Context and objective Epidemiological studies show the apparent link between excessive alcohol consumption and hypertension. However, the association between alcohol intake and blood pressure among non-hypertensive individuals is scarcely examined. Methods This analysis included participants in the 1999–2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who were aged 20 to 84 years without a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, hypertension or pregnancy, whose systolic/diastolic blood pressure (SBP/DBP) was lower than 140/90 mmHg, who were not on antihypertensive medication, and who consumed 12 drinks or more during the past 12 months (N = 3957). Average drinking volume (average alcohol intake per day), usual drinking quantity (drinks per day when drinking) and frequency of binge drinking were used to predict SBP/DBP. Covariates included age, gender, race/ethnicity, education level, smoking status, average physical activity level, and daily hours spent on TV/ video/computer. Results Drinking volume was directly associated with higher SBP in a linear dependent manner (an increment of 10 g of alcohol per day increased average SBP by 1 mmHg among both men and women). Drinking above the US Dietary Guidelines (men more than two drinks and women more than one drink per drinking day) was associated with higher SBP. Binge drinking was associated with both higher SBP and higher DBP. Average intake greater than two drinks per day was particularly associated with higher DBP among women (P = 0.0003). Conclusion This analysis from a population-based survey indicates a direct association between higher alcohol consumption and a higher prevalence of prehypertension among non-hypertensive drinkers.


We have built a set of integrated AI systems (called conversation machines) to enable transaction processing over the telephone for limited domains like stock trading and banking. The conversation machines integrate the state-of-the-art technologies from computer telephony, continuous speech recognition, natural language processing and humancomputer interaction. Users can interact with these systems using natural language to process simple transactions. We are currently installing a prototype conversation machine at a customer site (a large bank), while continuing research on each of the modules mentioned above and their integration.In this paper, we describe the architecture of conversation machines and explain the design choices related to natural language dialog design, speech recognition errors, and human-computer interaction. We also discuss our experience with the new "market-driven research" methodology currently being tested at our company, of which the conversation machines project is an example. Our experience suggests that with this new methodology we can build integrated natural language dialog systems, even when working with error-prone recognition engines and imperfect grammars, by designing the dialog flow to reduce the likelihood of errors, and to enable quick error recovery. In this process, having a customer allows us to make more realistic design choices.


Seismically active central Taiwan is considered part of an orogenic wedge with low-angle east-dipping active faults above a detachment surface and an active mountain-building process later. In 2013, two moderate reverse-faulting earthquakes of magnitudes ML 6.2 and 6.5 occurred in Nantou. They brought to mind the historically damaging sequence of four earthquakes in the same area that claimed a total of 71 lives in 1916. The 2013 earthquake sequence provides a good opportunity to study the 1916 sequence. We compared the historical Omori record of the main event in the 1916 sequence, discovered in the Seismogram Archives at the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, and the corresponding simulated Omori records of the 2013 events. Our comparison shows significant similarity among the earthquakes, although they are separated by nearly 100 yr. To understand the seismogenic structure associated with these earthquake sequences, we further studied the source rupture properties of earthquakes in this region since 1999 using local broadband records to determine the rupture fault planes. Results show that all events have similar focal mechanisms with one low-angle east-dipping and another high-angle west-dipping nodal planes. Rupture plane determination indicates that whereas events at shallow depths (<20  km) ruptured on the low-angle east-dipping plane, events at greater depths (>20  km) slipped on the high-angle west-dipping plane in a conjugate fault system. The comparison also suggests that the 1916 sequence occurred on the low-angle east-dipping plane of this conjugate fault system in the orogenic wedge as part of a mountain-building process. Given the active mountain-building process in central Taiwan, occurrences of this type of earthquake must be addressed in seismic hazard mitigation efforts.


Abstract This paper aims at explaining the volatility of two main macroeconomic variables (interest rate and exchange rate) that impact the cost of international capital and, consequently, the international financing decision. Firstly, the main economic theories are called to illustrate the relevant determinants of these variables from the perspective of demand and supply of capital sides. The state intervention through monetary policy is introduced to emphasize the alteration of these prices (the price of capital, the price of foreign currencies). The paper is presenting the role of these prices in international financing decision (based on the theoretical model used to estimate cost of international capital), their impact on the foreign direct investment decision and on the international portfolio investment decision. Finally, the paper describe the economic consequences of the monetary public intervention on the financing and investment decision in direct connection with the business cycle theory. The paper associates the monetary policy to the business cycles. The paper comments the unsound solutions proposed against the economic crises and that continued to harm negatively these prices generating the seeds for next international economic recession. The paper is a theoretical one, containing some very interesting research hypothesis and opening the paths for presumable further empirical researches.


