Objectives: Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder that can be divided into typical and atypical forms. Atypical forms can show extraintestinal manifestations among which oral signs are very frequent. Considering that the pathogenesis of CD is related to a positivity to specific HLA-DQB1 haplotypes, we tested whether the presence of the HLA-DQB1*02 allele could be a hypothetical cause of the development of oral manifestations. Subjects and Methods: For this study was been examined the oral condition of 98 Sardinian patients, all affected by CD and all on a gluten-free diet for at least 1 year. Then was been determined each patient's HLA-DQB1 haplotype and compared these results with clinical information. Results: The statistical analysis evidenced that the absence of the HLA-DQB1*02 allele predisposes to oral manifestations such as dental enamel defects (DED) and recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) (Pvalue=5.98x10-05, OR = 0.23, CI: (0.10 - 0.45) per each copy of the HLA allele). Conclusions: These results showed that the presence of the HLA-DQB1*02 allele influences the development of oral signs in a dose-dependent manner and also how the HLA haplotype connected to oral signs could have a fundamental role for the diagnosis of atypical forms of CD.


This paper deals with the influence of open innovation in cultural and creative industries. Creative industries can often be characterized as territorialized industries. Their territorial anchor constitutes a structural characteristic, with a strong influence on the innovation process, and on the conditions of valorization of cultural goods. So, the interpretation highlights the privileged role of shared and situated innovation: concerning the construction of a cooperative model, intellectual property protection, risk reduction, influence of public policies, and conditions for developing and capturing externalities. By contributing to the deployment of specialized assets in cultural and creative industries, open innovation reinforces the factors for a differentiation advantage. The pervasiveness of open innovation and the diffusion of spillovers among creative industries also rely on the economy of contribution, in the framework of the digital economy, local systems of innovation and the third sector. The economy of contribution results from the relations between contributors and from the spillover effects, in creative industries. Thus, open innovation and contribution are increasingly involved in "cognitive-cultural production systems", based upon the growth and spillovers of creative industries. The differentiation advantage linked to industries and territories now depends on territorial design, combining the driving forces of open innovation, creative entrepreneurship, and the metropolitan cultural governance.JEL Codes: A13, D62, D63, L86, R12, Z11


The study aims to determine the effect of various strength of juice content (100%, 75%, 50% and 25%) on the chemical and sensory qualities of the wines. Sensory analysis showed that there was no significant difference among all the products with respect to colour but showed significant difference with other respect. The product prepared from 50% juice content got the highest mean score in sensory analysis. Changing pattern of pH, total sugar, TSS and acidity in all fermentations were similar but differed significantly with respect to their changing values. The average pH, Total soluble solids (TSS- oBx), alcohol content (% m/v), acidity (% citric acid), total sugar (% dextrose) of the best product i.e juice content of 75% were found to be 3.53, 10, 6, 0.82, 6.12 respectively. Wine made from other formulations (juice content) were significantly different (at 5% level of significance) from the best formulation with respect to TSS, alcohol content, total sugar and pH but showed similarities with the product made from 100% juice content in respect of acidity. Fermentation mash containing 50% juice content, 50% water, 20oBx TSS, and 3.4 pH was found to be optimum for wine preparation using wine yeast at ambient temperature. The optimized recipes were cost effective over other tested variations. Sunsari Technical College Journal 2015, 2(1):17-22


A novel nano-material of carbon rod studded iron granules on its surface was prepared from needle coke with iron as catalyst by arc method in the vacuum condition. Its structure and composition was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). In the SEM images the carbon material showed cotton-like. The TEM results showed that the nano-material was bar-like with diameter of 20nm to 50nm and there were lots of iron particles studded on its surface. The analytical result of EDS showed that the chemical composition of materials mainly consisted of carbon and iron elements. The XRD analysis revealed that there were two sharp diffraction peaks, one was at 26.2° which corresponded to the (002) plane of graphite structure and the other was at 43.2° which corresponded to the (fcc) γ-Fe structure. The nano-material might be used as catalyst in the chemical reaction.


Abstract Data assimilation for multi-scale models is an important contemporary research topic. Especially the role of unresolved scales and model error in data assimilation needs to be systematically addressed. Here we examine these issues using the Ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) with the two-level Lorenz-96 model as a conceptual prototype model of the multi-scale climate system. We use stochastic parameterization schemes to mitigate the model errors from the unresolved scales. Our results indicate that a third-order autoregressive process performs better than a first-order autoregressive process in the stochastic parameterization schemes, especially for the system with a large time-scale separation.Model errors can also arise from imprecise model parameters. We find that the accuracy of the analysis (an optimal estimate of a model state) is linearly correlated to the forcing error in the Lorenz-96 model. Furthermore, we propose novel observation strategies to deal with the fact that the dimension of the observations is much smaller than the model states. We also propose a new analog method to increase the size of the ensemble when its size is too small.


The Business Events industry has tremendous economic importance for many destinations worldwide. With increasing competition, it has become crucial for event organisations to find innovative ways to add value and to make their events more distinctive for their attendees and to enhance the sustainability of this industry. There is evidence that the event mobile application is one of the most popular tools that is used to enhance event experiences. However, there is little research as to whether attendees actually use or like this technology. Additionally, it is critical for event organisers to understand the impacts of this technology on attendee satisfaction and future intentions, which helps underpin the sustainability of this industry. Thus, this study attempts to fill this gap by establishing a conceptual framework – namely, the 'Business Events IS framework' - to investigate how event mobile application adoption impacts the business events industry.
Employing a sequential mixed-methods approach with a three-stage research design, data were collected in the UK using semi-structured interviews, participant observations and a quantitative survey. Phase 1 employed a semi-structured interview with 13 event organisers, while Phase 2 of the research involved 25 semi-structured interviews with conference attendees as well as participant observation at three conferences. Phase 3 conducted a survey involving 428 conference attendees. Thematic analysis was applied to analyse data collected in Phases 1 and 2, and covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) was undertaken in Phase 3. In this study, findings are divided into three main parts. First, the findings from the interviews with event organisers demonstrated that event mobile applications play an important role in facilitating engagement between event organisers and attendees. This engagement occurred in a variety ways including information provision, excitement creation, engagement with sessions, games, facilitation of attendee networking, evaluation of event sessions and promotion of subsequent events. Furthermore, the findings also identified internal and external factors that shape ICT adoption, particularly event mobile applications in conferences. Attendee apathy and technological issues were found to be key barriers to the adoption of event mobile applications. The findings from this first section were combined and conceptualised as a framework of 'Event mobile application adoption process – event organiser's perspectives. The second part of the findings was based on interviews with attendees as well as participant observations. It was found that perceived engagement benefits motivated the use of event mobile applications. These perceived engagement benefits were perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and social benefits. In terms of engagement activities, information searching, planning, engaging and socialising, sharing event experiences, navigating and sharing event contents were identified as activities that attendees usually perform through their event mobile application. This study also identified the importance of event mobile application experience as a key determinant of overall event satisfaction, re-attendance intention and continuance intention. The findings from Phase 2 were then combined with literature relating to the proposed conceptual framework and further investigated in Phase 3 of the study. The key elements that were explored are perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, social benefits, event mobile application experience evaluation, overall event satisfaction, continuance intention and re-attendance intention. Finally, the findings from a survey showed that perceived engagement benefits have a positive influence on overall event satisfaction except for perceived enjoyment. However, these factors have an indirect influence on overall event satisfaction through event mobile application experience evaluation. In addition, it was found that the adoption of event mobile applications influences the long-term of business events in terms of re-attendance and re-use of the event mobile application through overall event satisfaction. The findings of this study provide an increased understanding of event mobile application usage in the business events industry and how it can impact to the sustainability of this industry. More specifically, this study identifies the factors that motivate attendees to adopt an event mobile application and demonstrates how event organisers and attendees use event mobile applications to engage with each other. The findings also underpin a range of strategies to help event organisers and event mobile application developers to be more successful in using this technology. These strategies include the provision of more IT support (e.g. Internet connection, charging area) and improved event mobile application features (e.g. interaction features, agenda). Additionally, event organisers need to do increase the level of mobile application promotion they undertake in order to increase the event mobile application adoption rate.


The Stroop and stop-signal tasks are commonly used to index prepotent response inhibition in studies of cognitive development and individual differences. Inhibitory measures from the two tasks have been derived using a variety of methods. Findings of low inter-correlations amongst these measures have been interpreted as evidence for different kinds of inhibitory functions. Our previous study found Stroop and stop-signal accuracy measures to be uncorrelated and they loaded on different inhibitory components in a principal component analysis. The present study examined whether this finding is replicated across different task contexts, derived measures, and methods of derivation. Adolescents (N = 247) were administered a number-quantity Stroop and word and number stop-signal tasks. For each stop-signal task, inhibitory efficiency was estimated using a stop-signal reaction time measure estimated with the central versus the integration methods. For the Stroop interference task, inhibitory efficiency was indexed by reaction time measures (including inverse efficiency scores) generated from difference scores and regression residuals, and delta-plot slopes. The reaction time measures from the two tasks were generally not correlated. The only exception was that Stroop inhibitory ability, indexed by Stroop errors, was related to stop-signal inhibitory efficiency, indexed by stop-signal reaction time. These findings are consistent with previous findings suggesting that measures from the Stroop and stop-signal tasks are influenced by different underlying processes. The impact of variations in dependent measure derivation on the resulting reliabilities of Stroop and stop-signal measures and on observed correlations between them were examined. Variables that may have contributed to the null findings are discussed.


