In an era of top-down mandates and neoliberal reform policies, early career teachers must receive sustained social and emotional support as part of their regular professional development in order to navigate the murky waters of education that can sometimes feel disempowering and disillusioning. Teachers in high-poverty urban schools, who often deal with additional variables like student achievement gaps, disparate funding and high teacher turnover, among myriad other hurdles, are often highly impacted by these policies. This study examined the experiences of a group of early career teachers in an urban school district that participated in a mindfulness-based professional learning intervention. Findings show that participants not only experienced increased self-efficacy in assuaging personal and professional stressors, but also connected newly acquired strategies to the ways they supported the diverse students in their classrooms. Implications from this study suggest that learning about mindfulness-based strategies in an informal group setting can be beneficial for teachers, both personally and professionally, as they navigate the tensions of beginning their careers embedded in "the neoliberal program of reform".


In 1830 farmers constituted the majority of the Greek population. Part of these was small landowners or small livestock farmers, while the largest part of them was landless. The large farms were few. In the 1920s the entrance of 1.5 million refugees from Asia Minor and the departure of 600 thousands Muslims (with the exchange of populations) had as a result the dissolution of the manors, which were in the hands of the Turks. In the year 1950 due to the German occupation (1941-1944) and civil war (1946-1949) the agriculture returned in the level of the 1930s. In 2000, almost twenty years from the Greece's accession to the EU (in 1981), the massive subsidies and the clear agricultural policy, led to disruption of productivity of rural sector.
The estimates for 2030 are formulated both from the changes that have occurred over time and from the consequences of the accession of Greece in the support mechanism (2010), after the silent bankruptcy of the country. The purpose of this paper is to reflect the changes in the social structure of agriculture from independence (1830) until today and to make estimations for 2030. The Greek case differs from that of European countries, as it has not developed the institution of manor and similar as extensive feudal relations. It also differs from the countries of the Balkans as it maintained the institution of the small private property.
The methodology of this study uses the historical approach and is based on evaluation of secondary sources, but also in primary research by the author for the economic efficiency of agriculture. It uses also comparative analysis interpreting the social relations that existed in Greece and in the rest of the Balkans.
The paper is structured in four parts. The first refers to the history of the research objective. In the second and the third, economic and social differentiations are presented. In the fourth the above findings are evaluated.


Background: The transverse rectus abdominis musculocutaneous (TRAM) flap remains the gold standard for postmastectomy reconstruction either immediate or delayed. However, transfer of TRAM flap can be associated with donor site morbidities and complications in flap. A successful reconstruction consists of careful patient selection, surgical technique and meticulous preoperative planning. This study was designed to evaluate outcome and complications of breast reconstruction with TRAM flap in association with patient conditions and risk factors, prospectively. Methods: Breast reconstruction was performed in 44 women consecutively, using the TRAM flap during a 3-year period, 1999–2002. Modified radical mastectomy accompanying immediate reconstructions with TRAM flap was performed for 12 patients and delayed reconstruction was used for other patients with previous mastectomy. Results: The mean age of the patients was 40.41±4.43 years. Thirty (68.18%) patients had comorbidities, consisting of radiation therapy, obesity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, smoking and abdominal scar. Contralateral and ipsilateral TRAM flaps were used in 26(59.09%) and 14(31.81%) reconstructions, respectively. The abdominal defect was repaired in layers with the use of synthetic mesh in 30(68.18%) patients. The overall complication rate was 31.82%, such as fat necrosis (15.91%), partial flap loss (13.64%), etc. Satisfaction rates were excellent in 10 (22.72%), good in 25 (56.82%), moderate in five (11.36%), and poor in four (9.09%) patients. The mean of postoperative inpatient hospital days were 15.18±4.89 and 14.28±6.52 in patients with contralateral and ipsilateral flaps, respectively (p>0.05). A significant association was observed between overall complications and comorbidities. Partial flap loss and fat necrosis was associated with smoking, and abdominal hernia was associated with obesity marginally. Conclusions: The outcome of breast reconstruction using TRAM flap is similar by surgical technique and time of reconstruction. The most common flap complications were fat necrosis and partial flap loss that was associated with smoking. Acceptable satisfaction is obtained by TRAM flap. MJIRI, Vol. 20, No.2, 74-81, 2006.


This presentation reports the findings of an institutional ethnography in a pri¬mary school in the north of England during a period of 'notice to improve'.This regulatory status followed an inspection by the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) in which the school was judged as 'per¬forming less well than it might in all the circumstances reasonably be expected to perform'. This study situates the teachers' experience of 'notice to improve' within their everyday practices and embodiment of 'care' as they enact the policy discourses that organize their work.
The study aligns institutional ethnography with a narrative method, 'The Lis¬tening Guide' (Mauthner and Doucet 2008), and a political ethic of care (Tronto 1993) to reveal and analyse the co-ordination of social relations. Care emerged as a problematic from the teachers' standpoint, a disjuncture in experience, as they activated and appropriated texts in order 'to get out of' notice to improve. Institutional ethnography (Smith 2005) enables explication of the ruling relations of policy and performative texts, and how these texts are taken up and activated by teachers in coming to care as an institutionally organized aspect of their work. As such the study reveals the trans-local, extra-local, and situated connections and co-ordination of work during a time of enhanced scrutiny and accountability, and the tensions with teachers' wider understanding of care. Analysis reveals an understanding of care as political and moral and involving more than the dis¬courses of intimate relationships and role modelling promulgated as necessary to good pupil outcomes.
The research explicates the hierarchy of textual mediation of teachers' work and explores how teachers come to care through politics first, morality first, and personal and professional moral boundaries. It identifies a wider understanding of care that gives rise to more socially just and equitable ways of acting.


Standard autoregressive seq2seq models are easily trained by max-likelihood, but tend to show poor results under small-data conditions. We introduce a class of seq2seq models, GAMs (Global Autoregressive Models), which combine an autoregressive component with a log-linear component, allowing the use of global a priori features to compensate for lack of data. We train these models in two steps. In the first step, we obtain an unnormalized GAM that maximizes the likelihood of the data, but is improper for fast inference or evaluation. In the second step, we use this GAM to train (by distillation) a second autoregressive model that approximates the normalized distribution associated with the GAM, and can be used for fast inference and evaluation. Our experiments focus on language modelling under synthetic conditions and show a strong perplexity reduction of using the second autoregressive model over the standard one.


We propose an unsupervised method to automatically extract domain-specific prefixes and suffixes from biological corpora based on the use of PATRICIA tree. The method is evaluated by integrating the extracted affixes into an existing learning-based biological term annotation system. The system based on our method achieves comparable experimental results to the original system in locating biological terms and exact term matching annotation. However, our method improves the system efficiency by significantly reducing the feature set size. Additionally, the method achieves a better performance with a small training data set. Since the affix extraction process is unsupervised, it is assumed that the method can be generalized to extract domain-specific affixes from other domains, thus assisting in domain-specific concept recognition.


T here has been much coverage in the media recently of the proposed extension of nurses' prescribing rights so that from next spring they will be authorised to prescribe all drugs apart from controlled drugs.

BMA spokespeople have voiced concerns ( BMJ 2005;331: 1159) that patients' safety might be compromised if nurses who have done only a relatively short period of training are able to prescribe a wide variety of drugs. This is nonsense: nursing is a three year undergraduate or diploma level course, and nurse prescribers are highly trained and experienced nurses with many years of postgraduate and often specialist education.

I am a nurse practitioner working in a large general practice in West Yorkshire, where I am a salaried partner. Nurse practitioners have evolved as a distinct nursing discipline over the past 20 years in the United Kingdom, and yet few people know we even exist. Our emergence has in effect been a silent revolution in the delivery of health care. …


Objective:To evaluate the association between pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) use and mortality in a large cohort of injured patients. We hypothesized that PAC use is associated with improved survival in critically injured trauma patients. Design:Retrospective database analysis. Setting:A total of 268 level 1 trauma centers from across the United States. Patients:A total of 53,312 patients admitted to the intensive care units of the trauma centers participating in the National Trauma Data Bank maintained by the American College of Surgeons. Measurements and Main Results:The National Trauma Data Bank was queried to identify patients aged 16–90 yrs with complete data on base deficit, and Injury Severity Score (n = 53,312). Patients were initially divided into two groups: those managed with a PAC (n = 1,933) and those managed without a PAC (n = 51,379). Chi-square and Student's t-test analysis were utilized to explore group differences in mortality. In a second analysis, groups were stratified by base deficit, Injury Severity Score, and age to further explore the influence of injury severity on PAC use and mortality. In addition, a logistic regression model was developed to assess the relationship between PAC use and mortality after adjusting for differences in age, mechanism, injury severity, injury pattern, and co-morbidities. Overall, patients managed with a PAC were older (45.8 ± 21.3 yrs), had higher Injury Severity Score (28.4 ± 13.5), worse base deficit (−5.2 ± 6.5), and increased mortality (PAC, 29.7%; no PAC, 9.8%; p < .001). However, after stratification for injury severity, PAC use was associated with a survival benefit in four subgroups of patients. Each of these groups had advanced age or increased injury severity. Specifically, patients aged 61–90 yrs, with arrival base deficit worse than −11 and Injury Severity Score of 25–75, had a decrease in the risk of death with PAC use (odds ratio, 0.33; 95% confidence interval, 0.17–0.62). Three additional groups had a similar decrease in the risk of death with PAC use: odds ratio, 0.60 (95% confidence interval, 0.43–0.83), 0.82 (95% confidence interval, 0.44–1.52), and 0.63 (95% confidence interval, 0.40–0.98). Logistic regression analysis demonstrated a decreased mortality when a PAC was used in the management of patients with the following severe injury characteristics: Injury Severity Score of 25–75, base deficit of less than −11, or age of 61–90 yrs (odds ratio, 0.593; 95% confidence interval, 0.437–0.805). Conclusions:Trauma patients managed with a PAC are more severely injured and have a higher mortality. However, severely injured patients (Injury Severity Score, 25–75) who arrive in severe shock, and older patients, have an associated survival benefit when managed with a PAC. This is the first study to demonstrate a benefit of PAC use in trauma patients.