At submonolayer coverage, Mn forms atomic wires on the Si(001) surface oriented perpendicular to the underlying Si dimer rows. While many other elements form symmetric dimer wires at room temperature, we show that Mn wires have an asymmetric appearance and pin the Si dimers nearby. We find that an atomic configuration with a Mn trimer unit cell can explain these observations as due to the interplay between the Si dimer buckling phase near the wire and the orientation of the Mn trimer. We study the resulting four wire configurations in detail using high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging and compare our findings with the STM images simulated by density functional theory.


A slur is a derogatory epithet targeting an entire class of people. Slurs may target groups of people on the basis of race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other feature deemed salient. Beyond the inherent interest sparked by their taboo and highly offensive nature, slurs are linguistically interesting in that they are highly resistant to standard truth-conditional semantic analysis; as such, the theoretical study of slurs comprises a key intellectual battleground in the semantics/pragmatics debate. The field of linguistic inquiry known as pragmatics is the study of language use in context. Pragmatics originated, most notably, from Ludwig Wittgenstein's contention that in most cases a word's meaning amounted to its use in a language. In contrast to semantics, pragmatics views meaning not primarily in terms of explicitly encoded linguistic information, but rather as being chiefly dependent upon the social and physical contexts of utterances, speaker's background knowledge, and the inferred intentions of the agents involved. Deixis refers to the pragmatic phenomenon whereby the extralinguistic context of an utterance or speech event is required to fix the reference or otherwise disambiguate the meaning of a lexical or grammatical structure. Examples of deictic terms are common indexicals, such as: "I," "here," and "now," which, being token reflexive, require information about the context of their utterance in order to achieve proper reference, e.g., "now" self-reflexively refers to the precise time at which any particular tokening of said term is uttered or otherwise employed. Social deixis concerns the lexicalization and grammaticalization of the social status of speakers, hearers, third persons, or other entities, and the social relationships which obtain between them; it includes the study of honorifics, personal pronouns and, most familiarly, the tou/vous distinction. It comprises the study of those linguistic items, which reflect, establish, or are determined by, realities of the social situation in which a speech act occurs. Information encoded by social deixis typically includes class, kin relationships, age, sex, profession, and ethnic group. In this paper I argue that social deictic markers can be seen to track the same extension determining properties as slurs. I therefore conclude that slurs function as social-deictic markers of disrespect and contempt that target entire classes of people for discrimination based on a single identifying feature. If slurs are, as I contend, instances of social deixis, this fact accounts for their puzzling non-truth functional behavior whilst providing a more parsimonious account than competing formal semantic theories.


The present research work was conducted to enumerate and isolate aerobic cellulolytic bacteria from forest soil using carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as substrate. The identified isolate was further tested as potent candidate to improve the nutritional value of rice straw. The forest soil was loaded with substantial amount (2.45×107) of cellulolytic bacteria. A total of 10 cellulose degrading bacteria (CDB) were isolated, identified and monitored for their cellulolytic activity. The isolate having the highest cellulolytic index (2.5) was identified as Bacillus subtilis targeting the 16S rRNA gene which was labeled as B. subtilis strain CDB7 and investigated for nutritional improvement of rice straw. Solid state fermentation of each group was carried out at 37°C for a period of 0, 3 and 6 days in 0 (no bacterial inoculum), 1, 5 and 10% inoculum group. There were a tendency of reduction in Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF), Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) and lignin at concentrations of 1, 5 and 10% inoculums at every interval of fermentation. Highest reduction of ADF (4.8%), NDF (10.78%) and lignin (37.6%) were observed after 6 days of fermentation at 10, 10 and 5% inoculum group, respectively. The crude protein content was increased (5.3 ± 0.4 to 6.4± 0.3) in 10% inoculum group. Taken together, the identified isolate could be a potent candidate to degrade lignocellulosic content through breaking of lignin-cellulose bondage and to improve the nutritional value of rice straw.

 Key words: Rice straw, Bacillus subtilis strain CDB7, solid state fermentation, acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), lignin.


Aerobic metabolic rates of fish at controlled levels of activity are usually measured with individual fish isolated in a flume-type respirometer, in which the fish must swim against a known water velocity (Brett, 1964; Beamish, 1978; Gehrke et al. 1990). Their use for large and fast- swimming fish is difficult owing to engineering problems and water turbulence and because swimming in the confined test section of the respirometer affects the performance of the fish. Some of these problems have been partially dealt with by applying corrections to compensate for the altered water flow around the body of the fish (Webb, 1971) and by developing highly sophisticated flume respirometers (Gehrke et al. 1990).


The intracardiac and central hemodynamics was studied in patients with secondary atrial septal defects pre- and post-operatively. After surgery continuous catheterization of the heart chambers was employed which permitted to receive the information directly from the right ventricle. Following a statistical processing of the obtained data, regression lines were formed that reflected the relationship between the work-load of the right ventricle and the end-distolic pressure. It was demonstrated that the development of latent myocardial insufficiency requires certain limitations in the amount of the infused fluids and enhancement of cardiac therapy.


