An inflammatory mediator interrupts early steps in bacterial cell division by inhibiting nucleoside triphosphate synthesis. Cytostasis is the most salient manifestation of the potent antimicrobial activity of nitric oxide (NO), yet the mechanism by which NO disrupts bacterial cell division is unknown. Here, we show that in respiring Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and Bacillus subtilis, NO arrests the first step in division, namely, the GTP-dependent assembly of the bacterial tubulin homolog FtsZ into a cytokinetic ring. FtsZ assembly fails in respiring cells because NO inactivates inosine 5′-monophosphate dehydrogenase in de novo purine nucleotide biosynthesis and quinol oxidases in the electron transport chain, leading to drastic depletion of nucleoside triphosphates, including the GTP needed for the polymerization of FtsZ. Despite inhibiting respiration and dissipating proton motive force, NO does not destroy Z ring formation and only modestly decreases nucleoside triphosphates in glycolytic cells, which obtain much of their ATP by substrate-level phosphorylation and overexpress inosine 5′-monophosphate dehydrogenase. Purine metabolism dictates the susceptibility of early morphogenic steps in cytokinesis to NO toxicity.


Translating maps of priority areas for conservation into activities which actually secure these places is a complex process, overwhelmingly influenced by human and social factors. Spatial conservation prioritizations often assume that land is available for acquisition. Using data gathered through interviews, we predicted land managers willingness‐to‐sell their land. We included this information in spatial prioritization analyses that aimed to identify areas that achieve conservation objectives while maximizing the probability that land will be available for acquisition. As anticipated, our solutions were more likely of being available for acquisition compared to solutions that did not include the willingness‐to‐sell data. Our results illustrate the trade‐off between designing so‐called "optimal" networks of protected areas, and the realities of translating these maps into on‐ground action. We demonstrate how an important aspect of the social context in which conservation is embedded and defines conservation opportunities can be explicitly accounted for in the development of conservation plans.


B73 is a variety of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) widely used in genetic, genomic, and phenotypic research around the world. B73 was also served as the reference genotype for the original maize genome sequencing project. The advent of large-scale RNA-sequencing as a method of measuring gene expression presents a unique opportunity to assess the level of relatedness among individuals identified as variety B73. The level of haplotype conservation and divergence across the genome were assessed using 27 RNA-seq data sets from 20 independent research groups in three countries. Several clearly distinct clades were identified among putatively B73 samples. A number of these blocks were defined by the presence of clearly defined genomic blocks containing a haplotype which did not match the published B73 reference genome. In a number of cases the relationship among B73 samples generated by different research groups recapitulated mentor/mentee relationships within the maize genetics community. A number of regions with distinct, dissimilar, haplotypes were identified in our study. However, when considering the age of the B73 accession – greater than 40 years – and the challenges of maintaining isogenic lines of a naturally outcrossing species, a strikingly high overall level of conservation was exhibited among B73 samples from around the globe.


Parking demand forecasting and behaviour analysis have received increasing attention in recent years because of their critical role in mitigating traffic congestion and understanding travel behaviours. However, previous studies usually only consider temporal dependence but ignore the spatial correlations among parking lots for parking prediction. This is mainly due to the lack of direct physical connections or observable interactions between them. Thus, how to quantify the spatial correlation remains a significant challenge. To bridge the gap, in this study, we propose a spatial-aware parking prediction framework, which includes two steps, i.e. spatial connection graph construction and spatio-temporal forecasting. A case study in Ningbo, China is conducted using parking data of over one million records before and during COVID-19. The results show that the approach is superior on parking occupancy forecasting than baseline methods, especially for the cases with high temporal irregularity such as during COVID-19. Our work has revealed the impact of the pandemic on parking behaviour and also accentuated the importance of modelling spatial dependence in parking behaviour forecasting, which can benefit future studies on epidemiology and human travel behaviours.


Eight authors. Eight students. Eight stories. We are the University of the Sunshine Coast's graduating class of 2018. Our certificates say we are Masters of Professional Practice (Creative Writing). We say, 'Read our works.' Celebrate our graduation. Explore eMerge, an anthology from extracts of our novels. You want aliens and a matriarchal society--it's there. Dystopian Australia--no worries. A childhood robbed--get your handkerchief. A shipwrecked heroine--it's truly unbelievable. A lighthouse--see inside a family salvaged. An African slave, drummer boy and convict--a founder of Australia. The life of an unwed Victorian mother--experience the unimaginable. An alcoholic motorcyclist--rode around Australia--dry. Different worlds; different stories. Fiction and non-fiction. Brilliant works our foremost goal. These are the journeys of USC Masters. Our continuing mission: to explore our creativity; to seek out new styles; emerging work.... to boldly go where no student has gone before!


The CE/SE scheme is a fast and accurate method for solving flow problems. The current version of the scheme depends on the perfect gas law, which works fine for atmospheric pressures, but breaks down at higher pressures. The aim of this thesis was to change the CE/SE scheme such that it depends on the Van der Waals equation of state instead. This new algorithm should be able to simulate dense gas flows with higher precision. Next, this has been used to simulate flows around a wing profile and to explore the differences between the perfect gas law and the Van der Waals gas law. In this thesis, the NACA-0012 wing profile is used, because a lot of experimental data is available for this airfoil and it has been widely used throughout literature to test the accuracy of new algorithms.
For 1D, the results were promising and the new CE/SE method was able to calculate the Sod Shock tube with much higher accuracy compared to the original CE/SE scheme. For the 2D case, two different algorithms have been written, one using a structured mesh and one using an unstructured mesh. The structured mesh has been validated using Brown and Argrow (1998) and matched visually very well. The unstructured mesh also gave visually correct results for a wave on a 30 degree wedge, but failed to calculate the flow around the wing profile properly. Possible causes have been listed, which can be used in further research on this topic.
This thesis presents the theoretical background and a 1D and 2D implementation of the Van der Waals CE/SE scheme for structured grids.


Since the Democrats were successful in using social networking sites (SNSs) to mobilize support among voters in the 2008 Presidential election (e.g., Charles, 2012), social networking sites emerged as a major political campaign message dissemination tool (e.g., Robertson & Vatrapu, 2010). Political campaign applications for online services show great promise, owing to their ability to harness young people's eagerness to fulfill such gratifications as entertainment, even in civic life (Hunt, Atkin, & Krishnan, 2012; Shah, Kwak, & Holbert, 2001). The key role played by social networking sites in the "Arab spring," in particular, underscores the need to study predictors of SNS use for political purposes (Mansour, 2012). boyd and Ellison (2007, p. 221) define social networking sites as a "set of Web-based services that allows individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, (3) view and transverse their list of connections and those made by others within their system." On the domestic front, past work uncovers relationships between social network service uses and political activities (Zhang, Johnson, Seltzer, & Bichard, 2010). Over the past decade, social media have become an effective channel for delivering political messages and appeals directly to voters (Hayes, 2008; Rainie, 2008). Furthermore, the political platform presented by social network services enables users to express and access political information in real time (Kushin & Yamamoto, 2010). Young adults, who can adapt to new media environments more readily than other age groups, are reported to increase their political efficacy by exchanging


Cryptanalysis of symmetric key cryptography encourages large key size and complex operations to achieve message confidentiality. All these techniques pose computational overhead at both the sender & receiver ends. In this paper, we propose a simple yet powerful Block Cipher Multiple Key Symmetric Encryption (BCMKSE) algorithm for achieving both confidentiality & integrity with reduced computational and message overheads. Our algorithm changes the key after encrypting/decrypting a piece of the whole message. While the key changes during the whole message encryption/decryption process without increasing network traffic or message overhead. This methodology becomes faster as it uses the simplest operations like shift, XOR, addition and comparison operations.


Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex and multi-faceted disease that affects various organs of the human body and is predominantly seen in young group and females. The patient was a 25-year-old woman, According to the history taking from the patient, she suffered from progressive weakness and narcosis so that she was unable to walk and perform daily work at the time of the visit. In our examination, the young woman was lean and pale, with Icterus, body mass index of 22 and normal thyroid tests. Vital signs on admission were as follows: BP:10/7, PR:92, RR:20, T:38.5. In the heart examination, the heart sounds were normal and there was no heart murmur and additional sounds. In echocardiography for the patient, EF was 60%. Chest X-ray revealed pleural effusion for the patient. CT scans did not confirm the involvement of lung parenchyma and bilateral mild pleural effusion and pericardial effusion for the patient. The pleural fluid was evacuated under ultrasound.. Autoimmune examination results determined the diagnosis of SLE for the patient


This study's central research question is: "How do managers evaluate the desirability of early retirement of their employees, and under what circumstances and for what types of workers are they in favor of delay?" We sought to compare managers' and business students' decision making regarding older workers. We examined the extent to which student samples are appropriate to study organizational behavior. An identical factorial survey was carried out among 26 managers and 25 business school students. The results revealed that business students concentrate on performancerelated individual characteristics when making selection decisions, whereas managers also recognize contextual factors (need for downsizing, tight labor market) and older workers' attitudes toward retirement.jasp_495 1562..1588


Targeted therapies for cancer have been developed that block oncogenic pathways that drive tumour growth (e.g. hedgehog, mitogen-activated protein kinases, vascular endothelial growth factor, and the Abelson tyrosine kinase and the chromosome 22 break point cluster fusion gene). For inoperable metastatic disease, targeted therapies provide rapid response, but in most cases are associated with eventual relapse with more aggressive disease. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) arises from keratinocytes with mutations leading to constitutively active sonic hedgehog (SHh) growth factor signalling. Unlike the multiple genetic lesions required during stepwise carcinogenesis in many other cancers, SHh signalling alone appears to be sufficient to cause BCC, which may explain the absence of precursor lesions and also why BCC is the most common malignancy in Caucasians. As expected hedgehog (Hh) antagonists lead to rapid involution of BCC, but also eventual relapse, and in some cases transformation to squamous cell carcinoma. Thus, BCC represent an ideal model to study relapse after targeted therapy.