In this paper, a study of the temporal evolution of the elements of 3 x 3 covariance matrix using an X-band polarimetric ground-based SAR sensor is proposed. Although the heterogeneity of the scenario allows to select different target typologies, the study is mainly focused on the analysis of azimuthally symmetric distributed targets. The fluctuations of the most representative elements of [C] as a function of time and the decorrelation among the polarimetric channels are investigated. A relation with atmospheric parameters like temperature, humidity and wind is considered in order to make out the weight these parameters can influence the polarimetric signature of the observed area.


Abstract This paper aims to analyze the legal nature of concessionaire and PPP contract in Albanian Legislation and through the perspective of European legislation analyzing mainly the Italian and French legislation and doctrine in this area. The main hypothesis that this paper aims to address is related to the fact, if it is enough to categorize these kinds of contracts with a hybrid status between public and private law, or the fact that so many countries appellate more and more to the concessionaire and PPP contracts is the momentum to create a separate law discipline as so many universities in France, USA, Japan do. Also, this paper aims to make a comparative study of Albanian legislation in the area of concessionaire and PPP contracts with the European legislation being the fact that for Albania this is a new area, and is a considerable lake of doctrine and legal studies that analyze the specifics and characteristics of such kind of contracts, putting at the last instance not only the Albanian contractual authorities but also the national courts in difficulties of implementation and interpretation.


The distinguishing characteristics of carbon fibre reinforced laminates, like low weight, high strength or stiffness, had resulted in the increase of their use during the last decades. Although parts are normally produced to "near-net" shape, machining operations like drilling are still needed. In result of composites non-homogeneity, this operation can lead to delamination, considered the most serious kind of damage as it can reduce the load carrying capacity of the joint. A proper choice of tool and cutting parameters can reduce delamination substantially. In this work, the results obtained with five different tool geometries are compared. Conclusions show that the choice of adequate drill geometry can reduce the thrust forces and consequently, the delamination damage.


Both policy makers and sport stakeholders have fought against doping since the 1960's but largely separately from each other. In light of recent events, political discussion, and academic debate, this article considers the expediency of using legislation to fight doping in sports. Building upon and comparing experiences in the U.S. and in Sweden, this article concludes that increased governmental involvement is undesirable from both the policy makers' and the sport stakeholders' perspectives. The reasons for this conclusion are, primarily, (i) that they are driven by different aims, (ii) that they differ in what they consider doping, (iii) that policy makers may push rules in sports in an unwanted direction, (iv) that expanded government involvement increases the likelihood of fundamental rights challenges to sport rules, and (v) that there are alternative ways of enhancing existing rules' efficiency.


Two different object-oriented modeling approaches, DEVS and EMSY, constitute the background to explore the area of variable structure modeling. Realizations of various kinds of structural changes are discussed in both approaches. Against the background of their prime application domains, both approaches deal with the problem of structural change differently. While DEVS emphasizes intelligent control of structural change, EMSY stresses the autonomous character of the system. Like autonomy and control, holism and reductionism play different roles in both approaches and affect the realization of structural changes. However, unlike the former which tend to transcend each other, the reductionistic and holistic view realized in the two modeling approaches prove to set a rigorous framework for variable structure modeling


We previously found that sulfur fumigation, a commonly used controversial method for the post-harvest handling of ginger, induces the generation of a compound in ginger, which was speculated to be a sulfur-containing derivative of 6-shogaol based on its mass data. However, the chemical and biological properties of the compound remain unknown. As a follow-up study, here we report the chemical structure, systemic exposure, and anticancer activity of the compound. Chromatographic separation, nuclear magnetic resonance analysis, and chemical synthesis structurally elucidated the compound as 6-gingesulfonic acid. Pharmacokinetics in rats found that 6-gingesulfonic acid was more slowly absorbed and eliminated, with more prototypes existing in the blood than 6-shogaol. Metabolism profiling indicated that the two compounds produced qualitatively and quantitatively different metabolites. It was further found that 6-gingesulfonic acid exerted significantly weaker antiproliferative activity on tumor cells than 6-shogaol. The data provide chemical and biological evidence that sulfur fumigation may impair the healthcare functions of ginger.


Abstract The literature on non-state justice in more than 20 states is surveyed to provide an analysis of the range of possible relationships between state and non-state justice systems. The following models are considered with respect to their advantages and disadvantages, and the circumstances in which they should be considered: Repression of a non-state justice system by the state system. Formal independence between the systems but tacit acceptance by the state of a non-state justice system. No formal recognition but active encouragement of a non-state justice system by the state. Limited formal recognition by the state of the exercise of jurisdiction by a non-state justice system. Formal recognition of exclusive jurisdiction in a defined area. Formal recognition and the giving of state coercive powers to a non-state justice system. Complete incorporation of the non-state justice system by the state. It is concluded that in the majority of instances surveyed relationships between state and non-state justice systems are not mutually supportive, and that even the more 'successful' examples have problems. These findings suggest that for many jurisdictions what is required is reform of the relationship between the state and non-state justice system(s) to maximise the chances of the systems cooperating with each other, performing the tasks for which they are best suited to their fullest potential, and covering each others' weaknesses with their own strengths.


Rchoice is a package in R for estimating models with individual heterogeneity for both cross-sectional and panel (longitudinal) data. In particular, the package allows binary, ordinal and count response, as well as continuous and discrete covariates. Individual heterogeneity is modeled by allowing the parameter associated with each observed variable (e.g., its coefficient) to vary randomly across individuals according to some pre-specified distribution. Simulated maximum likelihood method is implemented for the estimation of the moments of the distributions. In addition, functions for plotting the conditional individual-specific coefficients and their confidence interval are provided. This article is a general description of Rchoice and all functionalities are illustrated using real databases.


ABSTRACT Double cropping is used to reduce environmental impacts, increase total farm forage yields, and reduce feed costs. Whereas double cropping is common in areas with longer growing seasons, it is not common in areas with shorter growing seasons. This study evaluated the cost to produce milk and crops on 4 dairy farms in northern and western Pennsylvania, a region where double cropping is not common due to the shorter growing season relative to other parts of the state where double cropping is more common. Production and financial data were collected during farm visits. Cost of production (COP) per hundredweight (45.36 kg) of energy-corrected milk and per DM tonne of crops raised was calculated. Herd size averaged 292 cows, and farm size averaged 319 ha, with 14.1% of hectares double cropped during 2016 and 2017. Yields of winter annual silage averaged 3.7 and 3.2 t/ha for 2016 and 2017, respectively. The COP for energy-corrected milk ranged from $13.06 to $26.00/hundredweight across all farms during both years. The COP for winter annual silage ranged from $138 for one farm in 2016 to $322/t for another farm during 2017, with an average across farms and years of $252.59/t compared with an average purchased price of $210/t of winter annual silage. Overall, the COP of winter annual silage was greater than the purchase price of winter annual silage for 3 of the 4 farms in the study.


Introduction: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the most common bacterial infections in women of all ages. The emergence of resistance to newer classes of antibiotics, including third generation cephalosporins, has limited the drug choices for treatment of UTI. We report here a recurrent UTI due to co‐infection with multiple‐antibiotic‐resistant (MAR) Escherichia coli pathotypes. Case presentation: A 73‐year‐old woman with diabetes mellitus type 2 presented with fever, nausea, vomiting, burning sensation, painful and frequent urination. She was diagnosed with recurrent UTI (RUTI) due to co‐infection with pansensitive enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC) and MAR extended spectrum β‐lactamase (ESBL)‐producing uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) and treated with azithromycin and levofloxacin (each for 10 days). Unfortunately, she did not respond. Plasmid profile analysis showed that the MAR E. coli strain harboured multiple plasmids including ∼38 and ∼80 MDa plasmids. PCR for detection of β‐lactamase genes showed that the isolate was negative for blaTEM, blaSHV, blaOXA and blaCTX‐M. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of co‐infection with an EAEC and MAR ESBL‐producer UPEC in Bangladesh. Conclusion: We recommend that all pathotypes of E. coli as well as the other more common uropathogens should be considered in the diagnosis of RUTI and multiple antibiotics should be prescribed only in severe conditions.


The bioavailability of trace elements in the course of evolution had an essential influence on the emergence of life itself. This is reflected in the co-evolution between eukaryotes and prokaryotes. In this study, the influence and cellular distribution of bioelements during phagocytosis at the host-pathogen interface was investigated using high-resolution nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) and quantitative inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). In the eukaryotic murine macrophages (RAW 264.7 cell line), the cellular Fe / Zn ratio was found to be balanced, whereas the dominance of iron in the prokaryotic cells of the pathogen Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis was about 90% compared to zinc. This confirms the evolutionary increased zinc requirement of the eukaryotic animal cell. Using NanoSIMS, the Cs+ primary ion source allowed high spatial resolution mapping of cell morphology down to subcellular level. At a comparable resolution, several low abundant trace elements could be mapped during phagocytosis with a RF plasma O- primary ion source. An enrichment of copper and nickel could be detected in the prokaryotic cells. Surprisingly, an accumulation of cobalt in the area of nuclear envelope was observed indicating an interesting but still unknown distribution of this trace element in murine macrophages.


