Protein-protein interactions drive many relevant biological events, such as infection, replication, and recognition. To control or engineer such events, we need to access the molecular details of the interaction provided by experimental 3D structures. However, such experiments take time and are expensive; moreover, the current technology cannot keep up with the high discovery rate of new interactions. Computational modeling, like protein-protein docking, can help to fill this gap by generating docking poses. Protein-protein docking generally consists of two parts, sampling and scoring. The sampling is an exhaustive search of the tridimensional space. The caveat of the sampling produces a large number of incorrect poses, producing a highly unbalanced dataset. This limits the utility of the data to train machine learning classifiers. Using weak supervision, we developed a data augmentation method that we named hAIkal. Using hAIkal, we increased the labeled training data to train several algorithms. We trained and obtained different classifiers; the best classifier has 81% accuracy and 0.51 MCC on the test set, surpassing the state-of-the-art scoring functions.


BACKGROUND
Comorbid depression and substance use disorders are common and have poorer outcomes than either disorder alone. While effective psychological treatments for depression or substance use disorders are available, relatively few randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have examined the efficacy of these treatments in people with these comorbid disorders.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the efficacy of psychological interventions delivered alone or in combination with pharmacotherapy for people diagnosed with comorbid depression and substance use disorders.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the following databases up to February 2019: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Google Scholar and clinical trials registers. All systematic reviews identified, were handsearched for relevant articles.

SELECTION CRITERIA
The review includes data from RCTs of psychological treatments for people diagnosed with comorbid depression and substance use disorders, using structured clinical interviews. Studies were included if some of the sample were experiencing another mental health disorder (e.g. anxiety); however, studies which required a third disorder as part of their inclusion criteria were not included. Studies were included if psychological interventions (with or without pharmacotherapy) were compared with no treatment, delayed treatment, treatment as usual or other psychological treatments.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We used standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane.

MAIN RESULTS
Seven RCTs of psychological treatments with a total of 608 participants met inclusion criteria. All studies were published in the USA and predominately consisted of Caucasian samples. All studies compared different types of psychological treatments. Two studies compared Integrated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (ICBT) with Twelve Step Facilitation (TSF), another two studies compared Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression (IPT-D) with other treatment (Brief Supportive Therapy (BST) or Psychoeducation). The other three studies compared different types or combinations of psychological treatments. No studies compared psychological interventions with no treatment or treatment as usual control conditions. The studies included a diverse range of participants (e.g. veterans, prisoners, community adults and adolescents). All studies were at high risk of performance bias, other main sources were selection, outcome detection and attrition bias. Due to heterogeneity between studies only two meta-analyses were conducted. The first meta-analysis focused on two studies (296 participants) comparing ICBT to TSF. Very low-quality evidence revealed that while the TSF group had lower depression scores than the ICBT group at post-treatment (mean difference (MD) 4.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.43 to 6.66; 212 participants), there was no difference between groups in depression symptoms (MD 1.53, 95% CI -1.73 to 4.79; 181 participants) at six- to 12-month follow-up. At post-treatment there was no difference between groups in proportion of days abstinent (MD -2.84, 95% CI -8.04 to 2.35; 220 participants), however, the ICBT group had a greater proportion of days abstinent than the TSF group at the six- to 12-month follow-up (MD 10.76, 95% CI 3.10 to 18.42; 189 participants). There were no differences between the groups in treatment attendance (MD -1.27, 95% CI -6.10 to 3.56; 270 participants) or treatment retention (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.25; 296 participants). The second meta-analysis was conducted with two studies (64 participants) comparing IPT-D with other treatment (Brief Supportive Psychotherapy/Psychoeducation). Very low-quality evidence indicated IPT-D resulted in significantly lower depressive symptoms at post-treatment (MD -0.54, 95% CI -1.04 to -0.04; 64 participants), but this effect was not maintained at three-month follow-up (MD 3.80, 95% CI -3.83 to 11.43) in the one study reporting follow-up outcomes (38 participants; IPT-D versus Psychoeducation). Substance use was examined separately in each study, due to heterogeneity in outcomes. Both studies found very low-quality evidence of no significant differences in substance use outcomes at post-treatment (percentage of days abstinent, IPD versus Brief Supportive Psychotherapy; MD -2.70, 95% CI -28.74 to 23.34; 26 participants) or at three-month follow-up (relative risk of relapse, IPT-D versus Psychoeducation; RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.30 to 1.50; 38 participants). There was also very low-quality evidence for no significant differences between groups in treatment retention (RR 1.00, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.23; 64 participants). No adverse events were reported in any study.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
The conclusions of this review are limited due to the low number and very poor quality of included studies. No conclusions can be made about the efficacy of psychological interventions (delivered alone or in combination with pharmacotherapy) for the treatment of comorbid depression and substance use disorders, as they are yet to be compared with no treatment or treatment as usual in this population. In terms of differences between psychotherapies, although some significant effects were found, the effects were too inconsistent and small, and the evidence of too poor quality, to be of relevance to practice.


The authors propose a compact and fast fading channel simulator for the baseband verification and prototyping of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. The simulator accurately and efficiently implements models of both single-bounce and multiple-bounce geometric propagation conditions. Fading samples are generated at a low rate, comparable to the Doppler frequency, and then interpolated to match the desired sample rate. Bit-true simulations verify the accuracy of the hardware simulator. As an example, when implemented on a Xilinx XC5VLX110 field-programmable gate array (FPGA), the 4×4 MIMO geometric fading channel simulator occupies only 6.6% of the configurable slices while generating more than 16×324 million samples per second. The geometric MIMO fading channel simulator is well suited for use in an FPGA-based error rate performance verification system.


Music has been an integral part of films from as far back as the silent movie era, where a piano accompaniment was used to build the narrative and an orchestra was used to drown out the sound of the projector. Music in films can encompass a wide array of elements, from a song to a whistle, and can play many roles, as has been commented upon by many researchers. Due to the relevance of music in film narrative, it is an element which merits attention when it comes to making a film accessible, be it through Audio description, Audio subtitling, Sign Language or Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing. This article focuses on Audio description (AD) and how music is handled in audio described films. First of all, a brief review of existing AD guidelines will be presented in order to highlight the secondary role given to music insofar as these guidelines focus more on topics such as characters, locations, actions, credits, among others. This will be followed by an analysis of a corpus of audio described films, focusing on the treatment of songs with significant lyrics. Two different scenarios will be considered: on the one hand, films with song lyrics that can be understood by the audience because they share the same language and, on the other, English language films with song lyrics in a foreign language. Finally, this article proposes new approaches to the treatment of music in AD.


Abstract This paper examines "fat tails puzzle" in the financial markets. Ignoring the rate of convergence in Central Limit Theorem (CLT) provides the "fat tail" uncertainty. In this paper, we provide a review of the empirical results obtained "fat tails puzzle" using innovative method of Yuri Gabovich based on the rate of convergence in CLT to the normal distribution, which is called G-bounds. Constructed G-bounds evaluate risk in the financial markets more carefully than models based on Gaussian distributions. This statement was tested on the 24 financial markets exploring their stock indexes. Besides, this has tested Weak-Form Market Efficiency for investigated markets. As a result, we found out the negative correlation between the weak effectiveness of the stock market and the thickness of the left tail of the profitability density function. Therefore, the closer the risk of losses on the stock market to the corresponding risk of loss for a normal distribution, the higher the probability that the market is weak effective. For non-effective markets, the probability of large losses is much higher than for a weak effective.


Basal Plane Dislocations (BPDs) in SiC are thought to cause degradation of bipolar diodes with blocking voltages > 2kV by triggering the formation and expansion of stacking faults during device operation. Hence, low N doped, thick epitaxial layers without BPDs are urgently needed for the realization of long-term stable SiC bipolar diodes. Such epilayers can be achieved if the conversion of the BPD into another harmless dislocation type is supported by proper epitaxial growth parameters and use of vicinal (off-cut) substrates. In this work, the influence of the substrate's off-cut angle and of the epilayer thickness on BPD density and surface morphology were investigated. The BPD densities of epilayers grown on 2° and 4° off-cut substrates were very low compared to growth on 8° off-axis substrates. X-Ray Topography has proved that all the Threading Dislocations (TD) propagate from the substrate to the epilayer and that BPDs in the substrate convert to Threading Edge Dislocations (TED) in the epilayer, i.e. the dislocation density (DD) of the substrate determines the epilayer's DD. The conversion of BPDs is supported by the presence of bunched steps as for growth of thick layers on 2° and 4° off-cut substrates.


