A number of potential enteropathogens have been identified in Eurasian badgers in Great Britain. These include protozoa such as Eimeria melis , Isospora melis (Anwar and others 2000) and Giardia species (Barlow and others 2011), Helminths (Hancox 1980, Jones and others 1980), and salmonellae (Wray and others 1977, Euden 1990, Wilson and others 2003). However, no viral enteropathogens have been confirmed in Great Britain or throughout the range of the Eurasian badger. Histopathological findings suggestive of parvovirus enteritis have been seen in cases of diarrhoea in captive, hand-reared badgers. However, the presence of parvovirus has never been confirmed by laboratory means in these cases (Mullineaux 2003). Parvovirus infection has also been suspected as the cause of myocarditis in a Eurasian badger (Burtscher and Url 2007). This again was based only on histological findings, as there was no parvoviral antibody or antigen confirmation. This communication describes parvovirus infection causing enteric pathology associated with acute diarrhoea and death in badger cubs.

Five badger cubs, about 20 weeks of age, at a wildlife centre died with acute severe diarrhoea in a two-week period despite therapy and supportive treatment. Initially, three carcases were submitted to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) - Langford for postmortem examination. These had been at the wildlife centre between one and two and a half months. Two were from Somerset and the most recent arrival was from Essex. These were all in fair bodily condition but were dehydrated. All had empty stomachs and in one cub the small and …


Several techniques useful in the preparation of spores, pollen, hystrichospherids, and similar acid-insoluble microfossils are described. These include oxidation treatments to remove unwanted organic matter; 4 aids in the mechanical separation of organic and mineral matter; and 2 methods for making permanent slides using cover-glass smears. A feature of all of these techniques is that the residues are retained in a water-base medium throughout processing.


Malioboro as one of  most tourism destination in Yogyakarta has a large number of visitors.  More than 4,000 people visiting  Malioboro area per day. The number of visitors at  pedestrian area  resulting inability Malioboro to receive such capacity. For  resolve these problems,  an  evaluation  of the service is needed more pedestrian capacity  (level of service). so that visitors will know about Malioboro growth in the future. and  The reference can being recommendation  as handling problems that occur at Malioboro street. The survey  undertaken are pedestrian  survey. Pedestrian survey is aimed to obtain  number of tourists data  in Malioboro pedestrians . The survey were conducted in three-point locations who can represent characters of  Malioboro, in front of the Hotel Inna Garuda,  Malioboro Mall and  Sami Jaya. The analysis is carried out to the HCM 2000. The result  of pedestrian survey are  Level of Service value. Base on the parking income data the growth rate of pedestrian area is about 5.2% . in the next five years the Level of Service will be bad with Level of service D. this mean there is a crowded situation in pedestrian area. overcome these problems we need  rearrangement pedestrian area  along Malioboro street  and make a planning analysis to resolve this issue hopefully can accommodating  Malioboro area for next 5 years in Pedestrian area with  Level of Service (LOS) B.


Most of the previous studies on spatial stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility have been limited to the use of hand controls, and so far there are no ergonomics guidelines on utilizing foot controls in the context of spatial compatibility. If some controls of a process can be given over to the feet, there would be an obvious advantage in having the hands free for other tasks which require higher level of precision and dexterity. In this study, four experiments were conducted to explore the spatial compatibility (SRC) effects and interactions for visual signals used with hand and foot controls. Response performance was measured in terms of speed and errors. The first experiment, in two parts (1a and 1b), examined spatial S-R compatibility effects for use of foot (part 1a) and hand (part 1b) controls individually in response to transverse and longitudinally oriented visual signals presented on a horizontal plane. Significant interactions between visual signal positions and response key positions revealed marked compatibility effects for the feet and for the hands. The magnitude of the compatibility effect for the operation of foot controls was more or less the same as for hand controls, which suggested the possibility that more extensive use of foot controls could be considered in industrial environments. There was also evidence that the spatial compatibility effect for the right-left dimension was stronger than for the front-rear dimension. The second experiment examined spatial compatibility effects with the combined use of hand and foot controls to respond to visual signals on a vertical plane. Strong spatial S-R compatibility effects were revealed by the significant interaction of visual signal positions and hand/foot response key positions, which suggested that the hands and feet could be used cooperatively in control tasks. The spatial compatibility effect for the top-bottom (vertical) dimension was stronger than for the right-left (horizontal) dimension. The subjects in this experiment responded slightly faster to the visual signals in the top-right position than to visual signals in top-left, bottom-right and bottom-left positions. The third experiment examined spatial compatibility effects with visual display and hand/foot controls in orthogonal orientations. The experiment was in two parts (3a and 3b). In part 3a, hand and foot controls were in a single plane orthogonal to the visual signals plane. Subjects responded to visual signals on a horizontal plane with desk level (top) hand controls and floor level (down) foot pedals directly under the hand controls. Part 3b replicated part 3a except that the foot pedals were moved forward and placed directly underneath the front row of signals so that the hand controls and foot controls were in different orthogonal planes relative to the visual signals. The effect was to create an additional pair of parallel stimulus (front and rear visual signals) and response (front foot pedals and rear hand controls) relationships in the horizontal dimension. The result for part 3a showed a strong orthogonal SRC effect as revealed by the significant interaction of visual signal position and response key position. There was an obvious advantage to mapping the front signals with hand controls and rear signals with foot pedals. A similar result was found in part 3b, but here there was the additional interpretation of an apparently direct front and rear location mapping for the visual signals and response keys. The results from this setup showed better compatibility effects in the front-hand/rear-foot than in the front-foot/rear-hand mapping condition. The findings demonstrated that the front-hand/rear-foot mapping relationship was very robust with regard to the relative locations of the response devices. It was also found that subjects responded slightly faster to visual signals in the front-right position than to visual signals in other positions. The final experiment examined the spatial compatibility effects with the combined use of four hand and four foot controls (of two pedals) to respond to the eight visual signals in a three-dimensional (3D) space. The visual signals were positioned at the corners of an imaginary cube, and responses were by hands and feet in different S-R compatibility conditions. There was a significant interaction of visual signal positions and response device positions which demonstrated the existence of a strong spatial S-R compatibility effect in a three-dimensional environment. Relatively faster reaction times (RTs) and lower error percentages (EPs) were obtained for the compatible S-R conditions. The findings suggested that the relative positions of the visual signals and response devices should be spatially compatible in three-dimensional space for the best human-machine system performance. There was also evidence that the spatial compatibility effect in the top-bottom dimension was the strongest, and the compatibility effect in the left-right dimension was stronger than in the front-rear dimension. Overall, the result of this study suggested that when both hand and foot controls were used concurrently in a reaction task, priority should be initially be given to the compatibility in the vertical dimension. The findings of this study can be translated into practical and useful ergonomics recommendations for designing visual displays and hand/foot control devices from a simple to complex spatial S-R relationships to improve efficiency and overall system performance in human-machine systems.


In Canada, not all oncology drugs are covered under the Canada Health Act. Public coverage, however, can be obtained for some drugs through publically administered plans and their formularies, where the federal, provincial and territorial governments individually decide what drugs to cover and for whom. The Canadian Health Ministers declared in 2008 that Canada had an essentially common public formulary. This study examines that claim for oncology drugs, using two provinces' formularies, British Columbia (BC) and Ontario (ON), as a case study by evaluating several measures of patient access to drugs. The results show that while BC had a faster review time and approved more of the drugs studied than ON, it placed more conditions on coverage. Both provinces also have unique systems of cost-sharing. With these differences, it is suggested that oncology drugs may not be becoming part of a common public formulary and that further research is required.


Strategic Niche Management (SNM) is rooted in organisational innovation
diffusion theory and provides a structure to evaluate and manage the introduction
of new transport technologies. In brief, SNM involves:
• Formation of a 'technological niche'.
• Identification and introduction of appropriate protection measures that
support the new technology.
• Analysing the technological regime of the 'experiment' (demonstration
project). -Promotion and examination (by actors/partners) of 'second order'
learning processes within the protected experimental space.
• Management of experiment to encourage innovation diffusion.
An existing transport case study is presented to demonstrate how Strategic
Niche Management could be used in the development of new and innovative
transport technologies. These were conducted as part of a research project for the
CEC DG XII Strategic Niche Management as a Tool for Transition to a
Sustainable Transport System.
This paper briefly introduces Strategic Niche Management and focuses on
the new research by Petros Ieromonachou that is seeking to use SNM to evaluate
and manage radical local transport policy package measures. The possibility of
producing an implementation guidance tool based on this concept is discussed.


Simultaneous primary brain tumors in pediatric patients without prior chemotherapy or radiotherapy, phacomatosis, or known familial history are a rare occurrence. The authors report the case of a 4-year-old boy with simultaneous choroid plexus carcinoma and pilocytic astrocytoma with features of oligodendroglioma. Magnetic resonance imaging studies revealed diffuse heterogeneously enhancing left intraventricular and posterior fossa tumors initially believed most consistent with multicentric choroid plexus carcinomas. A multiple staged resection was carried out for each tumor and gross-total resection was achieved. Upon gross inspection intraoperatively as well as postoperative histological analysis, 2 distinct simultaneous tumors were identified: choroid plexus carcinoma and pilocytic astrocytoma. To the authors' knowledge this is the first case report published identifying 2 distinct tumor types with similar radiological appearances in a pediatric patient with no prior history of radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or phacomatosis.


