Introduction: Disasters are traumatic events in terms of emotion of psychology that may result in wide range of mental and physical health consequences. Post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the common psychiatric disorders following the disaster.
Aims and Objectives: Aim of the study was to find out the association between the flood and PTSD among victims of Surat flood 2006.
Material and Methods: 40 families from two separate flood affected area of Surat city were interviewed; Area A (first time affected by the flood) and Area B (Had faced the flood previously also). Participants above the age of 16 years or more were interviewed to fill up the Impact of Event Scale – Revised. Scores were calculated for subscales avoidance, intrusion and arousal.
Results: 32 (23.2%) subjects at standard cut off IOES-R score >24, were identified in distress within 1st month of exposure to the flood. Out of 32 affected subjects 28 (47.45%) were from area B in comparison to 4 (5.06%) from the area B. This difference between the two areas was found to be highly significant statistically. Female had higher score of intrusion than males. In follow up visit after 6-month significant decrease in PTSD disorder was observed.
Conclusion: PTSD is prevalent in the community exposed to the flood like natural disaster and is more common in females and mid age victims. PTSD symptoms resolves in most of the victims but previous experiences of the disaster may result in longer duration of the symptoms.


Blog comments have become one of the most common means for people to express and exchange their personal opinions. The study proposed and developed a system for automated opinion retrieval from blog comments to estimate the customer satisfaction for three main Filipino Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Data were first gathered from comments located in some of the most popular blog sites discussing the Filipino ISPs. Automatic word seeding, N-gram tokenization, stemming and other Sentiment Analysis (SA) techniques were applied to extract useful informationfrom the textual data. The data collected were manually labeled in order to establish ground truth. Furthermore,the study experimented bag of words and Ruled-based method of identifying the polarity of the blog comments sentences. In addition, Naïve Bayes (NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) language, N-gram and preprocessing featuressuch as stopwords and stemmer were applied and experimented. The results of the experimentation showed N-gram has a significant effect on the increase of performance of the proposed automated classifier. In contrast, preprocessing features such as stopwords and stemmer did little help to increase the performance of the said proposed automated classifier. The application of SVM learning machine and bi-gram feature on the proposed model were resulted in higher classification performance and far above the baseline classification performance of the previous researches. The impact of adding ruled based can indeed be a big help to automatically determine the sentiments of blog sentences. These good results indicate that it can be possible for some interested parties to have a sense of the sentiments of their customers by applying some automated sentiment analysis on blog comments.


During the last two or three decades, we have learned a great deal about the immune system and about how to improve the success rate of organ transplants. Nevertheless, we still do not fully understand the afferent or efferent limb of the allograft response. We do not have a reliable, specific diagnostic test for rejection of any transplanted organ. We do not have an optimal technique for preventing or reversing graft rejection. Kidney Transplant Rejection is edited by Drs Williams, Burdick (transplant surgeons), and Solez (pathologist) from The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Most of the chapter authors are recognized authorities who represent major medical schools and laboratories in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. All of the chapters are well illustrated and extensively referenced. The color plates, which are partially hidden as a group between pages 268 and 269, should have been located in the chapters to which they


While a considerable amount of research is done in the field of moral psychology, to our best knowledge, no systematic study of moral judgments made by professional groups who make moral decisions as part of their occupational duties exists (e.g. firefighters, medical doctors, midwives, police officers). By their training and practice, such professionals are expected to exhibit differences in moral judgment compared to the general population. Here we report data about moral judgments of firefighters and midwives using moral dilemmas in which one person must be sacrificed in order to save more people. The study reveals that midwives and firefighters are considerably less utilitarian compared to a control group of students. Midwives almost never find the utilitarian action to be permissible. This striking result demonstrates that further understanding of the specific mechanisms involved in special professional groups' moral judgment is needed.


A complementary (cDNA) molecule encoding the structural proteins of Semliki Forest virus (SFV) has been inserted into a Simian virus 40- derived eucaryotic expression vector lacking introns. Introduction of the recombinant DNA into nuclei of baby hamster kidney cells results in the synthesis of authentic SFV membrane glycoproteins E1 and E2. The glycoproteins are both transported to the cell surface and induce cell- cell fusion after a brief treatment of the cells with low pH medium. The pH dependence of the fusion reaction was the same as that induced by virus particles (White, J., J. Kartenbeck, and A. Helenius, 1980, J. Cell Biol., 89:674-679). Transfection of cells with another recombinant DNA molecule in which the SFV cDNA is engineered into the same expression vector including an intron has been shown before to result in the expression of only the E2 protein on the cell surface, whereas the E1 protein is trapped in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (Kondor- Koch, C., H. Riedel, K. Soderberg, and H. Garoff, 1982, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 79:4525-4529). Such cells do not exhibit pH-dependent polykaryon formation, suggesting that the E1 protein is necessary for fusion activity. Immunoblotting experiments show that the RER-trapped E1 protein expressed from the DNA construction with an intron has a smaller apparent molecular weight than authentic E1, and that is has lost its amphipathic characteristics.


We study the time evolution of a state vector in a square tight-binding lattice, focusing on its evolution localized over the system surfaces. In this tight-binding lattice, the energy of atomic orbital centred at surface site is different from that at the interior (bulky) site by an energy shift U . It is shown that for the state vector initially localized on a surface, there exists an exponential law (y = aex/b + y0) determined by the absolute value of the energy shift, |U |, which describes the transition of the state evolving on the square tight-binding lattice, from delocalized over the whole lattice to localized over the surfaces.


Currently, magnesium alloys are gaining great interest for medical applications due to their degrading properties in the human body ensuring a great biocompatibility. These alloys also provide profitable mechanical properties due similarities with human bone.  However, a difficulty in applying these materials in the biomaterials industries is the corrosion prior to cell healing. The effect of the chemical composition of Mg alloys on their corrosion behavior is well known. In this study, samples of AZ31 magnesium alloy were cut into chips for elemental chemical analysis by neutron activation analysis (NAA). Concentrations of the elements As, La, Mg, Mn, Na, Sb and Zn were determined in the AZ31 alloy. Visualization tests of agar corrosion development in various media, of 0.90% sodium chloride solution (mass), phosphate buffer saline (PBS) and simulated body fluid (SBF) were performed. Visualizations of the effect of agar gel corrosion revealed pH variation during the corrosion process due to the released into the cathode. The highest released of hydroxyl ions occurred in NaCl solution compared to PBS and SBF solutions indicating that NaCl solution was much more aggressive to the alloy compared to the others.


Introduction: Visualization of macrophage activities and distribution may provide useful insight into plaque vulnerability.

Hypothesis: Uptake of phosphatidylserine (PS)-coated liposomes by macrophages in the arterial wall will generate contrast enhancement for CT imaging.

Methods: Efficient loading of liposomes was accomplished by a modified ethanol vaporization method. Pharmacokinetic parameters and tissue distribution of liposomes were evaluated in mice and New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. Both Watanabe Hereditary Hyperlipidemic (WHHL) and balloon-denuded cholesterol-fed NZW rabbits were injected with control and PS-liposomes, and imaged 48 hours later with a flat-panel CT scanner. Image processing and reconstruction were performed to demonstrate contrast enhancement in the aorta. Immunohistochemical and immunofluorescence microscopy were used to characterize contrast uptake in relation to macrophage distribution.

Results: Iodixanol in liposomes ranged from 65 to 80 mg/ml. In vitro liposomal uptake by macrophages increased with increasing percentage of PS in the liposomes and cell viability was unaffected up to 20% PS. Liposomally encapsulated iodixanol prolonged blood pool enhancement up to 4h after injection and diverted its clearance to the reticuloendothelial system. Only the 100nm PS-liposomes generated specific aortic wall enhancement in association with atheroma. Histological examination revealed diffused non-specific retention of 100nm control liposomes and the absence of 200 nm control and PS-liposomes in the aortic wall. Only 100nm PS-liposomes specifically co-localized with plaque-associated macrophages in both rabbit models.

Conclusions: In vivo uptake of CT contrast by plaque-associated macrophages is dependent on liposome size and surface modifications. Molecular imaging of macrophage retention of CT contrast is feasible with sufficient payload in the liposomal carrier.

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Emojis have quickly become a universal language that is used by worldwide users, for everyday tasks, across language barriers, and in different apps and platforms. The prevalence of emojis has quickly attracted great attentions from various research communities such as natural language processing, Web mining, ubiquitous computing, and human-computer interaction, as well as other disciplines including social science, arts, psychology, and linguistics. This talk summarizes the recent efforts made by my research group and our collaborators on analyzing large-scale emoji data. The usage of emojis by worldwide users presents interesting commonality as well as divergence. In our analysis of emoji usage by millions of smartphone users in 212 countries, we show that the different preferences and usage of emojis provide rich signals for understanding the cultural differences of Internet users, which correlate with the Hofstede's cultural dimensions [4]. Emojis play different roles when used alongside text. Through jointly learning the embeddings and topological structures of words and emojis, we reveal that emojis present both complementary and supplementary relations to words. Based on the structural properties of emojis in the semantic spaces, we are able to untangle several factors behind the popularity of emojis [1]. This talk also highlights the utility of emojis. In general, emojis have been used by Internet users as text supplements to describe objects and situations, express sentiments, or express humor and sarcasm; they are also used as communication tools to attract attention, adjust tones, or establish personal relationships. The benefit of using emojis goes beyond these intentions. In particular, we show that including emojis in the description of an issue report on GitHub results in the issue being responded to by more users and resolved sooner. Large-scale emoji data can also be utilized by AI systems to improve the quality of Web mining services. In particular, a smart machine learning system can infer the latent topics, sentiments, and even demographic information of users based on how they use emojis online. Our analysis reveals a considerable difference between female and male users of emojis, which is big enough for a machine learning algorithm to accurately predict the gender of a user. In Web services that are customized for gender groups, gender inference models built upon emojis can complement those based on text or behavioral traces with fewer privacy concerns [2]. Emojis can be also used as an instrument to bridge Web mining tasks across language barriers, especially to transfer sentiment knowledge from a language with rich training labels (e.g., English) to languages that have been difficult for advanced natural language processing tasks [3]. Through this bridge, developers of AI systems and Web services are able to reduce the inequality in the quality of services received by the international users that has been caused by the imbalance of available human annotations in different languages. In general, emojis have evolved from visual ideograms to a brand-new world language in the era of AI and a new Web. The popularity, roles, and utility of emojis have all gone beyond people's original intentions, which have created a huge opportunity for future research that calls for joint efforts from multiple disciplines.


