network (ISDN) fiber optic network is described. The network interface will be used on a packet-based asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology. To maximize coding efficiency, run-length coding and variable word length coding are also incorporated in the system. The scheme uses multiple block-size Hadamard transform coding that can be implemented using a set of two-tap filters in a simple subband structure. In spite of the low hardware complexity, which is of dominant importance in the overall system performance, high coding efficiency is obtained. The major features and advantages of this scheme are outlined. >


This research sets out to test the hypothesis that the UK
government has succeeded in playing a gatekeeper role over
the domestic impact of main instrument of European Union
(EU) regional policy, the European Regional Development Fund
(ERDF)
In relation to the domestic financial impact, this research
examines the UK government's implementation of the EU
principle of additionality: that EU regional funds should be
spent in addition to planned domestic expenditure.
In relation to the domestic political impact, consideration
is given to both additionality and the implementation of the
EU principle that regional funds should be administered by
partnerships involving national governments, subnational
actors and the Commission.
While this research traces the development of the ERDF from
its origins, the primary concern is with developments after
the 1988 reform of the structural funds. In this reform,
the allocation of funding doubled, the additionality
requirement was strengthened; and the partnership principle
was introduced.
It was found that despite the sustained and sometimes
collaborative efforts of the Commission and subnational
actors to undermine the role of UK national government in
the implementation of EU regional policy, these efforts have
thus far met with limited success.
While this findings may inform existing theories of EU
regional policy-making, this thesis argues that existing
theories are too general to guide case studies of single
government action such as this. Moreover, existing theories
tend to focus on EU-level decision-making and neglect the
importance of implementation in shaping policy outcomes.
This thesis concludes by proposing a new framework for
analysing the role played by a single national government
over specific EU policy issues, throughout the policy
process. The framework outlined is described as the
'Extended Gatekeeper' approach.


Federated learning (FL) is a training technique that enables client devices to jointly learn a shared model by aggregating locally computed models without exposing their raw data. While most of the existing work focuses on improving the FL model accuracy, in this paper, we focus on the improving the training efficiency, which is often a hurdle for adopting FL in real world applications. Specifically, we design an efficient FL framework which jointly optimizes model accuracy, processing latency and communication efficiency, all of which are primary design considerations for real implementation of FL. Inspired by the recent success of Multi Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) in solving complex control problems, we present FedMarl, a federated learning framework that relies on trained MARL agents to perform efficient run-time client selection. Experiments show that FedMarl can significantly improve model accuracy with much lower processing latency and communication cost.


The paper distinguishes different approaches to markets in, and affecting, rural sub-Saharan Africa, and present some associated policies, notably 'market-friendly' and 'market-challenging'. We then propose a political economy approach as a more satisfactory way of grasping the complex social dynamics of 'real markets' and their forms of unequal power. This is illustrated in relation to the class differentiation of 'small farmers' and its effects for rural 'livelihood diversification'.


The licensing and registration status of offenders and firearms used in homicide are examined using data held as part of the National Homicide Monitoring Program. The findings of the report show that since 1997 licensed firearm owners have not been responsible for over 90 per cent of firearm related homicides. Most firearms used to commit homicide were not registered and their owners not licensed.


The accountability relationships that surround the operations of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are a key feature of global politics. These institutions continue to face criticism from both state and non-state actors over perceived 'democratic deficit', and yet the frameworks that we use to investigate the politics of accountability in international organisations (IOs) remain underdeveloped. By integrating the insights of rationalist and constructivist approaches to the study of IOs, this thesis provides clarifications to the conceptual tools available to analysts working in this field. In addition, through a dual focus on the politics of shareholder and stakeholder accountability at the Bank and Fund, important empirical advances are made over previous works. By placing contemporary developments in their historical context, a detailed picture is drawn of the dynamics surrounding shareholder states' attempts to control these IOs, and of the processes through which relationships between IO staff and in-country stakeholders are reformed. The thesis closes by exploring the fruitful cross-pollination between the analysis of the politics of accountability and broader works on cosmopolitan global governance, concluding that through such a combination the former can be better 'put to work', and the real- world tractability of the latter can be enhanced.


The goal of unsupervised domain adaptation is to learn a task classifier that performs well for the unlabeled target domain by borrowing rich knowledge from a well-labeled source domain. Although remarkable breakthroughs have been achieved in learning transferable representation across domains, two bottlenecks remain to be further explored. First, many existing approaches focus primarily on the adaptation of the entire image, ignoring the limitation that not all features are transferable and informative for the object classification task. Second, the features of the two domains are typically aligned without considering the class labels; this can lead the resulting representations to be domain-invariant but non-discriminative to the category. To overcome the two issues, we present a novel Informative Class-Conditioned Feature Alignment (IC2FA) approach for UDA, which utilizes a twofold method: informative feature disentanglement and class-conditioned feature alignment, designed to address the above two challenges, respectively. More specifically, to surmount the first drawback, we cooperatively disentangle the two domains to obtain informative transferable features; here, Variational Information Bottleneck (VIB) is employed to encourage the learning of task-related semantic representations and suppress task-unrelated information. With regard to the second bottleneck, we optimize a new metric, termed Conditional Sliced Wasserstein Distance (CSWD), which explicitly estimates the intra-class discrepancy and the inter-class margin. The intra-class and inter-class CSWDs are minimized and maximized, respectively, to yield the domain-invariant discriminative features. IC2FA equips class-conditioned feature alignment with informative feature disentanglement and causes the two procedures to work cooperatively, which facilitates informative discriminative features adaptation. Extensive experimental results on three domain adaptation datasets confirm the superiority of IC2FA.


BACKGROUND
Collaborative learning is a widely used approach where students gather in small groups to solve problems and develop skills. However, grouping students is not always effective, and it may be necessary to provide task-specific collaborative experiences to optimize their interactions for subsequent learning tasks.

AIMS
To test this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment with 90 Ecuadorian students in their mathematics class.

SAMPLE
Participants were 90 Ecuadorian students (average age = 13.80 years, SD = .70; 48.89% female) from a private school in Sangolquí, who participated as part of their mathematics class.

METHOD
The experiment consisted of four phases: preparation, learning, retention one-day testing, and delayed seven-day testing. In the preparation phase, 15 triads received guidance on working collaboratively with quadratic equations (i.e., experienced groups), while 45 other individual learners worked independently. In the learning phase, 15 experienced triads and 45 individual learners (who were later divided into 15 non-experienced triads) received a new learning task in the domain of economics, precisely the break-even point.

RESULTS
The experienced group outperformed the non-experienced group in the retention one-day test, investing less mental effort and demonstrating greater efficiency. However, there was no significant difference in the delayed one-week test. We analysed the interactions of the groups and found that experienced groups exhibited more cognitive, fewer regulatory, an equal number of emotional interactions, and fewer task-unrelated interactions than the non-experienced groups.

CONCLUSIONS
Providing task-specific collaborative experiences can reduce the cognitive load associated with transactional activities and increase learning in new tasks.


Abstract:
Introduction: Presently, the use of Eurycoma longifolia Jack (ELJ) (Tongkat Ali) has increased dramatically in Southeast Asia especially Malaysia where it is widely used as aphrodisiac and anti-malarial agent. Interestingly, its consumption has become popular in daily life as beverage to enhance energy and stamina especially among males. However, its effect on the safety of vital organs of the body has not been studied adequately. Hence, the main objective of this study was to determine whether or not long-term consumption of ELJ has side effects on the vital organs such as Pancreas, Liver and Kidney in rats. Materials and methods: Three different concentrations of aqueous extract of ELJ were prepared and dissolved in distilled water. A total of 32 Sprague-Dawley male rats were used and randomly divided into three test groups and control. The test groups were given different doses (low dose 250 mg/kg bw, medium dose 500mg/kg bw and high dose 1000 mg/kg bw) of aqueous extract of ELJ, respectively. Control group was given distilled water alone. Doses were given orally and daily for 5 weeks. After 5 weeks, animals were sacrificed; whole liver tissues were obtained, fixed in 10 percent formaldehyde overnight for histological examination. Result: Histological observations showed mild to moderate degrees of hemorrhage, hepatocytes degeneration and severe fatty changes in liver tissue of the test groups treated with ELJ as compared to control. Conclusion: In conclusion, the long-term daily consumption of ELJ in large quantity as beverage may cause fatty changes, hemorrhage and hepatocytes degeneration in the liver tissue. The Pancreatic tissues on the three groups treated with different concentration doses do not show any fatty changes or inflammation in the treated groups.