We compared the laryngeal mask airway ProSeal™ (PLMA™) and the laryngeal tube airway (LTA), two new extraglottic airway devices, with respect to: 1) insertion success rates and times, 2) efficacy of seal, 3) ventilatory variables during pressure-controlled ventilation, 4) tidal volume in different head/neck positions, and 5) airway interventional requirements. One-hundred-twenty paralyzed anesthetized ASA physical status I and II adult patients were randomly allocated to the PLMA™ or LTA for airway management. A standardized anesthesia protocol was followed by two anesthesiologists experienced with both devices. The criteria for an effective airway included a minimal expired tidal volume of 6 mL/kg during pressure-controlled ventilation at 17 cm H2O with no oropharyngeal leak or gastric insufflation. First attempt success rates at achieving an effective airway were similar (PLMA™: 85%; LTA: 87%), but after 3 attempts, success was more frequent for the PLMA™ (100% versus 92%, P = 0.02). Effective airway time was similar. Oropharyngeal leak pressure was larger for PLMA™ at 50% maximal recommended cuff volume (29 ± 7 versus 21 ± 6 cm H2O, P < 0.0001), but was similar at the maximal recommended cuff volume (33 ± 7 versus 31 ± 8 cm H2O). Tidal volumes (614 ± 173 versus 456 ± 207 mL, P < 0.0001) were larger and ETco2 (33 ± 9 versus 40 ± 11 mm Hg, P = 0.0001) lower for the PLMA™. The number of airway interventions was significantly less frequent for the PLMA™. Airway obstruction was more common with the LTA. When comparing mean tidal volumes in different head/neck positions, the quality of airway was unchanged in 56 of 60 patients (93%) with the PLMA™ and 42 of 55 (76%) with the LTA (P = 0.01). The PLMA™ offers advantages over the LTA in most technical aspects of airway management in paralyzed patients undergoing pressure-controlled ventilation.


Epigenetics is defined as alterations to gene expression, resulting from indirect changes to DNA which occur during post-translational modification events. These changes in the phenotypical expression of a cell occur without alterations being made to the underlying genotype. One of the major epigenetic events which occur in cells is histone acetylation, with this process ultimately being governed by Histone acetyltransferase (HAT) proteins. This thesis focusses on the development of novel small molecule inhibitors of the MOZ (or MYST3) protein, a HAT protein which belongs to the MYST family of proteins. The MOZ protein has been identified to be an upstream regulator of a range of cellular pathways which govern cellular senescence and cancer formation. Furthermore this protein has also been identified to play a role in embryonic development. The project began with a HTS leading of over 243,000 compounds, leading to the identification of one compound which was deemed to be an acceptable starting point for a medicinal chemistry campaign. This initial hit was developed into a small class of analogues to begin the SAR exploration of the MOZ binding pocket. Chapter 2 discusses the development of the 2nd generation analogues. This research involved the exploration of three different streams of compounds, all of which were identified to have slightly different binding modes within the MOZ protein. The compounds explored in this chapter focused on probing the SAR surrounding the "right hand side" of the common core. In chapter 3 the SAR surrounding the "left hand side" of the common core was explored. This work included exploration and development of a range of synthetic procedures to allow for the development of a broader range of small molecule inhibitors of the MOZ protein. Chapter 4 discusses the further development of one class of compounds identified in the 2nd generation exploration, this work resulted in the development of the 3rd generation inhibitors of the MOZ protein. This class of compounds resulting in an increase in the potency of inhibitors, whilst furthering the exploration of the SAR at the "right hand side" of the common core. In chapter 5 development of replacements for the common core were investigated. Until this point of the project all small molecule inhibitors of the MOZ protein had be reliant on a specific core structure to which variations to the surrounding regions had be included. This work led to the development of a class of MOZ inhibitors which were able to rival the potency of the 2nd and 3rd generation analogues but had the added bonus of opening up a wide scope of core changes for future exploration. Overall this project resulted in the identification of a large number of highly potent classes of small molecule inhibitors of the MOZ protein. Furthermore a favourable replacement for the common core of these molecules was identified and the initial SAR for this new class of compounds was undertaken, paving the way for future exploration of inhibitors of the MOZ protein.


WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE? Dentists, Dental Assistants, and Dental Hygienists. These courses have been designed specifically to meet the needs of busy professionals like you, who demand efficiency, convenience and value. Begin your Benco educational experience with this course today and match the mail for live CE events in your area. ACCEPTED NATIONAL PROGRAM PROVIDER FAGD/MAGD CREDIT Predictable Restoration of Posterior Teeth with Composite Resin


With the advent of the internet and rise of less personal, face to face interaction in online commerce, as well as increasing reports of fraud and security breaches, trust has become a critical part of conducting business in the digital economy. This paper develops a framework and model for understanding and building trust by combining some landmark research on the creation and production of trust with the dimensions of trust identified in the literature: ability, benevolence and integrity. By combining these dimensions in a matrix with the types of trust production based on characteristics, process and institutions, the paper develops a robust 3 x 3 matrix which to categorize and understand trust production and sources of trust. This framework can help researchers, practitioners and consumers understand trust creation and assist businesses in developing a comprehensive strategy for managing trust.


This book is a Tocquevillian analysis of New York based on interviews with leading New York Democrats and Republicans. The examination demonstrates that New York state is suffering under the yoke of over taxation, over regulation, and over mandating. An author commentary follows each interview. Interviews with: Herman Badillo, Edward Costikyan, John Gilbert, Joseph Holland, Edward Koch, Dick Netzer, Clarence Rappleyea, Edward Regan, Edward Reinfurt, E.S. Savas, Henry Stern, William Stern, and Thomas Tisch.


Summary Equine proliferative enteropathy (EPE) is a disease of foals caused by the obligate intracellular organism Lawsonia intracellularis. This emerging disease affects mainly weanling foals and causes fever, lethargy, peripheral oedema, diarrhoea, colic and weight loss. The diagnosis of EPE may be challenging and relies on the presence of hypoproteinaemia, thickening of segments of the small intestinal wall observed on abdominal ultrasonography, positive serology and molecular detection of L. intracellularis in faeces. Although the clinical entity, diagnostic work‐up and treatment of EPE are well established and described, the epidemiology for this disease has remained largely unaddressed. This article reviews the aetiology, epidemiology, clinical signs, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of EPE.


Introduction: Considering the importance of empowering employees to increase their productivity and satisfying their job satisfaction, this research has investigated the psychological empowerment of faculty members of Dezful University of Medical Sciences in southwestern Iran.
Materials and Methods: This descriptive research was conducted in 2018. The statistical population of this research included all faculty members of Dezful University of Medical Sciences in southwest of Iran. Finally, 43 members completed questionnaires. The Spreitzer staff empowerment questionnaire has been used to collect data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data and SPSS version 22.
Results: In terms of the various components of empowerment of faculty members, the score of the areas of effectiveness (6.5 ± 2.4), sense of competence (4.4 ± 1.6), and the right to choose (4.4 ± 1.2), have been evaluated to be low, but the mean score of meaningfulness (7.3 ± 7.3) was evaluated as moderate. Also, the variables such as education, academic rank, and experience of faculty members did not have a significant effect on their empowerment (P<0.05). However, gender (P=0.038) and age (P=0.032) of the faculty members had a significant effect on their empowerment score; female and older faculty members had an empowerment higher than the male and younger faculty members (P=0.019).
Discussion and Conclusion: The findings of this research can be used by managers, faculty members and planners of holding courses of empowerment of faculty members at Iran's medical sciences universities and other similar universities and organizations. It is also necessary that the managers of the university under study, while reinforcing all aspects of empowering their faculty members, focus on the dimensions that have received fewer privileges.


When surveyed, faculty generally believe that study abroad is desirable or essential, that it is important to work with people from different cultural backgrounds, it helps people to function effectively in another culture within their profession, and enhances knowledge of current international issues and affairs (Dooley, Dooley & Carranza, 2008; Towsic, N.D.). Sending faculty to programs abroad can therefore enhance academic potential (Özturgut, 2007). The 10-day Faculty Abroad Seminar (FAS) sponsored through the Office of Mexican and Latin American Programs at Texas A&M University was developed to contribute to the internationalization of faculty by directly exposing them to the culture, history, government, business, and language of Mexico. The main objective was for faculty participants to incorporate applicable global experiences into their teaching and research programs. The purpose of this study was to determine the longitudinal impacts of the FAS on participants from 1994–2007 in terms of teaching and research collaboration. As faculty participants reflected about their teaching and research impacts, a higher percentage of respondents had teaching impacts compared with research impacts (74 percent and 64 percent, respectively). In describing personal impacts participants' comments supported the belief that the Faculty Abroad Seminar changed them, personally, and professionally.


We analyze a model of multidimensional parental investments under imperfect marital commitment. Parents choose to invest in their child's human capital and in housing, which is a public good within marriage. If men are in excess supply in the marriage market, but also enjoy greater bargaining power within marriage, their parents will overinvest in housing to credibly commit to share more resources with potential wives. This may crowd out human capital investment. To test the theory, we use nationally representative Chinese household survey data to examine the effect of a more male-biased local sex ratio upon investments in boys, relative to investments in girls.Parents with boys increase labor supply and migrate more to improve earnings and investments. They increase housing investment while reduce educational investments. JEL Classification: J12, J13, J16, J18, J24, D10, O15, J61


Although a responsible and welcome critical literature in the social sciences has in recent years been measuring the human costs of urban renewal and environmental degradation, telling the designer what to avoid does not necessarily enlighten him about what to do. The designers too have been transforming their attitudes, moving away from the rhetorical toward the socially aware and the scientific. The two groups are readier to meet now than ever before, and if they do so in the ways put forth in this book - with man in mind - then we will be better able to bring our environmental technologies into human service. With Man in Mind is not, however a handbook or manual of techniques, ready-made; it is instead an argument for changing the terms of our discourse about man and environment so that we can do interdisciplinary research on questions that matter. With the questioning of the ideas in this book, collaboration may finally begin.


