Saudi Arabia, a country that has often been described as traditional and conservative, has been experiencing rising consumption of luxury brands lately. This is indeed an area that is still underexplored as the consumption behaviour of Saudi women toward luxury fashion brands have not been given much attention in the literature. As luxury goods are products that have intrinsic values and high social standing, both rational and emotional variables must be considered in the study of consumer behaviour and the cognitive-affective model is one of the theoretical bases in understanding such purchase intention. The cognitive-affective model has been used to understand the purchase intention of goods but very little of its application is seen in the context of luxury goods where perceived quality and emotional value are incorporated. As such, the mediating effect of perceived quality and emotional value as suggested by the model is the emphasis of this study as this is an area that has yet to be pursued extensively in existing literature. In line with this, the main objective of this study was to determine the relationship between the social status of women consumers and their purchase intention of luxury brands in Saudi Arabia. Primary data were obtained through questionnaires distributed in Riyadh and Jeddah, two major cities in Saudi Arabia, to Saudi women aged 20 and above who had luxury fashion brand purchase experiences. A total of 366 valid responses were collected and structural equation modelling was used to carry out a multivariate analysis. The findings of the research indicate that individual characteristic and consumer normative, two distinct constructs in the proposed framework, influenced perceived quality and emotional values of Saudi women's luxury fashion brands purchase. Both perceived quality and emotional value were found to motivate purchase intention and that perceived quality significantly mediates the relationship between the individual characteristics and consumer normative and purchase intention. Unlike previous studies that found emotional value as the most important element in the purchase intention of luxury goods with perceived quality having a negative effect, this study finds that perceived quality of luxury fashion brands is the key factor influencing the purchase intention among Saudi women. The present study thus contributes to the body of knowledge on luxury consumption in emerging markets like Saudi Arabia by proposing the inclusion of mediators in the relationship between social status and purchase intention.


We have witnessed a rise in clinical utilization of scleral lenses in recent years, and in some cases, their clinical indications have expanded to include even those patients with regular corneas. Given this sharp rise in scleral lens utilization, the principle of lens selection continuum as proposed by Visser et al appears to also hold true in patients with normal healthy eyes. Thus, when should clinicians reach for scleral lenses when providing care to patients with regular corneas?


A methodology to describe the variability of the Kuroshio based on satellite thermal observation is presented. A sharp front is found at the coastal-side edge of the warmest area along the Kuroshio in each thermal image (hereafter, the "Kuroshio surface front"). The front usually is not a continuous line but consists of two or more parallel frontal lines. Because this structure is derived by a frontal eddy, we may use the farthest one from the coast and its downstream extension as an indicator of the flow of the Kuroshio. The relationship between the Kuroshio axis and the surface Kuroshio front is as follows: The surface front always matches with the axis in the area of the Kuroshio Extension east of Japan whereas it tends to match with the northern edge of the strong flow of the Kuroshio in the East China Sea and the area south of Japan. The surface Kuroshio front therefore is a good measure of the location of the Kuroshio flow if we note only the difference in the relationship in each region. By applying this methodology to the thermal imagery observed from February 1990 to March 1991, we successfully recognized the transition of the pattern of the paths of the Kuroshio in the summer of 1990. We also found that the path of in the regions south of Shikoku Island and off Bo^-so^- Peninsula is more stable than those in the other regions.


Regression analysis of the length-width ratios of 153 rotational, rotational-complex landslides occurring in facies of the semi-consolidated Plio-Pleistocene Santa Clara Formation of northwestern Santa Clara County, California indicate that specific length-width ratios are unique to individual facies. The landslide data upon which these analyses were performed included all previously mapped (regional study and site specific) landslides that had at least one dimension (length or width) in excess of 30 m. An individual length-width ratio was established for all landslide data from a particular facies. Individual landslide length-width ratios which departed greatly from the relationship established by regression analysis were identified as landslides which needed to be field checked. In all cases that were field checked, those tentatively identified as landslides with highly divergent length-width ratios proved to have been misidentified as landslides. As economic realities (time, personnel, and equipment) generally preclude the field checking of all landslides identified by air photo analysis, particularly in regional zoning studies, the use of regionally derived length-width ratios is suggested as one means of selecting those areas that warrant specific field evaluations.


Metformin hydrochloride is successfully determined by reversedphase high-performance liquid chromatography with a new precolumn derivatization method using 9,10-anthraquinone-2sulfonyl chloride as the derivatization agent. Several derivatization systems are tried to optimize the derivatization conditions, and a new post-derivatization treatment method is established. The derivatization product is analyzed on a Lichrosper C 18 column (6.0 mm × 150 mm, 5 µm) at 256 nm with methanol‐water (70:30, v/v) as the mobile phase. The calibration curves of the derivatives for the UV detector (0.01‐4 mg/L) are linear with respect to peak area. The detection limit (peak area) for the metformin hydrochloride is 0.01 mg/L for a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1. In human plasma, the detection limit is 0.02 mg/L. This assay is rapid, sensitive, and highly reproducible.


This single-authored monograph explores the forms of credit which have historically been associated with the British working class. These included pawnshops, tallymen and various types of retail credit. It seeks to assess the effect of credit on working class communities, and relates this to debates about community and possible changes in the working class after 1945. It is based on extensive archival research and oral history interviews. The monograph is partly drawn from an ESRC-funded doctoral thesis, 'Working Class Credit on Tyneside since 1918', awarded by the University of Durham in 1997. This work is the first comprehensive examination of the history of these forms of credit to make comparisons between the periods before and after 1945. The book has been widely reviewed and welcomed. One reviewer wrote: "Although historians have long discussed the dividing line between altruism and instrumentalism within working-class communities, Taylor makes a sustained and convincing case, backed up with solid empirical research, for the interlinking of the two."


Airborne dual-polarization observations of sea surface normalized radar cross section (NRCS) were conducted over the North Atlantic during January-February 2011. Observations were made using the University of Massachusetts' Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler radar system installed on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's WP-3D research aircraft during several winter storm events to determine the high-wind response of the sea surface NRCS for both horizontal and vertical polarizations. During the flights, the aircraft performed several constant-roll circle maneuvers to allow collection of NRCS over a range of incidence angles. We find consistency with prior reports in the polarization ratio observed at moderate incidence angles at the winds encountered. For larger incidence angles, we observe a measurable decrease in polarization ratio with increasing wind speed.


Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) becoming business-like is a contested issue. Some understand the adoption of business-like practices by NPOs as a case of adopting rational myths through institutional isomorphism and thus potentially dangerous for NPOs' ability to fulfill their unique societal roles. Others are more optimistic, arguing that technical rationality is possible in the adoption of business-like practices, and that such practices can therefore support NPOs in fulfilling a wide range of societal roles. Drawing on survey data of NPOs in Flanders, we examine the relationship between the extent to which NPOs use business-like practices, and the extent to which they engage in various societal roles. We find that business-like practices are weakly related to NPOs' societal roles. All roles are positively related to nonprofit managerialism and unrelated to NPOs' reliance on commercial funding. Our results suggest that a certain optimism regarding the rational use of business-like approaches is justified.


It may seem uncontroversial that our law should prevent the execution of an innocent person. There are 'constitutional safeguards' in place that maintain this principle, but these safeguards apply to pre-convicted persons – those presumed innocent – through the avoidance of wrongful conviction. Once the conviction is handed down, the safeguards fundamentally change. This is equally true for the most troubling cases in which newly discovered evidence demonstrably proves the factual innocence of a defendant but is discovered post-conviction. Despite the available evidence, such persons do not enjoy constitutional safeguards that prohibit their execution based on their factual innocence. In 2009 the Supreme Court took a step towards establishing federal habeas law as a "capital safety valve" for the demonstrably wrongly convicted. The Court allowed a defendant to appeal his state conviction based on factual evidence and a claim of 'actual innocence.' I argue that despite attempts, post-conviction habeas relief for factual claims will necessarily remain limited. Speech act theory and the Toulmin model of arguments show how factual evidence and claims of actual innocence are conceptually incompatible with most post-conviction discourse and procedure. This incompatibility results from 1) an inherent tension between the performative and descriptive functions of verdicts as well as 2) the ambiguity of proof standards which creates uncertainty of established truth values. 18-Sep-11] INNOCENT UNTIL PRESUMED GUILTY 3


Green retrofitting practices have critical importance in both the construction industry (CI) and healthcare industry (HI) due to the adverse effects of the existing healthcare buildings on both the environment and public health. Ironically, existing healthcare buildings consume critical amounts of energy, produce wastes, and CO2 emissions, which have considerable diverse harmful impacts on the health and well-being of the society as well as the environment. Especially, given the main goals of healthcare, green retrofitting is crucial to provide a healthy future for patients and staff of healthcare buildings. There is a sensitive link between providing sustainable healthcare buildings with improving health of the patients. Therefore, green retrofitting of healthcare buildings (GRHB) can be seen as one of the significant contributors that have a critical role in reducing the harmful impacts of the existing healthcare buildings. Nowadays, due to coronavirus pandemic, nations will focus on the physical conditions of their healthcare buildings more than ever for strengthening their infrastructure with appropriate retrofitting approaches. Therefore, the worldwide concerns put the prominence of the importance of patient safety and strong health infrastructure on the agenda of nations. Improvements in the health infrastructure are inevitable for the future, and with regarding this motivation, we looked at the benefits of GRHB in the first place. In the existing literature, there is a lack of comprehensive review associated with the GRHB. This paper focuses on conducting a systematic literature review to investigate the benefits of GRHB with selected academic studies. After the identification of healthcare and green retrofitting specific studies, the benefits of GRHB were determined by frequency analysis and classified under four dimensions, which are environmental, economic, social, and functional. Results demonstrated that reduced energy consumption, reduced costs, and improved energy performance of the building are the three major benefits. In terms of healthcare perspective, the critical outcomes of this study as the main benefits differ from other types of green retrofitting projects, which are improved infection control and improved recovery rate. The results of this systematic review will enhance the understanding of the importance of GRHB and its benefits, which will be useful for academics, green building professionals as well as healthcare building providers.