This thesis is focused on the study of techniques that allow to have reliable transmission of multimedia content in streaming and broadcasting applications, targeting in particular video content. The design of efficient error-control mechanisms, to enhance video transmission systems reliability, has been addressed considering cross-layer and multi-layer/multi-dimensional channel coding techniques to cope with bit errors as well as packet erasures. Mechanisms for unequal time interleaving have been designed as a viable solution to reduce the impact of errors and erasures by acting on the time diversity of the data flow, thus enhancing robustness against correlated channel impairments. In order to account for the nature of the factors which affect the physical layer channel in the evaluation of FEC schemes performances, an ad-hoc error-event modeling has been devised. In addition, the impact of error correction/protection techniques on the quality perceived by the consumers of video services applications and techniques for objective/subjective quality evaluation have been studied. The applicability and value of the proposed techniques have been tested by considering practical constraints and requirements of real system implementations.


Generally, it is considered that the products have five phases in their life cycle, namely, introduction, growth, maturity, saturation and decline. But with the rapid advancement of technology and globalization, the product life has dwindled. This paper studies the life cycle of the products whose life cycle has been reduced to only three phases. The life cycle of the various products especially electronic goods (mobile phones) has been studied and it has been observed that life span of these products has been reduced drastically. Another observation is that the introduction and the growth phase have been clubbed into one. Many of the products either will have the growth in the initial part of their life cycle or will be unable to survive, so there is no possibility of the other phases of life cycle. This study formulates a model for the products having only three phases of the life cycle and having a very short life span. While the earlier models have considered five phases of product life cycle with longer duration. The mathematical model considered here has only three phases of life cycle which matches with the life cycles of the electronics products, whose demand increases rapidly during the growth period and declines exponentially during the decline phase.


The present research proposes methodology and mathematical models for optimisation of inspection and maintenance in complex multicomponent systems with finite planning horizon. Components are classified by failure types: hard-type and soft-type. The systems analysed are composed of either multiple identical hidden soft-type components in k-out-of-n redundant configuration, or a combination of hard-type and hidden soft-type components. Failures of hard-type components cause system failures. Failures of components in k-out-of-n systems and soft-type component failures are hidden and not discoverable until an inspection, but reduce the system's reliability and performance. The systems are inspected either periodically, or non-periodically. They are also inspected opportunistically at the times of system failure (occurring at (k – n + 1)st component failures in k-out-of-n systems, or at hard failures in the systems composed of hard-type and soft-type components). Inspections have negligible duration. All components may undergo minimal repair, or corrective replacement, with hard-type components also having a possibility of preventive replacement under periodic inspections. We only consider minimal repair and corrective replacement under non-periodic inspections.

We propose several models for joint optimisation of inspection and maintenance policies that result in the lowest total expected cost. Since soft failures are hidden, we generate expected values for the number of minimal repairs, number of replacements and downtime recursively. Due to multiple component interactions and system complexity, Monte Carlo simulation and genetic algorithms (GA) are used for optimisation. Using GA for optimisation allows to consider quasi-continuous inspection intervals due to improved computational efficiency compared to Monte Carlo simulation. Some of proposed models feature preventive component replacements and are applicable even for systems with hidden component failures.

For k-out-of-n systems, we apply periodic model to series and parallel systems and compare the results. We provide expressions for expected number of system failures in terms of cost ratio and component failure intensity. We also provide a simplified expression for system reliability. In addition, we derive a formula for finding the planning horizon length based on expected number of system failures. It may be useful for planning the system's operating horizon, at the system design stage and when analysing its performance.


The present contribution reviews two of the most prominent and recent models of metaphor, one rather traditionally linguistic (interactive property attribution), the other cognitive (conceptual metaphor). By contrasting and comparing them the paper attempts a synthesis, which is to demonstrate the closeness and compatibility of the two approaches. Two small extensions seek to apply the methodological insights gained from the review of the theories to diachronic lexicology and to multimodal text analysis. Two major points emerge from those short applications. First, conceptual metaphor theory can make transparent what language development obscures in the process of semantic de-motivation. Second, metaphorical expressions intricately and densely interconnect in text and discourse to act as a powerful text-generating principle, which is also suited to connect various semiotic modes, e.g. picture and language.


Objective: To determine the possibilities of analysis of erythropoietin (EPO) in amniotic fluid as a parameter independent of gestational age and subjective interpretations upon making a distinction between IUGR and constitutionally small fetuses. Methods: Prospective clinical study was conducted on 38 pregnancies with fetuses small for gestational age. Small for gestational age fetuses (SGA) have been defined as both estimated fetal weight and neonatal body weight beyond 10th percentile for our population. The study group was divided into two subgroups: constitutionally small fetuses, n = 16 (42.11%) and growth restricted fetuses, n = 22 (57.89%). The diagnosis of both, constitutionally small and growth restricted fetuses, were based upon standard criteria (fetal biometry as well as AFI and Doppler evaluation). Amniotic fluid samples were collected in all pregnancies in order to evaluate EPO levels, by amniocenthesis for determination of lung maturity, maximum 48 hours before delivery Results: EPO concentration was higher in growth restricted fetuses compared to constitutionally small fetuses showing high statistical significance (p < 0.01). ROC analysis for EPO values comparing growth restricted fetuses and constitutionally small fetuses has the best result at the level of 9.8 IU/L. This cut-off point has sensitivity of 81%, specificity of 80%, PPV 81.2% and NPV 88.4%. Neonates with EPO concentrations above 9.8 IU/l were more frequent admitted to the NICU and concentrations of EPO showed statistical significance (p < 0.05) comparing to those without admittance at NICU. Conclusions: There is a difference in amniotic fluid EPO concentrations between growth restricted and constitutionally small fetuses. Concerning the fact that EPO production is independent of gestational age, EPO concentrations may be used as a distinction between the pathologically and physiologically small for gestational age fetuses when amniocentesis is done for the detection of fetal lung maturity or rapid karyotypisation


Sir: I read with interest the article by Butterworth and Bisset' on the occurence of cribriform change in the epididymis associated with hyperplasia of the rete testis and testicular atrophy. I am a consultant in toxicological pathology and have the opportunity to evaluate the testes and epididymis from a range of laboratory animals of varying ages. I would like to comment on both the observations and associations that the above authors have made with regard to these lesions. In rats, mice and dogs I have seen epididyrnal changes, identical to those they describe, under four differing circumstances: first, in association with idiopathic testicular atrophy (rats and mice): secondly, in cases of unilateral cryptorchidism (rats only): thirdly, in cases of drug-induced testicular atrophy (both rats and dogs), and occasionally in dogs with no microscopic testicular abnormalities. Hyperplastic changes in the rete testis are seen less frequently and I cannot make any real conclusions as to their association with testicular atrophy in these species. In bulls, similar changes have been seen in association with testicular degeneration' but MawdesleyThomas and Urwin3 noted them, without any evidence of testicular pathology, in three of 4000 beagle dogs. I am unable to give an exact figure, but my own experience of its incidence would be of the same order. From the data available, including those from druginduced testicular atrophy, it seems that the epididymal changes described occur most commonly in association with testicular pathology, possibly, as hypothesized by Butterworth and Bisset' , due to local hormonal changes. At least in dogs however, cribriform intratubular epididymal changes (intra-epithelial lumina) may be seen in the absence of light-microscopic testicular alterations.


Radiographic evidence of asymmetrical enlargement of the left atrium without atrial infarction is presented. Giant atrial enlargement is rarely symmetrical, the atrial appendage can contribute to the enlargement, and the giant atrium can be effectively trimmed. This will reduce its size and, therefore, the space which it occupies, and will restore the anatomical relations of neighbouring structures such as the main bronchi.


The aim of this study was to investigate the genetic variability among early-maturing and extremely early-maturing corn cultivars in relation to grain productivity, crude protein content and amino acid profile to obtain future crosses of cultivars with improved nutritional characteristics. Data from two experiments, which were both conducted in randomized block design and three replicates. Thirty-six early-maturing and 22 extremely early-maturing cultivars were evaluated of the experiments. Grain productivity, crude protein, lysine, methionine, cysteine, threonine, tryptophan, valine, isoleucine, leucine, phenylalanine, histidine and arginine were evaluated. Analysis of variance was performed for each variable and means were compared by Scott-Knott test. Mahalanobis generalized distance matrix was calculated, and the cultivars were grouped using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA). A dendrogram was then constructed, and the cophenetic correlation coefficient was calculated. The group means were compared using the t-test for independent samples. Genetic variability was detected in 13 variables for both maturity groups. For the early-maturing and extremely early-maturing cultivars, five and four groupings were obtained, respectively, based on grain productivity, crude protein content and amino acid profile, indicating that the crossbreeding of these cultivars may be used to improve the grain protein content and amino acid profile.

 Key words: Zea mays L., genetic variability, nutritional variability, clustering analysis, near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy.


