Gene and whole-genome duplications are widespread in plant nuclear genomes, resulting in sequence heterogeneity. Identification of duplicated genes may be particularly challenging in highly redundant genomes, especially when there are no diploid parents as a reference. Here, we developed a pipeline to detect the different copies in the ribosomal RNA gene family in the hexaploid grass Spartina maritima from next-generation sequencing (Roche-454) reads. The heterogeneity of the different domains of the highly repeated 45S unit was explored by identifying single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and assembling reads based on shared polymorphisms. SNPs were validated using comparisons with Illumina sequence data sets and by cloning and Sanger (re)sequencing. Using this approach, 29 validated polymorphisms and 11 validated haplotypes were reported (out of 34 and 20, respectively, that were initially predicted by our program). The rDNA domains of S. maritima have similar lengths as those found in other Poaceae, apart from the 5′-ETS, which is approximately two-times longer in S. maritima. Sequence homogeneity was encountered in coding regions and both internal transcribed spacers (ITS), whereas high intragenomic variability was detected in the intergenic spacer (IGS) and the external transcribed spacer (ETS). Molecular cytogenetic analysis by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) revealed the presence of one pair of 45S rDNA signals on the chromosomes of S. maritima instead of three expected pairs for a hexaploid genome, indicating loss of duplicated homeologous loci through the diploidization process. The procedure developed here may be used at any ploidy level and using different sequencing technologies.


This study examines the use frequency by German faculty of 10 different methods for preventing and detecting cheating on exams, plagiarism, and falsification and/or fabrication of data. It also investigates the factors influencing their use. In total, 3655 faculty members from 55 randomly chosen disciplines at 4 German universities were contacted and asked to participate in a web-based survey. Our results show that some methods were applied (very) seldom (e.g. the use of text-matching software), while others were used more frequently (e.g. employing a sufficient number of supervisors for exams). Factors found to promote the increased use of many of these methods include those methods' perceived efficacy as well as external expectations that they be used. When the effort involved in applying a specific method is perceived as high, the frequency of use is reduced. Our results can help universities to improve the prevention and detection of academic dishonesty.


Manuel Gonzalez Prada was a powerful Peruvian writer and political reformer whose essays and speeches influenced generations of young radicals. He founded the Party of National Unity in 1891, was linked to the anarchist movement, and served as Director of the National Library from 1912-1914. His writings have had enormous impact on the literary and political life of Peru: taking up the defense of exploited indigenous people, broadsiding the landowning oligarchy, and denouncing the social and political errors of the country. In fact, the radical politics Prada advocated then are still alive and relevant today: Modernization (secularization) of Peru, transformation of a nation through its people, promotion of internationalism (universalism) versus overt patriotism (communitarianism), and condemnation of war. This translation is based on the Obras of Gonzalez Prada, edited by Luis Alberto Sanchez. It includes essays, speeches and polemical writings drawn from two of Prada's only books of prose published during his lifetime, Paginas Libres and Horas de Lucha, in addition to unpublished manuscripts and works previously printed in newspapers and magazines. His writings are gathered thematically under the subheadings "Peruvian Problems," "Anarchy," and "Philosophical, Literary, and Linguistic Problems."


The diversion of the Ebro River water to irrigate rice paddies and subsequent drainage into coastal lagoons results in a shift from the seawater-dominated phase of the water column of the lagoons from December to May, to a freshwater-dominated phase for the remainder of the year. The species composition of phytoplankton within the lagoons changes accordingly. This ecosystem level shift provides a unique opportunity to discuss the relationships between phytoplankton productivity and abundance and nutrient concentrations and the effect of water turnover on productivity of phytoplankton. During the freshwater phase, the nutrient concentrations and ratios are such that nutrients seem unlikely to limit phytoplankton production. During the seawater phase, relatively more dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) than phosphorus (SRP) is consumed, the DIN:SRP ratio in the water is lowered below the Redfield ratio, the loss of nitrogen from the water is similar in magnitude and concurrent to the increase in particulate N, and changes of the DIN:SRP ratio and production rates are inversely related. All these relationships point to the phytoplankton uptake as a mechanism lowering DIN. The assemblage of marine phytoplankton species prefers to use nitrate rather than ammonium. The turnover rate of the water in the lagoons is not slow enough for nitrogen recycling mechanisms to supply sufficient N for P to become the limiting element of the phytoplankton growth.


This research aims to learn, study and record the history, way of life and cultural memories in both personal and collective (Individual and Collective Cultural Memory) of villagers in Salaya Subdistrict by using documentary as a medium for recording and broadcasting historical and cultural narratives and stories for villagers in Salaya and the public to study and learn the wisdom and cultural knowledge of Salaya.The research found that Salaya is a city with a long history and a rich cultural heritage, which is full of wisdom that the villagers continue to carry on and apply today. The culture and local wisdom of the Salaya people are covered in many areas such as canal life, canal poetry, stories and local stories, dialects, medicine, food, folk songs and religious traditions. And the documentary film is the effective way to turn the personal and collective history and memory into historical narrative that take them to a new level in which collective and individual memory can blend and give a more intense and reflexive form of historical experience and can combine the factual and the emotional, the individual and the collective, the messages and the ideologies of Salaya people with experienced and lived life.


Early syndication and publishing protocols faced various problems related to interoperability, scalability, and extensibility. The Atom format and protocol builds on earlier efforts to establish an open, extensible, interoperable, and clearly specified framework for Web-logging applications. Atom has already been deployed on a wide variety of platforms. By closely examining previous syndication formats and protocols, the Atompub working group has been able to "pave the footpaths",load g391-a5003-a8-b 7 and design a standard built around well-known and proven usage patterns.


Over the years since the Corps of Engineers hydropower plants on the Savannah River have been in operation, successive and recurring failures in the generators and transformers presented a need to look at the overall rehabilitation requirements in order to achieve safe and reliable power production. However, the Corps of Engineers went beyond just the restoration of reliable power production, and has used this opportunity to incorporate both hydropower improvements and environmental restoration as a part of the Major Rehab project. In order to help offset the low dissolved oxygen (DO) level in the tailrace during the late summer and early fall, the new turbines will employ the new AutoVenting Technology, as developed by TVA and VoithSeimens. This technology will provide at least a 2 parts per million (ppm) increase in the DO levels in the tailrace whenever the ambient DO is 3 ppm or less. With the first of seven units installed, DO testing was initiated in the fall of 2002 to assess the capability of the new turbines to improve the DO levels over a variety of conditions. Initial tests for the first of seven turbines indicate that the DO improvements exceed expectations. Further tests will be conducted over the next 3 years to determine the total impact of the DO levels on the ecosystem downstream of the J. Strom Thurmond Dam.


Quantum communication channels and quantum memories are the fundamental building blocks of large-scale quantum communication networks. Estimating their capacity to transmit and store quantum information is crucial in order to assess the performance of quantum communication systems, and to detect useful communication paths among the nodes of future quantum networks. However, the estimation of quantum capacities is a challenging task for continuous variable systems, such as the radiation field, for which a complete characterization via quantum tomography is practically unfeasible. Here we introduce a method for detecting the quantum capacity of continuous variable communication channels and memories without performing a full process tomography. Our method works in the general scenario where the devices are used a finite number of times, can exhibit correlations across multiple uses, and can change dynamically under the control of a malicious adversary. The method is experimentally friendly and can be implemented using only finitely-squeezed states and homodyne measurements.


The radon element is the heaviest and the only naturally occurring radioactive noble gas. As a member of uranium and thorium decay chains, it is formed instantaneously and belongs to the naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM). The long-lived radon isotope, the 222Rn, is radiobiologically the most important one. It is present in subsoil and groundwater and permeates to the surface, where it may become health risk during the long-term inhalation. Proper testing of drinking water and building materials is also required to monitor radon concentrations below legal limits. Thus, the need of radon determination as well as the preparation of its isotopes arises for its use as a calibration source for the environmental and workplace monitoring in the NORM as well as other industries. Further, the radon isotopes currently appear in various research fields, including radionuclide progeny preparation and their use is experiencing renaissance. An overview of radon characteristics, its physical and chemical properties, as well as radon isotope preparation methods including the radionuclide generators and their use is given here. Radon isotope use for tracing, medical, geochemical and other purposes is also discussed.