We show that the TGFβ signalling pathway constituents were amplified in BCC, consistent with increased signalling. TGFβ signalling was evident in a third of untreated BCC cells at the tumour periphery. Cells at the tumour nodule periphery active for TGFβ signalling demonstrated lower rates of proliferation, and upregulation of TGFβ regulated epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) genes consistent with tumour invasion. Intriguingly, BCC cancer stem cells that have been previously identified at the tumour nodule periphery consistently demonstrated active TGFβ signalling and enhanced expression of TGFβ dependent EMT genes.

We show that as expected, addition of Hh antagonists (GANT-61, Vismodegib, Sonidegib) to primary BCC cells and three Hh driven tumour cell lines (DAOY, UW228-2, SJSA-1), had no significant impact on cell proliferation or survival in vitro. Interestingly, Hh antagonist treatment was associated with increased TGFβ signalling activity as evidenced through nuclear accumulation of pSMAD3 and expression of TGFβ regulated genes. However, blocking the TGFβ signalling pathway, both on its own and in combination with Hh antagonists again had no significant impact on cell proliferation or survival in the cell lines. When trying to elucidate the mechanisms that underlie tumour resistance, we found that Hh antagonist-induced TGFβ signalling was accompanied by destabilisation of the microtubule network. This could subsequently lead to TGFβ-induced EMT/invasion in either the general cell population or stem cell population, and may provide a mechanism through which tumours can promote relapse following treatment, and in rarer cases, induce transformation to more aggressive phenotypes such as SCC. However, additional studies are required to elucidate this mechanism of action further.


In this study, thermal performance, energy storage and cooling capacity of a heat pipe assisted Phase Change Material (PCM) storage system have been investigated experimentally andnumerically. The heat pipe assisted PCM storage system can store and release energy efficiently.Heat pipe as a two-phase heat transfer device with very high thermal conductivity can beemployed to transfer heat at a high rate and very low-temperature difference. The core ideareferred to this system is to improve the capability of storing and releasing energy at PCMstorage system by using heat pipe. In order to study the effect of using heat pipe on energy storage system performance andminiature cooling applications, two different test rigs were built to investigate melting andsolidification processes. In addition, a numerical analysis of a heat pipe assisted PCM storagesystem has been performed. The two systems were modeled using Gambit and Fluent softwareand validated by experimental results. Results of case I indicate that it is beneficial for the energy storage system to use heat pipe toincrease the heat transfer rate significantly. In other words, the charging and discharging (heat absorption/release) of the storage system can happen faster with a higher power. Considering the case II, which is designed for the miniature cooling applications, it is found thatthe system can contribute to cooling process up to 86.7%.Keywords: heat pipe; phase change materials; heat transfer; melting and solidification


Background and purpose: Stroke is one of the most common causes of death. This study aimed at evaluating the one-year prognosis in patients with stroke. Materials and methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional research, 361 stroke patients admitted in Hamedan Sina Hospital, 2015-2016 were studied. Data were collected using a checklist on demographic characteristics, risk factors, Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scores at discharge, 3 months, 6 months, and one year after stroke. Data analysis was done in SPSS V16 applying T test and Chi-square. Results: Death occurred in 63 cases within the first year but 298 survived until the end of the study. The mean mRS scores at discharge or pre-death in people who died were significantly higher than those of the patients who survived at first year (4.31?0.71 and 2.44?1.09, respectively, p=0.001). Patients had a more favorable situation over time, so that the mean mRS score at the time of discharge was 2.5, three months later 1.8, six months later 1.3, and after one year decreased to 1.2. Conclusion: Hemorrhagic stroke, involvement of both hemispheres, higher mean age, opium and cigarette consumption, previous history of stroke, diabetes, heart disease, and multiple clinical signs at the time of stroke could lead to poor prognosis in patients. © 2018, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.


Transition metal disulfides (TMDs) have achieved intensive attention in the field of energy storage materials owing to their natural layered structures. However, most TMDs are in the semiconductor phase with inferior electrical conductivity, which has prevented their widespread applications. The 1T-phase vanadium disulfide, in contrast, exhibits some metal characteristic qualities, which enable it to be a superb intercalation host material for Li-ion batteries. We herein demonstrate high rate capability, and the capacity retention can achieve 84.4% after 1000 cycles. In situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) results reveal that the VS2 electrode exhibits a typical solid solution reaction, which is of great help in inhibiting the structural transition. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations further indicate that the monolayer 1T-phase VS2 can withstand the high lithiation rate without structural changes and possesses a lower energy barrier with unrestricted diffusion pathways. This work is quite significant and reliable for the subsequent study on two-dimensional materials.


Container integrity monitoring is defined as key requirements for regulatory compliance, such as PCI-DSS, in which any unexpected changes such as file updates or program runs must be logged for later audit. Syscall monitoring provides comprehensive monitoring of such change events on container, while it suffered from large amount of false alarms unless well-defined allowlist rules are coordinated before deploying container. Defining such comprehensive allowlist is not feasible especially when managing various kinds of application workloads in large-scale enterprise cluster. We propose new approach for identifying real anomaly of syscall events effectively without relying on any predefined allowlist configuration in this paper. Our novel filtering algorithm based on the knowledge acquired autonomously from Kubernetes cluster control plane reduces 99.999 % noise effectively and distilling only abnormal events in real time. Our experiment with real applications on more than 4000 containers demonstrates its effectiveness even on large-scale cluster.


Base station antenna arrays are a promising method for providing significant capacity performance increases for third generation multimedia cellular mobile radio systems. By determining the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of a desired user the base station can exploit the spatial dimension known as space division multiple access. Many eigendecomposition methods are popular for their high-resolution properties in DOA estimation but are also known to be of high computational demand. This paper presents a space-time receiver structure using an alternative iterative DOA method based on conventional beamforming with reduced computational complexity.


Without funds or the promise of funds, investment activity is practically impossible anywhere. In addition to the primary significance of fundraising to a firm, the availability of opportunities for fundraising in a financial system is directly related to and has considerable impact on the growth of the local private equity industry, as this element should typically stimulate both global and local interest in the local PE industry. The primary goal of a general partner (GP) at the fund-raising stage of the private equity chain should be to obtain competent local advice on the legal and regulatory aspects of creating, structuring, marketing, operating, and closing a fund. This is particularly important in a jurisdiction like Nigeria where the legal framework for private equity is still largely evolving. Given that one of the key goals of fund structuring is the effective management of regulatory cost/burden and benefit, the aim of this article is to give the GP interested in raising private equity funding in Nigeria an overview of the legal requirements of fund raising as it relates particularly to pension funds. Although existing pension regulations only have direct implications for pension fund advisors in Nigeria, there are also salient implications for a GP or placement agent who seeks to raise pension funds in Nigeria.


We search NANOGrav's 12.5 yr data set for evidence of a gravitational-wave background (GWB) with all the spatial correlations allowed by general metric theories of gravity. We find no substantial evidence in favor of the existence of such correlations in our data. We find that scalar-transverse (ST) correlations yield signal-to-noise ratios and Bayes factors that are higher than quadrupolar (tensor-transverse, TT) correlations. Specifically, we find ST correlations with a signal-to-noise ratio of 2.8 that are preferred over TT correlations (Hellings and Downs correlations) with Bayesian odds of about 20:1. However, the significance of ST correlations is reduced dramatically when we include modeling of the solar system ephemeris systematics and/or remove pulsar J0030+0451 entirely from consideration. Even taking the nominal signal-to-noise ratios at face value, analyses of simulated data sets show that such values are not extremely unlikely to be observed in cases where only the usual TT modes are present in the GWB. In the absence of a detection of any polarization mode of gravity, we place upper limits on their amplitudes for a spectral index of γ = 5 and a reference frequency of f yr = 1 yr−1. Among the upper limits for eight general families of metric theories of gravity, we find the values of ATT95%=(9.7±0.4)×10−16 and AST95%=(1.4±0.03)×10−15 for the family of metric spacetime theories that contain both TT and ST modes.


The comparative study of the monoand tricyclic triamine complexes based on twelve-membered rings and the group 6 and group 10 metals has been initiated. The four ligands used in this study were 1,5,9-triazacyclododecane ( (12) aneN$\sb3$), 1,5,9-trimethyl-1,5,9-triazacyclododecane (Me$\sb3$ (12) aneN$\sb3$), 1,5,9-triazacyclododecane orthoformamide (orthoformamide) and 1,5,9-triazacyclododecane orthoacetamide (orthoacetamide). Complexes with zero-valent group 6 metal (Cr, Mo, W) tricarbonyls were characterized and the single-crystal X-ray structures determined for each ligand-molybdenum tricarbonyl complex. Complexes with nickel(II), palladium(II) and platinum(IV) have been characterized and the singlecrystal X-ray structure of orthoacetamide PdCl$\sb2$ has been determined. The tricyclic orthoamides have been found to be less effective ligands than their monocyclic counter-parts. With respect to the zero-valent group 6 metals the order of ligand strength has been determined to be (12) aneN$\sb3\ >$ Me$\sb3$ (12) aneN$\sb3\ >$ orthoacetamide $>$ orthoformamide. As with other substituted cyclic triamines Me$\sb3$ (12) aneN$\sb3$ displays an effectively large coneangle limiting the coordination of nickel(II) and palladium(II). The all trans configuration observed in the orthoamide complexes forces ring conformations which, like Me$\sb3$ (12) aneN$\sb3$, also display large cone-angles. The orthoacetamide limits the coordination of palladium(II) and both of the orthoamides force steric compression of the OC-Mo-CO bond angles in the tricarbonyl complexes. On the basis of structural changes in orthoacetamide upon complexation with molybdenum(0) tricarbonyl and with palladium(II) dichloride the electron donation of orthoacetamide as a bidentate ligand to the stronger Lewis acid is equal to the tridentate donation to the molybdenum(0).