Technological cooperation between business enterprises has become common-place over the past ten years or so, following an increase in the uncertainty, risk, and costs of research and development brought about by growing international competition and the unsettling impact of data processing technologies (and to a lesser degree biotechnologies) throughout the entire industrial sector. Strategies in R&D cooperation, first adopted by Japanese corporations, were copied by European firms in the early 80s and then by American and Canadian corporations later on. Governments have got in on the action through policies for encouragement of collective R&D. Current theories in economies and business administration are not very useful for understanding this phenomenon. Neo-classical economies' assumption of perfect competition, as well as dissertations on product obsolescence and transaction costs, permeate theories in business administration and do not help us comprehend this new organizational phenomenon. We have, however, come across some crucial leads towards an explanation in certain models of imperfect competition and in managerial studies on informal cooperation by businesses in R&D.


Background To evaluate the role of surgery and postoperative radiotherapy in the management of brain metastases (BM): a retrospective analysis for overall survival (OS), local and brain control (LC and BC) of a series of 329 patients with recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) I or II with 1 or 2 BM in a single institution. Methods Patients were treated either with combined surgical resection and whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) in 104 cases (31.6%) or with WBRT alone in 225 cases (68.4%). Ninety-five patients (91.4%) who underwent surgery and WBRT and 147 (65.3%) who underwent WBRT alone benefited from a radiation boost to the metastatic site. Results The median OS was higher for patients RPA I compared to RPA II: 21.3 and 5.9 months (P < 0.0001), as well as for the surgical group compared to the radiation group: 20.2 vs 5.3 months (P < 0.0001), respectively. After the multivariate analysis, the improved OS was significantly associated with control of primary tumor (P = 0.0002) after surgical resection and with type of primary tumor (P = 0.002), absence of extracranial metastases (ECM) (P = 0.006), and high Karnofsky performance status (90 - 100 vs 70 - 80) (P = 0.003) after radiotherapy alone. The 12-, 24- and 36-months LC rates were 91.1%, 91.1% and 83.9%, respectively, after surgical resection and 81.2%, 63.1% and 57.3%, respectively, after radiotherapy alone (P = 0.005). In a univariate analysis, improved LC for the surgical group was also associated with the absence of ECM (P = 0.01) and for the radiation group, with a radiation boost (P = 0.01). The BC rates at 12, 24 and 36 months were 73.2%, 66.9% and 56%, respectively, in the surgical group and 75.7%, 49.6% and 42.4%, respectively, in the radiation group (P = 0.2). In our univariate analysis, improved BC after surgical resection was associated with control of primary tumor (P = 0.02). For patients in the radiation group, gender (P = 0.03) and a radiation boost (P = 0.0003) were significant prognostic factors in a univariate analysis. In our multivariate analysis, only the radiation boost was significant (P = 0.001). Conclusions Surgical resection followed by WBRT leads to a better outcome compared to WBRT alone for RPA I or II patients with 1 or 2 BM.


Abstract. GIS databases are widely available on the Internet, but mainly for visualization with limited functionality; very simple queries are possible i.e. attribute query, coordinate readout, line and area measurements or pathfinder. A little more complex analysis (i.e. buffering or intersection) are rare offered. Paper aims at the concept of Geoportal functionality development in the field of GIS analysis. Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) is planned to be implemented in web application. OGC Service is used for data acquisition from the server and results visualization. Advanced GIS analysis is planned in PostGIS and Python programming. In the paper an example of MCE analysis basing on Geoportal Kielce is presented. Other field where Geoportal can be developed is implementation of processing new available satellite images free of charge (Sentinel-2, Landsat 8, ASTER, WV-2). Now we are witnessing a revolution in access to the satellite imagery without charge. This should result in an increase of interest in the use of these data in various fields by a larger number of users, not necessarily specialists in remote sensing. Therefore, it seems reasonable to expand the functionality of Internet's tools for data processing by non-specialists, by automating data collection and prepared predefined analysis.


LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) is a fairly new system for rating neighborhoods on the sustainability of their design and planning. This study examines LEED-ND's criteria for Neighborhood Pattern and Design, starting from the hypothesis that these standards fall short of capturing the livability of a place as perceived by its residents. Noe Street in the Duboce Triangle neighborhood of San Francisco serves as the study site. Field measurements show that Noe Street is ineligible for LEED-ND certification. Survey results show that a majority of residents find it highly livable, nonetheless. When asked to consider life on their street, residents put different emphasis on what makes a neighborhood livable than the LEED-ND standards.


Nitrogen-fixing plants, by altering the availability of soil N, potentially facilitate plant invasion. Here we describe how herbivore-driven mortality of a native N-fixing shrub, bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus), increases soil N and light availability, which promotes invasion by introduced grasses to the detriment of a native plant community.

Soils under live and dead lupine stands contained large amounts of total N, averaging 3.14 mg N/g dry mass of soil (398 g/m2) and 3.45 mg N/g dry mass of soil (438 g/m2), respectively, over four years. In contrast, similar lupine-free soil was low in N and averaged only 1.66 mg N/g dry mass of soil (211 g/m2) over three years. The addition of N fertilizer to lupine-free soil produced an 81% increase in aboveground plant biomass compared to plots unamended with N. Mean rates of net N mineralization were higher under live lupine and where mass die-off of lupine had occurred compared to soils free of bush lupine. At all sites, only 2.5–4.2% of the total soil N pool was mineralized annually.

Soil enriched by lupine is not available to colonists while lupines are alive. The dense canopy of lupine shades soil under shrubs, reducing average photon-flux density in late spring from 1725 μmol·m−2·s−1 (full sunlight) to 13 μmol·m−2·s−1 (underneath shrubs). Stand die-off due to insect herbivory exposed this bare, enriched soil. In January, when annual plants are establishing, average photon-flux density under dead lupines killed by insect herbivores was 370 μmol·m−2·s−1, compared to the photon-flux density under live lupines of the same age, which averaged 83 μmol·m−2·s−1. The availability of bare, N-rich patches of soil enabled nonnative annuals (primarily Lolium multiflorum and Bromus diandrus) to colonize sites, grow rapidly, and dominate the plant assemblage until lupines reestablished after several years. The N content of these grasses was significantly greater than the N content of the mostly native plants that occupied adjacent coastal prairie devoid of bush lupine. Between 57 and 70% of the net amount of N mineralized annually was taken up by introduced grasses and subsequently returned to the soil upon the death of these annuals. Even in the absence of further N inputs, we estimate that it would take at least 25 yr to reduce the soil N pool by 50%, indicating that the reestablishment of the native prairie flora is likely to be long term.


A deep understanding of plasma transport at the edge of magnetically confined fusion plasmas is needed for the handling and control of heat loads on the machine first wall. Experimental observations collected on a number of tokamaks over the last three decades taught us that heat flux profiles at the divertor targets of X-point configurations can be parametrized by using two scale lengths for the scrape-off layer (SOL) transport, separately characterizing the main SOL ( λ q ) and the divertor SOL (Sq). In this work we challenge the current interpretation of these two scale lengths as well as their dependence on plasma parameters by studying the effect of divertor geometry modifications on heat exhaust in the Tokamak à Configuration Variable. In particular, a significant broadening of the heat flux profiles at the outer divertor target is diagnosed while increasing the length of the outer divertor leg in lower single null, Ohmic, L-mode discharges. Efforts to reproduce this experimental finding with both diffusive (SolEdge2D-EIRENE) and turbulent (TOKAM3X) modelling tools confirm the validity of a diffusive approach for simulating heat flux profiles in more traditional, short leg, configurations while highlighting the need of a turbulent description for modified, long leg, ones in which strongly asymmetric divertor perpendicular transport develops.


The mechanism in the pathogenesis of diabetic corneal disease is unclear, but aldose reductase may be involved in the corneal disease. We studied the effects of an aldose reductase inhibitor (ARI) on the ocular surface of diabetic patients. Fourteen aphakic or pseudophakic patients with diabetes were treated with orally administered ONO-2235 (150 mg/day). Corneal sensation, vital staining of ocular surface, and tear production were examined before and 3 months after the administration. After a 3-month period of oral ARI, corneal sensation recovered significantly (from 4.1±4.8to3.0±3.1g/mm2;p=0.015), with parallel improvements in rose bengal and fluorescein staining scores (p < 0.05). Tear break-up time had also improved (p=0.003). Results of Schirmer's test (p=0.03) and the cotton-thread test (p=0.0001) showed significant improvement in tear production. Improvement in the dynamics of tear production may be due to an improvement in corneal sensitivity. An oral ARI can improve corneal epithelial changes caused by diabetes, probably through recovery of corneal sensation and tear production.


