We employ the data from a karaoke contest to analyze strategic voting. Participants face a trade-off when voting for the contestant they want to eliminate. Excluding worst-performers increases the size of the prize allocated to the winner, whereas excluding top-performers increases the chances to become the winner. We analyze the performance and voting decisions and justifications of 138 participants in this contest across 23 episodes. We find that votes for worst-performers are much more common than votes for top-performers, and the justifications for voting due to the competitors' mistakes are the most prominent. Although contestants are not informed of the performance of themselves or any other participant, the likelihood to vote for the worst-performer is higher than the probability of randomly voting for someone else.


Characterization of the cardiac cellulome—the network of cells that form the heart—is essential for understanding cardiac development and normal organ function, and for formulating precise therapeutic strategies to combat heart disease. Recent studies have challenged assumptions about both the cellular composition1 and functional significance of the cardiac non-myocyte cell pool, with unexpected roles identified for resident fibroblasts2 and immune cell populations3,4. In this study, we characterized single-cell transcriptional profiles of the murine non-myocyte cardiac cellular landscape using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq). Detailed molecular analyses revealed the diversity of the cardiac cellulome and facilitated the development of novel techniques to isolate understudied cardiac cell populations such as mural cells and glia. Our analyses also revealed networks of intercellular communication as well as extensive sexual dimorphism in gene expression in the heart, most notably demonstrated by the upregulation of immune-sensing and pro-inflammatory genes in male cardiac macrophages. This study offers new insights into the structure and function of the mammalian cardiac cellulome and provides an important resource that will stimulate new studies in cardiac cell biology.


This chapter provides details on calculating signal and noise in thermal imagers.
A detectivity model is used to calculate thermal imager contrast threshold
function (CTF sys ). CTF sys is used in the targeting task performance (TTP) metric
to calculate imager resolution. Thermal imagers sense heat energy with wavelengths between 3 and 12 μm.
The 3- to 5-μm band is called midwave infrared (MWIR), and the 8- to 12-μm
band is called longwave infrared (LWIR). Figure 9.1 shows typical atmospheric
transmission for a 1-km horizontal path. There are three transmission windows
from 3 to 4.2 μm, 4.4 to 5 μm, and 8 to 13 μm. Everything near room temperature radiates in the infrared. The emissivity of
natural objects is generally above 70%. Most manmade objects are also highly
emissive. Thermal sensors derive their images from small variations in temperature
and emissivity within the scene. Typically, the thermal scene is very low
contrast. Figure 9.2 shows the spectral radiant exitance from blackbodies at 300 K and
303 K. The difference between the two curves is also shown. The difference is
small; however, a 3-K contrast represents good thermal imaging conditions.


To study the fate of oleate in the colon, oleate labeled with carbon 14 was instilled into the cecum of four rats through chronically implanted cecal cannulas. Fecal recovery of 14C and 14CO2 excretion were measured over a 3-day period. A mean of only 57% +/- 6% of the dose of [14C(U)]oleate was recovered as 14C in fecal lipid. About 8% was recovered in the aqueous phase of feces and 4% was recovered as 14CO2. Occlusion of the terminal ileum did not diminish 14CO2 excretion, excluding ileal reflux with small bowel absorption. Studies in two germ-free rats showed no conversion of [14C(U)]oleate to fecal water-soluble compounds, indicating that [14C]oleate is converted into water-soluble compounds by bacterial metabolism. The metabolism of [14C]oleate to 14CO2 was also observed in germ-free rats, indicating oxidation in the colon or other host tissues. We conclude that the colonic absorption of lipid or lipid metabolites plus conversion to water-soluble fecal compounds or volatile metabolites results in a fecal fat measurement that appreciably overestimates small bowel absorption of lipid.


Irreversible physical function loss—that part of physical function loss that remains in the absence of clinically perceptible disease activity—was elegantly conceptualised by Aletaha et al 1 a few years ago. They introduced the idea of the irreversible health assessment questionnaire (HAQ) score, which is the residual HAQ score if a patient is in clinical remission. While one may argue the construct validity of an irreversible HAQ score (eg, the absence of clinical disease activity does not necessarily imply the absence of joint inflammation), the model is valuable because it allows the investigator to disentangle the contribution of signs and symptoms and that of structural damage on physical function.

From many studies performed during the past 10 years we have learnt that structural joint damage independently of disease activity contributes to explaining physical function (eg, Welsing et al ).2 Therefore, in the absence of disease activity, it is structural joint damage that explains irreversible physical function loss.

Aletaha et al 1 have taken up his hypothesis as a starting point, and have tried to unravel the relationship between the two components of radiographic damage—erosions and joint space narrowing (JSN)—and irreversible physical function loss. The analysis they have done, which is presented in this issue of the journal, is in all aspects provocative and challenging, and we truly commend the authors for taking up this exercise (see page 733). Strong elements of their study are the access to databases of large clinical trials with inherently high-quality data and completeness, as well as a hypothesis-driven approach. It is a broadly endorsed idea among clinicians that JSN matters more than erosions. So, the main conclusion of the analysis by Aletaha et al ,1 namely that JSN more than erosions impacts irreversible physical function loss, will be easily accepted by the clinical readership. …


In this paper I shall suggest that law is most usefully seen not, as it usually is by academics and philosophers, as a system of rules, but as a branch of rhetoric; and that the kind of rhetoric of which law is a species is most usefully seen not, as rhetoric usually is, either as a failed science or as the ignoble art of persuasion, but as the central art by which community and culture are established, maintained, and transformed. So regarded, rhetoric is continuous with law, and like it, has justice as its ultimate subject. I do not mean to say that these are the only ways to understand law or rhetoric. There is a place in the world for institutional and policy studies, for taxonomies of persuasive devices, and for analyses of statistical patterns and distributive effects. But I think that all these activities will themselves be performed and criticized more intelligently if it is recognized that they too are rhetorical. As for law and rhetoric themselves, I think that to see them in the way I suggest is to make sense of them in a more nearly complete way, especially from the point of view of the individual speaker, the individual hearer, and the individual judge.


The gastrointestinal tract is characterized by three variable physiologic functions: motility, vascularity, and secretion. These three functions may vary, from a normal base-line of activity, in either an overactive or an underactive direction. Overactivity leads to hypermotility, vascular engorgement, and excessive secretion; underactivity leads to hypomotility, vascular pallor, and minimal secretion. It is generally felt that these states are mediated through the rich innervation of the gastrointestinal tract with both sympathetic and parasympathetic elements of the autonomic nervous system. Extensive experimental work has shown that the most significant factors in varying states of motility, vascularity, and secretion appear to be emotional ones.* These three functions may change rapidly, within minutes, depending on the emotional state of the subject. Feelings of marked anxiety, unexpressed or unaware anger and resentment, and frustrated needs for affection may lead to hypermotility, hypervascularity, and hypersecretion. States of depression, abject loneliness and isolation, and apathy may


BACKGROUND
Abdominal surgery for cancer carries a high risk of venous thromboembolism, but the optimal duration of postoperative thromboprophylaxis is unknown.

METHODS
We conducted a double-blind, multicenter trial in which patients undergoing planned curative open surgery for abdominal or pelvic cancer received enoxaparin (40 mg subcutaneously) daily for 6 to 10 days and were then randomly assigned to receive either enoxaparin or placebo for another 21 days. Bilateral venography was performed between days 25 and 31, or sooner if symptoms of venous thromboembolism occurred. The primary end point with respect to efficacy was the incidence of venous thromboembolism between days 25 and 31. The primary safety end point was bleeding during the three-week period after randomization. The patients were followed for three months.

RESULTS
The intention-to-treat analysis of efficacy included 332 patients. The rates of venous thromboembolism at the end of the double-blind phase were 12.0 percent in the placebo group and 4.8 percent in the enoxaparin group (P=0.02). This difference persisted at three months (13.8 percent vs. 5.5 percent, P=0.01). Three patients in the enoxaparin group and six in the placebo group died within three months after surgery. There were no significant differences in the rates of bleeding or other complications during the double-blind or follow-up periods.

CONCLUSIONS
Enoxaparin prophylaxis for four weeks after surgery for abdominal or pelvic cancer is safe and significantly reduces the incidence of venographically demonstrated thrombosis, as compared with enoxaparin prophylaxis for one week.


: Using 28 anatomic preparations, the boundaries of dye expansion in tissues adjacent to nervous stems have been experimentally studied during the application of lumbar plexus local anesthesia technique via inguinal paravascular approach according to A. Winnie. It has been established that the above technique is not associated with anatomic conditions for simultaneous contact of a model dye solution with 3 basic derivates of the lumbar plexus both at the level of formation and further on. There is massive dye diffusion from femoral nerve perineural space into the intermuscular connective tissues. Compact structure of perineural spaces in musculus psoas major prevents lumbar plexus infiltration. The junction of lumbar and obturator fascia, forming the fascial node between large and small pelvis, excludes any possible contacts between the dye solution and the obturator nerve.