This paper presents the findings of an ethnographic study of a state-run and state-funded remediation program for economically disadvantaged adolescents. The program's main purpose was to reintegrate students defined as "at risk" of dropping out back into their schools. The program, the Ordered School Reinforcement Program (OSRP), was implemented at two sites: one comprised primarily of African-American adolescents in a small northeastern city; and the other comprised entirely of white adolescents in a working-class suburb of that city. Methods included observation, document analysis, and interviews with staff, students, parents, and state employers. The state, program staff, parents, and casual observers overwhelmingly viewed the program as a success. However, the data indicate that the program lacked adequate resources to meet its stated objective of helping students achieve academic success. Why was the program viewed as a success when it failed to meet its goals? Despite the staff's sincere motives, staff tended to blame the victims for their own inadequate socialization. By assuming an individual-deficit model,the state failed to directly confront the systematic ways in which public education itself disadvantages disempowered groups, making compensatory education necessary in the first place. Solutions may lie in restructuring mainstream educational programs, rather than in providing integrative assistance to failures and potential failures. In conclusion, the OSRP exemplifies America's ambivalence about providing help to the poor. On the one hand, Americans want to believe that hard work, an independent spirit and goal-directed behavior can earn everyone a piece of the middle class pie. On the other hand, Americans are aware from experiences like plant closing, the 1930's depression, the recent recession, and market declines that individuals cannot control all the social and economic forces around them. The program symbolizes America's inability to face the issue of welfare policy. (LMI) The State as Equalizer: Who is Helping Whom?


ileus after Amitriptylilne SIR,-In preparing my book on tranquillizers and antidepressants, and as co-chairman of the Committee on Toxicity of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, I have been collecting data on the sideeffects and toxic reactions to these agents. Hence I read with interest the letter of Dr. Derek R. Gander and Mr. H. Brendan Devlin (April 27, p. 1160). Unfortunately this report does not include sufficient information to enable one to determine if the conclusion drawn is valid. This prompts me to ask: In addition to amitriptyline, what other medicines, if any, was the patient receiving ? When the constipation first appeared what was done to counteract this side-effect ? Was amitriptyline continued at the same dose, a lower dose, or discontinued ? What treatment, if any, was administered for the constipation between March 10, when the patient " became severely constipated," and March 19, when the laparotomy was performed ? The answers to these questions would help us to decide if the ileus was due to amitriptyline or to other factors. This is a matter of some scientific importance. It is essential that medical journals publish quickly reports of serious side-effects of pharmaceuticals. This service to the medical profession the B.M.J. has performed admirably. However, it would be very helpful to the readers if the authors of these reports would include sufficiently detailed information to enable their colleagues to unhesitatingly accept the conclusion as valid.-I am, etc.,


Despite decades of research, general purpose in-hand manipulation remains one of the unsolved challenges of robotics. One of the contributing factors that limit current robotic manipulation systems is the difficulty of precisely sensing contact forces – sensing and reasoning about contact forces are crucial to accurately control interactions with the environment. As a step towards enabling better robotic manipulation, we introduce DIGIT, an inexpensive, compact, and high-resolution tactile sensor geared towards in-hand manipulation. DIGIT improves upon past vision-based tactile sensors by miniaturizing the form factor to be mountable on multi-fingered hands, and by providing several design improvements that result in an easier, more repeatable manufacturing process, and enhanced reliability. We demonstrate the capabilities of the DIGIT sensor by training deep neural network model-based controllers to manipulate glass marbles in-hand with a multi-finger robotic hand. To provide the robotic community access to reliable and low-cost tactile sensors, we open-source the DIGIT design at www.digit.ml.


A novel polymer–enzyme conjugate, O-HTCC–SOD, was prepared through the conjugation of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD) to a macromolecular carrier, O-(2-hydroxyl)propyl-3-trimethyl ammonium chitosan chloride (O-HTCC), by the carbodiimide-mediated coupling method. The resulting O-HTCC–SOD conjugate was characterized by various analytical methods. It was a positively charged polymer with broader molecular weight distribution. Circular dichroism (CD) spectra revealed that the conjugated O-HTCC increased highly ordered secondary motifs of SOD, but also reduced partial β-sheet conformation that is crucial for enzymatic activity, which led to a ∼19% activity loss. O-HTCC–SOD could increase its catalytic activity to a maximum of 2.3-fold through gradual cleavage of O-HTCC linked to SOD by α-amylase. It exhibited low cytotoxicity to cells, and superior membrane permeability to native SOD. The conjugate, alone or incubated with α-amylase, significantly protected cell viability from ionizing radiation-induced oxidative damage by scavenging intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). Pharmacokinetic analysis demonstrated that the conjugation of O-HTCC to SOD prolonged its half-life 8.2-fold and increased its bioavailability to 1.56-fold after a single intravenous administration compared to native SOD, and that the time to maximum serum concentration (Tmax) of O-HTCC–SOD was 50-fold longer than that of native SOD, suggesting unique sustained activity enhancement in vivo presumably triggered by biodegradability of O-HTCC. We finally investigated its therapeutic effect against ROS-induced damage induced by whole-body X-ray radiation in mice. O-HTCC–SOD remarkably attenuated ROS-induced oxidative damage and induced tissue protection in mice whereas native SOD failed to do so. Therefore, the biodegradable cationic chitosan derivative O-HTCC can serve as a carrier to improve the therapeutic potential of SOD. The O-HTCC–SOD conjugate might be a promising therapeutic agent for treatment of ROS-related diseases.


The explosive growth in data collection across different industries has made it necessary to have processes that can infer useful information from this data in a limited amount of time. The software application describes data mining techniques and illustrates the practicality of data mining using SAS Enterprise Miner (EM), leading data analytics software, through two separate data sets and case studies provided by SAS as part of a teaching series. As academic institutions continue to revamp and develop curriculum to meet the challenges of educating the "the big data" generation, assessment and overview of leading tools in industry is insightful for educators to contextualize problems for students. This paper is an attempt to do so.


Bleeding from oesophageal varices is one of the most serious emergencies seen in medical practice. Control of the bleeding is the first priority but neither of the two treatments commonly used today, oesophageal tamponade or intravenous vasopressin, is ideal. Oesophageal tamponade can give control of bleeding in more than 90% of cases (1) but may cause aspiration pneumonia or respiratory arrest and certainly causes considerable discomfort to the patient. Vasopressin is hardly less unpleasant and carries the risk of myocardial infarction and cardiac arrest (2,3). Therefore a new drug for the temporary control of bleeding from oesophageal varices would be useful. There is evidence that naturally occurring somatostatin is at least as effective as vasopressin in this regard and has no major side-effects (4, 5) but its short half-life and instability in solution are disadvantageous. SMS 201-995 is a new long-acting analogue of somatostatin with a plasma half-life of 45 minutes and which is stable in solution (6). Little work has been done using this analogue and in particular it has not been assessed in a clinical trial of treatment of bleeding varices. This thesis sets out to examine the effects of SMS 201-995 in patients with portal hypertension and in two rat models of portal hypertension. The literature on portal hypertension is reviewed with particular reference to the management of bleeding oesophageal varices. Chapter 2 consists of a retrospective study of oesophageal tamponade in the management of variceal bleeding, assessing its efficacy in bleeding control as well as the complications encountered. In Chapters 3 to 7, three studies using SMS 201-995 are reported. The acute effects of SMS 201-995 on portal and systemic haemodynamics were measured in stable cirrhotic patients and this is described in Chapter 3. Cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance were measured using the thermodilution method and portal pressure was assessed by measuring the wedged and free hepatic venous pressures. Thereafter work proceeded in two areas simultaneously. Chapters 4 to 6 describe studies of the effects of SMS 201-995 in normal rats and in two rat models of portal hypertension. A rat model of extra-hepatic portal hypertension, using partial portal vein ligation, and a rat model of cirrhosis, induced by carbon tetrachloride, had been established and characterised previously in the University Department of Surgery, Glasgow Royal Infirmary (7). These models were used to study the effects of SMS 201-995 on systemic haemodynamics, portal pressure and portasystemic shunting. A radioactive microsphere method was used to measure blood flow and portasystemic shunting. Running concurrently with this animal study a controlled clinical trial was undertaken to compare the efficacy of SMS 201-995 with that of oesophageal tamponade in active variceal bleeding. This trial is described in Chapter 7. The efficacy of both treatments with regard to control of bleeding was studied along with their complications and side-effects , in 40 episodes of variceal bleeding. In Chapter 8 conclusions are drawn from the results of these studies and the work is placed in the context of other recent work in therapy for portal hypertension. A number of questions are raised by this work and several avenues for further investigation are suggested.


Full and congruent crystallization from glass is applied to the SrREGa3O7 melilite family (RE = Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb and Y). This innovative process enables the synthesis of polycrystalline ceramics exhibiting high transparency both in the visible and near infrared regions, despite tetragonal crystal structures and micrometer scale grain sizes. Moreover, glass crystallization provides an original route to synthesize new crystalline phases which are not accessible via a classic solid state reaction, as demonstrated for SrYbGa3O7 and SrTmGa3O7. To illustrate the potential optical applications of such materials, SrGdGa3O7 transparent polycrystalline ceramics are doped with Dy3+ or Tb3+/Eu3+ in order to generate white light emission under UV excitation. It is foreseen that such transparent melilite ceramic phosphors, prepared via a cost-effective process, can be successfully used in solid state lighting devices of considerable technological interest.