This study was purposed to explore the inhibitory effect of Curcumin on growth of retinoic acid-resistant acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) cells and its mechanism. The NB4-R1, an APL cell line resistant to retinoic acid, was used as a model. The growth level of NB4-R1 was detected by MTT assay, the morphologic features of cells were observed by light microscopy, the mitochondrial transmembrane potential was determined by flow cytometry, the expressions of apoptosis-related proteins procaspase 3, caspase 3, PARP and BCL-XL were measured by Western blot. The results indicated that the sensitivity of NB4-R1 to Curcumin was consistent with NB4 though NB4-R1 was resistant to retinoic acid, Curcumin displayed inhibitory effect on growth of NB4-R1 in time-and concentration-dependent manners. The morphologic observation showed existence of apoptotic bodies in NB4-R1 cells treated with 20 micromol/L of Curcumin. The flow cytometry indicated that the mitochondrial transmembrane potential in NB4-R1 cells treated with 20 micromol/L of Curcumin obviously decreased. The Western blot detection revealed that expressions of pro-caspase 3 and BCL-XL were down-regulated, expressions of caspase 3 and sheared PAPP were up-regulated in NB4-R1 cells treated with 20 micromol/L of Curcumin. It is concluded that the Curcumin can inhibit the growth and induce the apoptosis of NB4-R1.


Lead (Pb) ions are a major concern to the environment and human health as they are contemplated cumulative poisons. In this study, facile synthesis of magnetic iron oxide-tea waste nanocomposite is reported for adsorptive removal of lead ions from aqueous solutions and easy magnetic separation of the adsorbent afterwards. The samples were characterised by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Braunner-Emmet-Teller nitrogen adsorption study. Adsorptive removal of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution was followed by ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry. About 95% Pb(II) ion removal is achieved with the magnetic tea waste within 10 min. A coefficient of regression R2 ≃ 0.99 and adsorption density of 18.83 mg g-1 was found when Pb(II) ions were removed from aqueous solution using magnetic tea waste. The removal of Pb(II) ions follows the pseudo-second-order rate kinetics. External mass transfer principally regulates the rate-limiting phenomena of adsorption of Pb(II) ions on iron oxide-tea waste surface. The results strongly imply that magnetic tea waste has promising potential as an economic and excellent adsorbent for the removal of Pb(II) from water.


In a world of oligopoly and monopolistic competition, prices are essentially set using a markup principle. Real wages are money wages divided by average price level, which depends on average markup level. In the short run, as markups and real wages change when expectations are not correct, income distribution changes. The natural real wage is the real wage at full employment (natural rate of unemployment NAIRU). Even without economic growth the natural real wage, hence income distribution, can change. With economic growth, the natural real wage occurs at: lower rates of unemployment in dynamic societies; higher rates of unemployment in sluggish societies.


Acceptable faults in a circuit under test (CUT) refer to those faults that have no or only minor impacts on the performance of the CUT. A circuit with an acceptable fault may be marketable for some specific applications. Therefore, by carefully dealing with these faults during testing, significant yield improvement can be achieved. Previous studies have shown that the patterns generated by a conventional automatic test pattern generation procedure to detect all unacceptable faults also detect many acceptable ones, resulting in a severe loss on achievable yield improvement. In this paper, we present a novel test methodology called multiple test set detection (MTSD) to totally eliminate this overdetection problem. A basic test set generation method is first presented, which depicts a fundamental scheme to generate appropriate test sets for MTSD. We then describe an enhanced test generation method that can significantly reduce the total number of test patterns. Solid theoretical derivations are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Experimental results show that in general an 80%-99% reduction in the number of test patterns can be achieved compared with previous work addressing this problem.


This article reports on a comparison of male and female early childhood teachers' beliefs and self-reported practices related to behavior management (BM). The respondents comprised 46 male and 46 female teachers, and independent-samples t-tests were conducted to compare beliefs and self-reported practices about BM strategies across these two groups. There were significant differences between the male and female teachers' self-confidence scores, and the ways in which they interacted with their pupils' parents. However, no significant differences were found between the male and female respondents' beliefs relating to the usefulness of BM strategies, or the frequency of their use of these strategies. Two-way ANOVAs were also conducted to explore the impact of gender/teaching experience, gender/educational level, and gender/class size on teachers' self-confidence; their perceptions of the usefulness of BM strategies; the frequency with which they used such strategies; and their interactions with parents. None of these relationships were statistically significant.


In label-noise learning, estimating the transition matrix is a hot topic as the matrix plays an important role in building statistically consistent classifiers. Traditionally, the transition from clean labels to noisy labels (i.e., clean-label transition matrix (CLTM)) has been widely exploited to learn a clean label classifier by employing the noisy data. Motivated by that classifiers mostly output Bayes optimal labels for prediction, in this paper, we study to directly model the transition from Bayes optimal labels to noisy labels (i.e., Bayes-label transition matrix (BLTM)) and learn a classifier to predict Bayes optimal labels. Note that given only noisy data, it is ill-posed to estimate either the CLTM or the BLTM. But favorably, Bayes optimal labels have less uncertainty compared with the clean labels, i.e., the class posteriors of Bayes optimal labels are one-hot vectors while those of clean labels are not. This enables two advantages to estimate the BLTM, i.e., (a) a set of examples with theoretically guaranteed Bayes optimal labels can be collected out of noisy data; (b) the feasible solution space is much smaller. By exploiting the advantages, we estimate the BLTM parametrically by employing a deep neural network, leading to better generalization and superior classification performance.


This study is aimed to describe and to find the influence of organization culture toward work motivation, commitment and performance. This study is conducted on Pontianak State Senior High School 9 in 2009. It is used permanent lecture as the sample of study they are 30 persons. Used variable consists of organization culture variable, lecture work motivation, lecture commitment and lecture performance. By using path analysis technique; it is known that commonly organization culture in Pontianak State Senior High School 9 is better. It is shown by the existence of significance influence toward work motivation, commitment and performance of lecture. Motivation is the most important factor that has biggest influence toward lecture performance. Thus, the principal of institution is expected to focus his attention toward motivation role. Beside, there should be any effort in increasing commitment by realizing that institution has strong supporting factor to increase this commitment. That is by lecture status as State Civil Officer. Keywords: Organization Culture, Work Motivation, Commitment, Lecture Performance


A 2.5D finite element forward algorithm for TEM with block linear conductivity was put forward in this paper. Firstly, based on the Maxwell equations, 2-order dual differential equation along strike was obtained by Laplace and Fourier transform. Then finite element linear equation system was obtained from coupling differential equation by using the Galerkin method, and yields the numerical solution of 2.5D transient electromagnetic field. The conductivity in finite element mesh is linear but uniform. In addition, the total field is decomposed into background field and secondary field: the former is solved by analytical method, and the latter is calculated by numerical method. Finally, 2.5D transient electromagnetic response curves of several typical geoelectric section models were computed.


Half of Iowa's remnant prairie lies within the Loess Hills of western Iowa, yet development, woody encroachment, and agriculture continue to have an impact upon the size, shape, and quality of grasslands in the region. Given the limited resources available to manage grasslands, prioritizing restoration expenditures and targeting efforts to areas of greatest conservation potential are critical. To this end, we conducted an assessment of landscape patterns in the Loess Hills and developed a conservation priority index (CPI) to identify cropland with the greatest potential to promote connectivity of grasslands. Cropland parcels were given a CPI score between 1 and 100, with high values corresponding to areas having a low corn suitability rating and located close to prairie remnants, and with low values, the reverse. Over the entire Loess Hills landform, croplands dominate, comprising 47% of the land cover, while grasslands, forests, and developed areas comprise 23%, 20%, and 6%, respectively. Cropland patches tend to be contiguous and consist of large, relatively simple shapes, while the patches of remnant prairie are small, fragmented, and far apart. Our analysis also shows that grasslands are more abundant and more connected in the northern half of the Loess Hills. The CPI identified large portions of cropland with low overall agricultural production potential. If cropland areas scoring among the top 30% on the CPI were converted to native prairie, the total amount and connectivity of grasslands in the region would increase substantially, thereby buffering prairie remnants—regionally significant reservoirs of biodiversity—from conservation threats associated with development, woody encroachment, and row-crop agriculture.


Da'wah is the responsibility of all Muslims at all levels. Besides spreading the teachings of Islam, da'wah is essential to raise awareness to all societies that the teaching of Islam has been disseminated are true, pure and from a genuine source. This article deals with the method of da'wah and social networks in dealing with liberalism and extremism. It discusses how far da'wah movements and social networks can be used effectively to meet the challenges of liberal and extreme ideology in Malaysia. By using the qualitative, historical, and content analysis, this article is part of the research findings on collective and multi-disciplinary approaches in combatting extremism ideology and activities in Malaysia. The research findings show that these two ideologies (liberalism and extremism) are transmitted through social networking technologies including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. This media technology not only facilitates communication, but, despite all these facilities they are very dangerous and has social implications. A free understanding, an extreme, a radicalism and in similar with it are widely disseminated through the sophistication of this technology. In this case, the method of da'wah should be updated from time to time, up to date and utilize of all available technologies. In addition, in order to spread the genuine Islamic teachings and eradicate the wrong doctrine, the greatest challenge is to ensure that all information's to be disseminated are true and genuine derived from the principles of Sunnah.