Fault-bound hydrothermally mineralized breccias with a multistage deformation history occur in crystalline rocks of the Aar massif at Grimsel Pass, Central Swiss Alps. The breccias crop out over 4.5 km E‐W along strike and over 900 m in vertical extent between Trubtensee and Gletsch, and are up to 2 m wide. A characterization of these "Grimsel Breccias" was carried out to elucidate their formation with respect to alpine uplift and fluid circulation history, and to search for possible evidence of past microbial activity. Breccias vary widely in grain size and range from matrix-rich to clast-supported with high porosity in the youngest equivalents. Centimeter-sized voids typically contain stratified geopetal infills of fine-grained hydrothermal minerals. The hydrothermal mineral assemblage is dominated by quartz (including chalcedony), adularia, illite, celadonitic clay minerals, pyrite (As-rich), marcasite, and fine-grained Mo-sulfide. Analyses of bulk rocks (kg) and small subsamples (grams) show significant enrichments of Mo, As, Sb, Au, Cs, Hg, Tl and in some samples of U. Subthermal to thermal springs are currently discharging from the breccia zone at Gletsch (18‐19 °C) and into a gas pipeline tunnel intersecting the breccia (up to 28 °C), indicating ongoing deep fluid circulation in a fracture system related to the Grimsel Breccia. Microbial biomass and Fe‐Mn precipitates from thermal springs are enriched in Au, Cs, Sb, Hg, Pb, Mn, W, demonstrating that several of the elements enriched in the breccia are also currently transported and/or redistributed in the active water circulation system. 39Ar/40Ar dating of late-stage adularia yielded a middle Pliocene age (3.30±0.06 Ma), indicating formation between 0.3 and 1.2 km below sea level, if current uplift rates of the Aar massif are assumed. The estimated depth of formation is ~3 km below the palaeosurface. Oxygen isotopes in quartz and adularia, combined with fluid inclusion data, indicate a formation temperature ranging from 160 down to approximately 100 °C at the latest stage. Fluids were of low-salinity with a dominant meteoric component with 18O close to ‐10‰ SMOW. D values of illite-rich samples are also consistent with formation from meteoric water. Pyrite 34S shows limited scatter with a slightly negative average of ‐1.8‰ CDT, consistent with an origin of the sulfide by thermochemical reduction of Triassic sulfate at 220‐260 °C at greater depth. A search for signatures of possible microbial activity during breccia formation revealed the presence of extremely fine-grained pyrite and uraninite of potential microbiological origin, some ill-preserved filamentous structures and laminated fabrics potentially related to biofilms, but no indisputable evidence of biological involvement. The hydrothermal breccia mineralization in the Grimsel area demonstrates that meteoric waters penetrated deep into the Aar massif in the Pliocene and caused mineralizations geochemically similar to epithermal ores typically associated with volcanism. The enriched elements probably are derived from a combination of deep sources (Au, As, Sb, Tl) and near-surface oxidized fluids (Mo, U), and element precipitation may be a result of mixing and/or cooling.


In this study, direct risk assessment was developed for various scenarios on the basis of hazard (e.g. spatial probability, temporal probability and magnitude class), vulnerability and estimating cost of road damage. Indirect risk assessment was derived from traffic interruption. The impact of landslide both direct and indirect impact were analyzed in the road segment 174. The research results show the highest direct impact of debris slide type of magnitude I located in the 20th mapping unit. The lowest direct impact of debris slide type of magnitude I can be founded in the 18th mapping unit. The direct impact of rock fall type of magnitude I which is located in the 6th mapping unit. Meanwhile, indirect impact which was caused by road blockage is Rp. 4,593,607.20 and Rp. 4,692,794.40 by using network analysis and community perception methods respectively. After class classification, road segment 174 is dominated by very low hazard, very low vulnerability and very low direct impact.


Diversity-embedding space-time codes, introduced in S.N. Diggavi et al. (2003), embed a high-diversity code within a high-rate code making opportunistic use of the channel fading conditions. They encode the information symbols into layers each at a prescribed rate-diversity operating point; thus providing an unequal error protection capability. Previous diversity-embedding space-time block codes in S.N. Diggavi et al. (2003) were presented only for 4 transmit antennas. In this paper, we present three new constructions for 2, 3, and 4 transmit antennas by varying the relative transmit power levels between the layers without violating the total transmit power constraint. The relative power scaling factor is optimized (off-line as a function of the constellation size) to achieve a desirable tradeoff between the available coding gains of the transmission layers while controlling the peak to minimum transmit power ratio


Background: As opioid overdoses continue rising, interventions are needed to expand naloxone carriage, an opioid overdose reversal agent. Use of fentanyl test strips (FTS) might promote naloxone carriage. This study examines the relationship between FTS use, perceived overdose risk, and naloxone carriage in Wisconsin, United States. Methods: In a survey of people who use drugs (n = 341) in southern Wisconsin, respondents were asked about FTS use, perceived overdose risk, and how often they (1) have naloxone, (2) have more than one dose of naloxone, and (3) the number of naloxone doses possessed currently. Likert responses were mapped to an integer scale. Ordinal and linear multivariable regression examined the relationship between FTS use and study outcomes while adjusting for respondent characteristics. Results: Most respondents were male (59.6%), identified heroin as their drug of choice (70.7%) and reported intravenous use (87.9%). In unadjusted models, FTS use was associated with more often having naloxone (OR: 2.10; p = 0.005), more often having multiple naloxone doses (OR: 2.98; p < 0.001), and possessing a greater number of naloxone doses (dose count difference: 2.85; p = 0.001). In adjusted models, FTS use was associated with more often having multiple naloxone doses (OR: 2.29; p = 0.005) and possessing a greater number of naloxone doses (dose count difference: 2.25, p = 0.020). Conclusions: Individuals who use FTS more often carry multiple doses relative to individuals who do not use FTS. Given that naloxone carriage is critical for reducing opioid overdose risk, expanding FTS use may offer a strategy to reduce opioid overdose rates via improved naloxone carriage.


Accumulated public and private frustrations regarding escalating costs and substantial evidence of variation in medical practice have stimulated several parallel movements to narrow the gap between evidence and practice. Beginning with the work of the Canadian Task Force on the Periodic Health Examination 1 and the US Preventive Services Task Force 2 and followed by intense interest in the development and dissemination of clinical practice guidelines through a recent movement toward evidence-based medicine, 3 there has been a proliferation of tools and methods to assess the value of medical interventions and translate those findings into practice. Once the province of a small group of social scientists, meta-analysis, decision sciences, and other methods are now familiar to an expanding cadre of clinician scientists struggling to apply scientific methods to improve routine practice. The opportunities for improvement are immense and fully worthy of the collective effort. 4 See also p 285. The


This small volume is an excellent up-to-date survey of the current state of knowledge concerning various aspects of venous and arterial thromboembolic disease. With few exceptions, the chapters are well written, comprehensive, balanced, and critical. Particularly praiseworthy are the essay by Sevitt on the pathology and pathogenesis of deep vein thrombosis, a critical look at the relation of thrombosis to atherosclerosis by Poole, a survey of the relation of platelets to thrombosis by Vermylen and his co-workers, a sobering critique of fibrinolytic therapy by Prentice and McNicol, and a scholarly look at fibrinogen digestion products by Plow and his associates. A valuable chapter by Poller on oral contraception and its relation to thrombosis summarizes the large literature in this controversial area. Viewed from the standpoint of the pathologist, the blood coagulationist, and the physiologist, thrombosis receives a well-balanced look in this upto-date treatise, which can be highly recommended as a


In face of the problem of difficulty in traditional aging fuzzy reliability solving, a deep research is conducted on the aging fuzzy reliability calculation method of components and systems based on discrete-time condition. On the basis of aging fuzzy reliability calculation, the concept of time axis division and fuzzy theory operating rules are introduced. The degree of reliability calculation method of aging fuzzy reliability of individual component and system under the condition of discrete-time is also deduced, and avoid the integral solving problems when the ageing fuzzy reliability of components and systems is calculated. Finally, the analysis of practical example is presented to show the method is feasible and precise when time interval is rationally divided.


Problems of management occupy humankind's minds since the formation of societies and states. They turned into central points of political science in periods of transition from absolutist to republican order and subsequent waves of the democratic revolutions. What are the governments' goals, forms and levels of administration, and the best ways of their organization? - Here are the questions that faced the first champions of democracy. Since different political regimes with their adherents and opponents coexist in the world at the same time, the answers to these questions sound differently. For a long time, they were determined, especially in the countries with authoritarian regimes, from state-centrist positions, which had to promote the further strengthening of statehood at the expense of the power of societies and their members. The vocation of the managements' systems depends from the governments forms. In this article the purposes and vocation of the management systems, as well as their activity's effectiveness are considered from society and human centrist view on all socio-political and spiritual processes of life, and a state is understanding as the only one of the many thousands institutions of people, each of which is designed to serve them, solving specific tasks.