We have combined radar observations and auroral images obtained during the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar Ion Neutral Observations in the Thermosphere campaign to show the common occurrence of westward moving, localized auroral brightenings near the auroral equatorward boundary and to show their association with azimuthally moving flow bursts near or within the subauroral polarization stream (SAPS) region. These results indicate that the SAPS region, rather than consisting of relatively stable proton precipitation and westward flows, can have rapidly varying flows, with speeds varying from ~100 m/s to ~1 km/s in just a few minutes. The auroral brightenings are associated with bursts of weak electron precipitation that move westward with the westward flow bursts and extend into the SAPS region. Additionally, our observations show evidence that the azimuthally moving flow bursts often connect to earthward (equatorward in the ionosphere) plasma sheet flow bursts. This indicates that rather than stopping or bouncing, some flow bursts turn azimuthally after reaching the inner plasma sheet and lead to the bursts of strong azimuthal flow. Evidence is also seen for a general guiding of the flow bursts by the large‐scale convection pattern, flow bursts within the duskside convection being azimuthally turned to the west, and those within the dawn cell being turned toward the east. The possibility that the SAPS region flow structures considered here may be connected to localized flow enhancements from the polar cap that cross the nightside auroral poleward boundary and lead to flow bursts within the plasma sheet warrants further consideration.


Hypernom is a virtual reality game. The cells of a regular 4D polytope are radially projected to S^3, the sphere in 4D space, then stereographically projected to 3D space where they are viewed in the headset. The orientation of the headset is given by an element of the group SO(3), which is also a space that is double covered by S^3. In fact, the headset outputs a point of this double cover: a unit quaternion. The positions of the cells are multiplied by this quaternion before projection to 3D space, which moves the player through S^3. When the player is sufficiently close to a cell, they eat it. The aim of the game is to eat all of the cells of the polytope, which, roughly speaking, is achieved by moving one's head through all possible orientations, twice.


OF THESIS AEROMECHANICS OF LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER INFLATABLE/RIGIDIZABLE WINGS Use of an inflatable/rigidizable wing is explored for Mars airplane designs. The BIG BLUE (Baseline Inflatable-wing Glider Balloon Launched Unmanned airplane Experiment) project was developed at the University of Kentucky, with an objective to demonstrate feasibility of this technology with a flight-test of an high-altitude glider with inflatable/rigidizable wings. The focus of this thesis research was to design and analyze the wing for this project. The wings are stowed in the fuselage, inflate during ascent, and rigidize with exposure to UV light. The design of wings was evaluated by using aerodynamic and finite element software and wind tunnel testing. The profile is chosen based upon aerodynamic results and consideration of manufacturability of the inflatable wing structures. Flow over prototypes of inflatable/rigidizable and ideal shaped wings were also examined in the wind tunnel. Flow visualization, lift and drag measurements, and wake survey testing methods were performed. Results from the wind tunnel testing are presented along with suggestions in improving the inflatable/rigidizable wing's aerodynamic efficiency and use on a low Reynolds number platform. In addition, high altitude wing deployment tests and low altitude flight tests of the inflatable/rigidizable wing were conducted.


Introduction: Oral reactive lesions are relatively common. Collagen is the basic component of such overgrowths that could be fibrous or inflammatory. Hence, understanding the type, nature, and distribution of collagen fibers can aid in our knowledge and better management of these lesions. Materials and Methods: Ten paraffin blocks of each of the following lesions − giant-cell granuloma (L1), inflammatory fibrous hyperplasia (L2), pyogenic granuloma (L3), fibroma (L4), and peripheral ossifying fibroma (L5) − were retrieved from the archives. They were analyzed for their collagen birefringence property under polarized microscopy after picrosirius red stain. The demographic details of all the cases were recorded and evaluated. Results: In our study, giant-cell granulomas were commonly observed between third and seventh decades of life, inflammatory fibrous hyperplasias between second and fifth decades of life, yogenic granulomas in sixth decade, fibromas in fifth and sixth decades, and peripheral ossifying fibromas in second and fourth decade of life. All the lesions were predominant in females and commonly observed on gingiva. L5 lesions showed more areas of green birefringence followed by L1, L2, and L3 groups of lesions showed more of red birefringence than other lesions. Mixed birefringence of orange-red and green-yellow was almost same in all the lesions. All these findings were significant statistically. Conclusion: A plausible conclusion that the lesions with mature red fibers have better prognosis than the lesions with immature green fibers, in reactive oral lesions could be drawn.


Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is an emerging technique to enhance the wireless communication spectral efficiency with low hardware and energy cost. In this letter, we consider the integration of IRS to an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) based multiuser downlink communication system, and study the pertinent joint optimization of the IRS reflection coefficients and OFDMA time-frequency resource block as well as power allocations to maximize the users' common (minimum) rate. Specifically, due to the lack of frequency-selective passive beamforming capability at the IRS, only one set of reflection coefficients can be designed for adapting to a large number of channels of multiple users over different frequency sub-bands. To tackle this difficulty, we propose a novel dynamic passive beamforming scheme where the IRS reflection coefficients are dynamically adjusted over different time slots within each channel coherence block to create artificial time-varying channels and select only a subset of the users to be simultaneously served in each time slot, thus achieving a higher passive beamforming gain. Although the formulated optimization problem is non-convex, we propose an efficient algorithm to obtain a high-quality suboptimal solution to it. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme significantly improves the system common rate over the setup without IRS and that with random IRS reflection coefficients. Moreover, our proposed dynamic passive beamforming outperforms the fixed passive beamforming which employs a common set of reflection coefficients in each channel coherence block, by more flexibly balancing between passive beamforming and multiuser diversity gains.


Internal migration, because of its selectivity, has been recognised in Britain, Europe, and the USA as a major influence on geographical patterns of ethnic and social segregation. Despite this, and despite its history of communal division, plus accounts which have emphasised population moves as a cause of segregation, far less academic attention has been paid to dynamic migration processes in understanding the evolution of spatial population patterns in Northern Ireland (NI). This paper attempts to address this gap by considering how far internal migration - defined as address changes - has redistributed the population with regard to (a) religion and (b) social deprivation between 2001 and 2007. Using data from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS), the paper finds that Catholics and Protestants move from and to the same sorts of places with regard to deprivation but that there was some evidence of differential mobility behaviour with regard to individual community affiliation and other individual socio-demographic characteristics. However, there is no evidence for increases in either communal or social segregation. It is suggested that this is because relatively few people move, they move only short distances, and the current net redistributive impact of migration is therefore small. It is hypothesised that a much more dynamic population with regard to migration is needed to increase or decrease segregation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Patsy Rodenburg is the leading acting coach in the UK (she has worked with Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett). Patsy has discovered the principles of speech in theatre apply extremely effectively when transferred into the workplace. Do you want to be more persuasive? Do you want to enthuse and inpsire and feel good whenever you present or speak in public? This practical programme will make you as effective as Judi Dench is on screen in every meeting, pitch and conversation in person or on the phone. You will learn how to impress your boss without being overbearing, connect with people if you are introvert and you will have true confidence in all your communication. There are practical exercises and example throughout and Patsy's results are amazing.


More than one billion people in the world live with some form of disability.Nearly 200 million experience considerable difficulties in functioning (World health organisation,2011).This has provided a motive for researchers to explore what difficulties disabled individuals experience, with a view to improve their lives.One area of study has been on individuals with limb loss, which is referred to as the 'experience of parting with a limb of the body'(Cosby & Miller,1999). This is a difficult experience for the amputee but also to their family and social system.This qualitative study aims to explore the challenges amputees face when reintegrating into the community. Previous research specifically examining this subject has largely focused on the factors that impact upon adjustment following amputation (Atherton and Robertson,2006).This study seeks to examine this further by exploring the challenges faced by amputees and the ways in which they can be supported in terms of social and psychological support to ensure successful reintegration which can maximise their independency.Six participants were interviewed using semi-structured interviews lasting for one hour each. Interviews were recorded and subjected to narrative analysis. From this three significant themes were identified; a different life, 'they all rallied round' and 'it's all from books'.


This research conducted to find out how palm oil seedlingsstage to response length waterloggingstress, to aims the best stage of palm oil seedlings that can resist waterlogging stress.This research was conducted at the Green House of Agriculture Faculty, RiauUniversity, sub-districsSimpang Baru,Tampan Districs, Pekanbaru from July to November 2015. The design of this research was Factorial Completely Randomized Design for 2 factors and 3 replication.The first factor was palm seedlings age:u0 = 3th month, u1 = 5th month, and u2 = 7th month, and the second factor was the length of waterlogging stress:g0 = without waterlogging stress, g1 = 20 days waterlogging stress and g0 = 40 days waterlogging stress.The parameter observed are: seedling height, number of leaf, stemdiameter, primary root length, number of primary root, root-shootratio, qualityseedlingindex and dry weight matter. The results showed that no interaction between seedling stageswithwaterlogging length stressor length of waterlogging stress toall of growth components palm oil seedling except seedling height. The growth palm oil seedling determined of palm oil seedling stages except primary root length. The height of 5th month palm oil seedlings reduced against 20 days of waterlogging stress, but increase againts to 40 daysof waterlogging stress.


Nonprescription ibuprofen is useful for managing minor aches and pains, reducing fever, and relieving symptoms of dysmenorrhea. For these indications, ibuprofen's effectiveness has been judged to be equal or superior to other available nonprescription analgesics. Ibuprofen is not recommended for self-treatment in children less than 12 years old.