The pharmacological properties of cholinergic receptors on the cell body membrane of the fast coxal depressor motoneurone (D f ) of the cockroach ( Periplaneta americana ) have been investigated. Parallel dose-response curves were obtained for the depolarizing actions of four bath-applied agonists, with the following order of effectiveness: nicotine>acetylcholine (ACh), in the presence of 1.0×10 −7 M neostigmine>carbamylcholine>tetramethylammonium. By contrast, dimethyl-4-phenyl piperazinium, suberyldicholine, D,L-muscarine, oxotremorine, acetyl-β-methylcholine and sebacinylcholine were practically ineffective. Of the three putative receptor-specific ligands used to date in binding studies on insect CNS tissues, α-bungarotoxin (α-BGTX) was much more effective (I 50 = 6.4×10 −8 M) in blocking the depolarization resulting from ionophoretic application of ACh, than either quinuclidinyl benzilate (QNB) (I 50 = 1.6×10 −4 M) or decamethonium (I 50 × 2.8×10 −3 M). The order of effectiveness of ligands that were particularly effective in blocking ACh depolarization was α-BGTX>α-cobratoxin (α-COTX)>mecamylamine>dihydro-)β-erythroidine>benzoquinonium. Less potent and almost equally effective were atropine, d -tubocurarine, pancuronium and quinuclidinyl benzilate. Even less effective were hexamethonium, gallamine, decamethonium and succinylcholine, all requiring concentrations of 1.0×10 −3 M and higher to produce a significant block of the ACh response. Not all reversibly acting antagonists were equally effective in preventing irreversible block of the ACh-induced depolarization by α-BGTX. Whereas α-COTX protected the receptors, mecamylamine did not. With the cell body of D f voltage-clamped, the degree of antagonism of the ACh-induced current was assessed at potentials in the range −120 mV to −60 mV. α-BGTX, dihydro-β-erythroidine, benzoquinonium, QNB and decamethonium appeared to be voltage-independent over this potential range, whereas d -tubocurarine and atropine were strongly voltage-dependent in their blocking actions. Sites of action of cholinergic antagonists at the insect ACh receptor/ion channel complex are discussed.


Ceres, Pablo (Ph.D., Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder) Mechanism of Riboswitch Regulatory Domains and Application for Developing Novel Biosensors Thesis directed by Professor Robert T. Batey Riboswitches are structural elements of gene control located in the 5'untranslated region of some mRNAs capable of regulating the expression of important genes. The mode of regulation occurs by binding a cellular metabolite if its concentration excess a threshold and controlling genes involved in the biogenesis or transport of this ligand. A common riboswitch is composed of two functionally distinct units: i) the aptamer domain, which recognizes and binds the cellular metabolite and ii) an expression platform responsible for interaction with the cellular machinery and control of gene production. The aptamer domain of riboswitches confers high degree of affinity and specificity towards the correct ligand. This binding event rearranges the secondary structure of the expression platform, which in turn allows regulation of gene expression. Riboswitch genetic control is observed in the three domains of life. However, it is most important in bacteria. Previously, the characterization of riboswitches has focused on the biophysical study of different aptamer domains and the changes that occur when the ligand binds the RNA. These studies have revealed the intricate recognition of essentially every functional group of a diverse set of cellular metabolites by RNAs. However, the signal transduction from the aptamer domain to the expression platform remains uncharacterized. Most importantly, the secondary structural switch that an expression platform undergoes has been reduced to a simple variation of secondary interactions. In this dissertation, I have functionally characterized, both in vitro and in vivo, two different riboswitches in their entirety, demonstrating novel findings about the regulatory response of these riboregulators. The results show that small secondary structures formed within the expression platform are important for gene control and that the ability of the switching mechanism is innate within this domain (independent of ligand presence). The application of these learned principles of riboswitch regulation for the development of novel RNA-based biosensors has also been accomplished. To establish engineering strategies capable of developing general, reliable, and modular RNA devices, I mixed and matched natural and SELEX-derived (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) aptamers with a variation of natural expression platforms. These engineered riboswitches are functional in vitro and in E. coli, and present a new avenue to control cellular regulation for different applications including synthetic biology.


Iron‐sulfur cluster proteins are involved in critical functions for gene expression regulation and mitochondrial bioenergetics including the oxidative phosphorylation system. The c.215G>A p.(Arg72Gln) variant in NFS1 has been previously reported to cause infantile mitochondrial complex II and III deficiency. We describe three additional unrelated patients with the same missense variant. Two infants with the same homozygous variant presented with hypotonia, weakness and lactic acidosis, and one patient with compound heterozygous p.(Arg72Gln) and p.(Arg412His) variants presented as a young adult with gastrointestinal symptoms and fatigue. Skeletal muscle biopsy from patients 1 and 3 showed abnormal mitochondrial morphology, and functional analyses demonstrated decreased activity in respiratory chain complex II and variably in complexes I and III. We found decreased mitochondrial and cytosolic aconitase activities but only mildly affected lipoylation of pyruvate dehydrogenase and 2‐oxoglutarate dehydrogenase enzymes. Our studies expand the phenotypic spectrum and provide further evidence for the pathogenicity and functional sequelae of NFS1‐related disorders with disturbances in both mitochondrial and cytosolic iron–sulfur cluster containing enzymes.


OBJECTIVE--To examine specific lymphocyte or neuronal antigens immuno-precipitated by systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) sera. METHOD--SLE sera were screened for the presence of antibodies binding to surface antigens of CD4(+) HUT-78 or SK-N-SH and IMR-6 neuroblastoma cells using Western blotting or radioimmunoprecipitation. RESULTS--IgG eluates from both lymphocytes and neuroblastoma cells recognised a 52 kd band in HUT 78 cell lysates. Eight sera studied further using radioimmunoprecipitation also demonstrated binding to a 52 kd antigen (4/8 on HUT-78, 8/8 on SK-N-SH cells), partially depleted by absorption with viable HUT-78. CONCLUSION--A 52 kd antigen recognised by SLE sera on lymphocytes and neuronal cells may play a role in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric-SLE.


This introductory chapter discusses the importance of water to humans, its growing scarcity relative to human populations, and, consequently, the increasing potential for water-related conflicts between States. Humans are straining the limits of a resource essential to their survival. Moreover, humans are capable of altering natural conditions to the point that their neighbors are deprived of fresh water they need and have historically relied upon. While international law plays an important role in resolving conflicts between states, it can play an even more valuable role in preventing them, in establishing conditions that are conducive to cooperation among states sharing freshwater resources. Indeed, cooperation is itself a logical outgrowth of rules of international law applicable in this field.


Anodizing is widely used in the surface treatment of aluminium alloys in order to preserve the integrity of the alloy surface, to minimize the need for maintenance and repair, and to maximize the component life. The aim of this work is to study the influence heat treatments (T5 and T6) have on the anodization of A357 aluminium alloy produced by a Thixocasting process. In particular the effect of shape, size and distribution of silicon and intermetallic phases on the anodic oxide film formation. SEM and EDS analyses were used to examine the microstructural features found on, within and under the anodic oxide layer. Experiments using a tribometer (pin-on-disc tests) were performed in order to evaluate the friction and wear properties of the different layers.


This paper discusses the results of a long-term memory study in which fifty visitors to Expo 67 (25 participants from British Columbia and 25 from Quebec) shared their recollections of their personal experience forty years after the event. The impetus for this study stems from a desire to understand the long-term impact of visitors' experience in informal, leisure-time contexts, and, particularly in large-scale exhibitions. This paper presents and discusses outcomes that elucidate the nature of personal memories of Expo 67 and in relation to the collective memory of cultural events/productions. Moreover, the study illustrates and discusses an interesting paradox of personal memories of the event. Specifically, most visitors report common themes surrounding the memory of self (the script of events, the things they saw and did), yet almost all participants report highly idiosyncratic stories that are mediated by their personal identities, and more so, the recollection and perception of the national significance of Expo 67 appears clearly differentiated by cultural communities to which they are affiliated. These understandings provide insights that assist museums and similar institutions employing exhibit media to comprehend the long-term impact of visitors' experiences.


A selection of 15 painted enamels, most of which belong to Limoges productions, from 1500 to 1900 A.D., has been studied on-site in the storage rooms of musee des Arts decoratifs in Paris. The Raman signatures of the transparent and/or opacified glass matrix are discussed and compared with those which were previously recorded on glazed pottery, enamelled and stained glasses as well as Chinese cloisonne enamels. Analysed enamels mostly belong to soda-lime-based glass. Three types of compositions such as soda-lime (fifteenth to sixteenth century), soda-rich (fifteenth, sixteenth/nineteenth centuries) and lead-potash-lime (sixteenth and nineteenth centuries) are identified on the basis of the Raman signature of the glaze according to the wavenumber maxima of the SiO stretching and bending multiplets. The pigment signatures are similar to those recorded on ceramic glazes and glass enamels, which proves the similarity of the technologies. Cassiterite as an opacifier and hematite red and Naples yellow pigment variations give characteristic Raman signatures. The presence of lead arsenate as a pigment opacifier in nineteenth-century samples is confirmed. Attempts are made to establish tools for the differentiation between genuine artefacts and nineteenth-century restoration or fakes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


There are many different methods of employing a high potential test on a stator winding. Three such methods that this paper will explore with reference to one another are the AC (50-60 Hz), DC, and very low frequency (VLF) (0.1 Hz). Some users choose the AC high potential test knowing that this test best simulates the voltage stress on the winding while in service. Other users prefer the DC high potential test largely due to ease in performing the test. However, the DC voltage does not stress the stator coils the same way as when they are in service and may result in overly pessimistic results due to the influence of surface contaminants in the end windings. Finally, the VLF test, due to recent advances in technology, is becoming more practical for use in field conditions. However, the present standard governing the test is almost 40 years old and there is significant interest in what VLF voltage level best correlates with the AC and DC high potential tests. This paper reports preliminary test results on three generator windings that were destructively tested using the AC, DC, and VLF methods as part of an ongoing effort to provide a database upon which to set the appropriate VLF hipot level for modern synthetic resin-based stator insulation systems.