Corn (Zea mays L.) stover removal thresholds are subject to many site-specific factors. Current data do not provide practical stover removal guidelines for given site-specific conditions. We used the Agricultural Policy Environmental Extender (APEX) model to assess the effects of site-specific factors and corn stover removal from 3,703 farm fields within the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). From among the many management and resource attribute factors across these farm fields, we chose the site-specific factors of two land types (highly erodible land [HEL] and non-HEL), three soil textures (clayey, loamy, and sandy), four hydrologic groups (A, B, C, and D), and two management scenarios (Baseline and Enhanced Conservation Treatment) to characterize the variability of stover production potential. The Baseline management reflects farmer management practices reported in the Conservation Effects Assessment Project National Cropland Assessment database, while the Enhanced Conservation Treatment reflects additional conservation practices and management scenarios needed to mitigate sediment, nutrient, and soil organic carbon (SOC) losses. For evaluation purposes, we used the Conservation Effects Assessment Project National Cropland Assessment "acceptable planning criteria" but with more stringent SOC criteria, which does not allow stover removal on sites that lose SOC. Overall, grain and stover yields and N and P losses decreased, while sediment and SOC losses increased with increasing stover removal. On average, Baseline stover yields on HEL were slightly lower than on non-HEL, while yields were higher on loamy, followed by clayey, and then sandy soils. Hydrologic group D soils had the highest Baseline stover yields, followed by those in group B, then group C, and then group A with the lowest yields. The Enhanced Conservation Treatment management drastically mitigated sediment and nutrient losses by 69% and 57%, respectively. Differential impacts of stover removal were most pronounced among the soil textural classes, followed by soil hydrologic groups, and then land type. Overall, the findings of this research underscore the importance of site-specific factors in determining corn stover removal thresholds. For the Upper Mississippi River Basin and for sites meeting the "acceptable planning criteria," sufficiently "safe" corn stover removals are possible such that only a portion of the available corn acreage would be required to produce enough ethanol to exceed the National 2012 Energy Independence and Security Act goal. However, we do not evaluate issues associated with ethanol plant economic feasibility, such as spatial concentration of stover production.


line emergency treatment: such advice should be discouraged as quickly as possible, because isoprenaline is much less effective than adrenaline in the peripheral circulatory failure situation. With regard to the infrequency of deaths following bee stings in children, perhaps this could be partly explained by parents' acute awareness of the dangers of bee stings and their insistence on expert preventive treatment wherever possible; many deaths might well have been prevented as a result. Finally, Harvey recommends that bee venom immunotherapy should be reserved for older patients and for those who have considerable anxiety about bees; one wonders how many people who have had anaphylactic reactions following bee stings have no anxiety about further stings. There is still a very poor understanding in this country of allergic problems and their management. The answer surely lies in better medical education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and I have been urging this for the past 20 to 30 years. Largely, however, as a result of academic apathy and scepticism, many medical schools are still found sadly wanting in this respect. Perhaps this present rather desperate situation could be partly overcome if a group of experienced allergists were to prepare suitable education brochures on various aspects of allergy, similar to those distributed by the Heart Foundation. Also, we could well do with better organized training programmes about allergic diseases in this country. R. Munro Ford, FACA ShortStreet Southport.QLD42 I5


Abstract : Lesions in the median eminence produced permanent diabetes insipidus (DI) in chronically hypophysectomized rats. Water turnover in these animals, however, was only about half of that observed when lesions were made in rats with intact pituitaries and was further characterized by absence of the normal interphase. Conversely, when hypophysectomy was performed in rats with DI, an immediate and sustained 50% reduction in water intake occurred. Administration of adrenocorticotropin to hypophysectomized rats with lesions caused significant augmentation of DI, but not to levels found in rats with DI and intact pituitaries. Neither somatotrophic hormone (STH) nor triiodothyronine increased water turnover when given to hypophysectomized animals with DI. Lesions in the median eminence of hypophysectomized rats induced an immediate increase in urine volume in the absence of water intake, which indicates that primary polyuria was responsible at least in part for the development of DI in hypophysectomized rats with lesions. (Author)


Small antimicrobial peptides are excellent candidates for inclusion in self‐processing proteins that could be used to confer pathogen resistance in transgenic plants. Antimicrobial peptides as small as 22 amino acids in length have been designed to incorporate the residual amino acids left from protein processing by the tobacco etch virus'(TEVs') NIa protease. Also, by minimizing the length of these peptides and the number of highly hydrophobic residues, haemolytic activity was reduced without affecting the peptide's antimicrobial activity.


In this paper, we consider bidirectional relay networks in which two users exchange information only via a relay node, i.e., a direct link between both users is not present. We assume that channel state information at the transmitter is not available and/or only one coding and modulation scheme is used due to complexity constraints. Thus, the nodes transmit with a fixed predefined rate regardless of the channel state. In general, the nodes in the network can assume one of three possible states in each time slot, namely, the transmit, the receive, and the silent state. Most of the existing bidirectional relaying protocols assume a prefixed schedule for the sequence in which the states of the nodes are used. In this paper, we abandon the restriction of having a fixed and predefined schedule and consider the selection of the states of the nodes as a degree of freedom that can be exploited for performance optimization. To this end, the relay has to be equipped with two buffers for storage of the information received from the two users. In Part I of this paper, we propose a delay-unconstrained protocol that, based on the qualities of the involved links, selects the optimal states of the nodes in each time slot such that the sum throughput is maximized. In Part II, several delay-constrained protocols are proposed and analyzed. Numerical results show that the proposed protocols significantly outperform the existing bidirectional relaying protocols in the literature.


The method based on the theory of Fuzzy Pattern Recognition is divided into three parts. Firstly, use Hough transformation to extract the feature points of vehicles, and use the ratio between two absolute distance of adjacent feature points as the characteristic values of vehicles; secondly, use Fuzzy C-mean Classification to handle feature data of 75 car model, then establish a degree of membership matrix as the sample space; thirdly, consider the classification algorithm based on fuzzy approach degree and the credibility of the vehicle feature to propose a weighted close- degree recognition algorithm. This recognition method has a good effect.


This exploratory paper presents a conceptual model of the factors of governmental support and openness, business and technology investment, and socioeconomic level that are posited to influence technological utilization. The conceptual model and conjectures are developed inductively based on logic and prior research about the relationship among variables related to the factors. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to operationalize and test the model. The SEM analysis tests five points of investigation on a large sample of country data from the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. Findings indicate a critical pathway of associations between the factors of government support and openness, investment in business and technology, socioeconomic level, and technology utilization. The paper presents two country case examples of the model and suggests policy steps for national governments of developed and developing countries to prioritize information and communications technology, create openness, strengthen research and development and technology investment, and enhance education and information technology training.


CBA and C57BL mice were immunized intraperitoneally with the conjugates 2,4-dinitrophenyl-bovine gamma-globulin, 2,4,6-trinitrophenyl-bovine serum albumin, diasotated p-aminobenzoic acid-bovine serum albumin, and sulfanylic acid-bovine serum albumin, whereupon migration of hemopoietic stem cells to the spleen was investigated. Immunization with the conjugates haptene--protein was shown in most cases to provoke an intensified migration of hemopoietic stem cells in mice highly responsive to the specific haptene, and at the same time to reduce, as a rule, the intensity of migration in mice of the poorly responsive genotype. It is concluded that the migration ability of stem cells seems likely to be connected with genetic determination of the immune response in mice of different genotypes.


Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder was first published in 1984 and from the outset inspired a wide variety of reactions ranging from high praise to utter disgust. Alan Dundes' theses identifies a strong anal erotic element in German national character, citing numerous examples of scatological data from authentic compilations of German folklore. The examination of this single trait of German character is used to demonstrate that national character exists and that its existence is unambiguously documented by the folklore of a nation. Dundes is of the opinion that the use of folkloristic data minimizes subjective bias in the study of national character, since unedited or uncensored, it constitutes a unique way of looking at a culture from the inside-out rather than from the outside-in, the more typical situation of an outside observer trying to understand a foreign culture.


Plasmid DNA from an avian strain of Chlamydia psittaci was purified and estimated to be 7.9 kb in size using restriction endonuclease analysis. A 5.9 kb fragment of this plasmid was cloned, mapped and used to screen a range of chlamydial strains. Hybridizing DNA was absent from ovine abortion and arthritis isolates and also from the Cal 10 strain but related sequences were detected in C. psittaci strains of feline pneumonitis, guinea-pig inclusion conjunctivitis, ovine conjunctivitis and C. trachomatis serovar L2. The plasmid DNA from the feline strain was shown to have a distinct restriction endonuclease profile. Similar plasmid sequences were detected in all avian isolates tested: thus the clone may have a useful diagnostic role for the detection of the pathogen in its natural host and in zoonotic episodes.


The public health movement has a strong tradition of identifying health problems and tackling these through economic, social and environmental improvements and through advocacy for people's rights and entitlements. Since 9/11, and the floods, fuel crisis and foot and mouth disease in 2000–2001, the UK government has introduced the notion of 'resilience' – the requirement for statutory UK bodies to develop their capacity to respond to all major emergency risks from pandemic flu to terrorism. The new threats of environmental and climate change require public health practitioners to acquire new knowledge about ecology and climate change and to become advocates for equality, new economics, and sustainable development. The best efforts to promote health are also likely to be green, promoting and protective of human and environmental health as well.


Populations of neural stem cells (NSCs) residing in different locations of the central nervous system (CNS) are predicted to have similar gene expression profiles, which identify them as stem cells. The best in vitro model to study NSCs is the neurosphere - a spherical colony generated from a single NSC. Currently, there is a lack of markers to characterise NSCs and distinguish them from lineage-committed progenitor cells. One promising candidate is Sox2, which is a member of the Sox family of transcription factors and is expressed within the CNS. Sox2geo/+ mice carry a p-galactosidase/ neomycin fusion gene in the Sox2 locus. Homozygous Sox2eo mutants exhibit peri-implantation lethality since Sox2 is essential for the maintenance of the pluripotent epiblast cells in the embryo. I have established that the neurosphere-generating cellular component, throughout the developing CNS, resides within the Sox2 expressing population. Through neomycin selection, neurosphere cultures derived from Sox2Pgeol+ mice have been enriched for NSCs and have been used to characterise NSCs. Differences in the gene expression profiles of cells expressing and not expressing Sox2 have been carried out through microarray experiments. To investigate the possible function of Sox2 in NSCs I have depleted SOX2 by RNA interference, followed by microarray analysis, to identify potential targets of Sox2 that may further affect the proliferation or differentiation of stem cells. The influence of the niche surrounding stem cells within the neurosphere has been addressed through a series of culture experiments comparing NSC-enriched to non-enriched neurospheres. In order to elucidate the genes responsible for the identity of stem cells, enriched NSC cultures have been compared to their tissue of origin through microarray analysis. These studies have revealed genes expressed at significantly elevated levels within the stem cell cultures compared to the tissue samples - a predominantly differentiating population. Pair-wise comparisons between neurospheres generated from the spinal cord (11.5 dpc, 14.5 dpc) and dorsal telencephalon (14.5 dpc) were used to refine candidate genes and provide an insight into the spatial and temporal properties of NSCs. Several candidate NSC markers, including transcription factors and extracellular matrix molecules common to all populations, have been identified.