Metabolites such as diaminopimelate and some aromatic derivatives, not synthesized in mammalian cells, are essential for growth of bacteria. As a first step towards the design of a new human live vaccine that uses attenuated strains of Leptospira interrogans, the asd, aroD and dapD genes, encoding aspartate beta-semialdehyde dehydrogenase, 3-dehydroquinase and tetrahydrodipicolinate N-succinyltransferase, respectively, were cloned by complementation of Escherichia coli mutants. The complete nucleotide sequence of the asd gene was determined and found to contain an open reading frame capable of encoding a protein of 349 amino acids with a calculated Mr of 38,007. Comparison of this deduced L. interrogans aspartate beta-semialdehyde dehydrogenase amino acid sequence with those of the same enzyme from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Corynebacterium glutamicum revealed 46% and 36% identity, respectively. By contrast, the identity between the L. interrogans enzyme and the Streptococcus mutans or E. coli enzymes was less than 31%. Highly conserved sequences within aspartate semialdehyde dehydrogenase from the five organisms were observed at the amino and carboxyl termini, and around the cysteine of the active site.


Summary The paper records some observations on swallow holes and mines in the Chalk and their effects on road construction, drawing examples from recent motorway construction for the M4 and M40 in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. The forms and modes of origin of swallow holes are discussed and it is shown that percolation of rainwater can dissolve enough chalk to account for the formation of the smaller examples. Besides ground survey, air photographs are effective for locating swallow holes having surface expression of some kind, but no method has so far been generally successful in detecting those that have no surface expression. The engineering significance of swallow holes is the necessity of securing carriageways and bridges against possible subsidence caused by them. Various methods that have been used are mentioned and it is suggested that in areas at risk the completed road should be kept under surveillance against the appearance of new swallow holes. The paper concludes with an account of the discovery and inspection of an old unrecorded mine in the Chalk and the engineering measures that were taken to deal with it.


Results of metal researches of long-term storage beams are considered. It is determined that the steel of beams meets the requirements of Norms. Their acceptability for construction of bridges is established.


SuperFETTM MOSFETs and silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky diodes are applied to continuous conduction mode active power factor correction pre-regulators. SuperFETTM MOSFETs can reduce power losses dramatically with their extremely low RDS(ON) and fast switching. The SiC Schottky diode has virtually zero reverse recovery current and high thermal conductivity, and is close to an ideal diode for a CCM PFC circuit. Due to these outstanding switching characteristics, frequency can be increased. In this paper, the SiC Schottky diode's and SuperFETTM MOSFET's performance have been verified in a CCM PFC boost converter. These products can reduce the total power losses and enhance the system efficiency.


Abstract The control of wall loads in fusion devices, in particular with respect to the life time limitations of wall components due to material erosion and migration, will be decisive for the realisation of a fusion power plant operating in steady state, while in a pulsed experiment like ITER the primary goal for plasma-wall interaction is the achievement of a high availability. The article describes the grand challenges of plasma-wall interaction research along the needs for ITER and the strategies of ongoing research for further optimization of the design. Addressed are questions related to material limitations, erosion- and transport processes, tritium retention in deposited layers and transient heat loads.


Four new layered pentaborates Rb4Ba2.5B20O34Br, Rb2Ba4B20O34Br2, Rb4Ba2.5B20O34Cl, and KBaB5O9 have been successfully synthesized via a high-temperature solution method; the former three are the first series of compounds reported in the Rb-Ba-B-O-X (X = halogen) system. Interestingly, the structures of the above compounds are composed of the same [B5O11]7- fundamental building block (FBB), which could be further linked to form 2∞[B10O17]4- double layers for the former three compounds and 2∞[B5O9]3- single layers for the last one. The structure comparisons among all the available anhydrous pentaborates reveal that the structures of the anionic framework are affected by the relationship between the orientation of [B5O11]7- FBB axes and the layer plane (parallel or perpendicular), which will produce the different number of terminal O atoms in the initial pentaborate blocks. The viewpoints give us a feasible way to investigate the layered structures and expand the structural diversity of borates. Furthermore, the infrared spectra, UV-vis-NIR diffuse reflectance spectra, and thermal behaviors of these compounds were also studied.


Background: Burnout syndrome is the most dangerous threatening factor of workers' health among health professionals. Hardiness as a personality trait modifies the way people deal with stress and resiliency is employed on those who are exposed to risk but would not be impaired. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between burnout, tenacity and resilience among health house workers in the health network of Kamyaran city. Methods: This is a cross sectional study which has been done on 90 health house workers in the city of Kamyaran. Data collection was done through questionnaires of hardiness Kobasa, Connor and Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RIS) and Occupational Burnout Maslach. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16 statistical software. Results: The data analysis showed that there is a direct relationship between the resilience and Hardiness (409 /0 =R). There is a significant inverse relationship between resilience and emotional analysis (384/0-=r) and there is a significant negative correlation between resiliency and depersonalization (372/0-r). There is also a significant inverse relationship between Hardiness and emotional analysis (342/0-=r). There is a significant inverse relationship between hardiness and depersonalization (435/0=r). Finally, it was shown that there is no significant relationship between resilience and Hardiness with the lack of personal accomplishment (780/0=R). Conclusion: resilience and Hardiness were seen as the predictors of burnout among health workers in health network in the city of Kamyaran.


Abdominal and mental symptoms were assessed in 103 outpatients with chronic peptic ulcer disease. Patients with present symptoms and a history of duodenal or prepyloric ulcer were included if they had no other disorder requiring treatment. A normal female population was used for comparison of mental symptoms. Besides the cardinal ulcer or acid-related symptoms, there was a high rate of indigestion and bowel dysfunction symptoms, usually associated with the irritable bowel syndrome. Mental symptoms were reported by almost all patients. Symptoms of anxiety, depression, and neurasthenia were seen significantly more often among the female patients than in the normal women. We conclude that a wide range of both abdominal and mental symptoms should be taken into account in the therapeutic management of peptic ulcer disease, in evaluation of clinical trials, and in studies of the natural history.


Abstract Genetic mutations in nitrogen permease regulator-like 2 (NPRL2) are associated with a wide spectrum of familial focal epilepsies, autism, and sudden unexpected death of epileptics (SUDEP), but the mechanisms by which NPRL2 contributes to these effects are not well known. NPRL2 is a requisite subunit of the GAP activity toward Rags 1 (GATOR1) complex, which functions as a negative regulator of mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) kinase when intracellular amino acids are low. Here, we show that loss of NPRL2 expression in mouse excitatory glutamatergic neurons causes seizures before death, consistent with SUDEP in humans with epilepsy. Additionally, the absence of NPRL2 expression increases mTORC1-dependent signal transduction and significantly alters amino acid homeostasis in the brain. Loss of NPRL2 reduces dendritic branching and increases the strength of electrically stimulated action potentials (APs) in neurons. The increased AP strength is consistent with elevated expression of epilepsy-linked, voltage-gated sodium channels in the NPRL2-deficient brain. Targeted deletion of NPRL2 in primary neurons increases the expression of sodium channel Scn1A, whereas treatment with the pharmacological mTORC1 inhibitor called rapamycin prevents Scn1A upregulation. These studies demonstrate a novel role of NPRL2 and mTORC1 signaling in the regulation of sodium channels, which can contribute to seizures and early lethality.


This paper focuses on assessing gas drainage performance from vertical surface goaf holes in an operating mine with high specific gas emission rates (~20 m3/t). Field monitoring results of gas flow rate and gas composition collected from individual gas drainage holes were analysed. The major challenge of implementing the full potential of goaf drainage system is the perceived risk of spontaneous combustion (sponcom) in goaf using arbitrary trigger set points. Although the provenance on the introduction and reasons for the use of CO is unknown, the paper highlights that the current use of CO based trigger action response plan (TARP) for sponcom management leads to the premature closure of goaf holes, which largely constrains goaf hole gas drainage performance and has a significant bearing on longwall gas management. The CO concentration in gas captured by goaf holes is found to be positively correlated with O2 concentration and negatively correlated with CH4. Building upon abundant field measurement data, goaf gas profiles for CO, O2, CH4 and CO2 concentration were established, which suggest that the increase trend of CO level behind the face is a normal behaviour of goaf closure and would recover to trivial concentration after 300 m deep into the goaf. The paper provides the basis to eliminate or review the use of CO triggers in current surface goaf gas management TARP levels of longwall panels, which has detrimental effect on longwall TG gas management for explosion prevention.


It is widely established that vitamin D is critical for bone health. There is also an increasing body of evidence from observational studies that low levels of vitamin D are associated with a range of other disorders, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. People in temperate climates are often deficient in vitamin D, particularly in wintertime. The key question is whether there is sufficient evidence to justify supplementing vitamin D intakes for all. In this 'Controversy in Medicine', two international experts argue the case 'for' and 'against' universal vitamin D supplementation.