In this research, we propose an online service which utilizes Social Networking Service (SNS) as the medium and Japanese cartoon (manga) as the communication method. The growth of SNS has created a new potential in marketing. While users communicate and interact via SNS, the list of their conversation which is called casual data can be used to determine their needs or aspirations. SNS can be very useful for product/service developers, especially when developing new ideas or simply evaluating the feasibility of their existing products/services. Furthermore, SNS provides a unique system that enables expressive and two-way communication between its users. SNS is known for its effectiveness in delivering fresh news and information, therefore it can be used as promotional media. Although several online services that utilize SNS and casual data have been provided, the purpose of those services is still unclear and ineffective. In those services, users were only asked for their opinions without receiving sufficient feedbacks. To solve those problems we propose an innovative way of utilizing SNS and casual data in designing user generated design. In our proposed system, users can directly contribute to the product/service development process in an interesting way. We designed an online service which allows users to posts manga that describes their original idea. While contributing to the product/service development, they can also benefit from expressing their hobbies and receiving feedbacks from other users.


Multiuser diversity beamforming (MDB) is investigated for downlink channels of multiuser multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. In general, the multiple-beam approach for MDB results in a poor performance when the number of users is not sufficiently large. In this paper, we consider a single-beam approach where a common precoder is shared by multiple users using modulation division multiplexing (MDM) of a higher order modulation. Performance criteria for precoder and user selection are derived under the assumption that the maximum likelihood (ML) detector is used.


Abstract The characterization of the solid DT layer, in terms of thickness and roughness, in the LMJ geometry (hohlraum) is not trivial. The DT layer measurements will be done using a Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, 39 cm away from the target. This telescope will be used to acquire shadowgraphy images and spectral-interferometry measurements. Shadowgraphy imaging probes the DT layer geometry at the equator of the target. Spectral-interferometry gives the DT layer thickness on one spot on the shell, in the polar regions of the target. By scanning around the poles, several points can be acquired to probe the roughness and the local shape of the DT layer at the poles. This paper presents the spectra-interferometry technique and explains how the DT layer thickness could be deduced from channelled spectra. First experimental results on a 125 μm thick empty shell are also reported.


Einstein's General Relativity, the current " standard " theory of gravitation, describes gravity as a universal deformation of the Minkowski metric: g µν (x λ) = η µν + h µν (x λ) , where η µν = diag(−1, +1, +1, +1). General Relativity is classically defined by two postulates. One postulate states that the Lagrangian density describing the propagation and self-interaction of the gravitational field is


11080 Roselle Street • San Diego, CA 92121 Phone: 858-455-9588 • Toll Free: 1-877-246-5343 • Fax: 858-455-9587 www.biolegend.com Rev: 042008 The following is a general procedure guide for preparation and staining of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues using a purified, unconjugated primary antibody, biotinylated secondary antibody and streptavidin-horseradish peroxidase (Sav-HRP) and DAB detection system. Because each antigen differs in terms of requirement for fixation, amplification step, etc., it is not possible to write an inclusive protocol that will work for all antigens. The user must determine optimal conditions for each antigen of interest. Many protocols for staining individual antigens, as well as useful tips and troubleshooting guides for immunohistochemistry, can be found at the IHC World web site (http://www.ihcworld.com/).


We present an initial analysis of on a new MHD power extraction device for reentry vehicles that provides signicant energy extraction at speeds of Mach 10 and below. Lower Mach number operation is accomplished by creating a strong normal shock inside a duct which heats alkali seed material to ionization temperatures. The design consists of a convergent inlet followed by an interior channel. The compression ramp angle is chosen such that a normal shock, or Mach stem, is formed near the throat. Inside the duct a Faraday generator extracts energy through aerodynamic electrode ns. The Navier-Stokes equations were solved for this geometric conguration in combination with a one dimensional MHD generator model for operation at 20km, 30km and 40km altitude and Mach 8 or 10. Results indicate that over 1MW/m may be generated with a nominal 50cm high inlet at Mach 10.


Several environmental contaminants including toxic trace metals are being discharged
into the coastal environment causing serious threat to marine organisms and posing
public health risk. Marine bivalves (mussel, oyster, and clam) have been successfully
used as sentinel organisms for monitoring contaminant levels, including trace metals, in
coastal waters around the globe. Chemical analyses measure the contaminants present
in the biota but do not necessarily reveal potential biological efects. Therefore, the need
to detect and assess the efects of contaminants, especially at low concentrations, has
led to the development of molecular markers of contaminant efects called biomarkers.
Owing to their short time of response, biomarkers in marine bivalves are used as early
warning signals of biological efects caused by environmental pollutants. Research into
the development and application of accurate biomarker-based monitoring tools for the
environmental contaminants has been intensiied in several developed countries.


Coiled sheet metal often exhibits shape defects that result from the rolling process or the coiling operation. To meet the quality requirement, these defects need to be removed using leveling and straightening. The process efficiency strongly depends on several parameters like the machine design, the rollers penetration and the sheet metal. Consequently, the leveling process is very sensitive and it is difficult to find the appropriate setting using trial and error procedure. In this context, numerical simulation can be very helpful. The aim of our work is to predict the residual curvature of the sheet knowing its initial shape and the leveling process settings. The simulation is carried out in two steps to integrate the global and the local behavior of the strip along the leveling process. In the first step, a 2D finite element model is used to predict the sheet metal deformations under the rollers action. In this first step the strip curvatures along the leveling machine are predicted. The so obtained results are then used to simulate the alternating bending and the spring back of the strip with the help of a semi-analytical model using the MATLAB programming environment. To validate the proposed approach, leveling tests were carried out on a 2.5 mm thickness sheet of DX51 steel and the measured residual curvatures are compared with the predictions. These comparisons show that satisfactory predictions can be obtained with good computational efficiency.


The difficulties in discussing and validating non-normative sexual choices, particularly those of women, are widely recognised. For example, Vance (1989) challenged the ways in which feminist arguments and campaigns against pornography and so-called 'perverted' sexual practices may in fact have undermined women's attempts to achieve sexual liberation.
 It may be argued, therefore, that TV shows that attempt to go some way towards exploring aspects of sexuality that may be seen by society as less desirable deserve our attention. Jowett (2005) adopts postmodernism as a theoretical perspective, and locates popular culture as a site where important aspects of our identities, such as gender and sexuality, may be struggled after and contested. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) has never avoided the exploration of uncomfortable issues surrounding relationships, sex and sexuality, and they are evidently the focus of concerns and anxieties for many teens and young adults. As a show targeted primarily at young people, one of its central themes over its seven-year run has been sexual relationships. As a result, it has attracted a good deal of criticism from those who claim it is unsuitable for young people and undermines 'family values'. The show is widely understood as of hybrid genre, combining elements of sci-fi, horror, soap opera, and teen drama, but its supernatural theme and use of vampires and monsters as narrative devices have been central to its capacity to metaphorically explore sensitive issues that would have been much more difficult to address directly


A number of DNA computing models to solve mathematical graph problem such as the Hamiltonian Path Problem (HPP), Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), and the Shortest Path Problem (SPP) have been proposed and demonstrated. Normally, the DNA sequences used for the computation should be critically designed in order to reduce error that could occur during computation. In 2007, we proposed a DNA computing readout method tailored specifically to HPP in DNA computing using real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). We also proposed a procedure for DNA sequence design for DNA computation with output visualization on real-time PCR machine. The procedure includes DNA Sequence Generator which generate all the required sequences implemented in the experiment. In this paper, we propose different procedures by using generate-and-test algorithm with several design constraints to get all the DNA sequences. The generated DNA sequences represent nodes, edges, primers, and probes that are used in DNA computation of HPP with output visualization based on real-time PCR.