Background: Cryptogenic stroke accounts for 30% to 40% of ischemic stroke. It is essential to determine the possible culprit because this will improve secondary stroke prevention strategies. Methods: We performed a narrative nonsystematic review of the literature that included randomized trials, exploratory comparative studies, and case series on cryptogenic stroke. Results: There are several possible mechanisms implicated in cryptogenic stroke, including occult paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, patent foramen ovale, aortic arch atherosclerosis, atrial cardiopathy, and substenotic atherosclerosis. The heterogeneity of these mechanisms leads to differences in stroke prevention strategies among cryptogenic stroke patients. Conclusions: A thorough diagnostic evaluation is essential to determine the pathogenesis in cryptogenic stroke. This approach, in addition to risk factor management and lifestyle modifications, will lead to improved stroke prevention strategies in patients with cryptogenic stroke. This will allow for targeted clinical trials to improve stroke prevention strategies in this patient population.


Background and Objective: With the advent of the industry, the risk of heavy metals entering the environment has increased. Industrial sewage is considered as an important source of water pollution. Heavy metals, including cadmium, have toxic effects on humans and the environment. Today, the use of microorganisms, including bacteria, in biological refining has been considered as an environmentally friendly and cost effective method. In this study, the ability of Halomonas elongata IBRC-M10433 strain isolated from sediments of Lake Urmia to remove cadmium from metals has been considered. The aim of this study was to optimize the environmental conditions of removal of Cadmium metal by Halononas elongata IBRC-M10433.
Method: Design of Experiments Taguchi method to determine the optimum conditions relative to environmental factors such as Ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) as a source of nitrogen, and phosphate potassium (K2HPO4) as a source of phosphorus and cadmium concentrations in biological removal of cadmium was studied by the bacterium Halomonas longata IBRC- M10433.
Materials and methods: Taguchi experimental design was designed to determine the relative optimal conditions of environmental factors such as ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) as a source of nitrogen, potassium phosphate (K2HPO4) as a source of phosphorus, cadmium concentration in cadmium biodegradation by Halomonas Elongata IBRC-M10433 was studied. Data analysis was performed using Qualitek-4 software and the relative importance of each of the factors was determined.
Results: Optimum absorption conditions at Potassium phosphate 0.3 g/L, 100 mg cadmium and Ammonium chloride 2 g/L was determined at 37°C and pH 7.
Discussion and conclusion : Due to high costs and environmental problems, conventional methods of removing heavy metals are an effective and cost effective biological removal. The use of relative salt bacteria is beneficial in bio-refining with a high uptake of heavy metals.


The students at the University of New Mexico Electrical and Computer Engineering Department are planning to use an integrated set of lectures and labs to better understand basic communications systems. The lectures are based on the textbook by Ziemer and Tranter, Principles of Communications - Systems, Modulation, and Noise. The labs are developed using the National Instruments Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP). The choice of this radio provides 2 advantages from an instructional perspective: it minimizes the amount of lab equipment necessary for performing the labs, and its range of flexibility to support spectrum sensing, cognitive radio and alternate modulation schemes.


The coupled interior–atmosphere system of terrestrial exoplanets remains poorly understood. Exoplanets show a wide variety of sizes, densities, surface temperatures, and interior structures, with important knock-on effects for this coupled system. Many exoplanets are predicted to have a "stagnant lid" at the surface, with a rigid stationary crust, sluggish mantle convection, and only minor volcanism. However, if exoplanets have Earth-like plate tectonics, which involves several discrete, slowly moving plates and vigorous tectono-magmatic activity, then this may be critical for planetary habitability and have implications for the development (and evolution) of life in the galaxy. Here, we summarize our current knowledge of coupled planetary dynamics in the context of exoplanet diversity.


Abstract Acoustic "breakout" and "breakin" through duct walls had, until the late 1970s, been a rather neglected topic of research, particularly in the field of heating, ventilating and air-conditioning ducts. Since then, interest has grown and many publications have appeared in which predictive methods have been reported. Research in this area, especially that which has been conducted over the past two decades, is reviewed in this paper. Efforts are made to identify the main physical processes involved and to present some relevant published data, rather than to give a finely detailed, comprehensive, account of this research. Some comments are made concerning the possible direction of future research.


The circulation of the stratosphere transports important trace gases, including ozone, and can be thought of as having a fast horizontal mixing component and a slow meridional overturning component. Measuring the strength of the circulation directly is not possible, and so it must be inferred from tracer measurements. Long‐lived trace gases can be related to the idealized tracer age of air, which describes how long an air parcel has been in the stratosphere. In this paper, we derive a quantitative relationship between the vertical gradient of age and the horizontal mixing between the tropics and the extratropics using a "leaky pipe" framework in isentropic coordinates. Mixing rates of air into and out of the tropics are related to the vertical gradient of age in the tropics and in the extratropics, respectively. The derivation is repeated with the hemispheres separated so that the vertical structure of the mixing in the two hemispheres can be compared directly. These theories are applied to output from an idealized model of the stratosphere and from a realistic chemistry‐climate model to test our assumptions and calculate the mixing rates in the models. We then perform a quantitative comparison of the mixing rates in the Northern and Southern hemispheres along with an examination of where such a separation is valid. Finally, we perform a very preliminary calculation of mixing efficiency with satellite data to demonstrate the use of the mixing metric to compare mixing in models and data.


In this study, a combination of powder printing technique and two-stepped heat treatment was utilized as a mean to prepare porous high density polyethylene structure. Physical and mechanical properties of the resulting structure were then characterized by porosity measurement and monotonic tensile test. It was found that the relationship between structure and properties was strongly influenced by processing conditions including compositions, treatment times and treatment temperatures. This process could increase the properties of porous high density polyethylene significantly over the single-stepped heat treatment without destroying porous structure. Porous high density polyethylene bodies having a porosity ranging from 46-58 percents with tensile strength up to approximately 4 MPa could be successfully prepared in this study.


This study was designed to test the psychometric properties of the Chinese interRAI Intellectual Disability (ID) tool in a Chinese population with learning disabilities in Hong Kong. The Chinese interRAI ID was prepared based on the original interRAI ID which is a standardized, comprehensive instrument and is designed to evaluate the strengths, preferences, and needs of persons with all levels of ID living in various care settings. A sample of 100 people with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities was assessed with the Chinese interRAI ID and its criterion measures. The subscales of the interRAI ID, including the Cognitive Performance Scale, Depression Rating Scale, Aggressive Behavior Scale, Activities of Daily Living Hierarchy Scale, and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Involvement Scale, had high internal consistency (Cronbach's I± = .66 to .87) and test–retest reliability ( r = .96 to .99; Io = .68 to .81). Comparison of the interRAI ID scales with criterion measures supported concurrent and discriminant validity of these scales. The study results provide preliminary support for the Chinese interRAI ID as a reliable and valid tool for assessing Chinese individuals with learning disabilities in Hong Kong.


A 78-year-old woman with hypertension and diabetes mellitus was admitted to the Department of Internal Medicine with fatigue. There was a profound difference in blood pressure between her right (116/97 mmHg) and left arms (231/126 mmHg). The patient's physical examination was otherwise unremarkable. A difference of 10 mmHg or higher, or of 15 mmHg or more, between arms can identify patients at a high risk of asymptomatic peripheral vascular disease and mortality who may benefit from further assessment [1]. Therefore, the patient underwent three-dimensional computed tomography (3D CT) and arch aortography to detect the presence of narrowing or hardening of the arteries. 3D CT revealed severe brachiocephalic trunk calcification (Panel A-C), and on contrast examination, 99% stenosis was observed in the brachiocephalic trunk, which was determined to be the cause of the blood pressure difference (Panel D).


This study was an attempt to know the implementation of the production unit management at the Civil Engineering Departement of State Vocational High Schools in Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta according to the managers, executives, and teachers. Data were collected using a closed-questionnair, in-depth interview, and participant observation. A descriptive statistics was used to analyze data. The results indicated that the planning, executing, and controlling of production unit were good enough


ABSTRACT The steady-state pharmacokinetics of lamivudine were evaluated in 11 subjects with human immunodeficiency virus infection and end-stage renal disease, 9 of whom were receiving hemodialysis and 2 of whom were receiving chronic ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). All subjects received 150 mg of lamivudine daily for at least 2 weeks prior to sampling for determination of the pharmacokinetics of lamivudine over a 24-h period on 2 consecutive days. On the first day, subjects received 150 mg of oral lamivudine and underwent dialysis (hemodialysis or CAPD). On the second day, subjects received another 150 mg of oral lamivudine but dialysis was not performed. For the subjects undergoing hemodialysis, the geometric mean predose serum lamivudine concentration was 1.14 μg/ml (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.83 to 1.58 μg/ml), the geometric mean maximum concentration in serum (Cmax) was 3.77 μg/ml (95% CI, 3.01 to 4.71 μg/ml), and the geometric mean area under the serum concentration-time curve from time zero to 24 h (AUC0-24) was 49.8 μg · h/ml (95% CI 39.1 to 63.6 μg · h/ml). Hemodialysis removed approximately 28 mg of lamivudine but had no significant effect on Cmax or AUC0-24. In the absence of hemodialysis, the geometric mean lamivudine terminal elimination half-life was 17.2 h (95% CI, 10.5 to 28.1 h), whereas the geometric mean intradialysis half-life of lamivudine was 5.3 h (95% CI, 3.4 to 8.2 h). The pharmacokinetics of lamivudine in subjects undergoing CAPD were similar to those in subjects undergoing hemodialysis. CAPD removed 24 mg of lamivudine over a 24-h period but had no effect on Cmax or AUC0-24. Pharmacokinetic modeling suggests that a lamivudine dose of 25 mg daily in hemodialysis subjects would provide serum exposure similar to that provided by a dose of 150 mg twice daily in patients with normal renal function.