Facebook identity management implies a selective front and backstage: users perform multiple social roles for a multiple spectator audience (boyd 2008). But as friend lists increase and the discussion about sensitive topics becomes more critical, people tend to protect their image by dealing only with content that may be interesting to all their contacts (Hogan, 2010).
Starting from field research on Italian users (40 in-depth interviews with Facebook users aged 14-55), this paper discusses the idea of Facebook as a place where people are engaged in building their social relations and their self-representation by managing their online presence in a way that can be both intriguing and acceptable for most of their contacts.
The paper will highlight the strategies of content homogenization and the online behavior adopted by users according to their perceptions of their «imagined audience» (Litt, 2012).
The article aims at underlining that Facebook use is surprisingly consistent with mass-media and generalist-media cultural models: users seem to apply models of television spectatoriality, not only in terms of passivity (lurking), but also in terms of consumption (skipping uninteresting content) and content production performed for a generalist audience (developing a distinctive and acceptable style of interaction).


This paper introduces a methodology for estimating the risk premiums earned by individual hedge funds and provides results of the distribution of risk premiums both within and between various hedge fund strategies. Results indicate that the majority of funds earn average excess return greater than the expected excess return based on the estimated total average risk premium. Although there is wide variation of the estimated risk premiums within each strategy, much of the variation is concentrated in the bottom and top-performing funds.


I have already hinted, that our sense of every kind of virtue is not natural; but that there are some virtues, that produce pleasure and approbation by means of an artifice or contrivance, which arises from the circumstances and necessity of mankind. Of this kind I assert justice to be; and shall endeavour to defend this opinion by a short, and, I hope, convincing argument, before I examine the nature of the artifice, from which the sense of that virtue is derived. It is evident, that when we praise any actions, we regard only the motives that produced them, and consider the actions as signs or indications of certain principles in the mind and temper. The external performance has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality. This we cannot do directly; and therefore fix our attention on actions, as on external signs. But these actions are still considered as signs; and the ultimate object of our praise and approbation is the motive, that produced them. After the same manner, when we require any action, or blame a person for not performing it, we always suppose, that one in that situation should be influenced by the proper motive of that action, and we esteem it vicious in him to be regardless of it. If we find, upon enquiry, that the virtuous motive was still powerful over his breast, though checked in its operation by some circumstances unknown to us, we retract our blame, and have the same esteem for him, as if he had actually performed the action, which we require of him. It appears, therefore, that all virtuous actions derive their merit only from virtuous motives, and are considered merely as signs of those motives. From this principle I conclude, that the first virtuous motive, which bestows a merit on any action, can never be a regard to the virtue of that action. but must be some other natural motive or principle. To suppose, that the mere regard to the virtue of the action. may be the first motive, which produced the action, and rendered it virtuous, is to reason in a circle. Before we can have such a regard, the action must be really virtuous; and this virtue must be derived from some virtuous motive: And consequently the virtuous motive must be different from the regard to the virtue of the action. A virtuous motive is requisite to render an action virtuous. An action must be virtuous, before we can have a regard to its virtue. Some virtuous motive, therefore, must be antecedent to that regard. Nor is this merely a metaphysical subtilty; but enters into all our reasonings in common life, though perhaps we may not be able to place it in such distinct philosophical terms. We blame a father for neglecting his child. Why? because it shews a want of natural affection, which is the duty of every parent. Were not natural affection a duty, the care of children could not be a duty; and it would be impossible we could have the duty in our eye in the attention we give to our offspring. In this case, therefore, all men suppose a motive to the action distinct from a sense of duty.


This title presents Alfred P. Sloan's proven principles for success, completely updated for today's business professional. Legendary General Motors CEO and visionary business leader Alfred P. Sloan created the breakthrough organizational and marketing approaches that have become the models for all large companies to the present day. "The Leadership Genius of Alfred P. Sloan" helps you to apply Sloan's timeless principles to your own organization, distilling lessons from top companies across a wide range of industries (IBM, Federated,Trader Joe's) that are effectively implementing the concepts. Sloan has been immortalized by such management gurus as Peter Drucker in his own books. 'Sloan is as important today as he was in the past century...This book captures the essence of [his] pioneering achievements' - Peter M. Thompson, former President and CEO of Pepsi-Cola International.


BACKGROUND
In KEYNOTE-010, pembrolizumab versus docetaxel improved overall survival (OS) in patients with programmed death-1 protein (PD)-L1-positive advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A prespecified exploratory analysis compared outcomes in patients based on PD-L1 expression in archival versus newly collected tumor samples using recently updated survival data.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
PD-L1 was assessed centrally by immunohistochemistry (22C3 antibody) in archival or newly collected tumor samples. Patients received pembrolizumab 2 or 10 mg/kg Q3W or docetaxel 75 mg/m2 Q3W for 24 months or until progression/intolerable toxicity/other reason. Response was assessed by RECIST v1.1 every 9 weeks, survival every 2 months. Primary end points were OS and progression-free survival (PFS) in tumor proportion score (TPS) ≥50% and ≥1%; pembrolizumab doses were pooled in this analysis.

RESULTS
At date cut-off of 24 March 2017, median follow-up was 31 months (range 23-41) representing 18 additional months of follow-up from the primary analysis. Pembrolizumab versus docetaxel continued to improve OS in patients with previously treated, PD-L1-expressing advanced NSCLC; hazard ratio (HR) was 0.66 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.57, 0.77]. Of 1033 patients analyzed, 455(44%) were enrolled based on archival samples and 578 (56%) on newly collected tumor samples. Approximately 40% of archival samples and 45% of newly collected tumor samples were PD-L1 TPS ≥50%. For TPS ≥50%, the OS HRs were 0.64 (95% CI: 0.45, 0.91) and 0.40 (95% CI: 0.28, 0.56) for archival and newly collected samples, respectively. In patients with TPS ≥1%, OS HRs were 0.74 (95% CI: 0.59, 0.93) and 0.59 (95% CI: 0.48, 0.73) for archival and newly collected samples, respectively. In TPS ≥50%, PFS HRs were similar across archival [0.63 (95% CI: 0.45, 0.89)] and newly collected samples [0.53 (95% CI: 0.38, 0.72)]. In patients with TPS ≥1%, PFS HRs were similar across archival [0.82 (95% CI: 0.66, 1.02)] and newly collected samples [0.83 (95% CI: 0.68, 1.02)].

CONCLUSION
Pembrolizumab continued to improve OS over docetaxel in intention to treat population and in subsets of patients with newly collected and archival samples.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01905657.


Coastal dunes are found at the boundary between continents and seas representing unique transitional mosaics hosting highly dynamic habitats undergoing substantial seasonal changes. Here, we implemented a land cover classification approach specifically designed for coastal landscapes accounting for the within-year temporal variability of the main components of the coastal mosaic: vegetation, bare surfaces and water surfaces. Based on monthly Sentinel-2 satellite images of the year 2019, we used hierarchical clustering and a Random Forest model to produce an unsupervised land cover map of coastal dunes in a representative site of the Adriatic coast (central Italy). As classification variables, we used the within-year diversity computed through Rao's Q index, along with three spectral indices describing the main components of the coastal mosaic (i.e., Modified Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index 2—MSAVI2, Normalized Difference Water Index 2—NDWI2 and Brightness Index 2—BI2). We identified seven land cover classes with high levels of accuracy, highlighting different covariates as the most important in differentiating them. The proposed framework proved effective in mapping a highly seasonal and heterogeneous landscape such as that of coastal dunes, highlighting Rao's Q index as a sound base for natural cover monitoring and mapping. The applicability of the proposed framework on updated satellite images emphasizes the procedure as a reliable and replicable tool for coastal ecosystems monitoring.


Indoor medicinal cannabis cultivation systems enable year-round cultivation and better control of growing factors, however, such systems are energy and resource intensive. Nutrient deprivation during flowering can trigger nutrient translocation and modulate the production of cannabinoids, which might increase agronomic nutrient use efficiency, and thus, a more sustainable use of fertilizers. This experiment compares two fertilizer types (mineral and organic) applied in three dilutions (80, 160 and 240 mg N L−1) to evaluate the effect of nutrient deprivation during flowering on biomass, Cannabidiol (CBD) yield and nutrient use efficiency of N, P and K. This is the first study showing the potential to reduce fertilizer input while maintaining CBD yield of medicinal cannabis. Under nutrient stress, inflorescence yield was significantly lower at the final harvest, however, this was compensated by a higher CBD concentration, resulting in 95% of CBD yield using one-third less fertilizer. The higher nutrient use efficiency of N, P, and K in nutrient-deprived plants was achieved by a larger mobilization and translocation of nutrients increasing the utilization efficiency of acquired nutrients. The agronomic nutrient use efficiency of CBD yield – for N and K – increased 34% for the organic fertilizers and 72% for the mineral fertilizers comparing the dilution with one-third less nutrients (160) with the highest nutrient concentration (240). Differences in CBD yield between fertilizer types occurred only at the final harvest indicating limitations in nutrient uptake due to nutrient forms in the organic fertilizer. Our results showed a lower acquisition and utilization efficiency for the organic fertilizer, proposing the necessity to improve either the timing of bio-availability of organic fertilizers or the use of soil amendments.