Abstract: Project management is a discipline for gathering knowledge, capabilities, tools, and tech-niques in order to control the environment where projects run. Project management bodiesof knowledge (BOKs) and standards are defined for codifying the project management theory.However, BOKs and standards are discipline-dependent, so they fail in covering all dimen-sions project-driven disciplines involve. Problems associated with dimension coverage relyon codifying a generalized project management theory to be applied along project-drivendisciplines. Thus, codifying a project management multidisciplinary theory is considered achallenging task. Some authors claim a holistic view towards project management allows usfor identifying general codifying patterns of a multidisciplinary theory. Accordingly, in thisM.Sc. Thesis we propose some constructs for defining a project management multidiscipli-nary theory. We aim to identify a common structure among project management BOKs andstandards. We define such a structure as a kernel for covering a project management multidis-ciplinary theory. Particularly, we focus on introducing into project management discipline anapproach based on Abstract Level Progress Health Attributes—such approach has its originsin Semat (Software Engineering Method and Theory), an initiative for defining a theory forsoftware engineering. By introducing such approach, we allow practitioners for tracking pro-ject health, so they can identify and control project dimensions requiring special attentionwhen running a project. So, project success likelihood can be incremented. Furthermore,we allow for covering all dimensions project-driven disciplines involve, so we can connectproject-driven disciplines by using a multidisciplinary kernel. Finally, we present an analyticapproach for validating the kernel by comparing it to other project management BOKs andstandards, so we can demonstrate the multidisciplinary kernel covers all dimensions projectmanagement discipline involves. Furthermore, we introduce a way for representing projectmanagement practices based on the kernel defined in this M. Sc. Thesis.


This article explores an activity that has been used in many different training contexts from Initial Teacher Training (ITT), Advanced Learning Coach (ALC) training through to different 'in–house' training sessions and explains how it has been adapted by other teachers for their own contexts and how the learners themselves experience it. The activity is explained in practice and then linked to the theory of reflective practice to show how it can support and extend learners' thinking about themselves, their different roles and their individual teaching. Different perspectives have been drawn on as reflections on the activity and the work includes both tutor and learner comments about undertaking the activity. Their contributions together with personal reflections show the power of the idea from a simple icebreaker to something more profound that contributes to personal development and learning.


Objectives Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Microwave ablation is regarded as a safe and effective therapy for the treatment of HCC and has gained considerable attention as a rapidly expanding curative ablation option. This study aims to review the current application of microwave ablation therapy (MAT) for HCC. Methods A literature search was conducted in the PubMed (MEDLINE) database from inception up to August 2016, with no limitations imposed on language or study type, about the application of MAT for HCC. Results MAT for HCC has been reported to be effectively delivered through open laparotomy, laparoscopy and a percutaneous approach for appropriate patients, with many different tools for imaging guidance, including ultrasound, X-ray fluoroscopy, CT, MRI, PET-CT and combined US/CT-MRI. MAT provides the advantages of short treatment duration, a controllable wound and large ablation areas, and may even have the potential to enhance host resistance to malignancies. It is recommended as a first-line therapy for patients with very early and early stage HCC, and is a palliative option for advanced HCC. For tumors larger than 3 cm in diameter with an incomplete capsule, or with visible satellite lesions, or tumors in difficult anatomic locations, combination therapy with other treatments, such as TACE, PEI, iodine-125 particles, immunotherapy, etc, should be considered. Conclusions MAT has gained recognition in the treatment of early or advanced HCC. With the development of image guidance, multiple innovative instruments and different combination therapy modalities, MAT is a promising therapy for development and clinical application in the future. Acknowledgments This research was financially supported by Sichuan University (Grant No. 2016SCU11033).


Animal experimental studies conducted at the turn of the century resulted in the use of magnesium sulphate as an anticonvulsant in humans. In U.S. clinics, parenteral administration of magnesium sulphate became a routine procedure in the treatment of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia. This treatment has proved very effective in treating convulsions in pregnancy provided an adequate dosage was given amounting to up to 60 g daily. Mother and infant mortality were largely eliminated. Numerous clinical studies showed a negligible side effect rate. Side effects in the foetus: These are due to penetration of magnesium into the foetal blood circulation. Reports on an inhibition of cardiac rate fluctuation and changes in calcium levels have been contradictory, and hence not generally accepted. It is claimed that the parathormone level may drop slightly. Isolated reports on foetal magnesium intoxications associated with depression of breathing, slackness and hyporeflexia often prompt the conclusion that this disease pattern had been due to immaturity and asphyxia. Generally, foetal magnesium blood levels do not correlate well with signs of magnesium intoxication. Urine excretion is greatly slowed down in foetal immaturity. Side effects in the mother: Short-term relaxing action on the uterus has been described frequently. High dosages have been successfully used in arresting labour if there is a tendency to premature birth. Increase in uterine blood flow was seen after administration of magnesium sulphate in animal experiments. Magnesium is said to reduce blood coagulation by influencing fibrinolysis and thrombocyte resistance. However, a somewhat enhanced loss of blood during birth is said to be more likely due to relaxation of the uterus than to a disturbance of blood coagulation. Rapid intravenous injection causes short-term flushing, nausea and vomiting. Short-acting drops in blood pressure are possible. The cardiac output is said to increase at the conventional dosage level whereas the peripheral resistance drops due to vasodilation. Increases and decreases in heart rate have been reported, but in most cases no changes were seen. Changes in ventricular action time occur with toxic doses only, which can lead to cardiac arrest in the diastole. Other toxic signs are hyporeflexia, depressed breathing and CNS depressions which may result in coma. Hyporeflexia always occurs before the other toxic signs appear, so that it can be used as a clinical control criterion. Calcium gluconate, given via the IV route, is a good and rapid-acting antidote.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


The Helicobacter pylori toxin VacA causes vacuolar degeneration in mammalian cell lines in vitro and plays a key role in peptic ulcer disease. Two alleles, m1 and m2, of the mid-region of the vacA gene have been described, and the m2 cytotoxin always has been described as inactive in the in vitro HeLa cell assay. However, the m2 allele is associated with peptic ulcer and is prevalent in populations in which peptic ulcer and gastric cancer have high incidence. In this paper, we show that, despite the absence of toxicity on HeLa cells, the m2 cytotoxin is able to induce vacuolization in primary gastric cells and in other cell lines such as RK-13. The absence of Hela cell activity is due to an inability to interact with the cell surface, suggesting a receptor-mediated interaction. This result is consistent with the observation that the m2 allele is found in a population that has a high prevalence of peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer. VacA is the first bacterial toxin described for which the same active subunit can be delivered by different receptor binding domains.


Information Communication Technologies (ICT) at present are influencing every aspect of human life. They are playing salient roles in work places, business, education, and entertainment. Moreover, many people recognize ICT's as catalysts for change; change in working conditions, handling and exchanging information, teaching methods, learning approaches, scientific research, and in accessing information. ICT permeates the business environment, it underpins the success of modern corporations, and it provides governments with an efficient infrastructure. At the same time, ICT adds value to the processes of learning, and in the organization and management of learning institutions. One of the many challenges facing developing countries today is that of preparing their societies and governments for globalization and the information and communication revolution. Policy-makers, educationists, non-governmental organizations, academics, and ordinary citizens are increasingly concerned with the need to make their societies competitive in the emergent information economy. Globalization and innovations in technology have led to an increased use of ICTs in all sectors -and education is no exception. Uses of ICTs in education are widespread and are continually growing worldwide. It is generally believed that ICTs can empower teachers and learners, making significant contributions to learning and achievement. Over the last two decades, the rapid growth of ICT has become one of the most important topics discussed by the scholars in education. This is due to the capability of ICT in providing a dynamic and proactive teaching and learning environment. In line with the current digital era, teachers are required to integrate ICT in their daily teaching and replace their traditional methods with modern tools and facilities. The main focus of this paper is on effectiveness of ICT integration


Findings from a two-year, sociolinguistic study of the use of English among five school-age immigrant children are reported. Data collection included participant observation of natural language use in the everyday lives of the children. The five children in the study are recent Mexican and Central American immigrants living in a Northern California barrio, a community populated primarily by other Spanish-speaking immigrants. Thefindings regarding the children's use of English discussed in this article allow a contrast between examples of what is called substantial or minimal contact with English. These selected findings illustrate how each of the five children's use of their second language could be facilitated or hindered, and how contact with English depended principally upon the children's English abilities. Implications for educational practice that concern Spanish-speaking immigrants who live in a relatively segregated community of a barrio are drawn from these findings.


Excess accumulation of cholesterol in macrophages results in foam cell production and lesion development. Recent studies have demonstrated that ATP-binding cassette protein A1 (ABCA1) is highly regulated in macrophages and mediates the efflux of cholesterol and phospholipids to apolipoproteins, a process necessary for HDL formation. The goal of this study was to determine the contribution of monocyte/macrophage ABCA1 to HDL formation in vivo. We generated mice expressing ABCA1 in macrophages and mice with selected inactivation of ABCA1 in macrophages by bone marrow transplantation in ABCA1-deficient (ABC1(-/-)) and wild-type (WT) mice. At all times, the level of HDL in ABC1(-/-) recipient mice remained low relative to WT recipient mice irrespective of the genotype of the donor macrophage ABCA1 or high-fat feeding. Expression of WT macrophage ABCA1 in ABC1(-/-) mice resulted in a small but significant increase in apoA-I levels starting 2 weeks after transplantation. No further increase in apoAI was observed up to 14 weeks after transplantation. The increase in apoAI was accompanied by a small but significant increase in HDL cholesterol 6 weeks after transplantation. The HDL formed as a consequence of the expression of WT macrophage ABCA1 migrated to the alpha position in a two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. These results demonstrate that monocyte/macrophage ABCA1 contributes to HDL formation; however, the contribution to the overall plasma HDL levels is minimal.