Sensitivity matrix evaluation in gradient method for inverse analysis is a major of importance. The techniques vary from the optimisation problems, the main feature of the direct models and the type of applications. The semi-analytical method of sensitivity analysis of inverse problems is very attractive thanks to the compromise between computational time and ease of derivatives evaluation. Especially for parameter identification in material forming domain, this technique seems to be promising. This paper presents a comparison between semi-analytical and finite difference methods. The framework of this work is the rheological and tribological parameter identification through material forming process analysis. The identification software CART (Computer Aided Rheology and Tribology) was developed from the finite element code FORGE2(R) devoted to material forming processes simulation.


BACKGROUND
The International Contact Dermatitis Research Group increased the patch test concentration of formaldehyde from 1.0% aqueous (aq) to 2.0% aq (in 2011).

OBJECTIVE
This study was designed to investigate the outcome of the decision.

METHODS
Consecutive dermatitis patients in 8 different clinics were patch tested with formaldehyde 1.0% aq and 2.0% aq. The test solutions were applied with a micropipette to the filter paper discs in the respective chamber.

RESULTS
A total of 2778 patients were tested with 1.0% aq and 2766 to 2.0% aq. Sixty-five patients (2.3%, calculated from 2766 tested, to 2.0% aq) had positive patch test reactions interpreted as contact allergy to formaldehyde. This is a rather low frequency. Of these 65, 46 were women (46/1703 [2.7%]) and 19 were men (19/1063 [1.8%]). Thirty-six reacted only to 2.0% aq, 21 patients reacted to both concentrations, and 8 patients reacted only to 1.0% aq. Significantly, more patients reacted to 2.0% aq compared with 1.0% aq (P < 0.001). There was no significant sex difference. A total of 0.8% irritant reactions were recorded to formaldehyde 2.0% aq and 0.1% to 1.0% aq.

CONCLUSIONS
The increased formaldehyde patch test concentration to 2.0% aq revealed more formaldehyde contact allergy.


Data is presented for a range of experiments that have been performed using a selected ion flow tube (SIFT) instrument operated at room temperature (~ 298K) with carrier gas pressures typically in the range of 0.3 – 0.6 Torr. The majority of the experiments discussed are performed on a Voice100 instrument that has not been described in detail previously. The Voice100 is a novel instrument that has been designed particularly for quantitative trace gas analysis using the SIFT-MS technique. A mixture of helium and argon carrier gases are employed in the Voice100 flow tube. By mixing carrier gases, the flow dynamics and diffusion characteristics of a flow tube are altered when compared to classic single carrier gas models. Therefore firstly, optimal flow conditions for the operation of a Voice100 are characterised. The diffusion of an ion in a mixture of carrier gases is then characterised using theoretical models and experimental techniques. This research requires that a new parameter MP be defined regarding the mass discrimination of an ion in the non-field-free region near the downstream ion sampling orifice. Furthermore, a new method is described for the simultaneous measurement of rate coefficients for the reactions of H3O.(H2O)n (n = 1, 2, 3) ions with analytes. Rate coefficients and branching ratios for the reactions of SIFT-MS precursor ions with specific analytes related to four individual applications are presented. For each application, the kinetic parameters are determined so as to facilitate the quantitative detection of the analytes relevant to that application. The GeoVOC application involves the measurement of hydrocarbon concentrations in the headspace of soil and water across a range of humidities. Alkyl esters are investigated to allow for the quantitative detection of each compound in fruits and vegetables. Chemical warfare agents, their surrogates and precursor compounds are studied which allows for the quantitative or semi-quantitative detection of a range of highly toxic compounds. Finally, 17 compounds classified by the US-EPA as hazardous air pollutants are studied that enables SIFT-MS instruments to replicate sections of the TO-14A and TO-15 methods.


Rejecting Hegel's claim to discern the structures of reason in history, the counter-visions of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche turned on the affirmation of will and imagination as the dominant aspects of human existence. For the 20th-century novelists and dramatists who have inherited their stance, life moves between the poles of affirmation and hope, and defeat and tragedy. In post-1918 Germany, this mood of alternation between hope and despair evinced by Lukacs, Kafka and expressionist art, was paralleled in theology by the attention given to tragedy and the demonic by Barth, Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. Larry D. Bouchard's study of this theme, Tragic Method and Tragic Theology: Evil in Contemporary Drama and Religious Thought (Pennsylvania State University Press [1989], $24.95, pp. x + 284, ISBN 0-271-00655-2), opens by recalling the sense of the irreducible and inexplicable that marks the reflections on evil and tragic experience, of that generation of theologians. He then presents thorough and searching readings of four modern plays which have explored the negative and the demonic: Rolf Hochhuth's 'The Deputy', Robert Lowell's 'The Old Glory', and Peter Shaffer's 'Equus' and 'Amadeus'. As in the existentialism of the


Over the past century, the world has seen many social, economic and political transformations. Alargely colonial era has given way to a largely democratic one. Yet, while the democratization of the political culture guaranteed citizens'rights and freedom, it did not result in the democratization of learning and knowledge production. Changes in education systems have been slow in coming. Economic trends and civil society movements in the past decade have changed perceptions of what constitutes 'knowledge' and redefined the mission and mandate of higher education institutions (HEIs). With increasing demands to scale up their teaching and research functions, HEIs are facing new challenges in contributing to human and social development. The meaning and agenda of human and social development have also changed, and new civil society actors have been closely associated with this phenomenon. This paper looks at how the engagement of civil society organizations with the world of higher education has resulted in interesting trends in social policy formation and knowledge production. It presents examples of effective engagement between HEIs and the social and human development efforts of civil society (PRIA in Asia and Mpambo Multiversity in Africa), draws lessons from these interventions and highlights future potential for HEIs. Advocating the view that the research and teaching functions of HEIs should serve the larger mission of human and social development, it looks at the gains to be obtained from such partnerships. By exploring alternative sources and modes of learning and knowledge production, the paper provides a vision of the possibilities that engagement with civil society can open up in terms of HEIs' contribution to social and human development in the coming decades.


Soil compaction has deleterious effects on soil physical properties, which can affect plant growth, but some soils are inherently resilient, whereby they may recover following removal of the stress. We explored aspects of soil physical resilience in a field‐based experiment. We subjected three soils of different texture, sown with winter wheat or remaining fallow, to a compaction event. We then monitored soil strength, as a key soil physical property, over the following 16 months. We were also interested in the associated interactions with crop growth and the microbial community. Compaction had a considerable and sustained effect in a sandy loam and a sandy clay loam soil, resulting in an increase in strength and decreased crop yields. By contrast compaction had little effect on a clay soil, perhaps due initially to the buoyancy effect of pore water pressure. Fallow clay soil did have a legacy of the compaction event at depth, however, suggesting that it was the actions of the crop, and rooting in particular, that maintained smaller strengths in the cropped clay soil rather than other physical processes. Compaction generally did not affect microbial communities, presumably because they occupy pores smaller than those affected by compaction. That the clay soil was able to supply the growing crop with sufficient water whilst remaining weak enough for root penetration was a key finding. The clay soil was therefore deemed to be much more resilient to the compaction stress than the sandy loam and sandy clay loam soils.


Current domain-independent, classical planners require symbolic models of the problem domain and instance as input, resulting in a knowledge acquisition bottleneck. Meanwhile, although deep learning has achieved significant success in many fields, the knowledge is encoded in a subsymbolic representation which is incompatible with symbolic systems such as planners. We propose LatPlan, an unsupervised architecture combining deep learning and classical planning. Given only an unlabeled set of image pairs showing a subset of transitions allowed in the environment (training inputs), and a pair of images representing the initial and the goal states (planning inputs), LatPlan finds a plan to the goal state in a symbolic latent space and returns a visualized plan execution. The contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) State Autoencoder, which finds a propositional state representation of the environment using a Variational Autoencoder. It generates a discrete latent vector from the images, based on which a PDDL model can be constructed and then solved by an off-the-shelf planner. (2) Action Autoencoder / Discriminator, a neural architecture which jointly finds the action symbols and the implicit action models (preconditions/effects), and provides a successor function for the implicit graph search. We evaluate LatPlan using image-based versions of 3 planning domains: 8-puzzle, Towers of Hanoi and LightsOut.


Natural gas is an alternative to gasoline as a fuel for automotive engines. The combustion of natural gas produces mainly water and CO2 and significantly less CO and UHC emissions. In many cases, CNG vehicles generate fewer exhaust and greenhouse gas emissions than their gasoline or diesel-powered counterparts. While it is clean burning and in plentiful supply with a reasonably even global distribution, its drawback is that it is less energy dense than petrol and so has required either a large tank or a reduced driving range Using it in conjunction with electric drive as in an electric hybrid vehicle, this disadvantage would be significantly reduced. In this paper we present results of the first stage of our research that is conversion of a gasoline vehicle to run on direct injected compressed natural gas. We also present a proposed scheme for a CNGDI-electric hybrid vehicle.


IDEs are essential for programming language developers, and state-of-the-art IDE support is mandatory for programming languages to be successful. Although IDE features for mainstream programming languages are typically implemented manually, this often isn't feasible for programming languages that must be developed with significantly fewer resources. The Spoofax language workbench is a platform for developing textual programming languages with state-of-the-art IDE support. Spoofax is a comprehensive environment that integrates syntax definition, name binding, type analysis, program transformation, code generation, and declarative specification of IDE components. It also provides high-level languages for each of these aspects. These languages are highly declarative, abstracting over the implementation of IDE features and letting engineers focus on language design.


The above article, published online on 10 August 2021 in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been withdrawn by agreement between the journal Editor in Chief, Gening Jiang, and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The withdrawal has been agreed following no response from the author to requests to sign the Journal's publishing license.