A low-complexity and high-flexibility design for a wavelength-selective optical switch using waveguide-type Raman amplifiers and directional couplers is proposed. This switch can be used as a core device in large-scale WDM packet routing networks. By relaxing some constraints in existing research, our design provides the following characteristics: (i) lower complexity, because fewer units of Raman amplifiers and directional couplers are needed; (ii) higher flexibility of power gain, because a wide range of configurable power gain for both unswitched and switched wavelengths is provided, so that equal power gain or equal power level output for all WDM wavelengths may be obtained. In addition to theoretical analysis, we provide a set of concise guidelines to control the configurable power gain under practical consideration.


CFD method is used to simulate characteristics of flow field inner a kind of wave-plate gas-liquid separator with drainage channels. The N-S equations closed with standard turbulence model is used. The resistance characteristic of separators with different vane clearances is acquired as function of inlet velocity and the flow fields are simulated numerically. In order to evaluate the simulation method, model experiment is carried on using wind-tunnel to obtain the resistance characteristic under the same operation condition. Good agreement is reached between numerical results and experimental data of pressure drop of the separator. The research can provide theoretic basis for the design and optimization of wave-plate gas-liquid separator in the future.


In 1957, the Aboriginal Welfare Board (the authority in charge of the Aboriginal population in the State of New South Wales) questioned the soundness of one section of the Aboriginal Protection Act (apa, 1909-43) it administered. It therefore it launched a major survey in order to obtain the view on the question of all those "closely associated with aboriginal welfare and conduct", and in particular the members of the police. The Board did not just ask the police to state their opinion on the issue, but also to provide some figures about the Aboriginal population in their Patrol. The article analyses the construction of those figures, and it attempts to show how new interpretations emerged during the 1960s, especially through the rise of the political movement in favour of Aboriginal Rights.


Curare is known to be less effective as an acetycholine antagonist when the divalent cation concentration of the extracellular solution is increased. This observation can be accounted for by the negative surface potential on the end plate; an increase in divalent cation concentration decreases the negativity of the surface potential and thereby lowers the concentrations of cations at the membrane-solution interface. The concentration of divalent cations, such as curare, will be reduced more than the concentration of univalent cations, such as acetylcholine. The observations can be accounted for by a surface potential of about -50 millivolts. The same principle can explain the reported actions of divalent cations on the affinity of receptors for acetylcholine. The effects of surface potential on concentrations at active sites may play an important role in drug interactions.


It is widely recognized that composite floor slabs experiencing large displacement develop a central zone of hydrostatic membrane tension, surrounded and equilibrated by a ring of membrane compression around the periphery. This mechanism, known as tensile membrane action, can greatly enhance the load-bearing capacity of a slab compared with that defined by yield line analysis. This is a very useful effect in cases where large deflections can be accepted, particularly in fire-resistance design of composite slabs, since the strength enhancement permits some beams to be left unprotected. Studies of tensile membrane action in the 1960s led to the development of several methods to define slab load capacity under large displacement. The method due to Hayes [5] has become the most widely accepted, and was adopted by Bailey [1, 2] in developing the BRE method for fire-safe design of composite floors. Based on observations from the Cardington fire tests and on assumptions concerning yield line patterns and membrane stresses, it calculates the load-carrying enhancement of a slab as a function of its deflection [2]. It also postulates a deflection limit at which the maximum acceptable strain in the rebar is reached. On close examination, however, several hypotheses, such as the assumed failure mechanisms, seem illogical. The BRE method assumes that a common observation, of a through-depth crack forming across the central short-span of the slab, represents the limit state for such slabs. However, it has been observed that similar cracks can also appear at the intersections of the yield lines, or even not appear at all [3]. This paper proposes a simple way to define the deflection at which the through-depth crack forms, and where on the slab it appears. Based on consistent kinematic assumptions, it calculates the tensile stresses at key points of the slab [4], and predicts the position and displacement at which through-depth cracking occurs.


Methods for determining the uncertainty in antenna measurements have been previously developed and presented. The IEEE has published IEEE 1720-2012 that formalizes a methodology for uncertainty analysis of near-field antenna measurements. In contrast, approaches to uncertainty analysis for antenna measurements on a compact range are not covered as well in the literature. A review and discussion of the terms that affect gain and sidelobe uncertainty are presented as a framework for assessing the uncertainty in compact range antenna measurements including effects of the non-ideal properties of the incident plane wave. An example uncertainty analysis is presented.


Conversion to glycogen is a major fate of ingested glucose in the body. A rate-limiting enzyme in the synthesis of glycogen is glycogen synthase encoded by two genes, GYS1, expressed in muscle and other tissues, and GYS2, primarily expressed in liver (liver glycogen synthase). Defects in GYS2 cause the inherited monogenic disease glycogen storage disease 0. We have generated mice with a liver-specific disruption of the Gys2 gene (liver glycogen synthase knock-out (LGSKO) mice), using Lox-P/Cre technology. Conditional mice carrying floxed Gys2 were crossed with mice expressing Cre recombinase under the albumin promoter. The resulting LGSKO mice are viable, develop liver glycogen synthase deficiency, and have a 95% reduction in fed liver glycogen content. They have mild hypoglycemia but dispose glucose less well in a glucose tolerance test. Fed, LGSKO mice also have a reduced capacity for exhaustive exercise compared with mice carrying floxed alleles, but the difference disappears after an overnight fast. Upon fasting, LGSKO mice reach within 4 h decreased blood glucose levels attained by control floxed mice only after 24 h of food deprivation. The LGSKO mice maintain this low blood glucose for at least 24 h. Basal gluconeogenesis is increased in LGSKO mice, and insulin suppression of endogenous glucose production is impaired as assessed by euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp. This observation correlates with an increase in the liver gluconeogenic enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase expression and activity. This mouse model mimics the pathophysiology of glycogen storage disease 0 patients and highlights the importance of liver glycogen stores in whole body glucose homeostasis.


The mechanism for a peer to randomly choose logical neighbors, without any knowledge about the physical topology, causes a serious topology mismatch between the overlay networks and the physical network. A flooding-based search is robust to node failure, but the response message will be lost if any node on the response path fails, and the flooding search may causes heavy network traffic. In order to solve these two problems, we propose a semantic-based hybrid overlay network (CSONG). In the tree-like network structure, semantic-based clustering algorithm is used to decide the 1st level super peers and the 2nd level super peers. Node join algorithm, node departure algorithm and query searching algorithm are presented to ensure construction and running of the network. Finally, comparison experiments are made to show the performance of querying search with CSONG.


We study the implication of the standard principal-agent theory developed by Holmstrom and Milgrom (1987) on the endogenous matching of CEO and firm. We show that a CEO with low disutility of effort, low risk aversion, or both should manage a safer firm in the matching equilibrium, and that a CEO in a safer firm should receive a higher compensation than average. Nevertheless, these predictions are not supported by data; proxies for low disutility such as educational achievement and experience are either not related to firm risks or significantly related but in the direction opposite to that predicted by the theory. CEOs of safer firms are paid less than average, again contrary to the standard principal-agent theory.


Ferromagnetic soft materials (FSM) can generate flexible movement and shift morphology in response to an external magnetic field. They have been engineered to design products in a variety of promising applications, such as soft robots, compliant actuators, or bionic devices, et al. By using different patterns of magnetization in the soft elastomer matrix, ferromagnetic soft matters can achieve various shape changes. Although many magnetic soft robots have been designed and fabricated, they are limited by the designers' intuition. Topology optimization (TO) is a systematically mathematical method to create innovative structures by optimizing the material layout within a design domain without relying on the designers' intuition. It can be utilized to architect ferromagnetic soft active structures. Since many of these 'soft machines' exist in the form of thin-shell structures, in this paper, the extended level set method (X-LSM) and conformal mapping theory are employed to carry out topology optimization of the ferromagnetic soft actuator on manifolds. The objective function consists of a sub-objective function for the kinematics requirement and a sub-objective function for minimum compliance. Shape sensitivity analysis is derived using the material time derivative and adjoint variable method. Two examples, including a circular shell actuator and a flytrap structure, are studied to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.


In order to investigate the levels of heavy metal contamination and to assess the risk of the adverse health effects on human exposure to toxic heavy metals influenced by past mining activities, environmental geochemical surveys were undertaken around abandoned metal mine sites (Okdong Cu-Pb-Zn, Dokok Au-Ag-Cu and Hwacheon Au-Ag-Pb-Zn mines). High concentrations of heavy metals were found in tailings from the Okdong (72 As mg/kg, 53.6 Cd mg/kg, 910 Cu mg/kg, 1,590 Pb mg/kg, 5,720 Zn mg/kg), the Dokok (254 As mg/kg, 98.2 Cd mg/kg, 2,550 Cu mg/kg, 4,200 Pb mg/kg, 18,020 Zn mg/kg) and the Hwacheon (72 As mg/kg, 12.4 Cd mg/kg, 580 Pb mg/kg, 1,300 Zn mg/kg) mines. Elevated levels of As, Cd, Pb and Zn were also found in agricultural soils from these mine areas. Human risk effects are classified into a cancer effect and a toxic (noncancer) effect. The hazard index representing a toxic risk for As was higher value than 1.0 in the Okdong and the Hwacheon mine sites, as was that for Cd in the Okdong and Dokok mine sites. Therefore, toxic risks for As and Cd exist via exposure (ingestion) to the contaminated soil, groundwater and rice grains in these mine areas. The cancer risk for As by the consumption of groundwater used as drinking water from the Okdong and the Hwacheon mine areas was 7E-4 and 1E-4, respectively. These risk levels exceed the acceptable risk (1 in 100,000) for regulatory purposes.