By metaphorically taking on the themes of imperialism and the suppression of indigenous peoples, by implicitly criticizing industrial capitalism with its voracious appetite for natural resources, while also participating in it, by linking militarism with ecocide while finding hope only in redemptive violence, and by presenting a religious worldview at variance with that of billions of people, the film Avatar has generated great controversy. Only through a multi-disciplinary analysis that examines the cultural tributaries of the film, and takes on-the-ground and cyber spaces seriously, will it be possible to begin an assessment of the significance and influence of this form of nature-related cinematic art.


Inherited retinal dystrophies are a group of genetically heterogeneous conditions with broad phenotypic heterogeneity. We analyzed a large five-generation pedigree with early-onset recessive retinal degeneration to identify the causative mutation. Linkage analysis and homozygosity mapping combined with exome sequencing were carried out to map the disease locus and identify the p.G178R mutation in the asparaginase like-1 gene (ASRGL1), segregating with the retinal dystrophy phenotype in the study pedigree. ASRGL1 encodes an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of L-asparagine and isoaspartyl-peptides. Studies on the ASRGL1 expressed in Escherichia coli and transiently transfected mammalian cells indicated that the p.G178R mutation impairs the autocatalytic processing of this enzyme resulting in the loss of functional ASRGL1 and leaving the inactive precursor protein as a destabilized and aggregation-prone protein. A zebrafish model overexpressing the mutant hASRGL1 developed retinal abnormalities and loss of cone photoreceptors. Our studies suggest that the p.G178R mutation in ASRGL1 leads to photoreceptor degeneration resulting in progressive vision loss.


Software systems are embedded into daily life and as such have significant effects on the behavior and decision making of both their users and the people affected by using these systems. Such effects can be positive or negative. Considering them in requirements engineering (RE) is an important step towards sustainable development, as RE strongly influences the development and the evolution of a software system. So far, RE researchers have focused on requirements about minimizing negative environmental effects. However, effects that are enabled by using a software system can also be posi- tive. For example, a software system could motivate its users to take environment-friendly decisions. Corresponding require- ments about such positive enabling effects have been far less addressed. In this paper, we present an exploratory case study where we elicited requirements about positive enabling effects with respect to environmental sustainability. The project we studied is about extending an existing decision support system for meal planning in canteens by game-based elements. The extended system shall motivate meal planners who work in canteens to make environment-friendly choices. Our contribution is an exemplar of concrete sustainability requirements as well as insight into the nature of sustainability requirements about positive effects that are enabled by the use of a software system. Index Terms—enabling effects; sustainability requirements; sustainable software systems; gamification; exploratory study;


The Fully Online Learning Community (FOLC), developed at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), is a social-constructivist model, addressing a paradigm shift in employment skills, and supporting key elements of transformational learning. Adopting a Problem-based Learning (PBL) approach to activity design, FOLC has served as basis for both undergraduate and graduate, fully online degree programs for almost a decade. In this time, it has demonstrated its ability to facilitate richly collaborative, socially cohesive, and constructively critical, learning communities supported by a flexible array of synchronous and asynchronous digital affordances. FOLC represents a "divergent fork" of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) design to foreground the synergistic dynamics of social and cognitive presence, the role of professional educators as colearners, the community-oriented nature of knowledge construction, the mediating role of digital competence and open technologies in fully online learning, and the transformational potential of democratized communication and assessment practices. Having positioned FOLC conceptually, a developing research agenda, aimed at grounding the FOLC on a broader body of empirical data, is presented. The underlying argument is that rich, transformative learning communities can be established in fully online programs, and these communities can have a significant democratizing effect on participants and the broader social context.


Introduction. Tuberculous involvement of the CNS is most frequent in children aged between 6 months and 6 years, although it may occur at any age. It may present as meningoencephalitis, basal arachnoiditis or intracranialtuberculomas. Whilst meningitis is typical of infancy, tuberculomas and arachnoiditis are commoner in adults. It has been estimated that tuberculomas make up 3% of the cases of neurotuberculosis. The increasing use of CAT and MR has been a great help for diagnosis of this serious complication of tuberculosis. Clinical case. A 5 month old patient presented with tuberculous meningitis which had been treated with streptomycin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide and rifampicin at the usual dosage. One month later, after good initial progress, triventricular hydrocephaly was diagnosed and a ventriculoperitoneal shunt inserted. Three months after this, there was an episode of intracranial hypertension. Cranial CAT showed considerable zones of hypodense parenchyma without ventricle dilatation. On MR there were multiple, disseminated, rounded areas which were hyperintense on T 2 and compatible with intracranial tuberculomas. After fresh insertion of a ventricular shunt, the patient progressed but still had a residual right hemiparesia and retarded development. Conclusions. A lthough intracranial tuberculomas usually occur in adults, they may be seen in children following meningoencephalitis. Occasionally, following a good initial response to tuberculostatic drugs, tuberculomas appear, although not present before, as happened in our patient. This usually occurs within the first three months, and although the mechanism is unknown, it is believed to be due to the accumulation of lymphocytes and macrophages at preexisting microscopic foci when treatment is started.


In the present work, a SiCp/Al composite was fabricated by pressureless infiltration of aluminum alloy into loose-packed SiC particles preform, and its microstructure and hardness performance were investigated. The results showed that the composite was fully infiltrated and the particles were distributed uniformly in the composite. Interfacial reactions were found in the as-cast composite and the reaction product was identified as MgAl2O4 by TEM observation and XRD analysis. The interfacial reactions enhanced the wettability and promote the spontaneous infiltration process. The thermal exposure process increased the Brinell hardness of the composite. After the thermal exposure process, the block-like interfacial reaction products were distributed discretely, but the amount of the reaction products was increased.


We derive fast wideband algorithms, based on measurements of the acoustic intensity, for determining the bearings of a target using an acoustic vector sensor (AVS) situated in free space or on a reflecting boundary. We also obtain a lower bound on the mean-square angular error (MSAE) of such estimates. We then develop general closed-form weighted least-squares (WLS) and reweighted least-squares algorithms that compute the three-dimensional (3-D) location of a target whose bearing to a number of dispersed locations has been measured. We devise a scheme for adaptively choosing the weights for the WLS routine when measures of accuracy for the bearing estimates, such as the lower bound on the MSAE, are available. In addition, a measure of the potential estimation accuracy of a distributed system is developed based on a two-stage application of the Cramer-Rao bound. These 3-D results are quite independent of how bearing estimates are obtained. Naturally, the two parts of the paper are tied together by examining how well distributed arrays of AVSs located on the ground, seabed, and in free space can determine the 3-D position of a target The results are relevant to the localization of underwater and airborne sources using freely drifting, moored, or ground sensors. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of our estimators and the new potential performance measure.


With the success of deep learning methods in many image processing tasks, deep learning approaches have also been introduced to the phase retrieval problem recently. These approaches are different from the traditional iterative optimization methods in that they usually require only one intensity measurement and can reconstruct phase images in real-time. However, because of tremendous domain discrepancy, the quality of the reconstructed images given by these approaches still has much room to improve to meet the general application requirements. In this paper, we design a novel deep neural network structure named SiSPRNet for phase retrieval based on a single Fourier intensity measurement. To effectively utilize the spectral information of the measurements, we propose a new feature extraction unit using the Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) as the front end. It allows all pixels of the input intensity image to be considered together for exploring their global representation. The size of the MLP is carefully designed to facilitate the extraction of the representative features while reducing noises and outliers. A dropout layer is also equipped to mitigate the possible overfitting problem in training the MLP. To promote the global correlation in the reconstructed images, a self-attention mechanism is introduced to the Up-sampling and Reconstruction (UR) blocks of the proposed SiSPRNet. These UR blocks are inserted into a residual learning structure to prevent the weak information flow and vanishing gradient problems due to their complex layer structure. Extensive evaluations of the proposed model are performed using different testing datasets of phase-only images and images with linearly related magnitude and phase. Experiments were conducted on an optical experimentation platform (with defocusing to reduce the saturation problem) to understand the performance of different deep learning methods when working in a practical environment. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach consistently outperforms other deep learning methods in single-shot maskless phase retrieval. The source codes of the proposed method have been released in Github [see references].


This paper investigates the first documented case of non-transfusion-related surgical HIV transmission in a developed country, Australia. In 1989, four women were infected with HIV as a result of surgical procedures in a private clinic. A subsequent medical tribunal failed to establish medical negligence or a failure of infection control procedures on the part of the surgeon. We use this case to interrogate some of the assumptions about human culpability that feature in both HIV epidemiology and criminal law approaches to HIV transmission. We argue that these models for explaining viral spread overestimate the role of human agency and underestimate the importance of anonymous, contingent, material relations between viruses, bodies, and technologies. We suggest that the medical tribunal model, with its implicit recognition of viral agency and the impossibility of eliminating risk, offers an alternative model of justice to the criminal justice system, with its exclusive focus on human agency.