Cluster analysis is widely applied to discover the function of previously unannotated genes. This paper presents a novel stratified beta-Gaussian mixture model, sBGMM, for clustering genes based on gene expression data, protein-DNA binding data and data that can provide information for constructing priors such as protein-protein interaction (PPI) data. An expectation maximization (EM) type of algorithm for Beta mixture model is first developed and then combined with that of Gaussian mixture model. This combined algorithm can jointly estimate the parameters for both Beta and Gaussian distributions and is used as the core in the sBGMM method. The stratification property of sBGMM is exhibited as Stratum-specific prior probabilities and is constructed by the pre-cluster results obtained from PPI data in this study. This proposed sBGMM method differs from other mixture model based methods in its integration of two different data types into a single and unified probabilistic modeling framework and incorporation of prior information from a third data source. Several well-studied model selection methods, such as Akaike information criterion (AIC), modified AIC (AIC3), Bayesian information criterion (BIC), and integrated classification likelihood-BIC (ICL-BIC) are applied to estimate the number of clusters, and simulation results show that AIC3 works best for sBGMM. Simulations also indicate that combining two different data sources into a single mixture model can greatly improve the clustering accuracy and stability, and employing priors to stratify the model can further enhance its performance. This proposed method provides a more efficient use of multiple data sources than methods that analyze different data sources separately.


.  The processing of ellipsis sentences can provide clues to their structure, as their structure can influence their processing. We present two studies examining the processing of a previously unexplored subclass of ellipsis sentence, gapping sentences in which one of the remnants is a preposed PP (PPGs). Like some other gapping structures, PPGs are ambiguous between readings in which a DP remnant is interpreted as a subject or as an object. However, we find that PPGs exhibit a weaker and more flexible object bias than other ambiguous gapping sentences (Carlson 2001a, 2002), one comparable to clausal ellipsis constructions like comparatives and replacives. We argue that this result supports the syntactic assumption that gapping is a nonuniform phenomenon: PPGs involve clausal conjunction on either reading, much like comparative ellipsis, while regular gapping has a nonellipsis alternative (Johnson 1996), which underlies the strong preference for an object reading.


Purpose: Therapies targeting the programmed death 1 (PD-1)/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) pathway promote anti-tumor immunity and have shown promising results in various tumors. Preliminary data further indicate that immunohistochemically detected PD-L1 may be predictive for anti-PD-1 therapy. So far, no data are available on PD-L1 expression in primary prostate cancer. Experimental Design: Following validation of a monoclonal antibody, immunohistochemical analysis of PD-L1 expression was performed in two independent, well-characterized cohorts of primary prostate cancer patients following radical prostatectomy (RP), and resulting data were correlated to clinicopathological parameters and outcome. Results: In the training cohort (n = 209), 52.2% of cases expressed moderate to high PD-L1 levels, which positively correlated with proliferation (Ki-67, P < 0.001), Gleason score (P = 0.004), and androgen receptor (AR) expression (P < 0.001). Furthermore, PD-L1 positivity was prognostic for biochemical recurrence [BCR; P = 0.004; HR, 2.37; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.32–4.25]. In the test cohort (n = 611), moderate to high PD-L1 expression was detected in 61.7% and remained prognostic for BCR in univariate Cox analysis (P = 0.011; HR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.10–2.02). The correlation of Ki-67 and AR with PD-L1 expression was confirmed in the test cohort (P < 0.001). In multivariate Cox analysis of all patients, PD-L1 was corroborated as independently prognostic for BCR (P = 0.007; HR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.11–1.92). Conclusions: We provide first evidence that expression of the therapy target PD-L1 is not only highly prevalent in primary prostate cancer cells but is also an independent indicator of BCR, suggesting a biologic relevance in primary tumors. Further studies need to ascertain if PD-1/PD-L1–targeted therapy might be a treatment option for hormone-naïve prostate cancers. Clin Cancer Res; 22(8); 1969–77. ©2015 AACR.


We present a machine vision based indoor navigation system. The paper describes a pose estimation of machine vision system by recognizing rotationally independent optimized color reference labels combined with a geometrical camera calibration model, which determines a set of camera parameters. A reference label carries one byte of information, which can be uniquely designed for various values. More than four reference labels are used in the image to calculate the localization coordinates of the system. An algorithm in Matlab has been developed so that a machine vision system can recognize N number of labels at any given orientation. In addition, a one channel color technique is applied in segmentation process, due to this technique the number of segmented image components is reduced significantly, limiting the memory storage requirement and processing time. The algorithm for pose estimation is based on direct linear transformation (DLT) method with a set of control reference labels in relation to the camera calibration model. From the experiments we concluded that the pose of the machine vision system can be calculated with relatively high precision, in the calibrated environment of reference labels.


This work explores the emotional activation (anxiety, fear, and anger) resulting from the cognitive-emotional process related to the perception of climate change: a) when climate change is considered the result of human action (anthropogenic) and b) when climate change is considered the result of the planet's natural activity. An experimental study was conducted with 104 participants exposed to two types of messages about the causes of climate change. The results showed that exposure to the anthropogenic influence led to greater perception of threat to humans. Moreover, the participants in the anthropogenic sample expressed more anxiety and anger (negative emotions) than did the participants believing that climate change was due to the planet's natural activity. Fear was not significant. Additionally, we verified the differential role of emotions, depending on the type of future behavior intention: emotions act as mediators between the perception of future climate threats and future collective pro-environmental behavior action, while the perception of threat acts directly on future individual pro-environmental behavior intention.
Keywords: Global warming, negative emotions, threat perception, pro-environmental behavior intention.


Arca zebra, constitutes one of the fishing resources with the greatest economic impact in northeastern Venezuela, since it forms banks of commercial importance. During a period of nine months (May 2010-August2011) the community structure of the organisms from the trawling fishery carried out by the fishermen of the area was identified, quantified and described. The biomass and abundance of the different groups were estimated to perform Abundance-Biomass Comparison Curves (ABC) with the objective of determining the degree of affectation by the trawling activity. A total of3 249 organisms belonging to 130 species were grouped in five Phyla: Mollusca, Annelida, Arthropoda, Echinodermata and Chordata. The Sanders' diversity index was 122.9 with mollusks (70.87) and polychaetes (29.91) as the most diverse taxa. Mollusks had the highest abundance followed by polychaetes, crustaceans, echinoderms and ascidians. Mollusks and echinoderms made the largest contribution to total biomass. The most frequent species were: Mithraculus forceps, Phallucia nigra, Echinometra lucunter, Eunice rubra and Pinctada imbricata. The microgastropods Triphora melanura is recognized as a new record for the area and the polychaete Oenone fulgida, for Venezuela. The ABC curve showed that total abundance of organisms was above total biomass, suggesting that the fishery of Arca zebra has a negative effect on most groups of organisms, mainly on echinoderms, since many of them suffer strong physical damage at the time of extraction, therefore, there is a need to modify the trawl nets, increasing the mesh opening, but without endangering the economic viability of the fishery.


This paper presents a method for localization of a drone using ultrasonic and radio frequency signals. The system consists of several receiving nodes and a beacon which can be incorporated into a landing pad or onto a moving object in a GPS denied environment. Five receiving nodes are mounted on the arms of a quadrotor, and by measuring the time of arrival from when the ultrasonic signal is produced to when it is received, the distance between each receiver and the beacon can be calculated. The quadrotor requests an ultrasonic signal from the beacon through a radio frequency signal. Through multilateration the position of the quadrotor can be determined relative to the beacon. Threshold detection is used to determine if an ultrasonic signal has arrived and time difference of arrival is used to determine the 3D position using linear least squares to solve the system of equations. A Kalman filter is applied to smooth the position data. A vertical sonar sensor is used to improve height accuracy due to geometric dilution of precision of the receivers. Time division multiple access is applied to avoid interference between the sonar and the localization system. The refresh rate of the system is 5 Hz to allow the signals to decay and avoid multipath propagation. Preliminary experiments show an average accuracy within a one-metre radius of ±9.9 cm with the motors at full throttle. The accuracy of the system improves while hovering over the beacon at a 50 cm radius with a ±6.2 cm accuracy. Autonomous hover has been performed within a GPS denied environment.