Richard Howard has declared Roland Barthes's S/Z to be "[e]ssentially an erotic meditation" in his preface to the English edition of S/Z (ix). If we read S/Z as essentially "an erotic meditation," might we come into contact with the meditator's libidinal body embedded in the meditation? This seems likely, since in The Pleasure of the Text Barthes writes, "Does the text have human form, is it a figure, an anagram of the body? Yes, but of our erotic body" (17). Thus this essay's point of departure is the enigma of Barthes's erotic body. S/Z is Barthes's writing of his reading of Balzac's Sarrasine, a story about intercultural and intersexual misreading of the body, about the perverse semiosis of the body that problematizes cultural constructions of gender and sexuality. Seizing upon a text that plays with the instability of gender and sexuality to tackle the issue of textuality, Barthes has seemed to invest his erotic body in his reading of Balzac's tale. Reading the "anagram" of Barthes's erotic body as encoded in the interweaving of the text allows us to trace the shifting relations of corporeality, textuality, and sexuality. It also helps us reveal the clashing conflicts among different bodies of signs and record the cacophony of sexualities involved in S/Z. As far as Barthes's erotic body is concerned, several critics have speculated upon Barthes's erotic practice in writing S/Z. Tom Conley argues that Barthes has turned his eyes away from the ubiquitous letter "X" in Balzac's text to avoid the sight of the female breasts ("X" being an ideogram stereotypically tracing the intersection, though in a flattened form, of two curving spheres). (1) Domna C. Stanton has demonstrated that in referring to the five codes alternatively as five "voices" Barthes is turning the text into an erotic object, braiding the fetishized voices of the maternal text as an incestuous Son (64-66). Noticeably, there has been a critical tendency to see Barthes as suppressing or occulting homoerotic desire, both Barthes's own and the text's, in his reading of Sarrasine (D. A. Miller 8-18; Diana Knight 130-34; Philip Stewart; Katherine Kolb 1570). On the other hand, Robert K. Martin (283-94) and Lawrence R. Schehr (93) present Barthes as inscribing and celebrating homosexuality as a ludic and hedonistic textual strategy. In figuring out the erotic body of Barthes, different critics have whipped up diversified imaginations, or "anagrams," of the same body. I would like to spell out another "anagram" of that body through reading S/Z as a text in which Barthes has attained the pleasure/jouissance of the text. While attempting to attune itself to Barthes's homosexual grain of the voice, this essay nevertheless also tries to lend an ear to other voices of desire sounding in S/Z. In order to experience Barthes's textual jouissance, it is more desirable, instead of concentrating on Barthes's homoerotic voice itself, to listen to its polyphonous/cacophonous interfusion/confusion with other voices of desire in the text. Listening to Barthes's voice in such a fashion will lead us to adventure into the jouissance of S/Z's erotic body, an erotic body in which Barthes has lost his own identity. Furthermore, it should be stressed that the erotic body of S/Z is a textual body, to be observed in the polymorphous textuality Barthes imagines. Positing an opposition between the readerly text and the writerly text, Barthes sets out to analyze Balzac's narrative, a readerly text by Barthes's definition. But what the reader witnesses in the process of Barthes's analysis is the transformation of Balzac's readerly text into something else, the transformation itself being the bed of birth for the illusive changeling of Barthes's writerly text, not yet born and yet always in waiting to be born. This metamorphosis has an unstable relationship to the story on which Barthes performs his operation of transformation, for whereas Barthes's analysis involves an operation on textuality, Balzac's story involves one on sexuality. …


This research paper describes the study of cheat-sheets and how Engineering Educators can utilize them to evaluate students' ability to identify critical information. Effective teaching has different definitions, which make it a challenge to settle on a single definitive definition. Some of the common words or phrases characterizing an effective teacher are: interesting, helpful, approachable, makes subject interesting, being available, motivating students, setting high but achievable standards, presents material well, and stimulating interest in subject. As good as these attributes are, they may not always guarantee the desired learning outcome. For this reason, it is important to evaluate effective teaching in conjunction with students' learning. Student learning is normally done by evaluating their performances in exams, quizzes, class discussions and other assignments. One area full of information but has received no attention is cheat-sheets prepared students in some exams. These sheets usually contain what students perceive as difficult course material to understand, memorize or pertinent to the exam. Since exams usually contain the core concept of the subjects taught, students prepare cheat-sheets to aid them to prove that they received and understood the core concept of the various subjects. From this study, we conclude that studying the structure and content of cheat-sheets may help engineering educators to gain invaluable knowledge of how students identify the core content of class material, hence, gaining an insight on how to propagate the main subject matter of the courses they teach.


Background: There exists a great range of possibilities offered to cyclists to adjust their equipment. The influence of some bike adjustments as well as the interactions between them on the performance and/or the biomechanics of pedalling has been extensively studied but the setup of an optimal saddle setback remains controversial. Saddle setback is commonly associated with KOPS - Knee Over the Pedal Spindle - that means that saddle setback should allow the inferior pole of the patella to be at the vertical of the pedal spindle when the pedal is at 3 o'clock. However the rationale for this is unclear even if a few opinion articles suggested that exceeding this location may engender patellofemoral pain syndrome. According to UCI regulations, the horizontal distance between the chainset centre and the anterior portion of the saddle shall be a minimum of 5 cm, no maximum is recommended and, again, with no scientific support provided. Furthermore, this rule does not take the cyclist's anthropometry into account and other disciplines such as track cycling or triathlon are not subject to this regulation, permitting a smaller setback. From a performance point of view, it is known that sitting more forward allows for an increase in maximal power production but the evidence relating saddle setback to pedalling effectiveness at steady state remains inconclusive.   Purpose: The objective was to investigate the effect of saddle setback on pedalling effectiveness through the analysis of two indices based on the force applied to the pedal and the mechanical crank work respectively.   Methods: Ten well-trained (8.5 ± 6.75 years of experience in competition) cyclists volunteered to participate in the study. A stationary cycle ergometer (SRM, Schoberer, Germany) was instrumented with two six-load component force sensors (Sensix, Poitiers, France) that were integrated in the pedals. Three saddle setback conditions were compared: a Recommended condition which included values of saddle height and setback based on individual anthropometric measurements, a Backward (10% more backward) and a Forward (10% more forward) condition. For the three conditions, participants were instructed to perform a 3minute trial while keeping cadence (90rpm) and power (200W) constant. Pedalling effectiveness was evaluated through two parameters. The index of force effectiveness represents the ratio of the component of force that is tangential to the chainset on the total force applied to the pedal. A new complementary index of work effectiveness was developed; it represents the ratio between the cumulative positive (+) work and the cumulative total work.   Results: In comparison with a forward position, sitting backward significantly decreased 5 % cumulative total work, increased index of work effectiveness (84.2 ± 3.7 versus 82.0 ± 4.7 %) and increased index of force effectiveness (41.7 ± 2.9 versus 39.9 ± 3.7 and 36.9 ± 0.7 %) (Figure 2).   Discussion: Mechanical work calculated from the integration of instantaneous power over time differs from when assumed to be the product of average power and duration of the trial (200W*30s= 6000J). Our calculation takes into account the intra-cycle variations of instantaneous power that lead to an actual cumulative work of approximately 14000 J and more importantly was sensitive to pedalling technique (Figure 3). This index demonstrated that saddle setback impacts the amount of negative power and consequently the effectiveness of the pedalling technique from a 'mechanical work' point of view: even if cyclists produced the same average power of 200 W, in the Forward condition they had to produce notably more positive work than in the Backward condition in order to compensate the greater amount negative work during the upstroke phase. Conclusions based on the findings of this study should still be drawn with caution as pedalling technique effectiveness may not reflect overall efficiency. Finally, it remains to be verified whether using of greater saddle setback would not detrimentally affect the occurrence of knee injuries.   Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that sitting backward offers an advantage in terms of pedalling effectiveness compared to sitting more forward. Furthermore, we propose a new index based on work effectiveness that outmatches the bike fitting context and may be advantageously reused in investigations related to the evaluation of mechanical work and its effectiveness


The electronic products continue to upgrade at present, how to recycle the discarded electronic products is one of the key research of green design. The method of active disassembly using smart material (ADSM) has acquired widespread concerns. For some products, there is a long distance between the internal active disassembly structure and shell, it needs a long time to reach to the stimulation temperature of internal active disassembly structure, and therefore, it is difficult to completely disassemble these discarded electric products by one step. Moreover, it is not conducive to recycling the material if the components and parts of the disassembly products are mixed together, and the efficiency of disassembly is very low. This paper puts forward multi-step active disassembly method of products, it gives specific procedures of classifying steps according to the principle of division, and it proves the feasibility and superiority of the multi-step active disassembly method of products by referring to mobile model.


Heavy metal fluoride glass materials are attractive for optical applications in the near UV through IR wavelength regions. However, many compositions are relatively soft and hygroscopic and possess low softening temperature (250–300°C). We have applied ion assisted deposition (IAD) techniques to deposit MgF2, SiO2, and A12O3/SiO2 thin filmstructures on fluorideglass substrates at ambient substrate temperature (~100°C). The coatings deposited using IAD improve the environmental durability of the fluoride glass and appear to have reasonably good optical characteristics; without application of IAD, the deposited coatingsare not durable and have poor adhesion.


Q. What factors determine the SPF performance of a given sunscreen? A. The SPF is the sun protection factor afforded by a given sunscreen. It is determined by dividing the lower back of untanned individuals is into small test sites which are exposed to UVB light until a minimum amount of erythema develops, known as the MED. Lightproof barriers are placed around the test sites to prevent light contamination from one test site to another. Once the MED for the test subject has been determined, the subject is invited to return to the test site the next day for application of sunscreen. The sunscreen is placed on the test sites and allowed to dry. The skin is then exposed to UVB light at the expected SPF of the sunscreen product. The expected SPF is roughly determined by spectrophotometric absorption. The amount of UVB light required to obtain the same degree of erythema as the preceding day is determined and the SPF calculated.