Though Dante never read Plato's dialogues on love, when examining the texts of Dante one notes the presence of Platonic thought and influence particularly concerning the notion of love. This thesis will focus upon the Platonic notion of eros and how it changes over time, ultimately being integrated into the Christian notion of love as understood by Dante, and how this Platonic influence is instantiated within Dante's poetry.
The inherent ambiguity of the concept of love, evident historically through frequent debates concerning its value whether positive, negative or in-between, makes any investigation into the nature of love problematic, often aporetic. One aim of this thesis is to help overcome some of the aporiai of knowledge concerning love through focusing upon one form of love, eros or passionate desire, which we shall use in order to understand love more generally through exploring its points of intersection and overlapping with certain other types of love, each of which emphasizes different aspects of love's character differentiated through culture and period.
Significantly eros, as perhaps the most ambiguous type of love, is often characterized negatively. Taking into account Nygren's negative view of eros which he sees as being wholly acquisitive and self-seeking as opposed to the thoroughly selfless Christian agape, we shall consider whether this view tells the full truth about eros.
In this endeavour we shall explore the interrelationship of eros and understanding understood as a dialectic directed towards the pursuit of truth, which in both the Platonic and Christian traditions involves the permanent possession of the good, beautiful and true; these converge in Neo-Platonic tradition, forming a unity which in Christianity is identified with God. We shall also explore how various strands of eros relate to and articulate the notion of love of the individual. These explorations cast light on the transformation of Platonic eros by Christian agape into the Latin concept of caritas.
In terms of procedure, we shall examine the notion of Platonic eros as presented in the Symposium and the Phaedrus and how this conception is reinterpreted in Dante's Commedia, these texts together acting as a lens which -will enable us better to comprehend the significance of Bros, and of love more generally, through the transformation of eros over time.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To explore the pretreatment thoughts and behaviors of women newly diagnosed with breast cancer regarding their surgical treatment decision-making experience.

RESEARCH APPROACH
Qualitative, descriptive.

SETTING
A multispecialty breast center in the midwestern region of the United States.

PARTICIPANTS
18 English-speaking women, aged 37-87 years, mean of 12 days postdiagnosis of clinical stage 0-11 breast cancer.

METHODOLOGIC APPROACH
Open to semistructured interviews were conducted during the period following surgical consultation but prior to surgical treatment. Transcribed interviews, originally analyzed to identify the psychological processes of women in response to breast cancer diagnosis, were additionally analyzed using directed content analysis focusing on women's thoughts and behaviors related to their surgical treatment decision-making process.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Breast cancer surgery and decision making pretreatment.

FINDINGS
Women's pretreatment thoughts and behaviors related to surgical treatment decision making were characterized by information processing, contemplating options, and interacting with others. Breast cancer information was used by women before the surgical consultation and after treatment decisions had been made. Treatment options were contemplated and preferences formed often before the initial surgical consultation. Women associated having options with a better prognosis. Age was a factor primarily in the type of information women desired.

CONCLUSIONS
Most women made their own surgical treatment decisions with ease, supported by the confidence instilled by their surgeons and oncology nurses.

INTERPRETATION
The findings provide oncology nurses with insight regarding women's desire for and use of information and their contemplation of surgical options, therefore suggesting areas on which to focus clinical assessment and to test tailored interventions.


Background: Despite the efforts undertaken to measure the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, The main difficulties of this theory is not good psychometric scale. This study was performed to evaluate the psychometric properties of behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition systems' scale in nonclinical groups. Methods: The study population includes Urmia and Kharazmi universities, among which 368 and 472 participants were selected randomly. For determining the psychometric properties of behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition systems' scale, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used. Then reliability of this scale were measured through the Cronbach's alpha coefficient, retest, and splitting, as well as criterion validity was examined with positive and negative affect scale sensitivity to punishment and reward scale. Results: Exploratory factor analysis revealed four factors. Also fit indictors in confirmatory factor analysis supported four-factor model. Alpha coefficients, retest and splitting showed satisfactory internal consistency, and patterns of correlation coefficients between subscales of Persian version of behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition systems with positive and negative affect scale and sensitivity to punishment and reward scale showed good criterion validity for this scale. Conclusion: The findings of the present study was similar to original culture, therefore the Persian version of behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition systems' scale is a good tool for assessment characteristics consistent with BAS and BIS system and their subscales.


An improved immunogold labeling procedure was used to examine the subcellular distribution of glucose transporters in Lowricryl HM20- embedded skeletal muscle from transgenic mice overexpressing either Glut1 or Glut4. In basal muscle, Glut4 was highly enriched in membranes of the transverse tubules and the terminal cisternae of the triadic junctions. Less than 10% of total muscle Glut4 was present in the vicinity of the sarcolemmal membrane. Insulin treatment increased the number of gold particles associated with the transverse tubules and the sarcolemma by three-fold. However, insulin also increased the total Glut4 immunogold reactivity in muscle ultrathin sections by up to 1.8- fold and dramatically increased the amount of Glut4 in muscle sections as observed by laser confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. The average diameter of transverse tubules observed in longitudinal sections increased by 50% after insulin treatment. Glut1 was highly enriched in the sarcolemma, both in the basal state and after insulin treatment. Disruption of transverse tubule morphology by in vitro glycerol shock completely abolished insulin-stimulated glucose transport in isolated rat epitrochlearis muscles. These data indicate that: (a) Glut1 and Glut4 are targeted to distinct plasma membrane domains in skeletal muscle; (b) Glut1 contributes to basal transport at the sarcolemma and the bulk of insulin-stimulated transport is mediated by Glut4 localized in the transverse tubules; (c) insulin increases the apparent surface area of transverse tubules in skeletal muscle; and (d) insulin causes the unmasking of a COOH-terminal antigenic epitope in skeletal muscle in much the same fashion as it does in rat adipocytes.


From experimental results of spin polarized injection and transport in organic semiconductors(OSCs),we theoretically study the current spin polarization and magnetoresistance under an electric and a magnetic field in a ferromagnetic/organic semiconductor/ferromagnetic(FM/OSC/FM) sandwich structure according to the spin drift-diffusion theory and Ohm's law.From the calculations,it is found that the interfacial current spin polarization is enhanced by several orders of magnitude through tuning the magnetic and electric fields by taking into account the specific characteristics of OSC.Furthermore,the effects of the electric and magnetic fields on the magnetoresistance are also discussed in the sandwich structure.


Review history is widely used by recommender systems to infer users' preferences and help find the potential interests from the huge volumes of data, whereas it also brings in great concerns on the sparsity and cold-start problems due to its inadequacy. Psychology and sociology research has shown that emotion information is a strong indicator for users' preferences. Meanwhile, with the fast development of online services, users are willing to express their emotion on others' reviews, which makes the emotion information pervasively available. Besides, recent research shows that the number of emotion on reviews is always much larger than the number of reviews. Therefore incorporating emotion on reviews may help to alleviate the data sparsity and cold-start problems for recommender systems. In this paper, we provide a principled and mathematical way to exploit both positive and negative emotion on reviews, and propose a novel framework MIRROR, exploiting eMotIon on Reviews for RecOmmendeR systems from both global and local perspectives. Empirical results on real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework and further experiments are conducted to understand how emotion on reviews works for the proposed framework.


In this paper, we investigate the distortion outage minimization problem for a wireless sensor network (WSN) in the presence of an eavesdropper. The observation signals transmitted from the sensors to the fusion center (FC) are over-heard by the eavesdropper. Both the FC and the eavesdropper reconstruct minimum mean squared error (MMSE) estimates of the physical quantity observed. We address the problem of transmit power allocation to minimize the distortion outage at the FC, subject to a long-term transmit power constraint among the sensors and a secrecy outage constraint at the eavesdropper. Applying a rigorous probabilistic power allocation technique we derive power policies for the full channel state information (CSI) case. Additional suboptimal power control policies are studied for the partial CSI case in order to reduce the high computational cost as the number of sensors or receive antennas grows. Numerical results show better performance can be achieved by adding multiple receive antennas at the FC.


Geochemical elements, significant indicator of environmental change,have been widely used in paleoenvironment research. By comparative analysizing of sediment's geochemical characterstics of core PJ and core ZX-1, almost opposite relations was found between them. In Holocene, there are repeated transgression-regression cycles and the deposition profile of core PJ was in the critical zone of transgression-regression. When climate was warm and humid, sea-level rose, the sedimentary environmental salinity increased and ability of element eluviate-leaching were weak, geochemical elements can not be effectively separated. On the contrary, when climate was dry and cold, sea-level became lower, the role of the element eluviate-leaching was enhanced, and different geochemical elements can be effective separated. This mechanism enables that indicators significance of core PJ's geochemistry element changing is the opposite direction to other regions.


The amount of Semantic Web data is growing rapidly today. Individual users, academic institutions and businesses have already published and are continuing to publish their data in Semantic Web standards, such as RDF and OWL. Due to the decentralized nature of the Semantic Web, the same real world entity may be described in various data sources with different ontologies and assigned syntactically distinct identifiers. Furthermore, data published by each individual publisher may not be complete. This situation makes it difficult for end users to consume the available Semantic Web data effectively. In order to facilitate data utilization and consumption in the Semantic Web, without compromising the freedom of people to publish their data, one critical problem is to appropriately interlink such heterogeneous data. This interlinking process is sometimes referred to as Entity Coreference, i.e., finding which identifiers refer to the same real world entity. In the Semantic Web, the owl:sameAs predicate is used to link two equivalent (coreferent) ontology instances. An important question is where these owl:sameAs links come from. Although manual interlinking is possible on small scales, when dealing with large-scale datasets (e.g., millions of ontology instances), automated linking becomes necessary. This dissertation summarizes contributions to several aspects of entity coreference research in the Semantic Web. First of all, by developing the EPWNG algorithm, we advance the performance of the state-of-the-art by 1% to 4%. EPWNG finds coreferent ontology instances from different data sources by comparing every pair of instances and focuses on achieving high precision and recall by appropriately collecting and utilizing instance context information domain-independently. We further propose a sampling and utility function based context pruning technique, which provides a runtime speedup factor of 30 to 75. Furthermore, we develop an on-the-fly candidate selection algorithm, P-EPWNG, that enables the coreference process to run 2 to 18 times faster than the state-of-the-art on up to 1 million instances while only making a small sacrifice in the coreference F1-scores. This is achieved by utilizing the matching histories of the instances to prune instance pairs that are not likely to be coreferent. We also propose Offline, another candidate selection algorithm, that not only provides similar runtime speedup to P-EPWNG but also helps to achieve higher candidate selection and coreference F1-scores due to its more accurate filtering of true negatives. Different from P-EPWNG, Offline pre-selects candidate pairs by only comparing their partial context information that is selected in an unsupervised, automatic and domain-independent manner. In order to be able to handle really heterogeneous datasets, a mechanism for automatically determining predicate comparability is proposed. Combing this property matching approach with EPWNG and Offline, our system outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms on the 2012 Billion Triples Challenge dataset on up to 2 million instances for both coreference F1-score and runtime. An interesting project, where we apply the EPWNG algorithm for assisting cervical cancer screening, is discussed in detail. By applying our algorithm to a combination of different patient clinical test results and biographic information, we achieve higher accuracy compared to its ablations. We end this dissertation with the discussion of promising and challenging future work.