The following study was conducted to examine the hypothesis that 1% chocolate milk suppresses short-term food intake (FI) to a greater extent than other sugars containing beverages, but the effect will be diminished in overweight and obese (OW/OB) girls. The objective was to determine the effect of isovolumetric drinks of (350ml) 1% chocolate milk, fruit drink, and cola 60 min before a pizza meal on subjective appetite, and short-term FI compared to a water control in 9-14 year old normal weight (NW) and OW/OB girls. A decrease in FI after 1% chocolate milk occurred in NW (n=12) but not OW/OB (n=11) girls. None of the other beverages suppressed FI in either group. In the pooled sample (n=23) a decrease in FI occurred after cola and 1% chocolate milk but not fruit drink, which suggests macronutrient composition was the major determinant on FI suppression. Lower prospective food consumption (PFC) and desire to eat (DTE) scores in NW girls after 1% chocolate milk, when corrected for the energy content of the preload, suggests that 1% chocolate milk is a potent regulator of appetite and FI in NW girls. Subjective appetite, body composition, or cognitive restraint, were not strong determinants of FI. In conclusion, most sugars containing beverages suppressed FI, but the response was affected by macronutrient composition, energy content of the beverages, and body weight status.


The concerns of this thesis are aligned with approaches to the historical study of sexuality, gender and identity in art, society and culture which are increasingly articulate and questioning at present. However, it is distinct from these recent studies because it redirects attention toward a stimulating encounter with the past through new theoretical proposals and interpretive perspectives on the manner in which mythology asserts itself as the vehicle for expressing male same-sex erotic behaviour, gender performance and masculine identity in the visual culture of the Italian Renaissance. By following a methodological, historiographical and interdisciplinary mode of enquiry, this thesis formulates and expresses new perspectives which engage with the representation of masculine concerns relating to these historically specific matters in the visual domain of the period. Conventional historical definitions of traditional art historical models of masculinity are also called into question through reassessment of how the function of the ideal male nude body in Renaissance art was shaped by particular social and historical contexts in different regions of Italy during the sixteenth century. These interrelated themes are approached in three stages.

Firstly, there is interpretation of the complex and convoluted meanings within the narrative of the mythic sources, as well as decoding and contextualising of the symbolic messages of the images in question. Secondly, I assemble and examine the textual evidence that exists about erotic and social relationships between males in the Renaissance so that their historical significance can be tracked and placed in the context of the tension which existed between Renaissance Italian judicial and religious proscription and commonplace behaviour. And thirdly, I offer comprehensive analyses and interpretive frameworks which are informed by and based upon a wide range of written as well as visual sources together with evaluation of competing theoretical perceptions. The main arguments are presented in three chapters:

The central theme of Chapter One is gender performance with specific focus upon the integral and didactic role of pederasty in visual representations of myths which conflate erotic desire between males and philosophical allegory. The historical phenomenon of pederastic relationships between males is addressed through interrogation of the pictorial vocabulary of Benvenuto Cellini's marble Apollo and Hyacinth (1545), and Giulio Romano's drawing of Apollo and Cyparissus (1524).The arguments and theories discussed and analysed in Chapter Two deal with Michelangelo's depiction of Ovidian mythic narratives. Here, close attention is paid to the intricate nuances and sophisticated iconography used by Michelangelo for three highly finished presentation drawings - The Rape of Ganymede (1532), The Punishment of Tityus (1532) and The Fall of Phaeton (1533) - which Michelangelo presented to Tommaso De' Cavalieri. The chapter aims to encourage a re-evaluation of these three drawings as a meaningful and connected narrative endowed with significant cultural and personal significance relating to their creator's anguish about physical desire and its relationship to what modernity terms as 'sexuality'. In Chapter Three, I consider how several works featuring the theme of Apollo flaying Marsyas can be read as articulations of the imaginative and ideological structures of the formation and preservation of masculine identities. The chapter addresses the iconographic visibility of the theme of flaying and explores the philosophical and literary metaphoric significance of this myth. Primacy is given to destabilising dominant conceptualizations of the heroic male nude as a subject in art throughout all these selected case studies. Centred as they are on sexual attraction or destruction rather than idealisation of the male figure, these chapters offer a revaluation of ways of seeing the archetypal heroic nude in a myriad of ways.


The feeling of chi may be realized when one is in an extremely peaceful mind state. According to the chikong literature and field surveys, the best time to sense the feeling of chi is between 1 and 5 am. As a part of an extensive investigation of chikong, geophysicists in Taiwan looked for a method to interpret the geomagnetic effect on the time-selecting concept. In this article, we propose the application of a time-domain archaeological method to this problem. We study the geomagnetic effect by investigating time-selecting behaviour through ancient literature and recent data combined with a field survey of geomagnetic time variation.


Growers rely on soilless substrates to provide sufficient water and nutrients to containerized crops. Traditional bark-based substrates are engineered to have relatively low water-holding capabilities, which can lead to nonuniform rewetting patterns and inefficient usage of water resources. Engineering substrates to redistribute water dynamics and maximize aeration within the container may improve water resource efficiencies. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether more efficient irrigation schedules can be used when stratifying unique substrates within a container for added crop water and nutrient efficiency. Loropetalum chinense 'Ruby' liners were planted and grown in a conventional pine bark substrate or one of three stratified substrate treatments, including a bark:peat, bark:coir, or fine bark layered on top of a coarse bark. The crops were grown under four different irrigation schedules, including single daily application, single application at deficit levels, cyclic application, or cyclic at deficit schedules. Stratified substrates improved crop growth, quality, and yield when compared with plants grown in conventional bark in the single application irrigation treatment. Measured at final harvest, substrates positively influenced plant growth index (P < 0.0001), whereas irrigation scheduling alone had no effect (P = 0.6321). There was a strong interaction between substrate and irrigation schedules on Δ growth index (P = 0.0141). There were strong substrate effects on shoot dry weight (P = 0.0060), root dry weight (P = 0.0342), and growth index (P = 0.0040). The stratified bark:coir treatment outgrew all other substrate treatments. In addition, within all irrigation treatments, plants grown with the stratified bark:coir substrate had the highest survival ratings among the other substrate treatments, whereas the conventional bark had the lowest survival rates. Substrate and irrigation had an effect on nitrogen and potassium leachate concentrations levels (P = 0.0107 and P = 0.0004, respectively). Evaluation of microbial communities showed that substrate (P = 0.0010) and the stratified layer (P = 0.0010) had strong influences on the type of community present and the relative abundance in the treatments used herein this study. Specifically, within cyclic scheduling, bark:peat actinomycete populations were significantly greater than other substrate treatments. Furthermore, under deficit irrigation, stratified substrate systems were able to mitigate crop water stress. The results indicate that when crops such as the Loropetalum are grown in the stratified system, crop growth can be sustained when drought conditions are present. This is possible by providing adequate water availability even under low water inputs until subsequent irrigations during the fragile establishment period, when compared with using traditional bark-based substrates.


Objectives Evaluate the validity of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10) code for hyperkalaemia (E87.5) in two settings: at presentation to an emergency department and at hospital admission. Design Population-based validation study. Setting 12 hospitals in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, from 2003 to 2010. Participants Elderly patients with serum potassium values at presentation to an emergency department (n=64 579) and at hospital admission (n=64 497). Primary outcome Sensitivity, specificity, positive-predictive value and negative-predictive value. Serum potassium values in patients with and without a hyperkalaemia code (code positive and code negative, respectively). Results The sensitivity of the best-performing ICD-10 coding algorithm for hyperkalaemia (defined by serum potassium >5.5 mmol/l) was 14.1% (95% CI 12.5% to 15.9%) at presentation to an emergency department and 14.6% (95% CI 13.3% to 16.1%) at hospital admission. Both specificities were greater than 99%. In the two settings, the positive-predictive values were 83.2% (95% CI 78.4% to 87.1%) and 62.0% (95% CI 57.9% to 66.0%), while the negative-predictive values were 97.8% (95% CI 97.6% to 97.9%) and 96.9% (95% CI 96.8% to 97.1%). In patients who were code positive for hyperkalaemia, median (IQR) serum potassium values were 6.1 (5.7 to 6.8) mmol/l at presentation to an emergency department and 6.0 (5.1 to 6.7) mmol/l at hospital admission. For code-negative patients median (IQR) serum potassium values were 4.0 (3.7 to 4.4) mmol/l and 4.1 (3.8 to 4.5) mmol/l in each of the two settings, respectively. Conclusions Patients with hospital encounters who were ICD-10 E87.5 hyperkalaemia code positive and negative had distinct higher and lower serum potassium values, respectively. However, due to very low sensitivity, the incidence of hyperkalaemia is underestimated.


Child and adolescent abuse, as described by Ambroise Tardieu about a century ago, became a subject matter in the last forty years. Sexual abuse, one of the most damaging forms of maltreatment, has been known since Antiquity, but very little has been attained as to the prevention and attenuation of its consequences. Cultural differences, as well as legal questions and those regarding procedures from the involved professionals would perhaps explain the difficult to establish public polices for the world wide prevention and resolution of problem. The present study has achieved a literature review of medico-legal and psychiatric publications on the sexual abuse of minors, comprehending the last five years. The search, in addition to scientific papers through the Medline/PubMed and Scielo databases, has employed textbook chapters as well as loose texts, located either in the Web or in libraries. All the sources unanimously agreed as to the noxious effects of maltreatments upon the victims' mental health, social adaptation and inclusion. The importance of the medico-legal examination and police and judicial procedures stands out in the truthful determination of sexual abuse. More studies are needed to reveal the prevalence, incidence, legal developments and future consequences of sexual abuse.