Introduction: The APGAR score rapidly assesses the condition of the newborn at birth and is a predictor of neonatal mortality. Despite the fact that this scoring system is limited by inter and intra-observer variation, its knowledge is essential to residents involved in newborn care at delivery. This study was therefore carried out to determine the knowledge and application of the APGAR score by these residents. Materials and Methods: The questionnaire-based survey was conducted at the Jos University Teaching Hospital and administered to all consecutive residents in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology (O and G), anesthesia, family medicine and public health. Domains assessed both knowledge and application of the APGAR scoring system. Data analyzed with the Epi Info 3.5.1 and P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Of the 74 completed questionnaires, 21 were filled by Pediatric residents, 27 by O and G residents and 26 by other residents. Residents with 10-15 years of work experience had a significantly higher mean score on their knowledge compared with those with <10 years work experience (P = 0.015). The mean application score was significantly higher among the Pediatric residents compared with the O and G and other residents (P = 0.015). Using linear regression, there was a significant association between the knowledge and application of the APGAR scoring system - coefficient = 0.179, P ≤ 0.001. Conclusion: Adequate knowledge and application of the APGAR scoring system by residents who use it frequently is necessary to avoid its misuse. Training and retraining of these residents on the correct use of the APGAR score during neonatal resuscitation is important to ensure adequate knowledge and its proper application.


Diseased rice plants with foot rot as well as dark brown lesions on sheaths and stems were observed in a paddy field in Mazandaran province, Iran. Single lesions were excised and surface sterilized and then plated on water agar. The arising fungi were purified and refrigerated in agar slants. On the basis of morphological characteristics the fungus was identified as Bipolaris sorokiniana. The ITS sequence of the fungus was submitted to a BLAST search to find most similar sequences in GenBank. The search results showed highest similarity to eight strains of B. sorokiniana and Cochliobolus sativus (teleomorph). For phylogenetic comparison, the sequences of Bipolaris spp., Cochliobolus spp. together with other species belonging to closely related fungal genera were included. The resulted phylogram made with the neighbor-joining method using the program PAUP, showed that the Iranian strain (B54) formed a monophyletic group with seven B. sorokiniana and one C. sativus strain. To prove pathogenicity, several methods were done on two popular rice cultivars. This is the first record of B. sorokiniana on Oryza sativa in Iran.


Embedded applications have become more and more complex, increasing the demands on the communication network. For reasons such as safety and usability, there are real-time constraints that must be met. Also, to offer high performance, network protocols should offer efficient user services aimed at specific types of communication.
At the same time, it is desirable to design and implement embedded networks with reduced cost and development time, which means using available hardware for standard networks. To that end, there is a trend towards using switched Ethernet for embedded systems because of its high bit rate and low cost. Unfortunately, since switched Ethernet is not specifically designed for embedded systems, it has several limitations such as poor support for QoS because of FCFS queuing policy and high protocol overhead.
This thesis contributes towards fulfilling these requirements by developing (i) real-time analytical frameworks for providing QoS guarantees in packet-switched networks and (ii) packet-merging techniques to reduce the protocol overhead.
We have developed two real-time analytical frameworks for networks with FCFS queuing in the switches, one for FCFS queuing in the source nodes and one for EDF queuing in the source nodes. The correctness and tightness of the real-time analytical frameworks for different network components in a single-switch network are given by strict theoretical proofs, and the performance of our end-to-end analyses is evaluated by simulations. In conjunction with this, we have compared our results to Network Calculus (NC), a commonly used analytical scheme for FCFS queuing. Our comparison study shows that our analysis is more accurate than NC for single-switch networks.

To reduce the protocol overhead, we have proposed two active switched Ethernet approaches, one for real-time many-to-many communication and the other for the real-time short message traffic that is often present in embedded applications. A significant improvement in performance achieved by using our proposed active networks is demonstrated.

Although our approaches are exemplified using switched Ethernet, the general approaches are not limited to switched Ethernet networks but can easily be modified to other similar packet-switched networks.


Transportation plays an important role in achieving sustainable development. However, it has
been regarded as one of the most arguable but least implemented concept in urban and transportation planning.
The increasing dependence on private vehicles for various trip purposes has indeed put enormous pressure on
the capacity of the road infrastructure, thus resulting in regular occurrence of unending traffic jams within the
Centre Business District (CBD) and even outside CBD especially during peak hours. The occurrence of
congestion has even extended to outside peak hours in the recent past. Traffic congestion today is seen as a
major transport problem affecting people who live in urban areas. The effect of congestion in many major cities
has also resulted in decrease in travel speed, increase in travel time, air pollution and other environmental
damages. Promoting public transportation is commonly seen as a strategy to reduce the use of private cars in
urban areas and thus decreasing the adverse impacts of transportation especially on environment. Consideration
of various forms of public transportation, increase in coverage, high passenger ridership, and affordable fare
structure is seen as measures to increase the use of public transportation. Park and ride scheme is seen as a
transportation demand management strategy to increase the use of public transportation. The provision of park
and ride facility at major public transportation terminals, eventually, encourages car users to shift to public
transport modes for their trips, especially to CBD, and thus help to reduce reliance on private vehicles. Parkand-
Ride facility also facilitates to maximize the efficiency of the transportation system providing commuting
options for travelers. The purpose of this paper is to discuss on the role of park and ride facility as a travel
demand management strategy in promoting the use of public transport. This paper mainly focuses on the
analysis of literature on various aspects of park and ride facility to ascertain the extent in which it help to
achieve and promote sustainable transportation aspect.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of two additives: one of enzymatic nature [Dyadic® Cellulase PLUS (ENZ)] and liquid urea nitrogen (LU) on crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), voluntary intake (VI) and digestibility of treated bluestem grass (BGH;  Dichanthium annulatum ) hay fed to rams. Nine young rams were used in a 3 x 3 latin square design with the three treatments: BGH without additive (CON), and with added ENZ or LU. The additives were sprinkled over the hay 24 hours prior to being offered daily at the rate of 4% of the animal body weight (BW). Application of ENZ resulted in no important change in VI or digestibility of dry matter (DM), CP, NDF or ADF; but ENZ tended to slightly reduce (P menor 0.11) NDF content (73.91 vs. 74.27%), and increase (P menor 0.09) ADF content (44.37 vs. 42.87%). Treatment of BGH with LU increased (P menor 0.01) the content of CP (8.11 vs. 6.41%), tended to depress (P menor 0.11) that of NDF (73.00 vs. 74.27%) and increase (P menor 0.09) those of ADF (43.17 vs. 42.87%) and lignin (6.30 vs. 5.89%). It also increased VI of CP (87.46 vs. 67.25%) and tended (P menor 0.06) to increase VI of DM (1027 vs. 986 g) and CP digestibility (61.11 vs. 53.98%). Daily VI of DM as a percentage of BW was not significantly affected by the treatments (3.13, 2.94 and 3.23% for CON, ENZ and LU, respectively).


Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) that block inhibitory receptors such as cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4), programmed death-1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1 have been a cornerstone of immunotherapy in oncology. Four ICIs are currently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA): anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibodies (ipilimumab and tremelimumab) and anti-PD1 monoclonal antibodies (nivolumab and pembrolizumab). Immunosenescence, a phenomenon of decreased immune function as a result of age-associated alterations to the immune system, has been described. However, it is still unclear to what extent immunosenescence may affect efficacy of ICIs. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare efficacy of ICIs between younger and older patients. Methods: We conducted a review of PubMed from January 1966 to May 2015. We limited our search to ICIs approved by the FDA. Search keywords were: ''ipilimumab'', ''tremelimumab'', ''nivolumab'',''pembrolizumab''. The search was limited to randomized clinical trials (RCTs) published in English. We also searched abstracts and virtual meeting presentations utilizing the same search terms from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conferences held up to May 2015 to identify relevant trials. Clinical trials that met the following criteria were included: (1) phase II and III trials in patients with cancers; (2) random assignment of participants to treatment with ICIs or control (chemotherapy, placebo or best supportive care); and (3) subgroup comparison of overall survival based on age using hazard ratio (HR). A general variance-based method was used to estimate the summary HRs, and their 95% confidence intervals. Statistical heterogeneity in results between trials included in the meta-analysis was examined using Cochrane9s Q statistic, and inconsistency was quantified with I2 statistic. The assumption of homogeneity was considered invalid for P values less than 0.10. Summary HRs were calculated using random-effects or fixed-effects models depending on the heterogeneity of included studies. Statistical analyses were performed by using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software, version 2 (Biostat, Englewood, NJ, USA). Results: A total of 3,322 patients from six phase III RCTs of ICI were included in the analysis with three ipilimumab trials, two nivolumab trials and one tremelimumab trial. The underlying malignancies included were melanoma (4 trials), prostate cancer (1 trial) and non–small-cell lung cancer (1 trial). Five trials used 65 years and one trial used 70 years as an age cut-off to conduct subgroup analyses. For 2,078 younger patients, the pooled HR for OS showed significant difference between ICIs and controls (HR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.66–0.81; P Conclusions: In this meta-analysis, immune checkpoint inhibitors significantly improved overall survival compared with controls in both younger and older patients. Our data suggest the survival benefit conferred by ICIs is independent of chronological age if patients are dichotomized into younger and older groups with an age cut-off of 65-70 years. Further research is needed to examine the association between efficacy of ICIs and functional changes in immune system with aging. Citation Format: Tomohiro Funakoshi, Hyman Muss, Stergios Moschos. Comparison of efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) between younger and older patients: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR Inaugural International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; September 16-19, 2015; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A159.