This study analyses the constraints that impede micro-scale, small-scale, and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) from accessing banks' finances in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan. In this regard, a survey questionnaire was administered where 410 MSMEs were randomly selected for data collection from the manufacturing, retailing, services, and wholesaling sectors in districts Bannu and Peshawar. After the data screening, we conducted correlations and multiple regression analyses on the final valid data. Our results indicate that low business production, firms' size, and gender discrimination of MSMEs' entrepreneurs were the main barriers that restrict MSMEs to access banks' finances. The findings have newer implications for government, concerned banks, and the MSMEs to make effective plans to properly address the obstacles that impede the MSMEs' access to banks' finances in KP.


CONTEXT
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) enables the selection of embryos without mutations for implantation and has not been described to our knowledge for mutations in GNAS. Phocomelia in a patient with Albright hereditary osteodystrophy (AHO) has also not been previously described.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to identify a GNAS mutation in a patient with a severe form of AHO and pseudohypoparathyroidism type 1a with phocomelia and to perform PGD on embryos derived by in vitro fertilization to deliver an unaffected infant.

DESIGN
A proband and his family are described clinically, the GNAS gene was sequenced to identify a novel mutation in the proband, and PGD was performed on embryos.

SETTING
The setting was in a tertiary-care hospital.

PATIENTS
The patients were from a single family in which the proband has a severe form of AHO.

INTERVENTIONS
Interventions were PGD and in vitro fertilization.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The main outcome measures were the clinical phenotypes and GNAS gene sequences of the proband, embryos, and family members.

RESULTS
After PGD, three genotypically normal embryos were transferred back to the mother. Pregnancy ensued, and a healthy male infant was delivered at 36.5 wk gestation. The GNAS genes in the baby were confirmed as wild-type, and the infant is free of any signs of AHO.

CONCLUSIONS
We describe herein a proband with AHO and severe skeletal deformities (including phocomelia) related to a novel GNAS mutation and the delivery of a male infant with homozygous normal GNAS genotype after PGD.


Red light induces photosynthesis-dependent phosphorylation of plasma membrane H+-ATPase in guard cells to promote stomatal opening in whole leaves. Stomatal opening is stimulated by red and blue light. Blue light activates plasma membrane (PM) H+-ATPase by phosphorylating its penultimate residue, threonine, via a blue light photoreceptor phototropin-mediated signaling pathway in guard cells. Blue light-activated PM H+-ATPase promotes the accumulation of osmolytes and, thus, the osmotic influx of water into guard cells, driving stomatal opening. Red light-induced stomatal opening is thought to be dependent on photosynthesis in both guard cell chloroplasts and mesophyll cells; however, how red light induces stomatal opening and whether PM H+-ATPase is involved in this process have remained unclear. In this study, we established an immunohistochemical technique to detect the phosphorylation level of PM H+-ATPase in guard cells using whole leaves of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and unexpectedly found that red light induces PM H+-ATPase phosphorylation in whole leaves. Red light-induced PM H+-ATPase phosphorylation in whole leaves was correlated with stomatal opening under red light and was inhibited by the plant hormone abscisic acid. In aha1-9, a knockout mutant of one of the major isoforms of PM H+-ATPase in guard cells, red light-dependent stomatal opening was delayed in whole leaves. Furthermore, the photosynthetic electron transport inhibitor 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea inhibited red light-induced PM H+-ATPase phosphorylation as well as red light-induced stomatal opening in whole leaves. Our results indicate that red light-induced PM H+-ATPase phosphorylation in guard cells promotes stomatal opening in whole leaves, providing insight into the photosynthetic regulation of stomatal opening.


Abstract The diagnostic efficiency of the methods of separate and combined registration of oronasal airflow and pulse oximetry in order to identify the obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) is studied in this work. Patients with cardiovascular diseases with complaints on sleep disorders were included in the study. Combined registration of oronasal airflow and pulse oximetry during sleep were performed for all examined patients (diagnostic system ApneaLink with pulse oximetry, ResMed). Registration results of oronasal airflow and pulse oximetry were analyzed separately and together. Apnea/hypopnea index (classic, recommended), desaturation index with a threshold of desaturation of 4% and 3% were evaluated as the diagnostic criteria for the identification of OSAHS. Also, in this paper the "apnea/hypopnea combined index" summarizing hypopnea episodes, which are associated with significant desaturation and without desaturation, was tested. As a method of comparison, polysomnography (Embla N7000, MedCare Flaga), which was carried out simultaneously with the main study, was used. The diagnostic efficiency of test methods and their criteria assessed by ROC-analysis (receiver operator characteristic, the characteristic curve analysis). The results of the study showed that combined registration of respiratory oronasal airflow and pulse oximetry during sleep was most effectively identified OSAHS and can be used as a screening method. The most accurate diagnostic criterion for identification of OSAHS is an "apnea/hypopnea combined index".