Increasing sprawls of urban areas in Indian cities due to development activities is adversely affecting the environment as human footprint spreads over a larger area resulting in increased movement from one point to another. Further, rising level of incomes consistent with growing gross domestic product (GDP) level and lack of proper planning has resulted in an unsustainable and automobile dependent society. Land-use has crucial impact on travel demand and therefore it is vital that there should be an effective integration between land-use and transport. An optimal mixed land-use integrated with transport reduces the trip length and reduces the overall travel demand in turn. The objective of land use transportation integration strategy is defined for the case study area of Udaipur city in India to develop Udaipur as smart city through achieving sustainable mobility scenario with lesser emission levels and improved mobility and accessibility. To reduce the motorized vehicle kilometers traveled and increase the probable shift towards Non Motorized Transport (NMT) and Public Transport (PT) as a mode choice, an iterative process has been adopted where the appropriate land use mixes have been tested to arrive at optimum intra zonal shorter trips by NMT modes and attainment of minimum possible level of Average Trip Length (ATL). Based on the results of the iteration, the feasible strategies for land use transportation integration has been developed for Udaipur city which aims at adopting two pronged approaches, firstly at macro level; it defines the shape & growth pattern, structure and distribution of the land use typologies across the city. Secondly at micro level, the scenario strives for achieving sustainable neighborhood development based on intensity of land use and population bearing capacity of the area defined by density, through emphasis on Infill and Redevelopment of the available land. With adoption of landuse transportation integration strategy in the Indian city of Udaipur, the growth of the city can be made more compact and uniformed in general and the existing residential neighborhood more self reliant & sustainable in particular, which is evident from the fact that there has been an increase in the Intra Zonal trips (predominantly NMT trips) upto 68% and comparatively reduced ATL. With the encouragement of high density compact development, 80% of the households could be made within 10 mins of walking distance from existing Intermediate Public Transport (IPT) routes or proposed PT corridors resulting in increased accessibility to the existing IPT or the proposed PT system. Due to more concentration of mixed activities along the proposed public transport corridors with improvement in last mile connectivity, motorized vehicle kilometers is reduced by 18% resulting in comparatively lesser CO₂ emission levels.


Forty-seven patients were treated for invasive cancer of the cervix from January 1978 till December 1985. Eleven patients were submitted to intracavitary radiation 6 weeks prior to surgery. The 5 years survival rate was 82%. The other 36 patients were treated by surgery alone because radiotherapy was impossible. The 5 years survival of the latter group was 71%: Stage I: 87.5%, Stage IIa: 60%, Stage IIb: 40%. The efficiency of the intracavitary radiation was remarkably evident in the stage II N (-), concerning central recurrences. An alternative to the classical treatment in advanced cancers using a preoperative chemotherapy is currently under investigation.


A new approach to understanding social and economic development is proposed, based on consideration of the evolution of coordination mechanisms. The work consists of two parts. In the first part, a critical analysis of four recently proposed theories of social development, focusing on geographical, institutional or cultural factors, is given. These theories have greatly enriched our understanding of the evolution of society, however, as analysis shows, none of them provides a satisfactory description of the driving forces and mechanisms of this evolution; the main reason is rooted in their common shortcoming - monocausality. It is proposed to distinguish between two types of development, catching up and leading. The basic ideas of the theory of catching-up development are presented. This approach makes it possible to explain the phenomenon of the "economic miracle" as a result of mutually conditioned changes in culture, institutions, technological progress and well-being in the context of interaction of competition, power and collaboration mechanisms.
   The second part is devoted to the theory of leading socioeconomic development. . It is shown how in Western Europe, as a result of the interaction of the above four factors, specific forms and combinations of the three main mechanisms of coordination - competition, power and cooperation - emerged at each stage of evolution. I emphasize the importance of ideology and the phenomenon of technical progress in the formation of institutions of economic and political competition that contributed to the creation of the welfare state. These changes and economic growth created the conditions for further transformation of civil culture: increasing levels of trust, tolerance, altruism and cosmopolitanism, expanding the planned horizon. The decrease in the level of coercion built into the mechanisms of power and competition are demonstrated as well as the expansion of the role of collaboration. A hypothesis is advanced that the speed of this process depends on geographical factors. The idea of welfare world is discussed.


Operational Transformation (OT) is a consistency maintenance technique for collaborative editing systems-a special class of distributed applications for supporting human-computer-human interaction and collaboration over communication networks. The theory of causality has been the foundation of all prior OT systems, but it is inadequate to meet essential OT requirements in functionality and correctness. In this paper, we analyze the limitation of the causality theory, propose a novel theory of operation context as the new foundation for OT systems, and present a new OT algorithm-Context-based OT (COT)-which provides uniform and efficient solutions to both consistency maintenance and undo problems. The COT algorithm has been implemented and used for supporting a range of novel collaborative applications. The context theory and context vectors are potentially applicable to other distributed computing applications.


This gude has been developed to assist you in SPEECH - ORGANIC NEURO COMMUNICATION DISORDERS research using resources from the catalog, eBook Collection, research databases and websites.


The aim of this paper is to explore and examine the effect of multiple mediation on prior experience and social entrepreneurial intention. Since, limited studies have been conducted in evaluating the mediating effects of empathy, moral obligation and perceived desirability, this study is one of the first studies that investigate their role as the mediators. The data collected from 110 postgraduate students are analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that the relationship between prior experience and perceived desirability is mediated by moral obligation whereas the relationship between moral obligation and social entrepreneurial intention is mediated by perceived desirability. This study highlights that moral obligation and perceived desirability significantly act as mediators but not empathy. Lastly, limitations of the study are discussed and recommendations for future studies are provided.


The opioid epidemic in the United States is the foremost problem in healthcare today. From 1999 to 2014, there has been a quadrupling of opioid prescription sales, with a concurrent decrease in the prescribing of nonopioid analgesics for new musculoskeletal pain (1,2). In the last two decades, opioid prescription rate in patients with chronic pain increased exponentially. In patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) it rose from 31% in 2003 to 40% in 2009 (3).


Fusarium wilt of lettuce was first recognized in Arizona in 2001. Since this initial discovery, the pathogen, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lactucae (Fol), has been recovered from infected lettuce plants from over 40 different fields. This fungus is a soil-borne pathogen that can remain viable in soil for many years. Soil solarization has shown promise in managing Fusarium wilt in other cropping systems as well as in lettuce field trials conducted during 2004 and 2005. In an effort to maximize the solarization effect on subsequent disease development, the following factors were evaluated in a 2006 field trial: 1) solarization of unshaped versus preshaped beds, 2) the effect of soil moisture on solarization efficiency of preshaped beds, and 3) effect of lettuce type on Fusarium wilt incidence after solarization. The entire field was flood irrigated on Jun 21. Plots were solarized during Jul and/or Aug by covering beds with 1-mil thick clear plastic. During the solarization treatment from Jul 3 to Sep 10, the mean soil temperature in preshaped solarized beds at a depth of 2 and 9 inches was 116 and 95°F, respectively, and 102 and 97°F, respectively, in beds not covered with plastic. When solarization was initiated 15 days after soil irrigation, a 20% reduction in Fusarium wilt was recorded for a crisphead lettuce cultivar grown on solarized unshaped beds compared to a 56% reduction in disease when the same crisphead cultivar was grown on preshaped solarized beds. There was no significant difference between a one and two month solarization period in the subsequent number of diseased lettuce plants. Solarization of preshaped beds 15 days after irrigation for one month reduced Fusarium wilt on crisphead lettuce by 56%, whereas the same solarization period initiated seven days after irrigation resulted in a 96% reduction of disease. The same one-month solarization period started one week after soil irrigation reduced the incidence of Fusarium wilt on green leaf (Two Star) and romaine (Green Towers) by 97 and 88%, respectively, compared to plants grown on unsolarized beds. The data show that summer solarization of moist soil can 1) destroy propagules of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lactucae in infested fields and 2) be a useful cultural management tool to significantly reduce the incidence of Fusarium wilt in a subsequent crop of lettuce.


An efficient solution is presented for coupled nonlinear eddy currents-thermal diffusion problems. Applying the fixed-point polarization method to the nonlinear eddy-current field problem, with the magnetization dependent on magnetic induction and on temperature, allows the field computation to be performed for each harmonic separately. Since the fictitious permeability can be chosen to be everywhere that of free space, the matrices of the linear systems to be solved at each iteration remain unchanged even when the nonlinear characteristic changes with the temperature. A simple integral equation is used to compute the eddy currents, the inversion of the matrices corresponding to the harmonics being performed only once, before starting the iterative process. The heat conduction-diffusion equation is solved at each time step by the finite-element method. Three illustrative examples are also presented.


In this study, the authors made an experiment to observe the residual stress state in the surface of the engineered parts (for example, shot-peened steel) by X-ray stress measurement. An evaluation method was proposed for the stress gradient from the information on the X-ray Debye ring obtained with an area detector. The method utilized the fact that the X-ray penetration depth is a function of the central angle of the Debye ring α. It varies due to a section of Debye ring. It also depends on the incidence angle of X-rays and the wavelength used. Mean stress over the whole penetration depths of X-rays, which is defined as the Laplace stress, was measured by the cosα method[1, 2] by using this characteristic, and the real space stress[3-5] gradient was evaluated.