The study aims to understand the occupational risks as symbolic processes that shapes the daily activities of health professionals that manipulate sharps objects. Descriptive research was conducted at a university hospital, with information collected through the survey on the accidents at work in Intensive Care and hospital laundry, with the application of 105 questionnaires. The information was analyzed through an interdisciplinary perspective, and enabled the conciliation of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The results revealed that although the number of accidents is low, it is still necessary to improve the instruments such


Aim: This paper assesses theoretically and empirically three key factors for sustainable development within context of debates about economy and environment: autonomous technological change, induced technological change and barriers of entry to innovations.

Design/research methods: The paper covers a literature review on strong versus weak sustainability, followed by an explanation of autonomous technological change. Statistical analysis with literature review on induced technological change due to consumers' and policy demands for sustainable innovations, as well as literature review on policy support for the incumbent interests that rival sustainable innovations is provided. The information used is largely based on two chapters in the book on sustainable innovations (Krozer 2015), and presented in the context of long scientific cooperation with the late Andries Nentjes.

Conclusion/findings: The economic theoretical debates are hardly relevant for policies on sustainable innovations, because political views are inconsistent with observations and change during fluctuations in economic outcomes. The main conclusion is that autonomous technological change is the driver of sustainable innovations. Present policies pose barriers of entry to sustainable innovations, where the global value of support for vested interest exceeds the market potential for induced technological change due to demands of policies and consumers put together.

Originality/value of the paper: The study contribution to understanding of autonomous and induced technological change, showing that shifting policy support away from the incumbent interests towards sustainable innovations is key for sustainable development.


Background: Out-of-hospital cardiac-arrest (OHCA) is a major public health challenge. Community health care providers (CHP) may play an important role through early identification, basic life support and defibrillation. Few studies have evaluated the incidence and characteristics of OHCAs initially cared for by CHP, most finding improved survival. This study combined CHP treated OHCA case analysis, with assessment of provider resuscitation preparedness. Methods: An analysis of all CHP initiated resuscitations in a large Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) reported over 42 months, coupled with an online survey assessing CHP resuscitation knowledge, experience, training and self-confidence. Results: 22 resuscitations met inclusion criteria. In 21 CHP initiated chest-compressions but in only 8 cases they utilized the clinic's automated external defibrillator (AED) prior to emergency medical services (EMS) arrival. There were 275 providers surveyed. Of the surveyed providers, 89.4% reported previous basic life support (BLS)/advanced cardiovascular life support (ALS) training, 67.9% within the last three years. Previous resuscitation experience was reported by 72.7%. The lowest scoring knowledge question was on indications for AED application −56.3%. Additionally, 44.4% reported low confidence in their resuscitation skills. CHP with previous cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) experience reported higher confidence. Longer time since last CPR training lowered self-confidence. Conclusions: Early AED application is crucial for patients with OHCA. All clinics in our study were equipped with AED's and most CHP received training in their use, but remained insecure regarding their use, often failing to do so.


The characterization and identification of genetically divergent parents for crosses are important tasks in snap bean breeding programs, for a greater availability of cultivars to growers. This study aimed at characterizing bush snap bean genotypes originating from different countries; assessing the genetic divergence between the genotypes and the genetic variability extent, concerning 12 agro-morphological traits; and determining the relative importance of these traits for the genetic divergence. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design, with 29 genotypes and four replications. The UPGMA and Tocher optimization methods, both based on the generalized distance of Mahalanobis, and the canonical variables method were used to analyze the genetic divergence. The genotypes exhibited a wide range of genetic variability for the agro-morphological traits evaluated, mainly for 100-seed weight, aspect and yield of commercial pods, plant height at harvest and pod weight. A high genetic divergence was detected between the genotypes, in which the 100-seed weight and aspect of commercial pods were the most important traits for clustering. Some genotypes own desirable characteristics for these and other traits, given the favorable genetic associations between traits. The snap bean genotypes originated from different countries tended to cluster together, indicating that similar germplasm is shared among different countries, thus suggesting a strong trans-national seed exchange.


Indefinite kernel support vector machine (IKSVM) has recently attracted increasing attentions in machine learning. Different from traditional SVMs, IKSVM essentially is a non-convex optimization problem. Some algorithms directly change the spectrum of the indefinite kernel matrix at the cost of losing some valuable information involved in the kernels so as to transform the non-convex problem into a convex one. Other algorithms aim to solve the dual form of IKSVM, but suffer from the dual gap between the primal and dual problems in the case of indefinite kernels. In this paper, we directly focus on the non-convex primal form of IKSVM and propose a novel algorithm termed as IKSVM-DC. According to the characteristics of the spectrum for the indefinite kernel matrix, IKSVM-DC decomposes the objective function into the subtraction of two convex functions and thus reformulates the primal problem as a difference of convex functions (DC) programming which can be optimized by the DC algorithm (DCA). In order to accelerate convergence rate, IKSVM-DC further combines the classical DCA with a line search step along the descent direction at each iteration. A theoretical analysis is then presented to validate that IKSVM-DC can converge to a local minimum. Systematical experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of IKSVM-DC compared to state-of-the-art IKSVM related algorithms.


91 Published By: Journal of Advanced Research in Technology and Management Sciences Abstract : In the digitalized modern world in parallel to the new technological developments, information security has become the highest priority in the individual and institutional sense. In order to ensure the security of information systems, various systems are used techniques and technologies, including encryption, authorization, firewall, honeypot based systems. In this study, a honeypot based approach for intrusion detection/prevention systems (ID/PS) is proposed. The developed honeypot server application is combined with IDSs to analyze data in real-time and to operate effectively. Moreover, by associating the advantages of low and high-interaction honeypots, a superior hybrid honeypot system is performed. Therefore, in order to reduce the cost of configuration, maintenance, and management, after viewing the usage of honeypots on corporate networks, virtualization technologies are used. The developed system is a honeypot based intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) type and it is able to show the network traffic on servers visually in real-time animation. Thereby, it provides system information easily. Finally, the developed system can detect zero-day attack due to the configuration of intrusion detection, which makes it superior in performance compared to other IDSs. This system also helps in reducing the false positive level in IDSs.


Parapharyngodon ocalaensis n. sp. (Nematoda: Pharyngodonidae) from the large intestine of a sand skink Neoseps reynoldsi collected in Florida is described and illustrated. Parapharyngodon ocalaensis n. sp. represents the 31st species assigned to the genus and the third from the Nearctic Realm. It is distinguished from the other 2 North American species by the presence in the male of 3 pairs of caudal papillae and smooth cloacal lips.


At the intersection of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and literary analysis of sexuality, scholarship has often focused on the sodomy cantos. Dante's treatment of the homoerotic prompts investigation into the ways sodomy is depicted in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. However, scholarship rarely focuses on the way Dante himself becomes entangled in the homoerotic, chiefly through his relationship with his guide, Virgil. This paper builds on existent scholarship on Virgil's role in the Divine Comedy as well as analyses of Dante's depiction of sodomy to investigate Virgil's role as a connection to the homoerotic and homosocial realm of Hell. With an analysis grounded in the Dante-Virgil relationship, Virgil's absence from Paradise becomes a signal of departure from the homosocial bonds of Hell and a mark of Dante's transition out of Purgatory.


Fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) have attracted recent interest for biological applications owing to their biocompatibility and photostability (absence of photoblinking and bleaching). For optical thermometry, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers and silicon-vacancy color centers in diamonds have demonstrated potential, where the NV has the highest sensitivity. However, NV is often excited with green light, which can cause heating and photodamage to tissues, as well as autofluorescence that decreases sensitivity. To overcome these limitations, we report temperature sensing using NV centers excited by deep red light (660 nm), plus another color center that can be excited with NIR light; the nickel (Ni) complex. The NV center measures temperature using diamond lattice expansion while the Ni complex measures temperature using phonon sideband strength.


Cystic dilatations of the intrahepatic and extrahepatic biliary trees are common congenital anomalies that frequently require surgical intervention. We have presented a case of Caroli's disease in which an accurate diagnosis was made noninvasively preoperatively, using computerized tomography, ultrasonography, and cholescintigraphy.


Surface proteins, essential structural components of bacterial cell wall, are synthesized as precursors equipped with specific functional domains. The N-terminal signal module enables translocation across the plasma membrane via Sec or Tat pathways, while sorting motif, located in the C-terminus, is responsible for protein attachment to the cell wall peptidoglycan. Only exception are lipoproteins which lipoylated cysteinyl residue connected with bacterial membrane is in N-terminal part of protein. Most of surface proteins, as surface (S-) layer proteins, internalins or autolysins, are linked to the different structures of cell wall through non covalent forces. From the other hand, molecules with LPXTG motif, which attachment involves sortase activity, are linked to the peptidoglycan by covalent bond. Due to structural, chemical and physicochemical properties, surface proteins are attractive components of diverse industrial or medical systems. Knowledge about mechanism of anchoring proteins to the cell envelope will open new possibility of their applications.


Although the software engineering community knows well the deficiencies of natural language documen-tation, it remains the predominant way of software requirements specification. The desired properties of software requirements that are hard to be reached with natural language specifications are unambiguity and traceability. This issue has been solved through several approaches, yet still most software projects rely on natural language requirements. This research aims at capitalizing on recent developments of programming language-based approaches to requirements with the purpose of devising a unified approach enriched with tools and methodology. This approach is based on the object-oriented technology as follows: the development process is seamless from the requirements specification to implementation and verification. An object-oriented language, Eiffel, is used as a requirements notation. It provides means of system modeling without using specific notation, which often becomes a barrier in formal methods adoption. The specification, design, implementation and tests are developed incrementally using the mechanisms of inheritance and refinement and relying on the notion of contracts.