Over the last two decades, world trade and production have become increasingly organized around global value chains (GVC). Recent theoretical work has shown that countries can benefit from participation in GVCs through multiple channels. However, little is known empirically about the economic importance of supply chains. We use the Eora MRIO database to compute different measures of GVC participation for 189 countries and illustrate global patterns of supply chains as well as their evolution over time in order to contribute to this topic. We find that GVC-related trade, rather than conventional trade, has a positive impact on income per capita and productivity, however there is large heterogeneity and the gains appear more signifcant for upper-middle and high-income countries. We document that "moving up" to more high-tech sectors while participating in major supply chains does take place but is not universal, suggesting other factors matter. We confirm the findings of the standard gravity literature for GVC trade; highlighting the key role of institutional features such as contract enforcement and the quality of infrastructure as determinants of GVC participation.


In everyday life, people in China as elsewhere have to confront large-scale incongruities between different representations of history and state. They do so frequently by way of indirection, that is, by taking ironic, cynical or embarrassed positions. Those who understand such indirect expressions based on a shared experiential horizon form what I call a 'community of complicity'. In examples drawn from everyday politics of memory, the representation of local development programmes and a dystopic novel, I distinguish cynicism and 'true' irony as two different ways to form such communities. This distinction proposes a renewed attempt at understanding social inclusion and exclusion. I also suggest that irony, so defined, might be more conducive to an anthropology that is ethnographic and dialogical.


The polar solar wind is a fast, tenuous and steady flow that, with the exception of a relatively short phase around the Sun's activity maximum, fills the high-latitude heliosphere. The polar wind properties have been extensively investigated by Ulysses, the first spacecraft able to perform in-situ measurements in the high-latitude heliosphere. The out-of-ecliptic phases of Ulysses cover about seventeen years. This makes possible to study heliospheric properties at high latitudes in different solar cycles. In the present investigation we focus on hourly- to daily-scale fluctuations of the polar wind velocity. Though the polar wind is a quite uniform flow, fluctuations in its velocity do not appear negligible. A simple way to characterize wind velocity variations is that of performing a multi-scale statistical analysis of the wind velocity differences. Our analysis is based on the computation of velocity differences at different time lags and the evaluation of statistical quantities (mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis) for the different ensembles. The results clearly show that, though differences exist in the three-dimensional structure of the heliosphere between the investigated solar cycles, the velocity fluctuations in the core of polar coronal holes exhibit essentially unchanged statistical properties.


This study examines Voltaire's (1694-1778) poem La Pucelle d'Orleans (The Maid of Orleans) of 1762 and the accompanying illustrations by Gravelot (1699-1773) as an adaptation of the fifteenth-century legend of Jeanne d'Arc (1412-31). The original narrative tells of Jeanne who led the French army of Charles VII to victory against the English in alliance with Burgundians in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). This thesis argues that Voltaire and Gravelot dramatically altered this original narrative to make points with eighteenth-century significance. It examines the ways in which Voltaire and Gravelot were drawing upon eighteenth-century discourses on gender and class, and those concerning the French monarchy and the Catholic Church. In particular, this study offers an insight into how Gravelot's illustrations conveyed his understanding of Voltaire's poem to an eighteenth-century audience. The relationship between the text and the images for the 1762 edition of La Pucelle has been overlooked by previous scholarship. It shows how Gravelot's illustrations were more than a supporting tool for the poem and that they played an important role in heightening the readers' understanding and enjoyment of Voltaire's La Pucelle d'Orleans.


As part of an ESRC funded project ( RES-333-25-0009) "Online QDA" ( http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/ ) that addressed the need for online materials for researchers learning qualitative data analysis (QDA) and computer assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS) we undertook in 2005 an online survey of qualitative researchers. This investigated a range of issues including the subject background of the researcher: the main approaches to analysis they were using, the training (if any) they had received in QDA and CAQDAS, what they needed training about and what aspects of QDA they had found difficult to learn, whether they had used software (and why or why not), which software they had used, their experience of learning the software and their expectations about it.

Because it was an online survey, the representativeness of the sample is hard to judge. However, we went to some lengths to ensure that those we invited to respond were not just those currently using CAQDAS. However, most respondents had used CAQDAS at some time in their research.

251 researchers replied, with three-quarters of replies coming from universities. Nearly 45% of respondents were from the UK with just over a quarter from the US or Canada. The biggest group was PhD students (32%) with significant numbers of academics and researchers


This paper reviews the status of polio eradication in the African Region. The fight against the scourge of poliomyelitis in the African Region continues with greater focus and determination on the part of the WHO African Region, its partners and governments despite the report of new cases at the point the Region was set to celebrate victory. The discovery of four new cases in July 2016 in previously insecure areas of Borno State, Nigeria, 24 months after the last case, increased the zeal to press on. By June 2017, almost 10 months passed since the latest case of wild polio virus reported in Nigeria on 21 August 2016; and 8 months since the latest circulating vaccine derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) in Nigeria. The search for polioviruses in humans (acute flaccid paralysis surveillance) and in environmental samples is being intensified. The Region has also remained on track with the different objectives of the global Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018. All 47 countries switched from trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (tOPV) to bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV) between April 17 and May 01, 2016. Thirtyfour countries introduced inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in their routine immunization programmes. In 2016, all countries in the Region conducted phase 1 containment and documentation of polioviruses destruction in their laboratories and the African Region Commission for Certification (ARCC) of Poliovirus Eradication had accepted documentation of polio-free status from 38 out of 47 countries. The African region also documented and published best practices of polio eradication in peerreviewed journals, so that the lessons learnt from polio could benefit other public health interventions in the Region. However, governments and partners should remain committed and deploy critical resources for intensifying surveillance, prompt response to detected viruses and strengthening of immunization systems to finish the fight.


Monitoring promoter response to environmental changes using reporter systems has provided invaluable information regarding cellular state. With the development of in vivo luciferase reporter systems, inexpensive, sensitive and accurate promoter assays have been developed without the variability reported between in vitro samplings. Current luciferase reporter systems, however, are largely inflexible to modifications to the promoter of interest. To overcome problems in flexibility and stability of these expression vectors, we report the creation of a novel vector system which introduces a cytosol‐localized Photinus pyralis luciferase [LUC*(−SKL)] capable of one‐step, in vivo measurements into a promoter–reporter system via PCR‐based gene deletion and fusion. After introduction of the reporter under HUG1 promoter control, cytosolic localization was confirmed by fluorescence microscopy. The dose–response of this novel construct was then compared with that of a similar HUG1Δ::yEGFP1 promoter–reporter system and shown to give a similar response pattern. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In ""Writing a Usable Past," " Brintlinger considers the interactions of post-Revolutionary Russian and emigre culture with the genre of biography in its various permutations, arguing that in the years after the Revolution, Russian writers looked to the great literary figures of the past to help them construct a post-Revolutionary present. In detailed looks at the biographical writing of Yuri Tynianov, Vladislav Khodasevich, and Mikhail Bulgakov, Brintlinger follows each author's successful biography/ies and their failed attempts at biographies of Alexander Pushkin on the centennial anniversary of his death. Brintlinger compares the Pushkin biographies to the other biographies examined, and in a concluding chapter she considers other, more successful commemorations of the great poet's death. She argues that popular commemorations--exhibits, concerts, special issues of journals--were a more fitting biography than the genre of the "usable past." For post-revolutionary cultural actors, including Tynianov, Khodasevich, and Bulgakov, Pushkin was a symbol rather than a model for constructing that usable past.


This article studies the impact of design characteristics of in-work benefits on employment and poverty in an international comparative setting, taking account of both first and second order effects. We use the microsimulation model EUROMOD, which has been enriched with a discrete labour supply model in order to take account of labour supply reactions. The analysis is performed for four EU-member states: Belgium, Italy, Poland and Sweden. The results show that design characteristics matter substantially, though the specific effects differ in magnitude across countries, indicating there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Throughout the analysis, numerous trade-offs are uncovered: not only between employment and poverty goals, but also within employment incentives itself (extensive vs. intensive margin). Taking account of behavioral reactions attenuates the impact on poverty outcomes, signaling the importance of bringing these effects into the empirical analysis.


Abstract. We detail a new prediction-oriented procedure aimed at volcanic hazard
assessment based on geophysical mass flow models constrained with
heterogeneous and poorly defined data. Our method relies on an itemized
application of the empirical falsification principle over an arbitrarily wide
envelope of possible input conditions. We thus provide a first step towards a
objective and partially automated experimental design construction. In
particular, instead of fully calibrating model inputs on past observations,
we create and explore more general requirements of consistency, and then we
separately use each piece of empirical data to remove those input values that
are not compatible with it. Hence, partial solutions are defined to the inverse
problem. This has several advantages compared to a traditionally posed
inverse problem: (i) the potentially nonempty inverse images of partial
solutions of multiple possible forward models characterize the solutions to
the inverse problem; (ii) the partial solutions can provide hazard estimates
under weaker constraints, potentially including extreme cases that are
important for hazard analysis; (iii) if multiple models are applicable,
specific performance scores against each piece of empirical information can
be calculated. We apply our procedure to the case study of the Atenquique
volcaniclastic debris flow, which occurred on the flanks of Nevado de Colima
volcano (Mexico), 1955. We adopt and compare three depth-averaged models
currently implemented in the TITAN2D solver, available from https://vhub.org
(Version 4.0.0 – last access: 23 June 2016). The associated inverse problem
is not well-posed if approached in a traditional way. We show that our procedure
can extract valuable information for hazard assessment, allowing the exploration
of the impact of synthetic flows that are similar to those that occurred in the
past but different in plausible ways. The implementation of multiple models is
thus a crucial aspect of our approach, as they can allow the covering of other
plausible flows. We also observe that model selection is inherently linked to
the inversion problem.