Biomedical research post sequencing of the first human genome is increasingly eroding a traditional ecology of individualist science. It is, furthermore, normalising collective innovation and shared scientific discovery.1 ,2 Achieving sound statistical power in a genome-wide association study, for example, can often be well beyond the scope of any one researcher's capacity. For this reason and others, the scientific imperative of research collaboration can be more pronounced in the 'omics' disciplines,3 where millions of data points are needed to make global inferences about links between the human genome and disease.4 From the scientific necessity to adequately power a study through research collaborations is also born an ethical imperative to do so. That is, the anticipated benefits and harms of a particular study are justified based on the researchers' sound predictions about potential outcomes and contributions to knowledge. Either underestimating or overestimating translational possibilities can disturb the benefit–harm balance due largely to insufficient statistical power.5

Two important milestones, therefore, rest on this bench-to-bedside continuum for 'omics' research, and are essential for any clinical translation endeavour: research ethics and data-access reviews. The former ensures appropriate ongoing ethical oversight and participant protections, while the latter enables research collaboration by providing researchers with access to data. Debates surrounding traditional issues facing such reviews are ubiquitous in the literature, yet little attention has been paid to how these issues are exacerbated when studies span across multiple jurisdictions. This is particularly true for research typified in the 'omics' disciplines, where international collaboration is the norm rather than the exception.

Here, a distinction between multi-site and multi-jurisdictional research should be emphasised. While multi-site research implies that the project takes place across many individual sites, multi-jurisdictional research involves sites in different legal jurisdictions. Multi-jurisdictional research along with the ethics review processes required to …


In comparison to middle-class Whites, middle-class African Americans disproportionately provide financial support to their low-income family members. Evidence suggests that this practice is both essential for its low-income recipients and economically detrimental for Black middle-class givers. Scholars often oversimplify Black middle-class identity by describing kin support as motivated solely by racial identity. Gathering insight from 41 in-depth interviews, this article interrogates the conditions under which, despite their financial own vulnerability, middle-class Black families offer kin support. This study explores variations in Black middle-class racial ideology and observes how other dimensions of identity, such as class background, influence attitudes and decision-making towards family. This article demonstrates how socioeconomic background shapes the ways the Black middle class negotiates expectations of kin support and details three kin support approaches as either strategies for social mobility, tools reserved for short-term lending, or opportunities to repay unsettled childhood debts. This work contributes to our understanding of how the Black community deploys kin support, illuminates how the Black middle class makes sense of racial norms around giving, and centers class background in our intersectional understanding of identity.


Hyperbolic and kinetic equations arise in a large variety of industrial problems. For this reason, the CEMRACS summer research center held at CIRM in Luminy in 2003 was devoted to this topic. During a six-week period, junior and senior researchers worked full time on several projects proposed by industry and academia. Most of this work was completed later on, and the results are now reported in the present book. The articles address modelling issues as well as the development and comparisons of numerical methods in different situations. The applications include multi-phase flow, plama physics, quantum particle dynamics, radiative transfer, sprays and aeroacoustics. The text is aimed at researchers and engineers interested in modelling and numerical simulation of hyperbolic and kinetic problems arising from applications.


During the winters of 1990-1992, rutschblock technique and limitations, variability and precision of rutschblock scores, and applications of rutschblocks to slab stability evaluation were studied in the Cariboo and Monashee Mountains of western Canada. The time required for each test was, under many conditions, reduced to 10 minutes or less by using cords, specialized saws or the tails of skis to cut the two sides and the upper wall of the rutschblock. The median rutschblock score was 4 or less on most days when one or more large dry natural slab avalanches were reported by helicopter skiing guides operating within 30 km of the study area. Also, median rutschblock scores were 4 or less near slabs that had been ski-released and individual scores up to 5 were recorded near recently ski-released slabs. On slopes of 20° to over 40°, median rutschblock scores correlate well with a Swiss stability index; however, rutschblock scores on slopes below 20° are inconsistent with the correlation suggesting a minimum angle for rutschblocks of approximately 20°. In spite of natural variability of rutschblock scores on a particular slope, decreasing the slope angle by 10° tended to increase the rutschblock score by 1. A tendency for higher and more variable scores was noticed near the top of several slopes.


TREx Home | TREx Data Standards | Training Materials | New Features TREx data reporting requirements: Provide descriptions of data elements and the codes used to report them; Describe the responsibilities of school districts, education
service centers, and the Texas Education


In recent months the media have drawn attention to the Cape Verde archipelago, with particular focus on the island of Fogo, the only island presently active and with an eruption that began on 23 November 2014, finally ceasing on 7 February 2015. The Monte Amarelo conical shield forms most of the 476 km2 almost circular island of Fogo. After attaining a critical elevation of about 3500 m, the Monte Amarelo shield volcano was decapitated by a giant landslide that formed a caldera‐like depression (Cha das Caldeiras), which was subsequently partially filled by basaltic nested volcanism. This younger eruptive activity culminated in the construction of the 2829 m‐high Pico do Fogo stratocone, apparently entirely made of layers of basaltic lapilli. Continued growth of the Pico do Fogo summit eruptions was interrupted in 1750, most likely after the stratocone reached a critical height. Since then, at least eight eruptions have taken place inside the landslide depression at the periphery of the Pico do Fogo cone, including the 2014–2015 eruptive event. Strong geological similarities with the Canary Islands, 1400 km to the north, have been frequently noted, probably as a consequence of a common process of origin and evolution associated with a mantle hot‐spot. These similarities are particularly evident when comparing Fogo with the Teide Volcanic Complex on Tenerife, where a lateral collapse of the Las Cañadas stratovolcano also formed a large depression (the Caldera de Las Cañadas), now partially filled with the 3718 m‐high Teide stratocone. However, important geological differences also exist and probably relate to the contrasting evolutionary stages of both islands. The Las Cañadas volcano on Tenerife formed at a late post‐erosional stage, with predominantly evolved (trachyte and phonolite) magmas, while at Fogo basaltic volcanism is still dominant.


In this paper, publishing brand concept evolution and theory are introduced. Initially, a distinction between the supply and demand brand perspectives is made in order to arrive to an integrative concept. Under this new concept, brand is seen as an intermediary between the company and its clients, as well as a channel for exchange; through brands, companies can introduce products, and people can perceive values and have their needs fulfilled. In other words, a brand is defined as "something that resides in the minds of the audience, a perceptual entity that is rooted in reality" and that reflects the "perceptions and even the idiosyncrasies of people". Finally, an analysis of the way this concept applies to the publishing sector is given.


Objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the autolytic debridement promoted by hydrogel with sodium alginate enriched with fatty acids and vitamins A and E in the healing of foot wounds in diabetic patients. A clinical study was conducted at an outpatient clinic of medical specialties. The sample comprised 8 patients supervised for a 3-month period, from April to July 2017, by means of a clinical history, photographic record, planimetry, and classification of the wound severity by the Pressure Ulcer Scale for Healing (PUSH) system. Of the 8 patients supervised, 1 dropped out and 7 were followed up for 12 weeks. Only 2 had complete wound healing, but all presented a reduction of the lesion area of approximately 22.2% and PUSH score of 9.8 to 6.6. This study found that hydrogel showed good results for the treatment of diabetic feet, reducing the area and overall PUSH score of the wounds.


ABSTRACT The Brassica napus-B. juncea recombinant line (MX), resistant to Leptosphaeria maculans, was produced by interspecific crosses and bears one gene (Jlm1) from the B. juncea B genome. We investigated whether this new resistance was race specific by characterizing protection against a large sample of L. maculans isolates. The pathogenicity of 119 isolates of L. maculans comprising 105 A-group isolates and 14 B-group isolates was studied at the cotyledon stage under controlled conditions using the MX line, the susceptible B. napus cultivar Westar, and the resistant B. juncea cultivar Picra. All but one of the isolates were pathogenic on 'Westar'. Only 3 of the 105 A-group isolates caused very mild symptoms on 'Picra'. Two of these strains were isolated from the MX line and the other from Sinapis arvensis. The other 102 strains caused hypersensitive-type responses. Most B-group isolates were pathogenic on 'Picra'. There were differences in pathogenicity among A-group isolates tested on the MX line, whereas all B-group isolates were pathogenic on this line. A-group isolates obtained from the MX line were more frequently pathogenic on the MX line than those obtained from B. napus cultivars. One isolate from S. arvensis infected the MX line. These results suggest that the resistance of the MX line is unlikely to be durable. Thus, the new resistance gene Jlm1 should probably be used in association with other sources of resistance, in plant breeding schemes, to prevent the breakdown of this resistance.


The traditionist-jurisprudents (fuqahā' ashāb al-hadīth) of the earlier ninth century C.E. proposed that Islamic law be inferred from hadith, reports of what the Prophet, his leading Companions, and the Followers had said or done, without significant resort to reason. Contradictions among hadith reports they either resolved by means of isnād comparison or simply let stand, refusing to define the law by their own preferences. Their adversaries the rationalistic jurisprudents (ashāb al-ra'y) also used hadith, but far less extensively and without significant use of isnād comparison to sort out the sound from the unsound. In the later ninth century, rationalistic jurisprudents took up many of the forms formerly peculiar to the traditionist-jurisprudents, especially formal dependence on hadith and isnād comparison to sort the sound from the unsound. Traditionist-jurisprudents in turn accepted the need for separate expertise in legal reasoning besides hadith criticism. Although some developments took place independently of them, the history of Islamic law across the ninth century cannot be written without reference to the traditionist-jurisprudents and their strident advocacy of hadith.