State-of-the-art Neural Network Architectures (NNAs) are challenging to design and implement efficiently in hardware. In the past couple of years, this has led to an explosion in research and development of automatic Neural Architecture Search (NAS) tools. AutoML tools are now used to achieve state of the art NNA designs and attempt to optimize for hardware usage and design. Much of the recent research in the auto-design of NNAs has focused on convolution networks and image recognition, ignoring the fact that a significant part of the workload in data centers is general-purpose deep neural networks. In this work, we develop and test a general multilayer perceptron (MLP) flow that can take arbitrary datasets as input and automatically produce optimized NNAs and hardware designs. We test the flow on six benchmarks. Our results show we exceed the performance of currently published MLP accuracy results and are competitive with non-MLP based results. We compare general and common GPU architectures with our scalable FPGA design and show we can achieve higher efficiency and higher throughput (outputs per second) for the majority of datasets. Further insights into the design space for both accurate networks and high performing hardware shows the power of co-design by correlating accuracy versus throughput, network size versus accuracy, and scaling to high-performance devices.


Abstract. Τhe development in the fields of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) management and Maritime Archaeology, yields an interdisciplinary and creative academic framework, such as the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector that has been proved to build intelligent systems and applications. However, the ways to fully make use of these technologies are still being explored, as their potential have not been exploited yet. Underwater archaeological sites, semi (/or fully) submerged settlements, ancient ports and shipwrecks, unlike land sites, are not accessible to public due to their special (sub) marine environment and depth. In this paper, an innovative research idea of using Augmented Reality (AR) for maintaining the memory and the information of underwater archaeological sites, is presented. Although the "artificial" visual documentation cannot replace the authentic values of the underwater tangible heritage, the AR technology can contribute to the protection of the intangible properties and the conquered knowledge of the past of a place. This research work will focus, among other case studies, on the (semi) submerged fortifications and their contiguous contents of the acropolis of Halai in east Lokris, Greece. Hence, along with the climate change that may lead more antiquities covered by water during the following years, the advances in the communication field and the up-coming 5G and cloud technologies will make the idea fully applicable, contributing to the enhancement of the coastal and the underwater archaeological remains.


Spontaneous magnetization of single and coupled quantum dots formed by lateral confinement of a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas is studied for a realistic GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The modelling of the device takes into account contributions from a patterned gate, doping, surface states, and mirror charges. To explore the magnetic properties we use the Kohn-Sham local spin-density formalism including the contributions from electron correlation and exchange. We show by explicit calculations that the exchange is the dominant mechanism driving a spontaneous magnetization of a dot. The correlation potential reduces the amount of level splitting and usually affects the electron content in the dot at a given gate voltage. These effects are, however, small and may be neglected under present circumstances. Single dots with up to 50 electrons have been studied.


Millions of patients in the United States are currently prescribed some form of anticoagulation therapy. Recently, novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs), including direct thrombin inhibitors and direct factor Xa inhibitors, have begun to replace warfarin as the drugs of choice for anticoagulation. As the use of these medications becomes more widespread, it is increasingly important for gastroenterologists to understand the risks associated with performing endoscopic procedures on patients who are taking NOACs. In this review, we provide an overview of the NOACs and current guidelines from international societies regarding the management of patients scheduled to undergo endoscopic procedures who are prescribed these medications. Finally, we offer a perspective on future studies required to adequately investigate and characterize the effects that these drugs have on a patient's risk for bleeding in the peri- and/or postprocedural timeframes.


Abstract We examine how firms' accounting quality affects their reaction to monetary policy. The balance sheet channel of monetary policy predicts that the quality of firms' accounting reports plays a role in transmitting monetary policy by affecting information asymmetries between firms and capital providers. Consistent with this prediction, we find that accounting quality moderates firms' equity market response and future investment sensitivity to unexpected changes in monetary policy. Moreover, the former relation is amplified for firms with more growth opportunities and more financial constraints, further consistent with accounting quality moderating the transmission of monetary policy.


Postoperative monitoring of the perfusion of a free flap used in head and neck reconstruction is vitally important in achieving a favorable outcome. There are a wide range of methods that have been advocated to assist in this surveillance. However, at this time, there is no one technique that is universally efficacious in detecting early arterial and venous occlusion. In our experience, the most reliable means of monitoring has been the clinical assessment of flap color, capillary refill, tissue turgor, and bleeding. To assess these parameters, a portion of the flap must be accessible for observation. When the defect is buried, as is often the case in head and neck reconstruction, flap design is critical to achieve a reliable external segment for monitoring. The methods for exteriorizing a well-vascularized portion of tissue in the most commonly used flaps are described.