The results of isolation of an Alphavirus strain from Aedes sp. mosquitoes collected in the focus of Karelian fever are presented. According to the results of serological studies, the isolated strain LEIV-9298 Karelia belongs to the antigenic complex Sindbis-Western equine encephalomyelitis. The appurtenance of the isolated agent to the Alphavirus genus has been confirmed by electron microscopic examinations. A rise of antibody titres to LEIV-9298 Karelia virus in paired sera of subjects with a history of Karelian fever allows it to be considered the causative agent of this disease.


This chapter on source gas trends describes past changes in atmospheric concentrations of ozone-depleting chemicals and discusses their implications for Earth's ozone layer. The observed atmospheric changes provide evidence of an atmosphere responding to international policy decisions given that natural contributions are relatively small and fairly constant. The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has been successful at causing an initial decrease in the concentrations of ozone-depleting substances and the threat they pose to stratospheric ozone. Despite this success, full recovery of the ozone layer is not expected until mid- to late-century. Other non-halogenated gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulfur-containing chemicals also influence stratospheric ozone and climate and are discussed. Observed changes in the atmospheric concentrations of both ozone-depleting substances and non-halogenated chemicals provide a basis for understanding trends in stratospheric ozone discussed in subsequent chapters.


The pathophysiologic role of the Philadelphia chromosome translocation in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) has been known for nearly 20 years. However, the most significant morbidity and mortality in CML are caused by progression to blast crisis, about which comparatively little is known at the molecular level. Genomic imprinting is a chromosomal modification leading to parental-origin-specific gene expression in somatic cells. Recently, we and others have described loss of imprinting (LOI) of the insulin-like growth factor-II gene (IGF2), leading to biallelic rather than monoallelic expression in a wide variety of solid tumors. We have now examined the imprinting status of IGF2 in samples from CML patients in stable phase, accelerated phase, and blast crisis. Five of six stable-phase patients showed normal imprinting, but LOI was found in all six cases of advanced disease (three accelerated phase, three blast crisis), which was statistically highly significant (P < .01). Thus, LOI represents a novel type of genetic alteration in CML that appears to be specifically associated with disease progression.


The 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Henry Dale of London and Otto Loewi of Graz for their separate but synergistic discoveries of the role of acetylcholine in the transmission of neural impulses in the autonomic nervous system. It provided scientific authority and legitimacy to the concept of chemical neurotransmission. However it was to be a further two decades before the idea was widely accepted by more than a few faithful adherents, whilst many, if not most, neurophysiologists continued to believe that most, if not all, neural transmission was electrical. During the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s, debates between these two groups frequently enlivened meetings of the Physiological Society, and became known jocularly as 'Spark versus Soup': hence the title of this book.

This volume records the history of much of the work on chemical neurotransmission, starting from the development of the neurone doctrine, through the Nobel Prize winning work, up to the modern day concepts of "first messengers" and neuromodulators, and with a final epilogue of historical reflections based on the author's active career of almost fifty years in neurobiology. Throughout there is a strong biographical emphasis on the main players, including Dale, Loewi, Walter Cannon, and their colleagues and successors, particularly Wilhelm Feldberg and John Eccles.

Early chapters set the scene by describing in particular the influence of the Cambridge department of physiology, especially that of John Langley and Walter Gaskell. The significance, or otherwise, of the work of Thomas Renton Elliott, often credited with the first articulation of chemical neurotransmission, is thoroughly discussed, and the importance of the autonomic nervous system emphasized. Gradually, the various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of chemical neurotransmission are uncovered: Dale and Ewins' discovery of acetylcholine in an extract of the fungus ergot and their demonstration of its powerful depressor effect in the parasympathetic nervous system; Loewi's observations of vagusstoff and acceleransstoff, chemical substances apparently released on neural stimulation; Dale and Dudley's most important discovery, whilst looking for histamine, that acetylcholine was a normal constituent of the mammalian body; and the increasing evidence that vagusstoff was indeed acetylcholine. In 1933 came the arrival in Dale's laboratory of Feldberg, a refugee from Hitler's Germany, who brought with him the eserinized leech muscle preparation that finally provided a sensitive bioassay for acetylcholine. It was only a short matter of time before compelling evidence of acetylcholine release after nerve stimulation was compiled and the work was recommended by the Nobel Committee for the Prize. Meanwhile in Harvard, Cannon and his assistants, firstly the Belgian Zenon Bacq, and then the Mexican, Arturo Rosenblueth, were doing parallel work on the sympathetic nervous system. Here the work was complicated by the dual responses seen by stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, excitatory in some systems, inhibitory in others. To explain this Cannon and Rosenblueth devised a complicated theory of sympathin-E (to account for the excitatory effects) and sympathin-I (to account for the inhibitory effects) secreted by sympathetic fibres. Although Dale always acknowledged Cannon's work in showing that a chemical was liberated from sympathetic fibres, he was never convinced by the sympathin theory, and on the whole it did not receive much support in the UK. It was Raymond Ahlquist, an unsung hero in the history of chemical neurotransmission and one who gets little attention here, who later unravelled the complexities of adrenergic receptors and their differential sensitivity to catecholamines, thus opening up the final elucidation of sympathetic neurotransmission. It was Ahlquist's work that finally discouraged the use of the confusing word "sympathin", an important step more than matched by Dale's proposal, also glossed over here, of the words "cholinergic" and "adrenergic" to describe fibres by the kind of chemical (rather than the chemical itself) they might use, because "such a usage would assist clear thinking, without committing us to precise chemical identifications, which may be long in coming" (H H Dale, 'Nomenclature of fibres in the autonomic nervous system and their effects', J. Physiol., 1934, 80: 10–11).

Sadly, the book is riddled with numerous irritating small errors—for example, within just a few pages in the chapter on Henry Dale, Patrick Laidlaw is incorrectly identified (twice) as Peter; Dale did not head the Wellcome Trust Fund, he was Chairman of the Wellcome Trust; the novelist who founded the George Henry Lewes studentship was George Eliot, not Elliot. There is no such thing as the National Research Committee, it is not now the National Research Council, and Dale was not appointed to it in 1914. He became a member of staff of the Medical Research Committee (later the Medical Research Council) not a member of the Committee, and worked originally in the Central Research Institute that became the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) not the Institute of Medical Research, and it was not in Hampstead until 1919. There is no evidence that dissatisfaction at increasing calls to test Burroughs, Wellcome & Co's products led to Dale's departure from the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories, and indeed the suggestion that difficulties about the use of the word adrenaline encouraged him to consider other positions is plain wrong—that debate occurred in 1906, Dale shortly afterwards became the Director of the Laboratories, and remained there for another eight years. These errors, whilst individually small, are cumulatively irritating. Equally the insufficiency of some figure legends, and indeed of some of the figures themselves, detract from the presentation of one of the most riveting stories of modern neuroscience.


OF DISSERTATION CARBON QUANTUM DOTS: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN CHEMICAL STRUCTURE AND MATERIAL PROPERTIES Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are the latest generation of carbon nanomaterials in applications where fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene are abundantly used. With several attractive properties such as tunable optical property, edge-functionalization, and defect-rich chemical structure, CQDs have the potential to revolutionize optoelectronics, electroand photocatalysis, and biomedical applications. Chemical modifications through the addition of heteroatoms, chemical reduction, and surface passivation are found to alter the band gap, spectral position, and emission pathways of CQDs. Despite extensive studies, fundamental understanding of structure-property relationship remains unclear due to the inhomogeneity in chemical structure and a complex emission mechanism for CQDs. This dissertation outlines a series of works that investigate the structure-property relationship of CQDs and its impact in a variety of applications. First, this relationship was explored by modifying specific chemical functionalities of CQDs and relating them to differences observed in optical, catalytic, and pharmacological performance. While a number of scientific articles reported that top-down or bottom-up synthesized CQDs yielded similar properties, the results herein present dissimilar chemical structures as well as photoluminescent and metal sensing properties. Second, the role of nitrogen heteroatoms in top-down synthesized CQD was studied. The effect of nitrogen atoms on spectral position and fluorescence quantum yield was considerably studied in past reports; however, thorough investigation to differentiate various nitrogen related chemical states was rarely reported. By finely tuning both the quantity of nitrogen doping and the distribution of nitrogen-related chemical states, we found that primary amine and pyridine induce a redshift in emission while pyrrolic and graphitic nitrogen produced a blue-shift in emission. The investigation of nitrogen chemical states was extended to bottom-up synthesized CQDs with similar results. Finally, top-down, bottom-up, nitrogen-doped and chemically reduced CQDs were separately tested for their ability to act as photodynamic anti-cancer agents. This series of experiments uncovered the distribution of reactive oxygen species produced during light exposure which elucidated the photodynamic mechanisms of cancer cytotoxicity. The results presented in this dissertation provide key insight into engineering finely-tailored CQDs as the ideal nanomaterial for a broad range of applications.