Some bioflavonoids are potent antioxidants and have pharmacological effects similar to those of vitamin E. The interactive effect of naringin and vitamin E was studied with respect to cholesterol metabolism and antioxidant status. Naringin supplementation (0.1%, wt/wt) with comparable levels of vitamin E was given to rats with a high-cholesterol (1%, wt/wt) diet for 5 weeks. The amount of vitamin E included in naringin-free and naringin diets was a low (low-E) and a normal (normal-E) level. The naringin supplementation significantly lowered the concentrations of plasma cholesterol and triglyceride compared to the naringin-free group in low vitamin E-fed rats. HMG-CoA reductase activity was significantly lowered by naringin supplementation within both the low-vitamin E group (794.64 ± 9.87 vs. 432.18 ± 12.33 pmol/min/mg protein, mean ± SE; p < 0.05) and normal-vitamin E group (358.82 ± 11.4 vs. 218.22 ± 9.47 pmol/min/mg protein, mean ± SE; p < 0.05) compared to each of the naringin-free group. The HMG-CoA reductase activity was also significantly lowered by increased dietary vitamin E when compared within the naringin and naringin-free group, respectively. Neither dietary naringin nor vitamin E did significantly change the activities of hepatic antioxidant enzymes and plasma thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance level. These data indicate that naringin lowers the plasma lipid concentrations when the dietary vitamin E level is low. The HMG-CoA reductase-inhibitory effect of naringin was more potent when dietary vitamin E was at a normal level. These data may contribute to understanding the interactive effect of naringin and vitamin E on cholesterol biosynthesis in high-cholesterol-fed rats.


HARMAJA H . 1974 : Two new families of the Pezizales: Karstenellaceae and Pseudorhizinaceae. Karstenia 14: 109112. The author considers especially the sporal, anatomical and cytological characters of the genera Karstenella Harmaja and Pseudorhizina J ach. to warrant the establishment of a new mono typic family for each : Karstenelloceae Harmaja and Pseudorhizinaceae Harmaja. Certain characters relevant to the family level taxonomy have been observed by the author in both genera. Features apparently diagnostic of the family Karst enellaceae are the p resence of two nuclei in the spores, the lack of a cyanophilic perispore in all stages. of spore development, the simple structure of the excipulum which is exclusively composed of textura intricata, and the subicular characters. The genera of the Pezizales with tetranucleate spores are considered to form three different families on the basis of both sporal and anatomical differences: H elvellaceae Dum., Pseudorhizinaceae and Rhizinaceae Bon. The lack of a cyanophilic perispore in the mature spores and the simple structure and thick-walled hyphae of the excipulum are important distinguishing features of the family Pseudorhizinaceae. Comparisons are given between Pseudorhizinaceae and the two other families.


Yoshinobu Ashihara, one of Japan's most celebrated architects, develops in this book a cross-cultural perspective on how people actually see and feel urban spaces. His study spans East and West, ranges from traditional villages of Japan; the Italian Apulia, and the Aegean to New York, Chandigarh, and Brasilia.Many of Ashihara's insights grow out of his reconciliation of positive-negative, yin-yang polarities. For example, he considers the demarcations between interior and exterior, private and public spaces in both Japanese and Western architecture and town planning, and the reversal of "figure" and "ground" in Italian piazzas. He also explores the differences between daytime and nighttime scenes, convex and concave shorelines, and the intimate, contained urban spaces associated with Medieval towns (and the outlook of Camillo Sitte) as distinguished from the grand, expansive spaces associated with Baroque cities (and the outlook of Le Corbusier).As might be expected from a writer whose architectural designs are as much concerned with the intimate details as with the broad strokes, Ashihara's theoretical considerations are rooted in actualities that foster practical applications. He introduces an objective measure of various kinds of urban spaces by calculating the ratio of street width and building height, and takes into account the influence of such realities as climate, culture, history, and childhood memories on the shaping of human habitats.The book is extensively illustrated with photographs of the sites discussed--street vistas, urban night scenes, squares, residential neighborhoods, landmark structures--and with maps, plans, and diagrams.


In this paper we address three questions: (1) Does global finance require a common prudential standard? (2) Does global finance require international cooperation in overseeing the system's safety and soundness? And (3), does global finance require notification, cooperation and coordination of dynamic regulatory-policy adjustments? Our answer to the first question is that global finance does require a common prudential standard, defined as a level of required resilience, applied appropriately to all parts of the financial system. Without adoption of a common resilience standard, the international financial system will fragment and balkanize. In addressing the second question, we explain why shared, collective analysis is necessary to identify and mitigate stability-threatening shortfalls against that standard for resilience. This will be possible only with increased public and private transparency. Finally, we examine the daunting, but essential, task of implementing a dynamic prudential framework that maintains the system's resilience even as its structure and risk-taking behaviors change. The policy implications of our analysis focus on the need for global agreement, implementation monitoring, information sharing and even, sometimes given damaging spillovers, collective regulatory responses to emerging threats. Institutions will need to be adapted to make all this feasible.


An industrial-academic collaboration between Rosetti Marino shipyard and University of Genoa presided over a deep theoretical and experimental insight into the maneuvering performances of a new escort tug family. The presented z-drive azimuthal stern drive class is characterized by high intact/damage stability margins, good maneuvering capability, and stable behavior during escort indirect assistance. The project addresses three main research areas: hydrodynamic design of the hull with escort capability, simulation of the escort capabilities in different operational scenario, and development of control logics that will allow autonomous or unmanned operations. The tug design concept is supported by a customized simulation tool that enables the evaluation of the free-sailing and towing maneuvering characteristics for Azimuth Stern Drive (ASD) tugs at high–speed (Escort) and low speed (Harbor Assistance) in a real-time environment. The paper describes the methodological approach adopted for the design and maneuvering characterization of such a class, across some preliminary results. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations and towing tank tests have been performed onto a prototype tug hull in order to assess the hull design and to infer simulation models able to describe the behavior of a family of vessels. In particular, the propulsion and maneuverability aspects in escort operations are deeply investigated.


The 5' upstream region (-680-(+)40) containing the complete signal peptide coding sequence of the rice seed storage prolamine gene was amplified in vitro with polymerase chain reaction from the genome of Chinese super rice cultivar Zhonghua 8. Physical map and DNA sequence analysis showed strong homology with the 5'-flanking region of rice prolamine gene reported by Kim in 1988. No changes in the signal peptide coding sequence and a long leader sequence with several small ORFs were found. Chimeric gene containing 5'-flanking region of the prolamine gene has been transcriptionally fused with the beta-glucuronidase reporter gene. The fusion junction was confirmed by both physical map and DNA sequence analysis. The resultant chimeric gene was used to transform the tobacco explants by Ti binary system of Agrobacterium tumefaciens LBA4404. With dot and Southern blotting hybridization, three transgenic tobacco plants with the copies of chimeric GUS genes as many as 20 were obtained. Histochemical analysis revealed that the GUS activity in the endosperm tissues of tobacco seeds at the developmental stage was about 20 DAP. No GUS activity was found in leaves, stems, roots and flowers of the transgenic tobacco plants. Therefore, we concluded that the 5'-upstream cis-elements from -680 to -18 were enough to confer the endosperm-specific and temporal expression of rice prolamine gene.


In this paper I study and quantify the long-run effects of openness to trade and multinational production in a model of endogenous innovation with firm heterogeneity. When trade is liberalized, some multinationals find it more profitable to export and forgo the cost of maintaining capacities in multiple markets. I examine how this trade-off can have long-run effects on growth and welfare. The model emphasizes the importance of firms' ability to access multiple markets in providing incentives for innovation and highlights the role of technology quality in international technology spillovers in promoting growth. I find that by shutting down openness to both trade and multinational production with other OECD countries, the US would experience a welfare cost that is equivalent to a 39% drop in consumption, with the growth effect accounting for at least 40% of the estimated welfare cost. Since multinationals tend to use relatively high quality technology, trade liberalization alone can lead to an adverse effect on economic growth and consumer welfare by reducing the level of multinational production.


The paper is a continuation of the preceding research of bruising sensitivity applied to different pear varieties. This study was based on quasi-static fruit testing in compression between two plates. One part of the method is based on determining the hysteresis losses corresponding to the predetermined low level bruising. This paper contains an attempt to apply the hysteresis loss concept to dynamical impact tests, which are simpler and quicker then quasi-static ones. Moreover the impact tests are closer to the character of deformations that initiating the bruising process in real conditions. Nine pear varieties were tested quasi-statically by the method developed previously. The same varieties were tested also dynamically in a special pendulum with flat and round indentors. The results show that the dynamic test is less sensitive in determining the bruising susceptibility than the previous quasistatic one. Moreover the success of the dynamic test depends on the shape of the indentor. Acceptable results were obtained with a flat indentor in contrast to the round indentor. For the last modification of the indentor we obtained the results, from which it was practically impossible to determine the maximal value of the hysteresis losses at which no bruise spots were formed.