Engineering materials and structures are usually subjected to multiaxial stress states loading due to geometrical effects, residual stresses, or multi-directional loading. Ductile fracture and Extremely Low Cycle Fatigue (ELCF), less than 100 cycles to fail, are two common and co-exist failure modes in many engineering structures. However, the linkage between these two failure modes under multi-axial loading conditions has never been systematically studied. This research summarizes an extensive work of experimental and numerical studies of ductile fracture and ELCF under different stress states for nickel-base superalloy material "IN718" under room temperature. Specially designed specimens and tests were used to achieve desired multi-axial loading conditions. Four types of specimens with four different shapes, total of 16 specimens, were tested until complete fracture. Two groups of tests were conducted: (a) round bar specimens with different notches; (b) plane strain specimens. Experimental data of force-displacement curves and strain-life graph were plotted for analysis. The first part of this research focuses on a numerical study of monotonic tensile loading with different stress states. This part of the investigation deeply studies the dependency of the hydrostatic stress (related to stress triaxiality) and the normalized third invariant of the deviatoric stress (related to Lode angle parameter) in plastic behavior and ductile fracture. Constitutive plasticity model proposed by Bai & Wierzbicki and the modified Mohr-Coulomb (MMC) ductile fracture model were adapted with several extensions. The plasticity model and ductile fracture criterion were implemented into ABAQUS through a user-defined material subroutine (VUMAT). Extensive experimental results are used to calibrate the models. After setting up the parameter optimization during model calibration, the experimental results and numerical simulations were well correlated in both plasticity deformation and fracture initiation. A 3D fracture locus of Inconel 718 was constructed by knowing the strain at fracture, stress triaxiality, and normalized Lode angle of the tested samples. By introducing a suitable element post-failure behavior, not only the fracture initiation but also the fracture propagation modes are successfully predicted in finite element simulations for monotonic loading. The second part extensively investigates ELCF on IN718. The IN718 cyclic plasticity behavior and the Bauschinger effect are studied and simulated using the well-known nonlinear kinematic hardening law by J. L. Chaboche and his co-workers under different strain amplitudes and different stress states. Moreover, the Vocé isotropic hardening law was applied in combination with the Bai-Wierzbicki plasticity model. The Bai-Wierzbicki plasticity model was used to capture the effect of different stress states on ELCF based on the stress triaxiality and Lode angle parameters. On the other hand, the modified Mohr-Coulomb (MMC) ductile fracture model for monotonic loading was extended by a new damage evolution rule to cover the ELCF regime. A new parameter was introduced to represent the effect of the cyclic loading at ELCF. The new parameter is responsible for capturing the change of non-proportional loading direction between the current stress and the backstress tensors. The model explores the underlying damage and fracture mechanisms through the equivalent plastic strain evolution under cycling loading. Finally, the mechanism linkage between these two failure modes was studied. A comparison between the experimental data and the finite element simulation results (by Abaqus/Explicit) shows very good correlations. In addition, fractographic examinations, analysis, and finite element simulations are presented.


Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture via chemical absorption to capture excess CO2 in a variety of gas streams has emerged as an important operation in industrial process. This project concerns the thermophysical properties study of aqueous blends of ammonium-based ionic liquids (AILs), a new class of unique solvents that has emerged as cheaper and greener alternatives due the possibility of tuning its properties by combining between cations, anions and/or possibly the introduction of functional groups. The specific AIL of particular interest in this study is tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAOH), blended with the common solvent, potassium carbonate (K2CO3). Experimental data of refractive indices of aqueous blends of TBAOH and K2CO3 are measured in the temperature range between 303.15 and 333.15 K and at varying degrees of concentration. Based on the gathered results as well as comparative study with previous literature, the influence of varying temperature and concentrations on the refractive indices of these blends are discussed. Derived correlational properties such as polarizabilities, molar refractions and free volumes are also predicted by utilizing techniques from past studies.


Background: The effectiveness of many heart failure (HF) treatments has been demonstrated, and national guidelines have been widely disseminated, yet HF care remains suboptimal. Numerous studies have examined barriers to HF care, but to date, there has been limited synthesis of these findings. Methods and Results: Sixty articles reporting data on barriers to HF care published between 1998 and 2007 met the criteria for inclusion in this review. Barriers to care were reported at the patient, provider, and system levels. Patient barriers were reported in 45 studies and were categorized in the main themes of knowledge, adherence, communication, functional limitations, comorbidities, psychosocial, and socioeconomic factors. Provider barriers were examined in 23 studies and included knowledge, diagnostic challenges, pharmacological concerns, communication issues, and personal factors. Barriers at the healthcare system level were reported in 13 studies and pertained to problems with organizational structure, communication, and lack of resources. Several barriers were interrelated and could not be exclusively categorized to a single level of care, with overlap also occurring within the main barrier themes. Conclusions: Barriers to HF care were common and pervasive throughout the continuum of care. To effectively improve the quality of care and outcomes among HF patients, obstacles to HF care must be addressed at multiple levels.