As the feature sizes in VLSI technology shrink to less than 100 nm the effects due to the quantisation of electronic charge begin to emerge. There are a small number of carriers and impurities and the statistical variation in their number have significant effects on the threshold characteristics of the devices that hamper their large scale integration into future ULSI.The complex potential landscape arising from the Coulomb force, with its sharp localised peaks and troughs, faces problems due to band limiting in meshes and places heavy burdens on the integration techniques. A computationally efficient solution to the problem of band-limiting is presented and is shown to provide an accurate description of the electrostatics. This work also introduces a highly efficient and numerically stable multigrid solver, for Poisson's equation, that can cope with the complex potential distributions on large meshes.The study of ionised impurity scattering is used to validate these molecular dynamics simulations. Results have shown that the Brownian method - despite precluding the use of adaptive integration schemes - gives a good approximation to the standard results and has the advantage of smoothing away errors that can build up during the integration of motion and drives the system towards thermal equilibrium.The greatest hurdle to be cleared before these three-dimensional simulations can be practicable is the sheer computational effort that is required. The implementation of the problem on parallel architectures has been explored and discussed.The methods developed in this work are demonstrated through the simulation of an 80 nm dual-gate MESFET. The results were verified by comparing them with those from a commercial drift-diffusion simulator.The threshold behaviour of devices has been investigated through the study of the formation of conduction channels in blocks. The percolation threshold gives the point when conductive paths form across the gate barrier. The results from the FET simulation were found to be in agreement with the earlier studies on the blocks.


The Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) is a coded aperture gamma-ray instrument with a large field of view that primarily operates in survey mode when it is not triggering on transient events. The survey data consists of eighty-channel detector plane histograms that accumulate photon counts over time periods of at least 5 minutes. These histograms are processed on the ground and are used to produce the survey dataset between $14$ and $195$ keV. Survey data comprises $>90\%$ of all BAT data by volume and allows for the tracking of long term light curves and spectral properties of cataloged and uncataloged hard X-ray sources. Until now, the survey dataset has not been used to its full potential due to the complexity associated with its analysis and the lack of easily usable pipelines. Here, we introduce the BatAnalysis python package , a wrapper for HEASoftpy, which provides a modern, open-source pipeline to process and analyze BAT survey data. BatAnalysis allows members of the community to use BAT survey data in more advanced analyses of astrophysical sources including pulsars, pulsar wind nebula, active galactic nuclei, and other known/unknown transient events that may be detected in the hard X-ray band. We outline the steps taken by the python code and exemplify its usefulness and accuracy by analyzing survey data from the Crab Pulsar, NGC 2992, and a previously uncataloged MAXI Transient. The BatAnalysis package allows for $\sim$ 18 years of BAT survey to be used in a systematic way to study a large variety of astrophysical sources.


This study qualitatively explored how young adult men on probation or parole view the components of psychosocial maturation that contribute to criminal desistance. The authors conducted nine focus groups with 40 men on probation or parole, including seven groups with men aged 18 to 25 years. Two additional focus groups were conducted with older men (ages 29-60 years) to refine our evolving understanding. According to the participants, psychosocial maturation processes of personal growth, learning from mistakes, considering consequences before acting, developing and executing long-range plans, improving peer associations, and recognizing and responding to a motivating event all contributed to their desire to change their course of criminal offending. These components map well onto existing theories of psychosocial maturation and criminal desistance and lend further insight into how young adult men perceive the psychological, emotional, and cognitive factors that can support their desistance goals.


Given the prevalence and effectiveness of agile methods at a team level, large organizations are now attempting to mimic this success at large scale by adopting large-scale methods such as Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Spotify, and Large Scale Scrum (LeSS). However, compared to insights on traditionally small scale methods, the extant literature provides sparse coverage on theories to examine large-scale agile transformations. In this article, we focus on the challenge of normalizing large scale agile transformations and apply Normalization Process Theory (NPT) to support theorize about this process. We present our initial case study findings and outline future research on the application of NPT for large-scale transformations. From a research and practice perspective, we explain how NPT can be adopted to focus on the processes of embedding and sustaining practices, activities which are very often ignored, yet central to the success or failure of transformations.


EFFECTS OF VARYING DEGREES OF FIXED AND RANDOM RESPONDING ON THE VALIDITY OF SCORE INTERPRETATION FOR SP AND PSY-5 SCALESOF THE MMPI2-2-RF Joseph Brooks Minifie Virginia Consortium Program, 2015 Director: Dr. Richard Handel The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – 2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2RF; Tellegen & Ben-Porath, 2008/2011) is a widely used self-report measure of psychopathology and personality. However, the self-report format of the MMPI-2-RF suggests that interpretation of its scales and the clinical recommendations that follow are vulnerable to invalid response styles. This dissertation builds upon previous research (Handel, Ben-Porath, Tellegen, & Archer, 2010) to examine the effect of random and fixed responding, as measured by the VRIN-r and TRIN-r Scales, on the 28 SP and PSY-5 Scales. A computer simulation procedure was used to insert increasing degrees of inconsistent responding into protocols from two large samples (N = 2, 276 and N = 704). Results indicated that increasing degrees of inconsistent responding increase SP and PSY-5 Scale mean T-scores and weaken external criterion validity. Further, certain SP and PSY-5 Scales evidenced large changes in mean T-scores at relatively low levels of simulated inconsistent responding. Implications of these results and future areas of investigation are discussed.


This presentation reflects on the origins of the term sarcopenia. The Greek roots of the word are sarx for flesh and penia for loss. The term actually describes important changes in body composition and related functions. Clearly defining sarcopenia will allow investigators to appropriately classify patients and examine underlying pathogenic mechanisms and will allow funding agencies to appropriately target research funds to a taxonomically distinct syndrome.


A rare case of cecal volvulus that was preoperatively diagnosed and surgically treated is herein reported. An 85-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital because of abdominal pain and distension concomitant with nausea and vomiting. She had no past history of laparotomy. Her abdomen showed distention with muscle rigidity and positivity for Blumberg's sign. Plain abdominal X-ray showed a markedly air-distended bowel segment in the right lower abdomen associated with dilated small intestine. An abdominal computed tomography showed extremely dilated bowel in the right lower abdomen that resembled a "coffee bean" in appearance. However, there was no evidence of air-distention in the descending colon. A colonoscopy did not show any bowel obstruction of the left side colon. We diagnosed a cecal volvulus associated with intestinal strangulation. An emergency laparotomy was thus performed. During the laparotomy, the ileocecal region, which was unfixed at the retroperitoneum, was found to be twisted clockwise 360°around the mesentery with the terminal ileum, thus resulting in a diagnosis of cecal volvulus. Since the colonic wall demonstrated vascular compromise and patchy gangrene, we therefore conducted an ileocecal resection without detorsion and reperfusion, followed by primary anastomosis. The patient recovered with minor complication. This case demonstrates the need for clinicians to consider cecal volvulus as a possible cause of acute abdomen. Abdominal computed tomography studies in such patients may enable early diagnosis. Resection without detorsion and reperfusion is the favored option for gangrenous bowel. ACTA MEDICA NAGASAKIENSIA 53: 73-76, 2008


In recent years several African countries have embarked on reforms aimed at structurally transforming their economies to minimize their dependence on primary exports and generate greater employment opportunities through value-addition. Meanwhile, the recently adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Africa's continental development initiative (i.e., Agenda 2063) call on member countries to integrate environmental, social and economic sustainability considerations into their transformation initiatives and to avoid the untenable "grow first and clean up later" strategy pursued by industrialized countries. This paradigm shift essentially makes sustainability an integral component of any structural transformation initiative going forward. However, the experiences of industrialized and emerging countries highlight potential trade-offs between growth, social inclusion and environmental conservation. For instance, China's transformation has been associated with steep declines in poverty but rising inequalities and dramatic increases in the level of greenhouse gas emissions. How will the pursuit of sustainable development influence structural transformation pathways in Africa? We argue that sustainable structural transformation requires careful sequencing of policies to minimize trade-offs and leverage synergies among the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Drawing on the New Structuralist Economics school of thought which posits that structural transformation requires factor endowment upgrading underpinned by active government intervention, we identify three mutually reinforcing areas of intervention to catalyze sustainable structural transformation in Africa: investments in human development; investments in energy; and leveraging innovations in mobile telephone technologies for financial inclusion.


A 28-year-old male insulin-dependent diabetic was admitted to the intensive care unit with a diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis. A central venous catheter (Drum-Cartridge, Venisystems) was inserted easily and a chest X ray showed it to be satisfactorily positioned with the tip above the right atrium. The patient improved rapidly but he complained of a painful swelling on the right side of his neck, which had not been obvious on admission. He had no other relevant symptoms. On examination, a mobile, tender swelling measuring about 3 cm in diameter with the consistency of cartilage was palpable superolateral to the thyroid cartilage. The overlying skin appeared normal with no signs of inflammation. X rays of the neck were obtained and a surgical consultation was sought. In the meantime, the nurse looking after the patient had drawn attention to the fact that blood could not be aspirated from the central venous catheter despite free flow of intravenous fluids. It was therefore gradually withdrawn until blood could be freely aspirated. It then became apparent that the cervical swelling had disappeared. When the previously taken neck X rays arrived, they showed that the catheter had migrated into the right internal jugular vein and formed two intersecting loops at the level of the hyoid bone, which had given rise to the swelling visible on the patient's neck. The catheter was removed and the patient was transferred to the ward where he made an uneventful recovery. Central venous catheterisation is associated with a number of complications, many of which are hazardous [l]; others cause diagnostic confusion and may lead to unnecessary investigations. Secondary malposition is migration of a central venous catheter previously confirmed to be in a correct position, to an improper one, as opposed to primary malposition that occurs at insertion [2]. The possibility of secondary malposition of central venous catheters should be kept in mind in view of the danger of infusion of hypertonic solutions[3] and vascular erosion [4]. Precautions to minimise migration of central venous catheters include positioning the tip of the catheter in the distal superior vena cava, and suturing the proximal end securely to the skin, especially when inserted via the arm, to minimise the effect of arm movements[5]. A high index of suspicion is necessary, especially on the intensive care unit where patients are frequently unable to complain of symptoms that may alert one to the diagnosis.