The effect of biopolishing treatment on color yield of cotton is of great importance to the dyers. Such treatment using cellulase has an influential role on dye ability of the fabric. Research into this area of dyeing has yielded apparently contradictory results. Cellulase treatment prior to dyeing can facilitate the dyeing process resulting in the higher color yield. However, zero impact or negative influence on the color yield of dyed fabric has also been reported. On the other hand, cellulase treatment after dyeing can be retarded by the presence of dye molecules or due to the interaction between dye molecules and cellulose. Though lots of research works have been done on bio polishing and as the application of the process in the textile industry has increased to a greater extent, the information on the effects of this process on color yield, both in cases of cellulase pre-treatment and posttreatment are absolutely necessary. Considering this the paper mainly focuses the previous works regarding the effects of cellulase action (Both before and after dyeing) on the color yield of dyed cotton.


The Internet of Things (IoT) vision is to connect uniquely identifiable devices that surround us to the Internet, which is best described through ontologies. Thereby, new emerging technologies such as wireless sensor networks (WSN) are recognized as an essential enabling component of the IoT today. Hence, given the increasing interest to provide linked sensor data through the Web either following the Semantic Web Enablement (SWE) standard or the Linked Data approach, there is a need to also explore those data for potential hidden knowledge through data mining techniques utilized by a domain ontology. Following that rationale, a new lightweight IoT architecture SEMDPA has been developed. It supports linking sensors and other devices, as well as people via a single web by mean of a device-person-activity (DPA) crossroad ontology. The architecture is validated by mean of three rich-in-semantic services: contextual data mining over WSN, semantic WSN web enablement, and Linked WSN data. SEMDPA could be easily extensible to capture semantics of input sensor data from other domains as well.


As one of the fastest growing social networking sites, Facebook presents librarians with a prime opportunity to engage academic library patrons. A survey of 136 users at Western Michigan University (WMU) measured the effectiveness of Facebook as a marketing, reference, and instruction tool. It also measured user comfort and satisfaction with a library's presence on Facebook. The majority of respondents found Facebook to be a useful and engaging medium to learn about library resources and services. The results of this study indicate that an effective library Facebook page must maintain a balance between providing pertinent and useful information and preserving patron privacy. In a second study also included in this article, data from a survey of 14 peer institutions of Western Michigan University positions WMU's local survey within the context of their peer's use of Facebook. The survey of peer institutions concludes that most libraries use Facebook for marketing and outreach purposes.


Background The objective of this review was to assess the uptake of WHO recommended integrated perinatal prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV interventions in low- and middle-income countries. Methods and Findings We searched 21 databases for observational studies presenting uptake of integrated PMTCT programs in low- and middle-income countries. Forty-one studies on programs implemented between 1997 and 2006, met inclusion criteria. The proportion of women attending antenatal care who were counseled and who were tested was high; 96% (range 30–100%) and 81% (range 26–100%), respectively. However, the overall median proportion of HIV positive women provided with antiretroviral prophylaxis in antenatal care and attending labor ward was 55% (range 22–99%) and 60% (range 19–100%), respectively. The proportion of women with unknown HIV status, tested for HIV at labor ward was 70%. Overall, 79% (range 44–100%) of infants were tested for HIV and 11% (range 3–18%) of them were HIV positive. We designed two PMTCT cascades using studies with outcomes for all perinatal PMTCT interventions which showed that an estimated 22% of all HIV positive women attending antenatal care and 11% of all HIV positive women delivering at labor ward were not notified about their HIV status and did not participate in PMTCT program. Only 17% of HIV positive antenatal care attendees and their infants are known to have taken antiretroviral prophylaxis. Conclusion The existing evidence provides information only about the initial PMTCT programs which were based on the old WHO PMTCT guidelines. The uptake of counseling and HIV testing among pregnant women attending antenatal care was high, but their retention in PMTCT programs was low. The majority of women in the included studies did not receive ARV prophylaxis in antenatal care; nor did they attend labor ward. More studies evaluating the uptake in current PMTCT programs are urgently needed.


AIM
A discussion of the findings from a nationwide study of workplace and well-being issues of Australian nurses and midwives.

BACKGROUND
Current discourse only provides a fragmented understanding of a multifaceted nature of working conditions and well-being, necessitating a more holistic investigation to identify critical workplace issues within these professions.

DESIGN
Discussion paper.

DATA SOURCES
A national survey conducted in July 2016 involving Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation members. The literature supporting this paper focuses on the nursing and midwifery workforce and studies on attraction and retention issues.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND MIDWIFERY
Workplace policies and practices in place in health care organizations that are within the control of management are key factors in the negative issues associated with the profession from the survey. Proactive and targeted interventions particularly aimed at salient issues of work intensification, declining engagement, and effective voice mechanisms are needed to address these crucial issues if the attrition of individuals from nursing and midwifery occupations is going to be ameliorated.

CONCLUSION
To alleviate workforce issues pushing nurses and midwives to the tipping point of exiting the professions, health care organizations need to take a proactive stance in addressing issues under the control of management.


Multimodal tasks in the fashion domain have significant potential for e-commerce, but involve challenging vision-and-language learning problems—e.g., retrieving a fashion item given a reference image plus text feedback from a user. Prior works on multimodal fashion tasks have either been limited by the data in individual benchmarks, or have leveraged generic vision-and-language pre-training but have not taken advantage of the characteristics of fashion data. Additionally, these works have mainly been restricted to multimodal understanding tasks. To address these gaps, we make two key contributions. First, we propose a novel fashion-specific pre-training framework based on weakly-supervised triplets constructed from fashion image-text pairs. We show the triplet-based tasks are an effective addition to standard multimodal pre-training tasks. Second, we propose a flexible decoder-based model architecture capable of both fashion retrieval and captioning tasks. Together, our model design and pre-training approach are competitive on a diverse set of fashion tasks, including cross-modal retrieval, image retrieval with text feedback, image captioning, relative image captioning, and multimodal categorization.


Maintenance of ageing military aircraft structures encompasses both engineering and scientific management. In support of this, surface modification and repair methods are used on an opportunity basis to extend the life of aircraft in terms of fatigue and safety. Often, certain surface modification technologies have proved to be both cost effective and amenable for safe application. Some candidate technologies include shot peening, cold spray, deep surface rolling, friction stir welding, laser shock peening, and laser cladding. Whilst some technologies have been successfully applied to Australian Defence Force (ADF) aircraft in the past, some newer technologies are also being considered. The supersonic particle deposition (SPD) technology also known as cold spray coating has been recently approved for application on a helicopter gear box. Another technology of significance to ADF application is Laser Cladding (LC) technology. This paper briefly summarises the research work on these technologies at DSTO and discusses potential applications for aircraft components in the near future. It also provides an analysis of technologies and their potential advantages and disadvantages.


Background: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and a history of malignancy are frequently seen in clinical practice. Considering increasing prescription of biologics, the safety of the agents requires further evaluation. We aim to explore the risk of new and recurrent cancer in adult RA patients with prior malignancy and subsequently exposed to biologic therapy via a meta-analysis of observational studies.


SUMMARY This study primarily aimed to estimate the association between influenza vaccination and the occurrence of hospitalization for acute respiratory or cardiovascular diseases, or all-cause death during the influenza season in an elderly population in South Africa. We conducted a nested case-control study using data from a cohort of 45 522 elderly members of a private medical funding organization during the moderate 2004 influenza season. In 1282 (2·8%) subjects the combined outcome occurred and the influenza vaccination rate in controls was 15·4%. After adjustments for measured confounders, vaccination was associated with a statistically significant reduction of 19% (95% confidence interval 3·1–32·9) in the combined outcome. Post-hoc sensitivity analysis of the potential impact of potential healthy user bias showed that confounding, if present, could have caused this finding. Our data were inconclusive regarding the benefits of influenza vaccination in elderly persons in South Africa and given the low vaccine uptake, long-term follow-up is warranted.


Target tracking is one of the cardinal applications of a wireless sensor network. Tracking multiple targets is more challenging than tracking a single target in a wireless sensor network due to targets' movement in different directions, targets' speed variations and frequent connectivity failures of low powered sensor nodes. If all the low-powered sensor nodes are kept active in tracking multiple targets coming from different directions of the network, there is high probability of network failure due to wastage of power. It would be more realistic if the tracking area can be reduced so that the less number of sensor nodes will be active which ultimately saves the energy consumption. Tracking area can be reduced by using the target's kinematics. There is almost no method to track multiple targets, based on targets' kinematics. In our paper, we propose a distributed tracking method for tracking multiple targets considering targets' kinematics. We incorporate sensor network properties which results into a novel and service priority based dynamic tracking framework. We simulate our method by a sensor network simulator OMNeT++ and empirical results state that our proposed methodology outperforms traditional tracking algorithms.


Infection is a constant concern during perioperative period. Bacteremia occur during intervention and immediate postoperative period. They are the risk of acute complications, mainly septic shock with a high mortality rate. Escherichia coli is the germ most often found, then Enterococcus and other gram-negative germs. Diagnosis of an urinary infection is made difficult because the presence of a vesical catheter; so, 10(3) bacteria per ml. have to be considered as pathological. Two therapeutic behaviours can be considered in practice: suitable antibiotherapy in obvious infections, but sterilization of urines must not delay surgical intervention, short-time peri-operative prophylaxis cephalosporins of the 2nd or 3rd generation are most often utilized. Overseas, trimethoprim associated with sulfamides can be administrated per os every 2 hours before surgical intervention, at the time of anesthesia for example.