IT IS COMMONLY acknowledged that Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), which was promulgated against the backdrop of the rise of modern industrial society, inaugurated a new beginning for Catholic social thought and that it represents a kind of magna carta for modern Catholic social teaching. This is evidenced by the fact that Popes subsequent to Leo XIII, namely Pius XI (1931), Paul VI (1971), and John Paul II (1991), all promulgated encyclicals that revised and updated the analyses of Rerum Novarum in light of changing economic, social, and political conditions. The manner in which each newly promulgated encyclical revisits and re-evaluates the earlier ones alerts us to the evolving character of Catholic social teaching as open to the dynamics of history and seeking to discover new tasks in the process of humanizing our world. In other words, Catholic social teaching is truly focused upon reading the signs of the times and is therefore an arena of the development of doctrine (Coleman & Baum, 1991, ix). The purpose of this essay is to offer an appraisal of John Paul II's encyclical Laborem Exercens (LE) by bringing his understanding of the meaning of labour into dialogue with Miroslav Volf's proposed theology of work which is set forth in his book Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work. The essay will show that there is a significant degree of overlap between these two thinkers on the subject of human work, but it will also seek to highlight some weaknesses in the encyclical that are overcome by Volf's explicitly eschatological and pneumatological perspective of human work. In order to do this, the first part of the essay will present the core of LE, which is the portrayal of the person as the subject of work, and the implications of this view for employeremployee relations, while the second part will discuss Volf's portrayal of work as work in the Spirit, and how this perspective sheds light on potential weaknesses in LE. The essay will conclude by proposing that the eschatological concept of the 'new creation,' which features in Volf's theology of work, is preferable to the protological notion of 'dominion over the earth' (Gen 1:28) that forms the basis of John Paul II's reflections on the meaning and purpose of human work.


Farms and rural areas have many specific valuable resources that can be used to create non-agricultural products and services. Most of the research regarding on-farm diversification has hitherto concentrated on business start-up or farm survival strategies. Resource allocation and also financial success have not been the primary focus of investigations as yet. In this study these specific topics were investigated i.e. resource allocation and also the financial success of diversified farms from a farm management perspective. The key question addressed in this dissertation, is how tangible and intangible resources of the diversified farm affect the financial success. This study's theoretical ackground deals with resource-based theory, and also certain themes of the theory of learning organisation and other decision-making theories. Two datasets were utilised in this study. First, data were collected by postal survey in 2001 (n = 663). Second, data were collected in a follow-up survey in 2006 (n = 439). Data were analysed using multivariate data analyses and path analyses. The study results reveal that, diversified farms performed differently. Success and resources were linked. Professional and management skills affected other resources, and hence directly or indirectly influenced success per se. In the light of empirical analyses of this study, tangible and intangible resources owned by the diversified farm impacted on its financial success. The findings of this study underline the importance of skills and networks for entrepreneur(s). Practically speaking all respondents of this study used either agricultural resources for non-farm businesses or non-farm resources for agricultural enterprises. To share resources in this way was seen as a pragmatic opportunity recognised by farmers. One of the downsides of diversification might be the phenomenon of over-diversification, which can be defined as the situation in which a farm diversifies beyond its optimal limit. The empirical findings of this study reveal that capital and labour resource constrains did have adverse effects on financial success. The evidence indicates that farms that were capital and labour resource constrained in 2001 were still less profitable than their 'no problems' counterparts five years later.;


A topic is defined as a seminal event or activity along with all directly related events and activities. It is represented by a chronological sequence of documents published by different authors on the Internet. In this study, we define a task called topic anatomy, which summarizes and associates the core parts of a topic temporally so that readers can understand the content easily. The proposed topic anatomy model, called TSCAN, derives the major themes of a topic from the eigenvectors of a temporal block association matrix. Then, the significant events of the themes and their summaries are extracted by examining the constitution of the eigenvectors. Finally, the extracted events are associated through their temporal closeness and context similarity to form an evolution graph of the topic. Experiments based on the official TDT4 corpus demonstrate that the generated temporal summaries present the storylines of topics in a comprehensible form. Moreover, in terms of content coverage, coherence, and consistency, the summaries are superior to those derived by existing summarization methods based on human-composed reference summaries.


Dynamic thermal rating by adaptive forecasting (DTR-AF) is introduced for more effective utilization of overhead transmission line capability. DTR-AF is proposed for economic energy transfers, wheeling of power, accommodation of cogeneration, and outage conditions. A formulation of the optimal conduction operating temperature is provided, followed by a discussion of the various parameters that influence the selection of the economic conductor temperature. DTR-AF is proposed as an inexpensive alternative to reconductoring or new line construction. A specific case study showing the economy of using DTR-AF is presented. >


In the present paper an unsteady approach to determine the performance of a small radial inflow turbine working under cold pulsating flow is presented. It has been concluded that a reasonably good characterization of turbine behavior working with pulsating flow can be obtained using in a quasi-steady way models of the turbine isentropic efficiency and turbocharger mechanical efficiency. Both models have been fitted using data obtained from a steady flow characterization procedure.Turbocharger measured parameters from the cold pulsating flow campaign have been compared with the ones obtained from one-dimensional gas-dynamics computational modeling. The modeling approach is based on quasi-steady isentropic and mechanical efficiency models. Reasonably good accuracy in compressor and turbine variables prediction has been obtained for most of the operative conditions. Influence of amplitude and frequency of the pulsating flow over the instantaneous and average turbine efficiency has been studied to put some light on the analysis of the involved physical phenomena. The main conclusion is that the biggest effect of unsteady flow on turbine efficiency is through the influence on blade jet to speed ratio. It has been also concluded that for the same average blade to jet speed ratio pulses amplitude does not influence turbine efficiency when it is closed but yes at other VGT positions. The effect of pulses frequency is less evident and only influences VGT performance at the highest VGT openings.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Alternanthera sessilis is one of the herbal medicines used in Malaysia especially among Chinese race. The metabolite fingerprinting analysis of ethanolic extracts of leaves of A.sessilis was carried out using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in combination with multivariate data analysis to differentiate between four different origins of plant harvested. Principle component analysis (PCA) of the infrared spectra showed an obvious cluster between origin 1(from Putrajaya) and origin 3 (from Rantau Panjang), meanwhile, origin 2 (from Serdang) and 4 (from Ampang) is almost closer by PC1 and PC2 (99.2% and 0.4% total variance, respectively) score plots. The results of PLS-DA similar with the PCA result. The samples were further analyzed using two-dimensional infrared correlation spectroscopy and the results showed remarkable differences between samples of different origins.


AIM
Prediction of chromosomal disorders causing to severe pathological conditions can provide big benefits in early diagnosis and treatment. Adding a predeterminable feature to the cancer risk is very important in enlightening of the mechanisms inducing the disease, in elongation of survival times of the patients due to early diagnosis of the disease and in reducing mortality and morbidity by developing effective and economical treatment protocols. Studies using chromosomal aberrations as biological markers indicate that increasing aberration levels are important indicators in predisposition to the cancer. Aim of this study was to determine it this is feasible. One or several types of cancers were used in these studies reported in the literature. The increases in frequency of chromosome aberrations in Italy and Norwegian societies have been associated to some types of cancers.

METHODS
This study was performed on 10 untreated brain cancer patients and 10 controls. Peripheral blood specimen taken from each of the patients and healthy individuals and one of these specimens were subjected to in-vitro 2 Gy irradiation dose. Mitosis was induced in cultured peripheral blood lymphocytes via the activation of mitogen (phytohemaglutinin) activated pathways. Cell division was blocked in metaphase by the addition of colchemid and the chromosomal damages in the preparations were scored with asymmetrical chromosomal aberrations.

RESULTS
The ratio of dicentric chromosome was found to be higher in the glioblastoma multiforme patients.

CONCLUSION
To reach judicial conclusions, case-controlled trials including more patients should be performed.


Research suggests that specialized lighting design is essential to cater for the elderly users of a building because of the physiological changes in the eye with increased age. Recent studies have established that lighting in a space impacts on users' physical performance as well as on the mental state. In particular, light therapies have been found to be successful in treating several mood disorders in the elderly. Nevertheless, information relating to the therapeutic performance of lighting is scattered and comparatively less studied in built environment research. This review aims to identify the criteria for the therapeutic lighting design for the elderly and to discuss its applicability on contemporary design practices. Methodologies adopted for this study include a systematic review of literature to synthesize recent research findings and an evaluation of lighting guides published by the regulatory bodies and professional institutions to identify current practice.

The review identified that there are substantial amount of evidence exists, which can be incorporated during elderly lighting design to increase the therapeutic performance of the space. Apart from enabling the users to navigate safely and perform routine tasks, the therapeutic performance of lighting is significant to enhance elderly wellbeing. Depression, delirium, sleep disorder and disorder in the circadian system are common mood disorders among the elderly, which are evidently influenced by the lighting environment. Advancements in lighting technology, in particular in low energy Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting have led to new approaches to meet detail photometric parameters to construct the desired therapeutic environment. Our understanding of the photo-biological effects of lighting has enhanced, however the evidence is not well integrated with design guidelines. The research reported here has made an attempt to bridge this gap by developing a comprehensive knowledge base of the therapeutic lighting design for the elderly.


SUMMARY: The turbidity of suspensions of various Gram-negative bacteria is affected by the tonicity of the suspending medium. The light extinction of the suspension increases in a nearly exponential fashion with the solute concentration and approaches a maximum at concentrations close to 0·15M-NaCl. The maximal optical response to tonicity changes varies widely in different bacterial species, ranging from 30 to 140 % increase in light extinction as compared with the turbidity of the suspension in distilled water. The turbidity changes seem to depend on the viability of the bacterial cells as they cannot be elicited in bacteria killed by various procedures. The influence of the described phenomenon on the determination of bacterial cell concentration by the customary turbidimetric methods is discussed and its application for the estimation of the number of viable cells is suggested.