We consider imaging tasks involving discrimination between known objects and investigate the best possible accuracy with which the correct object can be identified. Using the quantum Chernoff bound, we analytically find the ultimate achievable asymptotic error rate for symmetric hypothesis tests between any two incoherent 2D objects when the imaging system is dominated by optical diffraction. Furthermore, we show that linear-optical demultiplexing of the spatial modes of the collected light exactly saturates this ultimate performance limit, enabling a quadratic improvement over the asymptotic error rate achieved by direct imaging as the objects become more severely diffraction-limited. We extend our results to identify the quantum limit and optimal measurement for discrimination between an arbitrary number of candidate objects. Our work constitutes a complete theoretical treatment of the ultimate quantitative limits on passive, sub-diffraction, incoherent object discrimination and is readily applicable to a multitude of real-world applications.


Psycholinguistics is the empirical and theoretical study of the mental faculty that underpins our consummate linguistic agility. This review takes a broad look at how the field has developed, from the turn of the 20th century through to the turn of the 21st. Since the linguistic revolution of the mid-1960s, the field has broadened to encompass a wide range of topics and disciplines. A selection of these is reviewed here, starting with a brief overview of the origins of psycholinguistics. More detailed sections describe the language abilities of newborn infants; infants' later abilities as they acquire their first words and develop their first grammatical skills; the representation and access of words (both spoken and written) in the mental lexicon; the representations and processes implicated in sentence processing and discourse comprehension; and finally, the manner in which, as we speak, we produce words and sentences. Psycholinguistics is as much about the study of the human mind itself as it is about the study of that mind's ability to communicate and comprehend.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Cardiac rehabilitation is aimed at risk factor modification and improving quality of life. eHealth has a couple of potential benefits to improve this aim. The primary purpose of this review is to summarize available literature for eHealth strategies that have been investigated in randomized controlled trials in post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients. The second purpose of this review is to investigate the clinical effectiveness in post-MI patients. Areas covered: The literature was searched using PubMed. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) describing interventions in patients that had experienced an ST-elevation myocardial infarction or non-ST acute coronary syndrome were eligible for inclusion. Fifteen full-texts were included and their results are described in this review. These RCTs described interventions that used remote coaching or remote monitoring in post-MI patients. Most interventions resulted in an improved cardiovascular risk profile. Remote coaching had a positive effect on activity and dietary intake. Expert opinion: eHealth might be clinically beneficial in post-MI patients, particularly for risk estimation. Moreover, eHealth as a tool for remote coaching on activity is a good addition to traditional cardiac rehabilitation programs. Further research needs to corroborate these findings.


ALBUM DE PALEOGRAPHIE ARABE. By G. VAJDA. Paris, AdrienMaisonneuve, 1958. Francs 3,700. On seventy-seven plates are ninety-four facsimiles, all but nine the size of the originals. Apart from the kufic texts the documents are grouped by countries, ranging from Spain to India, and in chronological order within the group. There are some Christian documents, one Druse and one aljamiado—Spanish in Arabic letters. In two or three texts it is hard to disentangle the letters from stains in the paper, and coloured inks do not always come out clearly; otherwise the reproductions are admirable. As the oldest dated MSS. come from Iraq, one would suggest that that group should have followed on the kufic. One is left wondering how anyone dares to date a MS. from the writing alone.


The collective behavior of finite state stochastic automata is considered, which is of interest in view of the possibility of modeling group behavior of subjects in terms of these automata. The natural language for considering the collective behavior is that of game theory. After a brief introduction to a class of deterministic automata, the stochastic automaton is formulated and a nonlinear reinforcement specified. The finite state stochastic automaton is first considered in a game with nature, and conditions under which the automaton's winnings reach the Von Neumann value of the game are established. Next, two stochastic automata with an arbitrary number of states for each are considered in a game, the game matrix being specified. Performance of the automata for various conditions on the elements of the game matrix is considered. In a comparison of performance with deterministic automata, it is established that, for performance comparable to that of the finite state stochastic automaton, the deterministic automaton needs an infinite number of states. Finally, some games are simulated on a computer which verifies the general analysis and further sheds light on the details of the game.


This article investigates the impact of rating data characteristics on the performance of several popular recommendation algorithms, including user-based and item-based collaborative filtering, as well as matrix factorization. We focus on three groups of data characteristics: rating space, rating frequency distribution, and rating value distribution. A sampling procedure was employed to obtain different rating data subsamples with varying characteristics; recommendation algorithms were used to estimate the predictive accuracy for each sample; and linear regression-based models were used to uncover the relationships between data characteristics and recommendation accuracy. Experimental results on multiple rating datasets show the consistent and significant effects of several data characteristics on recommendation accuracy.


This paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from 13 – 17 Apr 2012


Sentence boundary detection (SBD) is a fundamental building block in the Natural Language Processing (NLP) pipeline. Incorrect SBD may impact subsequent processing stages resulting in decreased performance. In well-behaved corpora, a few simple rules based on punctuation and capitalization are sufficient for successfully detecting sentence boundaries. However, a corpus like MEDLINE citations presents challenges for SBD due to several syntactic ambiguities, e.g., abbreviation-periods, capital letters in first words of sentences, etc. In this manuscript we present an algorithm to address these challenges based on majority voting among three SBD engines (Python NLTK, pySBD, and Syntok) followed by custom post-processing algorithms that rely on NLP spaCy part-of-speech, abbreviation and capital letter detection, and computing general sentence statistics. Experiments on several thousand MEDLINE citations show that our proposed approach for combining multiple SBD engines and post-processing rules performs better than each individual engine.


Very strong emotions have accompanied the idea of the Laffer Curve from the very beginning. This simple analysis does not try to solve the discussion. The author has constructed the (TBI-Tax Burden Index), a special measure of taxes. The special feature of this measure is that it tries to take into account both tax rates and tax ceilings while measuring the average taxation. The ensuing analysis gives us some evidence of the presence of some kind of the Laffer-like relationship in countries analysed. It shows that the Laffer Curve for these three countries can be bell shaped. On the other hand this relationship does not seem to play an important role in determining budget revenues in these countries. It seems that differences in revenues among countries are more the result of other factors specific to each country. Therefore, even if the main objective of a government is to maximize revenues, it should not pay to much attention to this issue, it would do much better trying to make tax system as simple as possible, minimizing both incentives and possibilities for tax evasion and tax avoidance.


An analytical model for describing the effectiveness of tuned liquid damper (TLD) with submerged nets for suppressing horizontal vibration of structures is proposed. Dissipation energy due to the liquid motion under sinusoidal excitations is calculated based on nonlinear shallow water wave theory. In particular, the effects of hydraulic resistance produced by nets installed in a tank on the performance of TLDs are examined. The results of dissipation energy theoretically obtained are confirmed by experiments. To show the effectiveness of the proposed analytical model for TLD-structure interaction problems, the case in which TLD with nets is installed on top of a pylon of a cable-stayed bridge is described and the calculated results are compared with the actual experimental data. In the calculation, it is shown that the optimal damping factor, as is the case for tuned mass dampers (TMD), can be produced by the nets, and the effectiveness of TLD with nets are demonstrated.


During the assembly process of steel beams, the laborers must stand on narrow steel beams to assemble structures. Locating and bolting are two main steps in the steel beam assembly process. In the locating step, laborers haul and position the steel beam in the target position. In the bolting step, laborers assemble the steel beam with bolts. This manual assembly method can result in potentially fatal falling accidents. The efficiency of the process is also difficult to control. Therefore, we propose an autonomous joint system that will remove the need for laborers to work in elevated positions. The system consists of two subsystems: a steel beam hauling system, and a bolting system. In this study, we focus on the design of the steel beam hauling system. The steel beam hauling system can catch the draft cable using an electromagnet and haul the lifted steel beam to the target position. The cooperation between the system and the tower crane is also considered. The system can be attached to each steel column before erection then removed by the tower crane after the assembly process is finished. The system was built in a scaled-experiment construction site to test its feasibility. In conclusion, we propose an autonomous joint system that can help reduce accidental falls and improve efficiency of the steel beam assembly process.


A storage/retrieval scheme has been implemented for a Stochastic Reactor Model (SRM) for Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engines which enables fast evaluation in transient multi-cycle simulations. The SRM models combustion, turbulent mixing, and convective heat transfer during the closed-volume part of the engine cycle employing detailed chemical kinetics. In contrast to previously developed storage/retrieval techniques which tabulate chemistry only, our method stores, retrieves, and interpolates output quantities of the entire internal combustion engine model, i.e. the SRM. These quantities include ignition timing, cumulative heat release, maximum pressure rise rate, and emissions of CO, CO2, unburnt hydrocarbons, and NOx, as functions of equivalence ratio, octane number, and inlet temperature for instance. The new tool is intended to be used for performing a variety of otherwise exceedingly expensive computational tasks such as multi-cycle multi-cylinder simulations, transient operation and control, optimization of engine operating parameters, design of experiments, and identification of parameters for achieving stable HCCI operation over a wide range of conditions. Using transient control as an example, we show that, when coupled to a commercial 1D CFD engine modelling package, the tabulation scheme makes such simulations feasible and convenient.