The solutions are there to improve energy efficiency in all sectors. We don't need to wait. We need action because the greenest energy is the energy we don't use.—Kim Fausing, president and CEO, Danfoss
 I don't know any other solution like energy efficiency that can simultaneously address our economic crisis, energy crisis, and climate crisis. … efficiency is the very first fuel.—Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA
 Energy security, energy prices, and the cost of living were the focus of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) 7th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency held last month in Sønderborg, Denmark. Twenty-four governments from around the world issued a joint statement stressing the importance of energy efficiency to address the energy crisis, rising inflation, and greenhouse-gas emissions. IEA said, "It was the first event of its kind at which so many governments—including France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Senegal, and the United States—have made a specific call for stronger action on energy efficiency."
 Although energy efficiency has long been mentioned as a means toward achieving Paris Agreement goals, the "more exciting" announcements such as carbon capture and storage grabbed attention. Big projects offering big solutions proposed by big corporations and governments outshone energy efficiency, which also called for personal actions. Although that may be an unpleasant truth, more attention may be turning to it.
 Global energy prices are high and volatile—an unsettling mix—and are hitting hard the wallets of individuals, households, industries, and entire economies. Gasoline, other fuels, and electricity prices are high (and likely to get higher), and added to inflation, are increasing the cost of most everything else.
 A threshold has been met or surpassed for what is considered "affordable," and the critical role of demand-side actions, including energy efficiency, should gain traction.
 Consider this: Doubling the current rate of improvement in energy intensity, a measure of the economy's energy efficiency, from 2 to 4% per year over this decade could potentially avoid 95 exajoule (EJ) per year of final energy consumption—equivalent to China's current final energy consumption. (One exajoule is equal to 1018 joules.) IEA added that with each unit of energy delivering more than it does today, final energy demand by 2030 could be 5% lower yet serve an economy 40% larger.
 With an eye toward energy security, cutting 95 EJ per year by 2030 avoids 30 million BOPD, approximately triple Russia's average 2021 production. And it avoids 650 billion m3 of natural gas, around four times the EU's imports from Russia in 2021.Also highlighted was a shift in global efforts to provide clean and efficient cooking and hearting to all who lack it today. More than 20 EJ demand would be reduced for the traditional use of biomass such as wood and charcoal in 2030, dramatically improving the lives of billions of people. For example, household air pollution is linked to around 2.5 million premature deaths a year, with women and children most affected.
 One-third of the decreased energy demand is forecast to come from the use of more technically efficient equipment ranging from air conditioners to vehicles, including the adoption of electric vehicles. Electrification provides around 20%, for example through switching to electricity for low-temperature heat in industry and replacing fossil-fuel boilers with more-efficient heat pumps. Smart (digital) controls and an increase in recycling of plastics and scrap steel account for another 30% of the decrease in demand. Changes in human behavior, our personal actions, could cut 18% or so through changing travel patterns and turning down thermostats.
 Buildings, heavy industry, manufacturing, and the transport sector hold significant potential for reducing energy use. In 2020 transportation's energy consumption totaled around 105 EJ and accounted for around 27% of total global energy-related emissions, according to IEA. Buildings accounted for 129 EJ and contributed 28%, and industrial energy consumption was 156 EJ and contributed 39% of the emissions.
 Although IEA said the oil market may rebalance in the second half of this year as oil demand is tempered, OPEC+ increases supply, and strategic reserves are released, it added, "This situation might prove short-lived. OPEC+ capacity constraints set the stage for 2023, when global oil supply will struggle to keep pace with demand. While non-OPEC+ continues to power ahead, OPEC+ would have to further deflate its shrunken capacity cushion to keep the implied balance from tipping into deficit."


The Neurospora crassa vacuole, defined by its content of basic amino acids, polyphosphate, protease, phosphatases, and alpha-mannosidase, was purified to near homogeneity. The procedure depends upon homogenization of snail gut enzyme-digested cells in a buffer osmotically stabilized with 1 M sorbitol, differential centrifugation of the extract, and sucrose density gradient centrifugation of the organellar pellet. Isopycnic centrifugation of vacuoles in 2.25 M sorbitol-Metrizamide density gradients yielded a peak (density, 1.31 g/cm3) of vacuolar markers coincident with 32P-phospholipids, trichloroacetate-insoluble 14C, and trichloroacetate-soluble 14C. A trail of macromolecular markers in the lighter portions of the gradient reflected, at least in part, heterogeneity of the vacuoles. Almost no contamination by mitochondria or glyoxysomes was detected. Vacuoles were very heterogeneous in size as estimated by velocity sedimentation, but most were larger than mitochondria. Variations of the osmotic strength of the medium were found to alter the equilibrium density of vacuole preparations from 1.06 g/cm3 to over 1.3 g/cm3. This explains the great variation in density reported previously for the "vacuole," the "vesicle," and the "protease particle" of N. crassa, all of which appear to be the same entity.


The results of several experimental studies have shown that ascorbic acid inhibits tumor growth and metastasis. Ascorbic acid is an antioxidant that acts as a scavenger for a wide range of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Both tumour metastasis and cell migration have been correlated with the intracellular ROS level, so it was postulated that the inhibitory effect of ascorbic acid derivatives on cell motility may be caused by scavenging of ROS. Time-lapse analyses of Walker 256 carcinosarcoma cell migration showed that both the speed of movement and the cell displacement were inhibited by ascorbic acid applied in concentrations ranging from 10 to 250 μM. This effect correlated with a reduction in the intracellular ROS level in WC 256 cells, suggesting that ROS scavenging may be a mechanism responsible for the inhibition of WC 256 cell migration. However, another potent antioxidant, N-acetyl-L-cysteine, also efficiently decreased the intracellular ROS level in WC 256 cells, but did not affect the migration of the investigated cells. These results demonstrate that intact, unmodified ascorbic acid applied in physiologically relevant and nontoxicconcentrations exerts an inhibitory effect on the migration of WC 256 carcinosarcoma cells, and that this may be one of the factors responsible for the anti-metastatic activity of vitamin C. However, our data does not support the hypothesis that the scavenging of intracellular ROS is the main mechanism in the inhibition of cancer cell migration by ascorbic acid.


This is a review paper that the reliability evaluation methods for wind power systems are reviewed and compared. The paper is helpful for knowing about the state of the art in the area and selecting a suitable method for reliability evaluation of wind system. A common set of reliability methods and procedures used in wind energy applications systems are reviewed. A quantitative measure of reliability estimation using these methods is essential for making intelligent decisions in the operation of the wind system. These methods have been classified into some categories easy to understand and to insure that the reliability requirements have been met. Several methods have been developed to address these objectives but no unique method can address all the objectives. Reliability methods present both advantages and shortcomings and are the basis for the recommendation that have been made along the qualification and quality assurance in order to improve design and manufacturing robustness.


Background: Stroke is the third leading cause of death worldwide. Data on the epidemiology of stroke, patterns and risk factors in recent years in our region are brief. Methods and Material: This retrospective study from 2014 to 2015 on stroke patients was conducted. The NIHSS, the MRS and the Barthel index were used at admission and discharge. Patient's demographic data and checklist used to identify risk factor Findings: A total of 230 stroke patients, 122 (53%) was female. 194 patients (%84) was ischemic type vs 36(%16) hemorrhagic, P<0001). Difference in risk factors was statistically significant (168 patients (%73) had Hypertension, 121 (%52.6) Diabetes Mellitus, 118 (%51.3) Cardiac Disease, 108 (%46.9) Hyperlipidemia, 58 (%25.2) Smoking and 46 patients (%20) Opioid addiction, P<0001). Hypertension was statistically significant and increased in hemorrhagic subtype 25 patient (%70) Intracerebral vs11 patient (%30) Subarachnoid, P=0.01). Difference in Cardiac disease (p<0.0001), Diabetes Mellitus (p<0.001), Smoking (p<0.001), Opioid Addiction (p<0.04) was statistically significant and increased in Intracerebral patients. Conclusions: mortality rate in our study was low, stroke was more common in female, ischemic stroke was most common stroke type and hypertension especially in hemorrhagic was the most important risk factor for stroke.


Eugene O'Neill is the only American dramatist ever to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He wrote over 50 plays; a number are virtually unknown by the general public; several are considered classics of the American stage; all of them demonstrate, in one way or another, how O'Neill challenged the conventional boundaries of the drama of his time and thereby paved the way for modern American theatre. This volume will provide guides to eight of O'Neill's plays that are most often studied in schools and colleges: The Hairy Ape, Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones, Desire Under the Elms, Ah, Wilderness!, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. More than almost any other author in any fictional genre, O'Neill's works are highly autobiographical. The love/hate relationships he had with the members of his own family resonate throughout his dramatic works. The son of an alcoholic and a morphine addict, he struggled with chemical dependency throughout his life, but determined to be an artist or nothing, he eventually gave up drinking and fulfilled his artistic ambitions, transforming the traumatic experiences of his life into compelling drama. O'Neill's drama provides insights into the complexities of human behavior and raises questions about the forces, both external and internal, that shape human lives.


This thesis is concerned with the theory of ontological emergence; a theory that posits a new kind of entity – usually an emergent property – that occurs in complex systems and can explain some system-level behaviour. The theory holds that these emergent entities are dependent on, but novel with respect to, the components of those systems. Such entities have been invoked to explain behaviours as diverse as symmetry breaking in molecular physics to the possibility of personal agency. As a metaphysical theory it is useful wherever there is a lack of understanding about how system-level behaviour can occur based on what we know about the parts of that system. Besides its usefulness, the theory, if true, would profoundly impact our understanding of fundamental ontology.

The first half of this thesis aims to do three things: first, identify a problem that emergence can explain; second, identify what emergence must do in order to solve that problem; third, identify a theory of emergence capable of doing it. The first and second of these aims will require us to outline issues in fundamental ontology and metaphysical methodology that are critical to any assessment of the possibility of emergence. They both also require making some commitments on these issues. Among such commitments will be a commitment to an ontology of properties as causal powers.

I argue that emergence is a theory of macro-properties and that the primary problem it solves is the Problem of Reduction. I thereafter defend the theory of causal powers emergence against charges that it is incoherent and inconsonant with science and natural unity; these and other conflicts are shown to be unproblematic once the theory is properly explicated. In these respects, this thesis finds no fault with the coherence of emergence. The key claims in the second half of the thesis instead pertain to the necessity of emergence to solve the problem that I have identified. The argument is that even if causal novelty, holistic effects and top-down causation are apparent in a system, a properly developed causal powers ontology can account for them without positing new fundamental properties. I develop an option called non-reductive inherence based on a theory of powers admitting a plurality of compositional principles. The thesis ends by expounding this alternative to emergence and setting out some of the trade-offs between the positions.