During the last decade, the field of artificial immune system (A1S) is progressing slowly and steadily as a branch of computational intelligence (CI). There has been increasing interest in the development of computational models inspired by several immunological principles. In particular, some are building models mimicking the mechanisms in the biological immune system (BIS) to better understand its natural processes and simulate its dynamical behavior in the presence of antigens/pathogens. Most of the AIS models, however, emphasize designing artifacts - computational algorithms, techniques using simplified models of various immunological processes and functionalities. Like other biologically-inspired techniques, such as artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms, and cellular automata, AISs also try to extract ideas from the BIS in order to develop computational tools for solving science and engineering problems. Although still relatively young, the artificial immune system (AIS) is emerging as an active and attractive, field involving models, techniques and applications of greater diversity


Abstract Studies of Lake Pontchartrain benthic invertebrates and submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) from 1996 through 2005 provided the opportunity to determine community responses to severe disturbances including: recovery from shell dredging; effects of anoxia and hypoxia from saltwater intrusion; the 1997 Bonnet Carré Spillway opening; a prolonged drought resulting from an El Niño Southern Oscillation; and effects of Hurricane Katrina. We included reviews and updates of our recently published work, an integrated analysis of findings, and restoration recommendations. During this decadal study there were no prolonged periods of "normal" conditions. Instead, benthos and SAV were experiencing or recovering from significant temporal disturbances. This made it difficult to use the abundance of a particular set of organisms at a point in time to evaluate habitat quality or restoration success without considering past disturbance effects. Benthos species diversity and the relative abundance of stress tolerant groups such as annelids were good indicators of short-term adverse conditions, but rapid changes occurred in response to salinity and dissolved oxygen. Rangia cuneata was a good indicator of the extent of hypoxia and long-term damage from hurricanes. The distribution and abundance of SAV decreased with turbidity and nutrient increases, and Vallisneria americana and other freshwater SAV decreased with prolonged salinity increases. Resistance to and resilience after disturbances and natural changes during long term cycles have to be considered in evaluating habitat condition and restoration success.


Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are thought to play significant roles in breast cancer initiation and progression. Conventional therapeutic agents target tumor bulk but spare CSCs, leading to tumor recurrence and relapse. Therefore, drugs that eliminate both tumor bulk and CSCs may represent the most effective treatment strategy for breast cancer. We have developed a proprietary cell-based screen called StemScreen® that permits the rapid testing and identification of novel CSC-directed compounds in a high-throughput manner. StemScreen® takes advantage of a landmark discovery that many cancer cell lines harbor stable populations of CSCs. Our initial studies utilized a breast cancer cell line transfected with a unique expression vector that is only active in the 1-5% putative CSC population. The StemScreen® platform is unique because it allows for screening of compounds within the context of the CSCs' natural microniche environment and has advantages over traditional drug discovery methods that have been designed to identify compounds that only target tumor bulk, but not CSCs. In an effort to increase the throughput and make the assay compatible with existing compound libraries, we miniaturized the platform to a 384-well format and optimized the line for high-content screening. A series of compound hits identified from screening these cells against smaller libraries of known active compounds as well as larger and more diverse compound libraries will be presented. We are also currently expanding this technology into other tumor types. We believe that this approach represents a major technological advance in oncology drug discovery and that this platform will be instrumental in the discovery of unique new therapies that have a dual effect on CSCs and non-CSC tumor bulk. Citation Format: Janice Chen, Hai Li, Marcie A Glicksman, Charles Karan, Christopher Brooks, Eric K Rowinsky. StemScreen®, an innovative platform technology for the identification of novel cancer stem cell-directed compounds [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-06-07.


Background The initial approach to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) management typically involves lifestyle modification and medical therapy utilizing acid reducing agents such as histamine blockers and proton pump inhibitors. In severe cases refractory to such treatments, surgical therapy may be indicated. The gold standard for surgical treatment of GERD is the laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication. In recent years, a new technique known as magnetic sphincter augmentation (MSA) has been developed using the Linx™ Reflux Management System. This is an implantable ring of magnetic beads that is placed around the esophagus at the gastroesophageal junction to restore lower esophageal integrity. The aim of this review is to discuss the current literature regarding indications, surgical technique, efficacy, and complications of MSA using the Linx device. Methods A standardized literature search was performed yielding 367 abstracts. After elimination due to duplicates between databases and irrelevance, 96 articles remained. The information found to be significant and non-redundant was included in this review. Conclusion After several years of clinical application, the Linx device has been shown to not only be effective for the management of GERD but also be as effective as fundoplication. With respect to safety, the most common complication of MSA is dysphagia. This often resolved without intervention, but esophageal dilation or device explanation are occasionally necessary. Not fully appreciated in earlier reviews, erosion of the device into the esophagus appears to be the most significant complication of the device after extended follow-up. While very rare, the potentially severe consequences of this phenomenon suggest that the device should be used with some restraint and that patients should be made aware of this potential morbidity. Fortunately, in the few cases of device erosion described in the literature reviewed, the Linx device was easily and safely removed.


Comparative analyses of gender role attitudes have largely focused on the characteristics of individuals or national level social characteristics, such as levels of women's employment (Banaszak and Plutzer 1993; Berggren n.d.). Understudied has been the role which women's movement activity plays in influencing gender attitudes, even though public battles for women's equality appear to have led to a sea change in gender role attitudes. This paper focuses on the gender role attitudes of young people and asks whether protest by women's movements reported in national news influences young citizens' gender attitudes. Using a sample of students in the eighth grade from 16 countries surveyed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) as part of the 1999 Civic Education (CivEd) and event data from the European Protest and Coercion Data, we seek to understand how women's movement activities shape adolescents' attitudes toward gender roles. We utilize multilevel modeling techniques to examine our hypotheses. We find that when women's movement protest was reported in the news during the years immediately before the survey is administered support for equal gender roles among adolescents increased. We also find that young women are more likely to be affected by the existence of a women's movement. The paper expands our understanding of how national level contexts of civic engagement influence public opinion and contributes to our understanding of how gender role attitudes develop.


Two species of Talegallus are generally known to naturalists. One, Talegallus Lathamii inhabiting Australia, is remarkable for its size equalling almost that of the Turkey, for its wattled throat and tolerably long roofshaped tail. The other, Talegallus Cuvieri, is found in New-Guinea and most of its dependencies, viz: the isles of Mysole, Salawattie, Aru and Iobie. This latter species, however, has been subdivided, by certain modern naturalists, into several other species. All those birds presenting the same size, the same proportions and the same coloring of plumage, other characters have been sought for in order to corroborate those species. One of these characters is said to be in the coloring of the legs and feet, reddish in Talegallus jobiensis, Meyer, yellow in the specimens of all other countries. The specimens of Iobie, have, moreover, after the statement of Dr. Meyer, the feathers of the crown somewhat larger and more elongated, a phenomen presented also by some specimens of Tinamus major, separated by Cabanis under the name of Trachypelmus subcristatus, a separation which appears rather hazardous. The specimens of the Archipel of Aru and South-Eastern New-Guinea are entitled, in the opinion of Salvadori, to the rank of a different species, designated by him under the name of Talegallus fuscirostris on account of the brownish color of their bill. Our specimens from the Aru islands have like all others the bill yellow, although Mr. von Rosenberg states in his manuscript that the bill of these very same specimens when they were newly killed, was of the same brownish color, shown by young birds and which is gradually fading into yellow. Lastly, I wish to mention that the Talegallus Arfaki of Salvadori is established on a couple of newly-born specimens caught on the Arfak range of mountains.


Background The size of the CAG repeat tract is the major determinant of age of onset (AO) in Huntington's disease (HD). However, the number of the CAG repeats does not allow an accurate prediction of AO; only 30–70% of the variance in AO can be explained by the repeat size alone. R72P polymorphism in the TP53 gene is one of the strong candidate modifiers since this polymorphism alters the function of the p53 protein which interacts with mutant huntingtin and is involved in apoptotic cell death. Aim We aimed to analyse the contribution of TP53 R72P polymorphisms to the AO of Turkish HD patients. Methods DNA samples of 102 unrelated HD patients and 102 healthy age and sex matched controls were genotyped. GRIN genotyping was performed with RFLP analysis. Hardy–Weinberg test statistics were computed for each SNP. The odds ratios and independent sample t tests for genotypes were computed for association of genotypes with AO. Results We demonstrated that TP53 R72P polymorphism can explain 2.9% of the variation observed in onset age and 4.98% of the variation that is not attributable to CAG repeat size in our population. Conclusions An association between the TP53 R72P polymorphism and AO of Indian HD patients was recently reported. However, the following replication studies could not confirm this result. In this study, we presented supporting data for the original investigation and demonstrated that the TP53 gene can be regarded as a modifier for Turkish HD patients.


The Internet of Things (IoT) is part of the Internet of the future and will comprise billions of intelligent communicating "things" or Internet Connected Objects (ICOs) that will have sensing, actuating, and data processing capabilities. Each ICO will have one or more embedded sensors that will capture potentially enormous amounts of data. The sensors and related data streams can be clustered physically or virtually, which raises the challenge of searching and selecting the right sensors for a query in an efficient and effective way. This paper proposes a context-aware sensor search, selection, and ranking model, called CASSARAM, to address the challenge of efficiently selecting a subset of relevant sensors out of a large set of sensors with similar functionality and capabilities. CASSARAM considers user preferences and a broad range of sensor characteristics such as reliability, accuracy, location, battery life, and many more. This paper highlights the importance of sensor search, selection and ranking for the IoT, identifies important characteristics of both sensors and data capture processes, and discusses how semantic and quantitative reasoning can be combined together. This paper also addresses challenges such as efficient distributed sensor search and relational-expression based filtering. CASSARAM testing and performance evaluation results are presented and discussed.