Cardiac magnetic resonance(MR)imaging has been recognized as reliable means for accurate evaluation of cardiac anatomy and ventricular function. Late gadolinium-enhanced MR imaging can clearly delineate subendocardial infarction, and the assessment of transmural extent of infarction on late enhanced MR imaging has proved to be useful in predicting functional recovery of dysfunctional myocardium in patients after myocardial infarction. Stress first-pass contrast enhanced myocardial perfusion MR imaging can detect subendocardial ischemia, and recent studies demonstrated the high diagnostic accuracy of stress myocardial perfusion MR imaging in detecting significant coronary artery diseases. By combining stress perfusion MR imaging and late gadolinium MR imaging, infarcted myocardium and ischemic but viable myocardium can be differentiated. Free breathing, whole heart coronary MR angiography has recently been introduced as a method that can detect coronary artery stenosis, with the diagnostic accuracy comparable to 16-slice computed tomography (CT). MR flow measurement is useful in quantifying valvular regurgitation volume, shunt volume in congenital heart diseases, and blood flow in coronary artery bypass grafts. Cardiac MR imaging can play a pivotal role in managing patients with ischemic heart diseases.


Running symmetry is important for performance, injury prevention or rehabilitation in many sports. However, current methods for measuring running symmetry are expensive, time consuming and must typically be constrained to a non-task representative laboratory setting. The aim of this study was to validate a method that used accelerometry data to determine running symmetry during maximal over ground sprinting for abled bodied athletes. Thirteen elite male athletes performed three 40 m maximal sprints on an indoor running track while data were collected from eight force plates and an accelerometer positioned between the scapulae against the spine. Correlations and Bland–Altman analyses were used to assess validity. Time spent either side of the vertical axis was compared to maximal medio-lateral force from either side of the body using a symmetry index approach. Results revealed only a trivial relationship (r = 0.088, p = 0.616) and poor agreement (bias = 0.189, p = 0.000). Likewise, stride time from the accelerometer and force plates exhibited a small relationship (rs = −0.177, p = 0.310) and significant bias (bias = −0.026, p = 0.000), yet showed smaller limits of agreement. It was concluded that both of the methods for measuring sprinting asymmetry using accelerometer data had poor internal validity. However, of these measures, stride time showed the best capacity to calculate running symmetry during maximal effort sprints. Overall, it is suggested that coaches exhibit caution when interpreting running symmetry measures from accelerometers, and also carefully consider where the accelerometer is placed on the body.


The accurate display of synthetic images requires careful attention to color. Simply modeling color with an RGB triplet leads to color aliasing. Most color antialiasing techniques begin with a specification of color as a spectral energy distribution. There are two apparent hurdles to be overcome to support the spectral model in rendering systems. One is the difficulty of interactively designing a spectral description of a desired color. The other problem is the difficulty of converting existing and useful libraries of RGB triplets into equivalent spectral representations. A simple method that takes as input an RGB triplet viewed on a given monitor and computes a corresponding spectrum for use in a rendering system is presented.<<ETX>>


A fleet of tugs along the northern Norwegian coast must be dynamically positioned to minimise the risk of oil tanker drifting accidents. We have previously presented a receding horizon genetic algorithm (RHGA) for solving this tug fleet optimisation (TFO) problem. In this paper, we begin by presenting an overview of the TFO problem and the details of the RHGA. Next, we identify and correct a flaw in the original cost function of the RHGA. In addition, we present several new cost functions that can be used for dynamic resource allocation by an algorithm such as the RHGA. In a preliminary simulation study, we correct and extend the simulation scenarios used in our previous work and examine the merit of each of the suggested cost functions. Finally, we discuss the potential for an objective evaluation method for comparing various TFO algorithms and briefly present our TFO simulator.


Soybean 305423 was developed through particle bombardment and contains gm-fad2-1 and gm-hra expression cassettes, conferring a high oleic acid profile and tolerance to acetolactate synthase (ALS)-inhibiting herbicides. Bioinformatic analyses and genetic stability studies did not raise safety issues. Levels of the GM-HRA protein in soybean 305423 have been sufficiently analysed. Soybean 305423 differs from the conventional counterpart in the seed fatty acid profile and for the presence of the GM-HRA protein. It is agronomically equivalent to nonGM reference soybeans. The safety assessment of GM-HRA identified no concerns regarding potential toxicity and allergenicity. There are no indications that the overall allergenicity of soybean 305423 has changed. Nutritional assessment on soybean 305423 oil and derived food products did not identify concerns on human health and nutrition. There are no concerns regarding the use of feeding stuffs derived from soybean 305423. There are no indications of an increased likelihood of establishment and spread of feral GM soybean plants. Environmental risks associated with an unlikely, but theoretically possible, horizontal gene transfer from soybean 305423 to bacteria have not been identified. Potential biotic and abiotic interactions of soybean 305423 were not considered to be an issue owing to the low level of environmental exposure. The post-market environmental monitoring plan is in line with the scope of soybean 305423. The EFSA GMO Panel considers that the information available for soybean 305423 addresses the scientific comments raised by the Member States and states that the soybean 305423, as described in the application, is as safe as its conventional counterpart with respect to potential effects on human and animal health and the environment in the context of the scope. The GMO Panel recommends a post-market monitoring plan, focusing on the collection of consumption data for the European population, for the marketed foods and feed. © European Food Safety Authority, 2013 1 On request from the Competent Authority of the Netherlands for an application EFSA-GMO-NL-2007-45 submitted by Pioneer, Question No EFSA-Q-2007-122, adopted on 4 December 2013. 2 Panel members: Salvatore Arpaia, Andrew Nicholas Edmund Birch, Andrew Chesson, Patrick du Jardin, Achim Gathmann, Jürgen Gropp, Lieve Herman, Hilde-Gunn Hoen-Sorteberg, Huw Jones, József Kiss, Gijs Kleter, Martinus Løvik, Antoine Messéan, Hanspeter Naegeli, Kaare Magne Nielsen, Jaroslava Ovesná, Joe Perry, Nils Rostoks and Christoph Tebbe. Correspondence: email@example.com 3 Acknowledgement: The Panel wishes to thank the members of the Standing Working Groups on Molecular Characterisation, Food and Feed Risk Assessment and Environmental Risk Assessment: Thomas Frenzel, Annette Pöting and Hildegard Przyrembel for the preparatory work on this scientific opinion, and the EFSA staff members: Hermann Broll, Anna Christodoulidou, Zoltán Divéki, Anna Lanzoni, Yi Liu, Karine Lheureux and Sylvie Mestdagh for the support provided to this scientific opinion. Scientific opinion on GM soybean 305423 EFSA Journal 2013;11(12):3499 2


Two types of harmonics are investigated for induction motors: space harmonics and time harmonics. Space harmonics are generated due to the different phase windings interaction when the power supply is sinusoidal and they can be reduced by applying a proper machine design. As an example, the electromagnetic field and corresponding harmonics of an electrical machine are calculated using the finite element method, the harmonic winding factors show how the space harmonics can be reduced significantly by good winding design. Because of the wide application of variable frequency drives, time harmonics have become a main concern related to motor performance in field operations. The harmonic equivalent circuits are presented in this paper for both space and time harmonics and they are powerful tools to calculate the motor parameters such as harmonic currents and torques. The formulas to calculate the harmonic slips and torques are derived, and the torque characteristics for both types of harmonics are compared


The calculation of standard reliability indices is critical for assessing quality service and guiding the planning and operation of distribution systems. Traditionally, such calculation has relied on the application of analytical methods based on simulation techniques, which preclude the use of exact methodologies when reliability assessment is incorporated into operation and planning models. This shortcoming has been recently addressed by the development of two optimization-based approaches for the analytical reliability assessment of distribution systems. Unfortunately, both methods are either incomplete or computationally expensive as compared with those based on simulation. In order to overcome these issues, this paper presents a novel and efficient algebraic approach to calculate the standard network-dependent reliability indices of distribution systems. As a distinctive feature over previous non-simulation-based methods, no optimization process is involved. Thus, the proposed approach relies on the solution of a set of linear equations for which effective algorithms are available. Several benchmarks including a real-life 1080-node system have been used to demonstrate the computational superiority of the proposed method. The successful numerical experience supports the suitability of the proposed algebraic model for reliability-constrained distribution system operation and planning.


Abstract Helicases are enzymes that use the energy derived from ATP hydrolysis to catalyze the unwinding of DNA or RNA. The RecQ family of helicases is conserved through evolution from prokaryotes to higher eukaryotes and plays important roles in various DNA repair pathways, contributing to the maintenance of genome integrity. Despite their roles as general tumor suppressors, there is now considerable interest in exploiting RecQ helicases as synthetic lethal targets for the development of new cancer therapeutics. In this review, we summarize the latest developments in the structural and mechanistic study of RecQ helicases and discuss their roles in various DNA repair pathways. Finally, we consider the potential to exploit RecQ helicases as therapeutic targets and review the recent progress towards the development of small molecules targeting RecQ helicases as cancer therapeutics.


The effect of kanamycin on the kidney function and the possibility of decreasing its side effect of pyrimidines were studied in240 children at the age of 2 month to 14 years (161 children with acute and chronic osteomyelitis and 79 children with staphylococcal destruction of the lungs). Kanamycin used in doses of 15000 and 25000 Units/kg of the body weight for 6 to 7 days in treatment of the children with staphylococcal destruction of the lungs, acute and chronic osteomyelitis had no nephrotoxic effect. Combination of kanamycin with pentoxyl, pryimidine derivative significantly improved the kidney function, which was evident from the content of the residual nitrogen in the blood serum and increased glomerural filtration. Combined use of kanamycin with pentoxyl promoted a decrease in albuminuria and leucocyturia. The data of the study provided recommendation of increased therapeutic doses of kanamycin, up to 15000--25000 Units/kg of the body weight in accordance with the recommendations under conditions of constant control of the kidney function.