This article considers the waveform design problem for airborne multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems with space-time adaptive processing (STAP). We choose the mutual information between the received signal and the target impulse response as the design metric to achieve enhanced detection performance under the influences from neighboring range cells. In order to solve the resulting optimization problem, we first decompose the objective function into two parts and consider their optimization individually. We optimize the first part by relaxing it using an upper bound and optimize the second part using a simple optimization procedure based on the majorization–minimization (MM) algorithm. The alternation direction method of multipliers (ADMM) framework is then adopted to derive the overall solution, where the MM algorithm is employed again to handle the fourth-order term of the waveform vector. Numerical results are provided to show that the proposed algorithm has better detection performance than that of the existing methods.


Kura clover (Trifolium ambiguum M. Bieb.) is a rhizomatous perennial forage legume that has outstanding persistence once established. Low seedling vigor presents a challenge to kura clover establishment. Kura clover seedlings partition a significant portion of their dry matter to below ground growth. Therefore, seedling vigor could be improved by increasing dry matter allocation to the shoot. Our objective was to study the potential of recurrent phenotypic selection in the greenhouse for reduced root/shoot ratio to increase seedling vigor. Three cycles of divergent selection for root/shoot ratio and a control selection for large plant biomass (LP) were performed from a parent population consisting of 'Rhizo', ARS-2678, KZ1, and Erect Spreader populations. Selections for low root/shoot ratio (LoRS) and high root/shoot ratio (HiRS) were performed by independent culling after first selecting for large total biomass. Parent and selected populations were evaluated in the greenhouse and field. Three cycles of selection for LoRS and LP increased shoot yield in the field 42 d after planting (DAP) by 35 and 34%, respectively. Three cycles of selection for LoRS reduced root/shoot ratio in the field by 16%. Selection for HiRS did not affect seedling size in the field. Population mean shoot and total plant weights were correlated between greenhouse and field environments (average r = 0.89). Population mean seed weight was correlated with shoot weight in the field (r = 0.68, P < 0.05). The results indicate that phenotypic greenhouse selection for seedling size is an effective means of increasing seedling vigor in kura clover.


ABSTRACT The Upper Jurassic Buckner Formation contains evaporites (anhydrite) buried to depths of up to nearly 6,000 m in southwestern Alabama. Although these evaporites and the associated sediments have been deformed and mineralogically altered, some primary depositional textures and fabrics remain. This establishes the Buckner Formation as the most deeply buried succession of evaporites from which primary features have been reported. A cored section of the Buckner Formation contains repetitive depositional sequences, from 1.5 m to 5.5 m in thickness, of 1) dolostone facies (shallow, restricted lagoon) overlain by 2) nodular anhydrite facies (sabkha). Within the nodular anhydrite facies, layers containing nodules surrounded by siliciclastic sediment and finely crystalline dolomite are interpreted as having formed by displacive growth of gypsum or anhydrite at or above a sabkha water table. Other intervals within the nodular anhydrite facies consist of vertically oriented and elongated nodules thought to be pseudomorphs after gypsum that originally formed by subaqueous crystal growth. Each of the Buckner Formation sequences represents the outbuilding of an arid shoreline with progradation of sabkha evaporites and siliciclastics over lagoonal carbonates in a manner similar to the Holocene sequences of the Persian Gulf and the northwest Gulf of California. The Buckner sequences that contain the vertically elongated anhydrite nodules differ from the "normal" Persian Gulf record of supratidal sabkha deposition in that these pseudomorphs are interpreted as having formed as gypsum in temporary ponds of a sabkha proper, a gypsum pan.


Phenazines are bacterial secondary metabolites and play important roles in the antagonistic activity of the biological control strain P. chlororaphis 30–84 against take-all disease of wheat. The expression of the P. chlororaphis 30–84 phenazine biosynthetic operon (phzXYFABCD) is dependent on the PhzR/PhzI quorum sensing system located immediately upstream of the biosynthetic operon as well as other regulatory systems including Gac/Rsm. Bioinformatic analysis of the sequence between the divergently oriented phzR and phzX promoters identified features within the 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) of phzX that are conserved only among 2OHPCA producing Pseudomonas. The conserved sequence features are potentially capable of producing secondary structures that negatively modulate one or both promoters. Transcriptional and translational fusion assays revealed that deletion of 90-bp of sequence at the 5'-UTR of phzX led to up to 4-fold greater expression of the reporters with the deletion compared to the controls, which indicated this sequence negatively modulates phenazine gene expression both transcriptionally and translationally. This 90-bp sequence was deleted from the P. chlororaphis 30–84 chromosome, resulting in 30-84Enh, which produces significantly more phenazine than the wild-type while retaining quorum sensing control. The transcriptional expression of phzR/phzI and amount of AHL signal produced by 30-84Enh also were significantly greater than for the wild-type, suggesting this 90-bp sequence also negatively affects expression of the quorum sensing genes. In addition, deletion of the 90-bp partially relieved RsmE-mediated translational repression, indicating a role for Gac/RsmE interaction. Compared to the wild-type, enhanced phenazine production by 30-84Enh resulted in improvement in fungal inhibition, biofilm formation, extracellular DNA release and suppression of take-all disease of wheat in soil without negative consequences on growth or rhizosphere persistence. This work provides greater insight into the regulation of phenazine biosynthesis with potential applications for improved biological control.


Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastating disease for which there is no cure. Presently this condition is differentiated from other diseases of the pulmonary vasculature by a practitioner's history, physical examination, and clinical studies with clinical markers of disease severity primarily guiding therapeutic choices. New technologies such as next generation DNA sequencing, high throughput RNA sequencing, metabolomics and proteomics have greatly enhanced the amount of data that can be studied efficiently in patients with PAH and other rare diseases. There is emerging data on the use of these "Omics" for pulmonary vascular disease classification and diagnosis and also new work that suggests molecular markers, including Omics, may be used to more efficiently match patients to their own most effective therapies. This review focuses on the state of knowledge on molecular classification and treatment of PAH. Strengths and weaknesses of current Omic technologies are discussed and how these new technologies can be used in the future to improve diagnosis of pulmonary vascular disease, more effectively treat patients with existing and future drugs, and generate new understanding of disease pathogenesis and mechanisms underlying treatment success or failure. Bioinformatic methods to analyze the large volumes of data are developing rapidly, but still present major challenges to interpretation of potential Omic findings in pulmonary vascular disease, with low numbers of patients studied and a potentially high false discovery rate. With more experience, precise and established drug response definitions, this field with move forward and will likely be a major component of the clinical care of PH patients in the future.


What was the largest volcanic eruption on Earth since the historic Mount Pinatubo eruption on 15 June 1991? Was the Toba supereruption 74,000 years ago—the largest in the past 100,000 years—responsible for a human genetic bottleneck or a 1000-year-long glacial advance? What role did small volcanic eruptions play in the reduced global warming of the past decade? What caused the Little Ice Age? Was the April 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland important for climate change? What do volcanic eruptions teach us about new ideas on geoengineering and nuclear winter? These are some of the questions that have been answered since the review article by Robock [2000]. Reviews by Forster et al. [2007] and Timmreck [2012] go into some of these topics in much greater detail.


Stimulation of neurotransmitter release by alpha-latrotoxin requires its binding to the calcium-independent receptor of alpha-latrotoxin (CIRL), an orphan neuronal G protein-coupled receptor. CIRL consists of two noncovalently bound subunits, p85, a heptahelical integral membrane protein, and p120, a large extracellular polypeptide with domains homologous to lectin, olfactomedin, mucin, the secretin receptor family, and a novel structural motif common for large orphan G protein-coupled receptors. The analysis of CIRL deletion mutants indicates that the high affinity alpha-latrotoxin-binding site is located within residues 467-891, which comprise the first transmembrane segment of p85 and the C-terminal half of p120. The N-terminal lectin, olfactomedin, and mucin domains of p120 are not required for the interaction with alpha-latrotoxin. Soluble p120 and all its fragments, which include the 467-770 residues, bind alpha-latrotoxin with low affinity suggesting the importance of membrane-embedded p85 for the stabilization of the complex of the toxin with p120. Two COOH-terminal deletion mutants of CIRL, one with the truncated cytoplasmic domain and the other with only one transmembrane segment left of seven, supported both alpha-latrotoxin-induced calcium uptake in HEK293 cells and alpha-latrotoxin-stimulated secretion when expressed in chromaffin cells, although with a different dose dependence than wild-type CIRL and its N-terminal deletion mutant. Thus the signaling domains of CIRL are not critically important for the stimulation of exocytosis in intact chromaffin cells by alpha-latrotoxin.


The effect of shredded wood bark, shredded rubber tires and Douglas fir bark chips, used as mulches, on weed control and growth of landscape plants was evaluated. Long lasting weed control (2 seasons) was achieved with 2" of Douglas fir bark and 1" and 2" of shredded rubber mulch. Weed control would decrease over a longer period of time with Douglas fir bark due to decomposition, however decomposition would not affect the shredded rubber tire mulch. Growth of landscape plants did not appear to be reduced with any mulch. Studies were conducted to determine the effect of shredded rubber tire mulch, Douglas fir bark, stone and stone over black plastic on soil moisture and temperatures. Shredded tire, Douglas fir bark and stone over plastic had noticeably higher moisture levels than either bare soil or soil covered with stone. The use of mulch modified soil temperature.