In the present investigation, 15 fi rst-term university students were faced with forty decontextualised polysemous words in English (L2) and Swedish (L1) respectively and asked to indicate which, of a set of six meanings, adhered to the item in question (two to fi ve of the meanings were correct). The polysemous words were of varying frequency. The investigation thus addresses the following research question: In quantitative and qualitative terms, what knowledge do advanced students have of polysemous words in their L2 as compared to their L1? Results show that most students have a relatively poor knowledge of polysemous words in both languages, especially in their L2. Furthermore, while the frequencies of the test items have no impact on the students' achievements, the relative frequencies of the meanings of the test items and the number of meanings of each test item stand in direct relation to whether the item is known or not in both languages.


The paper presents the possibilities of modeling the functioning of photovoltaic modules in MATLAB engineering software packages. In SIMULINK package one implemented a single-mode mathematical model of the photovoltaic module for determining current-voltage characteristics. The model was verified for manufacturer-supplied data and actual measurement results made with the I-V 400 meter. The new capabilities for physical modeling of photovoltaic modules are also available in the SIMSCAPE package. Simulation results obtained from the SIMSCAPE model were also compared with the results of selected measurements under the specified radiation and temperature conditions.


We monitored—in the pressure range: 0.5–15 Pa—the electron temperature in decaying plasmas induced in argon gas by pulsed irradiation with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons with wavelengths closely around 13.5 nm. For this purpose, temporal measurements of the space-averaged and electric field weighted electron density after pulsed EUV irradiation are combined with an ambipolar diffusion model of the plasma. Results demonstrate that electrons are thermalized to room temperature before the plasma has fully expanded to the chamber walls for pressures of 3 Pa and higher. At pressures below 3 Pa, the electron temperature was found to be up to 0.1 eV above room temperature which is explained by the fact that plasma expansion is too quick for the electrons to fully thermalize. The comparison between plasma expansion duration towards a surface, plasma decay at a surface and time needed for thermalization and cooling of electrons is essential for designers of EUV lithography tools and EUV sources since the temperature of electrons dictates many fundamental physical processes.


Particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) is the most popular among the ion beam analysis (IBA) techniques, which are based on the use of the specimen to be analyzed as a target for a beam of accelerated particles. The detection of the radiation induced by the beam bombardment is then used to discriminate and quantify the presence of the different elements in the specimen. In PIXE, what is exploited is in particular the X-rays emitted from the target, whose energies are characteristic of the emitting atomic species. After a general, simple description of the main features of PIXE, with a short historical overview and a brief comparison to other X-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques, the article covers in greater depth all the specific aspects of this "nuclear" technique. The basic aspects of X-ray emission from the atoms are first recalled; then, the extraction of quantitative compositional data from thin and thick specimens is explained, and a discussion is given of the excellent performance of PIXE in terms of minimum detection limits (MDLs), and of the factors affecting them. A technical description then follows of how proper beams for PIXE are produced and of the experimental set-ups commonly used, with particular emphasis on the external-beam arrangements. The X-ray detector characteristics, the electronics for constructing the energy spectra, and the software processes for their deconvolution, leading to the extraction of quantitative data, are then briefly described. The last section surveys the main analytical applications of PIXE in various fields (environmental monitoring, biomedicine, earth sciences, cultural heritage), with no intent of exhaustiveness but rather with the purpose of focusing on when and why PIXE may be particularly suitable in each of them.


Gold nanoparticles and near infrared-absorbing light are each innocuous to tissue but when combined can destroy malignant tissue while leaving healthy tissue unharmed. This study investigated the feasibility of photothermal ablation therapy for esophageal adenocarcinoma using chitosan-coated gold/gold sulfide (CS-GGS) nanoparticles. A rat esophagoduodenal anastomosis model was used for the in vivo ablation study, and three human esophageal cell lines were used to study the response of cancer cells and benign cells to near infrared light after treatment with CS-GGS. The results indicate that both cancerous tissue and cancer cells took up more gold nanoparticles and were completely ablated after exposure to near infrared light. The benign tissue and noncancerous cells showed less uptake of these nanoparticles, and remained viable after exposure to near infrared light. CS-GGS nanoparticles could provide an optimal endoluminal therapeutic option for near infrared light ablation of esophageal cancer.


In this work an application for evaluating different 3D displays is developed.The work is carried out in collaboration with Setred AB that develops an autostereoscopic display. A stereoscopic display lets the user see different perspectives of a scene with each eye. A presentation of previous research within depth perception and stereoscopic 3D displays is made. Based on results from previous evaluations, a test environment is designed. It is implemented in C++ and OpenGL and a small Interface Library is developed. A couple of test sessions are carried out with a relative small number of subjects to provide results for an evaluation of the test environment. Results from the evaluation are used in combination with previous research to conclude the design of an evaluation environment. Tracking 3D paths is suggested as a suitable task for evaluating 3D displays. Three types of parameters are suggested for use as dependent variables: response time, rate of correct answers and accuracy. The parameters are used in the evaluation environment developed. One test developed intends to give an appreciation of how small differences in depth that are noticeable on the display. No distinct value for the depth resolution is found. In a scene influence test, the task is to position three objects in specific places on the walls of a room. For this test the accuracy is measured and used as the dependent variable. The presence of a reference structure improves the result in this test. Two different tests are carried out to evaluate occlusion. A number of tiles are to be ordered in increasing depth and the error rate of the ordering is used as dependent variable in this test. The results from the two tests indicate that occlusion overrides binocular disparity. A user interaction test that requires movement in three dimensions is developed. It evaluates six different methods to do this. The keyboard interaction method is preferred by some of the test subjects and provides the best results.


Cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) is an important leafy vegetable worldwide. However, the phylogenetic relationships between domesticated lettuce and its wild relatives are still not clear. In this thesis, I focus on the phylogenetic relationships within Lactuca L., including an analysis of the wild Lactuca species that are endemic to Africa for the first time. The genetic variation of responses to salinity in a recombinant inbred line population, derived from a cross between the lettuce crop (L. sativa 'Salinas') and wild species (L. serriola), was investigated and the candidate gene in the identified QTL regions was further studied. In Chapter 1, I introduce and discuss topics related to genetic diversity and evolution in Lactuca, including an overview of lettuce cultivars and uses, its hypothesized domestication history, the taxonomic position of Lactuca, current status of molecular breeding in lettuce and mechanisms of salinity tolerance in plants, especially the High-affinity K+ Transporter (HKT) gene family. In Chapter 2, the most extensive molecular phylogenetic analysis of Lactuca was constructed based on two chloroplast genes (ndhF and trnL-F), including endemic African species for the first time. This taxon sampling covers nearly 40% of the total Lactuca species endemic to Africa and 34% of all Lactuca species. DNA sequences from all the subfamilies of Asteraceae in Genbank and those generated from Lactuca herbarium samples were used to elucidate the monophyly of Lactuca and the affiliation of Lactuca within Asteracaeae. Based on the subfamily tree, 33 ndhF sequences from 30 species and 79 trnL-F sequences from 48 species were selected to infer phylogenetic relationships within Lactuca using Randomized Axelerated Maximum Likelihood (RAxML) and Bayesian Inference (BI) analyses. In addition, biogeographical, chromosomal and morphological character states were analysed based on the Bayesian tree topology. The results showed that Lactuca contains two distinct phylogenetic clades - the crop clade and the Pterocypsela clade. Other North American, Asian and widespread species either form smaller clades or mix with the Melanoseris species in an unresolved polytomy. The newly sampled African endemic species probably should be excluded from Lactuca and treated as a new genus. In Chapter 3, twenty-seven wild Lactuca species and four outgroup species were sequenced using next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. The sampling covers 36% of total Lactuca species and all the important geographical groups in the genus. Thirty chloroplast genomes, including one complete (partial) large single copy region (LSC), one small single copy region (SSC), one inverted repeat (IR) region, and twenty-nine nuclear ribosomal DNA sequences (containing the internal transcribed spacer region ) were successfully assembled and analysed. A methodology paper for which I am co-author, but is not included in this thesis, of the sequencing pipeline was published: 'Herbarium genomics: plastome sequence assembly from a range of herbarium specimens using an Iterative Organelle Genome Assembly (IOGA) pipeline'. These NGS data helped resolve deeper nodes in the phylogeny within Lactuca and resolved the polytomy from Chapter 2. The results showed that there are at least four main groups within Lactuca: the crop group, the Pterocypsela group, the North American group and the group containing widely-distributed species. I also confirmed that the endemic African species should be removed and treated as a new genus. In Chapter 4, quantitative trait loci (QTLs) related to salt-induced changes in Root System Architecture (RSA) and ion accumulation were determined using a recombinant inbred line population derived from a cross between cultivated lettuce and wild lettuce. I measured the components of RSA by replicated lettuce seedlings grown on vertical agar plates with different NaCl concentrations in a controlled growth chamber environment. I also quantified the concentration of sodium and potassium in replicates of greenhouse-grown plants watered with 100 mM NaCl. The results identified a total of fourteen QTLs using multi-trait linkage analysis, including three major QTLs associated with general root development (qRC9.1), root growth in salt stress condition (qRS2.1), and ion accumulation (qLS7.2). In Chapter 5, one of the identified QTL regions (qLS7.2) reported in Chapter 4 was found to contain a homolog of the HKT1 from Arabidopsis thaliana. I did a phylogenetic analysis of Lactuca HKT1-like protein sequences with other published HKT protein sequences and determined transmembrane and pore segments of lettuce HKT1;1 alleles, according to the model proposed for AtHKT1;1. Gene expression pattern and level of LsaHKT1;1 (L. sativa 'Salinas') and LseHKT1;1 (L. serriola) in root and shoot were investigated in plants growing hydroponically over a time-course. The measurements of Na+ and K+ contents were sampled at the same time as the samples used for gene expression test. In addition, I examined the 5' promoter regions of the two genotypes. The results showed low expression levels of both HKT1;1 alleles in Lactuca root and relatively higher expression in shoot, probably due to the negative cis-regulatory elements of HKT1 alleles found in Lactuca promoter regions. Significant allelic differences were found in HKT1;1 expression in early stage (0-24 hours) shoots in and in late stage (2-6 days) roots. shoot HKT1;1 expression/root HKT1;1 expression was generally consistent with the ratios of Na+/K+ balance in the relevant tissues (shoot Na+/K+ divided by root Na+/K+). In Chapter 6, I summarize and discuss the results from previous chapters briefly. The implications of Chapter 2 and 3 for Lactuca phylogenetics are discussed, including some key characters for the diagnosis of species within Lactuca, the use of herbarium DNA for NGS technology, and perspectives into Lactuca phylogeny. Future perspectives of genome-wide association mapping for lettuce breeding were also discussed. Lastly, I propose to integrate phylogenetic approaches into investigations of allelic differences in lettuce, not just associated with salinity stress but also with other stressed and beneficial characters, both within and between species.