We deployed pop-off satellite archival tags (PSATs) on 14 olive ridley turtles Lepi- dochelys olivacea and 1 green turtle Chelonia mydas in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean between November 2001 and June 2003 to determine dive behavior and post-release mortality following inter- actions with longline fishing gear. Nine olive ridleys and 1 green turtle were captured by longline fishing gear, and 5 free swimming olive ridleys were hand-captured at the surface to serve as con- trols. Hooks were removed from all longline-caught turtles, with the exception of 1 olive ridley turtle. PSATs remained on control- and longline-caught olive ridleys for an average of 61 and 54 d, respec- tively (range: 26 to 115) and on the green turtle for 26 d. Olive ridleys spent nearly all of their recorded time within the top 60 m, with very few dives exceeding 100 m. Over 95% of the time was spent between water temperatures of 22 and 28°C and turtles' dive behaviors appeared to be corre- lated with oceanographic variables (e.g. sea surface temperature and chlorophyll concentration). There were no clear differences evident either in horizontal movements, depth distributions, or asso- ciations with specific water temperatures between longline-caught and control turtles. Our data showed only one mortality event, that of a control turtle that died and sank 66 d after being tagged. We conclude that olive ridley turtles that are lightly hooked and handled properly survive and generally behave normally following interactions with shallow-set longline gear.


In this paper I assess the ability of econometric and machine learning techniques to predict fiscal crises out of sample. I show that the econometric approaches used in many policy applications cannot outperform a simple heuristic rule of thumb. Machine learning techniques (elastic net, random forest, gradient boosted trees) deliver significant improvements in accuracy. Performance of machine learning techniques improves further, particularly for developing countries, when I expand the set of potential predictors and make use of algorithmic selection techniques instead of relying on a small set of variables deemed important by the literature. There is considerable agreement across learning algorithms in the set of selected predictors: Results confirm the importance of external sector stock and flow variables found in the literature but also point to demographics and the quality of governance as important predictors of fiscal crises. Fiscal variables appear to have less predictive value, and public debt matters only to the extent that it is owed to external creditors. JEL Classification Numbers: C53, F34, F37, H63


Digital applications have developed rapidly over the last few decades. Since many sources of information are of analog or continuous-time nature, discrete-time signal processing (DSP) inherently relies on sampling a continuous-time signal to obtain a discrete-time representation. Consequently, sampling theories lie at the heart of signal processing devices and communication systems. Examples include sampling rate conversion for software radio and between audio formats, biomedical imaging, lens distortion correction and the formation of image mosaics, and super-resolution of image sequences.


Turtle fishing has a long history in the Caribbean. Early Caribbean accounts from New World sailors and adventurers noted an abundance of the marine reptile, which quickly became desired for its delicious meat and beautiful shell. Nowhere was the presence of sea turtle more pronounced than in the adjacent banks, cays and reefs of the Western Caribbean, where Europeans also noted the abilities developed by the indigenous peoples of the region to capture them. By the mid-eighteenth century, English-speaking inhabitants from the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Nicaragua and the Colombian islands of San Andrés and Old Providence took to the sea in search of green and hawksbill turtles. In doing so, they created a robust maritime commerce and distinctive seafaring culture, which continues to exist in these communities. In this article, we argue that the turtle trade facilitated the creation and recreation of a dynamic contact zone of ongoing transnational and cross-cultural encounters among indigenous, European and Afro-Caribbean inhabitants.


Background Based on what is known at this time, pregnant women are at an increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19 compared to nonpregnant women. Additionally, pregnant women with COVID-19 might have an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. To investigate the effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on mortality of pregnant and postpartum women, we performed a systematic review of available published literature on pregnancies affected by COVID-19. Methods Web of Science, SCOPUS, and MEDLINE- databases were searched for original studies concerning the effect of COVID-19 on mortality of pregnant and postpartum women published by July 10, 2020. Meta-analyses of proportions were used to combine data and report pooled proportions. Results 117 studies with a total of 11758 pregnant women were included. The age ranged between 15 and 48 years. Most subjects were infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the third trimester. Disease severity was not reported in 1125 subjects. Maternal mortality was 1.3%. In 100% of fatal cases with adequate data, fever alone or with cough was one of the presenting symptoms. Also, dyspnea (58.3%) and myalgia (50%) were the most common symptoms. Sore throat (8.3%) and gastrointestinal symptoms (anorexia, nausea) (8.3%) were rare. The rate of comorbidities was 20% among COVID-19 deaths. The majority of COVID-19-infected women who died had cesarean section (58.3%), 25% had a vaginal delivery, and 16.7% of patients were not full term. Conclusion COVID-19 infection in pregnant women was associated with higher rates (and pooled proportions) of cesarean section and mortality. Because new data are continuously being generated and published, the findings of this study can be complete and updated with new researches. The results of this study can guide and improve prenatal counseling of COVID-19-infected pregnant women.


Seaweeds are a typical food of East-Asian cuisine, to which are alleged several beneficial health effects have been attributed. Their availability and their nutritional and chemical composition have favored the increase in its consumption worldwide, as well as a focus of research due to their bioactive properties. In this regard, seaweed proteins are nutritionally valuable and comprise several specific enzymes, glycoproteins, cell wall-attached proteins, red algae phycobiliproteins, lectins, peptides, or mycosporine-like amino acids. This great extent of molecules has been reported to exert significant antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, antidiabetic, or antitumoral properties. Hence, knowledge on algae proteins and derived compounds have gained special interest for the potential nutraceutical, cosmetic or pharmaceutical industries based on these bioactivities. Although several molecular mechanisms of action on how these proteins and peptides exert biological activities have been described, many gaps in knowledge still need to be filled. Updating the current knowledge related to seaweed proteins and peptides is of interest to further asses their potential health benefits. This review addresses the characteristics of seaweed protein and protein-derived molecules, their natural occurrence, their studied bioactive properties, and their described potential mechanisms of action.


The development of a systematic, whole body, visual recording process and its application to the study of disc brake noise and its recent adaptation to investigate drum brake noise is discussed. It is demonstrated that amplitude and vibration phase information my be obtained using classical double pulsed holographic techniques. Additionally it is demonstrated that details of a moving mode of vibration may be obtained in a rotating body. The application to drum brake noise show how low frequency noise (1 kHz) is related to backplate excitation whereas higher frequency noise (6 kHz) relates to drum excitation.


Detecting anomalies with high accuracy and real time from large amounts of streaming data is a challenge for many real-world applications, such as smart city, astronomical observations, and remote sensing. This article focuses on a special kind of stream, catalog stream, whose high-level catalog structure can be used to analyze the stream effectively. We first formulate the anomaly detection in catalog streams as a constrained optimization problem based on a catalog stream matrix. Then, a novel filtering-identifying based anomaly detection algorithm (FIAD) is proposed, which includes two complementary strategies, true event identifying and false alarm filtering, data-oriented general method and domain-oriented specific method together, to detect truly valuable anomalies. Furthermore, different kinds of attention windows are developed to provide corresponding data for various algorithm components. A scalable and lightweight catalog stream processing framework CSPF is designed to support and implement the proposed method efficiently. A prototype system is developed to evaluate the proposed algorithm. Extensive experiments are conducted on the catalog stream data sets from an operational super large field-of-view high-cadence astronomy observation. The experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve a false-positive rate as low as 0.04%, reduces the false alarms by 98.6% compared with the existing methods, and the latency to handle each catalog is 2.1 seconds (much less than the required 15 seconds). Furthermore, a total of 36 transient candidates, including seven microlensing events, 27 superflares, and two dual-superflares, are detected from 21.67 million stars (involving 1.09 million catalogs) from one observation season.


Most off-the-shelf subspace learning methods directly calculate the statistical characteristics of the original input images, while ignoring different contributions of different image components. In fact, to extract efficient features for image analysis, the noise or trivial structure in images should have little contribution and the intrinsic structure should be uncovered. Motivated by this observation, we propose a new subspace learning method, namely, discriminant manifold learning via sparse coding (DML_SC) for robust feature extraction. Specifically, we first decompose each input image into several components via dictionary learning, and then regroup the components into a more important part (MIP) and a less important part (LIP). The MIP can be considered as the clean portion of the image residing on a low-dimensional submanifold, while the LIP as noise or trivial structure within the image. Finally, the MIP and LIP are incorporated into manifold learning to learn a desired discriminative subspace. The proposed method is general for both cases with and without class labels, hence generating supervised DML_SC (SDML_SC) and unsupervised DML_SC (UDML_SC). Experimental results on four benchmark data sets demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed DML_SCs on both image recognition and clustering tasks.


A non-traumatic uriniferous pseudocyst was incidentally found at autopsy in a patient with invasive urothelial carcinoma involving ureteral orifices. Massive paraaortic lymph node involvement by the metastic tumor in addition to the ureteral obstruction was considered responsible for the formation of uriniferous pseudocyst. The pertinent clinical history and autopsy findings are presented and a possible mechanism of pseudocyst formation is discussed.


