The aim of this study is to know whether there is an association between endonuclease-G and the apoptosis of amniotic cells in pregnancies with premature rupture of the membranes. Through research study on the amnion cell apoptosis mechanism in pregnancies with premature rupture of the membranes, it is possible to know whether endonuclease-G is the biomarker of amnion cells apoptosis involved. Methods: Analytic observational methods with cross-sectional study have been used in this study design. Sample tissues from the ruptured amniotic membrane of 41 pregnant women with premature rupture of the membranes were taken and processed to be analyzed further; TUNEL methods were used for obtaining the apoptosis index analysis of amnion tissue; Western-Blotting methods were used in both the analysis of endonuclease-G (30kDa/full length) expression and also the analysis of caspase-3 (35 kDa/full length) expression. Data, consisting age of pregnancies, endonuclease-G, caspase-3 and apoptosis index were analyzed using the chi-square test. The results of the study showed that apoptosis was significantly associated with the high level detection of endonuclease-G (p=0,000) but was not associated with caspase-3 significantly (p=0,316). It was also found that the apoptosis in premature rupture of the membranes in pregnancy is not dependent to the age of pregnancies. Therefore, there is an indication that the occurrence of apoptosis is dominant through the caspase-independent pathway (endonuclease-G). Hence it can be concluded from the results of this study that high level detection of endonuclease-G is a biomarker of apoptosis of amnion cells in pregnancies with premature rupture of the membranes


In everyday life, we often observe and learn from interactions between other individuals –– so-called third-party encounters. As robots are poised to become an increasingly familiar presence in our daily lives, third-party encounters between other people and robots might offer a valuable approach to influence people's behaviours and attitudes towards robots. Here, we conducted an online experiment where participants (n = 48) watched videos of human-robot dyads interacting in a cooperative or competitive manner. Following this observation, we measured participants' behaviour and attitudes towards the human and robotic agents. First, participants played a game with the agents to measure whether their behaviour was affected by their observed encounters. Second, participants' attitudes toward the agents were measured before and after the game. We found that the third-party encounters influenced behaviour during the game but not attitudes towards the observed agents. Participants showed more effort towards robots than towards humans, especially when the human and robot agents were framed as competitive in the observation phase. Our study suggests that people's behaviours towards robots can be shaped by the mere observation of third-party encounters between robots and other people.


Copyright© 2021 The Korean Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Society This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Full Endoscopic Transforaminal Lumbar Discectomy: A Literature Review


Traditionally, a lexicographer identifies the lexical items to be added to a dictionary. Here we present a corpus-based approach to dictionary compilation and describe a procedure that derives a Twi dictionary from a TypeCraft corpus of Interlinear Glossed Texts. We first extracted a list of unique words. We excluded words belonging to different dialects of Akan (mostly Fante and Abron). We corrected misspellings and distinguished English loan words to be integrated in our dictionary from instances of code switching. Next to the dictionary itself, one other resource arising from our work is a lexicographical model for Akan which represents the lexical resource itself, and the extended morphological and word class inventories that provide information to be aggregated. We also represent external resources such as the corpus that serves as the source and word level audio files. The Twi dictionary consists at present of 1367 words; it will be available online and from an open mobile app.


The packing of cells in epithelia exhibits striking regularities, regardless of the organism and organ. One of these regularities is expressed in Lewis' law, which states that the average apical cell area is linearly related to the number of neighbours, such that cells with larger apical area have on average more neighbours. The driving forces behind the almost 100-year old Lewis' law have remained elusive. We now provide evidence that the observed apical epithelial packing minimizes surface energy at the intercellular apical adhesion belt. Lewis' law emerges because the apical cell surfaces then assume the most regular polygonal shapes within a contiguous lattice, thus minimising the average perimeter per cell, and thereby surface energy. We predict that the linear Lewis' law generalizes to a quadratic law if the variability in apical areas is increased beyond what is normally found in epithelia. We confirm this prediction experimentally by generating heterogeneity in cell growth in Drosophila epithelia. Our discovery provides a link between epithelial organisation, cell division and growth and has implications for the general understanding of epithelial dynamics.


The effect of a single dose of nifedipine or propranolol hydrochloride on gastric acid production and motility has been assessed in 90 duodenal ulcer (DU) patients having the relapse. Intragastric pH-metry showed that the drugs in a dose 20 mg significantly inhibit basal acid production. As indicated by electrogastromyography, nifedipine effect on gastric motility depends on its baseline level. The drug displays a moderate normalizing action (modulating effect) on the dominating frequency, amplitude of motor oscillations and overall capacity of gastric biopotentials. Propranolol hydrochloride noticeably lowered initially high frequency of gastric contractions. Due to nifedipine gastric evacuation inhibits and makes more regular. The authors recommend introduction of nifedipine and propranolol hydrochloride in correction of gastric dysfunction in DU patients.


Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can differentiate into all cell types of the body and, therefore, hold tremendous promise for cell-based regenerative medicine therapies. One significant challenge that should be addressed before using ESCs in the clinic is to improve methods of efficiently and effectively directing the differentiation of this heterogeneous cell population. The work presented here examines the potential of harnessing naturally derived extracellular vesicles to deliver genetic material from mature cells to undifferentiated ESCs for the purpose of manipulating stem cell fate. Vesicles were isolated from preosteoblast cells and were found to be ∼170 nm in diameter and to express the CD40 surface marker. Multiple interactions were visualized between vesicles and ESCs using confocal microscopy, and no significant difference in cell viability was noted. Incubation with vesicles caused significant changes in ESC gene expression, including persistence of pluripotent gene levels as well as increased neurectoderm differentiation. Genetic cargo of the vesicles as well as the cells from which they were derived were examined using a small microRNA (miRNA) gene array. Interestingly, ∼20% of the examined miRNAs were increased more than twofold in the vesicles compared with preosteoblast cells. Together, these results suggest that extracellular vesicles may be utilized as a novel method of directing stem cell differentiation. Future work examining methods for controlled delivery of vesicles may improve the clinical potential of these physiological liposomes for therapeutic applications.


Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) have been criticised in some quarters (in 2002, only 40 per cent of work‐based learning (WBL) providers were deemed adequate). Things are improving but there is still much to be done. This paper addresses this issue. Support for Success, a Learning and Skills Development Agency quality improvement programme funded by the Learning and Skills Council, commissioned a small number of action research projects in 2002, with the aim of improving learner outcomes. Of those projects, 12 sought practical ways of promoting achievement and progression in WBL to respond to the government directive of securing progression and the attainment of targets in the WBL arena. The paper provides an overview of the issues associated with 14‐19‐year‐old vocational education and training, before addressing aspects of retention and achievement in modern apprentice programmes. Drawing on 12 projects, different approaches to improving success in MAs are explored.


On Sept. 27, 2016, the Pan American Health Organization — the World Health Organization's Americas branch — announced that measles had been eliminated in the region. It was exciting news! PAHO is the first WHO region to accomplish the task, a triumphant sequel to its 2015 announcement that, thanks to widespread vaccination, rubella (along with congenital rubella syndrome) had been eliminated in the Americas.1


The task of Grounded Video Description~(GVD) is to generate sentences whose objects can be grounded with the bounding boxes in the video frames. Existing works often fail to exploit structural information both in modeling the relationships among the region proposals and in attending them for text generation. To address these issues, we cast the GVD task as a spatial-temporal Graph-to-Sequence learning problem, where we model video frames as spatial-temporal sequence graph in order to better capture implicit structural relationships. In particular, we exploit two ways to construct a sequence graph that captures spatial-temporal correlations among different objects in each frame and further present a novel graph topology refinement technique to discover optimal underlying graph structure. In addition, we also present hierarchical attention mechanism to attend sequence graph in different resolution levels for better generating the sentences. Our extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method compared to state-of-the-art methods.


Chemosynthetic primary production supports hydrothermal vent ecosystems, but the extent of that productivity and its governing factors have not been well constrained. To better understand anaerobic primary production within massive vent deposits, we conducted a series of incubations at 4, 25, 50 and 90 °C using aggregates recovered from hydrothermal vent structures. We documented in situ geochemistry, measured autochthonous organic carbon stable isotope ratios and assessed microbial community composition and functional gene abundances in three hydrothermal vent chimney structures from Middle Valley on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Carbon fixation rates were greatest at lower temperatures and were comparable among chimneys. Stable isotope ratios of autochthonous organic carbon were consistent with the Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle being the predominant mode of carbon fixation for all three chimneys. Chimneys exhibited marked differences in vent fluid geochemistry and microbial community composition, with structures being differentially dominated by gamma (γ) or epsilon (ε) proteobacteria. Similarly, qPCR analyses of functional genes representing different carbon fixation pathways showed striking differences in gene abundance among chimney structures. Carbon fixation rates showed no obvious correlation with observed in situ vent fluid geochemistry, community composition or functional gene abundance. Together, these data reveal that (i) net anaerobic carbon fixation rates among these chimneys are elevated at lower temperatures, (ii) clear differences in community composition and gene abundance exist among chimney structures, and (iii) tremendous spatial heterogeneity within these environments likely confounds efforts to relate the observed rates to in situ microbial and geochemical factors. We also posit that microbes typically thought to be mesophiles are likely active and growing at cooler temperatures, and that their activity at these temperatures comprises the majority of endolithic anaerobic primary production in hydrothermal vent chimneys.