There is often said to be a tension between the two types of organizational learning activities, exploration and exploitation. The argument goes that the two activities are substitutes, competing for scarce resources when firms need different capabilities and management policies. We present another explanation, attributing the tension to the dynamic interactions among search, knowledge sharing, evaluation and alignment within organizations. Our results show that successful organizations tend to bifurcate into two types: those that always promote individual initiatives and build organizational strengths on individual learning and those good at assimilating the individual knowledge base and exploiting shared knowledge. Straddling the two types often fails. The intuition is that an equal mixture of individual search and assimilation slows down individual learning, while at the same time making it difficult to update organizational knowledge because individuals' knowledge base is not sufficiently homogenized. Straddling is especially inefficient when the operation is sufficiently complex or when the business environment is sufficiently turbulent.


Modern-day journalism has associated folklore with the fictive and mythic. Its deployment in journalistic narratives or human interest pieces generally aims to bring out local color or quaintness. In his long journalistic career, Isabelo de los Reyes's retrieval of folklore for publication in community newspapers performed a similar function of engaging the reader but also exposed political myths to undermine colonial regimes of Spain and the United States. De los Reyes's treatment of folklore was not only to catalogue popular knowledge but also to ground such knowledge on conditions of domination. Folklore, as a "conception of the world" is systematized and inflected with reflections upon a reality. Thus, the publication of folklore in newspapers allows the creation of common body of knowledge that, according to Gramsci, "offers to a people the elements for a deeper knowledge of (themselves)" (Gramsci, 1992, p.187). The folklore project of de los Reyes inaugurates a tradition in insurgent journalism. Folklore, as common stories of the lesser heard, performs the dual function of acculturation and subversion. As in de los Reyes's time, journalism today could include genres adapted to new and critical function that could open up new flanks of expressions and protests.


Received: 04.05.2016 Accepted: 22.01.2017 Abstract Objectives: This study aimed to compare the efficacy of panoramic radiography and the buccal object rule in intraoral periapical radiography for localization of impacted maxillary canine teeth. Methods: A total of 20 panoramic radiographs depicting 28 displaced maxillary canines were evaluated. The ratio of the mesiodistal width of the impacted canine to the mesiodistal width of the ipsilateral central incisor was calculated and referred to as the canine-incisor index (CII). The height of the crown of each displaced canine was classified in vertical plane relative to the adjacent incisor as apical, middle or coronal. Position of impacted maxillary canines was also determined on two periapical radiographs using the buccal object rule. Surgical exposure and direct observation of impacted teeth were later performed and served as the gold standard. The data were analyzed using SPSS and t-test. Results: There was an overlap in the CII range of the buccally (0.78-1.48) and palatally (1.15-1.75) positioned impacted canines. When considering the height factor in the middle and coronal zones, a significant difference was noted between the CII of buccally (0.78-1.1) and palatally (1.15-1.75) positioned teeth enabling determination of their buccolingual orientation (P<0.05). Conclusion: For the impacted maxillary canines located in the middle and coronal zones (90% of cases), the CII of 1.15 and higher represents palatal impaction while the CII smaller than 1.15 represents buccal impaction.


ABSTRACT This article explores individual resistance related to a military organization's gender equality work as expressed in online contexts. Resistance is explained as expressions of wider social conflicts, grounded in experiences of threats towards military masculinities, challenged by societal and political transformation processes perceived as feminine. The data consists of defence-related blogs and comments. A thematic analysis finds that individual resistance can be understood as blaming and shaming strategies. Five sub-themes are identified: blaming the "feminised" organization, blaming and shaming women's abilities to serve, individualisation of structural problems, verbal violence and violations, and objectification of men working with and supporting gender equality initiatives. The analysis exemplifies how social conflict is transferred to organizations through individual resistance. As gender equality policies are questioned, organizations need to confront resistance also within the online context.


Introduction: Brucellosis is a significant but lesser-known cause of pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) in India. Studies documenting the prevalence of Brucellosis in different parts of India are sparse and few. Clinicians thus usually don't consider it in their differential diagnosis. This study assesses its prevalence in two groups: febrile patients with unknown etiology and individuals presenting with arthritis and/or joint pains. Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) among clinicians about the disease was evaluated.Materials and Methods: This is a prospective study conducted at a tertiary care center of North India catering to urban, semi-urban, and rural populace. Ninety-two patients with fever of unknown origin, arthralgia, or similar constitutional symptoms were recruited in this study. Detailed clinical history was elicited from all patients as per predesigned proforma and a rigorous physical examination was conducted. Following primary screening to rule out malaria, enteric fever, and leptospirosis, secondary screening for Brucellosis was done by Rapid Screen Test (PUO screen) and IgM and IgG ELISA. A predesigned survey was used for assessing KAP among clinicians about Brucellosis.Results: Brucella infection was diagnosed in 27 (29.3%) cases. The most common symptoms among the patients apart from fever were arthralgia (77.8%), fatigue (70.8%), pallor (66.1%), headache (59.2%), backache (53.8%) and cough (33.3%). PUO screen is a specific test for brucellosis but lacks sensitivity. It detects acute cases but misses chronic cases. IgM ELISA being more sensitive should be used for confirmation. Low ODs point to chronic brucellosis which was confirmed by IgG ELISA. Normal CRP levels in patients with PUO and chronic joint pains should point to brucellosis. KAP revealed that 25% to 50% of doctors considered Brucella in their differential diagnosis of acute and chronic fever respectively while 10% Orthopedics considered it in cases of arthralgia.Conclusion: Our results highlight the significance of Brucella as a cause of PUO and arthralgia. Brucellosis is an underrecognized but important cause of pyrexia of unknown origin and chronic joint pain. It should be actively suspected, diagnosed, and treated.International Journal of Human and Health Sciences Vol. 06 No. 01 January'22 Page: 80-88


The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at West Point educates the Corps of Cadets about genocide and mass atrocity and inspires them as officers to the cause of prevention. Intrinsic to this mission is the imperative to better educate.


A new protocol for the separation and preconcentration of Cd(II) and Pb(II) in some food and water samples was developed using thiol-rich polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane-modified magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4@SiO2/POSS-SH). The as-prepared magnetic adsorbent was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and vibrating sample magnetoscopy. Cd(II) and Pb(II) were measured by ICP-OES after elution with 1 mL 1.0 mol L−1 HNO3. The influences of the analytical parameters including pH, eluent, sample volume, contact time and co-existing ions have been investigated in detail. The limits of detection were found to be 0.08 and 0.12 μg L−1 for Cd and Pb, respectively, with an enrichment factor of 100. The proposed method was validated by two certified reference materials and applied successfully for the determination of Cd(II) and Pb(II) in rice, mushroom, pork, apple juice, bottled water and tap water with satisfied recoveries.


Summary: Fibre reinforced concretes were found to be improving the performance of the concrete and hybridization of fibres in the concrete was found to be more useful. The Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) was proved to be more eco-friendly, efficient and has exhibited improved performance when tested by introducing different types of fibres. The present studies are aimed at studying the behaviour of the self compacting concrete with the introduction of hybrid fibres. The hybrid fibres chosen are high dispersion glass fibres with an aspect ratio of 857 at a dosage of 0.024% by volume and the steel fibres content is 0.4% by volume having an aspect ratio of 30 to form Hybrid Fibre Reinforced Self Compacting Concrete (HFRSCC). It is observed that the inclusion of hybrid fibres in SCC has improved its mechanical properties like strength, ductility factor, plasticity ratio and modulus of elasticity. Using the results of the above mechanical properties, the stress-strain behaviour of HFRSCC was investigated under different confinements in the form of steel hoops with the percentage confinement varying from 0% to 1.591%. Strength enhancement ratios were also reported for both plain SCC and HFRSCC. Stress-strain models were developed in the form of single polynomial equations to predict the stress-strain behaviour. Subsequently, wall panels of 1500mm × 1000mm size and 75mm thick (model wall panels) were cast with SCC and HFRSCC mixes as developed and tested under vertical compressive load with minimum eccentricity of t/6 i.e 12.5mm. The experiments have shown that the load carrying capacity of HFRSCC panels has increased by 53% under minimum eccentric loading condition. These values are compared with theoretical load carrying capacities and found to be agreeing closely. Using these test results, the load carrying capacities of prototype wall panels are predicted by adopting principles of strength of materials.


In this study, AI-SiCp composites were produced by a mechanical alloying method using SiCp powders up to 20 vol% as a reinforcement. The produced compositions were cold pressed at 630 MPa with a single action and sintered at 560°C for minutes under Ar gas atmosphere. The experimental result showed that the reinforcement phase SiCp was homogeneously dispersed in the Al matrix and the interface between Al matrix and SiCp was well formed. Wear tests were carried out under dry sliding conditions using a pin-on-disk type testing machine at three different loads of ION, 25N and SON and at a sliding speed of 2.08 m/s. Total sliding distance was selected as 400, 800, 1200 and 1600 m. After wear tests, the wear amount was determined by measuring the weight and dimension of specimens. It was seen that the wear rate increased with increasing the applied load from ION to 50N, sliding distance and decreased with increasing SiCp amount. Microstructures and worn surface of Al-SiCp composites were investigated by SEM.


OBJECT
Wound complications are uncommon following deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery. However, certain key technical steps can be performed in each procedure to minimize this still troublesome risk. The authors reviewed the incidence and management of all hardware-related wound dehiscences and infections in a large patient series.

METHODS
All patients undergoing new DBS hardware implantation surgery between 2002 and 2010 by a single surgeon (R.K.S.) were entered into a database after undergoing verification by cross-referencing manufacturer implantation records. All hardware-related complications such as wound dehiscence, erosions, and/or infections were identified, and wound location, time of incidence, and mechanism were categorized. Charts were reviewed to evaluate the success of conservative treatment versus partial or total hardware removal.