Abstract In this study, 4-[3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-5-aryl-4,5-dihydro-pyrazol-1-yl]benzenesulfonamide (1–9) types compounds were synthesized and their chemical structures were confirmed by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and HRMS spectra. Cytotoxic and carbonic anhydrase (CA) inhibitory effects of the compounds were investigated. Cytotoxicity experiments pointed out that compound 4, (4-[5-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-4,5-dihydro-pyrazol-1-yl]benzenesulfonamide), exerting the highest tumor selectivity (TS) and potency selectivity expression (PSE) values, can be considered as a lead compound of this study in terms of development of novel anticancer agents. All synthesized sulfonamides showed a good inhibition profile on hCA IX and XII in the range of 53.5–923 nM and 6.2–95 nM, respectively. These compounds were 2.5–13.4 times more selective for the inhibition of hCA XII versus hCA IX, except compound 2 which had similar inhibitory action towards both isoenzymes.


The rise in mobile telephony has continued to bridge the wide disparity between urban and rural dwellers, although there are suggestions that mobile phones have not been optimally utilized by rural dwellers. In view of this, the main aim of this study was to examine mobile phone usage in rural communities of Kwara State, Nigeri a; considering demographic influence on usage, extent of use, type of ownership and challenges encountered by rural dwellers in the use of mobile phones. The population of study comprised a total of 1475 rural dwellers from twelve communities that were ran domly selected from two local government areas under each of the three senatorial districts in Kwara State. On the whole, findings revealed a considerable adoption of mobile phone s by rural dwellers based on the proportion of the study sample that used it and the various task s performed with the phones such as text messaging, voice calling, among others , in spite of the prevailing challenges. Asides, the influence of demographics such as gender and occupation determined mobile phone usage in the study are a. Policy recommendations were made toward addressing the various challenges confronting rural dwellers in the use of mobile phones. Key Words : Mobile, phone, usage, telephony, Rural, communities, Nigeria


The inhibitory effects of ten C3,6-dibenzoylated phenyl-thiosemicarbazone-chitosan derivatives on four species of animal pathogenic bacteria and four kinds of plant pathogenic fungi were studied. The antimicrobial activity of all derivatives is superior to that of raw chitosan.The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of the derivatives against Escherichia coliwere 7.40 µg·mL-1and 14.80µg·mL-1respectively. The bacteriostatic effect of derivative on Gram-negative bacteria is stronger. All of the derivatives had a certain antifungal effect on the tested fungi in the concentration range of 0.05 mg·mL-1-2 mg·mL-1, with a maximum inhibition index of 100%. The antimicrobial action of the derivatives increased with the increase of concentration.


The wide use of the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) of HIV infection leads to the HIV drug resistance. The simultaneous formation of the resistance to different groups of antiviral drugs compromises the efficacy of HAART. Thus, the problem of the drug resistance becomes of an enormous significance. In this review, a definition of the resistance is given; the problem of the drug-resistant strains transmission is discussed; the assays used for resistance testing are described; recommendations for the antiviral drug-resistance testing are given.


Genome manipulation controlled by small metal complexes has attracted extensive interest because of their potential application in the fields of molecular biotechnology and drug development. However, their medicinal application is still limited due to the distinct toxicity of the free radicals generated by partial metal complexes based on oxidative cleaving processes. Thus, it is still a challenge for us to use metal free agent to cleave DNA. In this work, we showed that a family of polyamine-grafted PASP (poly(aspartic acid)) conjugates is able to rapidly induce DNA cleavage in the absence of metal ions, and obtain a high-yield linearization product via a hydrolytic path. From the results of detailed control experiments, it was revealed that the formation of polyamine cation/phosphate anion pair and free ungrafted nucleophilic groups would be the key factors to improve DNA linearization. Constructing polyamine conjugates based on short peptide such as polyamine-grafted PASP, as achieved here, could provide an attractive strategy for developing mild and efficient artificial nucleases as well as researching catalytic mechanisms on DNA chemistry.


About the book:

The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Development provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for gender and development policy making and practice in an international and multi-disciplinary context. Specifically, it provides critical reviews and appraisals of the current state of gender and development and considers future trends. It includes theoretical and practical approaches as well as empirical studies. The international reach and scope of the Handbook and the contributors' experiences allow engagement with and reflection upon these bridging and linking themes, as well as the examining the politics and policy of how we think about and practice gender and development.

Organized into eight inter-related sections, the Handbook contains over 50 contributions from leading scholars, looking at conceptual and theoretical approaches, environmental resources, poverty and families, women and health related services, migration and mobility, the effect of civil and international conflict, and international economies and development. This Handbook provides a wealth of interdisciplinary information and will appeal to students and practitioners in Geography, Development Studies, Gender Studies and related disciplines


The aim of this study was to synthesize the carbon-based nanomaterials and determine their hydrogen storage capacities. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were first synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of acetylene (C2H2) on a magnesium oxide (MgO) powder impregnated with an iron nitrate (Fe(NO3)3·9H2O) solution. The synthesis parameters were selected as the synthesis temperatures of 500 and 800°C, the iron content in the precursor of 5% and the synthesis time of 30 minutes. The synthesized material was purified by using HCl at 75°C for 15 hours. After synthesis of CNTs, the polyaniline-doped H3BO3 and BF3 and composites were prepared by coagulation method. The synthesized CNTs and composites were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analyzer. The BET specific surface areas were obtained from the nitrogen adsorption isotherms at -196°C. The hydrogen storage capacities of these carbonaceous materials were measured using volumetric method. It was found that the hydrogen adsorption capacities were changed in the range between 0.44 and 3.67wt% at the liquid nitrogen temperature and gas pressure up to 100 bar.


This article appraises the role of the reformulation of preliminary rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union ('CJEU' or 'the Court') in the field of direct taxation. The few articles on this matter written mainly by French scholars adopt a descriptive/analytical approach. As such, they enumerate the rulings whereby the Court alters the original questions posed by the national court by limiting or widening the scope of the reply, replacing a question of interpretation of EU law into one of validity or vice versa, etc. However, this contribution makes an attempt to go beyond this analytical approach in order to construe a normative model which shed light on the current interplay between national courts and the CJEU. By analysing several CJEU decisions in the field of direct taxation, my article purports to demonstrate that reformulating the questions referred is not neutral. Due to the lack of positive integration in this area, it will be argued that the reformulation constitutes a technique that enables the Court to foster its own agenda of integration at the peak of the European Judicial Power.


A pilot scheme was set up in September 2012 to re-evaluate our current textile recycling process, which was selling all the Rags* from our retail shops onto textile recyclers. This scheme examined the possibilities of increasing revenue by re-sorting our discarded Rags, focusing initially in four specific areas; Vintage/Retro, clearance items (to support a new shop), saleable items returned to standard shops and true Rag items. These results showed the potential of 16% of total rags being recovered, giving a large extra revenue opportunity. The next challenge was to find a dual purpose site, large enough to support the resorting project and allowing expansion into other areas, with a shop attached to sell the clearance items thus avoiding further transport costs. In March 2013 the Resorting Centre was opened with a full time manager and two part time deputies, the Clearance shop opened at the start of April 2013. In order to monitor the outputs of the project, all items that are returned back to shops are tagged with a pre printed bar code for our Epos system to track. To fully understand this concept, all Shop Managers were invited to see the process first hand. Additional revenue benefits to this project involve the team expanding into an upcycling section encompassing areas such as, bunting, felting, and removing unusual buttons, to sell in the shops. This will generate new volunteer opportunities in order to support this initiative. We intend to further develop this initial project to resorting books in Sept 2013. This journey will continue to grow and adapt and creates a clear strong platform for further revenue developments, working on the concept of generating more income from our existing donations whilst reducing waste. *Rags = donated clothes considered unsaleable


Use this guide to become a more skillful researcher. Learn how to develop research questions, choose credible sources, evaluate your sources, cite them correctly, and avoid plagiarism


[TOP] Dopamine transporter imaging with single photon emission computed tomography (DAT-SPECT) is investigational for all indications, including but not limited to:  Aiding in the diagnosis of patients with clinically uncertain parkinsonian syndromes; OR  Distinguishing between parkinsonian syndromes and essential tremor; OR  Distinguishing between dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer disease; OR  Monitoring of disease progression


Gross crustal structures of Kohat plateau and Bannu basin area have been interpreted incorporating gravity, seismicity and landsat TM image data. The continued northward movement of the Indian plate against the Euorasian plate has produced litho-structural complexities in the area. The analysis shows that most of the area is dominantly a thin skinned type of fold and thrust belt. Basement faulting is confined to a small western part of the Kohat plateau and Mianwali reentrant. The major thrust faults are due to the presence of basal decollement between the sediments and the basement. Some blind/ hidden faults or micro shear zones exist. Gravity model BB' show two such faults named Adughar and Akhun Kot faults, while model CC' indicate Karak fault to extend further south east. There are indications from the Bouguer, Residual gravity and landsat TM image data that Kalabagh fault may be extending further north.

The 2-D gravity models suggest the thickening of the crust 38 km in the south to more than 45 km in the north and northwest. A comparison of isostatic moho with the gravimetric moho shows that areas lying southeast including the Salt range are over-compensated due to the thinning of the crust, whereas the Kohat- Potwar plateau areas, Bannu basin and Mianwali reentrant are under-compensated.