Determining sustainability harvesting levels for most non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is an evolving science. A monitoring programme that will continually assess the health and vitality of the natural resources base should be implemented. Though there is some information on individual species, ecosystem dynamics are still not well understood, commercialization of natural products makes it imperative to manage proactively through monitoring, harvesting and replanting and tree succession plans. Important steps in sustainable natural products management include the following: Identification and demarcation of the resource base by ecosystem type (forest, pasture, farmland, rock outcrop, and so on) and map of the locations of various ecosystems types; identification of resource supply areas of the preferred products; and estimating the volume based on current harvesting and trade or use. Further, identify potential threats to standing stock of natural resource base. In addition to conducting group meetings to investigate where and how products have been harvested, extracted or collected over the last 3 to 5 years; undertaking resource inventory of standing stock and also conducting user surveys and engaging resource collectors. Ultimately, for business development, the following logical issues are examined and critically analyzed; enterprise opportunity and location-specific overview of the community forestry subsector, sustainability of supply of forest products, regulatory environment and forest resource users/groups, technology, management and finance, and lastly marketing and sales.


Twelve chagasic patients between the ages of seven and twelve, in the indeterminate phase with serology and xenodiagnosis positive, received the specific treatment. Eight of these were evaluated after an eight-year treatment period and four were followed-up during 20 years. Two patients took 7mg/kg of nifurtimox during sixty and ninety days and ten of these used 5-7mg/kg of benznidazole during 60 days. The clinical outcome was verified through clinical examination, electrocardiogram and contrasted X-ray of the esophagus. After the treatment, only one patient presented negativity in all the examinations. Seven (58.4%) remained in the indeterminate form and despite the precocious treatment four chagasic patients (33.3%) progressed clinically to second degree cardiopathy and/or megaesophagus.


AbstractStudents in teacher education programs throughout the United States are often required to develop professional teaching portfolios. Portfolios are traditionally presented in loose-leaf binders combining text and pictures. However, with increasing availability of a wide variety of computer technologies, preservice teachers can develop electronic multimedia versions of portfolios. The purpose of this article is to describe a project designed to develop electronic portfolios on CD-ROM and discuss school administrators reactions to them. Findings suggest that administrators favor electronic portfolios over traditional versions. The development process and implications for teacher education programs are also offered.


We study the Hamiltonian motion of an ensemble of unconfined classical particles driven by an external field F through a translationallyinvariant, thermal array of monochromatic Einstein oscillators. The system does not sustain a stationary state, because the oscillators cannot effectively absorb the energy of high speed particles. We nonetheless show that the system has at all positive temperatures a well-defined low-field mobility μ over macroscopic time scales of order exp(c/F ), during which it finds itself in a metastable stationary state. The mobility is independent of F at low fields, and related to the zero-field diffusion constant D through the Einstein relation. The system therefore exhibits normal transport even though the bath obviously has a discrete frequency spectrum (it is simply monochromatic) and is therefore highly non-Ohmic. Such features are usually associated with anomalous transport properties.


Colloquialization has been identified as one of the most important factors in short-term language change, and has been proposed as playing a particularly important role in Australian English. At the same time, some studies have observed the contrasting trend of densification (as one manifestation of anti-colloquialization), where information is condensed into fewer words—a characteristic of written language unlike the more diffuse expression expected in spoken styles. There is limited research into the dynamic between these complementary patterns of language change using large diachronic corpora and comprehensive sets of features associated with colloquialization and densification. This paper addresses these gaps by applying the multidimensional method of Biber (1988) to the Australian Diachronic Hansard Corpus (1901–2015). A quantitative analysis (at both the macro-level of factor (or dimension) scores and the micro-level of individual features) provides substantive evidence for the effects of both processes of language change. It is proposed that five factors (editorial policy, communicative aims of the register, intended audience, production mechanisms and broader social context) interact in shaping the relationship between these two processes in this register.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate if the combination of AZT/ddl offered any advantages in surrogate markers among HIV infected asymptomatic patients previously treated with AZT for at least six months.

METHODS
We used a prospective cohort of 269 asymptomatic HIV patients with CD4+ cell counts between 200 and 500 cells/microL. They were given didanosine (ddl 400 mg/d) in addition to AZT (500 mg/d) and had received AZT monotherapy for an average of 20 months. End points were progression to AIDS, death, or toxicity.

RESULTS
Median CD4+ cell count at the start of the combination therapy was 339 cells/microL which increased at three months to 451 and subsequently declined at 6, 12 and 18 months of followup (medians of 392, 360, 307 cells/microL respectively). Five patients progressed to AIDS, six developed toxicity (myelosuppression, hepatitis or pancreatitis) and 26 had minor side effects that required only dose reduction.

CONCLUSIONS
The addition of ddl to patients with prolonged ZDV monotherapy can be useful. CD4+ T cell counts showed a significant increase at 3 months with a gradual subsequent decline to below baseline at 18 months. Adverse effect of the drugs, although frequent, did not stop therapy in most patients.


Purpose
Daily commuting trips of higher education (HE) students account for a large proportion of the carbon footprint of a HE institution. Considerations of students underlying their choice of travel mode and their decision to make the trip to campus or to study online are explored as a necessary first step for finding an optimal balance between online and on-campus learning from both a sustainability and an educational perspective.

Design/methodology/approach
Focus group conversations were held with student groups from different study programmes of a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands.

Findings
Dutch students' travel mode choices seem to depend on measures regulating travel demand such as a free public transport card and high parking costs. The findings indicate that students make reasoned choices about making a trip to campus. These choices depend on considerations about their schedule, type, lecturer and content of a course, social norms and their own perceived behavioural control. Alternative online options can provide students with more flexibility to make choices adapted to their needs.

Social implications
While these findings are useful for sustainable and educational reasons, they also seem helpful in times of COVID-19 which calls for a re-design of curricula to allow for blended forms of online and on-campus learning.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is one of the first studies looking at students' considerations when deciding whether to travel to campus to learn or stay at home learning online.


Background The 152 extant species of kissing bug include important vectors of the debilitating, chronic, and often fatal Chagas disease, which affects several million people mainly in Central and South America. An understanding of the natural hosts of this speciose group of blood-feeding insects has and will continue to aid ongoing efforts to impede the spread of Chagas disease. However, information on kissing bug biology is piecemeal and scattered, developed using methods with varying levels of accuracy over more than 100 years. Existing host records are heavily biased towards well-studied primary vector species and are derived from primarily three different types of observations, associational, immunological or DNA-based, with varying reliability. Methods We gather a comprehensive and unparalleled number of sources reporting host associations via rigorous targeted searches of publication databases to review all known natural, or sylvatic, host records including information on how each record was collected. We integrate this information with novel host records obtained via attempted amplification and sequencing of a ∼160 base pair (bp) region of the vertebrate 12S mitochondrial gene from the gastrointestinal tract of 64 archival specimens of Triatominae representing 19 species collected primarily in sylvatic habitats throughout the southern United States and Central and South America during the past 10 years. We show the utility of this method for uncovering novel and under-studied groups of Triatominae hosts, as well as detecting the presence of the Chagas disease pathogen via Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) of a ∼400 bp sequence of the trypanosome 18S gene. Results New host associations for several groups of arboreal mammals were determined including sloths, New World monkeys, coatis, arboreal porcupines and, for the first time as a host of any Triatominae, tayras. A thorough review of previously documented sylvatic hosts, organized by triatomine species and the type of observation (associational, antibody-based, or DNA-based), is presented in a phylogenetic context and highlights large gaps in our knowledge of Triatominae biology. Conclusion The application of DNA-based methods of host identification towards additional species of Triatominae, including rarely collected species that may require use of archival specimens, is the most efficient and promising way to resolve recognized shortfalls.


Abstract In this paper, we examine the impact of female Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) on corporate innovation. We find that firms with female CTOs are more innovative (as captured by both patent counts and patent citations) than firms with male CTOs. This effect is more pronounced for firms with a stronger innovation-supportive culture, firms with female CEOs, and when female CTOs are more powerful. Using mediation analyses, we further validate that female CTOs' transformational leadership style is a plausible mechanism through which they affect innovation positively.