Objectives. Investigate the effects of selected factors associated with quantitative ultrasound parameters among Inuit preschoolers living in Arctic communities (56° 32′–72° 40′N). Materials and methods. Children were selected randomly in summer and early fall (n=296). Dietary intake was assessed through the administration of a 24-h dietary recall (24-h recall) and a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Anthropometry was measured using standardized procedures. Plasma 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D) and parathyroid hormone (PTH) were measured using a chemiluminescent assay (Liaison, Diasorin). Quantitative ultrasound parameters were measured using Sahara Sonometer, (Hologic Inc.). Results. Children divided by speed of sound (SoS) and broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA) quartiles were not different for age (years), sex (M/F), calcium (mg/d) and vitamin D intake (µg/d) and plasma 25(OH)D concentration (nmol/L). However, children in the highest BUA and SoS quartile had higher body mass index (BMI) compared to those in quartile 1. Using multivariate linear regression, higher BMI, older age and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) intake were predictors of BUA while only BMI was a predictor of SoS. Conclusions. Further investigation assessing intakes of traditional foods (TF) and nutrients affecting bone parameters along with assessment of vitamin D status of Inuit children across seasons is required.


Geothermal energy is becoming an attractive solution for clean and sustainable energy needs for the world. One of the highlighted issues in utilising the energy from geothermal waters is removal of Non-Condensable Gases (NCG) from geothermal systems. This paper discusses and reviews existing technologies for removing NCG from the point of energy consumption. Further this research investigates the possibility of using two-phase ejectors (also known as eductors) to remove NCGs from geothermal waters. Energy analysis of isothermal and adiabatic vacuum processes for removing non condensable gases by an ideal vacuum machine are presented and later compared with the experimental performance and the energy consumption of commercial vacuum pumps and eductors. Advantages of removal of NCG using passive method employing eductors and also the prospect of improving the efficiency of these devices are presented. Based on experimental data it is shown that eductors offer a sustainable alternative for NCGs removal from geothermal waters.


Abstract. We perform a teleseismic P-wave traveltime tomography to examine the geometry and structure of subducted lithosphere in the upper mantle beneath the Alpine orogen. The tomography is based on waveforms recorded at over 600 temporary and permanent broadband stations of the dense AlpArray Seismic Network deployed by 24 different European institutions in the greater Alpine region, reaching from the Massif Central to the Pannonian Basin and from the Po plain to the river Main. Teleseismic traveltimes and traveltime residuals of direct teleseismic P-waves from 331 teleseismic events of magnitude 5.5 and higher recorded between 2015 and 2019 by the AlpArray Seismic Network are extracted from the recorded waveforms using a combination of automatic picking, beamforming and cross-correlation. The resulting database contains over 162.000 highly accurate absolute P-wave traveltimes and traveltime residuals. For tomographic inversion, we define a model domain encompassing the entire Alpine region down to a depth of 600 km. Outside this domain, a laterally homogeneous standard earth model is assumed. Predictions of traveltimes are computed in a hybrid way applying a fast Tau-P method outside the model domain and continuing the wavefronts into the model domain using a fast marching method. For teleseismic inversion, we iteratively invert demeaned traveltime residuals for P-wave velocities in the model domain using a regular discretization with an average lateral spacing of about 25 km and a vertical spacing of 15 km. The inversion is regularized towards an initial model constructed from an a priori model of the crust and uppermost mantle and a standard earth model beneath. The resulting model provides a detailed image of slab configuration beneath the Alpine and Apenninic orogens. Major features are an overturned Adriatic slab beneath the Apennines reaching down to 400 km depth still attached in its northern part to the crust but exhibiting detachment towards the southeast. A fast anomaly beneath the western Alps indicates a short western Alpine slab that ends at about 100 km depth close to the Penninic front. Further to the east and following the arcuate shape of the western Periadriatic Fault System, a deep-reaching coherent fast anomaly with complex interior stucture generally dipping to the SE down to about 400 km suggests a slab of European origin extending eastward to the Giudicarie fault. This slab is detached from overlying lithosphere at its eastern end below a depth of about 100 km. Further to the east, well-separated from the slab beneath the western and central Alps, another deep-reaching, nearly vertically dipping high-velocity anomaly suggests the existence of a slab beneath the Eastern Alps of presumably European origin which is completely detached from the orogenic root. Our image of this slab does not require a polarity switch because of its nearly vertical dip and full detachment from the overlying lithosphere. Fast anomalies beneath the Dinarides are weak and concentrated to the northernmost part and shallow depths. Low-velocity regions surrounding the fast anomalies beneath the Alps to the west and northwest follow the same dipping trend as the overlying fast ones, indicating a kinematically coherent subducting tectosphere in this region. In contrast, low-velocity anomalies to the east suggest asthenospheric upwelling presumably driven by retreat of the Carpathian slab and extrusion of eastern Alpine lithosphere towards the east while low velocities to the south are presumably evidence of asthenospheric upwelling and mantle hydration due to the backarc position behind the European slab.