Non-surgical endodontic retreatment is still an undertaking in endodontic, in particular whilst coping with a complicated enamel anatomy. This take a look at evaluated the efficacy of passive ultrasonic irrigation (PUI) and the Gentle-Wave machine as supplementary strategies to do away with ultimate filling substances from oval-fashioned root canals. Twenty distal roots of human mandibular molars with unmarried and oval-fashioned canals have been fashioned with R40 (40.06) tool and full of guttapercha and AH Plus sealer the usage of warm vertical obturation. Initial filling cloth elimination became executed with R50 (50.05) tool, observed with the aid of using the usage of PUI (n = 10) or Gentle-Wave machine (n= 10). Micro-computed tomographic pix have been received after obturation, preliminary cloth elimination, and after the usage of PUI and Gentle-Wave. The extent of ultimate filling cloth became calculated for the whole canal as nicely as for the coronal, middle, and apical thirds. Statistical analyses have been executed with the aid of using the usage of evaluation of variance, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. P ≤ 0.05 became taken into consideration significant. The use of PUI and Gentle-Wave as supplementary strategies drastically decreased the extent of ultimate filling cloth after preliminary instrumentation (P < 0.05). However, none of those strategies became capable of render canals loose from filling substances. PUI confirmed higher performance with the aid of using getting rid of 18% of the ultimate filling cloth, while the GentleWave machine became capable of do away with about 10% (P = 0.02). Endodontics offers with the remedy of sicknesses of the inner of the enamel, inclusive of the pulp chamber, the pulp canal, and contiguous structures. Root canal remedy and bleaching of non-vital enamel are widespread remedies rendered with the aid of using endodontists. The use of supplementary strategies optimized filling cloth elimination after preliminary instrumentation of PUI greater the general cleansing of the basis canal machine throughout endodontic retreatment in oval-fashioned canals. The exercise of endodontic is involved by and large with the elimination of diseased dental pulp and its alternative with filling cloth, an operation called root canal remedy. After the pulp is removed, the enamel is still nourished with the aid of using connecting blood vessels with inside the jaw. The enamel is then taken into consideration to be dead, although the fibers that maintain the enamel with inside the jawbone are alive. Operations at the pulp are executed with the useful resource of neighborhood anesthesia. Preservation of the herbal enamel on this way serves each look and utility; a herbal enamel implanted with inside the jaw keeps the integrity of the dental arch and can resist approximately 10 instances extra strain than can synthetic enamel.


Current network technology is bandwidth-rich but latency-poor; thus round-trip delays will dominate access latency for web traac. We describe four new techniques that reduce the round-trips needed for web accesses. The techniques are based on the paradigm of preprocessing a web page to collect information about links and inline data in the page. Stored Address Binding almost always eliminates the DNS lookup (which can cost seconds) at the start of a transaction. In Informed Server Proxying, a server tells its client that it has cached pages referenced in a page the client just retrieved; this allows the client to retrieve the pages from its current connection, instead of creating a new connection. In Selective Link Redirect, a server can direct its client to any server that has cached a page referenced in the current document; this allows cooperating servers to balance load. Finally, Auto Inline Download allows a server to send inline data such as images and applets, without additional client requests. We describe implementations and measurements of these techniques.


Background Our previous studies in the (NZBxNZW) F1 model provide strong rationales for an IL-2 based immunotherapy of lupus in order to restore regulatory T cell (Treg) mediated tolerance that is impaired due to an acquired IL-2 deficiency (Humrich et al. 2010). However, although Treg appear to be the major target of IL-2 in vivo, because they constitutively express the high-affinity IL-2 receptor,other cells that potentially trigger autoimmunitycan also be activated by IL-2 in a dose dependent fashion. Objectives To determine an optimal dose and regimen for a therapy with IL-2 that induces a sufficient expansion of CD4+Foxp3+ Treg in vivo while only marginally affecting other cells, and that most efficiently influences active disease in the (NZBxNZW) F1 model for lupus. In addition, the underlying cellular mechanisms and side effects were studied. Methods Recombinant mouse IL-2 at different single doses (1, 5, 25, 50 ng/g body weight) was injected subcutaneously either into young or diseased (NZBxNZW) F1 mice every day for the duration of five days as induction therapy. After the induction phase, IL-2 injections were continued every 4 days until the end of the experiment. Control animals received an equal amount of PBS (carrier). Cells from lymphoid organs and peripheral blood were analyzed by flow cytometry at days 5, 7, 14 and 21. In addition survival and clinical parameters (weight, proteinuria, leukozyturia, autoantibodies) were analysed during IL-2 therapy of diseased mice for regimens with the single dosages of 5 and 25 ng/g body weight. Results We found that the low-dose IL-2 regimen with a single dose of 5ng/g body weight sufficiently promoted the expansion of CD4+Foxp3+Treg, while not or only marginally affecting CD4+ effector T cells and other cells. Although higher doses of IL-2 resulted in a more pronounced proliferation and expansion of Treg, this was accompanied by a considerable increase in CD44hi memory/effector CD4+ T cells and NK cells. Clinically, regimens with both 5ng/g and 25 ng/g were nearly equally sufficient to influence nephritis and to decrease mortality. In addition, we did not observe any signs of intolerability or other clinical side effects in the treated animals, even at higher dosages of 50ng/g body weight. Conclusions These studies provide the first evidence that low-dose IL-2 therapy selectively targets Treg and is clinically effective and also safe in murine lupus. This knowledge is very important for the future design of a clinical study with IL-2 in SLE. References Humrich, JY et al. (2010). Homeostatic imbalance of regulatory and effector T cells due to IL-2 deprivation amplifies murine lupus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107, 204-9 Disclosure of Interest None Declared


OBJECTIVES
Clinical features, response to treatment and survival of T-cell-rich B-cell lymphoma (TCRBCL) patients were compared to those of a similar group of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

METHODS
Between 1992 and 1999, 10 patients with a diagnosis of TCRBCL were treated in our department. Over the same 7-year period, a group of 65 patients with DLBCL were diagnosed in the same department. Both groups of patients were treated with the same anthracycline-based chemotherapy.

RESULTS
A significantly higher percentage of patients with TCRBCL presented with B-symptoms, elevated LDH, bone marrow infiltration and disseminated extranodal involvement compared to patients with DLBCL. TCRBCL patients responded poorly to combination chemotherapy, since only 3 of them achieved complete remission (33%) compared to 48 (75%) patients with DLBCL. All patients with TCRBCL who achieved complete response relapsed within the first 2 years while 65% of patients with DLBCL survive disease free for a median follow-up period of 4 years. The median overall survival for DLBCL patients has not been reached yet, while it was 18 months for TCRBCL patients.

CONCLUSIONS
Although the number of patients in our study is small, it seems that patients with TCRBCL present with advanced disease, respond poorly to chemotherapy and display a short disease-free and overall survival compared to patients with DLBCL.


Background Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) that causes high morbidity in the tropics and sub-tropics. Despite the remarkable advancements in the treatment of CL, the available therapeutics are far from ideal and also cause serious adverse side effects. Negative air ions (NAIs) generators are widely available for domestic and industrial uses. Several studies have reported on positive effects of NAIs therapy on human health as a non-pharmaceutical treatment for respiratory disease, allergy, or stress-related health conditions, including infectious diseases. To our knowledge, no studies have examined the effectiveness of the NAIs therapy against Leishmania parasites. The aims of this study were to investigate the effect of NAIs therapy on Leishmania major (L. major) the causative agent of CL in in vitro and in a murine model. Methodology/Principal findings In vitro anti-leishmanial effects of NAIs therapy were measured by parasitological methods. NAIs therapy was assessed in vivo in L. major infected BALB/c mice by measuring the footpad (FP) lesion size and parasite load using metric caliper tool and qPCR, respectively. Immune responses in treated and non-treated mice were assessed by measuring the levels of IFN-γ, IL-4, NO and arginase activity. In vitro NAIs therapy significantly decreased the viability of Leishmania promastigotes and of amastigotes cultured in macrophages, but did not affect the host cells. NAIs therapy of L. major infected BALB/c mice resulted in reduced FP lesion size, diminished parasite burden, and importantly decreased induction of IL-4 and arginase activity in the presence of NAIs. In contrast IFN-γ and NO levels were significantly enhanced. NAIs therapy significantly diminished the progression of disease compared to the control group, but was less effective than amphotericin B treatment. Conclusions Our study shows that NAIs treatment was effective in vitro and in Leishmania-infected mice, elicited a T-helper 1 (Th1) response and increased efficient cellular immunity, resulting in a diminished parasite load. Therefore, NAIs therapy can be considered as a useful and safe tool that can contribute to clearing L. major infections without inducing toxicity in host cells. The applications and mechanisms of NAIs therapy warrant further investigation especially in humans suffering from CL.


Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of anti TNF-a in birdshot chorioretinitis (BSCR) using full-field electroretinography (ERG) as an assessment tool. Methods: A retrospective cohort study of patients with BSCR treated with anti-TNF-a attending Ghent University Hospital form 2002 till 2018. Results: 49 patients (98 eyes) were diagnosed as BSCR based upon clinical suspicion, the presence of hypofluorescent dark dots on early frames of indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) and HLA-A29 antigen positivity. ERG was performed on 47 patients (95.9%) at presentation. 45 (91.8%) patients were treated with steroids, immunosuppressive agents and biologics. 24 (49.0%) patients were treated with anti-TNF-a of whom 4 received infliximab and 20 received adalimumab. 20 (83.3%) patients were regularly monitored by ERG with a mean follow up of 1.6 electrophysiological assessments every year. In the 30 Hz photopic 3.0 Flicker the implicit time is the key parameter which is delayed in 91.7% of patients at baseline. 75% patients showed an significantly improvement of the implicit time since the start of the treatment with anti-TNF-a. Conclusions: This study confirms ERG as an important tool in the diagnosis and the follow-up of BSCR. Anti-TNF-a is known to be an effective treatment in patients with BSCR. This report confirms the role of ERG in the management and monitoring of the disease activity in BSCR. The improvement of the implicit time provides essential information of the retinal function. More electrophysiologic analysis is necessary as these results could be important in the therapeutic strategy of BSCR.