A reference book for learners and teachers of English as a second or foreign language. Its main aim is to provide intermediate and advanced learners with access to the information they need in order to correct their grammatical errors. For teachers, it provides a checklist of learners' errors, together with explanations of the relevant grammatical points. The book covers errors in system grammar and errors in word grammar, as well as "common" errors, namely, those that are made by learners of various language backgrounds. The guide employs standard British English, and the differences between British English and American English usage are described at the relevant entries. The entries feature examples of correct and incorrect usage, followed by an explanation of the rule which has been broken.


The Federal Circuit said in Ericsson, Inc. v. D-Link Systems, Inc. that a jury instructed to determine a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) royalty for standard-essential patents (SEPs) "must be told to consider the difference between the added value of the technological invention and the added value of that invention's standardization." The court emphasized that a FRAND royalty "must be premised on the value of the patented feature, not any value added by the standard's adoption of the patented technology." The Federal Circuit reasoned that "those steps are necessary to ensure that the royalty award is based on the incremental value that the patented invention adds to the product" and is not based on any value that the standardization of that technology adds to the product. The Federal Circuit's phrase "the value of standardization" is abstract and ambiguous. Restated in more direct and more intuitive terms, the phrase appears to denote the value from making a collective decision to conform to a standard — that is, the value that arises when inventors and potential implementers agree that they will comply with a standard to solve a particular technological challenge. That agreement to create a standard does not imply that a feasible technology already exists to become the standard, nor does it indicate that the required technology (if it does not yet exist) will be straightforward to develop. The standard-setting organization (SSO) cannot simply hypothesize that an available and acceptable technology exists for the standard because the SSO would like to have a standard. Consequently, in patent litigation after Ericsson v. D-Link it is essential to disaggregate "the value of standardization" from the value of the technologies incorporated into the standard. "The value of standardization" — that is, the value of the agreement to implement a unified standard — can arise from (1) a reduction in transactions costs for implementers of the standard and for SEP holders and (2) the network effects generated by interoperability between standard-compliant products. The value of the technologies incorporated into the standard comprises the rest of the total value of the standard.


Abstract Objective: Everolimus (EVE)+exemestane (EXE; n = 485) more than doubled median progression-free survival versus placebo (PBO) + EXE (n = 239), with a manageable safety profile and no deterioration in health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) in patients with hormone-receptor-positive (HR+) advanced breast cancer (ABC) who recurred or progressed on/after nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitor (NSAI) therapy. To further evaluate EVE + EXE impact on disease burden, we conducted additional post-hoc analyses of patient-reported HRQOL. Research design and methods: HRQOL was assessed using EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-BR23 questionnaires at baseline and every 6 weeks thereafter until treatment discontinuation because of disease progression, toxicity, or consent withdrawal. Endpoints included the QLQ-C30 Global Health Status (QL2) scale, the QLQ-BR23 breast symptom (BRBS), and arm symptom (BRAS) scales. Between-group differences in change from baseline were assessed using linear mixed models with selected covariates. Sensitivity analysis using pattern-mixture models determined the effect of study discontinuation on/before week 24. Treatment arms were compared using differences of least squares mean (LSM) changes from baseline and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) at each timepoint and overall. Clinical trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT00863655. Main outcome measures: Progression-free survival, survival, response rate, safety, and HRQOL. Results: Linear mixed models (primary model) demonstrated no statistically significant overall difference between EVE + EXE and PBO + EXE for QL2 (LSM difference = −1.91; 95% CI = −4.61, 0.78), BRBS (LSM difference = −0.18; 95% CI = −1.98, 1.62), or BRAS (LSM difference = −0.42; 95% CI = −2.94, 2.10). Based on pattern-mixture models, patients who dropped out early had worse QL2 decline on both treatments. In the expanded pattern-mixture model, EVE + EXE-treated patients who did not drop out early had stable BRBS and BRAS relative to PBO + EXE. Key limitations: HRQOL data were not collected after disease progression. Conclusions: These analyses confirm that EVE + EXE provides clinical benefit without adversely impacting HRQOL in patients with HR+ ABC who recurred/progressed on prior NSAIs versus endocrine therapy alone.


The effect of i. v. verapamil administration on some indices of the hemodynamics of the greater and lesser circulation was studied in 19 patients with bronchial asthma by a multiple approach using noninvasive methods (rheopulmonography, polycardiography, tetrapolar chest rheography). A decrease in the systemic as well as pulmonary arterial pressure and vascular resistance was revealed. The anti-hypertensive effect of verapamil on the lesser circulation was more pronounced and stable.


This study focuses on the numerical analysis of a piping structure subjected to the water-hammer event caused by a rapid valve closure that is combined with external harmonic loading representing an idealized machine excitation. The fluid-structure interaction procedure applied to solutions involves the method of characteristic for the fluid equations with the finite element method for pipe structures, which are modeled as beams. Junction coupling at the pipe elbow governs the two-way coupled fluid-structure interaction, and both the friction and Poisson couplings are incorporated as well. There is an application on a piping structure that consists of a valve, tank, and elbow that are defined as boundary conditions. The solved result quantities include pressure and bending stress responses as well as dynamic displacement modes of the piping structure. Comparisons of the results show that water hammer loading combined with the mechanical excitation load induces significantly increased displacements and higher stress peaks when frequencies of the harmonic load and the acoustic natural mode of the piping system coincide. Additionally, the resulting mode of lateral structural vibration of the piping member closely resembles an analytically solved eigenmode of the beam. The conclusion is that dynamically changing flows due to a water hammer event can solely excite natural frequencies of the piping structure causing resonance in the system.


Generally speaking, purification represents the most costly step within food production and biotechnological processes. Membrane-based processes, such as ultrafiltration (pore size from 10 to 1000 A) are widely used on an industrial scale. Membrane-based processes are aligned to green chemistry concepts, that is, they are environmentally-friendly, do not generate harmful residues, show a low consumption of energy and an easy scale-up, among others. The food industry applies ultrafiltration to a wide range of fields. For instance (i) dairy - milk treatment, production of ice cream, etc. As an alternative to pasteurization of milk, ultrafiltration can be used also as pretreatment of milk for cheese production, in which large molecular weight compounds such as caseins, whey proteins, etc., are in the retentate, whereas low molecular weight compounds such as lactose and peptides are in the permeate. Similarly, low lactose yogurts can be produced (ii) beverage - during the juice clarification using membranes, pulp, pectin and essential oils are retained, whereas the juice itself is permeate. Ultrafiltration is also used in the production of clear beer and wine (concentration) (iii) degumming edible oils - (e.g., crude soybean oil, sunflower seed oil), in which phospholipids are removed (retentate) by ultrafiltration as an equivalent first step of the oil refining process (traditionally, carried out by water or dilute acid that leads to precipitation phospholipids) (iv) fish, poultry and gelatin - ultrafiltration is largely used for wastewater treatment processes, in particular for high protein content residues. Nevertheless, over the past few decades, the recovery of bioactive peptides and proteins from these wastewaters has drawn significant attention, that is, doubly advantageous (waste treatment and recovery of high added-value compounds) (v) drinking water treatment - high quality potable water implies the absence of microorganisms (e.g., Giardia), organic matter (e.g., humic substances), inorganic particles, and others hazardous substances. This water quality can be achieved by ultrafiltration, in which the main limitation is related to long-term flux decline (membrane fouling). Thus, membrane materials and membrane filtration operating systems, etc., should be better investigated (vi) recovery of specific molecules - plant proteins, enzymes (e.g., lysosyme) and phenolic compounds can be recovery and purified by ultrafiltration well-defined methodologies. Membrane-based separations, in particular ultrafiltration, are extensively used by food industry. However, improvements are still needed in virtually all applications.


The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) programme has succeeded in generating valuable knowledge about the outcomes of schooling in the region, and in developing capacity to use data, including test data, in governments and amongst researchers. However, there is room for improvements in the programme. The current paper examines the extent to which patterns in the 2000 and 2007 test data suggest cheating occurred. The risk of cheating during the administration of the SACMEQ tests clearly exists, both because in-built controls can be subverted and because all pupils write exactly the same test, which is unlike the situation in a programme such as TIMSS, which employs a matrix sampling test design approach. Data analysis methods developed by Jacob and Levitt (2003) to detect cheating are adapted and then applied to the SACMEQ, but also TIMSS, data. It is concluded that whilst cheating does not substantially change the overall picture of performance derived from the 2000 and 2007 data, or country rankings, noteworthy patterns highly consistent with cheating can be found in some countries, and some regions within countries. Country-level indicators of cheating in SACMEQ correlate remarkably well with World Bank indicators of general corruption. An analysis of conditional correlations within the SACMEQ data reveals that schools serving more socio-economically disadvantaged pupils are more likely to cheat. In one country, having a male school principal is associated with a higher likelihood of cheating.


Media coverage of climate change has been an area of continued research during the last years, mostly with a focus on developed countries. This study attempts to contribute to this body of work by analyzing the coverage in a developing country. The study presents a content analysis of newspaper coverage of climate change in Peru through the study of frames, geographical focus, and climate change strategies (mitigation/adaptation). Additionally, the role of foreign voices is assessed by comparing the coverage by Peruvian reporters with the coverage by wire services, and by determining the types of sources present in the articles. Results show a prevalence of an effects frame, followed by a politics frame. Also, the study found a significant amount of stories originating from wire services. In general, coverage prioritizes mitigation strategies and policies while providing limited attention to adaptation, which can be insufficient for a highly vulnerable country.


The work of Mike Batzle has been — and continues to be — an inspiration to rock physicists around the world. In the basement of the Green Center of the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), which houses the Center for Rock Abuse, and before that at ARCO and MIT, Batzle was ceaselessly brewing up new ways to unlock the properties hidden inside rocks and their fluids. In this special section, we present contributions of researchers who either collaborated with Batzle or were inspired by the results he and his students have shared over the last decades.