Over the past quarter century, measures of statistical regularities of natural scenes have emerged as important tools in explaining the coding properties of the mammalian visual system. Such measures have recently been extended to the study of art. Our own work has shown that a log nonlinearity is a reasonable first approximation of the type of luminance compression that artists perform when they create images. But how does this nonlinearity compare to those that artists actually use? In this paper, we propose a model of the global luminance compression strategy used by one artist. We also compare the curves required to transform natural scenes so that the scene luminance histograms matched the histograms of a number of collections of art, and we tested the response of observers to those scenes. The collections included a group of Hudson River School paintings; a group of works deemed to be "abstract" works in a forced-choice paradigm; collections of paintings from the Eastern and Western hemispheres; and other classes. If a single transform were sufficient to compress images in the way artists do, we would expect these transforms all to be log-like and on average, there should be little or no difference in observer preference for the collection of natural scenes when they are compressed according to these transforms. We find instead that these groupings of art have distinct transforms and that Western observers prefer many of these transforms over a log transform. Together these findings offer evidence that a painter's global luminance compression strategy-or "artist's look-up table"-may be a fundamental property of a given painter or grouping of paintings, though further study is needed to establish what factors determine the shape of this transform. We discuss a number of possible factors.


: A retrospective study was performed to describe the histologic stages of selective myocardial cell necrosis (SMCN) in nonhuman primates, and to compare the incidence of SMCN in two groups of nonhuman primates. Myocardial tissues taken at the time of autopsy from 50 primates at an experimental center were compared with similar tissues from 50 primates housed in a breeding colony. SMCN was confirmed in 20% of the experimental primates and 30% of the breeding primates, proportions that were not significantly different. The incidence and histologic characteristics of SMCN in nonhuman primates were similar to those described in humans, and resembled the lesion produced in experimental primates by administration of catecholamines of by hypokalemia.


Presented in this paper are two cases from a heavy vehicle manufacturer which demonstrate the potential width of Human-Industrial Robot Collaboration workstations. Case I simulates in machining environments, the assisted inspection of inline engine blocks and Case II simulates in logistics environments, the assisted material preparation for assembly line orders. The analysis and simulations were carried out with a software tool that combined digital human modelling, robotic simulation, path planning and use of technical computing tools. Results demonstrate the improvement of process ergonomics and cycle time.


This dissertation is prepared using the manuscript format. The dynamic response of composite materials subjected to underwater and air shock loading conditions has been studied. Additionally, the effects of low temperatures on the mechanical and fracture properties of these materials has been evaluated. The primary contribution of the author is on the computational modeling aspects of each of the dynamic loading studies conducted. The experimental work presented has been completed by the author's collaborators from the University of Rhode Island. The low temperature effects on the materials is solely an experimental investigation and was undertaken in collaboration with researchers at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. The objective of the project is to develop a better understanding of the response of composite materials when subjected to shock loading conditions leading to more efficiently designed structures. The work is divided into five phases as described in the following overview. In the first phase of the research the near field underwater explosion response of E-Glass / Epoxy plates was investigated. The study also included the effects of elastomeric polyurea coatings on both the transient response and damage characteristics. The computational models developed in the study were shown to simulate the testing accurately, and using the Russell Error measure, demonstrate model correlation that can be described as excellent. The models are able to accurately simulate the detonation of the explosive charge and the resulting pressure fields and plate deflections. The objective of the second phase of the project was to investigate the effects of material ageing on the response of Carbon-Epoxy laminates when subjected to air blast loading. The shock loading was induced through the use of an air driven shock tube and the effects of seawater exposure were quantified in terms of transient response and material failure onset. Computational models of the experiments were developed through the use of the Ls-Dyna code for both fully clamped and simply supported edge conditions. The models were shown to accurately capture both the timing and displacement magnitudes of the specimens as well as the onset of material failure. The third phase of the project investigates the response of composite cylinders when subjected to near field underwater explosive loading, including the effects of polyurea coatings. The objective is to determine the influence of both charge standoff and coating thickness on the transient response as well as damage mechanisms / evolution during loading. Experiments with corresponding simulations were performed with good agreement between the two in terms of pressure loads and damage extents. The simulations were further utilized to examine the internal and kinetic energy levels and distributions during loading as well as the surface strain characteristics. The effects of material ageing on the response of flat plates subjected to near field explosive loading is the focus of the fourth part of the research. In this investigation, biaxial Carbon/Epoxy laminates with and without long term seawater immersion effects were subject to the explosive loading to determine the influence of material degradation on the panel response. A fully coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian computational approach was utilized for the modeling of the corresponding experiments. The simulations were used to demonstrate an increase of maximum strains with ageing as well as the characteristics of stress wave propagation as a function of laminate architecture. The final aspect of the research presented is aimed at investigating the influence of temperature on the mechanical and fracture performance of composite laminates. The focus is on the low temperatures associated with seawater in the arctic regions and deep depths of the oceans. Mechanical characterization is in the form of tensile, compression, and short beam shear and fracture is evaluated in terms of Mode-I failure. The results show that for both E-Glass and Carbon Epoxy materials there is an influence of temperature on both mechanical and fracture performance of the material.


The goals of storm-water management have shifted from a flood control to a holistic and sustainable strategy, emphasizing the relationship between rainfall event size and pollutant loadings. The first flush concept is the first part of a rainfall event that contains the largest pollutant loading. Questions have been raised on the concept's validity for storms across different land uses and pollutant types. The existence and magnitude of the first flush impacts sizing of best management practices used to meet pollutant reduction goals, assessment sampling methodologies, and state storm-water management strategies. Current concepts support the use of distributed control measures focused on smaller storms off impervious surfaces. Runoff from a small impervious parking area was sampled incrementally during multiple storm events to measure pollutant concentration with respect to storm depth. This sampling routine established the existence of a first flush for a single use paved parking area. Total suspended solids, nitrate, chloride, dissolved copper, and dissolved cadmium exhibited a first flush up to a rainfall depth of 25.4 mm; total dissolved solids, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, nitrite, phosphate, and dissolved chromium did not exhibit a first flush.


The recent letter from Reid and Matthews about measurement of CO, using readily available disposable equipment (Anaesthesia 1988; 43 902-3), prompts us to describe a system that we have used at our hospital for several months. We have devised a system using a flexible flanged bung that is found on Drager disposable paediatric ventilator tubing, or can be ordered separately (order code 8402953). This bung fits snugly over the top of the Portex 8.5/6 mm tube connector and through which we insert the Datex CO, monitoring tubing (Fig. 1). The system enables analysis of gas from any part of the tracheal tube and allows accurate CO, measurement,' if the length of monitoring tubing inside the tracheal tube is varied. We have found this system highly satisfactory; it adds little bulk or height to the catheter mount, and is very easy and cheap to use. The sampling tubing can be wiped with alcohol between cases, shortened or thrown away.


This article analyzes a family-owned business, Jyothy Laboratories Limited, which is a fast-growing, family-owned company in India, with more than 1,000 employees and 16 factories. The company was founded in 1983 by M.P. Ramachandran, who also served as the chairman and managing director of the company. The article describes at what stages such companies seek investment and how the founders try to retain a controlling stake. In this case, the founder holds 69% stake even after the initial public offering (IPO). The author examines how private equity investors operate in this kind of situation and how they receive value from an investment in which they receive a minority stake, as well as the exit process for this sort of investment.


Halophiles are in all three domains of life: Archaea, Bacteria and Eucarya. Halophilic microorganisms in addition to form major part of life biodiversity can have many biotechnological applications. The objective of this research is isolation and identification of halophilic bacteria from Urmia Lake in Iran and the study of its bacterial biodiversity. After sampling of brines from Urmia Lake from 10 stations and depth of approximately 30-50 cm, in April 2011 and transfer to the laboratory in the sterile conditions, samples were enriched and cultured on defined media, and incubated. After appearance of colonies, selected strains were studied based on morphology, physiology and biochemical characteristics. For phylogenetic identification, their genomic DNA were extracted and amplified by PCR technique. Therefore their sequences were determined by genetic experiment based on 16S rRNA gene sequence and their similarity were analysed in GenBank of EzTaxon database. Finally the phylogenetic tree was constructed. Studied strains belonged to three genera: Halomonas 50% (including H. andesensis LC6(T) [12.5%], H. gomseomensis M12(T) [12.5%], H. hydrothermalis Slthf2(T) [12.5%], H. boliviensis LC1(T) [6.25%] and H. janggokensis M24(T) [6.25%]), Salinivibrio 25% (including S.costicolasubsp. alcaliphilus DSM 16359(T) [18.75%] and S. sharmensis BAG(T) [6.25%]) and Idiomarina 25% (including I .loihiensis L2TR(T) [25%]).


This thesis empirically studies asset pricing in the Chinese stock market. It consists of four separate but closely related essays in Chapters 2-5, respectively.

The first essay tests the validity of the standard Fama-French model in the Chinese Main-board stock market within a relatively new sample period since quarterly financial reports became widely available. The empirical results confirm the good performance of the Fama-French model. By splitting the sample into two sub-periods representing two different market tendencies, the Fama-French model performs better but is less stable in the downward trend than the fluctuating market. The potential explanation is also provided.