Background Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a frequent cause of morbidity, mortality and hospital admission worldwide. An adequate choice of empirical antibiotic treatment and appropriate severity assessment of the disease are key aspects in the management of CAP. Objective To audit the adherence to standards of care, such as empirical prescribing of antibiotics, and evaluate the current multidisciplinary approach to the management of CAP. Method Records of patients with CAP were identified and examined for CURB65 score documentation, discussion notes with microbiology and prescribed antibiotic treatments. Results Out of the 62 patients identified, 32 had a CURB65 score documented in their medical notes and 59 had documented chest X-ray findings. 85.5% of cases were compliant with antibiotic prescribing guidelines. Conclusion The multidisciplinary approach has considerably improved compliance with most of the standards, especially adherence to empirical antibiotic guidelines, and ultimately the standard of care for patients with CAP.


Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) panels made from birch (Betula platyphylla Suk.) veneers were tested for physical and mechanical strength properties in this study. The static bending test were conducted on the LVL, and bending test and shear test were conducted on veneer and three-lamination LVL. The effects of the relative humidity on the modulus of elasticity (MOE) and bending strength (MOR) of birch LVL with vertical load and parallel load were investigated. There were four relative humidities including 40%, 50%, 60% and 70%. The results showed that the MOE and MOR of LVL would diminished with the increase of relative humidity, the bending strength of veneer sample decreased as the relative humidity increased, and there was noticeable effect of relative humidity on shear strength of PF resin.


Eleven sprinters with recent hamstring injuries were compared with nine uninjured runners. The flexibility of the hamstrings and the eccentric and concentric muscle torque were measured in the hamstrings and quadriceps muscles at different angular velocities. Sprinters with a previous hamstring injury had signifi cantly tighter hamstrings than uninjured sprinters had. The uninjured sprinters had significantly higher eccen tric hamstring torques at all angular velocities. They also had significantly higher concentric quadriceps and hamstring torques at 30 deg/sec but not at higher velocities. Sprinters with a history of hamstring injury thus differed from uninjured runners, being weaker in eccentric contractions and in concentric contractions at low velocities.


A 105-kD lower lamina lucida antigen (p105) has been detected by autoantibodies (anti-p105) from patients with a novel immunobullous disease. To distinguish p105 from other known lamina lucida components, we performed comparative immunoblotting on purified human amniotic laminin-5 (kalinin), 804G matrix (enriched in laminin-5), and keratinocyte and fibroblast proteins using anti-804G matrix antibody (J-18) and anti-p105. J-18 labeled the truncated laminin-5 gamma 2 chain in amniotic laminin-5, 804G matrix, and keratinocyte conditioned medium, but did not label fibroblast cytosol. Conversely, anti-p105 did not label amniotic laminin-5 or 804G matrix, but did label p105 in both keratinocyte conditioned medium and fibroblast cytosol. J-18 labeled the 105-kD laminin-5 gamma 2 chain in reduced keratinocyte proteins and a 400-kD laminin-5 complex under non-reducing conditions. In contrast, anti-p105 labeled p105 under both reducing and non-reducing conditions but did not label a 400-kD protein complex. Similarly, comparative immunoblotting on keratinocyte proteins using anti-p105 and anti-laminin-1 revealed no commonly labeled protein bands. Electrophoretic fractionations by preparative sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting of these fractions revealed that the peak fractions of keratinocyte proteins reactive with anti-p105 are different from those reactive with J-18. Furthermore, keratinocyte proteins fractionated by Mono Q anion-exchange chromatography revealed fractions immunoreactive with anti-p105, whereas J-18 showed no reactivity with these fractions. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting with anti-p105 revealed p105 to be an acidic protein with isoelectric points between 5.7 and 6.3, distinct from the isoelectric points of laminin-5 gamma 2 chain. We conclude that p105 is an acidic protein located in the lamina lucida and distinct from the truncated laminin-5 gamma 2 chain and the laminin-1 family.


Computer-administered cognitive training (CT) tasks are a common component of cognitive remediation treatments. There is growing evidence that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), when given during cognitive tasks, improves performance. This randomized, controlled trial explored the potential synergistic effects of CT combined with tDCS in healthy participants. Altogether, 60 healthy participants were randomized to receive either active or sham tDCS administered during training on an adaptive CT task (dual n-back task), or tDCS alone, over 10 daily sessions. Cognitive testing (working memory, processing speed, executive function, reaction time) was conducted at baseline, end of the 10 sessions, and at 4-wk follow-up to examine potential transfer effects to non-trained tasks. Altogether, 54 participants completed the study. Over the 10 'online' sessions, participants in the active tDCS+CT condition performed more accurately on the CT task than participants who received sham tDCS+CT. The performance enhancing effect, however, was present only during tDCS and did not result in greater learning (i.e. improvement over sessions) on the CT task. These results confirm prior reports of enhancement of cognitive function during tDCS stimulation. At follow-up, the active tDCS+CT group, but not the sham tDCS+CT group, showed greater gains on a non-trained test of attention and working memory than the tDCS-only group (p < 0.01). Although this gain can mainly be attributable to training, this result suggests that active tDCS may have a role in further enhancing outcomes.


1. Tenebrio molitor adults show a behaviour reaction to humidity. When normal undesiccated specimens are offered a range of humidities, they tend to collect in the drier region. 2. When the highest relative humidity available is not above 70% R.H., the reaction is slight but real. In a series of tests, as the highest humidity available approaches saturation, the intensity of reaction increases rapidly. It becomes nearly as intense as possible when the moistest region in the gradient approaches 100% R.H. 3. The difference between the two extreme humidities available--or the steepness of the gradient of humidity--is unimportant in determining the intensity of reaction. It is the value of highest humidity that matters. 4. The intense reaction shown when the upper humidity approaches saturation is very consistent; it reaches its maximum value after about 15 min. 5. The behaviour of these insects appears to be more closely correlated with relative humidity than with saturation deficiency.


Based on the methodology of Beaudry and DiNardo (1991), this paper investigates the relative importance of the spot market and implicit contracts in the determination of British real wages. Empirical work is carried out separately for males and females with individual-level data taken from the New Earnings Survey Panel for the years 1976 to 2001. In contrast to previous studies that used North American data, the spot market is found to be more important than implicit contracts in determining real wages. Indeed, there is very little support for implicit contracts in these data. Further evidence is provided through the analysis of individual wage sequences. These suggest that the downwardly rigid wage sequences implied by implicit contracts with costless worker mobility are not prevalent in Britain.


The overcome the problem of storing and managing big data in today's web 2.0, new kind of technology is developed which is known as NoSQL. Now a days NoSQL is a very popular as alternative of RDBMS and dealing with large scale data, they also provide high availability and scalability to the distributed systems. In this paper, we will discuss on overview of big data challenges, NoSQL database , characteristics and classification of NoSQL database and survey on comparison on popular NoSQL database.


The existence of unfair differences or disparities in access to and quality of health care is well known. However, the nature of disparities at different stages of the health seeking pathway and interventions to reduce them are less clear. Applying the tools of statistics and quasi experimental design-interrupted time series, propensity score matching, hierarchical models— we can analyze how care is accessed in low, middle and high income countries and assess for disparities. The results are sometimes surprising and underscore the need to generate context specific evidence to ensure targeting of programs. My first paper evaluates the impact of a controversial policy, mandating of health insurance, on reducing disparities in health care access and affordability. Using longitudinal survey data from five states in USA (2002-2009), I show that living in MA, where health insurance is mandated, results in a higher probability of being insured and having a personal doctor and lower probability in forgoing care due to costs as compared to similar border states. The beneficial effect of the mandate is greatest in traditionally ―disadvantaged‖ groups defined by race, income, education or employment status. My second paper examines gender disparities in access to medicines in sub Saharan Africa-Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia. Using medicines specific survey data, I construct a iv novel seven stage access to medicines pathway and assess gender disparities along it applying the Institute of Medicine framework. Contrary to prevailing belief, I find few gender differences in unadjusted outcomes which cease to be significant on controlling for health status and country characteristics. My third paper assesses disparities by educational attainment in process and outcomes of care. I use unique data extracted from an electronic medical record of diabetic patients in Mexico City. Using a matching algorithm, I control for only differences in health need and find few significant differences in processes and outcomes of care. The unmatched traditional regression based risk adjustments tend to overestimate the significance and magnitude of the association. The three papers demonstrate the need to use more sophisticated statistical tools to appropriately measure disparities and ensure the effectiveness of health programs.


Immunization to transplantable lymphatic leukemia in mice results from the suitable injection of leukemia cells (4), normal cells (6) , or embryonic tissue ( 3 ) . Naturally susceptible mice so treated are resistant to injections of normally lethal doses of leukemia cells. Histologically (5) line I leukemia cells injected into mice immunized to line I proliferate for only a short time at a reduced rate and within four days show degenerative changes. Necrosis begins at the periphery of a lesion before there is any infiltration of host cells (5). These findings suggested that a humoral mechanism might be responsible for the degenerative changes in the leukemic cells inoculated into immunized mice. The purpose of this investigation was to observe the effects of serum of mice immunized to line I transplantable lymphatic leukemia upon the metabolism of line I cells. The metabolism of line I cells in the serum of normal, of line I leukemic, and of line I immunized mice was studied, and a comparison was made with the metabolism of normal lymphoid cells in normal serum and in Ringer solution.