Moving a human body or a large and bulky object may require the strength of whole arm manipulation (WAM). This type of manipulation places the load on the robot's arms and relies on global properties of the interaction to succeed— rather than local contacts such as grasping or non-prehensile pushing. In this paper, we learn to generate motions that enable WAM for holding and transporting of humans in certain rescue or patient care scenarios. We model the task as a reinforcement learning problem in order to provide a robot behavior that can directly respond to external perturbation and human motion. For this, we represent global properties of the robot-human interaction with topology-based coordinates that are computed from arm and torso positions. These coordinates also allow transferring the learned policy to other body shapes and sizes. For training and evaluation, we simulate a dynamic sea rescue scenario and show in quantitative experiments that the policy can solve unseen scenarios with differently-shaped humans, floating humans, or with perception noise. Our qualitative experiments show the subsequent transporting after holding is achieved and we demonstrate that the policy can be directly transferred to a real world setting.


From architectural plans for asylums, hospitals and prisons; to the exclusion of the leper and the confinement of victims in the partitioned and quarantined plague town; from spatial distributions of knowledge to the position of geography as a discipline; to his suggestive comments on heterotopias, the spaces of libraries, of art and literature; analyses of town planning and urban health; and a whole host of other geographical issues, Foucault's work was always filled with implications and insights concerning spatiality. Many geographers, philosophers and social scientists have developed these issues in their own work, either through a sustained analysis of Foucault's own work, or in application in a range of other areas. Taking these debates to a new level, this book provides a series of challenges, appreciations, critiques and developments concerning the relation(s) between Foucault and geography. In its sustained and in-depth encounter between Foucault and questions of space, place and geography Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography has two main aims. The first is to provide a comprehensive overview of Foucault's engagement with geographical concerns and geography's engagement with Foucault; the second is to begin to open up a new range of themes and questions for the continuation of that engagement. That continued engagement is, it seems to us, two-way, since there is much of Foucault's own work still to discover: either in untranslated material published in his lifetime, or in the fascinating lecture courses that are appearing in French for the first time, and slowly being translated into English. As the French series editors have noted, because Foucault used these lectures as explorations rather than outlines for books, they do not reduplicate the studies he published in his lifetime. Foucault therefore still lives for us through these posthumous publications.


An antifungal protein exhibiting a high activity against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in vivo was purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation, hydrophobic chromatography, and gel filtration chromatography from the culture filtrate of the endophytic Bacillus subtilis strain Em7. The protein was characterized as a β-1,3-1,4-glucanase according to amino acid analysis, and showed excellent properties in thermal stability and acid resistance. At the same time, the antifungal protein was cloned and heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli BL21. The recombinant protein was purified and showed similar enzymatic properties to the native protein, exhibiting strong inhibitory activity against S. sclerotiorum. This shows that the β-1,3-1,4-glucanase may play a very important role in B. subtilis Em7 biocontrol function. In addition, many physiochemical properties of the native and purified recombinant protein were compared, including the effect of pH, temperature, metal cations, substrate specificity, and kinetic parameters. All parameters were similar between the native and recombinant purified protein, indicating that the purified recombinant protein has potential for industrial applications.


Mg-based composites are fabricated through mechanical alloying (MA) the Mg65Cu20Y10Ag5 amorphous alloy spun and mixed with 1-5 vol.% spherical nano-sized ZrO2 particles in the planetary mill, after then formed by hot pressing in Ar atmosphere under different pressures at the temperature 5 K above the glass transition temperature (Tg). The microstructure characterizations of the resulting specimens are conducted by means of XRD, FEG-SEM, and TEM techniques. It is found that the nano-sized ZrO2 dispersed Mg-based composite alloy powders can reach to a homogeneous size distribution (about 80 nm) after 50-hour mechanical alloying. After hot pressing of these composite alloy powders under the pressure of 1100 MPa at 409K, a 96% dense bulk specimen can be formed. Throughout the MA and hot pressing, the amorphous nature of the Mg65Cu25Y10Ag5 matrix is maintained. The hardness of the formed bulk Mg-based composites (with 3 vol.% nano-sized ZrO2 particles) can reach to 370 in Hv scale. In addition, the toughness of the formed bulk Mg-based composites presents an increasing trend with the content of nano-sized ZrO2 particles and can reach to 8.9 MPa m .


Background & Aims: Child illness and hospitalization is considered as one of the main sources of stress and anxiety for family. Parents should have the peace of spirit to provide adequate care and protection of children. This study investigates the fears and needs of mothers during their child hospitalization and their received nursing support. Material & Methods: It was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. One hundred of mothers of children who were hospitalized at least for 24 hours in a pediatric ward in Mahabad city were recruited by random sampling. The mothers' fears were assessed by a researcher- made questionnaire. parental needs were assessed by "parents' needs of hospitalized children" questionnaire. Data related to nursing support of mothers were collected by the Nurse Parent Support Tool (NPST). SPSS-PC (v.11.5) was used for data analysis. Results: Environmental factors and lack of pre-hospitalization programs were ranked as the most and least stress provoking factors by the mothers respectively. The needs related to sick child was ranked as the most important need from mothers' point of view and the trust needs were ranked as highly met. The needs for other family members ranked as the least important need and also were met at the lowest level. Mothers received the most caring support (2.37±0.39) and the least informational support (1.44±0.69) from nurses. The mean score of total nurse support was 1.73±0.82. Conclusion: Identification of stress factors in order to reduce the concerns of parents, meeting mother's needs along with the needs of children and providing the necessary facilities to provide parent's comfort should be considered by hospital planners and their managers.


The article describes the role of camel milk in the human diet. Camel milk differs from other ruminant milk as it contains low cholesterol, low sugar, high minerals, high vitamin C and higher protective proteins like lactoferrin, lactoperoxidase, Immunoglobulins and lysozyme. Camel meat is a delicacy not to be missed during festivities. Male camels are also used for transportation of water, and of household items when families move to new grazing sites within the range. In addition, camels have an important role in traditional social relations, such as in payment of a dowry, and in compensation of injured parties in clan feuds. Camel's milk is unique in terms of antioxidative factors, antibacterial, anti-arthritis, antifungal, anti-hepatitis, antiviral, treatment for Paratuberculosis, prevent aging, remedy for autoimmune diseases and cosmetics. Camel milk lacks β-lactoglobulin and used as an option for the individuals intolerant to lactose of cow's milk. Insulin in camel milk is safe and efficacious in improving long-term glycemic control in a diabetic patient. Camel milk reduces autism symptoms in children. Lactoferrin in camel milk has the ability to inhibit the proliferation of cancer cell. Camel milk is rich in zinc and magnesium thus endowed antiulcer properties. Camel milk has high α-hydroxyl acids which are known to smoothies the skin and also used to treat skin disorderssuch as dermatitis, Acne, and Eczema. Although camel milk hassuch values, it's less appreciated thus its consumption is restricted to a pastoral area. Further studies should be conducted on the chemical composition and medicinal properties of camel milk.