RESULTS
Seven hundred twenty-eight patients received 1333 new DBS leads and 1218 new implantable pulse generators (IPGs) in a total of 1356 stereotactic procedures for movement disorders. Seventy-eight percent of patients underwent staged lead and IPG implantations. Sixteen patients presented with atraumatic device-related infection and/or dehiscence within 12 months from original implantation; 9 of these patients (1.24%) required additional surgery after antibiotic failure. All 8 patients presenting with cranial wound complications were treated initially by debridement in an attempt to salvage the leads; debridement followed by intravenous antibiotics was only successful in 2 patients presenting with dehiscence alone. One of 2 lead-only removals was successful in infections originating in the cranium; the only IPG-originating infection was treated by partial hardware removal and intravenous antibiotics. Two of 637 IPG replacements resulted in infections within 12 months after revision, requiring either partial or total hardware removal, while 1 dehiscence in this group was treated by debridement alone.

CONCLUSIONS
In a large series of new DBS hardware implantations, the incidence of postoperative wound dehiscence and/or infections requiring further surgery was 1.24%. Standard practice for all implantations was a short procedural duration, copious povidone-iodine irrigation, and postoperative antibiotic administration. Partial hardware removal should be initially attempted for infection. Debridement alone is successful in treating dehiscence without infection.


A latent class multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) model is proposed to estimate random and systematic measurement error in categorical survey questions while making fewer assumptions than have been made so far in such evaluations, allowing for possible extreme response behavior and other nonmonotone effects. The method is a combination of the MTMM research design of Campbell and Fiske (1959), the basic response model for survey questions of Saris and Andrews (1991), and the latent class factor model of Vermunt and Magidson (2004, pp. 227-230). The latent class MTMM model thus combines an existing design, model, and method to allow for the estimation of the degree to and manner in which survey questions are affected by systematic measurement error. Starting from a general form of the response function for a survey question, we present the MTMM experimental approach to identification of the response function's parameters. A "trait-method biplot" is introduced as a means of interpreting the estimates of systematic measurement error, whereas the quality of the questions can be evaluated by item information curves and the item information function. An experiment from the European Social Survey is analyzed and the results are discussed, yielding valuable insights into the functioning of a set of example questions on the role of women in society in 2 countries.


Fixture design for milling of aerospace thin-walled structures is a challenging process due to the high flexibility of the structure and the nonlinear interaction between the forces and the system dynamics. At the same time, the industry is aiming at achieving tight tolerances while maintaining a high level of productivity. Numerical models based on FEM have been developed to simulate the dynamics of thin-walled structures and the effect of the fixture layout. These models require an extensive computational effort, which makes their use for optimization very unpractical. In this research work, a new concept is introduced by using a multi-span plate with torsional and translational springs to simulate the varying dynamics of thin-walled structure during machining. A formulation, based on holonomic constraints, was developed and implemented to take into account the effect of rigid fixture supports. The developed model, which reduces the computational time by one to two orders of magnitude as compared to FE models, is used to predict the dynamic response of complex aerospace structural elements including pockets and ribs while taking into account different fixture layouts. The model predictions are validated numerically. The developed model meets the conflicting requirements of prediction accuracy and computational efficiency.


Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been recognized to play important roles as messenger molecules. They are involved in the etiology and progression of cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction, cardiac hypertrophy or fibrosis. Investigation of reactive oxygen species and cellular redox alterations has been methodologically challenging. Genetically encoded redox sensors make dynamic measurements of ROS and involved buffering systems in living cells possible. They can be targeted to specific cellular organelles and report compartment specific redox changes. Analysis of sensor response is performed by dual excitation single emission fluorescence microscopy or plate reader based assays. In the present study, we hypothesized that fluorescent redox sensors can be applied in human pluripotent stem cells and stem cell derived cardiomyocytes to investigate cell type and compartment specific differences in redox homeostasis. Genomic integration of two redox sensor systems was performed in human embryonic stem cells. Grx1-roGFP2 reacts and stays in equilibrium with cellular glutathione (GSH) pools, while HyPer can report increases in cellular hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Grx1-roGFP2 was targeted to cytosol and mitochondria in transgenic stem cells to analyze their GSH balance in the two compartments. Stem cell mitochondria appeared to have a more oxidized GSH pool than the cytosol. Transgenic stem cell lines were also differentiated to cardiomyocytes, but failed to develop spontaneous beating activity. Due to this unexpected phenotype, a lentiviral integration approach was chosen to express Grx1-roGFP2 in cytosol and mitochondria of stem cell derived cardiomyocytes and primary dermal fibroblasts. While fibroblast GSH milieu appeared similar between cytosol and mitochondria, cardiomyocytes had strongly oxidized mitochondria compared to cytosol. As reactive oxygen species can be generated during oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria, cellular metabolism might play an important role in the regulation of cellular redox homoeostasis. As a model of advanced maturation, stem cell derived cardiomyocytes were used to construct engineered heart muscle. Preliminary proof-of-concept for the analysis of redox sensors in this tissue model is reported in this study. To sense H2O2, we employed an alternative sensor, namely HyPer, which was able to report changes in intracellular H2O2 levels upon extracellular bolus addition of H2O2. Aside from detection of H2O2, also a sensor-producer hybrid construct, HyperDAO, was deployed in a TSA model. Upon stimulation with D-alanine, HyPerDAO produced H2O2 inside transgenic cells. Unfortunately, human embryonic stem cells transgenic for HyPer or HyPerDAO also failed to differentiate into beating cardiomyocytes. In summary, in this thesis tools for the analysis and manipulation of ROS and their buffering systems in a cell- and compartment-specific manner were developed. Further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms behind differences in cellular redox balances reported here and will lead to a deeper understanding of redox signaling in cardiac physiology and pathology.


&NA; Current elbow-scoring systems are based on the observer-derived assessment of a variety of clinical and functional criteria, which are scored separately and then aggregated. The aggregate score then is assigned a categorical ranking that ranges from excellent to poor. The developers of different elbow-scoring systems have chosen different outcome criteria, assigned different weights to each criterion, and accorded different ranges of values to each categorical ranking. Five different elbow-scoring systems (the Mayo elbow-performance index and the systems of Broberg and Morrey, Ewald et al., The Hospital for Special Surgery, and Pritchard) were used to evaluate the same group of patients. The validity of the scoring systems was determined with use of visual-analog scales for the assessment of pain and function, patient and physician-derived ratings of the severity of impairment of the elbow, and two functional questionnaires completed by the patient (the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire and the Modified American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons patient self-evaluation form). The study sample consisted of sixty-nine patients who had sought treatment at one of two tertiary referral clinics because of problems related to the elbow. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were used to compare the raw aggregate scores, and kappa statistics were used to determine the level of agreement among the categorical rankings (excellent, good, fair, and poor). Examination of the five scoring systems revealed a remarkable lack of concordance with regard to the aspects of elbow function that were assessed.Good correlation was observed when the systems were compared on the basis of raw scores (Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, 0.79 to 0.90), but only slight-to-moderate correlation was noted when the systems were compared on the basis of categorical rankings (quadratic weighted kappa coefficients, 0.18 to 0.49). Validity testing showed the system of Ewald et al. and the Mayo elbow-performance index to be the most discriminating, the system of Pritchard to be the least discriminating, and the system of The Hospital for Special Surgery and the system of Broberg and Morrey to be intermediate. The scores determined with the elbow-scoring systems demonstrated only moderate correlation with the score for function on the visual analog scale (Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, 0.44 to 0.66), whereas those derived from the functional questionnaires completed by the patient demonstrated moderate-to-good correlation with the score for function (Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, 0.72 and 0.80). Clinical Relevance We observed a remarkable lack of agreement when five different elbow-scoring systems were used to determine categorical rankings for the same cohort of patients. The correlations between the raw aggregate scores were better. On the basis of these findings, we believe that outcomes should be expressed as raw scores rather than as categorical rankings. We also found that scores derived from patient-completed functional questionnaires correlated more closely with perceived functional loss than did those determined with aggregate elbow-scoring systems. It must be recognized that comparisons between studies that are based on different scoring systems are not valid and that the categorical rankings of different systems are not interchangeable. The outcome of therapies designed for the treatment of the elbow should be determined on the basis of a patient-derived assessment of function, a clinical examination, and an assessment of pain.


Purpose:  This study examines the impact of derivatives on the financial performance of Pakistani banks by looking at the impact of each derivative among the famous four. Forwards, Futures, Options, and Swaps.
Design\Methodology\Approach: By taking data from the last 13 years, we incorporated the values of 14 banks. The analysis is carried out by using both OLS and GMM methods of technique to verify the robustness of the results.
Originality/value:  The study adds value to the scare literature of Derivatives and performance relationship in Pakistan by using GMM for endogeneity issues.
Finding: This paper provides evidence that Pakistani banks are using derivatives for hedging purposes rather than speculation. Use of Forwards and Swaps is significant and impacts positively on Bank's performance as compared to the other two.
Keywords: Bank Performance; Derivatives; Hedging; Speculation; GMM


In this paper, we study a prototype learning problem, called Median Point-Set, whose objective is to construct a prototype for a set of given point-sets so as to minimize the total Earth Mover's Distances (EMD) between the prototype and the point-sets, where EMD between two point-sets is measured under affine transformation. For this problem, we present the first purely geometric approach. Comparing to existing graph-based approaches (e.g., median graph, shock graph), our approach has several unique advantages: (1) No encoding and decoding procedures are needed to map between objects and graphs, and therefore avoid errors caused by information losing during the mappings; (2) Staying only in the geometric domain makes our approach computationally more efficient and robust to noise. We evaluate the performance of our technique for prototype reconstruction on a random dataset and a benchmark dataset, handwriting Chinese characters. Experiments suggest that our technique considerably outperforms the existing graph-based methods.