The situation is considered in a continuum of r-K-selection of hermaphroditic and parthenogenetic populations of trematodes (fish parasites) of three species: Bunodera luciopercae, Sphaerostomum bramae, and Phyllodistomum elongatum. Maritae of B. luciopercae and S. bramae are characterized by a low fertility, single-type reproduction, and long prereproductive period, and are involved in interspecific competition. On the contrary, maritae of Ph. elongatum rapidly mature, are highly fertile, repeatedly reproduce, and occur in a "competitive vacuum". Pathenitae of these trematodes combine the features of both forms of selection, which is accounted for by adaptations to the parasitic mode of life. A reproductive tactic of parthenitae has been proposed, based on the redioid or sporocystoid types. According to the community of features, B luciopercae as a species is a "K-strategiest", S. bramae equally combines the features of both forms of selection, and Ph. elongatum is an "r-strategist".


After presenting and analysing data on current energy consumption and fossil fuel dependency, different scenarios for the future are given for the period ending 2050. Although it appears that the feared energy crisis will not occur immediately, it is clear that the current energy model, and even the model of society on wich it is based, is not sustainable. Two examples are given: one that represents inappropiate adaptation to the environment; one that represents good adaptation. The article concludes by stating the energy crisis exists and by offering some possible solutions.


Background: UGT1A1*28 polymorphism is associated with neutropenia and diarrhea in
previous reports, while this study tried to investigate
correlation with other toxicities like vomiting. Patients and Methods: This is a prospective case control study including all eligible cases of
advanced colorectal cancer. The genotypes of UGT1A1*28 was assessed in the
peripheral blood and/or in tissues by PCR. Patients were divided into two
groups, Group 1: patients with no mutation, Group 2: patients with homo or
hetero mutation. All patients received standard IFL regimen. Primary objectives
were: 1) comparison between the 2 groups as
regard vomiting, 2) assessment of the
incidence of UGT1A1*28 polymorphism. Secondary objectives were: comparison
between the 2 groups as regard: neutropenia, diarrhea, treatment delay,
progressive diseases (PD), progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival
(OS). Results: 46 cases of advanced colorectal
cancer present to National Cancer Institute, Cairo
University, aged between 19 and 71 years with a median age of 45 years were
included and followed up during the period from September 2010 to January 2013
with a median follow-up of 9 months. UGT1A1*28 polymorphism
was present in 20 patients (43%), of whom 15% are
homozygous. Grade (II-IV) vomiting was found in 8.3% of Group 1 versus 52.5% of
Group 2 (P = 0.01). Grade (II-IV) neutropenia was found in 20.8% of Group 1 versus 64.7% of Group 2 (P = 0.03). Grade (II-IV)
diarrhea was found in 37.5% of patients of Group 1 and 27.5% of patients with Group
2. (P = 0.75). Treatment
delay occurred in 29.16% of Group 1 versus 72.4% of Group 2 (P = 0.02). 25% of Group 1 showed PD versus
25% of Group 2 (P = 0.8). 1-year PFS was 19% in Group 1 versus 23% in Group 2 (P = 0.8) while there was a trend towards better OS in Group 1 (47% versus
35%) (P = 0.07). Conclusions: UGT1A1*28 polymorphism is present frequently (43%) in a Caucasian
population and is associated with more vomiting, neutropenia and treatment
delay.


This study shows that as a result of exergy destructions in heat recovery ventilation units additional but avoidable carbon dioxide emissions take place due to the imbalance between the unit exergy of thermal power recovered and the unit exergy of fan power required for the additional pressure drop in the heat exchanger. Therefore, special attention needs to be paid in the design and control of heat recovery ventilation units in order to minimize such carbon dioxide emissions responsibility by a proper exergyrational balance between heat recovered and power required. The potential improvements about the exergy rationality of the heat recovery ventilation units were investigated for several alternatives. These alternatives were: heat recovery ventilation-only (base case), coupling with an air-to-air heat pump in tandem or parallel to the heat recovery ventilation unit, and a heat pump-only case. In order to carry out such an investigation, a new exergyoptimum design and dynamic control model was developed. Under typical design conditions, this model showed that a heat pump in parallel configuration does not improve the exergy rationality unless its coefficient of performance is over 11, which is not practical with today's technology. Instead, passive solar and wind energy systems have been discussed and recommended. Results were also compared with condensing boiler, micro-cogeneration unit, fuel cell, and electric resistance heating cases. It has been shown that heat recovery ventilation with an air-to-air heat pump in tandem is the best in terms of the exergy-based coefficient of performance. Additional comparisons were made concerning avoidable and direct carbon dioxide emission responsibilities, global warming-potential and ozone-depleting potential, embodied energy, embodied exergy, and carbon dioxide recovery periods. A new composite index, which recognizes the direct relationship between the ozone layer depletion and the greenhouse gas emissions has also been introduced for comparing system alternatives in terms of their atmospheric footprint.


Evapotranspiration is one of the most important components of the hydrological cycle. It is essential in all of hydro climatological studies, irrigation and drainage calculations, water balance, and crop water requirements. The aim of this study is to investigate temporal trends of reference evapotranspiration (ETo) in the Northwest part of Iran. For this purpose, the meteorological data from 20 synoptic stations over a 22-year time period (1986–2007) were used. After the calculation of ETo using the Penman-Monteith FAO-56 method, the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test was used to investigate the temporal trends on monthly, seasonal and annual scales. The Sen's estimator method was used and to calculate the slope of the trend line. The results indicated that the ETo trend was increasing (positive) in various months, except for the Sarab station in December. On a monthly scale, the Maragheh station showed the highest positive slope in August, and the Bijar station showed the highest negative slope in May. 43.34% of the stations showed a significant trend, and 56.66% did not show a significant trend. In seasonal and annual time periods there was not a significant decreasing trend in any of the stations. The analysis of the results shows that in the spring 20%, in the summer 55%, in the fall 70%, in the winter 75%, and on an annual scale 60% of the stations under study showed an increasing trend. For modeling these changes, the spatial distribution of ETo trends (on monthly, seasonal, and annual scales) were mapped in ArcGIS. Final models determine that most stations in this study show an increasing trend on monthly, seasonal and annual scales.


In this letter, we investigate the effect of capping silicon nitride and nitrided gate oxide on the hump in the sub-threshold slope of various transistors. Silicon wafers having both high- and low-voltage transistors are fabricated. The thin gate oxide is grown by nitric oxidation, while two step process of dry oxidation and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) is used for the thick gate oxide. Note that the thickness of thin gate oxide is 4.5 nm, and 29 nm for thick gate oxide. It appears that both low-voltage nMOS and pMOS do not show any hump, nor does high-voltage pMOS. The subthreshold hump of high-voltage nMOS depends on process conditions. It shows severe hump without capping silicon nitride layer due to moisture diffusion during thermal anneal after interlayer oxide deposition by LPCVD. It also appears that nitrided oxide is effective to prevent hump by stopping moisture diffusion.


Microsphere-assisted ultramicroscopy is a powerful, yet simple, technique to visualize nanometric-scale objects with visible light. In this method, dielectric microspheres are placed in contact with the nanoscale objects, so that the spheres experience object's optical near-fields. The mechanism of imaging is still debated in the literature; however it is likely to involve surface plasmon resonances in metallic nanostructured objects, whispering gallery modes in dielectric microspheres and other factors. In this work we extended this technique from visible to deep-UV range. It is shown that imaging of nanoplasmonic structures at the wavelength of 248 nm can be achieved with ~ 55 - 60 nm resolution, far beyond the diffraction limit. These results could shed light on the mechanism of super-resolution imaging by microspheres and further advance this technology for practical applications.


: Twenty six piglets aged 25 days divided into 4 groups (Groups 1 and 4 included 5 piglets and Groups 2 and 3 comprised 8 ones) were selected. The piglets from Groups 1, 2, and 3 were peritoneally inoculated with 5000 protoscolices and acephalocysts from the cyst of human Echinococcus granulosus by the procedure [4]. Group 4 piglets were not inoculated they served as a control group. Prior to infection, the animals were weighed and their blood was analyzed by the conventional procedure. On day 90 following inoculation, the piglets were killed. All the infected piglets developed Echinococci which grew rapidly, some larvocysts measured as high as 34 mm in diameter and contained alive protoscolices. The Echinococcus-infected animals were found to have changes in blood composition, impaired protein-amino acid metabolism, lower living mass as compared to the controls. The inoculation of embryonic elements of echinococcosis from ill humans to pigs is a model of this disease, which is promising for medical studies.


Hygiene and disinfection practices play an important role at preventing spread of viral infections in household, industrial and clinical settings. Although formulations based on >70% ethanol are virucidal, there is a currently a need to reformulate products with much lower alcohol concentrations. It has been reported that zinc can increase the virucidal activity of alcohols, although the reasons for such potentiation is unclear. One approach in developing virucidal formulations is to understand the mechanisms of action of active ingredients and formulation excipients. Here, we investigated the virucidal activity of alcohol (40% w/v) and zinc sulfate (0.1% w/v) combinations and their impact on a human adenovirus (HAdV) using, nucleic acid integrity assays, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). We observed no difference in virucidal activity (5 log10 reduction in 60 min) against between an ethanol only based formulation and a formulation combining ethanol and zinc salt. Furthermore, TEM imaging showed that the ethanol only formulation produced gross capsid damage, whilst zinc-based formulation or formulation combining both ethanol and zinc did not affect HAdV DNA. Unexpectedly, the addition of nickel salt (5 mM NiCl2) to the ethanol-zinc formulation contributed to a weakening of the capsid and alteration of the capsid mechanics exemplified by AFM imaging, together with structural capsid damage. The addition of zinc sulfate to the ethanol formulation did not add the formulation efficacy, but the unexpected mechanistic synergy between NiCl2 and the ethanol formulation opens an interesting perspective for the possible potentiation of an alcohol-based formulation. Furthermore, we show that AFM can be an important tool for understanding the mechanistic impact of virucidal formulation.