The authors present a framework that illustrates how a resource quality index can be used to examine policy relevant questions regarding environmental condition, the management of a resource as a production output, and sustainability. The framework demonstrates that heterogeneous endowments of a resource can change over time in different ways. By evaluating these changes using substitution, reversibility and uncertainty criteria, we can suggest four general guidelines for managing an environmental resource in a single production process. This framework was applied in a case study to three soil types (stable, neutral and susceptible) used in agricultural production in the Midwestern United States. By evaluating the economic and environmental impacts of managing soil quality under different sustainability and profit objectives, we uncovered policy relevant information including: which soils need to be preserved; when public intervention is needed to attain sustainability; and what perceptions of sustainability may be worth pursuing at all. The accuracy of these insights is highly dependent upon the reliability of the assessment of resource quality. An index was useful in this resource assessment because it could adapt to many of the complexities of environmental condition. We offer three lessons in refining resource indicators so that they may be used in the framework to better achieve optimal resource management and a greater understanding of what sustainability really means. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.


Selective laser sintering (SLS) of a multi-component Cu-based alloy, which consisted of a mixture of Cu, CuSn, and CuP powder, was successfully processed. The XRD, SEM, and EDX analysis shows that the bonding mechanism of this process is liquid phase sintering with partial melting of the powder occurred. The CuSn powder with lower melting point acts as the binder, while the Cu powder with higher melting point acts as the structural metal. The element phosphorus acts as a fluxing agent to prevent the Cu particles form oxidation. The distribution of phosphorus shows higher concentration at grain boundaries due to low solubility of P in Cu. A case study on SLS of this powder system to fabricate a gear was carried out. The relative density of 82% and radial dimension error of 1.9% were achieved.


This paper presents a Space-Vector Modulated (SVM) Direct-Torque-Control (DTC) scheme for a direct-drive permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) and a gird converter for wind energy without any position sensor. Direct control of the rotating velocity and amplitude of the stator flux vector allows very fast torque response of the PMSG according to the generator speed. Fixed switching frequency and very low torque ripple are obtained with space vector modulation. SVM-DTC can also be implemented into the grid converter in which nearly sinusoidal input current and fast dc link voltage regulation can be achieved. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control technique for the PMSG and grid converter other than the widely used field orientated control.


This text traces the development of an aspiring biracial teacher's growing understandings of African American youth he tutors. It deploys a Bakhtinian conceptual framework for how we might develop new understandings of ourselves through relationships and dialogues with others. It offers examples from one aspiring teacher's experiences to illustrate how when individuals look inward, that they can come to different interpretations of who people are and why they behave as they do. Further, it offers teacher educators examples of ways to engage aspiring teachers' compassion and empathy for those they see as "others."


The necessity to process signals living in non-Euclidean domains, such as signals defined on the top of a graph, has led to the extension of signal processing techniques to the graph setting. Among different approaches, graph signal processing distinguishes itself by providing a Fourier analysis of these signals. Analogously to the Fourier transform for time and image signals, the graph Fourier transform decomposes the graph signals decomposes in terms of the harmonics provided by the underlying topology. For instance, a graph signal characterized by a slow variation between adjacent nodes has a low frequency content. Along with the graph Fourier transform, graph filters are the key tool to alter the graph frequency content of a graph signal. This thesis focuses on graph filters that are performed distributively in the node domain–that is, each node needs to exchange information only within its neighbor to perform a given filtering operation. Similarly to the classical filters, we propose ways to design and implement distributed finite impulse response and infinite impulse response graph filters. One of the key contributions of this thesis is to bring the temporal dimension to graph signal processing and build upon a graph-time signal processing framework. This is done in different ways. First, we analyze the effects that the temporal variations on the graph signal and graph topology have on the filtering output. Second, we introduce the notion of joint graph-time filtering. Third, we presentpr a statistical analysis of the distributed graph filtering when the graph signal and the graph topology change randomly in time. Finally, we extend the sampling framework from the reconstruction of graph signals to the observation and tracking of time-varying graph processes. We characterize the behavior of the distributed autoregressivemoving average (ARMA) graph filters when the graph signal and the graph topology are time-varying. The latter analysis is exploited in two ways: i ) to quantify the limitations of graph filters in a dynamic environment, such as a moving sensors processing a time-varying signal in a sensor network; and i i ) to provide ways for filtering with low computation and communication complexity time-varying graph signals. We develop the notion of distributed graph-time filtering, which is an operation that jointly processes the graph frequencies of a time-varying graph signal on one hand and its temporal frequencies on the other hand. We propose distributed finite impulse response and infinite impulse response recursions to implement a two-dimensional graphtime filtering operation. Finally, we propose design strategies to find the filter coefficients that approximate a desired two-dimensional frequency response. We extend the analysis of graph filters to a stochastic environment, i.e., when the graph topology and the graph signal change randomly over time. By characterizing the first and second order moments of the filter output, we quantify the impact of the graph signal and the graph topology randomness into the distributed filtering operation. The latter allows us to develop the notion of graph filtering in the mean, which is also used to ease the computational burden of classical graph filters. Finally, we propose a sampling framework for time-varying graph signals. Particularly, when the graph signal changes over time following a state-space model, we extend the graph signal sampling theory to the tasks of observing and tracking the time-varying graph signal froma few relevant nodes. The latter theory considers the graph signal sampling as a particular case and shows that tools from sparse sensing and sensor selection can be used for sampling.


Survivin is a novel tumor-associated gene, its overexpression mostly associates with carcinogenesis and development. Nevertheless, the precise role of survivin in initiation and progression of gliomas is still not completely clear. We constructed here three short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting survivin plasmid vectors and introduced them into glioma U251 cells. The three shRNAs were efficiently and specifically able to knockdown the survivin expression in transiently transfected U251 cells. The stable transfectants expressing the shRNA having the strongest inhibitory effect against survivin exhibited decreased cell growth, increased spontaneous apoptosis, mitotic catastrophe and cell cycle arrest. Furthermore, in nude mice xenografts, the stable transfectants presented decreased de novo glioma formation and reduced development of angiogenesis. Results from this study indicate that survivin plays an important role in malignant proliferation, antiapoptosis and angiogenesis of gliomas, which may become an attractive target for gene therapy of gliomas, while RNA interference (RNAi) mediated by shRNA may become a new promising strategy for cancer gene therapy.


The purpose of the study is to analyze and compare the financial performance of manufacturing firms of Central and South European, Scandinavian and Balkan countries. In addition, the impact of firm's productivity on country's export intensity, foreign direct investments, R&D activity and financing costs is examined. This is the first comparative study making an inter-country, interregional and inter-manufacturing sector comparison of the financial performance of manufacturing firms in European, Scandinavian and Balkan regions through selected countries. This research attempts to investigate the relation of macro variables, such as country export intensity, FDI and R&D on the competitiveness of the manufacturing firms in those countries measured on the firm level. In order to access the factors that affect the competitiveness of the manufacturing firms in each one of the 15 countries of the sample, we run 15 Tobit (truncated) models, using balanced panel data for the period 2008-2011.


A clinical surgeon must run fast merely to keep up with the pack when it comes to the management of infections. This book is one of seven in a series entitled Contemporary Issues in Infectious Disease . This particular volume is specifically directed toward surgeons and surgical specialists. It consists of 18 15- to 20-page monographs, one third of which are summaries of progress in surgical fields, such as the role of oxygen in management of infections, adherence of bacteria to foreign bodies, and current strategies in molecular design of new antibiotics. These well-written, scholarly, short monographs strike a sensitive balance among recent advances in basic science that may be applicable to practicing surgeons. The remaining 11 chapters are summaries of new developments in management of infections in special clinical situations, such as urosepsis, cardiac and biliary surgery, osteomyelitis, burns, and posttrauma care. Two chapters on abdominal abscess, one written by


Bright-field microscopy suffers from a relatively small depth-of-field. Typically, the specimen's profile covers a range larger than the depth-of-field, and parts of the specimen that lie outside the object plane appear blurred. The specimen can be 'scanned' by moving the object along the optical axis, and different images will contain different areas that are sharp. The purpose of image fusion is to combine those images into one single image with an extended depth-of-field. One promising method is based on the wavelet transform. We show how the wavelet-based image fusion technique can be successfully applied to obtain a sharp composite color image. The selection of the proper type of wavelets can improve the results. We also introduce a way to apply this technique for color images without introducing false colors. Finally, we show how height information on the specimen, which we obtain as a side product from our algorithm, can be used for 3D visualization.


Instruments [energy based devices (EBDs)] that utilize energy to divide tissue with inappreciable bleeding serve surgical procedures. EBDs erroneous use increase morbidity [recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN), injury]. This article reviews different EBD in terms of their possible application for transoral endoscopic thyroidectomy vestibular approach (TOETVA). Endocrine surgeon skills and perfect judgment on EBD proprieties are essential elements for safe use. Furthermore, surgeons should evaluate carefully if certain EBD is indicated for TOETVA.


With the continuous push to improve Quality of Results (QoR) in EDA, Boolean methods in logic synthesis have been recently drawing the attention of researchers. Boolean methods achieve better QoR than algebraic methods but require higher computational cost. In this paper, we introduce the Scalable Boolean Method (SBM) framework. The SBM consists of 4 optimization engines designed to be scalable in a modern synthesis flow. The first presented engine is a generalized resubstitution framework based on computing, and implementing, the Boolean difference between two nodes. The second consists of a gradient-based AIG optimization, while the third one is based on heterogeneous elimination for kerneling. The last proposed engine is a revisiting of maximum set of permissible functions computation with BDDs. Altogether, the SBM framework enables significant synthesis results. We improve 12 of the best known area results in the EPFL synthesis competition. Embedded in a commercial EDA flow, the new Boolean methods enable -2.20% combinational area savings and -5.99% total negative slack reduction, after physical implementation, at contained runtime cost.