Thirty-five of 77 patients (46%) with Burkitt's lymphoma presented or developed evidence of central nervous system involvement by tumor. Neurologic abnormalities included paraplegia, cranial neuropathy, altered levels of consciousness and malignant pleocytosis. An analysis of this series disclosed the following: Paraplegia is a common presenting feature of Burkitt's lymphoma and is responsive to systemic chemotherapy. The association of cranial neuropathy and malignant pleocytosis with facial tumors points to direct tumor extension to intracranial structures (duraarachnoid) as the pathogenesis of these lesions. Intrathecal chemotherapy temporarily reverses malignant pleocytosis but systemic chemotherapy is required to treat cranial neuropathy. A poor prognosis follows presentation or development of malignant pleocytosis. The limitations of the current forms of therapy for CNS involvement are discussed.


Abstract : In June 2005, legislation that would open the way for commercial cultivation of industrial hemp in the United States was introduced at the federal level for the first time. H.R. 3037, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005, would amend Section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802(16)) to specify that the term marijuana does not include industrial hemp. Such a change would mean that state law would determine whether producers could grow and process industrial hemp within state borders, under state regulations. Currently, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) determines whether any industrial hemp production authorized under a state statute will be permitted, and it enforces standards governing the security conditions under which the crop must be grown. The terms hemp and industrial hemp refer to varieties of Cannabis sativa characterized by low levels of the primary psychoactive chemical (tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC) in their leaves and flowers. Although total industrial hemp acreage worldwide is small, farmers in more than 30 countries grow the crop commercially for fiber, seed, and oil for use in a variety of industrial and consumer products, including food. Because of the psychoactive properties of some varieties of Cannabis (which can grow virtually anywhere in the United States), the federal government first began to control production in the late 1930s under the Marihuana Tax Act (50 Stat. 551). In 1970, production of all varieties of Cannabis, regardless of THC content and intended use, became tightly regulated under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802 et seq.). As a result, all hemp or hemp-containing products sold in the United States must now be imported or manufactured from imported hemp. In the early 1990s a sustained resurgence of interest in allowing commercial cultivation of industrial hemp began in the United States.


BACKGROUND
Aggression is a disposition, a willingness to inflict harm, regardless of whether this is behaviourally or verbally expressed and regardless of whether physical harm is sustained.De-escalation is a psychosocial intervention for managing people with disturbed or aggressive behaviour. Secondary management strategies such as rapid tranquillisation, physical intervention and seclusion should only be considered once de-escalation and other strategies have failed to calm the service user.

OBJECTIVES
To investigate the effects of de-escalation techniques in the short-term management of aggression or agitation thought or likely to be due to psychosis.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's Study-Based Register of Trials (latest search 7 April, 2016).

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised controlled trials using de-escalation techniques for the short-term management of aggressive or agitated behaviour. We planned to include trials involving adults (at least 18 years) with a potential for aggressive behaviour due to psychosis, from those in a psychiatric setting to those possibly under the influence of alcohol or drugs and/or as part of an acute setting as well. We planned to include trials meeting our inclusion criteria that provided useful data.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We used the standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane. Two review authors inspected all abstracts of studies identified by the search process. As we were unable to include any studies, we could not perform data extraction and analysis.

MAIN RESULTS
Of the 345 citations that were identified using the search strategies, we found only one reference to be potentially suitable for further inspection. However, after viewing the full text, it was excluded as it was not a randomised controlled trial.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Using de-escalation techniques for people with psychosis induced aggression or agitation appears to be accepted as good clinical practice but is not supported by evidence from randomised trials. It is unclear why it has remained such an under-researched area. Conducting trials in this area could be influenced by funding flow, ethical concerns - justified or not - anticipated pace of recruitment as well the difficulty in accurately quantifying the effects of de-escalation itself. With supportive funders and ethics committees, imaginative trialists, clinicians and service-user groups and wide collaboration this dearth of randomised research could be addressed.


Abstract Over a lifetime, cortex performs a vast number of different cognitive actions, mostly dependent on experience. Previously it has not been known how such capabilities can be reconciled, even in principle, with the known resource constraints on cortex, such as low connectivity and low average synaptic strength. Here we describe neural circuits and associated algorithms that respect the brain's most basic resource constraints and support the execution of high numbers of cognitive actions when presented with natural inputs. Our circuits simultaneously support a suite of four basic kinds of task, each requiring some circuit modification: hierarchical memory formation, pairwise association, supervised memorization, and inductive learning of threshold functions. The capacity of our circuits is established by experiments in which sequences of several thousand such actions are simulated by computer and the circuits created tested for subsequent efficacy. Our underlying theory is apparently the only biologically plausible systems-level theory of learning and memory in cortex for which such a demonstration has been performed, and we argue that no general theory of information processing in the brain can be considered viable without such a demonstration.


Developed societies require more and more information for their safety and for their economic development. Recent disasters due to landslides, fires in tunnels and collapses of bridges are a source of serious concern on the part of the public which seeks for more safety and for an efficient prevention of these frequent recurrences of dangers. Sensing in adverse environment and extreme conditions requires dedicated techniques. Quite recent technologies may offer novel valuable solutions and give rise to a strenuous research effort. Optical technologies are an essential actor owing to their tremendous capability to transmit and process a high density of information. Optical fibre is a key component for these technologies and its potential for optical processing and for collecting information as sensing probe is still widely unexplored. The development and the popularity of telecommunications have entirely screened the fact that optical fibres may be efficiently used for sensing purposes. In this paper we present applications of a novel technique using optical fibres to monitor large structures for safety purpose. The fibre is used as sensing element and can provide distributed measurements of quantities like temperature or strain. In other words a value of temperature and/or strain can be obtained for any point along the fibre. This is made possible by using a nonlinear optical effect in the fibre called Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS). Optical fibre sensors based on stimulated Brillouin scattering have now clearly demonstrated their excellent capability for long-range distributed strain and temperature measurements. The Brillouin interaction causes the coupling between optical and acoustic waves when a resonance condition is fulfilled. It turns out that this resonance condition is strain and temperature-dependent, so that determining the resonance frequency directly provides a measure of temperature or strain. The resonance frequency is an intrinsic property of the material that may be observed in any silica fibre. This is very attractive since the bare fibre itself acts as sensing element without any special processing or preparation on the fibre. Standard optical cables may thus be used, resulting in a low-cost sensing element that may be left in the structure. Since the optical effect only depends on the fibre material, it is absolutely stable in time and independent of the instrument. Different measurements performed over a long-term period are thus fully comparable. The latest developments in this class of sensors will be shown, such as the possibility to measure with a spatial resolution of 10 cm and below, while preserving the full accuracy on the determination of temperature and strain. Illustrative examples of site measurements will be presented and future prospects will be discussed.


A novel transistorized-LC-ladder low-pass filter (LPF) is realized by combining source followers with Q-enhanced floating differential active inductors. It features a small number of active devices to minimize the sources of nonlinearity and noise and a robust frequency response against process variations and device mismatches. A fifth-order 20-MHz LPF prototype is fabricated in 90-nm CMOS. It measures a 58.2-dB spurious-free dynamic range with 6.8 mW of power, which corresponds to a selectivity efficiency of 68-μW/pole/MHz favorably comparable with the state of the art. The die size is merely 0.13 mm.


Abstract This article aims to prepare novel shape-stabilized phase change materials (PCMs) by encapsulating fatty acids (stearic acid [SA], palmitic acid [PA], and myristic acid [MA]) as a PCM in an acrylic resin (Eudragit E) as supporting material and to determine latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) properties. The maximum percentage of all fatty acids in the shape-stabilized PCMs was found to be 70 wt% in which no fatty acid seepage was observed as the blends were heated over the melting points of the fatty acids. The optic microscope (OM) investigation demonstrated that fatty acid domains were coated by Eudragit E. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) results revealed that the interactions between Eudragit E and fatty acids were only adequate for adhesion of Eudragit E on fatty acid domains. Single phase was observed for the blends by OM, and interactions between the components were investigated by FT-IR spectroscopy. The melting and freezing temperatures and latent heats of the shape-stabilized PCMs were measured by the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) method. Based on the results, it was concluded that Eudragit E/MA, Eudragit E/PA, and Eudragit E/SA blends (30/70 wt%) have good utility potential for LHTES purposes in terms of their satisfying thermal properties and advantages of easy preparation in desired dimensions, direct usefulness function in LHTES systems, and cost effectiveness.


Hydrogen sulphide (H2 S), a new gas signal molecule, participates in the regulation of various abiotic stresses in plants. However, how the tandem working of H2 S and rhizobia affects the adaptation of soybean to water deficiency is still unclear. In this study, we investigated the adaptation mechanism of H2 S and rhizobia in soybean to water deficiency. Our results revealed that H2 S and rhizobia jointly enhanced the leaf chlorophyll content and relative water content in plants, and caused an increase in the biomass of soybean seedlings under water deficiency. Besides, in the absence of water, H2 S enhanced the biomass by affecting the number of nodules and nitrogenase activity during vegetative growth. The expression of nodulation marker genes including early nodulin 40 (GmENOD40), ERF required for nodulation (GmERN), and nodulation inception genes (GmNIN1a, GmNIN2a, and GmNIN2b) were up-regulated by H2 S and rhizobia in the nodules. Moreover, the combined effect of H2 S and rhizobia was proved to affect the enzyme activities and gene expression level of antioxidants, as well as osmotic protective substance content and related gene expression levels under water deficiency in soybean seedlings. In addition, the metabolomic results suggested that the combined effect of H2 S and rhizobia remarkably promoted the contents of lipids and lipid-like molecules. Our results indicated that H2 S and rhizobia synergistically reduced the oxidative damage caused by water deficiency through increasing the accumulation of metabolites and strengthening the plant antioxidant capacity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.