ABSTRACT Introduction: The development of novel targeted treatment in soft tissue sarcomas (STS) is important since many sarcoma subtypes are resistant to chemotherapy and effective therapeutic options are limited. Areas covered: This review discusses the molecular background and treatment in two STS types which became a model for targeted therapy – gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) and dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP). DFSP is characterized, by chromosomal translocation which results in the formation of COL1A1-PDGFB fusion gene causing platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta(PDGFRB) signaling activation in tumor cells. The majority of GIST malignancies are associated with activating, constitutive, mutually exclusive mutations of two genes: KIT and PDGFRA (PDGF receptor-alpha). Molecular diagnostics are an essential part of GIST and DFSP management. The first effective systemic therapy in clinical practice in GIST and DFSP was imatinib – tyrosine kinase inhibitor acting on KIT and PDGFR alpha/beta. Use of the drug revolutionized treatment of inoperable and/or metastatic cases and demonstrated activity in locally advanced cases. This review summarizes the analogies of therapy and perspectives of GIST and DFSP management. Expert commentary: The next generation of kinase inhibitors are approved for use after the progression of GIST during imatinib treatment. However, little is known about treatment beyond progression in DFSP.


Introduction In most Western European countries, prevalence of hand eczema in the general population is estimated at around 4%. In the construction industry, a higher prevalence can be expected due to exposure to irritating and allergenic agents. Aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence and determinants of hand eczema in several job titles within the construction industry. Methods As part of a voluntary medical examination, a questionnaire including items on health symptoms and working circumstances was administered to construction workers between 2005 and 2011. A response rate of about 50% was achieved, 152.200 men were included: 115.379 construction yard workers and 36.821 office personnel. Hand eczema was defined as one or more self-reported skin symptoms. Associations between possible risk factors and hand eczema were assessed using log-binomial regression. Results Hand eczema prevalence was 25% among construction yard personnel and 15% among office personnel. Skin hypersensitivity for job-related substances was reported by 10% and 3%, respectively. Hand eczema was most often reported by plasterers (36%) and bricklayers (31%). Carpenters and painters most frequently reported skin hypersensitivity (both 11%). Compared to office personnel, all construction yard job titles had a significantly increased prevalence ratio (PR) for hand eczema. Among construction yard personnel, dry skin (PR 2.02, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.95–2.10) and nuisance due to exposure to dust (PR: 1.57, 95% CI: 1.53–1.61) were the most important determinants for hand eczema. For skin hypersensitivity, dry skin (PR 2.27, 95% CI: 2.19–2.36) and dust exposure (PR 1.78, 95% CI: 1.71–1.86) were also the main determinants. Skin hypersensitivity was reported less often among glove users (PR 0.61, 95% CI: 0.58–0.63). Conclusion Hand eczema is very common among construction workers. Dust exposure and a dry skin type were associated with a higher prevalence of hand eczema and work-related skin hypersensitivity.


A thermal model for laser-assisted cutting of mullite is developed in this paper. Laser-assisted cutting has been proposed as a promising means for achieving cost-efficient production of high quality ceramic parts. At high temperatures the yield strength of ceramics can decrease below the fracture strength, changing the material deformation behavior from brittle to ductile and enabling the use of a single point cutting tool to remove material at rates approaching those of metal cutting. Assuming the system to be symmetrical and neglecting the heat loss taken away by removal material, the problem is formulated in a cylindrical coordinate system that moves with the laser beam or cutting tool. An analytical solution for this thermal model is obtained. The results calculated by this model agree with the available experimental data. The temperature history is presented during laser-assisted cutting of mullite. The effects of feed rate and laser power on temperature history are also discussed in this study.


The legislation on public procurement in Ecuador has undergone a profound change with the issuance of the Organic Law of the National Public Procurement System and the use of tools generated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The tender constitutes a contractual award procedure, provided for in this legal body. However, the selection of suppliers for certain non-standardized goods and services represents a conflict that is assumed by decision-makers in the tendering processes. This research proposes a solution to the problem posed from the development of a decision-making method on tenders for non-standard goods and services as part of the public procurement process.


In 1933, Antarctica was essentially unexplored. Admiral Richard Byrd launched his Second Expedition to chart the southernmost continent, primarily relying on the muscle power of dog teams and their drivers who skied or ran beside the loaded sledges as they traveled. The life-threatening challenges of moving glaciers, invisible crevasses, and horrific storms compounded the difficulties of isolation, darkness, and the unimaginable cold that defined the men's lives. Stuart Paine was a dog driver, radio operator, and navigator on the fifty-six-man expedition, the bold and complex venture that is now famous for Byrd's dramatic rescue from Bolling Advance Weather Base located 115 miles inland. Paine's diaries represent the only published contemporary account written from the inside of the Second Expedition. They reveal a behind-the-scenes look at the contentiousness surrounding the planned winter rescue of Byrd and offer unprecedented insights into the expedition's internal dynamics. Equally riveting is Paine's breathtaking narrative of the fall and summer field operations as the field parties depended on their own resources in the face of interminable uncertainty and peril. Undertaking the longest and most hazardous sledging journey of the expedition, Paine guided the first American party from the edge of the Ross Sea more than seven hundred miles up the Ross Ice Shelf and the massive Thorne (Scott) Glacier to approach the South Pole. He and two other men skied more than fourteen hundred miles in eighty-eight days to explore and map part of Antarctica for the first time. "Footsteps on the Ice" reveals the daily struggles, extreme personalities, and the matter-of-fact bravery of early explorers who are now fading into history. Detailing the men's frustrations, annoyances, and questioning of leadership, Paine's entries provide rare insight into how Byrd conducted his expeditions. Paine exposes the stresses of living under the snow in Little America during the four-month-long winter night, trapped in dim, crowded huts and black tunnels, while the men uneasily mull over their leader's isolation at Advance Base. The fates of Paine's dogs, which provided some of his most difficult and rewarding experiences, are also described - his relationship with Jack, his lead dog, is an entrancing story in itself. Featuring previously unpublished photographs and illustrations, "Footsteps on the Ice" documents the period in Antarctic exploration that bridged the "Heroic Era" and the modern age of mechanized travel. Depicting almost incomprehensible mental and physical duress and unhesitating courage, Paine's tale is one of the most compelling stories in polar history, surpassing other accounts with its immediacy and adventure as it captures the majesty and mystery of the untouched Antarctic.


The paper empirically examines the contribution of forest-environmental income, and its role in wellbeing outcomes among the forest dependent households in rural Nepal. The results are based on a one-year survey of 303 households that included the detailed information on household demographics, income and assets and the people's perception in the change in their well-being compared to the last five year. To capture likely non-linear dynamics of well-being status, a probit regression model is tested. Overall, forest environmental income contributed an average of 16% of the total household income. Relative environmental reliance decreased with rising income while absolute environmental income increased. The perception of well-being was related to shock exposure and households' endowments to cope with shocks. In particular, households exposed to several consecutive shocks (two or more severe shocks) over the course of five years significantly reported to be worse-off. The limited role of forest in improving the well-beings of the households is associated with their limited access to the resources. Identification of income groups, their expected wealth status, and asset and access constraints that limit economic advance are used to suggest appropriate targets of intervention.


BACKGROUND
Since surgical repair of tetralogy of Fallot was introduced, follow-up studies have shown that the majority of patients lead active lives and have no subjective exercise limitation.

OBJECTIVES
To examine lung function, cardiopulmonary functional capacity and echo-Doppler assessment of pulmonary pressure in adult patients 20 years after repair of TOF.

METHODS
Unselected consecutive patients performed full lung function testing, progressive cardiopulmonary exercise, and echo-Doppler assessments of pulmonary pressure.

RESULTS
Fifty consecutive patients (33 men, 17 women) aged 29 +/- 11 years who underwent surgical repair of TOF at age 10.1 +/- 10.9 years were enrolled. Patients after TOF showed no restriction (forced expiratory vital capacity 80%, total lung capacity 91%) and had normal oxygen saturation (97%) and 6 minute walking distance (600 meters). Echocardiography showed normal pulmonary pressure and left ventricular ejection function (62%). Cardiopulmonary exercise testing showed mild limitation of exercise capacity with oxygen uptake at maximal effort of 75-78% predicted.

CONCLUSIONS
After corrections of TOF the study patients had normal lung function and pulmonary arterial pressure but mild limitation in their exercise capacity.


Electric load forecasting is essential for stable electric power supply, efficient operation and management of power systems, and safe operation of power generation systems. The results are utilized in generator preventive maintenance planning and the systemization of power reserve management. Development and improvement of electric load forecasting model is necessary for power system maintenance and operation. This paper proposes daily maximum electric load forecasting methods for the next 4 weeks with a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model and an exponential smoothing model. According to the results of forecasting of daily maximum electric load forecasting for the next 4 weeks of March, April, November 2010∼2012 using the constructed forecasting models, the seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model showed an average error rate of 6,66%, 5.26%, 3.61% respectively and the exponential smoothing model showed an average error rate of 3.82%, 4.07%, 3.59% respectively.