The decline in fertility in Australia in the 1990s reflected both decreased first order birth rates and decreased second order birth rates (Kippen 2004). Whilst childlessness has been studied extensively, little attention has been paid to the progression from one to two children. This study analyses which women with parity one do not progress to parity two or more, using data from 1809 parous 40-54 year olds from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. A woman's birthplace, highest level and type of schooling, her father's occupation, and the intactness of her parents' relationship are shown to be important early lifecourse predictors of whether a she stops her childbearing at one child. A woman's age at first birth, marital status, health, occupation, labour force participation and attitudes to religion and to leisure activities are shown to be significant later life correlates of her progression to a second birth. The implications for public policy are discussed.


Aims. The zebra structures observed in radio waves during solar flares are some of the most important structures used as diagnostics of solar flare plasmas. We here not only analyze the so-called double plasma-resonance (DPR) surfaces, but also estimate the effects of their form on the size of the zebra sources and brightness temperature.
Methods. To compute the DPR surfaces, we used numerical and analytical methods.
Results. We found that except for the case of a constant magnetic field across the loop, the DPR surfaces deviate from the constant plasma density surfaces. We found that the regime with a finite height scale has three forms of resonance surfaces depending on the magnetic field variation across the loop. This magnetic field variation also determines if in the generated zebra structure, an increase in gyro-harmonic number leads to an increase or decrease of the zebra stripe frequency. In the case with an infinite height scale, the resonance surfaces are parallel to the loop axis. Furthermore, we found that for highly polarized zebra structures that are generated at DPR surfaces close to the plasma frequency, the zebra emission is limited to the narrow escaping cone and the emitting source area increases with increasing viewing angle compared to the loop axis. Moreover, with increasing deviation of the DPR surfaces from those of constant density surfaces, the frequency bandwidth of the DPR emission increases and can cause the zebra stripes to overlap, which limits the zebra generation. For the zebra structures observed on 14 February 1999, 6 June 2000, and 1 August 2010 and the observed view perpendicular to the loop axis, we estimated that the brightness temperature is 3.67 × 1014 K, 6.58 × 1013 K, and 7.35 × 1015 K, respectively. These brightness temperatures are much lower than those derived for the view along the loop axis (up to 1017 K), and thus are more realistic. The area of the emitting source for coronal loops in the view perpendicular to the loop axis can be larger by several orders of magnitude than that in the view along the loop axis.


The study of antibiotic sensitivity in staphylococci isolated from the patients in the clinic of the N. N. Burdenko Research Institute of Neurosurgery of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in 1977 showed that in this stationary in 1977 predominated cultures resistant to benzylpenicillin. The number of the isolates resistant to streptomycin, levomycetin and erythromycin was high. The percentage of the strains resistant to tetracycline was the least. Still up to 1973 the resistance level to tetracycline among staphylococci was high. Possibly such a dynamics of the changes in the staphylococcal sensitivity to tetracycline was relative and mainly defined by the changes in the system of the results estimation using the paper disc procedure.


An advanced graphic interface can be used for the modelling and simulation of an operation conducted by means of telerobotic surgery. The use of a graphic interface is justified in a telemanipulation system working under communication time delay. In fact the real time simulation allows an exploration of the future scenarios. It is also proved that the use of a virtual reality interface, with a graphic display, increases the performances of the operator. Laparoscopy is currently making a name for itself as one of the most interesting applications in the context of telerobotic surgery.


Purpose: To compare the awareness and treatment knowledge of malaria amongst caregivers of young children in urban and rural areas of Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area in Ogun State. Method: Structured questionnaires were administered to caregivers of children under the age of five years in 1472 households using a multistage random sampling technique. Results: Many respondents (65%) attributed the cause of malaria to mosquito bite. The knowledge of malaria treatment (particularly the knowledge of pediatric doses) was generally poor. Caregivers in urban areas had better understanding of the dosage regimen for both adult and pediatric doses (p<0.05) than those in rural areas (p <0.05). However, caregivers in urban areas also sought more frequently for treatment of their children that are febrile than those living in rural areas. The latter visited the patent medicine vendors more frequently than the former (p<0.05). Conclusion: The caregivers of children in the communities studied have poor knowledge of malaria. Those in urban areas have better health-seeking behaviour than those in rural areas. There is therefore need for urgent interventions to promote appropriate treatments of malaria in rural areas.


Cognates are words in different languages that have similar spelling and meaning. The identification of cognates is very useful for many different Natural Language Processing tasks, and also in the process of learning a second language. This paper presents a new approach to classify pairs of words into cognates/false friends or not related classes. The proposed approach uses a fuzzy system to combine complementary string similarity measures in order to improve the cognate identification task. The underlying hypothesis is that the combination of different string measures by applying heuristic knowledge, can outperform those measures working separately. The results obtained by the proposed system confirm the previous hypothesis, and furthermore it also outperforms other systems that combine string measures by using a supervised approach. As an additional contribution, we have created a bilingual test data set which include pairs of cognates, false friends and unrelated words in Spanish and English, that is freely available for research purposes.


Resting-state functional brain network (rs-fcMRI) is defined as temporal correlations between BOLD signals. Each psychiatric disorder has been characterized by specific abnormal connectivity between specific brain regions. Many psychiatric treat-ments were found to normalize the aberrant connectivity, and the curative effect was correlated with the induced connectivity change. However, no treatment can selectively change the specified connectivity. Fukuda Megumi (2015) developed a "connec-tivity" real-time fMRI neurofeedback (rt-fMRI NF) to change the functional connectivity between two specified brain areas. Only four days of the rt-fMRI NF training statistically extinguished the usually negative correlations between the default-mode and motor/visuo-spatial networks, for more than two months. Previous classification of psychiatric disorders based on rs-fcMRI did not generalize well beyond a single imaging site. We selected as small as 0.2% of all functional connections (FCs) to classify high-functioning adult autism spectrum disorder (hASD) patients. 82% correct rate was obtained for multiple Japanese sites, and the biomarker generalized to US data with 75% (Yahata et al. 2013). We conclude that qualitative abnormalities of a small number of FCs underlie hASD. Shibata et al. (2011) developed the "decoded neurofeedback"(DecNef) method by which specific brain activity patterns can be induced noninvasively utilizing rt-fMRI NF. It is possible to combine the above mentioned hASD biomarker, connectivity rt-fMRI NF and DecNef to construct a new therapy for psychiatric disorders. We ascertained safety of this method and obtained preliminary but encouraging results showing recovery of normal brain network patterns in hASD patients (Hashimoto et al. 2013). Abstract In late 2014, the CINP published the report of a summit con-vened to identify various ways to move forward in drug development for CNS disorders (Andersen et al., Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 13:871). One component of this report included a recommendation for consideration of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) developed by the US National Institute of Mental Health. The RDoC was developed as a research framework for studying mental disorders in terms of deviations from norma-tive behaviors and cognitive processes, and perturbations in the neural systems that implement these processes. The approach was developed explicitly to address the increasing realization that mental disorders (and potentially many neurological disorders as well) represent broad, heterogeneous syndromes rather than specific disease entities – a problem that may well represent a substantial component of the reasons for recent problems in drug discovery for CNS disorders. The idea is that studying more specific functions, which often relate to specific symptom clusters such as cognition or disrupted reward processing, may eventually provide more homogeneous patient groupings and facilitate successful drug discovery efforts. In this address, I will first describe the rationale for the RDoC project, and outline its two major components as a theory of psychopathology and as a specific set of criteria for reviewing grant applications. This discussion will include a brief discussion about efforts toward biomarker development, and how biomarkers are viewed in terms of the integrative design of the RDoC research framework. These remarks will provide a context to clarify some of the misunderstandings that have arisen about the project. Finally, the talk will conclude with a discussion of RDoC as it relates to the current NIMH approach to clinical trials, and how the trials portfolio fits into the overall Institute priori-ties for research on mental disorders. Abstract This presentation will review evidence that communication within and between cortical networks is mediated by fast excitatory glutamatergic transmission, and evidence that dis-turbances in this fundamental feature of cortical processing is critical in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorders (MDD). It will focus on a new brain imaging technology, fluorescence deconvolution tomography (FDT), which has been developed for the measurement and visualization of very large numbers (~1 million) of individual excitatory contacts labeled with anti-sera against the postsynaptic density pro-tein, PSD95. PSD95 plays a vital role in positioning glutamate receptors as well as maintaining integrity of the postsynaptic component of the synaptic junction. The FDT technology has recently been applied to study synaptic abnormalities in a rat model of congenital depression (learned helplessness). Rats were bred for depressive-like behavior and for resilience. This research characterized excitatory synapses in layer I of the infralimbic cortex [an area homologous to the ante-rior cingulate (ACC) in man and a region relevant to major depressive disorder. For each rat, 250,000 synapses were 3D reconstructed. Three groups were studied: (1) rats bred for learned helplessness (cLH); (2) rats resilient to learned helplessness (cNLH); and (3) control Sprague Dawley rats. In fields


This paper examines the history of St. Louis, Missouri in coping with flood risk over the past 15 years, with a focus on flood insurance. Six challenges to the continued management of riverine flood risk are identified and discussed. They are (1) many property owners don't buy flood insurance, (2) people underestimate flood risk, (3) we need better flood maps, (4) we have a "love affair" with levees, (5) flood risk is increasing over time, and (6) we take deep pride in rebuilding after a disaster. Recommendations for how to improve flood risk management in light of these challenges are offered. Focused attention is given to the possibility of long-term flood insurance contracts tied to long-term loans for risk-mitigating activities in overcoming the six challenges.