Climate services, and research on climate services, have mutually developed over the past 20 years, with quality assessment a central issue for orienting both practitioners and researchers. However, quality assessment is becoming more complex as the field evolves, the range and types of climate services expands, and there is an increasing appeal to co-production of climate services. Scholars describe climate services as emerging from complex knowledge systems, where information moves through institutions and actors attribute various qualities to these services. Seeing climate services' qualities as derived from and activated in knowledge systems, we argue for comprehensive assessment conducted with an extended peer community of actors from the system; co-evaluation. Drawing inspiration from Knowledge Quality Assessment and post-normal science traditions, we develop the Co-QA assessment framework; a checklist-based framework for the co-creation of criteria to assess the quality of climate services. The Co-QA framework is a deliberation support tool for critical dialogue on the quality of climate services within a co-construction collective. It provides a novel, structured, and comprehensive way to engage an extended peer community in the process of quality assessment of climate services. We demonstrate how we tested the Co-QA—through interviews, focus groups and desktop research—in two co-production processes of innovative climate services; an ex post evaluation of the "Klimathon" in Bergen, Norway, and an ex ante evaluation for designing place-based climate services in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. These cases reveal the challenges of assessing climate services in complex knowledge systems, where many concerns cannot be captured in straight-forward metrics. And they show the utility of the Co-QA in facilitating co-evaluation.


Wine has been considered as safe and healthy drink, besides an important adjunct to the diet. The present work was carried out to develop process methodology for the production of Herbal wine from Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Hibiscus petals extract supplemented with sugar proved to be a good medium for the growth of different Strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for making the Hibiscus wine. Effect of different yeast strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, viz. MTCC 178, MTCC 180, MTCC 786 Strains on the enological and sensory characteristics of Hibiscus wines was determined. Different yeast strains influenced the physico-chemical characteristics of the wines produced to a variable extent. The higher rate of fermentation was shown by MTCC 178, compared to MTCC 180 and MTCC 786. Out of various strains, MTCC 178 gave the highest efficiency along with higher ethanol yield. The MTCC 786 strain produced lowest ethanol in wine. TSS, pH, total sugar, ethanol and colour did not contribute to separation of yeasts. This study deals with the rheological proper-ties of herbal wine too. Amongst the three yeast strain screened for alcoholic fermentation of reconstituted Hibiscus petals extract, Saccharomyces cerevisiae MTCC 178 was found most potent strain. The optimal alcoholic fermentation of reconstituted Hibiscus extract by Saccharomyces cerevisiae MTCC 178 was recorded at 25 0C, initial pH of must 5.0 and total soluble solid 240 brix with an inoculum level of 10% (v/v). Wine is very important along with other vinification practices as it influenced the chemical and sensorial quality of wine.


Abstract. Crop residue burning is an important source of air pollutants and strongly affects the regional air quality and global climate change. This study presents a detailed emission inventory of major air pollutants from crop residue burning for the year of 2014 in China. Activity data were investigated for 296 prefecture-level cities, and emissions were firstly estimated for each city and then redistributed using 1-km resolution land use data. Temporal variation was determined according to the farming practice in different regions. The MODIS fire product was applied to verify the spatial and temporal variations of the inventory. Results indicates that the total emissions of BC, OC, PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NOX, NH3, CH4, NMVOC, CO and CO2 from crop residue burning (including open and household fuel burnings) were estimated to be 0.16, 0.82, 2.30, 2.66, 0.09, 0.70, 0.14, 0.81, 1.70, 13.70 and 309.04 Tg, respectively. Rice, wheat and corn were the three major contributors, but their relative contributions varied with region and season. High emissions were generally located in the eastern China, central China and northeastern China, and temporally peaking in June and October relating with harvesting time. The spatially and temporal distributions agree well with the fire pixel counts from MODIS. Uncertainties were estimated using the Monte Carlo method. This study provides a useful basis for air quality modeling and the policy making of pollution control strategies.


The current work endeavored to elucidate any histological alterations in pancreas islets tissue of rats meanwhile treated with the usually used food additive, Monosodium glutamate (MSG) were accurately studied. The rats (n=70), average weightiness of (240 ± 20) gm were randomly assigned into seven groups (n=10): control groups, others rats in the practice groups received 10 mg/200ml distilled water (DW) for each group of (glycine, l-arginine (ARG), MSG, glycine + MSG, ARG + MSG and the last group were combinations groups (glycine + ARG + MSG) for forty-five days. The rats were sacrificed after the latest date of treatments. A piece of pancreatic tissue was dissected out and fixed in 10% buffered neutral formal saline and prepared for usual stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E). The histological findings after H&E methods for pancreas sections from various treatment groups showed varying degree of necrosis, apoptosis, hyperplasia, swallowing and hypertrophic in nucleus in the pancreatic islet cells as well as, irregularity in shape and hypertrophic in islet with hyperplasia in connective tissues, we can assume that MSG indication pancreas toxicity and tissue alteration in return to combination group which showed slightly normal architecture, in the shape and size of pancreatic islet and acini to control group. These conclusions confirmed that glycine and ARG may act as an antioxidant to prevent distortion affected by MSG consumption and may have some deleterious effects on the pancreas of adult Wistar rats which is reversible and does not lead to permanent infarctions, but the normal structure of the pancreas would need a long time to be regained. It is recommended that further investigations aimed at authenticating these findings be carried out.


The objective of this investigation was to develop novel colon specific drug delivery. Aceclofenac, a NSAID, was successfully encapsulated into chitosan microspheres. Various formulations were prepared by varying the ratio of chitosan, span‐85 and stirring speed and the amount of glutaraldehyde. The SEM study showed that microspheres have smooth surfaces. Microspheres were characterised by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to confirm the absence of chemical interactions between drug and polymer and to know the formation of microspheres structure. The microspheres were evaluated for particle size, encapsulation efficiency, drug loading capacity, mucoadhesion studies, stability studies, in vitro and in vivo drug release studies. Particle sizes, as measured by the laser light scattering technique, were of an average size in the range 41–80 µm. The swelling index was in the range 0.37–0.82 and the entrapment efficiency range was 51–75% for all the formulations. The optimised batch ACM13 released 83.6% at 8 h and 104% at 24 h in SCF containing rat caecal content. Eudragit coated chitosan microspheres prevented the release of the aceclofenac in the physiological environment of the stomach and small intestine and released 95.9±0.34% in the colon. With regard to release kinetics, the data were best fitted with the Higuchi model and showed zero order release with non‐Fickian diffusion mechanism. The in vivo findings suggest that aceclofenac microspheres exhibit a prolonged effect of aceclofenac in rats and produce a significant anti‐inflammatory effect. The findings of the present study conclusively state that chitosan microspheres are promising for colon targeting of aceclofenac to synchronise with chronobiological symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Purpose : Most developed countries have adopted entrustable professional activities in their graduate and undergraduate medical education curricula. This scoping review evaluates the evidence regarding the development, implementation, and assessment of entrustable professional activities -based curricula, particularly in undergraduate medical education, in the context of developing countries. Method : We identi fi ed 17 articles published between January, 2010, and December, 2022, from the MEDLINE/PubMed database and via Google search to evaluate entrustable professional activities application status in the undergraduate medical education. PRISMA guidelines were followed, and the population, intervention, comparison, and outcome (PICO) strategy was used for constructing the research question. Data were collected, tabulated, and analyzed in MS Excel. Results : Of the 17 articles, most (n ¼ 14) were from America and Europe, 2 were from India, and 1 was from Mexico; 8 of them were perspective studies. Six of these studies addressed the development of entrustable professional activities, 4 studied their assessment, and 3 studied the implementation of entrustable professional activities; 3 studies addressed both the development and implementation of entrustable professional activities, whereas 1 study addressed the development and assessment. Heterogeneity was observed in the methods of development, implementation, and assessment of entrustable professional activities in these studies. Conclusion : Entrustable professional activities have not been given considerable attention in developing countries yet. Given the lack of consensus on its development, implementation, and assessment, this review highlights the need for a well-de fi ned, specialty-speci fi c entrustable professional activities framework for undergraduate medical education closely aligned to that for GME. This would help students gain competence from the entry level. Moreover, effective implementation of entrustable professional activities requires a shared glossary to avoid confusions among medical students and educators in the interpretation of terms owing to cultural differences worldwide and thus prevent ambiguity in entrustable professional activities application globally.


Global challenges posed by an increasing food demand and climate change call for innovative mechanisms that consider both agriculture and forests. Agriculture and forests are deeply interconnected in mosaic landscapes, just as multiple pieces of the same puzzle. These pieces are handled by numerous stakeholders with different and often contrasting goals. Hence landscape management is steered by power, access to scarce resources, but also vulnerability and hazards. In this thesis I analyze the roles each stakeholder plays on these dynamics, including policy makers, agribusiness actors and subsistence farmers. I explore landscapes as interconnected tiles of a game, in which players are real stakeholders and their goals determine land use dynamics on the game board just as in reality. Sometimes agreements made in the game translate to real-life actions influencing policy and management decisions. Other times the game is just fun and eventually contributes to social learning and trust.