Purpose This study aimed to investigate whether Müllerian inhibiting substance (MIS) in combination with calcitriol modulates proliferation and apoptosis of human ovarian cancer (OCa) cell lines (SKOV3, OVCAR3, and OVCA433) and identify the signaling pathway by which MIS mediates apoptosis. Materials and Methods OCa cell lines were treated with MIS in the absence or presence of calcitriol. Cell viability and proliferation were evaluated using the Cell Counting Kit-8 assay and apoptosis was evaluated by DNA fragmentation assay. Western blot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were used to determine the signaling pathway. Results The cells showed specific staining for the MIS type II receptor. Treatment of OCa cells with MIS and calcitriol led to dose- and time-dependent inhibition of cell growth and survival. The combination treatment significantly suppressed cell growth, down-regulated the expression of B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), and up-regulated the expressions of Bcl-2 associated X protein, caspase-3, and caspase-9 through the extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling pathway. Conclusion These results, coupled with a much-needed decrease in the toxic side effects of currently employed therapeutic agents, provide a strong rationale for testing the therapeutic potential of MIS, alone or in combination with calcitriol, in the treatment of OCa.


Like other important cereal crop in modern agricultural production, maize is also threatened by drought. And the drought stress during maize filling stage will directly affect the quality (protein or oil concentration) and also the weight of grain. Therefore, different from previous studies focusing on inbred lines and pot experiment at seedling stage, current study selected filling stage of the adult plant and planting maize in the experimental field. Two hybrids cultivars with different drought tolerant were used for drought and water treatment respectively. We performed transcriptome sequencing analysis of 4 groups, 12 samples, and obtained 651.08 million raw reads. Then the data were further processed by mapping to a reference genome, GO annotation, enrichment analysis and so on. Among them we focus on the different change trends of water treatment and drought treatment, and the different responses of two drought-tolerant cultivars to drought treatment. Through the analysis, several transcripts which encode nitrogen metabolic, protein phosphorylation, MYB,AP2/ERF, HB transcriptional factor, O-glycosyl hydrolases and organic acid metabolic process were implicated with maize drought stress. Our data will offer insights of the identification of genes involved in maize drought stress tolerance, which provides a theoretical basis for maize drought resistance breeding.


We have designed bichromophoric photochromes based on the photoinduced opening and thermal closing of a [1,3]oxazine ring. In particular, we have synthesized six compounds incorporating fused 3H-indole and 4-nitrophenoxy fragments and pendant biphenyl, styryl, biphenylvinyl, or stilbenylvinyl groups. The laser excitation of two of these six molecules cleaves a [C-O] bond and opens their [1,3]oxazine ring in less than 6 ns with quantum yields of 0.08 and 0.28, respectively. This photoinduced process generates simultaneously a 4-nitrophenolate anion and a 3H-indolium cation. Both chromophores absorb in the same region of the electromagnetic spectrum. As a result, an intense band appears at ca. 440 nm upon the photoinduced opening of the [1,3]oxazine ring. In both instances, the photogenerated species switches back to the original isomer with first-order kinetics and lifetimes of 38 and 140 ns, respectively. Both compounds have excellent fatigue resistances and retain their photochemical behavior within rigid poly(methyl methacrylate) matrices. However, the thermal reisomerization within the polymer matrix is significantly slower and requires several microseconds to occur. The other four compounds do not undergo ring opening upon excitation under otherwise identical experimental conditions. Indeed, either photoinduced electron transfer or intersystem crossing compete successfully with the ring-opening process.


Despite the prevalence of socket prostheses, amputees are at risk of developing pressure ulcers due to the heavy load exerted on the socket during day-to-day use. The complex distribution of soft tissues and bony parts at the residual limb, as well as volume fluctuations that occur over time, make it particularly difficult to predict the time-varying spatial stresses and pressure distribution within the socket. Thus, this research aims to develop a sensing system that is capable of monitoring the pressure distribution in the interior of socket prostheses in real-time, specifically, for characterizing pressure "hot spots" and for preventing pressure ulcers. The long-term goal is to enable amputees and users to better understand the locations of pressure hotspots and how personalized adjustments of the position and alignment of the prosthesis can improve user comfort and overall performance. In this study, a highly strain-sensitive graphene-based thin film strain sensor was developed and implemented for monitoring pressure distributions at the human-prosthesis interface. Any changes in the applied pressure would alter the local conductivity of the thin film sensor, which can be captured by measuring the voltage distribution along the boundaries of the film. This dataset could then be used for solving an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) inverse problem to reconstruct the conductivity distribution of the graphene-based fabric sensor. Since conductivity is pre-calibrated to applied contact pressures, the result is a live view of pressure distribution. Laboratory tests were conducted to quantify the accuracy of the proposed system. Various cases of controlled pressure conditions were applied at the center of the graphene-based fabric sensor, and EIT results were acquired and characterized. The results demonstrated that this approach could be used in socket prostheses for distributed pressure monitoring.


Uncertainty plays an important role in diagnostics, prognostics, and health management of engineering systems. The presence of uncertainty leads to an imprecise understanding of the behavior of such systems; as a result, this may adversely affect the results of diagnostics and prognostics. In particular, this may lead to an inaccurate estimation of the remaining useful life, which in turn affects operational decision-making. While several researchers have recognized the importance of uncertainty in prognostics and health management (PHM), there has not been a significant amount of research work that addresses the impact of uncertainty in different PHM activities. This is challenging because there are various sources of uncertainty that affect PHM, their interactions are not fully understood, and therefore, it is an arduous task to perform different PHM activities by systematically accounting for these sources of uncertainty. However, when this can be accomplished, it would be possible to estimate the uncertainty and confidence in the results of diagnostics and prognostics, and quantify the risk involved in prognostics-based decisionmaking.


Correlation filters (CFs) have shown excellent performance in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking scenarios due to their high computational efficiency. During the UAV tracking process, viewpoint variations are usually accompanied by changes in the object and background appearance, which poses a unique challenge to CF-based trackers. Since the appearance is gradually changing over time, an ideal tracker can not only forward predict the object position but also backtrack to locate its position in the previous frame. There exist response-based errors in the reversibility of the tracking process containing the information on the changes in appearance. However, some existing methods do not consider the forward and backward errors based on while using only the current training sample to learn the filter. For other ones, the applicants of considerable historical training samples impose a computational burden on the UAV. In this work, a novel bidirectional incongruity-aware correlation filter (BiCF) is proposed. By integrating the response-based bidirectional incongruity error into the CF, BiCF can Efficiently learn the changes in appearance and suppress the inconsistent error. Extensive experiments on 243 challenging sequences from three UAV datasets (UAV123, UAVDT, and DTB70) are conducted to demonstrate that BiCF favorably outperforms other 25 state-of-the-art trackers and achieves a real-time speed of 45.4 FPS on a single CPU, which can be applied in UAV Efficiently.


The major constraints in fulfilling the growing demand of malt barley in Ethiopia are limited as a result of the selection of a favourable production environment and long-time seed storage for market advantages among others are few to mention. Besides, few research findings are available on evaluation of the potential differences across sites and crop management practices to meet malting and brewery industry quality standards. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of seed sources and seed age on yield and yield related traits of malt barley. The experiment was conducted at Bokoji sub site of Kulumsa Research using 12 treatments consisting of 3 malt barley collections obtained from Debrebrhan Agricultural Research Centre, Ethiopia Seed Enterprise and Oromia Seed Enterprise, two seed age (year 1 and year 2) and two barley varieties (Beka and Holker). Field experiment was laid out using RCBD factorial with three replications. Highly significant (P<0.01) differences were achieved for days to physiological maturity and number of seeds per spike indicating the presence of variability among varieties due to genetic and environmental influences. Likewise, significant (P≤0.05) variation were obtained for number of seeds per spike and yield (kg/ha). The interaction effect of seed source and variety were found significant (P<0.05) difference for days to physiological maturity. Positive and highly significant (P≤0.01) correlations were found between days to heading, day to physiological maturity and number of seeds per spike. Our study suggests that seed sources and varietals difference were salient factors in creating field performance variability among malt barley cultivars. Therefore, evaluating the effect of genotypes, environment, varieties and their interaction effect plays an immense role to improve yield and yield related traits in malt barley. Furthermore, the finding of this study shows that further studies should be conducted across sites and years to assess varieties performances which will help as cornerstone to fulfil the growing demand of quality malt barley seed and grain for processing industries.