This textbook is uniquely written with dual purpose. It cover cores material in the foundations of computing for graduate students in computer science and also provides an introduction to some more advanced topics for those intending further study in the area. This innovative text focuses primarily on computational complexity theory: the classification of computational problems in terms of their inherent complexity. The book contains an invaluable collection of lectures for first-year graduates on the theory of computation. Topics and features include more than 40 lectures for first year graduate students, and a dozen homework sets and exercises.


Much has already been written on this most recent EVD outbreak — evaluating and dissecting the contributions and failings of the various role-players involved, and considering what can be done differently in future. This article will contribute to this important and ongoing debate and will specifically focus on the international, operational, and national legal frameworks in terms of which large-scale health crises like that of Ebola play out. It will be argued that the very culture and architecture of this transnational legal and operational framework for public health emergencies is isolated from the national realities in which it operates and merely offers a hierarchical authority of what legally ought to be done, with little regard to what is actually necessary and possible on the ground. In considering the most recent Ebola outbreak, and juxtaposing it with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ("SARS") outbreak of 2003, it will be shown that a more nuanced transnational legal understanding of public health emergencies is indeed needed — a holistic approach that goes beyond biomedical/scientific and legalistic confines in dealing with disease outbreak and control. It is again important to emphasise here, for the sake of clarity, that this article is exclusively focused on the transnational legal and operational framework in which public health emergencies play out. International humanitarian responses, general public health considerations, as well as other national systemic considerations — like those relating to health systems — although important, will not be considered here. A brief interlude on the methodology of this article also deserves a place here. As already indicated above, much literature exists on the Ebola outbreak, and with the attention now shifting to the Zika virus, it is important to further distinguish the contribution of this article. This article utilises a primarily transdisciplinary lens in narrating the rise and fall of two notable epidemics of the modern world. A variety of sources, from different disciplines and bases, are used in presenting an easily accessible text that recounts key themes of both epidemics — highlighting similarities and differences, and raising important questions for the future. As with most narrative research methodologies, reliance is also placed on newspaper articles in constructing an account of how the two epidemics played out, each in its own particular time and space. The disease narrative ultimately presented in this article, therefore simultaneously serve as a chronicle of the two epidemics, while also reflecting why a more nuanced transnational legal understanding of public health emergencies is indeed needed. To facilitate this discussion and analysis, the content of this article is divided into four parts. First, in Part II, the lifecycle of two epidemics will be considered, Ebola, and the 2003 SARS outbreak. Considering these two outbreaks and the international legal responses thereto provides a valuable lens through which the multiple layers of disease outbreaks and control from the past to the present can be observed. In Part III, this paper provides an overview of the international legal and operational framework for public health emergencies, confined to references and examples from the two outbreaks selected for and discussed in Part II. Part IV considers the national legal responses of those countries most affected by the recent Ebola outbreak and the 2003 SARS outbreak. Part V discusses the question of whether to quarantine or not. Part VI discusses lessons to be learned, and why knowledge production beyond disciplinary confines is necessary. And finally, Part VII of this article concludes with a critical analysis of two observed failings of the current international legal and operational framework for public health emergencies. In considering the shortcomings of the current framework it will be argued that a more holistic approach to disease control is required that looks beyond disciplinary confines.


Operating system courses are typically concerned with how to do various things, such as processor scheduling, memory allocation, etc. Naturally, this should be coupled with a discussion of how well the different approaches work. Interestingly, the answer to how well a system works may depend on how you quantify " wellness " , that is, on your metric for good performance. Being fast is good The most common metrics are related to time. If something takes less time, this is good for two reasons. From the user's or client's perspective, being done sooner means that you don't have to wait as long. From the system's perspective, being done sooner means that we are now free to deal with other things. While being fast is good, it still leaves the issue of units. Should the task of listing a directory, which takes milliseconds, be on the same scale as the task of factoring large numbers, which can take years? Thus it is sometimes better to consider time relative to some yardstick, and use different yardsticks for different jobs. A system's client is typically only concerned with his own work, and wants it completed as fast as possible. But from the system's perspective the sum of all clients is typically more important than any particular one of them. Making many clients moderately happy may therefore be better than making one client very happy, at the expense of others. The metric of " happy clients per second " is called throughput. Formally, this is the number of jobs done in a unit of time. It should be noted that these can be various 183


We propose a theory of weakly nonlinear multidimensional self-sustained detonations based on asymptotic analysis of the reactive compressible Navier–Stokes equations. We show that these equations can be reduced to a model consisting of a forced unsteady small-disturbance transonic equation and a rate equation for the heat release. In one spatial dimension, the model simplifies to a forced Burgers equation. Through analysis, numerical calculations and comparison with the reactive Euler equations, the model is demonstrated to capture such essential dynamical characteristics of detonations as the steady-state structure, the linear stability spectrum, the period-doubling sequence of bifurcations and chaos in one-dimensional detonations and cellular structures in multidimensional detonations.


Despite the rapid development of approaches aimed to precisely control transcription of exogenous genes in time and space, design of systems providing similar tight regulation of endogenous gene expression is much more challenging. However, finding ways to control the activity of endogenous genes is absolutely necessary for further progress in safe and effective gene therapies and regenerative medicine. In addition, such systems are of particular interest for genetics, molecular and cell biology. An ideal system should ensure tunable and reversible spatio-temporal control over transcriptional activity of a gene of interest. Although there are drug-inducible systems for transcriptional regulation of endogenous genes, optogenetic approaches seem to be the most promising for the gene therapy applications, as they are noninvasive and do not exhibit toxicity in comparison with druginducible systems. Moreover, they are not dependent on chemical inducer diffusion rate or pharmacokinetics and exhibit fast activation-deactivation switching. Among optogenetic tools, long-wavelength light-controlled systems are more preferable for use in mammalian tissues in comparison with tools utilizing shorter wavelengths, since far-red/near-infrared light has the maximum penetration depth due to lower light scattering caused by lipids and reduced tissue autofluorescence at wavelengths above 700 nm. Here, we review such light-inducible systems, which are based on synthetic factors that can be targeted to any desired DNA sequence and provide activation or repression of a gene of interest. The factors include zinc finger proteins, transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs), and the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these DNA targeting tools in the context of the light-inducible gene regulation systems.


Purpose: Telomere shortening is an early event in bronchial carcinogenesis, preceding P53/Rb pathway inactivation and telomerase reactivation, and leading to DNA damage responses (DDR). As their inactivation in cancer increases genetic instability, our objective was to identify the chronology of telomere machinery critical events for malignant progression. Experimental Design: We have evaluated telomere length by fluorescence in situ hybridization and analyzed DDR proteins p-CHK2, p-ATM, and p-H2AX, and telomeric maintenance proteins TRF1 and TRF2 expression by immunohistochemistry in normal bronchial/bronchiolar epithelium, and in 109 bronchial preneoplastic lesions, in comparison with 32 squamous invasive carcinoma (SCC), and in 27 atypical alveolar hyperplasia (AAH) in comparison with 6 adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS; formerly bronchiolo-alveolar carcinoma) and 24 invasive adenocarcinoma (ADC). Results: Telomere length critically shortened at bronchial metaplasia stage to increase gradually from dysplasia to invasive SCC; in bronchiolo-alveolar lesions, telomere length decreased from normal to AIS and increased from stage I to II to stage III to IV ADC. Expression of TRF1 and TRF2 increased progressively from dysplasia to SCC and from AAH to invasive ADC. The expression of concomitant DDR proteins increased significantly from low- to high-grade dysplasia and from AAH to AIS and stage I to II ADC. P-CHK2 and p-H2AX expressions were highly correlated and both decreased, along with p-ATM, in SCC and advanced ADC. Conclusion: Telomere attrition occurs at the earliest stage of lung carcinogenesis as an initiating event, preceding TRF1 and TRF2 overexpression for telomere stabilization. In contrast, dismiss of DDR, through p-H2AX and p-CHK2 downregulation, represents a late progressing event associated with SCC and ADC progression. Clin Cancer Res; 16(11); 2979–88. ©2010 AACR.


White adipose tissue (WAT) remodeling is dictated by coordinated interactions between adipocytes and resident stromal-vascular cells; however, the functional heterogeneity of adipose stromal cells has remained unresolved. We combined single-cell RNA-sequencing and FACS to identify and isolate functionally distinct subpopulations of Pdgfrβ stromal cells within visceral WAT of adult mice. Ly6c- Cd9- Pdgfrβ cells represent highly adipogenic visceral adipocyte precursor cells ("APCs"), whereas Ly6c Pdgfrβ cells represent fibro-inflammatory progenitors ("FIPs"). FIPs lack adipogenic capacity, display pro-fibrogenic/proinflammatory phenotypes, and can exert an anti-adipogenic effect on APCs. The pro-inflammatory and adipogenic phenotypes of Pdgfrβ cells are regulated, at least in part, by Nr4a nuclear receptors. These data highlight the functional heterogeneity of visceral WAT perivascular cells, and provide insight into potential cell-cell interactions impacting adipogenesis and inflammation. These improved strategies to isolate FIPs and APCs from visceral WAT will facilitate the study of physiological WAT remodeling and mechanisms leading to metabolic dysfunction.