High Frequency Oscillations (HFOs) have been described as biomarkers of epileptogenic tissue; however their pathological/physiological classification poses a challenge to their predictive power. For the population of ripples co-occurring with sleep spindles, those ripples improving the antiparallel correlation of ripple-peaks and sleep spindle-troughs were classified as coupled-ripples and the rest as uncoupled-ripples. For the same population of ripples two reference groups called in-SOZ and non-SOZ were formed according to the ripples' location inside or outside the seizure onset zone (SOZ). Nine patients were analyzed and their formed groups were compared using three amplitude, three waveform and three frequency features. The coupled-ripples group showed similar feature values to the non-SOZ group. The correlation based classification approach shows potential to verify the SOZ and predict alterations in the memory consolidation process.


Vehicle trafc sensors are an essential part of urban trafc management systems. However, humans are still widely used when short-term trafc classication is required, because current trafc data collection systems do not meet requirements for high accuracy, rapid deployment, and low cost. This paper explores the use of a sensor network for vehicle trafc classication. We accomplish low cost and easy deployment by using simple embedded computers and inductive loop sensors that can be taped directly to the roadway. We explore several techniques to improve accuracy both at individual sensors and by combining readings from multiple sensors. Traditional approaches typically assume high-speed trafc; we instead focus on errors that are induced at low and varying speeds, since we expect sensors to often be deployed at locations where vehicles will slow or stop. The contributions of this paper are rst, a comprehensive evaluation of approaches to reduce error: from feature denition, combining readings from a single sensor, and combining results from multiple independent sensors. Second, we evaluate these approaches against both on-line and off-line human observations, demonstrating sensor accuracy better than or slightly worse than on-line human classication depending on the similarity of the categories, and nearly optimal for length-based classication.


Background Indoor ultraviolet (UV) tanning is common and consequential, increasing the risk for cancers including melanoma and basal cell carcinoma. At-risk groups include adolescents and young adults, who often report beliefs about benefits of tanning. Adolescent and young adults are also among the most ubiquitous social media users. As previous studies support that content about tanning is common on social media, this may be a way that young women are exposed to influential content promoting tanning, including health misinformation. Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate health misinformation promoted by indoor tanning businesses via social media and to understand young women's perceptions of this misinformation. Methods This mixed methods study included (1) retrospective observational content analysis of indoor tanning salons' content on Facebook over 1 year and (2) qualitative interviews with a purposeful national sample of 46 White non-Hispanic women, age 16 to 23 years, who had recently tanned indoors. We assessed experiences with tanning businesses' posted content on social media through interviews. We used the constant comparative approach for qualitative analyses. Results Content analysis findings included data from indoor tanning businesses (n=147) across 50 states, yielding 4956 total posts. Among 9 health misinformation topics identified, the most common was the promotion of UV tanning as a safe way to get Vitamin D (n=73, 1.5%). An example post was "Stop by Body and Sol to get your daily dose of Vitamin D." Another misinformation topic was promoting tanning for health benefits (n=31, 0.62%), an example post was "the flu is not a season, it's an inability to adapt due to decreased sun exposure…" A total of 46 participants completed interviews (age: mean 20 years, SD 2). Almost all participants (45/46, 98%) used Facebook, and 43.5% (20/46) followed an indoor tanning business on social media. Approximately half of participants reported seeing social media posts from tanning salons about Vitamin D, an example of a participant comment was "I have [seen that] a few times..." Among the participants, approximately half believed it was safe to get Vitamin D from indoor UV tanning; a participant stated: "I think it is a valid benefit to UV tanning." Conclusions Despite the low frequency (range 0.5%-1.5%) of social media posts promoting health misinformation, participants commonly reported viewing these posts, and their perceptions aligned with health misinformation. Health education campaigns, possibly using social media to target at-risk populations, may be an innovative approach for tanning prevention messages.


Organ transplantation and biotechnological research depend on the availability of body parts, which necessitates the willing involvement of the public. The rapid development of biotechnology has led to a search for an adequate decision-making framework for the acquisition, retention and utilisation of body parts. It has also lead to disquiet about the commercialisation of research with the source being the only participant who is unable to benefit financially. In developing such a framework it is necessary to conceptualise the nature of the interest that individuals have in their bodies. The principle of autonomy may form a basis for structuring decision-making and weighing conflicting principles. As a society we value autonomy in the sense that a competent adult may make decisions about his or her own health care. The concept is that of an individual separated from others by a wall of rights. This may be of assistance as a basis for formulating competing rights, but this must then be mediated with reference to other principles. In this context this thesis applies the concepts of property interests to the human body. The purpose of this research is to consider selected bioethical issues in an attempt to formulate a principled approach to issues of consent and control over the body and its component parts. It argues that a living person should have a property interest in excised body parts during life. There should also be a property interest in the cadaver that arises at the point of death, which can be passed to the deceased's personal representative, who would be required to deal with the cadaver in accord with the previous instructions of the deceased. However, it does not argue that there are property interests in entire living persons. It does not suggest that property alone is adequate to resolve the issues, but that it should operate alongside existing concepts such as autonomy, informed consent and privacy. It proposes draft legislation to illustrate the operation of the suggested medico-legal framework. It recognises that any framework should be respectful of Maori cultural values, in light of the special position of Maori as tangata whenua, as expressed in the Treaty of Waitangi. It argues that the framework allows Maori the freedom to choose collective or individualistic decision-making, in recognition of the diversity of values within the Maori population. In addition, it considers areas where public policy might determine that the free disposition of this property interest should be restricted to protect vulnerable persons, such as incompetent persons and living organ donors.


Abstract This study has extended existing research on CEO power, pay structure, and firm performance, offering models based mainly on agency theory and managerial power theory, and testing hypotheses using data from 112 companies across a five-year span (2001–2005) in computer-related industry groups in the United States. The results indicated that power from executive directorship positively impacts a firm's return on assets and return on equity, and that CEO power from duality negatively impacts CEO long-term pay and total pay, while CEO power from tenure positively impacts CEO long-term pay and pay leverage, and composite power negatively impacts short-term pay. Evidence for CEO pay as a mediator between CEO power and firm performance revealed that CEO short-term pay positively impacts a firm's return on assets and international performance but negatively impacts its market value, regardless of which source of power is being controlled. CEO total pay positively impacts a firm's return on assets and international performance, with power from CEO duality, directorship, or composite power being controlled. Hence, and in general, CEO pay fails to significantly mediate the relationships between CEO power and firm performance. The contributions include a multiple-perspective study of CEO power, compensation, and firm performance to comprehensively discover each of their respective relationships. This study has further extended the debate over agency perspectives with stewardship perspectives to fill knowledge and theoretical gaps. Thus, evidence-based findings provide boards of directors with practical knowledge for sound governance with another avenue for future research in corporate governance.


Africa is a resource rich continent than many other continents in the world. Presently Africa is the fastest growing source of energy, accounting for 117.481 billion barrels of crude oil or 9.49 % of the world's reserves at the end of 2007. Also in 2007 Africa produced an average of 10317.6 thousand barrels of crude oil per day or 12.5% of the world total production. On the continent, West Africa remains the beehive of exploration activities due to the Gulf of Guinea being endowed with billions of barrels of oil reserves. Since 2000 more than 275 new oil wells had been discovered in West Africa. Despite the endowment of West Africa with oil reserves, socio-economic development, especially in oil producing countries, is unsatisfactory in delivering its citizenry from extreme poverty and improve social services and infrastructures. The discovery of oil in West Africa has therefore become a resource curse rather than a blessing. Many have come to realize that the lack of effective and prudent management of oil revenue for sustained socio-economic development and improved quality of living is the prime factor for the resource curse. In this regard, this paper attempts to address policy issues using a political economy methodology. The paper analyzes the Nigerian experience from the discovery of oil in 1956 and pinpoints the adverse socio-economic impact of oil discovery on the Nigerian economy. The paper also examines the discovery of oil in Ghana, Sierra Leone and ongoing exploration for oil discovery in Liberia. However, the author wonders whether these three West African countries will avoid or repeat the Nigerian experience, if and when they become oil producing nations. This is in consideration of the situation in Nigeria where the discovery of oil more than 50 years ago turned to be not a blessing but a curse. In conclusion, the paper suggests the need for the formulation of an oil revenue management policy. In respect of this suggestion, the paper proposes a management strategy for sustained socio-economic development in the countries here under discussion.


Item response theory "dual" models (DMs) in which both items and individuals are viewed as sources of differential measurement error so far have been proposed only for unidimensional measures. This article proposes two multidimensional extensions of existing DMs: the M-DTCRM (dual Thurstonian continuous response model), intended for (approximately) continuous responses, and the M-DTGRM (dual Thurstonian graded response model), intended for ordered-categorical responses (including binary). A rationale for the extension to the multiple-content-dimensions case, which is based on the concept of the multidimensional location index, is first proposed and discussed. Then, the models are described using both the factor-analytic and the item response theory parameterizations. Procedures for (a) calibrating the items, (b) scoring individuals, (c) assessing model appropriateness, and (d) assessing measurement precision are finally discussed. The simulation results suggest that the proposal is quite feasible, and an illustrative example based on personality data is also provided. The proposals are submitted to be of particular interest for the case of multidimensional questionnaires in which the number of items per scale would not be enough for arriving at stable estimates if the existing unidimensional DMs were fitted on a separate-scale basis.