Members of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) family become chromophoric through a unique pathway based on autocatalytic modifications of their amino acid residues. The yellow fluorescent protein zFP538 from the button polyp Zoanthus possesses unique spectral characteristics that are intermediate between those of the green and orange-red fluorescent proteins. In this study, we used chemical synthesis to resolve conflicting data from crystallographic and biochemical analyses of the zFP538 chromophore structure. We synthesized 2-(5-amino-1-oxopentyl)-5-(4-hydroxybenzylidene)-3-methyl-3,5-dihydro-4H-imidazol-4-one (5), which can spontaneously react intramolecularly to form cyclic imine (7). Compound 7 represents the native chromophore structure reported in the crystallographic study. We have also discovered an unusual isomerization of a 2-acylimidazolone to a 2,6-diketopiperazine derivative. The zFP538 chromophore is a complex system with intriguing chemical and spectral behavior, properties that have led to discrepancies in the interpretation of its structure. Our study supports the findings of previous crystallographic work, which postulated a cyclic imine chromophore structure within the native zFP538 protein, and also provides an explanation for experimental results obtained in the biochemical characterization of zFP538-derived chromopeptides.


Abstract Recent developments in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies have enabled the reconstruction of complete genome sequence and nucleosome and methylation maps from ancient individuals. A diversity of degradation reactions affect DNA molecules after an organism dies, introducing specific nucleotide misincorporation patterns in HTS data that are typically exploited to distinguish modern contaminants and authentic DNA templates. In this study, we used two different DNA polymerases to amplify Illumina TruSeq DNA libraries built on DNA extracts from ancient equines. The AmpliTaq Gold, widely used in ancient DNA studies, generated amplified libraries showing typical misincorporation patterns. Such patterns were partially lost following AccuPrime Pfx amplification, for which a two-fold reduction of endogenous content was also observed. This is explained by the inability of the AccuPrime Pfx to bypass uracils, which represent the most common post-mortem base modification and derive from the post-mortem deamination of cytosines. Our study, therefore, reveals that amplification of TruSeq DNA libraries with AccuPrime Pfx increases the cost of whole-genome sequencing for samples showing substantial levels of DNA degradation and creates atypical nucleotide misincorporation patterns for data authentication. The method can, however, be exploited to identify ancient methylation marks, and potentially, nucleosome occupancy maps. Statement of significance After an organism dies, DNA molecules are subjected to degradation resulting in fragmentation and bases modifications. After high- throughput sequencing (HTS), it is possible to detect the molecular signature of these damages, demonstrating that the data generated is authentic. DNA extracts from fossil remains indeed contain, besides endogenous ancient molecules, a variety of modern contaminants, but only the former generally exhibits molecular signatures typical of post-mortem damage. Our study reveals that these signatures depend on the protocol used for amplifying DNA samples. It thus helps defining better guidelines for authenticating ancient HTS data. Our results also reveal one molecular approach that limits our ability to exploit the whole complexity of ancient DNA molecules preserved in fossil specimens but can help track ancient methylation marks. Data availability The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data are contained within the paper.


A series of novel methods for detection of known sequence variants in DNA, in particular single nucleotide polymorphism, using padlock probes and rolling circle replication are presented. DNA probes that can be circularized – padlock probes – are ideal for rolling circle replication. Circularized, but not unreacted probes, can generate powerful signal amplification by allowing the reacted probes to template a rolling circle replication (RCR) reaction. However, when hybridized and ligated to a target DNA molecule with no nearby ends, the probes are bound to the target sequence, inhibiting the RCR reaction is. This problem can be solved by generating a branched DNA probe with two 3' arms such that the probes may be circularized while leaving the second 3' arm as a primer for the RCR reaction. We describe how T4 DNA ligase can be used for efficient construction of DNA molecules having one 5' end but two distinct 3' ends that extend from the 2' and 3' carbons of an internal nucleotide. An even stronger approach to circumvent the topological problem that can inhibit RCR is to restriction digest the template downstream of the padlock recognition site. By using Phi 29 DNA polymerase with efficient 3' exonuclease and strand displacement activity, the template strand can then be used to prime the RCR reaction. The amplified molecule is contiguous with the target DNA, generating an anchored localized signal. The kinetics of the reaction was investigated by following the reaction in real-time using molecular beacon probes. Localized RCR signal were obtained on DNA arrays, allowing detection of as little as 104-105 spotted molecules, of either single- or double-stranded M13 DNA, in a model experiment. We have also established a serial rolling circle amplification procedure. By converting rolling circle products to a second and even third generation of padlock probes the signal was amplified thousand-fold per generation. This procedure provides sufficient sensitivity for detection of single-copy gene sequences in 50 ng of human genomic DNA, and large numbers of probes were amplified in parallel with excellent quantitative resolution.


In 40 children with iron deficiency anemia and in 15 children with iron deficiency without anemia the diagnosis is made by hemoglobin, red cell count, hematocrit, MCH, serum iron, iron binding capacity, iron saturation and serum ferritin. For treatment an iron resin adsorbate, given one time daily, was used. The average daily increase of hemoglobin in the time of five weeks is 0,71 g/l by an initial value of 91 g/l. In a child with severe anemia (54 g/l) the daily increase was 2,57 g/l Hemoglobin. Serum ferritin increased in 12 weeks from 13 to 51 microgram/l, this normal value shows the filling of the iron reserves.


Severe consumption coagulopathy has been detected in rats after Lopap (a prothrombin activator from Lonomia obliqua caterpillar bristles) infusion and in humans after accidental contact with L. obliqua bristles. However, platelet count and antithrombin (AT) levels were only modestly affected, suggesting that a different form of blood coagulation activation may be involved in this hemorrhagic syndrome. Here we describe that Lopap had no effect on aggregation of washed human platelets induced by several agonists, suggesting that it might not impair platelet function in vivo. AT was able to inhibit the amidolytic activity of thrombin generated by incubation of Lopap with prothrombin in a purified system, which may be different from that generated by the prothrombinase complex in vivo. The surface expression of both ICAM-1 and E-selectin but not of VCAM-1 was upregulated by Lopap in cultured HUVEC, suggesting that it may behave differently from other mediators, such as thrombin and tumor necrosis factor-α.


This paper is a review on little history and the composition of Tigernut ranging from proximate, mineral and amino acid  content. The paper further explains the kind of phytochemicals and antinutrients that can be found in tigernut .The kind of microorganisms which could be found on tigernut was also explained based on the previous works of researchers. Tigernut can also be eaten raw, processed in to flour and be used for different purposes such as bread and substitute in animal feed manufacture. Oil can also be obtained from tigernut, which is highly unsaturated and good for the health of humans. Tigernut can be used to produce drink/milk, which can serve as substitute of traditional cow milk, different types of tigernut milk are also produced, it can also be used to produce a local snack "Dakuwa". Tigernut also contributes to the reduction of cholesterol, it reduces the risk of coronary heart disease, arteriosclerosis and is recommended for those who have heavy digestion, flatulence and dysentery. Keywords: Tigernut, Composition, Milk, Flour, Oil


Rats were shocked at the rate of two per minute until they pressed a lever. In Experiment I, shocks were delivered at variable-time intervals averaging 30 sec; in Experiment II, shocks were delivered at fixed-time intervals of 30 sec. A response produced an alternate condition for a fixed-time period. The shock frequency following a response, calculated over the whole alternate condition, was two per minute. The pattern of shocks in the alternate condition was controlled so that the first shock occurred at the same time as it would have occurred had the response not been emitted; the remaining shocks were delayed until near the end of the alternate condition. Bar pressing was acquired in both experiments. This finding is not explained by two-factor theories of avoidance and is inconsistent with the notion that overall shock-frequency reduction is necessary for negative reinforcement. The data imply that responding is determined by the integrated delays to each shock following a response versus the integrated delays to shock in the absence of a response.


Abstract Stable isotope studies were carried out on shells of reef-dwelling brachiopods and oysters to evaluate the impact of climate changes on coral communities during the Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) in western Europe and northwestern Africa. Low to medium diversities observed in coral associations in the pioneering and terminal reef phases correlate well with average seawater paleotemperatures of <20.3 °C. The reef climax coincides with optimum environmental conditions, reflected by a high coral diversity and an average seawater temperature between 22 and 30 °C. The results of this study show that water temperatures set the physiological limits for the distribution of corals and coral reefs in Oxfordian time.


We assessed the ability of the Polar activity recorder (AR) to measure energy expenditure (EE) during military training. Twenty-four voluntary male conscripts participated in the study and wore an AR on the non-dominant wrist 24 h a day for 7 d. The AR analyzed and stored the frequency of hand movements (f_hand) into memory at 1 min intervals. The relationship between f_hand and EE was studied over a 7 d period of military training using the doubly labeled water (DLW) technique. In addition, the relationship between f_hand and EE was analyzed during walking and running on a treadmill with an indirect calorimeter (IC), and f_hand was measured during a supervised 45 min field march test where the conscripts carried combat gear. EE was expressed as physical activity level (PAL), total energy expenditure (TEE), and activity-induced energy expenditure adjusted for body mass (AEE/BM). Over the 7 d period, f_hand alone explained 46% of inter-individual variation in PALDLW. After inclusion of body height and mass in the model used to predict PALDLW from f_hand, a very high positive correlation and a low standard error of estimate (SEE) were observed between the AR and DLW techniques: for TEE r = 0.86 (p < 0.001), the SEE was 6.3%, and for AEE/BM r = 0.84 (p < 0.001), the SEE was 12.8%. In the treadmill exercise, f_hand correlated highly with PALIC (r = 0.97 ± 0.02). In the 45 min field march test, the AR measured similar f_hand as on the treadmill at the same speed. In conclusion, the wrist-worn AR can be regarded as a reliable and valid method for assessing EE during intensive training.