Abstract This paper is premised on the fact that education is an instrument for social change. It is the only known weapon that can combat poverty. In this regard, this paper examined the concepts of education and teaching, the importance and the usefulness of teachers. It also provided strategies for making teachers more relevant in teacher education and teaching profession. These strategies include: reviewing the existing teacher education programmes to emphasize how to teach, which can be achieved by replacing the already existing six weeks teaching practice exercise with internship of one-year duration. The paper further recommended the establishment of licensure and credentialing board and the need to propose a bill before the National Assembly to regulate the practice of teaching. In addition, the paper recommended the revision of the curricula of teacher education programmes in Nigerian Universities or Colleges of Education, to align them with the mission and vision of the primary and secondary schools


A considerable body of literature exists on narratives and stories in explaining how individuals and groups make and give sense to their experiences in organizations. Classic Aristotelian narratives with a linear time structure (stories with a beginning, middle and end) are prominent in the storytelling literature, whereas retrospection, in drawing on the past in making sense of the present, is a temporal modality central to foundational concepts of sensemaking. In examining time and temporality in these related fields, the authors show how the conventional temporal sequence of a past, present and future dominates, with little consideration being given to time as a multiple rather than singular concept. The authors compare and contrast differences in the temporal aspects of mainstream theories and identify a growing interest in philosophical concepts of time. This review highlights how conventional explanations in these related fields of study are underpinned by linear conceptions of temporality (with an associated causality) and how there is growing recognition of fluidity in the way pasts and futures come together in temporal sensemaking of an emergent present. Although this movement towards explanations that engage with non-linear modalities deepen insight, they do not explicitly address concepts of time. Time continues to receive scant attention, with temporal but 'timeless' theories taking precedence, ultimately constraining theoretical development. In building on this analysis, the authors characterize a range of temporal modalities from which they identify six pathways for charting out an agenda for future research in which multiple concepts of time and temporality are brought to the fore.


This paper documents the extent of cooperative penetration into branded dairy product markets and presents case study evidence on competitive strategies in the skim/low fat milk, whole milk, cottage cheese, butter, margarine, and ice cream markets. We employ data for 51 local market areas from the Information Resources, Inc. "Supermarket Review" data base for 1988 and 1989. Using national data, we identify the twenty top brands (by volume sales) and all cooperatives that market one or more brands in each of the above categories, and report their national market shares, averages prices, number of local markets in which they are sold, and a summary of their local rankings. Using local data for selected brands, we graphically analyze how prices, quantities, and shares change over time in particular markets. We find that cooperatives have much stronger positions in local markets than their national market shares indicate. When looking at the brand share-price relationships for particular brands across local markets, we find examples of positive, negative, and no relationships.


Printing RFID tag is a potential substitute for etching RFID tag as it has advantages in metal waste and substrate selection due to its addictive process. An evaluation of printing tags is conducted on their performance and reliability. It is observed that low printing tag antenna resistance results from slow printing velocity, low printing pressure, high curing temperature as well as long curing time. Printing tags have an equidistant read range with etching tags in the case of low printing antenna resistance when chips are bound to printing tag antennae. Furthermore, printing tags are comparable to etching tags in the sensitivity to environmental temperature and humidity under alternative and constant temperature-humidity tests. It is also demonstrated a weaker ability for printing tags to withstand the mechanical stress than etching tags under the bend test. Experimental results show that printing tags have better performance when their antenna resistances are low.


This attractive, inexpensive volume is the record of a symposium initiated by the Air Force Directorate of Research and Development. The 23 papers are arranged in 5 parts; each part ends with a summary, and each paper with a skillful editing of the separate discussions. The selection and arrangement of the papers cover major areas of fundamental study in atherosclerosis and reflect the admirable judgment of the chairman, Dr. Irvine H. Page, and of the distinguished participants. The book is a unique collection of fact and authoritative opinion in a burgeoning and vexed area of study. As such, it will be an invaluable reference to investigators and clinicians dealing with vascular disease; practitioners and students will find in it answers to most of their questions on the status of this field. It lacks an index. In all other respects it is a great and, what is more, a useful bargain.


Abstract The vapor extraction process, or VAPEX has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as a new method of heavy oil or bitumen recovery. The VAPEX (vapor extraction) can be visualized as an energy efficient recovery process for unlocking the potential of high viscosity resources trapped in bituminous and heavy oil reservoirs. In this research, a total of 20 VAPEX experiments were performed with Hele-Shaw cell using three different Turkish crude oils. Two different VAPEX solvents (propane and butane) were used with three different injection rates (20, 40, and 80 mL/min). Garzan, Raman, and Batı Raman crude oils were used as light, medium, and heavy oil. All experiments were recorded by normal video camera in order to also analyze visually. For both VAPEX solvents, oil production rates increased with injection rates for all crude oils. Instantaneous asphaltene rate for Garzan oil showed fluctuated performance with propane solvent. Butane showed an almost constant degree of asphaltene precipitation. Instantaneous asphaltene rate for Raman and Batı Raman oils gave straight-line results with the injection rate of 20 mL/min for both solvents. For asphaltene precipitation, propane gave better results than butane in almost all injection rates for Garzan and Raman oil. In the experiments with Batı Raman oil, butane made better upgrading than propane with the injection rate 80 mL/min. With the other two rates, both solvents showed almost the same performance.


Industry has been considered a major actor regarding the actions and changes needed to achieve sustainable development. Different approximations to the topic have been developed to face the challenges of having a more responsible production of goods and services. These approximations include cleaner production, green design, ecodesign, eco efficiency, design for sustainable behavior, sustainable design, and more recently concepts like circular economies among many more. In all these approaches, the attention has been mainly on the production side while consumption has been tackled indirectly. The majority of laws and ordinances that have motivated the emergence of these approaches have traditionally been oriented to producers. However, an European Union (EU) directive launched in October 2019, called "right to repair", could change this paradigm, empowering consumers by giving them more possibilities of repairing their products instead of discarding them. This paper presents a preliminary discussion about the effects this directive might have on how we consume products now and how we will consume them in the future.


Animals usually use photoperiod as an important environmental cue to time the year. In terms of the winter immunocompetence enhancement hypothesis, animals in the non-tropical zone would actively enhance their immune function to decrease the negative influence of stressors such as low temperature and food shortage in winter. In the present study, we mimicked the transition from summer to winter by decreasing photoperiod gradually and examined the variations of immune repsonses in Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus) to test this hypothesis. Twenty two female adult hamsters were randomly divided into the control (12h light: 12h dark, Control, n=11) and the gradually decreasing photoperiod group (Experiment, n=11). In the experiment group, day length was decreased from 12 h: 12 h light-dark cycle to 8 h: 16 h light-dark cycle at the pace of half an hour per week. We found that gradually decreasing photoperiod had no effect on body composition (wet carcass mass, subcutaneous, retroperitoneal, mesenteric and total body fat mass) and the masses of the organs detected such as brain, heart, liver and so on in hamsters. Similarly, immunological parameters including immune organs (thymus and spleen), white blood cells and serum bacteria killing capacity indicative of innate immunity were also not influenced by gradually decreasing photoperiod, which did not support the winter immunocompetence enhancement hypothesis. However, gradually decreasing photoperiod increased phytohaemagglutinin response post-24h of PHA challenge, which supported this hypothesis. There was no correlation between cellular, innate immunity and body fat mass, suggesting that body fat was not the reasons of the changes of cellular immunity. In summary, distinct components of immune system respond to gradually decreasing photoperiod differently in Siberian hamsters.


Acquisition Management of  Deposit Collection Information System in Indonesia National Library has been used for 3 years (since January 2012). During the usage, the Group of Acquisition, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Deposit Sub Directorate  found some obstacles include the unability of the system to detect double regist, a monotone display, too many menus and too many pages to get through before going to the desired page, the information resulted is not according to what needed, and the exsistance of backward analysis system which should be passed by a system when it has already been used. The data collection of this research used quessionaires which were spread among 17 system users that are the members Group of Acquisition, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Deposit Sub Directorate.  The data analysis used student statistic examination of one sample. The result of the study was the need of improvement about SIM of Deposit Collection Acquisition of Indonesia National Library related to the usability of the system to fulfill the usability elements, and the repairment recommendation belong to the categories of: Learnability, improvement of response for fasten of data searching by query optimization involving related tables of data required and indexing based on the tag ID and repair on the arranging and the use of features to be adjusted with the needs of users based on their user ID and position authority. Efficiency, improvement of response for fasten the response of data searching by query optimization involving related tables of data required and indexing based on the tag ID and addition to be able to copy and modify existing data and increase the ability of the system that the function keys in the keyboard  can be use in using the system. Easy to remember, the addition of the ability of the system that the keyboard function keys can be use in using the system. Error prevention, repair system's ability to identify errors and provide a message box or sign acclamation sign of error message containing an error message when the user made a mistake and adding dictionary menu associated with the terminology in the search box to avoid mistakes in typing. Satisfying, adding help menu that can provide guidance and can be followed when finding problem that help users to solve a problem Keywords : Heuristic Evaluation, Management Information System, Usability


Synaesthesia is a condition in which one property of a stimulus results in conscious
experiences of an additional attribute. In mirror-touch synaesthesia, the synaesthete
experiences a tactile sensation on their own body simply when observing touch to
another person. This thesis investigates the prevalence, neurocognitive mechanisms,
and consequences of mirror-touch synaesthesia. Firstly, the prevalence and
neurocognitive mechanisms of synaesthesia were assessed. This revealed that mirrortouch
synaesthesia has a prevalence rate of 1.6%, a finding which places mirror-touch
synaesthesia as one of the most common variants of synaesthesia. It also indicated a
number of characteristics of the condition, which led to the generation of a
neurocognitive model of mirror-touch synaesthesia. An investigation into the
perceptual consequences of synaesthesia revealed that the presence of synaesthesia is
linked with heightened sensory perception - mirror-touch synaesthetes showed
heightened tactile perception and grapheme-colour synaesthetes showed heightened
colour perception. Given that mirror-touch synaesthesia has been shown to be linked
to heightened sensorimotor simulation mechanisms, the impact of facilitated
sensorimotor activity on social cognition was then examined. This revealed that
mirror-touch synaesthetes show heightened emotional sensitivity compared with
control participants. To compliment this, two transcranial magnetic stimulation
(TMS) studies were then conducted to assess the impact of suppressing sensorimotor
activity on the expression recognition abilities of healthy adults. Consistent with the
findings of superior emotion sensitivity in mirror-touch synaesthesia (where there is
facilitated sensorimotor activity), suppressing sensorimotor resources resulted in
impaired expression recognition across modalities. The findings of the thesis are
discussed in relation to neurocognitive models of synaesthesia and of social cognition.