Papillary carcinoma is a rare tumor of the gallbladder. Papillary mucinous lesions of the intra- and extra-hepatic biliary tract (BT- IPMN) have been recognized. However the gallbladder is not included, except for the diffuse papillomatosis, where the sequence biliary papillomatosis to papillary carcinoma is proposed. We report a simultaneous case of gallbladder papillary neoplasia and intrahepatic duct carcinoma in situ associated with pancreaticobiliary maljunction (PBM). We proposed that double location, in our case, is more likely explained by a diffuse biliopancreatic tree disease leading to synchronous tumors arising in amenable duct. It was verified absence of continuity between gallbladder and intrahepatic bile duct site of involvement, absence of lymph node metastasis or venous involvement. This case report supports the concept of a proliferative and neoplastic process involving simultaneously the biliary tree and gallbladder associated with PBM.


1. The effects of beta‐endorphin and morphine on thermoregulatory responses of unanaesthetized rabbits to different ambient temperatures (Ta) of 2, 22 and 32 degrees C were assessed. 2. Intraventricular administration of either beta‐endorphin or morphine produced dose‐dependent hypothermia at 2 and 22 degrees C Ta. At 2 degrees C Ta the hypothermia was brought about solely by a decrease in metabolic heat production. At 22 degrees C Ta the hypothermia was due to a decrease in metabolism and an increase in peripheral blood flow. However, at 32 degrees C Ta, there were no changes in rectal temperature in response to either beta‐endorphin or morphine application. 3. Hypothermic effects of the administration of beta‐endorphin or morphine were greatly antagonized by pretreatment of animals with either an opiate antagonist naloxone or a serotonin depletor 5,6‐dihydroxytryptamine. 4. These findings indicate that the hypothermic responses to beta‐endorphin or morphine in rabbits may be mediated through central serotonergic mechanisms. The hypothermia was due to a decrease in heat production and/or an increase in heat loss.


International prices of cereals increased rapidly from 2006 through to the summer of 2008. Prices plummeted after summer 2008, but remain high relative to the level of 1997. The partial equilibrium model states that price increases spur an increase in crop production. This paper examines the influence of the increase in international cereal prices on Japanese agriculture, based on a single country computable general equilibrium model. The main results are as follows. First, an increase in international cereal prices increases agricultural output and farm labor input. It promotes production of wheat, soybean and feed crops with low self-sufficiency rates, and reduces production of other agricultural enterprises. Agricultural output prices and quantities are raised for all products. Farm labor in the livestock sector is decreased due to the great reduction in livestock production caused by the increase in feed prices, but farm labor is increased in the agricultural sectors as a whole, despite the decrease in labor input in livestock production. Second, the welfare level of consumers deteriorates. Consumption of food and nonalcoholic drinks declines and the level of GDP decreases a little. Third, productivity growth in agriculture mitigates the damage caused by price increases on lowered welfare levels for consumers and the fall in GDP.


Objective: To develop a better understanding of businesses' goals and purpose for offering worksite wellness opportunities and the level of administrative support for worksite wellness programs. Method: Human resource directors, benefit managers, or other administrators of 76 businesses that have contracted with Premier Community Health in the past 2 years were contacted by email to complete a standardized online survey on SurveyMonkey. The survey included questions about the businesses worksite wellness current programs and future interests. In addition, data on how often businesses have utilized each of the PCH worksite offerings over the past 2 years was collected from the PCH health screenings database. Results: 36 of the 76 (47 percent) businesses contacted responded to the survey. Of those, about 60 percent reported having a worksite wellness program with half of those reported as being comprehensive. Reducing health care cost and improving employee health status were equally ranked as the highest priorities for implementing worksite wellness. 70 percent of respondents indicated that their organization has a wellness committee with the majority of these committees (58 percent) consisting of diverse representation from throughout the organization. According to the PCH database, almost half (45 percent) of worksite events conducted by PCH consisted of flu shots only, about 35 percent were screenings only and only about 6 percent of the events included both screenings and education. Conclusion: The workplace is an ideal place to reach a large population of people easily and therefore employers could play a key role in the implementation of public health interventions. It is important that organizations like PCH that implement worksite wellness consider the goals and interests of the businesses in the area when developing their business approach to worksite wellness. As such, the results of this study may be useful in determining how to better meet the needs of businesses with worksite wellness programs and how to approach businesses without worksite wellness programs. 5 WORKSITE WELLNESS: AN ADMINSTRATIVE PERSPECTIVE


Human AKTIP and mouse Ft1 are orthologous ubiquitin E2 variant proteins involved in telomere maintenance and DNA replication. AKTIP also interacts with A‐ and B‐type lamins. These features suggest that Ft1 may be implicated in aging regulatory pathways. Here, we show that cells derived from hypomorph Ft1 mutant (Ft1kof/kof) mice exhibit telomeric defects and that Ft1kof/kof animals develop progeroid traits, including impaired growth, skeletal and skin defects, abnormal heart tissue, and sterility. We also demonstrate a genetic interaction between Ft1 and p53. The analysis of mice carrying mutations in both Ft1 and p53 (Ft1kof/kof; p53ko/ko and Ft1kof/kof; p53+/ko) showed that reduction in p53 rescues the progeroid traits of Ft1 mutants, suggesting that they are at least in part caused by a p53‐dependent DNA damage response. Conversely, Ft1 reduction alters lymphomagenesis in p53 mutant mice. These results identify Ft1 as a new player in the aging process and open the way to the analysis of its interactions with other progeria genes using the mouse model.


Abstract The appendicular skeleton of the Lower Permian temnospondyl Eryops megacephalus Cope, 1877, described and figured in detail, is similar to that of most temnospondyls, except that it is highly ossified. It displays terrestrial adaptations, including a reduced dermal pectoral girdle and comparatively large limbs, characterized by well-developed processes for muscle attachment. While many features that were previously unknown or uncommon among temnospondyls were identified, no apomorphies of the appendicular skeleton particular to Eryops were found. Some characteristics of the endochondral postcranial skeleton found in well-ossified temnospondyls, such as Eryops, are absent in less well ossified temnospondyls due to immaturity or paedomorphism. The effects of heterochronic processes on the morphology of the postcranial skeleton of temnospondyls and the implications for cladistics are discussed; the appendicular skeleton of Eryops is considered hypermorphic. Within the Temnospondyli, the Eryops appendicular skeleton is most similar to that of the Dissorophoidea, and most dissimilar to both the most plesiomorphic temnospondyls and the secondarily aquatic Mesozoic stereospondyls. The appendicular skeletons of well-ossified Late Permian and Mesozoic temnospondyls are not as robust as that of Eryops. Surprisingly, Eryops, in common with other well-ossified temnospondyls, shares many derived features of the appendicular skeleton with seymouriamorphs and diadectomorphs. The presence of these previously unrecognized synapomorphies (relative to stem tetrapods and embolomeres) provides evidence for an alternative hypothesis of relationships of early tetrapods, suggesting that the Temnospondyli and seymouriamorphs plus diadectomorphs are sister taxa.


In contrast to providing standard reminders about remembering household budgets, does asking survey respondents about their discretionary income and its use affect their voting responses in a national advisory referendum survey? We explore this question using U.S. household data from a unique set of multi-mode random samples (telephone and Internet surveys), and an advisory referendum concerning the Kyoto Protocol. The contingent valuation method is applied to estimate household willingness to pay (WTP) for a split-sample treatment: respondents who only received a standard reminder of household budgets (control group) versus respondents who received two mental accounting-type questions on discretionary income and its uses (treatment group). Results indicate that the treatment significantly influences voting responses and lowers estimated household WTP.


There is an increase rise in the usage of mobile health sensors in wearable devices and smartphones. These embedded systems have tight limits on storage, computation power, network connectivity and battery usage making it important to ensure efficient storage/ communication of sensor readings to centralized node/ server. Frequency Transform or Entropy encoding schemes such as arithmetic or Huffman coding can be used for compression, but they incur high computational cost in some scenarios or are oblivious to the higher level redundancies in signal. To this end, we used the property of periodicity in these naturally occurring signals such as heart rate or gait measurements to design a simple low cost scheme for data compression. First, a modified Chi-square periodogram metric is used to adaptively determine the exact time-varying periodicity of the signal. Next, the time-series signal is folded into Frames of length equal to a pre-determined period value. We have successfully tested the scheme for good compression performance in ECG, motion accelerometer data and Parkinson patients samples, leading to 8-14X compression in large sample sizes (6-8K samples) and 2-3X in small sample sizes (200 samples). The proposed scheme can be used stand-alone or as pre-processing step for existing techniques in literature.