This book is a collection of illustrations from the author's own material and collected from publications and colleagues around the world. There is a brief history with excellent illustrations of the historical aspects of multiple sclerosis (Figures 1-10). The section on epidemiology is sparse in text but the interplay between genetics and environment are appropriately covered. The pathogenesis is briefly reviewed and there are a number of excellent illustrations of pathology (Figures 15-50). However, there is very little treatment of the newer concepts of axonal loss in MS lesions. The ocular photographs will be helpful. There is a great deal of imaging. There probably are too many CT scans (Figures 61-73). There are, in addition, a number of very good examples of MRI lesions (Figures 74-84). The differential diagnosis is quite well done looking at the possibility of disc protrusion, various injury lesions, a number of illustrations of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) (Figures 93-102). There are also illustrations of Lyme disease, HTLV-1 myelopathy, AIDS, sarcoid, hypertensive cerebral vascular disease, vasculitis, and migraine. There are even a couple of cases of Dr. Poser's hobby (the relationship between head injury and MS lesions) (Figures 110-111). The illustrations end with several examples of SPECT and PET abnormalities in MS. Overall, this book is going to be very useful for the classical approach to understanding multiple sclerosis. However, the newer concepts of the evolution of lesions seen by MRI techniques such as MRI spectroscopy, T2 relaxation analysis, and magnetization transfer imaging are not covered. In addition, the newer studies related to the pathology of axonal loss are also not covered. I consider this Atlas to be a valuable addition to my library on multiple sclerosis. It is, however, already a bit dated.


High left ventricular stroke work and low vascular impedance predict better quality of life after valve intervention in patients with aortic stenosis. Hard work meets the path of least resistance Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is a treatment for patients with aortic stenosis (narrow aortic valve) that reduces the transvalvular pressure gradient; however, only some patients experience improved quality of life after the procedure. To understand how valvular, ventricular, and systemic vascular conditions contribute to improvements after TAVR, Ben-Assa et al. studied 70 patients undergoing the procedure. Patients with lower preprocedural vascular impedance and higher left ventricular stroke work had greater improvements in quality of life after TAVR. This suggests that analyzing valve, ventricle, and arterial system hemodynamics could identify patients likely to benefit from TAVR and inform timing of intervention. Aortic stenosis (AS) management is classically guided by symptoms and valvular metrics. However, the natural history of AS is dictated by coupling of the left ventricle, aortic valve, and vascular system. We investigated whether metrics of ventricular and vascular state add to the appreciation of AS state above valve gradient alone. Seventy patients with severe symptomatic AS were prospectively followed from baseline to 30 days after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Quality of life (QOL) was assessed using the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire. Left ventricular stroke work (SWLV) and vascular impedance spectrums were calculated noninvasively using in-house models based on central blood pressure waveforms, along with hemodynamic parameters from echocardiograms. Patients with higher preprocedural SWLV and lower vascular impedance were more likely to experience improved QOL after TAVR. Patients fell into two categories: those who did and those who did not exhibit increase in blood pressure after TAVR. In patients who developed hypertension (19%), vascular impedance increased and SWLV remained unchanged (impedance at zeroth harmonic: Z0, from 3964.4 to 4851.8 dyne·s/cm3, P = 0.039; characteristic impedance: Zc, from 376.2 to 603.2 dyne·s/cm3, P = 0.033). SWLV dropped only in patients who did not develop new hypertension after TAVR (from 1.58 to 1.26 J; P < 0.001). Reduction in valvular pressure gradient after TAVR did not predict change in SWLV (r = 0.213; P = 0.129). Reduction of SWLV after TAVR may be an important metric in management of AS, rather than relying solely on the elimination of transvalvular pressure gradients.


A useful technique in various applications of remote sensing involves the fusion of panchromatic and multispectral satellite images. Recently, Tu et al. introduced a fast intensity-hue-saturation (IHS) fusion method. Aside from its fast computing capability for fusing images, this method can extend traditional three-order transformations to an arbitrary order. It can also quickly merge massive volumes of data by requiring only resampled multispectral data. However, fast IHS fusion also distorts color in the same way as fusion processes such as the IHS fusion technique. To overcome this problem, the minimization problem for a fast IHS method was considered and the method proposed by Gonza/spl acute/lez-Aud/spl inodot//spl acute/cana et al. is presented as a solution. However, the method is not efficient enough to quickly merge massive volumes of data from satellite images. The author therefore uses a tradeoff parameter in a new approach to image fusion based on fast IHS fusion. This approach enables fast, easy implementation. Furthermore, the tradeoff between the spatial and spectral resolution of the image to be fused can be easily controlled with the aid of the tradeoff parameter. Therefore, with an appropriate tradeoff parameter, the new approach provides a satisfactory result, both visually and quantitatively.


Objective: This study aimed to determine the efficacy of ultrasound therapy in patients with primary nocturnal enuresis. Material and methods: Thirty-five patients with enuresis were included the study. Patients were divided into two groups: 27 patients with enuresis were treated with ultrasound with irradiation and heating, and eight patients with enuresis were treated with ultrasound without irradiation or heating (placebo group). Ultrasound therapy was performed using the Therasonic 350 machine. The ultrasound therapy was applied to the skin of lumbosacral region. A treatment course of ultrasound comprised 10 sessions of 0.8 W/cm2 intensity applied daily for 8 min. Symptoms were evaluated 1 week, and 3, 6 and 12 months after the treatment. Results: Twenty-two (81.5%) patients responded to the ultrasound therapy at the first week after the treatment. The effect of ultrasound started immediately after the treatment and continued during the 12 months of the follow-up period. Conclusion: Ultrasound therapy seems to be effective in the treatment of primary nocturnal enuresis in the 1 year follow-up period.


The role of forests as a reservoir for carbon has prompted the need for timely and reliable estimation of aboveground carbon stocks. Since measurement of aboveground carbon stocks of forests is a destructive, costly and time-consuming activity, aerial and satellite remote sensing techniques have gained many attentions in this field. Despite the fact that using aerial data for predicting aboveground carbon stocks has been proved as a highly accurate method, there are challenges related to high acquisition costs, small area coverage, and limited availability of these data. These challenges are more critical for non-commercial forests located in low-income countries. Landsat program provides repetitive acquisition of high-resolution multispectral data, which are freely available. The aim of this study was to assess the potential of multispectral Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) derived texture metrics in quantifying aboveground carbon stocks of coppice Oak forests in Zagros Mountains, Iran. We used four different window sizes (3×3, 5×5, 7×7, and 9×9), and four different offsets ([0,1], [1,1], [1,0], and [1,-1]) to derive nine texture metrics (angular second moment, contrast, correlation, dissimilar, entropy, homogeneity, inverse difference, mean, and variance) from four bands (blue, green, red, and infrared). Totally, 124 sample plots in two different forests were measured and carbon was calculated using species-specific allometric models. Stepwise regression analysis was applied to estimate biomass from derived metrics. Results showed that, in general, larger size of window for deriving texture metrics resulted models with better fitting parameters. In addition, the correlation of the spectral bands for deriving texture metrics in regression models was ranked as b4>b3>b2>b5. The best offset was [1,-1]. Amongst the different metrics, mean and entropy were entered in most of the regression models. Overall, different models based on derived texture metrics were able to explain about half of the variation in aboveground carbon stocks. These results demonstrated that Landsat 8 derived texture metrics can be applied for mapping aboveground carbon stocks of coppice Oak Forests in large areas.


Estimating gene association networks from gene microar- ray data is the key to decipher complicated Web of functional relationship between genes. However, the process remains to be challenging due to the relatively few independent samples and the large amount of correlation parameters. In a gene association network, vertices represent genes, and edges represent biological association between genes. The network edges are declared to be present if the corresponding correlation parameters are significantly different from a non-zero threshold. The approach has been very useful in inferring gene association networks, and facilitating network based discovery. However, as a Frequentist approach, it often suffers from the "overfitting" problem especially for analyzing small sample size data. Approaches that are able to globally estimate the correlation parameters with variance regularization followed by the seamless correlation thresholding are highly desirable.


This article introduces the FAO crop model AquaCrop. It simulates attainable yields of major herbaceous crops as a function of water consumption under rainfed, supplemental, deficit, and full irrigation conditions. The growth engine of AquaCrop is water-driven, in that transpiration is calculated first and translated into biomass using a conservative, crop-specific parameter: the biomass water productivity, normalized for atmospheric evaporative demand and air CO 2 concentration. The normalization is to make AquaCrop applicable to diverse locations and seasons. Simulations are performed on thermal time, but can be on calendar time, in daily time-steps. The model uses canopy ground cover instead of leaf area index (LAI) as the basis to calculate transpiration and to separate out soil evaporation from transpiration. Crop yield is calculated as the product of biomass and harvest index (HI). At the start of yield formation period, HI increases linearly with time after a lag phase, until near physiological maturity. Other than for the yield, there is no biomass partitioning into the various organs. Crop responses to water deficits are simulated with four modifiers that are functions of fractional available soil water modulated by evaporative demand, based on the differential sensitivity to water stress of four key plant processes: canopy expansion, stomatal control of transpiration, canopy senescence, and HI. The HI can be modified negatively or positively, depending on stress level, timing, and canopy duration. AquaCrop uses a relatively small number of parameters (explicit and mostly intuitive) and attempts to balance simplicity, accuracy, and robustness. The model is aimed mainly at practitioner-type end-users such as those working for extension services, consulting engineers, governmental agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and various kinds of farmers associations. It is also designed to fit the need of economists and policy specialists who use simple models for planning and scenario analysis.


Early research has demonstrated the benefits of ultrasonically bonding PEM fuel cell Membrane Electrode Assemblies (MEAs), in terms of durability [2] and unit cost and cycle time [3]. With these improvements in performance, the next phase in the development of the process is to move from a laboratory setup to an automated production cell capable of producing larger volumes of fuel cells while maintaining a quality ultrasonic bond. The MEAs also need to be produced more affordably and with quality standards meeting or exceeding the level set by current best manufacturing practices.Copyright © 2011 by ASME