Tumour cells in the efferent vessels of the axillary nodes in breast cancer (EV status) have been associated with poor prognosis since 1979. A prospective study (1980-1989) of all the nodes from 1037 consecutive female patients with unilateral breast cancer whose treatment included axillary node dissection yielded 471 node-positive cases. Tumour cells were found in the efferent nodal vessels of 210 patients, while 252 were negative. In the remaining 9 patients efferent nodal vessels could not be identified. At follow-up, 62% of the node-positive patients had died of breast carcinoma, in contrast to 32% of node-negative patients. The prognosis in cases with 1-3 versus 4+ tumour-bearing nodes was highly significant, 36% and 64%, respectively having died of breast carcinoma,. Prognosis was not dependent on the number of EV+ nodes in those cases showing efferent vascular invasion, one positive node was enough. Differentiation between these nodal growth forms thus provides a strong prognostic indicator, available to all with access to routine surgical pathology. We confirmed the significance of both variables using Cox's regression analysis and showed that the number of positive nodes adds significant prognostic information to that of EV status, which is the stronger of the two prognostic indicators. EV+ patients with more than three positive nodes have more than a three times higher risk of dying than EV- patients with three or fewer positive nodes.


In this paper, the double-wall carbon nanotube oscillator resonant phenomena and energy dissipation are simulated by use of molecular dynamics simulation. The simulation run at different temperatures , and the double-walled carbon nanotube oscillator resonance phenomenon is verified,the vibration displacement curve which carbon tubes versus time and the changes in restoring force of carbon tubes suffered in the process of oscillation process are obtained and the friction is discussed from the point of view of energy dissipation. By statistical calculation, the double-walled carbon nanotube resonant amplitude of the process is found quickly decay with temperature increasing, and the friction per atom will enlarge with temperature increased, but the restoring force of inner tube is almost constant.


While emphasizing the Internet, the author discusses the relationships between new technologies, scientific production, and electronic publication. Though the relevance of the Internet, as an intervening phenomenon in today's reality, and the facilities available in cybernetic space, especially for scientific production, are presented, the primary focus of the text is on the drawbacks of this situation. These disadvantages include: inconsistencies, instantaneous and ephemeral nature of information, complexity regarding storage, difficulties in bibliographic control, and disrespect for authorship and intellectual property rights.


Peripheral artery disease (PAD) includes atherosclerosis of the aorta and lower extremities. Affecting a large segment of the population, PAD is associated with impaired functional capacity and reduced quality of life as well as an increased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction and cardiovascular death. The evaluation of PAD begins with the physical examination, incorporating non-invasive testing such as ankle-brachial indices to confirm the diagnosis. Therapeutic interventions are aimed at alleviating symptoms while preserving limb integrity and reducing overall cardiovascular risk. With this in mind, risk factor modification with exercise and medical therapy are the mainstays of treatment for many patients with PAD. Persistent symptoms or non-healing wounds should prompt more aggressive therapies with endovascular or surgical revascularisation. The following manuscript provides a comprehensive review on the contemporary evaluation and management of PAD.


This prospective study of suicidal emergency department (ED) patients (ages 10-18) examined the timing, cumulative probability, and predictors of suicide attempts through 18 months of follow-up. The cumulative probability of attempts was as follows: .15 at 6 months, .22 at 1 year, and .24 by 18 months. One attempt was fatal, yielding a death rate of .006. Significant predictors of suicide attempt risk included a suicide attempt at ED presentation (vs. suicidal ideation only), nonsuicidal self-injurious behavior, and low levels of delinquent symptoms. Results underscore the importance of both prior suicide attempts and nonsuicidal self-harm as risk indicators for future and potentially lethal suicide attempts.


A plasma afterglow from a gas mixture of 5 vol% H 2 in He is able to remove tarnish layers on pure silver in a matter of seconds. This dry, localised and non-contact cleaning technique is a promising method to clean historical objects where silver is combined with organic materials and where traditional cleaning techniques are not recommended. However, historical objects are often manufactured with silver alloys but somehow their tarnish layers are removed less effectively with plasma treatments. In order to understand the different impact of the afterglow, the surfaces of corroded silver, sterling silver and copper coupons are characterized before and after plasma treatment by a multi-analytical approach combing optical and confocal microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled to energy dispersive X-ray analysis and chronopotentiometry. The analyses demonstrate that the few hundred nanometres thick tarnish layer on pure silver is transformed through the whole thickness resulting in a porous metallic film. On top of that metallic film, some isolated remnant Ag 2 S particles are found. For sterling silver, a yellowing of the surface occurs. The Ag-rich corrosion products are reduced to a large extent, while the Cu-rich corrosion products are only partially reduced. For corroded copper, no apparent visual change is observed at a macroscopic scale, although the morphology of the surface changed. The results allow an evaluation of the cleaning efficiency and provide a deeper understanding of hydrogen plasma effects on the transformation of sulphide tarnish layers at atmospheric pressure.