This paper discusses separablc term structure diffusion models in an arbitrage‐free environment. Using general consistency results we exploit the interplay between the diffusion coefficients and the functions determining the forward curve. We introduce the particular class of polynomial term structure models. We formulate the appropriate conditions under which the diffusion for a quadratic term structure model is necessarily an Ornstein‐Uhlenbeck type process. Finally, we explore the maximal degree problem and show that basically any consistent polynomial term structure model is of degree two or less.

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/148505/files/Separable Term Structures and the Maximal Degree Problem,.pdf


This research is about the improvement of working posture by implementing a tool design. In the previous condition at the small workshop, Loh Jinawi, the working postures of the mechanic's body when doing motorcycle service was not ergonomics and potentially caused pain or even injure in afterwards the day. By Nordic Body Map equipped questionnaire, the exact body parts which were affected by these working positions were known. On the other hand, there was a REBA method that used to measure how much risks that borne by the mechanic for these postures. Considering the condition of the workshop, there was no solution to fix the problem except using a specifically designed motorcycle lift. We transformed the problem information from our preliminary study into the design requirements of the tool. The tool was developed by anthropometry consideration. The final REBA evaluation showed that the tool could significantly reduce the risks.


The Philippines is one of many countries to have achieved the Millennium Development Goal target for improved access to drinking water. However, the national average masks sub-national inequities in access that underlie important information for policy makers and that have implications for health and development. We conducted a geospatial analysis on water access at the household and school levels, total water potential, and poverty incidence. We also compared water access at the household level between 1998 and 2008. We found significant spatial autocorrelation for all variables: the northern region had higher access to improved water sources, lower levels of poverty and less total water potential than the central or southern regions. Further, these trends did not change from 1998 to 2008. This study identifies the most marginalized areas within the Philippines. Our approach could be used by policy makers, donors and service delivery providers within the Philippines and elsewhere to better target water infrastructure projects.


Population modeling is now widely used in threatened species management and for predicting the impacts and benefits of competing management options. However, some argue that the results of models must be used with caution, particularly when data are limited. This is important, as even the simplest models would generally require more data (and knowledge) than are available in order to have complete confidence in model predictions. In particular, population models often suffer from a lack of data on demographic rates, spatial distribution, dispersal, management responses, habitat correlations and the magnitude of temporal variations. A number of authors identify behavioral and physiological responses of animals to anthropogenic noise. Assessing population level impacts of noise on cetacean populations is essential to understanding how noise impacts on the future viability of marine mammal populations. This assessment will be particularly challenging due to the difficulties associated with identifying a clear link between behavioral responses of animals and physiological impacts, observing and measuring changes in cetacean population parameters and the long lag-times over which population changes manifest in long-lived species. The urgency of the conservation situation for many of these socially important species demands immediate action, despite pervasive uncertainty. Adaptive management provides a coherent framework for action and continuous improvement under uncertainty. I review the elements of adaptive management and discuss the role of population modeling in that context. I discuss Bayesian approaches to enhancing inferential power and reducing uncertainty in model parameter estimation. I then review approaches to characterizing irreducible uncertainty with Monte Carlo methods and sensitivity analysis and conclude with a brief discussion of formal decision tools available to assist with decision making under severe uncertainty. I propose that urgently needed action should not be postponed due to uncertainty and that adaptive management provides a coherent framework for instituting immediate action with a plan for learning.


Background Treatment for vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) in sickle cell disease (SCD) remains supportive, focusing largely on symptom relief with opioids. Animal models have suggested a role for both red cell and leukocyte selectin-mediated adhesion in VOC, and the pan-selectin inhibitor GMI 1070 restored blood flow in a mouse model of VOC. We therefore explored safety and possible efficacy of GMI 1070 in patients with VOC.

Methods This prospective, randomized multi-center double blind, adaptive Phase 2 study enrolled patients ages 12-60 yrs with HbSS or HbSβ thalassemia presenting with VOC. Patients were randomized 1:1, stratified by site. A loading dose of GMI 1070 to achieve steady state, followed by ≤14 subsequent doses, were given q 12 h. Other treatment was per institutional standard of care. The primary efficacy endpoint was resolution of VOC, defined as: 1.5 cm sustained decrease in visual analog scale (VAS) pain score from baseline and transition to oral analgesia; or documented readiness for discharge; or order for discharge. Pre-planned population PK was examined after 11 subjects, and dose was subsequently escalated, per protocol. Secondary endpoints included cumulative opioid use (morphine equivalent units [MEU]/kg) and adverse events. Differences by treatment were analyzed by ANCOVA (means, adjusted for age and sex) and Kaplan-Meier (KM, medians), stratified by age and dose.

Results Seventy-six subjects were enrolled (ages 12-51; 45 F, 31 M). Drug dose was doubled to reach target nadir levels after interim PK analysis. All 76 patients reached the primary endpoint: 58 subjects continued study drug until criteria for resolution of VOC were met or the maximum number of doses were given; 18 discontinued drug for AEs, no improvement at day 5, or other reasons. In the primary efficacy analysis, reduction in mean time to VOC resolution was consistently observed in all treatment groups (pooled high and low dose GMI 1070, 103.6 h ± 20.9 (SE), n=43, vs placebo, 144.6 h ± 23.5, n=33, p=0.192). KM analysis showed median times to resolution of 69.6 h (CI 44.3, 115.5) for the GMI 1070 group vs 132.9 h (CI 67.0, 164.2) for the placebo group (p=0.187, Log-rank, [Fig 1a][1]). Thus, GMI 1070 resulted in differences in time to resolution of 41 h (mean) and 63 h (median). Similar differences were seen when analysis was stratified by age. Proportionally more subjects receiving GMI 1070 than placebo achieved resolution of VOC at 48, 72, 96 and 120 h. Analyses by how endpoint was reached were consistent with composite findings. The time to transition to oral pain medications was substantially decreased in all treatment groups: this reduction was 76 h in the GMI 1070 group (KM p=0.089) and reached statistical significance in the pediatric population (87.8 h, KM p=0.037). Time to discharge was reduced from a median of 156.1 h (CI 75.4, 185.8) for placebo to 72.2 h (CI 59.9, 121.0) for GMI 1070 (p=0.092). Stratified analysis by age and dose showed similar reductions in time to discharge. Although 24 subjects (31.6%) did not achieve a sustained reduction in VAS while hospitalized, active treatment was associated with a decrease in time to first sustained reduction in VAS. Median times to VAS reduction were: GMI 1070, 72.0 h (CI 34.5, 115.7); placebo, 125.3 h (CI 19.7, 180.2). Time to agreement about readiness for discharge was documented in 88% and 85% of the treatment and placebo groups, with medians of 72.5 h (CI 60.9, 139.1) and 137.4 h (CI 83.2, 165.7), respectively (p=0.151). An 83% reduction in mean cumulative IV opioid analgesic use (mg/kg MEU) was seen across all treatment groups (p=0.010, [Fig 1b][1]). The effect on opioid use was seen within 24 h. Total adverse event (AE) rates, serious AEs, and 'treatment related' AEs were comparable across all groups and ages (high dose, low dose, and pooled GMI 1070, or placebo; pediatric vs. adult). No subjects discontinued the study due to AEs.

![Figure][2]

Conclusion Treatment with GMI 1070 was associated with substantial reductions in mean and median time to resolution of VOC, analyzed either as a composite or component endpoints, that were near statistical significance. The magnitude of reduction was clinically meaningful. GMI 1070 was also associated with reduction in both hourly and daily opioid use. There was no evidence for heterogeneity of effect among patient groups. These promising results support a role for selectins in the pathophysiology of VOC and justify a Phase 3 study of GMI 1070 for SCD patients with VOC.

Disclosures: Telen: Dilaforette, NA: Research Funding; Pfizer, Inc.: Consultancy; GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding. Wun: Emmaus, Inc.: Clinical Adjudication Committee Other; Pfizer, Inc.: Consultancy; GlycoMimetics: Research Funding. McCavit: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding; Pfizer, Inc.: Consultancy. De Castro: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding; Novella Clinical: Consultancy. Krishnamurti: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding. Lanzkron: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding. Hsu: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding. Smith: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding. Rhee: Rho, Inc.: Employment; GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Research Funding. Magnani: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Employment, Equity Ownership. Thackray: GlycoMimetics, Inc.: Employment, Equity Ownership.

 [1]: #F1
 [2]: pending:yes


Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) treatment is unregulated in Ireland, although it is practised there. Within Europe, Ireland is one of the only European countries without any form of AHR-specific regulation. This study aims to investigate the experiences and viewpoints of Irish women undergoing AHR treatments and establish if the lack of legislation is affecting these experiences. A quantitative survey was carried out on women undergoing AHR treatment in Irish clinics. Patients highlighted a lack of information in terms of end-to-end care and poor information around treatments and success rates. Key issues highlighted included unanticipated high treatment costs and add-on treatment costs, lack of financial support from the government, no redress process in the event of dissatisfaction, and generally an overall feeling of a lack of support both from the AHR clinics and the Irish government. This study offers a real-time view of the Irish AHR system from the patient's experience of AHR and under the lens of the lack of a legislative system. In early 2022, the Irish government announced that it would adopt its bill around AHR treatment and that subsidies for AHR treatment are to come into effect, which will alleviate some financial pressures on patients. Further studies of the legislation carried out post implementation will provide more information about the impact of having a legislated AHR process on the patients.