The study sought answers to the following questions and aspects of the problem: 1. What are the interests of the students attending Highland Park and Boude Storey Junior High Schools who take industrial arts? 2. Do the present industrial arts programs of both schools encourage the development of hobbies for leisure-time activities? 3. Do the present programs provide a foundation for further vocational preparation? 4. Do the projects included in the present industrial arts curriculum encourage the students to take more industrial arts courses? 5. Are the hobbies pursued by the boys who attend Boude Storey similar to those who attend Highland Park 6. Do the students from Boude Story and Highland Park have comparable facilities for ship work at home? 7. Are the interests of the students who attend the two schools similar? 8. Is the home background of the students of the two schools similar in respect to the parents' occupations, incomes, and interests? 9. What are the occupations, as evidenced by the study, for which the students express a preference? 10. Should the projects used in the industrial arts instructional program of the two schools be similar or different? 11. Does the home background of the students have any relationship to the needs and interests of the students?


As management researchers seek ever more lucid means of analysing organisations, image is at last beginning to challenge the supremacy of the written word. Yet, despite fifteen-thousand years of art history, the use of image as a scientific instrument is still in its embryonic stages. This paper explores the origins and use of pictorial representation as an innovative research technique for the exploration of organisational constructs. Beginning with a review of the academic use of image, the epistemological roots for pictorial representation are then uncovered: to help provide a firmer theoretical foundation for using image in management. Next, the reader is shown how pictorial representation fits into an holistic analytical framework. Subsequently, the methodology is applied in a 'live' situation, with glimpses provided of the strategic use of pictorial representation in British and Canadian business schools. Data from the project are presented to illustrate how image can be applied to practical strategy formulation and implementation. Overall, it is felt that images can be valuable as vehicles for exploring people's organisational constructs. Although words may still be the most favoured means of organisational analysis, in the quest for a richer understanding of organisations, images should certainly not be ignored.


"This edited collection provides a structured and in-depth analysis of the current use of multiple approaches beyond quotas for resolving the pressing issue of gender inequality, and the lack of female representation on corporate boards. Filling the gap in existing literature on this topic, the two volumes of Gender Diversity in the Boardroom offers systematic overviews of current debates surrounding the optimisation of gender diversity, and the suggested pathways for progress. Focusing on sixteen European countries, the skilled contributors explore the current situation in relation to women on boards debates and approaches taken. They include detailed reflections from critical stakeholders, such as politicians, practitioners and policy-makers. Volume 2 focuses on eight European countries having multiple approaches beyond quotas and is a promising and highly valuable resource for academics, practitioners, policy makers and anyone interested in gender diversity because it examines and critiques the current corporate governance system and national strategies for increasing the share of women not only on boards, but within companies beyond the boardroom."


Finite-time stability involves dynamical systems whose trajectories converge to an equilibrium state in finite time. For continuous-time dynamical systems finite-time convergence implies nonuniqueness of system solutions in reverse time, and hence, such systems possess non-Lipschitzian dynamics. For impulsive dynamical systems, however, it may be possible to reset the system states to an equilibrium state achieving finite-time convergence without requiring non-Lipschitzian system dynamics. In this paper, we develop sufficient conditions for finite-time stability of impulsive dynamical systems involving both scalar and vector Lyapunov functions. Furthermore, we design hybrid finite-time stabilizing controllers for impulsive dynamical systems that are robust against full modeling uncertainty. Finally, we present a numerical example for finite-time stabilization of large-scale impulsive dynamical systems.


A mutant form of huntingtin associated with early-onset Huntington's disease promotes anabolic signaling that contributes to motor abnormalities and death in mice. This Podcast features an interview with William Pryor and Srinivasa Subramaniam, authors of a Research Article that appears in the 28 October 2014 issue of Science Signaling, about how the huntingtin protein (Htt) stimulates signaling that contributes to Huntington's disease–like symptoms in mice. Htt is ubiquitously expressed and contains an amino-terminal polyglutamine tract. Whereas normal forms of Htt contain up to 35 glutamine residues in this region, forms of Htt in Huntington's disease patients contain more than 36 glutamine residues. Expansion of the polyglutamine tract is sufficient to cause disease, because increasing the number of glutamines in this region in mice causes motor defects and other pathologies typical of Huntington's disease. Although it is clear that expansion of the polyglutamine tract of Htt contributes to Huntington's disease, it is not clear how normal forms of Htt function in cell biology or how polyglutamine-expanded forms of Htt cause disease. Pryor et al. report that Htt promotes anabolic signaling through the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) and that polyglutamine-expanded forms of Htt enhance mTORC1 signaling. Increasing mTORC1 signaling in a mouse model of Huntington's disease led to earlier onset of disease symptoms.


Author(s): Kunze, John A; Cruse, Patricia; Hu, Rachael; Abrams, Stephen; Hastings, Kirk; Mitchell, Catherine; Schiff, Lisa R | Abstract: There is a need to establish a new publishing paradigm to cope with the deluge of data artifacts produced by data-intensive science, many of which are vital to data re-use and verification of published scientific conclusions. Due to the limitations of traditional publishing, most of these artifacts are not usually disseminated, cited, or preserved. These latent artifacts consist largely of datasets and data processing information that together form the foundations of the reasoned analyses that appear in the published literature. But this traditional record of science increasingly represents only the tip of the scientific iceberg.One promising approach to this problem of data invisibility is to wrap these artifacts in the metaphor of a "data paper", a somewhat unfamiliar bundle of scholarly output with a familiar facade. As envisioned, a data paper minimally consists of a cover sheet and a set of links to archived artifacts. The cover sheet contains familiar elements such as title, authors, date, abstract, and persistent identifier (e.g., a DOI or ARK) — just enough to permit basic exposure to and discovery of data by internet search engines; also just enough to build a basic data citation, to instill confidence in the identifier's stability, and to be picked up by indexing services such as Google Scholar.This simple format represents only the first stage of the evolution of the data paper. There is room for the format to increase in complexity with the incorporation of other valuable elements, both general-purpose and discipline-specific, to enrich discovery, re-use, and archiving. An exciting potential outcome of this development of the data paper as publication is the parallel emergence of a new kind of "data journal". Like regular journals, data journals would spring up around disciplines and sub-disciplines as needed, and we could expect that some of them would also be peer-reviewed. The data journal is envisioned as an "overlay" journal; an editor would assemble an issue by selecting data papers from any number of source and archives, and combining them with front matter, a table of contents, editorial policies, submission guidelines, etc.This new data publishing paradigm promises to strengthen the scientific community practices of data sharing, re-use, and preservation. Scientists want to do science, get credit for it, communicate about it with their peers, and improve the measurable outputs by which their funders and employers evaluate their performance. The elements of the data paper create a recognizable and standardized form for previously unpublished data artifacts, making them easier to approach, evaluate, and automatically index for basic discovery purposes. Those same elements can easily be repurposed to create familiar-looking citations suitable for reference in CVs and all manner of publication. Finally, unique persistent identifiers for data papers and data artifacts greatly facilitate automatic discovery of a data paper's impact and re-use.


This paper is addressed to the traditional problem of demonstrating the relevance of production theory to management-oriented people. Activity analysis, it is argued, is the most appropriate pedagogic framework within which to commence either a production economics or a farm management course. Production economics theory has not been widely accepted as a useful method for the analysis of practical management problems. The theory has been traditionally presented in terms of continuous functions which assume away the question of technical efficiency. Activity analysis, in its general form, is a more comprehensive approach to the theory of production than the conventional neo-classical production function approach since activity analysis explicitly incorporates technical efficiency considerations. The failure of general agricultural economists to demonstrate appropriately the relevance of production theory has encouraged a sub-discipline of farm management dedicated to real-world management problems in agriculture. The basic procedures developed by the farm management sub-discipline (virtually independent of production theory) and now in common use, have a strong affinity with activity analysis. The traditional gap between production theory and applied farm management can, therefore, be bridged by approaching the theory from the activity analysis viewpoint.


The physico-chemical, structural and adsorption characteristics of saponite mineral from Tashkivske clay-field and their changes under the influence of acid, thermal and ultrasonic activation were investigated. Stabilization mechanism of the colloidal system "saponite-water" under the influence of stabilizing agents was studied. Moreover, the effectiveness of saponite multipurpose usage was proved by experiments.


Background and Objectives Chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorders. They are heterogeneous in symptoms and mainly consist of Philadelphia chromosome positive (Ph+) and negative (Ph-). The Phgroup includes polycythemia Vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), primary myelofibrosis (PMF) and other rare disorders. In the latter group, substitution of phenylalanine for valine at codon 617 (JAK2V617F), could be relevant to the disease. In this study we used modified PCR-RFLP to detect JAK2 V617 F mutation in chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms. Materials and Methods In this cross sectional study, for detection of JAK2 V617 F mutation, 47 subjects were enrolled and peripheral blood samples were collected between 2015 and 2016. The samples were collected from the clinic center of Arak city and diagnosed to be JAK2 V617F positive by TaqMan probe and sequencing methods. All samples were investigated for the mutation by modified PCR-RFLP using specific primers and BsaXI restriction enzyme. The data were analyzed by t-test. Results Our modified PCR-RFLP for detection of JAK2 V617F mutation showed the same results as TaqMan probe and sequencing standard methods. In this study we have positive and negative samples and a standard method whose sensitivity and specificity was calculated to be 100% . Conclusions Our modified PCR-RFLP is a comparable method with gold standard methods, TaqMan probe and sequencing, for detection of JAK2 V617F mutation. The advantages of this modified method include its ability to detect JAK2 V617F in homozygote and heterozygote conditions, and the presence of the internal digestion control.