The complexity of traditional methods to construct the Fama-French factors limits the model's popularity. The second essay examines a simplified method to construct the factors using the Chinese style indices. The results show that the style index-formed factors lead the Fama-French model to better explaining equity returns and producing less pricing error. The finding is meaningful in the sense that it dramatically lowers the barrier to examining and applying the Fama-French model in both academic research and financial practice.

However, the theoretical foundation behind the Fama-French model, i.e., which macroeconomic variables fundamentally determine the model's success, is not clear. The rest two essays make efforts to find the answer. The third essay examines the extent to which the market, size, value and momentum factors can be linked to fundamental macroeconomic variables. We find that the momentum factor consistently captures the current economic risk as well as predict future GDP growth in China. In contrast, there is no consistent relationship between the market, size and value factors and macroeconomic growth. This finding contradicts Liew and Vassalou's (2000) conclusion that the Fama-French factors can generally predict future real GDP growth in ten developed countries.

The fourth essay examines whether the ability of the above four factors to explain the cross-sectional variation in equity returns, if any, stems from the fact that they are proxies for fundamental macroeconomic risk associated with future GDP growth. The results show that the market, size and value factors together contain some overlapping innovative information about future real GDP growth, and thus, reconcile previous findings in the US (Vassalou, 2003) and Australian (Nguyen et al., 2009) markets. Some possible explanations are also discussed.


Outlines the Argentinian Cover‐Up and Laundering of Criminally Derived Property Law; this law punishes not only those actively involved in the offences but those who allow money to be laundered as a result of wrongful omission, fault or negligence, it set up the Financial Services Unit for Argentina, and it imposes the obligation to report. Deals further with the duty to report, and moves on to the position of legal practitioners in relation to money laundering. Points out that the activities of professionals are based on a special relationship of trust with their clients, and that there is a need to update the relevant rules now that such issues as money obtained from drug dealing have become of major importance. Distinguishes the lawyer's activity when giving legal advice, when it would be clearly illegal to advise on ways to launder money, from when s/he is acting as counsel in a lawsuit: since there is a right of defence at law, a lawyer cannot be breaking the law when defending a money launderer, although the situation concerning the lawyer's fees for this service remains a matter which needs clarification.


This master thesis deals with a project conducted at IFP Energies nouvelles during the period from April to August 2014. It describes a methodology for estimating the kinetic parameters of stacked catalysts for the hydrotreating process. This methodology is built on extending the kinetic model for one catalyst and knowing that the feed has to pass all the catalysts in the order they are put in the reactor. The parameters of this new model are estimated by an adaptive version of the differential evolution algorithm. Another part of the work investigates how the hydrotreating experiments have to be conducted for obtaining the best precision of the estimates.This is done using a Bayesian optimal design methodology and the uncertainty for some of the best designs is further quantified in a simulation study. The results show that the estimation procedure is successful in estimating the kinetic parameters in a precise and effective way. Further it shows that a necessary requirement for obtaining reasonable precision is to use a scheme of sampling more temperatures than catalyst ratios and to obtain experimental points with as large differences in the temperatures and as large differences in the catalyst ratios as possible.


In Brazilian biome, there is a great diversity of native fruiting plants with potential for agro-industrial purposes. Among the species found, it is highlighted the palm fruits Acrocomia aculeata (Jacq.) Lodd, popularly known as macauba. This study aimed to characterize the biometry of fresh macauba fruit, the physicalchemical quality and pulp yield, to assess the nutritional and technological potential. The fruits are spherical drupes, the average values obtained for the longitudinal external diameter (DEL) and external transverse (DET) and total mass of fruit, 40.7 mm, 40.8 mm and 21.13 g , respectively, were higher than found in the literature for other fruit of palm trees. These results characterize the macauba pulp as a product of low acidity, thus favoring sensorial characteristics. The content of soluble solids was correlated with sugars and organic acids levels. The L * value was higher in peel when compared with pulp, accordingly with chromaticity values. Hue peel angle was characterized by a yellow-reddish color and the pulp indicated a yellow coloring. The pulp showed high yield, especially regarding the technology use as raw material for agro-food industry. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14685/rebrapa.v3i2.89


Dr Deresinski raises an interesting apparently well-known, practical point. Everything is relative in regard to this knowledge, however. Virtually every infectious disease specialist I have consulted is well aware that aminoglycoside antibiotic agents are inhibited by acid. Not one gastroenterologist or hepatologist (including myself) who I asked was aware of the anti-antibiotic effects of a low pH. Indeed, the inhibitory action of acid has been known since Waksman and Schatz 1 described streptomycin, the first clinically useful aminoglycoside antibiotic. Everything is relative in regard to the inhibition of aminoglycosides by acid, too. Several investigators have shown that this property is characteristic of the whole spectrum of aminoglycoside antibiotics, and that the degree of inhibition varies from agent to agent, from pH to pH, and from organism to organism. 2-4 Everything is relative in regard to the efficacy of lactulose and antibiotics in combination. Actually, it is difficult to determine the


This qualitative study employed an ethnographic approach to explore perspectives of children and adolescents on diabetes self-care. Their knowledge of diabetes and feelings about having the disease was also addressed. Rooted in the new sociological approach that acknowledges children's right to participate in issues that concern them, forty eight paediatric patients between the ages of five and eighteen years participated in individual interviews. Participants were recruited from a diabetes outpatient clinic within the largest paediatric hospital in Canada. Data were coded using McCracken's (1988) method of analysis. This paper presents a focused analysis of three major themes: self-care, knowledge and feelings. In-depth analyses of these integrated themes provided a rich understanding of how children and adolescents with diabetes come to accept their disease and how the process of self-care evolves over time. Despite the emotional challenges and complexity of managing diabetes, children and adolescents spoke of a resolve and readiness to obtain more knowledge about their disease. This paper describes the process of diabetes self-care from the perspectives of children and adolescents and offers suggestions for clinical practice and future research.


Abstract Corpus-based Translation Studies focuses on translation as a product by comparing comparable corpora of translated and non-translated texts. A number of distinctive features of translations have been posited including, for example, explicitation, simplification, normalisation, levelling out, source language interference, and under-representation of target language unique items. Nevertheless, research of this area has until recently been confined largely to translational English and closely related European languages. If the features of translational language that have been reported on the basis of these languages are to be generalised as "translation universals", the language pairs involved must not be restricted to English and closely related European languages. Clearly, evidence from a genetically distant language pair such as English and Chinese is arguably more convincing, if not indispensable. This article explores, in the broad context of translation universal research, lexical and grammatical properties of translational Chinese on the basis of two one-million-word balanced comparable corpora of translated and non-translated native Chinese texts. The findings of this empirical study of the properties of translational Chinese have enabled a reevaluation, from the perspective of translational Chinese, of largely English-based translation universal hypotheses.


The study was conducted with the purpose to unveil the gender gap in the adoption of fish farming technologies in Ilaje and Ese-Odo Local Government Areas of Ondo State. The study investigated the involvement of men and women at different stages of fish production, the level of adoption of available fishery technologies and their socio- economic characteristics. Two hundred respondents were interviewed for the study via structured and pre-tested interview schedule, in the two purposively selected Local Government Areas using a multi stage sampling technique. Majority (80.0%) of the respondents were male and majority (76.3%) of male and (52.5%) of female farmers were found within the productive age of 31 to 60 years. Both male and female farmers (63.5 and 67.6%), respectively had low adoption level due to the characteristics of the technologies. However, men were found to be more involved at different stages of fish production except in processing and marketing where majority were found to be women. Moreso, the findings revealed that at p<0.01, there were significant differences in the level of involvement of men and women in all the stages of fish production except in processing of fish.In addition, at p<0.05, significant differences existed between men and women level of adoption of race-way method, water management techniques while at p< 0.01, there was a significant difference in fish feeding techniques between men and women fish farmers. The study concludes that fish farming in Ondo state is dominanted by male with low adoption of fish farming technologies. Gender equality principles should be mainstreamed into clear and effective technology development and dissemination to fish farmers in Ondo State with a view to enhancing fishproduction and sustainable socio-economic livelihood among fish farmers in Nigeria.

 Key words: Gender, adoption, technologies, fish farming.


In some patients, with refractory chronic pelvic and perineal pain, pain and quality of life are barely alleviated despite optimal medical treatment, infiltrations and surgical release of the pudendal nerve. The management of these patients is complex, especially after failure of neuromodulation techniques (spinal cord stimulation. S3 nerve root stimulation and direct stimulation of the pudendal nerve). We report the first two cases illustrating the value of motor cortex stimulation (MCS), in this new indication.


The objective of this paper is an automatic Audio Description (AD) model that ingests movies and outputs AD in text form. Generating high-quality movie AD is challenging due to the dependency of the descriptions on context, and the limited amount of training data available. In this work, we leverage the power of pretrained foundation models, such as GPT and CLIP, and only train a mapping network that bridges the two models for visually-conditioned text generation. In order to obtain high-quality AD, we make the following four contributions: (i) we incorporate context from the movie clip, AD from previous clips, as well as the subtitles; (ii) we address the lack of training data by pretraining on large-scale datasets, where visual or contextual information is unavailable, e.g. text-only AD without movies or visual captioning datasets without context; (iii) we improve on the currently available AD datasets, by removing label noise in the MAD dataset, and adding character naming information; and (iv) we obtain strong results on the movie AD task compared with previous methods.