This book, the first in decades to closely examine Thomas Jefferson's foreign policy, offers a compelling reinterpretation of his attitudes and accomplishments as a statesman during America's early nationhood. Beginning with Jefferson's disastrous stint as wartime governor of Virginia during the American Revolution, and proceeding to his later experiences as a diplomat in France, Secretary of State, and U.S. Vice President, historian Francis Cogliano considers how these varied assignments shaped Jefferson's thinking about international relations. The author then addresses Jefferson's two terms as President--his goals, the means he employed to achieve them, and his final record as a statesman. Cogliano documents the evolution of Jefferson's attitudes toward the use of force and the disposition of state power. He argues that Jefferson, although idealistic in the ends he sought to achieve, was pragmatic in the means he employed. Contrary to received wisdom, Jefferson was comfortable using deadly force when he deemed it necessary and was consistent in his foreign policy ends--prioritizing defense of the American republic above all else. His failures as a statesman were, more often than not, the result of circumstances beyond his control, notably the weakness of the fledgling American republic in a world of warring empires.


Wetland soils are a key global sink for organic carbon (C) and a focal point for C management and accounting efforts. The ongoing push for wetland restoration presents an opportunity for climate mitigation, but C storage expectations are poorly defined due to a lack of reference information and an incomplete understanding of what drives natural variability among wetlands. We sought to address these shortcomings by (1) quantifying the range of variability in wetland soil organic C (SOC) stocks on a depressional landscape (Delmarva Peninsula, USA) and (2) investigating the role of hydrology and relative topography in explaining variability among wetlands. We found a high degree of variability within individual wetlands and among wetlands with similar vegetation and hydrogeomorphic characteristics. This suggests that uncertainty should be presented explicitly when inferring ecosystem processes from wetland types or land cover classes. Differences in hydrologic regimes, particularly the rate of water level recession, explained some of the variability among wetlands, but relationships between SOC stocks and some hydrologic metrics were eclipsed by factors associated with separate study sites. Relative topography accounted for a similar portion of SOC stock variability as hydrology, indicating that it could be an effective substitute in large-scale analyses. As wetlands worldwide are restored and focus increases on quantifying C benefits, the importance of appropriately defining and assessing reference systems is paramount. Our results highlight the current uncertainty in this process, but suggest that incorporating landscape heterogeneity and drivers of natural variability into reference information may improve how wetland restoration is implemented and evaluated.


Background: macronutrient intake has been found to affect sleep parameters including obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in experimental studies, but there is uncertainty at the population level in adults. Methods: cross-sectional analysis was conducted of participants in the Men Androgen Inflammation Lifestyle Environment and Stress cohort (n = 784, age 35–80 years). Dietary intake was measured by a validated food frequency questionnaire. Self-reported poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness were measured by questionnaires. Overnight in-home polysomnography (PSG) was conducted among participants with without previously diagnosed OSA. Results: after adjusting for demographic, lifestyle factors, and chronic diseases, the highest quartile of fat intake was positively associated with excessive daytime sleepiness (relative risk ratio (RRR) = 1.78, 95% CI 1.10, 2.89) and apnoea-hypopnoea index (AHI) ≥20, (RRR = 2.98, 95% CI 1.20–7.38). Body mass index mediated the association between fat intake and AHI (30%), but not daytime sleepiness. There were no associations between other intake of macronutrient and sleep outcomes. Conclusion: high fat is associated with daytime sleepiness and AHI. Sleep outcomes are generally not assessed in studies investigating the effects of varying macronutrient diets on weight loss. The current result highlights the potential public health significance of doing so.


Experiential learning refers to learning from experience or learning by doing. Universities have explored various forms for implementing experiential learning such as apprenticeships, internships, cooperative education, practicums, service learning, job shadowing, fellowships and community activities. However, very little has been done in systematically trying to integrate experiential learning to the main stream academic curriculum. Over the last two years, at the authors' university, a new program titled UNI-X was launched to achieve this. Combining academic curriculum with experiential learning pedagogy, provides a challenging environment for students to use their disciplinary knowledge and skills to tackle real world problems and issues through inter-disciplinary approaches and activities. A course designated as UNI-X involves external partners from corporate, non-profit or government-sector organisations. The course requires the student to learn knowledge and skills during the classroom sessions and then to apply them in solving a real-world project proposed by the partners. The instructor along with the industry partner plays an active role in the project design, mentoring and assessment. In this paper contribution, the authors share their experience in designing a Data Warehousing and Business Analytics (DWBA) course to include experiential learning activities. The paper describes in detail the content, pedagogy, in-course project, challenges and lessons learned when introducing experiential learning into an existing course. Thus providing one pathway for Information Systems (IS) professors to adapt their analytics course to include experiential learning activities.


Preserving biodiversity is a global challenge requiring data on species' distribution and abundance over large geographic and temporal scales. However, traditional methods to survey mobile species' distribution and abundance in marine environments are often inefficient, environmentally destructive, or resource‐intensive. Metabarcoding of environmental DNA (eDNA) offers a new means to assess biodiversity and on much larger scales, but adoption of this approach for surveying whole animal communities in large, dynamic aquatic systems has been slowed by significant unknowns surrounding error rates of detection and relevant spatial resolution of eDNA surveys. Here, we report the results of a 2.5 km eDNA transect surveying the vertebrate fauna present along a gradation of diverse marine habitats associated with a kelp forest ecosystem. Using PCR primers that target the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene of marine fishes and mammals, we generated eDNA sequence data and compared it to simultaneous visual dive surveys. We find spatial concordance between individual species' eDNA and visual survey trends, and that eDNA is able to distinguish vertebrate community assemblages from habitats separated by as little as ~60 m. eDNA reliably detected vertebrates with low false‐negative error rates (1/12 taxa) when compared to the surveys, and revealed cryptic species known to occupy the habitats but overlooked by visual methods. This study also presents an explicit accounting of false negatives and positives in metabarcoding data, which illustrate the influence of gene marker selection, replication, contamination, biases impacting eDNA count data and ecology of target species on eDNA detection rates in an open ecosystem.


Background: Injectable naloxone is already provided as take-home naloxone (THN), and new concentrated intranasal naloxone is now being introduced in Europe. Despite evidence of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of THN, little is known about the attitudes of key target populations: people who use opioids (PWUO), family/friends, and staff. We examined the acceptability of different naloxone devices (ampoule, prefilled syringe, and concentrated nasal spray) across 5 European countries. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare THN target groups (PWUO vs. family/friends vs. staff) in their past rates of witnessed overdose and THN administration (as indicators of future use), current THN device preference, and THN carriage on the day of survey. Method: Cross-sectional survey of respondents (age ≥18) in addiction treatment, harm reduction, and recovery services in Denmark, England, Estonia, Norway, and Scotland. A purpose-developed questionnaire (59 items) was administered in the local language electronically or in a pen-and-paper format. Results: Among n = 725 participants, 458 were PWUO (63.2%), 214 staff (29.5%), and 53 (7.3%) family members. The groups differed significantly in their likelihood-of-future THN use (p < 0.001): PWUO had the highest rate of previously witnessing overdoses (352; 77.7%), and staff members reported the highest past naloxone use (62; 30.1%). Across all groups, most respondents (503; 72.4%) perceived the nasal spray device to be the easiest to use. Most reported willingness to use the spray in an overdose emergency (508; 73.5%), followed by the prefilled syringe (457; 66.2%) and ampoules (64; 38.2%). Average THN carriage was 18.6%, ranging from 17.4% (PWUO) to 29.6% (family members). Conclusion: Respondents considered the concentrated naloxone nasal spray the easiest device to use. Still, most expressed willingness to use the nasal spray as well as the prefilled syringe in an overdose emergency. Carriage rates were generally low, with fewer than 1 in 5 respondents carrying their THN kit on the day of the survey.


Aim The Danish Quality Database for Mammography Screening (DKMS) was established in 2007, with the aim to monitor, sustain, and improve the quality of the Danish national breast cancer screening program. Study population All Danish women aged 50–69 years who were invited every 2 years for breast cancer screening in the nationwide program since July 10, 2007. Main variables The DKMS consists of data retrieved from the five regional invitation systems, the National Pathology Registry, and the National Registry of Patients. The DKMS covers the entire screening process and includes variables required to determine the following eleven indicators: 1) radiation exposure, 2) participation among invited women and participation within the target population, 3) time between screening and result, 4) screening interval, 5) recall for further diagnostics, 6) interval cancers consisting of women diagnosed with breast cancer between screening rounds, 7) invasive breast tumors, 8) node-negative cancers, 9) invasive tumors ≤10 mm, 10) ratio of surgery for benign vs malignant lesions, and 11) breast-conserving therapy. Descriptive data As of August 10, 2015, the database included data from 888,151 unique women who have been invited to one or more screenings. In the first three screening rounds, 641,835 (round I), 580,452 (round II), and 641,938 (round III) women were invited, and participation increased from 79% to 84%. In the third round, 79% of the screened women received their result within ten working days, 2.7% of the screened women were recalled for further diagnostics, 82% of the women operated for invasive carcinomas were node negative, and 40% of the women had the tumor size of ≤10 mm. Conclusion The DKMS has successfully evaluated the quality of the nationwide Danish breast cancer screening program against international quality standards. The quality of the Danish program complies well with international standards particularly as regards to the clinical aspects.