We propose a principled approach to summarization of visual data (images or video) based on optimization of a well-defined similarity measure. The problem we consider is re-targeting (or summarization) of image/video data into smaller sizes. A good ldquovisual summaryrdquo should satisfy two properties: (1) it should contain as much as possible visual information from the input data; (2) it should introduce as few as possible new visual artifacts that were not in the input data (i.e., preserve visual coherence). We propose a bi-directional similarity measure which quantitatively captures these two requirements: Two signals S and T are considered visually similar if all patches of S (at multiple scales) are contained in T, and vice versa. The problem of summarization/re-targeting is posed as an optimization problem of this bi-directional similarity measure. We show summarization results for image and video data. We further show that the same approach can be used to address a variety of other problems, including automatic cropping, completion and synthesis of visual data, image collage, object removal, photo reshuffling and more.


The aim of this paper is to study the mechanical behavior of a system composed by substrate-coating using simulation methods. The contact stresses and the elastic deformation were analyzed by applying a normal load to the surface of the system consisting of a tungsten carbide (WC) thin film, which is used as a wear resistant material and a stainless steel substrate. The analysis is based on Monte Carlo simulations using the Metropolis algorithm. The phenomenon was simulated from a fcc face-centered crystalline structure, for both, the coating and the substrate, assuming that the uniaxial strain is taken in the z-axis. Results were obtained for different values of normal applied load to the surface of the coating, obtaining the Strain-stress curves. From this curve, the Young´s modulus was obtained with a value of 600 Gpa, similar to the reports.


In Brazil, gastroenteritis mainly affects children aged 0 to 5 years and is considered a significant public health problem. The reduction of the morbidity and mortality rates caused by gastroenteritis is responsible for the decrease in the rates of overall infant mortality and infant mortality due to infectious diseases in developing countries. This work is a descriptive study developed in collaboration with the Epidemiology Department of Pará State in order to determine the importance of gastroenteritis as a cause of hospitalizations and deaths in Pará State. Initially, data about morbidity and hospitalization were obtained from Information Systems on mortality, health and hospital admissions and from health indicators and the Monitoring of Acute Diarrheal Diseases (MADD) program in the period between 2000 and 2004. There were 590,595 recorded cases of diarrhea. There was an increase in the number of cases of diarrhea notified by MADD during this period, with the highest frequency rates found in children aged 1 to 4 years old (average of 48,887 cases), followed by 33,151 cases in children below 1 year of age. In 2004, the hospitalization rate due to diarrhea in children below one was of 35 per 1 thousand live births. The coefficient of mortality decreased during the period studied, reaching 2.91 per 100 thousand inhabitants in 2004, following the reduction trend of mortality rates by diarrhea in Brazil. Despite this reduction, diarrhea remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Pará State, especially affecting children below 1 year of age.


Abstract Discrete kinetic theory approach has been used to study dilute, monatomic, non-equilibrium gas flow between two walls in microdomains. A four-velocity coplanar model has been adopted, where the microscopic velocity-orientation angle and the Knudsen number are free parameters, which have to be prescribed. Diffusive reflection boundary condition has been incorporated to obtain the solution. A bounded range for the admissible orientation angle of the discrete velocity vectors for any given Knudsen number is identified. Consequently, the macroscopic velocity slip at the wall, the velocity profile across the walls and the volume flow rate is calculated as a function of the free parameters. The calculations based on a single model, 4-velocity, cover the transition flow regime between the continuum and the free-molecular flow. The calculated volume flow rate is compared with experimental data as well as with other theoretical models.


We revisit the relativistic restricted two-body problem with spin employing a perturbation scheme based on Lie series. Starting from a post-Newtonian expansion of the field equations, we develop a first-order secular theory that reproduces well-known relativistic effects such as the precession of the pericentre and the Lense-Thirring and geodetic effects. Additionally, our theory takes into full account the complex interplay between the various relativistic effects, and provides a new explicit solution of the averaged equations of motion in terms of elliptic functions. Our analysis reveals the presence of particular configurations for which non-periodical behaviour can arise. The application of our results to real astrodynamical systems (such as Mercury-like and pulsar planets) highlights the contribution of relativistic effects to the long-term evolution of the spin and orbit of the secondary body.


During the last months of the coronavirus pandemic, with all those public restrictions and health interventions, the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) appears now to have been raised in some countries around the world. Iran was one of those first countries facing the second wave of coronavirus, due to the lack of appropriate public restrictions because of economic problems the country is facing. The clinical and demographic characteristics of severe cases and non-severe cases of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in 192 patients in Tehran, Iran, between June 16 and July 11, 2020, were investigated. The patients were divided into severe cases (n = 82) and non-severe cases (n = 110). Demographic and clinical characteristics were compared between the two study clusters. The mean age was 54.6 ± 17.2 years, and the most common presenting symptom was persistent cough (81.8%) and fever (79.7%). The logistic regression model revealed that age, BMI, and affected family members were statistically associated with severity. Patients with complicated conditions of disorders faced more hospitalization days and medical care than the average statistical data. As the coronavirus spike in the case and death reports from June 2020, we observed the rise in the incidence of severe cases, where 42.7% (82/192) of cases have resulted in severe conditions. Our findings also suggested that the effect of IFB (Betamethasone) was more valid than the other alternative drugs such as LPV/r and IVIg.


EDrrOR,-Tony Delamothe's news item about cuts in elective surgery refers to examples in Southend and Basildon and Thurrock.' He suggests two main explanations for this situation. Firstly, he suggests that purchasing authorities may be holding money back. This is not the case in these examples as both district health authorities are overcommitted. Secondly, he suggests that sufficient money does not exist to meet the demand for services. The two authorities are a total of CI4m under the weighted capitation target, and this therefore provides at least part of the answer. The health authorities have expressed concern that a gap of this size still exists and have little expectation of receiving all the extra money until well after 1995-6.


The most threatened family of the sharks and rays is the Pristidae (sawfishes), which is a unique family of batoid rays that are some of the largest chondrichthyans known. Western Australia has recently been identified as a global hotspot of sawfish diversity, with 4 of the world's 5 species found here. Most pristids have declined globally , and although the susceptibility of the rostrum (or saw) to entanglement in fishing nets is a major reason that all five species have declined and are listed as either Critically Endangered or Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), other threatening processes have also contributed to their range contractions and rarity. Among these processes are loss of nursery habitats, barriers to migration and reduction in habitat quality as a function of river regulation, targeted fisheries including for cultural purposes and taking of rostra as curios.

This project aimed to determine the impact of barriers to sawfish migration in Western Australia, and prioritise the barriers that are likely to have the highest impact in the region. It also summarises work in the Ashburton River and Fitzroy River, each of which offer globally significant habitat to sawfishes.

The project was led by Murdoch University's Freshwater Fish Group & Fish Health Unit with funding from Chevron Australia that was administered through the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI). Project partners included the Nyikina-Mangala Rangers and Team Sawfish.


Triphenylamine (TPA) and N-methylbarbituric acid/indanedione-based donor–acceptor derivatives were synthesized and demonstrated molecular conformation and packing dependent tunable fluorescence from yellow to red in the solid state. TPA with N-methylbarbituric acid (BA-1) showed bright yellow fluorescence (λmax = 550 nm, Φf = 22.8%) whereas OCH3 substitution at the phenyl rings of TPA, (BA-2 and BA-3) produced strong red (λmax = 602 nm, Φf = 41.1%) and orange fluorescent solids (λmax = 582 nm, Φf = 19.1%). Indanedione acceptor dyes exhibited red to deep red fluorescence. ID-1 showed red fluorescence at 604 nm (Φf = 17.7%) whereas ID-2 and ID-3 showed fluorescence at 611 (Φf = 19.4%) and 636 nm (Φf = 14.1%) in the solid state. Solid state structural analysis revealed alteration of the molecular conformation and packing by OCH3 substitution which led to tunable fluorescence. BA and ID compounds showed turn-off fluorescence/substantially reduced fluorescence intensity upon hard crushing (Φf = 1.2 to 3.1%). Interestingly, heating of BA and ID crushed powders led to turn-on fluorescence/significant enhancement of fluorescence intensity (Φf = 5.6 to 22.5%). Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) studies indicated the conversion of the crystalline phase to amorphous and the amorphous phase to crystalline by hard crushing and heating. The reversible conversion of the crystalline phase to amorphous phase was responsible for the fluorescence switching of BA and ID. Computational studies have been performed to get an insight into the energy level modulation upon the change of the molecular conformation. Thus, we have presented the facile preparation of strong red fluorescent dyes exhibiting high contrast stimuli-responsive reversible dark and bright fluorescence switching in the solid state.