In this study, we demonstrate that the linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO), an approximation of quantum physics introduced by Pauling and Lennard-Jones in the 1920s, corresponds to graph convolutional networks (GCNs) for molecules. However, GCNs involve unnecessary nonlinearity and deep architecture. We also verify that molecular GCNs are based on a poor basis function set compared with the standard one used in theoretical calculations or quantum chemical simulations. From these observations, we describe the quantum deep field (QDF), a machine learning (ML) model based on an underlying quantum physics, in particular the density functional theory (DFT). We believe that the QDF model can be easily understood because it can be regarded as a single linear layer GCN. Moreover, it uses two vanilla feedforward neural networks to learn an energy functional and a Hohenberg--Kohn map that have nonlinearities inherent in quantum physics and the DFT. For molecular energy prediction tasks, we demonstrated the viability of an ``extrapolation,'' in which we trained a QDF model with small molecules, tested it with large molecules, and achieved high extrapolation performance. This will lead to reliable and practical applications for discovering effective materials. The implementation is available at this https URL.


In mixtures-of-experts (ME) model, where a number of submodels (experts) are combined, there have been two longstanding problems: (i) how many experts should be chosen, given the size of the training data? (ii) given the total number of parameters, is it better to use a few very complex experts, or is it better to combine many simple experts? In this paper, we try to provide some insights to these problems through a theoretic study on a ME structure where $m$ experts are mixed, with each expert being related to a polynomial regression model of order $k$. We study the convergence rate of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), in terms of how fast the Kullback-Leibler divergence of the estimated density converges to the true density, when the sample size $n$ increases. The convergence rate is found to be dependent on both $m$ and $k$, and certain choices of $m$ and $k$ are found to produce optimal convergence rates. Therefore, these results shed light on the two aforementioned important problems: on how to choose $m$, and on how $m$ and $k$ should be compromised, for achieving good convergence rates.


This article critiques the property rights movement's position that courts should scrutinize property regulation to the same extent that they now scrutinize fundamental liberty-based claims. At its root, the debate over the proper degree of scrutiny for property rights claims is a debate about the appropriate scope of a society's freedom to organize and reshape itself in search of a greater good. Strict scrutiny of regulation truncates the debate, demanding that we privilege what has been to guard against the hazards of the unknown. Greater judicial deference, by contrast, frees us to seek, through governmental actors pursuing the public interest, a better, more fulfilling society at the risk that we will fail. Reviewing an array of arguments based on (1) intellectual and social history, (2) the rhetoric of modern jurisprudence, and (3) property law theory, this article shows that the movement's adherents have failed to make their case for strict scrutiny of property regulation. This article's critical assessment of the property rights movement cannot establish that judicial deference to legislative judgment in property rights cases is necessarily morally superior to more probing scrutiny. That the property rights movement has made virtually no progress more than two decades after it began, however, casts some measure of doubt on the possibility that it ever will.


In this letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel all-optical two-dimensional time-wavelength optical code-division multiple access (OCDMA) code-drop unit for transparent ring networks. The ultrafast all-optical code-drop unit is based on the terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer. We have demonstrated experimentally the capability to drop the correlated code at the desired node in a four-user ring network operating at 253 Gchips/s with a single-user bit rate of 2.5 Gb/s. Error-free operation is obtained. Dropping codes from multihop networks facilitates the development of optical add-drop multiplexers for OCDMA networks.


INTRODUCTION
In April 2009, there was identified a variant of the A/H1N1 influenza virus of swine origin, and shortly after the first pandemic in XXI century was declared.

OBJECTIVES
To establish a nucleotide sequencing strategy for the differential diagnosis of the seasonal and pandemic influenza A viruses, and to obtain as much molecular information as possible about hemagglutinin and neuraminidase genes in patients with influenza-like illnesses, in those with severe respiratory infection and in patients who died.

METHODS
Three sequencing strategies were designed and implemented, which also offered important information about the new virus in Cuba.

RESULTS
The third strategy provided the most comprehensive results such as differential diagnosis, the surveillance of the D222G/E mutation in hemagglutinin and Tamiflu-resistant H275Y viral variants. In spite of the fact that the mentioned mutations were not detected, their presence in the Cuban population can not be ignored since these strategies were not designed for this end. It is imperative to design a study to fulfill this objective.

CONCLUSIONS
The sequencing strategies in our algorithm allowed the differential diagnosis of the seasonal and the pandemic viruses, and their molecular characterization.


Models of the engineering design process and of the development process nowadays present similar forms in the engineering design literature and interact in a similar way. These models are often presented as generic, in order to be used in a wide area of applications. This interaction is however not unproblematic, and in this publication we present some important issues and challenge the generic aspect of these models. In order to increase clarity, we have divided the publication into two parts. In Part I, the generally accepted engineering design and development process models are presented. The fundaments of the development model and the motivations behind its current form are highlighted. In Part II, the consequences in the form of severe shortcomings resulting from the interaction of the engineering design and development process models are highlighted. These shortcomings do not disappear when the systematic design process model is applied with alternative development process models. The implications for the further development of methodologies supporting design and development models are discussed.


Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare the different dosemetric characteristics of Linac‐based SBRT and that of Cyberknife for lungtumortreatment.Methods: Eight patients with lungtumors received Linac‐based SBRT were retrospectively included in this study. 60Gy photondose delivered in 5 frictions was prescribed to each target. To minimize respiratory motion impact, Synchrony™ (AccurayInc., Sunnyvale, CA) and a 4D dose calculation program were used for Cyberknife and Linac‐based SBRTtreatment planning respectively. Identical patients' image (50% phase image of 4DCT corresponding to the end of exhalation) and contour sets were used for dose calculation. The DVHs of PTV, GTV, and lung were studied. Results: Both modalities can provide satisfactory dose coverage to target tumor. The lungdose (2.1±0.8Gy to 1500cc and 4.3±2.1Gy to 1000cc) is well below institutional constrains. Lungdose of Cyberknife plans is more susceptible to the tumor location than that of Linac‐based SBRT plan. When tumor attaches to anterior chest wall, Cyberknife may deliver less dose to patient lung than Linac‐based SBRT. When the tumor becomes more posterior, lungdose of Cyberknife plan increases much more quickly than that of Linac‐based SBRT plan. Cyberknife may delivery higher dose to lung than Linac‐based SBRT when the tumor is located close to the posterior chest wall. The dose distribution of Cyberknife is more heterogeneous than Linac‐based SBRT in all cases. Conclusion: Both Linac‐based SBRT and Cyberknife can provide adequate dose coverage for target tumor while sparing normal tissue. Cyberknife may delivery less dose to lung than Linac‐based SBRT when the tumor is close to anterior chest wall but more dose to lung when tumor attached to posterior chest wall. This study may provide useful information to help radiation oncologist to choose SBRT modalities for lungtumortreatment.


Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a term used to describe the transitional state between normal aging and established dementia, has been identified as a potentially effective
time point at which to target interventions to prevent or slow the decline into dementia. An efficient way of identifying people with MCI is required as a first step in conducting large scale studies to develop and evaluate interventions targeted at this high risk population.
The aim of the thesis was to investigate the effectiveness of a range of brief cognitive tests to be used for the purpose of identifying people with MCI in an efficient and
accurate manner. A systematic review of the literature found that over 40 brief cognitive tests have been developed and tested to identify amnestic MCI (aMCI). However, the majority of these previous studies were conducted in secondary care settings and were at high risk of unblinding the assessment process, which may have exaggerated the diagnostic accuracy of the assessed tests.
The Memory Alteration Test (M@T) and Test Your Memory test (TYM) were selected as potentially useful brief cognitive tests for aMCI and their validity was assessed within a cohort of older people recruited from the community, without prior knowledge of their cognitive status. A total of 472 older people were assessed for MCI according to
the Petersen criteria using a standardised battery of neuropsychological tests. A prevalence of MCI of 16.5% was found within the assessed cohort and the M@T was found to be more accurate than the TYM at detecting aMCI, performing with a sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 84%.
The ability of reaction time task derived measures to identify cognitive impairment within the cohort was also assessed. These were not as accurate at predicting cognitive status as the M@T. However, they did demonstrate some promising discriminative abilities and should be further explored as potentially useful alternatives to the
traditionally used memory tests, which may be influenced by administrator bias, education level and language ability.


Objective: To assess the knowledge Nigerian Dental Practitioners (across different cadres) have of rotary endodontics, to investigate the adoption of Nickel-Titanium (NiTi) rotary instrumentation among specialists and other dental practitioners and to determine the factors associated with avoidance of this adoption.
Methods: This study was conducted through the distribution of structured self-administered questionnaires to randomly selected dental surgeons and endodontists in Nigerian government institutions and private practices. Chi-square, Fisher's exact tests and Logistic regression analysis were used to examine differences between groups. Statistical significance level was set at p???0.05.
Results:  A total of 240 dental practitioners were surveyed in this study. Only 55 (28.6%) of the respondents had previously used a rotary endodontic system. The most cited reason for not using NiTi rotary instrumentation for root canal preparation among the respondents was unavailability of endomotor and NiTi rotary files 9(96;70.1%) followed by inadequate knowledge about the rotary endodontic practice (37;27.0%). Consultants (OR =5.051; CI =1.431-45.811) and those that had practiced dentistry for >10 years (OR =4.255; CI= 0.849-21.323) were significantly more likely to use and to have good knowledge about rotary endodontics than other respondents. (p< 0.05)

Conclusion: Our study revealed a low rate of adoption of NiTi rotary endodontic technology among dental surgeons in Nigeria and the most commonly cited reason for this was cost of armamentarium as well as inadequate exposure to hands-on-training. A concerted effort is required to improve the uptake and utilization of this technology in our environment.