Ring polymer molecular dynamics RPMD is used to directly simulate the injection and relaxation of excess electrons into supercritical helium fluid and ambient liquid water. A method for modulating the initial energy of the excess electron in the RPMD model is presented and used to study both low-energy cold and high-energy hot electron injections. For cold injection into both solvents, the RPMD model recovers electronically adiabatic dynamics with the excess electron in its ground state, whereas for hot electron injection, the model predicts slower relaxation dynamics associated with electronic transitions between solvent cavities. The analysis of solvent dynamics during electron localization reveals the formation of an outgoing solvent compression wave in helium that travels for over 2 nm and the delayed formation of water solvation shells on the timescale of 300 fs. Various system-size effects that are intrinsic to the simulation of excess electron injection are discussed. Comparison of the RPMD simulations with previous mixed quantum-classical dynamics simulations finds general agreement for both the mechanisms and timescales for electron localization, although the electron localization dynamics in the RPMD model is essentially completed within 400 fs in helium and 150 fs in water. © 2010 American Institute of Physics. doi:10.1063/1.3292576


Actuality: In the treatment of patients with partial or complete loss of teeth, implants are being more widely used in prosthetics. When placement of cylindrical implants (CI), a serious complication is their wrong placement in the jaw bone tissue. The aim of the study was rationale of the use of surgical templates as a method of prevention of improper placement of cylindrical implants. Objectives: 1. The study of the used methods of planning and placement of cylindrical implants in clinics of Yekaterinburg. 2. Analysis of errors and complications on the example of clinical cases when planning the installation of CI was done using x-ray methods when the absence of surgical templates. 3. Rationale for the use of 3D planning for implant placement and the use of surgical templates on the example of clinical cases. The results of this research was the study of the clinical use of surgical guides and software system IMPLANT-ASSISTANT® for the prevention of complications of improper installation of CI.


We propose a blind joint equalization algorithm for M-QAM signals based on a widely linear filtering approach. The proposed scheme jointly compensates receiver IQ imbalance and polarization mixing, along with carrier recovery, followed by transmitter IQ imbalance compensation. We first investigate the proposed scheme's tolerance to transceiver IQ Imbalance, polarization mixing, phase noise and frequency offset through numerical simulations for 32 GBd PM-16QAM and PM-64QAM signals and compare its performance with the conventional digital processing algorithms. Further, with the proposed algorithm, we experimentally demonstrate the improvement in Q2 value to up to ~ 1.22 dB for a 32 GBd PM-16QAM and ~ 3.72 dB for a 16 GBd PM-64QAM signal with a phase imbalance of 9o. We show that the MSE convergence of the proposed joint equalizer is much faster than conventional DSP algorithms. Deployment of such an equalizer in optical communication systems is beneficial due to its improved tolerance to multiple impairments, albeit with increased complexity.


Discovery and use of scientific data is dependent on descriptive metadata. Unfortunately, data lakes often contain compressed data, which are difficult to index and automatically extract metadata from due to storage and I/O constraints when inflating and processing recursively compressed data. Here we describe Abyss, a system capable of indexing large amounts of recursively compressed data. Abyss utilizes a function as a service architecture to execute decompression and crawling functions across multiple compute endpoints, allowing Abyss to index data at scale and overcome storage and I/O limitations. Abyss applies methods for predicting a file's de-compressed size and batching files to remote endpoints to optimize indexing. We present a prototype implementation of Abyss and demonstrate that it is capable of indexing real world and synthetic compressed data from a 9TB institutional repository.


Protein-ligand docking is an in silico tool used to screen potential drug compounds for their ability to bind to a given protein receptor within a drug-discovery campaign. Experimental drug screening is expensive and time consuming, and it is desirable to carry out large scale docking calculations in a high-throughput manner to narrow the experimental search space. Few of the existing computational docking tools were designed with high performance computing in mind. Therefore, optimizations to maximize use of high-performance computational resources available at leadership-class computing facilities enables these facilities to be leveraged for drug discovery. Here we present the porting, optimization, and validation of the AutoDock-GPU program for the Summit supercomputer, and its application to initial compound screening efforts to target proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic.


In audio signal processing, probabilistic time-frequency models have many benefits over their non-probabilistic counterparts. They adapt to the incoming signal, quantify uncertainty, and measure correlation between the signal's amplitude and phase information, making time domain resynthesis straightforward. However, these models are still not widely used since they come at a high computational cost, and because they are formulated in such a way that it can be difficult to interpret all the modelling assumptions. By showing their equivalence to Spectral Mixture Gaussian processes, we illuminate the underlying model assumptions and provide a general framework for constructing more complex models that better approximate real-world signals. Our interpretation makes it intuitive to inspect, compare, and alter the models since all prior knowledge is encoded in the Gaussian process kernel functions. We utilise a state space representation to perform efficient inference via Kalman smoothing, and we demonstrate how our interpretation allows for efficient parameter learning in the frequency domain.


Humans are endowed with the facility to perceive colour. This not only provides an additional aesthetic dimension but also helps perform visual tasks efficiently. There are many occupations, including inspection, not open to those with defective colour vision. Todays machine vision systems are virtually all colour-blind. Yet there are applications where colour is intrinsic. Consider for example the inspection and grading of fruit, vegetables, biscuits and other food products. Consider also the widespread use of colour coding for wiring and components in the electrical and electronic industries. Automatic optical inspection of such things cannot be done without relating to colour. There are other applications where colour is not directly relevant but the additional information provided can help simplify and speed up the processing task. This paper reviews the nature of colour, relating the psychophysical aspects of colour perception and the physical properties of available sensors to the needs of an automatic inspection system. The theory of colour perception is based on the tri-stimulus theory which says that any colour may be matched using appropriate proportions of three primary colours. Although later experiments have suggested human colour perception is more complex, most electronic video sensors employ a three colour system. Usually the red, green and blue primary components are derived and may be used directly as sensory inputs to a vision system. However the primary representation of colour is not the most efficient means of encoding nor is it the most useful basis for interpretive processing. The R,G and B primary signals may be simply transformed into a new coordinate system where one of the axes represents true object colour or hue. Using this new colour space simplifies processing. These ideas are illustrated by an inspection example. The colour coded wires of a European power cable are identified to ensure that a power plug is safely wired. For this application a straightforward and reliable inspection system can only be produced using colour information.


This paper attempts to provide a new approach to discover conserved regions such as motifs in either DNA or Protein sequences. We have followed a graph-based approach to solve this problem, in particular, using the idea of de Bruijn graphs. The de Bruijn graph has been successfully adopted to solve problems such as local alignment and DNA fragment assembly. Our method harnesses the power of the de Bruijn graph to discover the conserved regions in a DNA or protein sequence. We have found that the algorithm was successful in mining signals for larger number of sequences and at a faster rate when compared to some popular motif searching tools.


Fractography deals with studies of fracture surfaces in order to determine the source of failure and the relation between crack propagation and material microstructure. It is a science that has already been extensively applied to fibers, and it is gaining increased importance with the introduction of new materials. This book provides a remarkably good overview of the subject. The first part deals with the techniques of fractography, including optical microscopy, SEM and TEM electron microscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, acoustic microscopy, and image analysis. The second part deals with various materials, including filled epoxy '. resins, rubber modified epoxies, carbon fiber reinforced composites, amorphous and semicrystalline thermoplastics, and glass reinforced composites. The authors are well known and recognized research contributors, and the book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on materials.


Purpose Malnutrition has been shown to be related to adverse clinical outcomes in patients with heart failure, hypertension, atrial fibrillation and other cardiovascular diseases. However, in the patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) undergoing percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), especially in the elderly, the association of nutritional state and all-cause mortality remains unknown. We aimed to investigate the association of malnutrition with all-cause mortality in the elder patients undergoing PCI. Patients and Methods Based on the largest retrospective and observational cohort study from January 2007 to December 2017, the Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score was applied to 21,479 consecutive patients with age ≥60 who undergoing PCI for nutritional assessment. Participants were classified as absent, mild, moderate and severe malnutrition by CONUT score. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to compare all-cause mortality among the above four groups. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression analyses were performed to examine the association of malnutrition with all-cause mortality. Results According to the CONUT score, 48.19%, 15.08% and 0.94% patients were mildly, moderately and severely malnourished, respectively. During a median follow-up of 5.16 years (interquartile range: 3.02 to 7.89 years), 3173 (14.77%) patients died. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that the risk of all-cause mortality was significantly higher in patients with a worse nutritional status. Compared with normal nutritional state, malnutrition was associated with significantly increased risk for all-cause mortality (adjusted hazard ratio for mild, moderate and severe degrees of malnutrition, respectively: 1.20 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.09 to 1.33], 1.32 [95% CI: 1.17 to 1.49] and 1.76 [95% CI: 1.33 to 2.33]). Conclusion Malnutrition is prevalent among elderly patients with CAD undergoing PCI, and is strongly related to the all-cause mortality increasing. For elderly patients with CAD undergoing PCI, it is necessary to assess the status of nutrition, and evaluate the efficacy of nutritional interventions.


Many shallow lakes (lagunas) in Buenos Aires Province receive (municipal or industrial) wastewaters and (urban or agricultural) runoffs. Organic matter and nutrients additions increase the metabolism and biomass of the community (eutrophication). This process leads to changes in community structure (species replacement) and loss of aesthetic value. As secondary effects, the photosynthetic and respiratory activities of the planktonic community produce wide daily shifts in O2 and CO2 concentrations and pH values. Temperature and pH determine the ionic status and toxicity of certain compounds like ammonium nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide. Under special environmental conditions these factors may cause massive fish kills, quite difficult to explain some hours or days latter, when the system drawback to its normal condition. Many of these phenomena could be measured in Lobos pond, Buenos Aires.