Normal human platelets aggregated by thrombin undergo the release reaction and are not readily deaggregated by the combination of inhibitors hirudin, chymotrypsin, and prostaglandin E1 (PGE1). In contrast, thrombin-induced aggregates of platelets from patients with delta-storage pool deficiency (delta-SPD), which lack releasable nucleotides, are readily deaggregated by the same combination of inhibitors. The ease with which delta-SPD platelets are deaggregated is caused by the lack of stabilizing effects of released ADP, since: (1) exogenous adenosine diphosphate (ADP) (10 mumol/L), but not serotonin (2 mumol/L), abolishes the ability of these inhibitors to deaggregate delta-SPD platelets; (2) thrombin-induced aggregates of platelets from a patient (V.R.) (whose platelets have a severe, selective impairment of sensitivity to ADP, but normal amounts of releasable nucleotides) can be readily deaggregated, and addition of ADP does not stabilize the platelet aggregates; (3) apyrase or creatine phosphate (CP)/creatine phosphokinase (CPK), added before thrombin, make control platelets more easily deaggregated by hirudin, chymotrypsin, and PGE1, and do not change the deaggregation response of delta-SPD platelets and of V.R.'s platelets. Thrombin-induced aggregation and release of beta-thromboglobulin in control, delta-SPD, and in V.R.'s platelets was similar and not inhibited by apyrase or CP/CPK. The stabilizing effect of ADP on platelet aggregates is specific, since epinephrine in the presence of apyrase to remove traces of released ADP does not stabilize the aggregates of control, delta-SPD, or of V.R.'s platelets. Because epinephrine increases fibrinogen binding to thrombin-stimulated platelets to a greater extent than ADP, but does not stabilize the aggregates, it is unlikely that the additional fibrinogen binding sites induced by ADP have a major role in inhibiting deaggregation by the combination of inhibitors.


This paper explores the factors which influenced the making and unmaking of this controversial and internationally unique temporary visa program. Through a review of literature, public documents, and media records I deconstruct this policy; analyze its rationalities, assumptions and mechanisms; and conclude with a discussion on the implications for foreign-born exotic dancers whose lives are marked by Canadian politics turmoil. I argue that the government's decision to discontinue the program has negatively impacted the human rights and quality of life of foreign-born exotic dancers who, quite possibly, made the dangerous transition to the existing group of undocumented workers in Canada. While the Exotic Dancer Visa Program was problematic in many ways these migrant women were protected by legal status, thus decreasing, but not eliminating, their vulnerability as women, as immigrants, and as workers.


Habitat mapping has become an increasingly important application of remote sensing. Active and passive acoustic techniques have greatly improved in the last decade, and their use extends into other spheres to show their economic, legal, political and environmental benefits. This paper reviews the current status of acoustic techniques for habitat mapping. Traditional techniques include echosounders, multibeam systems and sidescan sonars. Passive techniques are also presented, along with geoacoustic inversion and acoustic daylight imaging. The developments in new techniques such as non-linear acoustics, synthetic aperture and interferometry are reviewed. Some emerging techniques are showing increasing potential for habitat mapping, and bistatic sonar, parametric SAS and 3-D chirp profiling are briefly reviewed. Leading international programmes are now making use of these techniques, most often in combination, and their results inform the recommendations for future uses and desired technological developments.


Vision sensors are attractive for autonomous robots because they are a rich source of environment information. The main challenge in using images for mobile robots is managing this wealth of information. A relatively recent approach is the use of fast wide baseline local features, which we developed and used in the novel approach to sparse visual path following described in this paper. These local features have the great advantage that they can be recognized even if the viewpoint differs significantly. This opens the door to a memory efficient description of a path by descriptors of sparse images. We propose a method for re-execution of these paths by a series of visual homing operations which yield a navigation method with unique properties: it is accurate, robust, fast, and without odometry error build-up.


The syndrome of acute kidney injury (AKI) occurs frequently in hospitalised patients, leading to increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare expenditure. In the context of a precipitating insult, disturbances in both global and microcirculatory renal blood flow, tubular cell damage, and activation of pro- inflammatory pathways lead to impairment of numerous elements of renal function. Classification systems, including the recent 'Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes' (KDIGO) classification, typically define and stage AKI in terms of the magnitude of rise in serum creatinine (SCr) and the presence of oliguria. At present there is no cure for AKI and the key principles of its management include early recognition, haemodynamic optimisation, correction of hypovolaemia, ceasing and avoidance of nephrotoxic medications, and treatment of the underlying cause. Recent data show that the type and volume of fluid therapy can affect renal function and that further guidance is required. In the future it is hoped that novel technologies, including biomarkers and real-time measurement of glomerular filtration rate will allow the earlier identification of patients with AKI, whilst a greater understanding of the pathogenesis of AKI will lead to the identification of new therapeutic targets. Despite SCr usually recovering after an episode of AKI, there is growing recognition that survivors of AKI are at an increased risk of subsequent chronic kidney disease, including end-stage renal failure and premature death.


This paper studies the accountability mechanisms and dynamics that exist within a microfinance context when microfinance officers (MFOs) interact with borrowers at the community level (MFO-community interface). In the Sri Lankan microfinance institution (MFI) used in this study, community units or clusters comprising of several peer or solidarity groups engage with MFOs in the field. Using Ritchie and Richardson's (2000) accountability typologies (codified, contingent, assumed and collateral), this article explores how multiple and complex accountability relationships manifest at the MFO community interface.The data collected from interviews, discussions, observations, document reviews and the primary researcher's reflective notes demonstrate that both codified and contingent accountability associations are evident for MFOs. Peer groups, however, demonstrate both collateral and contingent accountability associations, while clusters show assumed accountability associations. These different types of accountability have implications for the empowerment potential of MFIs.


The mammalian innate immune system uses pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), including Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and Nod-like receptors (NLRs) to detect microbial components during infection and subsequently trigger an appropriate immune response. These microbial features are often referred to as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and are considered as part of the molecular signature of the invading pathogen. Brucella is an intracellular bacterium that causes the worldwide zoonotic disease brucellosis. A key characteristic of Brucella infection is its chronic nature. The ability of Brucella to cause long-lasting infections relies at least on its survival, replication and persistence within immune phagocytic cells while avoiding sustained recognition by PRRs due to non-canonical surface molecules that lack marked PAMP-activities. However, reaching a chronic state of infection implies a balance between pathogen virulence and host resistance. Accordingly, brucellae are not entirely invisible to the immune system, which can yet detect them and shape an immune response. Production of IFN-γ, the mediator of the T helper 1 (TH1) immune response, and granuloma formation are crucial for host resistance against Brucella melitensis infection. Bacterial flagellin, the monomeric subunit of flagellar filament is a PAMP. Here, we show that tight regulation of flagellin FliC synthesis during infection is crucial for the equilibrated relationship between Brucella and its experimental murine host. Indeed, ectopic flagellin production attenuates B. melitensis virulence, while the lack of FliC enhances bacterial persistence, which results in severe splenic pathology. These findings suggest that Brucella flagellin is an important immune target, and our work provides first insights into the mechanisms that enable the host to detect this protein. Indeed, while Brucella most likely evades recognition by the extracellular flagellin sensor TLR5, we show that cytosolic FliC is a PAMP for NLRC4 that plays a role, along with caspase-1 in controlling B. melitensis in vivo. However, we propose that a still unidentified flagellin-dependent but NLRC4- and caspase-1-independent pathway could also contribute to host resistance to B. melitensis infection. Data presented here suggest that the failure of mice to control flagellin-deficient B. melitensis mutants would not be due to a defect in the IFN-γ response, but rather to alteration of the granulomatous response. In the second part of this work, we show that regulation of flagellin production in Brucella occurs through quorum sensing (QS). QS is a regulatory system that allows genetic reprogramming in response to a threshold concentration of small diffusible signalling molecules that are produced and released by bacteria. Here, we provide data showing that B. melitensis produces long-chain N-acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs) as QS cues, and controls their concentration by means of an AHL-inactivating protein called AiiD. Both AHLs production and inactivation occur in B. melitensis during in vitro growth and macrophage infection. Furthermore, we show that quenching self-produced AHLs regulates expression of virulence genes, including the virB operon coding for a type IV secretion system and flagellar genes. Importantly, flagellin production is defective in the absence of AiiD, and a B. melitensis strain deleted for aiiD shows similar phenotypes than a flagellin-deficient mutant in vivo.


Background Hypoxia is an important feature for the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Long noncoding RNA nuclear receptor subfamily 2 group F member 1 antisense RNA 1 (NR2F1-AS1) is dysregulated in HCC. However, the role and mechanism of N2RF1-AS1 in hypoxia-induced glycolysis and migration remain unclear. Materials and Methods Tumor tissues and adjacent samples were harvested from 40 HCC patients. HCC cells were treated by hypoxia. The levels of NR2F1-AS1, microRNA (miR)-140, and hexokinase 2 (HK2) were examined via quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction or Western blot. Glycolysis was analyzed via glucose uptake, lactate production, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels. Cell migration was analyzed via transwell assay. The target association was analyzed via dual-luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation. Results NR2F1-AS1 level was enhanced in HCC tissues and cells. High expression of NR2F1-AS1 indicated poor overall survival. Silence of NR2F1-AS1 repressed hypoxia-induced glycolysis and migration in HCC cells. NR2F1-AS1 could regulate HK2 expression by modulating miR-140. miR-140 down-regulation or HK2 up-regulation mitigated the influence of NR2F1-AS1 silence on hypoxia-induced glycolysis and migration in HCC cells. Conclusion NR2F1-AS1 knockdown restrained hypoxia-induced glycolysis and migration in HCC cells via increasing miR-140 and decreasing HK2.


This paper examines the issue of shipping line dominance, taking the Far East-South Africa trade as an example. This study has two objectives: first, to collect sea freight rates for trades in relation to South Africa (SA) so as to understand general trends in price setting by shipping lines and ship capacities on the SA routes; and second, to examine whether evidence can be found on the potential dominance of shipping lines on the SA trading routes from the Far East (FE). To achieve these two goals, this study collected freight rates from major shipping lines serving the routes of major Asian ports to SA ports and comparing the operating costs between different shipping lines by way of analysing the capacity and types of container ships deployed on FE-SA trade routes.