To investigate the P absorption and gene expression levels of related co-transporters, type IIb sodium-dependent phosphate co-transporter (NaPi-IIb), inorganic phosphate transporter 1 (PiT-1) and inorganic phosphate transporter 2 (PiT-2) in the small intestine of broilers, 450 1-d-old Arbor Acres male broilers were randomly allocated to one of three treatments with ten replicate cages of fifteen birds per cage for each treatment in a completely randomised design. Chickens were fed a diet with no added inorganic P (containing 0·06 % non-phytate P (NPP)) or with either 0·21 or 0·44 % NPP for 21 d. Plasma P concentration in the hepatic portal vein, mRNA and protein expression levels of NaPi-IIb, PiT-1 and PiT-2 were determined at 7, 14 and 21 d of age. The results showed that the concentration of P in plasma in the hepatic portal vein increased as dietary NPP increased (P<0·0001). At 14 and 21 d of age, the increase in dietary NPP inhibited (P<0·003) NaPi-IIb mRNA expression level in the duodenum, as well as PiT-1 mRNA and protein expression levels in the ileum, but promoted NaPi-IIb protein expression level (P<0·002) and PiT-2 mRNA and protein expression levels (P<0·04) in the duodenum. These results suggest that NaPi-IIb, PiT-1 and PiT-2 might be important P transporters in the small intestine of broilers. Higher intestinal P absorption may be achieved by up-regulating the protein expression levels of NaPi-IIb and PiT-2 and down-regulating the protein expression of PiT-1.


Infectious agents have been identified in the etiology of certain non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) subtypes and solid tumors. The impact of this shared etiology on risk for second cancers in NHL survivors has not been comprehensively studied. We used US population-based cancer registry data to quantify risk of solid malignancies associated with infectious etiology among 127 044 adult 1-year survivors of the 4 most common NHL subtypes diagnosed during 2000 to 2014 (mean follow-up, 4.5-5.2 years). Compared with the general population, elevated risks for liver, stomach, and anal cancers were observed among diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) survivors (standardized incidence ratio [SIR], 1.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.46-2.31; SIR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.16-1.94; SIR, 3.71; 95% CI, 2.52-5.27, respectively) and marginal zone lymphoma (MZL; SIR, 1.98; 95% CI, 1.34-2.83; SIR, 2.78; 95% CI, 2.02-3.74; SIR, 2.36; 95% CI, 1.02-4.64, respectively) but not follicular lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma. Anal cancer risk was particularly elevated among DLBCL survivors with HIV (SIR, 68.34; 95% CI, 37.36-114.66) vs those without (SIR, 2.09; 95% CI, 1.22-3.34). The observed patterns are consistent with shared associations between these cancers and hepatitis C virus, Helicobacter pylori, and HIV, respectively. In contrast, risks for cervical and oropharyngeal/tonsil cancers were not elevated among survivors of any NHL subtype, possibly because of the lack of NHL association with human papillomavirus or population-wide screening practices (for cervical cancer). In summary, patterns of elevated second cancer risk differed by NHL subtype. Our results suggest shared infectious etiology has implications for subsequent cancer risks among DLBCL and MZL survivors, which may help inform surveillance for these survivors.


Penetration of projectiles was measured for hemispherical and conical nose shapes penetrating granular media. Targets were beds of Ottawa sand and Eglin sand. Projectiles were rigid metals. Experimental parameters that were varied included velocity (from 300 to 600 m/s), nose shape, sand density, and scale (from 5 mm to 20 mm). Strong evidence for scale effects is found: 5 mm diameter projectiles are less effective penetrators than 12.5, 15, or 20 mm diameter penetrators.


This paper attempts to integrate concepts of framing, uncertainty expression, and negotiations to build a framework for influencing factors of pricing for organizational procurement and empirically explore it. System requirements based on the framework is analyzed by UML in building an E-Learning simulated system for novices of purchasing via hints from knowledge collected from veterans of procurement. Framework for negotiation of organizational market is built based on literature review of organizational negotiation and in-depth interviews with several top procurement representatives of Taiwanese high technology companies. Popular verbal terms using in purchasing area for possibility frequency and quantity are collected and analyzed, hypotheses for subjective estimation vs. verbal expressions under different types of market conditions, distributive bargaining vs. integrative negotiation, and risk choice framing are tested. The quantitative and qualitative data are collected to construct a verbal model for managerial decision-making on the organizational market. Findings on patterns of verbal expression among purchasing personnel with different backgrounds and risk attitudes might be useful for building a data bank in e-negotiation between buyer and seller. Also the relationship between framing, personal risk attitudes and efficiency and preference of pricing decision for an organizational procurement are proposed to assist the trades between industries.


Legumes are rich in protein and phytochemicals and have provided a healthy diet for human beings for thousands of years. In recognition of the important role they play in human nutrition and agricultural production, the researchers have made great efforts to gain new genetic traits in legumes such as yield, stress tolerance, and nutritional quality. In recent years, the significant increase in genomic resources for legume plants has prepared the groundwork for applying cutting-edge breeding technologies, such as transgenic technologies, genome editing, and genomic selection for crop improvement. In addition to the different genome editing technologies including the CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing system, this review article discusses the recent advances in plant-specific gene-editing methods, as well as problems and potential benefits associated with the improvement of legume crops with important agronomic properties. The genome editing technologies have been effectively used in different legume plants including model legumes like alfalfa and lotus, as well as crops like soybean, cowpea, and chickpea. We also discussed gene-editing methods used in legumes and the improvements of agronomic traits in model and recalcitrant legumes. Despite the immense opportunities genome editing can offer to the breeding of legumes, governmental regulatory restrictions present a major concern. In this context, the comparison of the regulatory framework of genome editing strategies in the European Union and the United States of America was also discussed. Gene-editing technologies have opened up new possibilities for the improvement of significant agronomic traits in legume breeding.


We discuss the payment habits of Canadians both in the current payment environment and in a hypothetical cashless environment. We also consider whether a central bank digital currency (CBDC) would address unmet payment needs in a cashless society. Most adult Canadians do not experience gaps in their access to a range of payment methods, and this would probably continue to be the case in a cashless environment. Some people could, however, face difficulties making payments if merchants no longer generally accepted cash as a method of payment. For a payment-oriented CBDC to successfully address unmet payment needs, the main consumer groups—who already have access to a range of payment options—would have to widely adopt the CBDC and use it at scale. This is necessary to encourage widespread merchant acceptance of CBDC, which would, in turn, encourage further consumer adoption and use. However, most consumers face few payment gaps or frictions and therefore might have relatively weak incentives to adopt and—especially—to use CBDC at scale. If that were the case, widespread merchant acceptance also would be unlikely. This suggests that addressing unmet payment needs for a minority of consumers by issuing a CBDC could be challenging under the conditions explored in this paper. The minority of consumers with unmet payment needs will only be able to benefit from a CBDC if the majority of consumers experience material benefits and therefore drive its use.


We present a detailed theoretical analysis of the electronic structure of c-plane InGaN/GaN quantum wells with indium contents varying between 10% and 25%. The electronic structure of the quantum wells is treated by means of an atomistic tight-binding model, accounting for variations in strain and built-in field due to random alloy fluctuations. Our analysis reveals strong localisation effects in the hole states. These effects are found not only in the ground states, but also the excited states. We conclude that localisation effects persist to of order 100 meV into the valence band, for as little as 10% indium in the quantum well, giving rise to a significant density of localised states. We find, from an examination of the modulus overlap of the wave functions, that the hole states can be divided into three regimes of localisation. Our results also show that localisation effects due to random alloy fluctuations are far less pronounced for electron states. However, the combination of electrostatic built-in field, alloy fluctuations and structural inhomogeneities, such as well-width fluctuations, can nevertheless lead to significant localisation effects in the electron states, especially at higher indium contents. Overall, our results are indicative of individually localised electron and hole states, consistent with the experimentally proposed explanation of time-dependent photoluminescence results in c-plane InGaN/GaN QWs.


On the New South Wales Northern Tablelands, sheep, wool and beef cattle production account for most agricultural output. The industries have been challenged in recent years by environmental and economic factors and are therefore looking for modified or alternative livestock management systems that are capable of sustaining profitability. The Cicerone Project aimed to address these issues by comparing three different grazing and pasture improvement systems. Some recent livestock industry analyses have been based on gross margins which do not include overhead costs. This is an important limitation; economic analysis needs to report key whole-farm business performance measures since overhead costs can differ significantly between livestock management systems. A representative farm approach was used to compare the profitability of the three different livestock management systems. Commercial-scale whole-farm and cash flow analyses over a 5-year period were used to evaluate profitability. No particular system could be recommended to graziers because the test period was not sufficiently representative of the long-term climate to make an adequate assessment about their long-term profitability. Nevertheless, it is apparent that whole-farm level budgets are essential for comparing the overall profitability of different livestock management systems. It is concluded that analysts, consultants and graziers should use whole-farm and cash flow analyses to gauge profitability of different livestock management systems particularly where sustainability issues are important.