Environmental migration governance, like global migration governance more broadly, suffers from significant fragmentation both vertically - with actors at the international, regional and local levels - and horizontally - with the phenomenon addressed in part or, more rarely, as a whole under the auspices of a range of other 'policy categories' and associated institutions. Interests in environmentally-driven population movement can be identified across the fields of migration, environment, development, human rights, disaster management and humanitarian relief. Yet despite (or because of) the plethora of existing as well as potential governance mechanisms, processes and institutions, there is presently no coherent multilateral governance framework for environmental migration. The fact that the same is true of global migration generally provides the context for the present chapter's examination of environmental migration governance. The particular features and challenges that it raises must ultimately inform the broader question of whether, and how, a unified global governance system for migration could and should be developed, and whether, and how, the regulation of environmental migration might fit into such a vision. Environmental migration is not a new phenomenon. Natural and human-induced environmental disasters have displaced people in the past and continue to do so. Nevertheless, the environmental events and processes accompanying global climate change threaten to dramatically increase human movement both within and across State borders. As far as actual numbers are concerned, there is no doubt that 'current predictions are fraught with numerous methodological problems and caveats'. Yet most estimates suggest that between 200 and 250 million people will be displaced by environmental causes before 2050. The environmental impacts of climate change have been signalled as the key driver of this anticipated surge in migration. Evidently migration on this unprecedented scale demands a multilateral institutional response. Yet, environmental migration governance represents a significant challenge, not least because the content and parameters of the concept continue to be debated. There is at present no internationally agreed definition of what it means to be an environmental 'migrant', 'refugee' or 'displaced person', and, consequently, no agreed label for those affected. Questions of definition have clear governance implications, informing the appropriate location of environmental migration both procedurally - as an international, regional or local, developed and/or developing country concern/responsibility - and thematically - for example, within the existing refugee protection framework or under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The viability and value of institutionalizing international cooperation and collaboration on international migration matters generally, and environmental migration particularly, depends upon how that phenomenon can and should be formulated as a discrete concept in law and policy. Such normative conclusions must be grounded in a thorough examination and assessment of the existing institutions and political processes that impact upon environmental migration and States' responses to them.


The problem of scheduling a set of independent tasks (a meta-task) with multiple QoS needs, such as time and cost, is a very important problem in grid environment because the resources are geographic distributed, heterogeneous, dynamic and owned by various organize domain. According to the cost requirement and the demand of executing time of grid task, a classified optimization-scheduling algorithm is introduced. This algorithm can well trade off the actual executing cost and its budget in grid economy model. Simulated experiments in virtual grid environment show that it has the merit that it can satisfy the demand of different grid users.


After spinal cord injury, grafted neural stem cells (NSCs) can migrate toward injured area, where there are a large number of bone marrow derived macrophage. However, little is known about the effect of M1 macrophage from bone marrow on NSCs migration and the mechanism responsible for migratory responses of grafted NSCs in vitro and in vivo. Migration of NSCs were conducted by using the transwell chamber and SCI model. Conditioned medium from M1 macrophages (M1-CM) can attract NSCs migration in vitro. The number of migrated C-C chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2) -/- NSCs induced by M1-CM were significantly decreased compared with wild type (WT) NSCs (P<0.05). Furthermore, compared with M0 macrophages, the production of MCP-1 by M1 macrophages was significantly increased and M1-CM treated with anti-MCP-1 antibody to neutralize MCP-1 can lead to a significant reduction of NSCs migration (P<0.05). In addition, Western blot showed that ERK1/2 was dramatically activated following the stimuli of M1-CM and then ERK inhibitor can also inhibit M1-CM-mediated MSCs migration. Finally, CCR2 was needed for grafted NSCs migration toward injured area. Bone marrow derived M1 macrophage persisted within the epicenter of injured area and the expression of MCP-1 mRNA was significantly increased 7days after SCI (P<0.05). These results demonstrated the effect of M1 macrophages on NSCs migration and the important role of MCP-1/CCR2 and ERK signal pathway on M1-CM-induced NSCs migration.


Para-oesophageal cyst is a rare lesion which can be classified, by its origin, as a gastrointestinal duplication. It is mostly encountered in children. Since 1977, we have observed 6 cases in adults, and 5 out of 6 presented as postero-inferior mediastinal tumors. Pre-operative diagnosis is difficult: when the lesion is intramural, the only other diagnosis is leiomyoma; in other cases, a bronchogenic cyst or a posterior mediastinal enteric formation can be discussed. Surgical findings and histological criteria allow a precise definition of these cysts, which lie at least partially in the wall of the oesophagus. They are a histological association of respiratory mucosa and muscular, either of type or associated with cartilaginous islets. The definition of the clinical classification is easier with a good knowledge of the histogenesis.


The Turing Test is a method of testing whether a machine has human intelligence. A novel brain–computer interface (BCI) Turing Test was proposed in the BCI Controlled Robot Contest in World Robot Contest 2022. Contestants developed algorithms that can distinguish if an instruction is issued by a human. Participants collaborated with an electroencephalogram-based BCI to play a soccer game in a virtual scenario. Participants were asked to perform steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) tasks or motor imagery (MI) tasks to control the robots or be in an idle state to mimic the system giving instructions on behalf of the participants. Several algorithms proposed in this competition are developed based on the concept that the idle state is a category in multiclass classification problems. This paper details the algorithms of the top five teams with the best performance in the final, lists the popular classification models and algorithms for MI and SSVEP, and discusses the effectiveness of each approach in improving classification performance and reducing the computation time.


The objective of this study is to examine the state of financial condition of the corn-based ethanol enterprise in the U.S. from 2009 to 2014. Ethanol enterprises were categorized as small for 50 MGY and large for 100 MGY. Panel data from the annual financial reports submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was used to calculate the financial ratios of profitability, asset turnover, leverage, liquidity and operating margin. Results have shown that the corn-ethanol enterprise is moving into the direction of positive returns of investment. Associated factors for the profitability were found in age/years of the operation, corn price, plant capacity, operating margin ratio and leverage ratio. Findings of this study have an implication to the development of the cellulosic ethanol enterprise, which suggests the utilization and valuation of its co-products for revenue generation to improve economic financial success.


This paper presents an application of evolutionary programming (EP) technique for optimizing the reactive power planning (RPP) for voltage stability improvement and loss minimization in power system. Two objective functions namely voltage stability improvement and loss minimization were implemented and compared. Three RPP techniques namely optimal reactive power dispatch (RPD), optimal transformer tap changer setting (TTCS) and optimal combination of RPD and TTCS were implemented using each objective function. The capabilities of each RPP technique in improving the voltage stability, minimizing total transmission loss, enhancement of voltage profiles and fast computation process were analysed. Results from each RPP technique were presented and comparative studies were included to find the most suitable technique, which satisfies the voltage stability improvement and loss minimization objectives. The RPP techniques were tested on the IEEE reliability test system (RTS).


With wide implementation of screening tests for the Human Papilloma Virus, the number of diagnosed cases of premalignant or early stages of cervical cancer has increased considerably. As a consequence, surgeons' attention has focused on determining how best to limit the surgical procedure so the benefits of the procedure will not be surpassed by postoperative morbidity. In this respect, extended lymph node dissection, routinely associated so far with cervical cancer patients, has in the last decades been replaced with sentinel node detection and biopsy. Initially performed through radiocolloid injection, this method has undergone permanent changes in order to maximize its efficacy and safety. Although the laparoscopic approach had been widely used in the past, a new method has been proposed, i.e., the use of indocyanine green injection, which has yielded promising results for sentinel node detection in the early stages of cervical carcinoma. This paper reviews the literature of the most relevant studies conducted on this topic.


Severe cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are regularly complicated by respiratory failure. While it has been suggested that elevated levels of blood neutrophils associate with worsening oxygenation in COVID-19, it is unknown whether neutrophils are drivers of the thrombo-inflammatory storm or simple bystanders. We now report that patients with COVID-19 (n=96) have markedly elevated levels of the neutrophil activation marker S100A8/A9 (calprotectin) in their blood. Calprotectin tracked with other acute phase reactants including C-reactive protein, D-dimer, ferritin, and absolute neutrophil count, but was superior in identifying patients requiring mechanical ventilation. In longitudinal samples, calprotectin rose as oxygenation worsened. When tested on day 1 or 2 of hospitalization (n=52 patients), calprotectin levels were significantly higher in patients who progressed to severe COVID-19 requiring mechanical ventilation (7805 +/- 7585, n=23) as compared to those who remained free of intubation (3123 +/- 2990, p=0.0059). In summary, serum calprotectin levels track closely with current and future COVID-19 severity, strongly implicating neutrophils as active perpetuators of inflammation and respiratory compromise in COVID-19.


A clock distribution methodology is presented for realizing the prespecified clock arriving time often occurring in the reusable block based design environment. In this strategy, not only the planar clock routing and buffer insertion are carried out simultaneously to minimize the total wire length and the clock skew, a full waveform simulation is used to ensure the signal integrity necessary for high-speed VLSI. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a good circuit performance.


"And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares…." Defence sites once dedicated to national security are being transformed by artistic activity, via rededication of whole sites, conversion of individual military buildings, the construction of new galleries in former defence enclaves, temporary installations, festivals and arts events. Their transformation may or may not make reference to their military former roles and symbolic values; new enthusiasts for their history sometimes stimulate additional legislative protection for their historic value. The catalysts for these radical transformations are individual artists, sponsors or local interest groups – and sometimes the owners, the state. Barracks may become sites for reconciliation. Initiated by artists, a key event in the history of American art took place in a New York Armoury. Cultural facilities may leaven otherwise commercial redevelopments, or co-exist with continuing military functions. The Biennales of Art and Architecture in Venice Arsenale are perhaps the grandest exemplars of the regenerative powers of art. Elsewhere, ropewalks and naval prisons become cells for practising music; workshops and chapels become concert halls; barracks are reoccupied as art schools and universities; films are made in these specialist locations; storage buildings, workshops and armouries are transformed into art galleries Art – in its many forms – reanimates and regenerates many military sites whose primary purpose has ceased. It contributes creatively to the search to find sustainable new uses for these very special sites.