Metastasis to the brain from esophageal carcinoma is rare. Recently we had four cases, all treated by tumor removal. Three received postoperative whole or local brain irradiation. Anticancer pellets were implanted in two. The postoperative 1-year survival rate was 37.5%, which suggests the prognosis is not worse than for other metastatic brain tumors.


One of the fundamental concepts in Grid computing is the creation of Virtual Organizations (VO's): a set of resource consumers and providers that join forces to solve a common problem. Typical examples of Virtual Organizations include collaborations formed around the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. To date, Grid computing has been applied on a relatively small scale, linking dozens of users to a dozen resources, and management of these VO's was a largely manual operation. With the advance of large collaboration, linking more than 10000 users with a 1000 sites in 150 counties, a comprehensive, automated management system is required. It should be simple enough not to deter users, while at the same time ensuring local site autonomy. The VO Management Service (VOMS), developed by the EU DataGrid and DataTAG projects[1, 2], is a secured system for managing authorization for users and resources in virtual organizations. It extends the existing Grid Security Infrastructure[3] architecture with embedded VO affiliation assertions that can be independently verified by all VO members and resource providers. Within the EU DataGrid project, Grid services for job submission, file- and database access are being equipped with fine- grained authorization systems that take VO membership into account. These also give resource owners the ability to ensure site security and enforce local access policies. This paper will describe the EU DataGrid security architecture, the VO membership service and the local site enforcement mechanisms Local Centre Authorization Service (LCAS), Local Credential Mapping Service(LCMAPS) and the Java Trust and Authorization Manager.


We report the first detailed field survey of sickleweed ( Falcaria vulgaris L.) in the United States. Sickleweed is native to Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and Iran and was first reported in the United States in 1922. It is listed by the Nebraska Invasive Species Council as a Category II invasive plant species. In recent years, abundance and distribution of sickle weed has increased dramatically in and around the Fort Pierre National Grassland (FPNG), South Dakota. Management of such a rapidly expanding population is hampered by a general lack of baseline information on the biology and ecology of sickleweed. We used an environmental gradient approach to describe the abundance and distribution of sickleweed on the FPNG and found that sickleweed colonization and expansion may be largely driven by small and large scale disturbances that create gaps in ground cover (bare soil and total vegetative cover plus litter), reduced diversity (H'), and altered competitive relationships with western wheatgrass. Minimizing disturbances that create gaps in litter and vegetative cover, decrease diversity, increase bare soil, and alter the dominance of western wheatgrass may reduce the colonization and expansion of sickleweed.


In this paper, we address the question: What is the probability of stellar-mass black hole (BH) binaries co-existing in a globular cluster with an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH)? Our results suggest that the detection of one or more BH binaries can strongly constrain the presence of an IMBH in most Galactic globular clusters. More specifically, the detection of one or more BH binaries could strongly indicate against the presence of an IMBH more massive than & 10 3 M⊙ in roughly 80% of the clusters in our sample. To illustrate this, we use a combination of N-body simulations and analytic methods to weigh the rate of formation of BH binaries against their ejection and/or disruption rate via strong gravitational interactions with the central (most) massive BH. The eventual fate of a sub-population of stellar-mass BHs (with or without binary companions) is for all BHs to be ejected from the cluster by the central IMBH, leaving only the most massive stellar-mass BH behind to form a close binary with the IMBH. During each phase of evolution, we discuss the rate of inspiral of the central BH-BH pair as a function of both the properties of the binary and its host cluster.


Graphene layers were selectively edge-functionalized with oxygenated functional groups, maintaining their bulk structure essentially unaltered. A reaction was performed between polyhydroxylated graphene layers (G–OH) and CHCl3/KOH/H2O. When the reaction with KOH/H2O was performed at 0 °C, by adding successive portions of CHCl3, the functionalization occurred with aldehydic functional groups. When G–OH reacted with CHCl3/KOH at room temperature, benzylic alcohol and carboxy groups were introduced. XPS, IR, Raman, and WAXD analyses indicated that the graphene layers were chemically modified with the abovementioned functional groups, without intercalated and/or absorbed molecules. It can thus be assumed that functionalization of G–OH with aldehydic groups occurred through the Reimer–Tiemann reaction and that the domino Reimer–Tiemann/Cannizzaro reaction led to aldehyde disproportionation. As further evidence and the first viable usage of the functionalization with aldehydic functional groups, chitosan was crosslinked with the graphene layers, obtaining flexible and electrically conductive carbon paper.


Succeeding at SaaS: Computing in the Cloud is both an overview of the SaaS market and a series of recommendations for ISVs, platform vendors, and customers who want to participate in it. The centerpiece of the book is 22 interviews Wohl conducted with these market participants, illustrating the state of the SaaS market and its direction. Author Amy Wohl has been following the SaaS market since its inception (as the earlier ASP market) in the late 90's and she has filled the book with advice based on her consulting practice and her observations of the industry. The book includes both a brief history of the market and its precedents, a definition of cloud computing and its relationship to SaaS, and a discussion of their likely futures.


In this study, a web based decision support system (WBDSS) has been developed to provide decision aid for risk analysis on occupational health and safety at shipyards. The system has been constructed as a modular structure to make its application easy for all kind of firms. The WBDSS is rule based and its database includes safety measures and risks for each tool and machine used in shipbuilding process. In addition, probability and hazard values have been involved in the case of violated measures. The frequencies of the violations that occurred in the work environment are entered to the system by the user. Hence, the system provides a decision support about the risks related to facilities and the cautions to be taken in the workplace. The developed WBDSS has the capability of determining accident, almost accident, and threat formation factors at workplace according to the changing parameters. In this aspect, it enables one to constantly monitor, check and evaluate risk preventive measures. Then, the capabilit ies of the suggested decision support system have been tested with different scenarios for shipyard processes. When the developed WBDSS is applied to all workplaces, it is aimed at providing a decrease in the number of accidents which cause death, occupational illness, injury, and temporary incapability.


This article re-examines the dating of two Psalms of lamentat (74 and 79) in the light of the Exile. The author's work on the Psalms of Asaph (76, 77 and 78) convinced him that these psalms result from the events which occurred around 721 B.C. (the fall of the Northern Kingdom) and around 701 B.C. (the Assyrian attack on Jerusalem), especially because the Asaph Psalms not only appear to have been compiled but also show a strong group identity. This re-examination shows that Psalm 74, just like Psalms 76-78, which were studied previously, dates from the time of the Assyrian hegemony and that this Psalm laments the destruction of the sanctuaries in the Northern Kingdom (especially at Bethel). On the other hand the exilic origin of Psalm 79 is to be maintained. The author of Psalm 79 was acquainted with Psalm 74, which had been re-interpreted in the Exile, and was likewise in contact with the Asaph guild, namely with those who were responsible for the exilic composition of their psalm group.


Brain electrical signal is one of the windows to understanding neural activities. Various high-resolution imaging techniques have been developed to reveal the electrical activities underneath the cortical surface from scalp electroencephalographic recordings, such as scalp Laplacian, cortical surface potential, equivalent charge layer (ECL) and equivalent dipole layer (EDL). In this work, we develop forward density formulae for the ECL and the EDL of neural electric sources in a 4-concentric-sphere head model, and compare ECL with EDL in theory, simulation and real evoked data tests. The results confirm that the ECL map may be of higher spatial resolution than the EDL map.


Burgeoning oil and gas production in Texas with the application of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling techniques has dramatically impacted the condition of rural roadway infrastructure. Many rural roadways are now inundated with trucks traveling to and from oil and gas well areas. Recent estimates indicate that each horizontal well requires over 2,000 truckloads for construction, drilling operations, maintenance, and crude oil transport over the life of the well. Rail has been an active partner in oil and gas exploration by shuttling fracking sand and drilling supplies to the oil and gas regions and transporting crude and petroleum products from the regions not served by pipelines. This partnership is restricted by limited rail service points and infrastructure close to the active wells; however, expanding existing rail services and network infrastructure could move rail operations closer to the active production areas. The cost and safety impacts of extreme reduction in pavement life may be offset substantially with increased use of rail transport closer to drilling locations.
 This paper examines the potential options regarding expanded use of rail transportation to address the growing costs of roadway rehabilitation in energy production areas in order to reduce roadway network impacts. Rail service expansion can be through better use of the existing freight rail network, increasing the number of and better placement of transloading facilities along the rail network, and/or through improved rail capacity from double tracking or extending new rail lines. Both the private and public sectors potentially could play a role. A number of privately developed transloading facilities have sprung up along existing rail lines, attempting to deliver fracking sand, pipe, and other supplies. Additionally, public economic development corporations have been actively pursuing development. Expansion of the railroad network could come through the use of special districts such as Rural Rail Transportation Districts (RRTDs), Regional Mobility Authorities (RMAs), or through reactivation of abandoned rail lines. These trends are also examined.


This paper draws on the cultural-materialist paradigm articulated by Raymond Williams to offer a radical historicisation of identity and identity-politics in capitalist societies. A keywords analysis reveals surprisingly that identity, as it is elaborated in the familiar categories of personal and social identity, is a relatively novel concept in Western thought, politics and culture. The claim is not the standard one that people's 'identities' became more important and apparent in advanced capitalist societies, but that identity itself came to operate as a new and key mechanism for construing, shaping and narrating experiences of selfhood and grouphood in this period. From a cultural-materialist perspective, the emergence and evolution of this idea of identity can only be properly understood in relation to the social contexts of its use, namely, the new contexts of consumption of capitalist societies, and the development of new forms of group-based struggle from the 1960s. What the analysis shows is that it was the commercialisation and politicisation of older essentialist understandings of selfhood and grouphood in these contexts that has given rise to the concepts of personal and social identity as we know them today.
By exploring the material conditions that have given rise to the contemporary powerful attachment to 'identity', this paper offers a new point of departure from which to pursue many issues of concern to critical theorists and radical activists today, including the conflict over identity politics in radical circles, the historical and social processes behind their development and at least partial co-option, and their relation to neoliberal political-economic formations today.