First lines: Students of public policy and administration should take a close look at The Policy State, authored by Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek. An original study of US political development, The Policy State is neither a piece about a particular set of public policies in a given sector, nor a contribution on policy‐makers or policy processes. More fundamentally, it argues in a challenging manner that in the United States public policy and policy‐making have been historically developed as an idiosyncratic art of governing. According to the authors, the massive expansion of public policies in many domains has gradually set up a specific mode of governance that has triumphed gradually since the early twentieth century and the progressive era, over earlier forms of governing. In an age when research on public administration and policy is increasingly fragmented and diversified, they make the case that the many features of modern‐day governance could be rooted in the same soil, namely that of the so‐called Policy State.


Ferroptosis is a form of oxidative cell death that is characterized by enhanced lipid peroxidation and mitochondrial impairment. The enzymes acyl-CoA synthetase long-chain family member 4 (ACSL4) and lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferase (LPCAT) play an essential role in the biosynthesis of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)-containing phospholipids, thereby providing the substrates for lipid peroxidation and promoting ferroptosis. To examine the impact of mitochondria in ACSL4/LPCAT2-driven ferroptosis, HEK293T cells overexpressing ACSL4 and LPCAT2 (OE) or empty vector controls (LV) were exposed to 1S, 3R-RSL3 (RSL3) for induction of ferroptosis. The ACSL4/LPCAT2 overexpression resulted in higher sensitivity against RSL3-induced cell death compared to LV-transfected controls. Moreover, mitochondrial parameters such as mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, mitochondrial membrane potential, and mitochondrial respiration deteriorated in the OE cells, supporting the conclusion that mitochondria play a significant role in ACSL4/LPCAT2-driven ferroptosis. This was further confirmed through the protection of OE cells against RSL3-mediated cell death by the mitochondrial ROS scavenger mitoquinone (MitoQ), which exerted protection via antioxidative properties rather than through previously reported metabolic effects. Our findings implicate that mitochondrial ROS production and the accompanying organelle disintegration are essential for mediating oxidative cell death initiated through lipid peroxidation in ferroptosis.


A case study is presented here of seeding a single cumulus cell with hygroscopic flares. The test took place on 31 July 1996 over a section of the South Fork of the San Joaquin River in the Sierra Range of California. A 5 cm radar system focused on the area noted that the seeded cell grew to higher altitudes, produced a more intense precipitation echo, and lasted longer than any of the non-seeded cumulus cells growing simultaneously in adjacent areas. As previously observed in several hygroscopic flare applications, it was confirmed again that, in addition to rain, abundant amounts of small graupel and clear hailstones were produced within the seeded cloud.


Dynamics model on abrasive particles and workpieces during the centrifugal barrel surface finishing process was built by Discrete Element Method (DEM). The motion status of abrasive particles and workpieces was visually simulated and some important process parameters were numerically studied. The influence of planetary transmission ratio on finishing efficiency was analyzed, and finishing efficiency was the highest as the transmission ratio is -1. Finally, the conclusion was validated by experiments. Such economical and precise method could replace lots of finishing tests to optimize process parameters, which would provide theoretic basis for experimental research and efficient means for the finishing mechanism analysis of centrifugal barrel finishing.


A product of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos of 1820, Talbot sustained an active interest in mathematics throughout his life. He published several mathematical papers—both his first and his last scientific publications were in mathematics—and in 1838 he was awarded the Royal Society's Gold Medal for papers in which he proved theorems about elliptic integrals. But for Talbot mathematics was never a career—for example, he never taught it, even for a short while, as many of his Cambridge contemporaries did— and his mathematical achievements, rightly lauded at the time, were soon largely forgotten. (An exception took place in 1915 when readers of Nature were reminded of the fact that "W.H. Fox Talbot, now only vaguely remembered for photography" had investigated "some cases of Abel's theorem in a very instructive and fundamental way.") But to consider Talbot's mathematics solely in terms of his contributions to the mathematical canon would be to do it an injustice. As his Notebooks show, mathematics for Talbot was not just about proving theorems; it was much more than that. It was a subject he enjoyed in its own right; it was a subject he used to assist his other researches in optics and astronomy; and it was a subject which provided him with a model for scientific investigation. For Talbot, proving a theorem was rarely enough. The proof had to be reinforced by numerical examples, often of a strikingly unwieldy nature; evidence that his training at Cambridge had not been forgotten. With the above observations in mind, this chapter will explore the four phases of Talbot's mathematical life: his years at Cambridge; the early 1820s when he published in Gergonne's Annales; the mid-1830s when he published in the journals of the Royal Society of London; and the 1850s and later when he published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. That the last three phases can be delineated as effectively by journals as by time will allow for an entree into the world of mathematical publishing and into the mathematical context in which Talbot was living and working.


To investigate the hot deformation behavior of 17-7 PH stainless steel, hot compression tests were carried out at the temperatures of 950, 1050 and 1150 oC and strain rates of 0.001 s-1 to 0.1 s-1. Accordingly, the hot working behavior was studied by the analyses of flow stress curves, work hardening rate versus stress curves, exponent- type constitutive equations and deformed microstructures. Meanwhile, the average normalized critical stress for initiation of dynamic recrystallization (DRX) was determined using a 3rd order polynomial curve fitting. The results show that the flow stress depends strongly on the deformation temperature and the strain rate, and it increases with the deformation temperature decreasing and the strain rate increasing. Furthermore, it was found out that the co- existence of δ- ferrite lowers the softening rate at high Z (Zener- Holloman parameter) conditions. The experimental results were then used to determine the constants of constitutive equations. There is a good agreement between the measured and predicted results indicating a high accuracy of exponent- type constitutive equations.


Bioclimate envelope models (BEMs) have often been criticized as being too simplistic due to e.g. not incorporating effects of biotic interactions or evolutionary adaptation. However, BEMs are widely applied and have proven to be often useful. Here we investigate, under which conditions evolution of dispersal, local adaptation or interspecific competition may be of minor importance for forecasting future range shifts. Therefore we use individual-based simulations of metapopulations under climate change living in spatial temperature gradients. Scenarios incorporate single-species systems or systems with competing species, respectively. Dispersal rate is evolving and adaptation to local conditions may also evolve in some scenarios. Results show that in single-species scenarios excluding evolutionary adaptation, species either follow optimal habitat conditions or go extinct if habitat connectivity is too low. These simulations are in close accordance to predictions from BEMs. Including evolutionary adaptation qualitatively changes these results. In the absence of competing species the species either completely invades the world or goes extinct. With competitors, results strongly depend on habitat fragmentation. For highly connected habitats the range border may shift as predicted by BEMs, for intermediate connectivity it will lag behind, while species will go extinct if fragmentation is too high. Our results indicate that (simple) BEMs may work well if habitats are well connected and species will not encounter many difficulties in dispersing to new sites. Selection in this case may promote evolution of even higher dispersal activities. We thus show that the presence of biotic interactions may be ignored for predictions of range shifts when high dispersal can be expected.


Empirical and research evidence suggests that traffic-responsive signal control strategies are generally not as efficient in over-saturated traffic conditions characterized by queue spillbacks. Recent studies on (MFD/NFD) have identified a destabilizing gridlock process that arises in congested networks which precludes efficient operation. The MFD has also been used to develop urban traffic control solutions (e.g. perimeter or gating control) to avoid congestion. The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits of combining gating with locally adaptive traffic signals through micro-simulation of the Chania, Greece traffic network. Two adaptive traffic signal strategies are considered with the perimeter control strategy. The results of the combined gating/adaptive signal control scheme are compared to gating under fixed traffic signals and the implementation of adaptive signals only. The convincing outcome of this simulation study motivates the real-field implementation of gating/perimeter control in the cities, without even changing the existing adaptive control strategies.


Distance functions are at the core of important data analysis and processing tools, e.g., PCA, classification, vector median filter, and mathematical morphology. Despite its key role, a distance function is often used without careful consideration of its underlying assumptions and mathematical construction. With the objective of identifying a suitable distance function for hyperspectral images so as to maintain the accuracy of hyperspectral image processing results, we compare existing distance functions and define a suitable set of selection criteria. Bearing in mind that the selection of distance functions is highly related to the actual definition of the spectrum, we also classify the existing distance functions based on how they inherently define a spectrum. Theoretical constraints and behavior, as well as numerical tests are proposed for the evaluation of distance functions. With regards to the evaluation criteria, Euclidean distance of cumulative spectrum (ECS) was found to be the most suitable distance function.


The two regulatory approaches traditionally employed for greenhouse gas control - caps and taxes - tend to be ineffectual or politically unviable because they either lack cost certainty or impose unacceptably high costs. Both obstacles are overcome by the regulatory model represented by the Swedish nitrogen oxide program, which provides price stability and cost certainty (as does a conventional tax), but which is revenue-neutral within the regulated industry (as is cap and trade with free allowance allocation). Such a regulatory approach, applied to greenhouse gas control, would provide both long-term incentives and a stable investment climate that could help facilitate a rapid and orderly transition to a low-carbon economy.