Neurodegenerative diseases are influenced by environmental factors such as exposure to toxins including the cyanotoxin β-N-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) that can bioaccumulate in common food sources such as fish, mussels and crabs. Accurate and precise analytical methods are needed to detect and quantify BMAA to minimize human health risks. The objective of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the methods used for BMAA analysis from 2003 to 2019 and to evaluate the reported performance characteristics for each method to determine the consensus data for each analytical approach and different sample matrices. Detailed searches of the database Web of Science™ (WoS) were performed between August 21st, 2018 and April 5th, 2019. Eligible studies included analytical methods for the detection and quantification of BMAA in cyanobacteria and bioaccumulated BMAA in higher trophic levels, in phytoplankton and zooplankton and in human tissues and fluids. This systematic review has limitations in that only the English language literature is included and it did not include standard operating protocols nor any method validation data that have not been made public. We identified 148 eligible studies, of which a positive result for BMAA in one or more samples analyzed was reported in 84% (125 out of 148) of total studies, 57% of HILIC studies, 92% of RPLC studies and 71% of other studies. The largest discrepancy between different methods arose from the analysis of cyanobacteria samples, where BMAA was detected in 95% of RPLC studies but only in 25% of HILIC studies. Without sufficient published validation of each method's performance characteristics, it is difficult to establish each method as fit for purpose for each sample matrix. The importance of establishing methods as appropriate for their intended use is evidenced by the inconsistent reporting of BMAA across environmental samples, despite its prevalence in diverse ecosystems and food webs.


Design of power-efficient and highspeed data path logic systems are one of the most substantial areas of research in VLSI system design. In digital adders, the speed of addition is limited by the time required to propagate a carry through the adder. The sum for each bit position in an elementary adder is generated sequentially only after the previous bit position has been summed and a carry propagated into the next position. The CSLA is used in many computational systems to alleviate the problem of carry propagation delay by independently generating multiple carries and then select a carry to generate the sum. However, the CSLA is not area efficient because it uses multiple pairs of Ripple Carry Adders (RCA) to generate partial sum and carry by considering carry input, then the final sum and carry are selected by the multiplexers (mux). The basic idea of this work is to use Binary to Excess-1 Converter (BEC) instead of RCA in the regular CSLA to achieve high speed and low power consumption.


Corona discharge is widely known as an effective method for improving the characteristics of the flow field and enhancing heat transfer. Distribution of charge density and electric field form a Coulomb body force which acts on the charged particles within the fluid and generates a secondary flow field. The thermal enhancing effects of corona wind are normally dominant in low Reynolds numbers or free convection problems. Although the governing differential equations of corona discharge are relatively simple, solving these equations by conventional computational methods does not yield a smooth solution for charge density and electric field. In particular, the results obtained from finite-volume method suffer from dispersion errors and fluctuations which lead to distorted values of electric body force, and consequently a distorted secondary flow. In this study, the corona discharge in a circular tube with the electrode positioned at the tube centerline is considered. An exact solution for charge density, electric field, and potential distribution along the radius of the tube has been derived analytically using a Lagrangian formulation for the charge density and the Method of Characteristics. It was found that the results of this method do not show any fluctuations or dispersion effects on charge density and electric field. The solution of the electric field provided a body force which was used in the Navier-Stokes equations to obtain the secondary flow in the cross section of the tube. In this paper, the electric and fluid flow fields are presented. The results are compared with those obtained by other computational methods and the differences are discussed.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in priming naive T cells. Using an in vitro priming system, we show that DCs incubated with Ixodes ricinus tick saliva initiate the T(h)2 differentiation of CD4(+)T cells. As determined with reverse transcription-PCR, the expression of IL-4 mRNA by these cells is higher than IFN-gamma mRNA. Early endogenous production of IL-4 is thought to be important during the in vitro interaction of saliva-pulsed DCs with CD4(+)T cells. Its neutralization with specific mAbs inhibits the development of IL-4-secreting T(h)2 cells. Moreover, differentiated T(h)2 cells proliferate only when saliva-pulsed DCs and IL-1beta are added together early in the primary culture. As demonstrated by FACS analysis, the treatment in vitro of saliva-pulsed DCs by IL-1beta enhanced the expression of B7 and mainly CD40 co-stimulatory molecules, which provide sufficient signals to stimulate sensitized CD4(+)T cell proliferation. On the other hand, DCs treated with tick saliva only up-regulated mostly B7-2 co-stimulator expression and this was associated with differentiation of naive CD4(+)T cells into T(h)2 type of cells. The in vitro priming system is suitable to investigate the major elements implicated in the anti-tick immune response such as naive CD4(+)T cells, whole DCs population and tick saliva, and it can provide the possibility to delimit further the saliva molecules, the DC subsets and the type of host cells involved in the T(h)2 polarization. Corresponding in vivo experiments involving subcutaneous injection of tick saliva-pulsed DCs into BALB/c mice also elicited a T(h)2 immune response. Ex vivo cultures of draining lymph node T cells stimulated with tick saliva produced higher IL-4 : IFN-gamma ratios compared with controls, confirming the relevance obtained in the in vitro priming model. These experiments demonstrate the importance of tick saliva in priming DCs to initiate a T(h)2-biased immune response in vitro and in vivo.


Abstract. Western US wildlands experience frequent and large-scale wildfires which are
predicted to increase in the future. As a result, wildfire smoke emissions
are expected to play an increasing role in atmospheric chemistry while
negatively impacting regional air quality and human health. Understanding the
impacts of smoke on the environment is informed by identifying and
quantifying the chemical compounds that are emitted during wildfires and by
providing empirical relationships that describe how the amount and
composition of the emissions change based upon different fire conditions and
fuels. This study examined particulate organic compounds emitted from burning
common western US wildland fuels at the US Forest Service Fire Science
Laboratory. Thousands of intermediate and semi-volatile organic compounds
(I/SVOCs) were separated and quantified into fire-integrated emission factors
(EFs) using a thermal desorption, two-dimensional gas chromatograph with
online derivatization coupled to an electron ionization/vacuum ultraviolet
high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer
(TD-GC × GC-EI/VUV-HRToFMS). Mass spectra, EFs as a function of
modified combustion efficiency (MCE), fuel source, and other defining
characteristics for the separated compounds are provided in the accompanying
mass spectral library. Results show that EFs for total organic carbon (OC),
chemical families of I/SVOCs, and most individual I/SVOCs span 2–5 orders of
magnitude, with higher EFs at smoldering conditions (low MCE) than flaming.
Logarithmic fits applied to the observations showed that log (EFs) for
particulate organic compounds were inversely proportional to MCE. These
measurements and relationships provide useful estimates of EFs for OC,
elemental carbon (EC), organic chemical families, and individual I/SVOCs as a
function of fire conditions.


Home-made organic pest control products offer an ecological, healthy and low-cost alternative to ready-made products available for organic cotton farmers in the Nimar region. Yet the recipes are not standardized and the products vary in quality and concentration of the active ingredients.
bioRe®, together with the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), engages in research activities to address this challenge and constantly improve pest management strategies in organic farming. The research activities are carried out as a combination of on-station trials and participatory on-farm trials with the farmers.
During the cotton cropping season 2013-14 one on-station and two on-farm trials were conducted with the objective of comparing different spraying intervals of the most commonly used self-made organic pest control products in order to identify an optimum level of crop protection. The study focused on the effect of the spraying intervals on the most important sucking pests (Cotton aphid (Aphis gossypii), Cotton jassid (Amrasca biguttula biguttula), Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci), Cotton mealy bug (Phenacoccus solenopsis) and Thrips (Thripidae)). Besides sucking pest incidences, data on plant stress symptoms and yield formation as well as economic parameters were also collected.
Additionally, on-station trials were established to investigate different measures of early stage crop protection and to evaluate specific effects of three self-made products (Garlic-Onion-Chilli extract, Top Ten and Neem seed extract) against certain sucking pests.
The products were prepared according to recipes standardized by bioRe® after careful research and hands-on experience of its associated scientists and extension workers. This knowledge was reproduced in pictorial technical leaflets which are easy-to-understand for the local farmers. A total of 11 leaflets - on seed treatments (2), early stage protection measures (1), pest control sprays (6), effective spraying technique (1) and growth promoter (1) were designed in both English and Hindi and will be used for dissemination activities.
On-station results were inconclusive due to a low pest pressure in this year's cotton season, as well as the small size of on-station trial plots. Results of on-farm trials revealed that a suitable strategy for in-field pest monitoring is needed for farmers to determine how often and at what time point pest control interventions are indicated. Further research is needed to understand the specific effects of home-made products on the different insect species. Optimized dosage and application techniques have to be worked out along with other options for integrated pest control (e.g. bird perches, border crops, soil enhancement practices) which could reduce the frequency of time-consuming spraying practices. These activities would best be conducted in on-farm rather than on–station trials.


To what extent do social policy preferences explain party choice? This question has received little attention over the past years, because the bulk of the literature has argued that electoral choice is increasingly shaped by identity-based attitudes, rather than by preferences for economic-distributive social policies. We argue that in the wake of this debate, the significance of social policy preferences for electoral choice has been underestimated, because most contributions neglect social policy debates that are specific to post-industrial societies. In particular, they merely focus on income redistribution, while neglecting distributive conflicts around social investment. The Selects 2011 data allows investigating this crucial distinction for Switzerland. Our empirical analyses confirm that it is pivotal to take the pluridimensionality of distributive conflicts seriously: when looking at preferences for social investment rather than income redistribution, we find that social policy preferences are significant explanatory factors for the choice of the five major Swiss political parties.