The home-orientated technology industry has grown rapidly since the 1980s. This
movement has been catalysed by an intensive evolution in technology development
and is reflected by academic and industry interest in the area. In combination with the
ubiquity of digital consumer products, such interest has driven the re-emergence of the
smart home as an ideal that, with a paradigmatic shift in human interaction with their
environment, will improve lifestyle and support independent living. Accordingly, the
smart home has come to represent an aspirational vision of the future. However,
despite the renewed interest in the area and a legacy of technology that has resulted in
confused, frustrated and disillusioned users, little research has been undertaken to
identify the perception of the user towards the smart home. Consequently, the
provision of guidance for industry practice and designers is severely limited.
To counteract technology that does not support user needs and to ensure the efficacy
of the smart home, this research captures the perception of the user towards existing
and future technology and reflects on the needs of state of the art industry practice. In
study one, eight workshops (N=55) captured positive anticipation and attitudes of users
towards the smart home but with some concerns and contradictory needs and
requirements. A contextual enquiry (N=12), incorporating a probe study and home
interview, explored technology usage in more depth. Differences in basic technology
usage, such as heating and lighting, revealed complex meanings behind the assumed
use of technology. User needs were embodied in a co-design workshop (N=8) in
which prototypes for the control of their smart home were modelled. Concepts for the
smart home are distinguished by functionality, the locus of control for human-system
interaction, and the nature of interaction. Despite the acknowledgement of the value of
perceptive and aware technology, users must perceive empowerment and ownership
of all activity in the home. To explore current practice in design and development for
the smart home, interviews were conducted with industry professionals (N=18) from
twelve companies and analysed according to a grounded theory method with a
constructionist approach. User centred design was found to be prevalent in the smart
home industry but compromises remained.
The user perceptions towards the smart home illustrate the challenges that the industry
must overcome, and provide a case study example of including the user throughout the
`fuzzy front end' of the design process. Although user centred design is often deemed
a panacea in the development of successful products, this study has found that
disparate views on user centred design have caused a misrepresentation of the user
and their importance. It is clear that companies want to be people-centred but effective
user centred design practice is seemingly not arbitrary. The most immediate needs for
successful professional practice of user centred smart home design have been
identified in this study and are supported with the provision of guidance that will
contribute to their understanding.


Temporal lobe epilepsy is common and difficult to treat. Reduced inhibition of dentate granule cells may contribute. Basket cells are important inhibitors of granule cells. Excitatory synaptic input to basket cells and unitary IPSCs (uIPSCs) from basket cells to granule cells were evaluated in hippocampal slices from a rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy. Basket cells were identified by electrophysiological and morphological criteria. Excitatory synaptic drive to basket cells, measured by mean charge transfer and frequency of miniature EPSCs, was significantly reduced after pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus and remained low in epileptic rats, despite mossy fiber sprouting. Paired recordings revealed higher failure rates and a trend toward lower amplitude uIPSCs at basket cell-to-granule cell synapses in epileptic rats. Higher failure rates were not attributable to excessive presynaptic inhibition of GABA release by activation of muscarinic acetylcholine or GABAB receptors. High-frequency trains of action potentials in basket cells generated uIPSCs in granule cells to evaluate readily releasable pool (RRP) size and resupply rate of recycling vesicles. Recycling rate was similar in control and epileptic rats. However, quantal size at basket cell-to-granule cell synapses was larger and RRP size smaller in epileptic rats. Therefore, in epileptic animals, basket cells receive less excitatory synaptic drive, their pools of readily releasable vesicles are smaller, and transmission failure at basket cell-to-granule cell synapses is increased. These findings suggest dysfunction of the dentate basket cell circuit could contribute to hyperexcitability and seizures.


Mentoring has been proposed as a means to enhance the career success of women faculty in the academic environment. This phenomenological study was undertaken to understand and describe the essential nature and meaning of the experience of being mentored for women faculty. In-depth conversational interviews were conducted with nine women faculty who stated that they had been mentored while in a faculty role. Their mentoring relationships were formal and informal, with male and female mentors of varying ranks, and both internal and external to the protégés' institutions. Through an analysis of the interview text, five essential themes of the experience of being mentored for women faculty emerged. These essential themes are (a) having someone who truly cares and acts in one's best interest, (b) a feeling of connection, (c) being affirmed of one's worth, (d) not being alone, and (e) politics are part of one's experience.


SIR,-Patients on long-term phenytoin and/ or phenobarbitone therapy have a high incidence of osteomalacia. Tthey also have a lower than normal circulating concentration of vitamin D metabolites.1 2 In a recent paper (14 September 1974, p. 647) I reported a significant association between vitamin D consumption and the incidence of myocardial infarction. In later studies I have found an association between vitamin D intake and serum cholesterol levels.3 On these grounds we might expect epileptics to have a lower than normal incidence of myocardial infarction. Experienced neurologists in Norway say that they have not seen a single chronic epileptic die of myocardial infarction. I have so far been unaible to find any work concerning this in the literature. My object in writing this letter is to stimulate some reaction to this question or appropriate action on this problem.-I am, etc., VICTOR LINDEN University of Troms0, Institute of Community Medicine, Asgard Sykehus, Troms0, Norway


Background: The hallmark of sickle cell disease (SCD) is pain, which can be both acute and chronic. Pain in patients with SCD leads to hospital admissions and diminishes quality of life. Pain in patients with SCD is primarily treated with opioid medications, which are often insufficient. In 2017 the Committee on the Health Effects of Marijuana of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine reported that there is "conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective for the treatment of chronic pain in adults", but the report made no mention of chronic pain in patients with SCD. Currently, 30 states and Washington D.C. have medical marijuana (MM) laws, and 5 states list SCD as a qualifying condition. SCD was added to the list of qualifying conditions in Connecticut in February 2016. Since then we have offered certification to patients in our program who make regular clinic visits and for whom we think MM will be safe. However, not all patients who are certified go on to complete the state regulatory paperwork and obtain MM. We hypothesized that those who had obtained MM would show an improvement in clinical outcomes compared to those patients who had been certified but not obtained MM.
 Methods: All patients who requested certification were educated on safety risks of MM. We conducted a review of all certified patients using our electronic medical record and the Connecticut Prescription Monitoring Program, which provides dispensing reports for schedule I-IV medications including MM. Our primary outcome was admissions in the 6 months after compared to the 6 months before obtaining MM, or the date certified for those who did not obtain MM. Our secondary outcomes were acute care services utilization (emergency department and outpatient infusion center visits) for the treatment of acute pain, and opioid use. Baseline hospital admissions, acute services utilization, and daily opioid use were defined as use in the 6 months prior to obtaining MM or certification for those who did not obtain MM. Opioid use was calculated as total oral morphine equivalents (OME) dispensed in a 6-month period and expressed as OME per day. Previous marijuana use was defined as 1 or more urine studies positive for cannabinoids before MM certification. Genotype was divided into more clinically severe (HbSS/Hbβ0) or less severe (HbSC/Hbβ+/Persistent HbF). We compared admissions, acute services, and opioid use for those who obtained MM to those who did not using a difference in differences analysis. Baseline admissions, baseline acute services, baseline opioid use, age, gender, genotype, hydroxyurea use, previous marijuana use, and insurance type of those who obtained MM were compared to those who did not using Student's t tests.
 Results: 52 patients requested certification, and 50 patients were certified. 2 patients were not certified due to concerns about inappropriate use based on their past history. Twenty-eight patients who were certified obtained MM; 22 did not. Baseline hospital admissions, acute services utilization, and daily opioid were similar between the two groups. Patients who obtained MM were more likely to be genotype HbSS/HbSβ0. Age, gender, hydroxyurea use, previous marijuana use, and insurance type were similar between the two groups. (Table 1). Patients obtained MM a median of 109.5 days (IQR 54.8 - 188.8) after certification. Two patients concurrently started L-Glutamine within 6 months of MM certification, one who obtain MM and one who did not. Obtaining MM was associated with a decrease in admission rates in the next 6 months compared to those who did not obtain MM (-1.1 admissions 95% CI -0.1 - -2.0, p=0.03). Obtaining MM was not associated with a significant change in acute services utilization (0.3 visits 95% CI -1.4 - 1.9, p=0.8) or daily opioid use (-0.1 OME 95% CI -19.6 - 19.3, p= 1.0).
 Conclusion: Though there was no difference in admission rates between the two groups we examined prior to MM certification, and the only clinical difference was that those who obtained MM were more likely to be in the moresevere genotype, those who obtained MM showed a decrease in admissions in the next 6 months compared to those who did not. We suggest that MM allowed patients to improve their pain relief and thereby reduce admission rates. This is consistent with data showing cannabinoid agonists improve pain in murine models of SCD. Larger, randomized and controlled studies of MM for pain in SCD should be conducted.
 Table 1. Table 1.

 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.