U.S. pulpwood production amounted to 86.5 million cords in 2010, a decrease of 4 percent from 2008. Roundwood production totaled 65.7 million cords and accounted for 76 percent of the Nation's total pulpwood production. The Southern Region led the Nation in total production with 65.5 million cords, followed by the Northern Region with 12.8 million cords, and the Western States with 8.2 million cords. In 2010, 136 pulp mills were in operation drawing wood from 36 of the lower 48 states. Pulping capacity for the Nation totaled 166,096 tons per day, with southern mills accounting for 74 percent of the total capacity.


We discuss the techniques of performing distributed page ranking on top of structured peer-to-peer networks. Distributed page ranking are needed because the size of the Web grows at a remarkable speed and centralized page ranking is not scalable. Open system PageRank is presented based on the traditional PageRank used by Google. We then propose some distributed page ranking algorithms, partially prove their convergence, and discuss some interesting properties of them. Indirect transmission is introduced to reduce communication overhead between page rankers and to achieve scalable communication. The relationship between convergence time and bandwidth consumed is also discussed. Finally, we verify some of the discussions by experiments based on real datasets


Objectives: Healthy People (HP) 2010 has a goal of reducing adult smoking prevalence to 12% by 2010. Kentucky, with the highest adult smoking rates (28.7% versus a US average of 20.9%) and weak tobacco control policies, has the potential to reduce smoking by implementing stricter policies. Methods: The SimSmoke tobacco control policy model is applied to Kentucky, validated over 1993 to 2003. Smoking prevalence evolves over time through initiation and cessation, as behaviors influenced by tobacco control policies. Results: SimSmoke predicts well over the pre-2007 period, including larger annual decreases in latter years. With policies suggested by HP 2010 goals, smoking prevalence is projected to fall to about 19% by 2011 and 14% by 2026; more than 17,000 smoking-attributable deaths would be avoided by 2026. Conclusions: SimSmoke suggests policies can have a large impact on smoking rates and save lives in Kentucky. If HP 2010 goals will be met, states such as Kentucky need to implement strong tobacco control policies.


Managing the energy requirements of video encoders has been an important research topic throughout the latest years, given the limited resources of battery-powered systems. Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD) stands out among the most costly steps in the video encoding process compliant with the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. This metric is mainly used to explore temporal redundancies during the inter prediction stage of the encoder, and it is applied by adding the absolute differences of the colocalized pixels of two video blocks, as a means of measuring the similarity between them. SAD architectures are usually designed by using an adder tree, with its first level consisting of subtractors and absolute operators. This paper explores various structures of absolute operators in the context of SAD architectures, in order to define the most suitable implementation for a power-efficient SAD module. Besides the analysis of several different models, we exploit the use of pipelining, and the impact of varying block input bitwidth, to determine which versions scale better with the increase of input size. We have synthesized the architectures for ASIC CMOS technology using real-input vectors taking the delays into consideration, with an ST 65 nm standard cells library, and compared them with the default absolute operator macrofunction from the synthesis tool.


Multilayer structures of alternate magnetic and non-magnetic CoCrTa alloys have been prepared in which the magnetic properties can be widely varied by changing the magnetic layer and interlayer thicknesses, In this way, one example has shown that enhanced perpendicular anisotropy can be achieved as demonstrated by an increase in perpendicular coercivity Hc( \perp ) and a decrease in longitudinal coercivity Hc(&dlor.). This condition is desirable for application in perpendicular recording media. In addition, a second example has shown that by using much thinner layers (≃15 nm) it is possible to produce a structure in which the magnetization is longitudinal with a very low coereivity of 1.5 Oe. Such soft magnetic films with high Ms and low Hc(&dlor.) can be used as underlayers for perpendicular recording media in order to enhance the efficiency of pole heads.


Most natural soils
are heterogeneous and nutrient availability and soil structure change greatly
over small distances. It is still unclear whether AMF are advantageous for
plants under such heterogeneous soil conditions. The objective of this study
was to determine whether diverse AMF community support host plant community
productivity in heterogeneous soil. It was also tested whether soil
heterogeneity affects plant productivity. This was carried out in a greenhouse experiment made up of two factors: soil
heterogeneity and AMF richness. Soil heterogeneity was simulated by mixing
three soil types (sand, field soil and organic soil) together (homogenous soil
(HM)), mixing them partly (semi homogenous (SH)) or keeping the three soil
types separate in three compartments within one pot (heterogeneous (HT)). AMF
richness was simulated by adding no AMF, one of four different AMF species
separately, or all four different AMF together. The pots were planted with a
mixture of Trifolium pratense and Lolium multiflorum. There was no effect of soil heterogeneity
on total plant biomass. However, the biomass of the individual plant species
was greatly affected by soil heterogeneity with Lolium being the most
abundant in the heterogeneous soil and Trifolium being the most abundant
in the homogenous soil. Total plant biomass did not increase with AMF richness.
Moreover, opposite to the hypothesis, AMF richness was not beneficial for plant
productivity in a heterogenous soil environment. However, there were
significant differences in plant biomass with different AMF treatments in the
SH and HT treatment indicating that effects of AMF on plant productivity are
influenced by soil type. These effects on yield and AMF reflect a combination
of local responses to growing conditions. The results show that AMF influence
on plant yield may not always be positive but is strongly dependent on
ecological elasticity and environmental condition.


Whereas mindfulness has been shown to enhance personal well-being, studies suggest it may also benefit intergroup dynamics. Using an integrative conceptual model, this meta-analysis examined associations between mindfulness and (a) different manifestations of bias (implicit/explicit attitudes, affect, behavior) directed toward (b) different bias targets (outgroup or ingroup, e.g., internalized bias), by (c) intergroup orientation (toward bias or anti-bias). Of 70 samples, 42 (N = 3,229) assessed mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) and 30 (N = 6,002) were correlational studies. Results showed a medium-sized negative effect of MBIs on bias outcomes, g = -0.56, 95% confidence interval [-0.72, -0.40]; I(2;3)2: 0.39; 0.48, and a small-to-medium negative effect between mindfulness and bias for correlational studies, r = -0.17 [-0.27, -0.03]; I(2;3)2: 0.11; 0.83. Effects were comparable for intergroup bias and internalized bias. We conclude by identifying gaps in the evidence base to guide future research.


Thin films of zinc sulphide was deposited on to a glass substrate which is well rinsed in a 10 -6 Torr vacuum. Quartz crystal monitor method was used to determine the film thickness. ZnS films and a typical diffraction pattern of the as-grown ZnS thin films were subjected to X-Ray Power Diffraction (XRD) analysis. A ZnS thin film of lower and higher thicknesses has an amorphous structure and polycrystalline nature with cubic structure respectively. Evaluation of the structural parameters such as micro strain, lattice constant (a), inter-planar distance (d), dislocation density and grain size (D) have been carried out. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) was employed to find the grain size of the particles and to study about the surface smoothness. Films with different thicknesses and their grain sizes were calculated. The resolution and magnification was kept at 20µm and 5000x respectively and the SEM micrographs of different thicknesses were analyzed. It is clearly observed that the tiny Nano sized grains are engaged in a fibrous-like structure. This clearly points towards the glassy nature and amorphous phase of ZnS thin films. The AFM micrograph indicates that as the thickness increases, the particle size and the surface roughness of ZnS thin films also increases. The Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX) confirms the presence of sulphur, zinc and oxygen in all the films.


The history of Kenya's sports can be divided into three main phases; the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial phases. Each of these phases witnessed various levels and forms of sports development in the country. With the increasing popularity of SPOltS over the years, deliberate efforts and strategies have continued to be made to improve SPOltS participation and performance. Whereas some milestones have been realized towards this end over the years, the sports scene is still faced with a myriad of issues and challenges which militate against the desired aim of achieving sports excellence in the country. This paper therefore, highlights the management shortcomings and problems that should be addressed so as to serve as a basis for future


This article examines the long-forgotten first book-length treatise on international law ever published by a woman in the history of international law. The first part places Concepción Arenal's Ensayo sobre el Derecho de gentes (1879) in the historical context of the dawn of the international legal codification movement and the professionalisation of the academic study of international law. The second part surveys the scattered treatment that women as objects of international law and women's individual contributions to international law received in international law histories up to the early twentieth century. It then draws many parallels between Arenal's work and the influential resolutions of the first International Congress of Women in 1915 and surveys related developments during the interwar years. The conclusion highlights the need of readdressing the invisibility of women in international legal history.


 Abstract — Strong anthropogenic impact has uncontrolled consequences on the nature of the soil. Hence, up-to-date sustainable methods of soil state improvement are essential. Investigators provide the evidence that biochar can positively effects physical, chemical, and biological soil properties and the abundance of mycorrhizal fungi which are in the focus of this study. The main aim of the present investigation is to demonstrate the effect of two types of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) inoculums along with the beech wood biochar and mineral N additives on mycorrhizal colonization. Experiment has been set up in laboratory conditions with containers filled with arable soil from the protection zone of the main water source "Brezova nad Svitavou". Lactuca sativa (lettuce) has been selected as a model plant. Based on the obtained data, it can be concluded that mycorrhizal colonization increased as the result of combined influence of biochar and PGPB inoculums amendment. In addition, correlation analyses showed that the numbers of main groups of cultivated bacteria were dependent on the degree of mycorrhizal colonization.