We investigated the use of solution-derived nanocrystalline SnO2 films to promote the self-alignment of liquid crystal (LC) molecules. Uniform and homogeneous LC alignment was spontaneously achieved by using these substrates. LC molecules with a preferred orientation were aligned along the filling direction, and the LC alignment was maintained via van der Waals force by nanocrystals of the solution-derived SnO2 films. This phenomenon did not occur in amorphous-phase SnO2 films. Nanocrystalline SnO2 films were grown at annealing temperatures greater than 400 °C. Although the average transmittances of the SnO2 films degraded slightly as the annealing temperature increased, the values were similar to those of conventional polyimide films. Electrically controlled birefringence mode cells fabricated using the solution-derived nanocrystalline SnO2 films exhibited superior electro-optical characteristics, indicating that this approach will allow the fabrication of advanced LC displays with high performance through a simple fabrication process.


After publishing his study of Racine in 1963, Roland Barthes came under fire for what many critics of the French literary establishment saw as a misreading of the iconic dramatist. One particularly hostile member of the Sorbonne, Raymond Picard, charged Barthes with denying the possibility of self-evident "objective knowledge in literary criticism" (Keuneman xiv). "The stage was set," Francois Dosse recounts, "and all the elements assembled for the duel, which was cast like some great Racinian tragedy of the twentieth century" (223). But Barthes refused to take the stage. He responded to Picard's attack, which was entitled New Criticism or New Imposture?, with a short treatise of his own entitled Criticism and Truth. Philip Thody characterizes this exchange by explaining that "instead of taking up Picard's somewhat acerbic criticisms and responding with a comparably mordant wit, [Barthes] moved the debate on to higher ground" (viii). Despite Picard's best attempts to pick a fight, Barthes, it seems, avoids any antagonism altogether. Yet, there is a strain of antagonism at work in Criticism and Truth, an antagonism between critic and text: "as soon as one claims to examine the work in itself, from the point of view of its make-up, it becomes impossible not to raise broad questions of symbolic meaning" (Barthes 16). This concept of symbolic, or second-order meaning, which Barthes addresses most notably in Mythologies, transforms the critic into a perennial antagonist dedicated to demystifying, demythologizing, and unmasking the text. A wave of recent criticism suggests that the predominant view of the relationship between critic and text in literary studies today is one of antagonism. However, what should be a dialogic battle most often turns out to be a one-sided interrogation of the text, which theorists have variously described as "paranoid," "suspicious," and "symptomatic." (1) "As literary critics," Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus observe, "we [have been] trained to equate reading with interpretation: with assigning meaning to a text or set of texts" (1). In fact, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argues that "in the context of recent U.S. critical theory [...] to apply a 'hermeneutic of suspicion' is, I believe, widely understood as a mandatory injunction rather than a possibility among other possibilities" (5). Best and Marcus and Sedgwick have tackled this problem, as Rita Felski does in her essay "Suspicious Minds," by situating the hermeneutics of suspicion as one unique approach among many. (2) But as Felski points out, this discussion has focused primarily on "the suspicious dimensions of contemporary styles of criticism" and not "the related issue of how works of literature encourage suspicion in readers" (216n). Rather than jettisoning the language of antagonism altogether as others have done, (3) this essay takes up the issue of textual agency, considering how texts incite, provoke, and generally antagonize readers. Recognizing the agency of the literary text in its antagonism with the reader, I argue, revises our current critic-driven hermeneutic by abandoning unnecessary limitations on the practice of reading that drown out the text's voice and ultimately enslave the critic to the never-ending practice of demystification. Texts have the agency to antagonize because of their capacity to elicit and control cognitive and emotional responses through formal features such as point of view and characterization. To be sure, many prevalent approaches to reading offer some recognition of textual agency. The formalists and New Critics argue tirelessly that critics should attend to the text itself. John Crowe Ransom, for instance, stresses "the autonomy of the work itself as existing for its own sake" (598). Reception theorists, such as Wolfgang Iser, conceive of reading as a phenomenological process in which "the reader uses the various perspectives offered him by the text in order to relate the patterns and the 'schematised views' to one another, he sets the work in motion, and this very process results ultimately in the awakening of responses within himself" (280). …


This paper presents an enterprise risk management (ERM) model for a firm that is composed of a portfolio of capital investment projects and a defined benefit (DB) plan for its workforce. The firm faces the project, operational and hazard risks from its investment projects as well as the financial and longevity risks from its DB plan. The firm maximizes its capital market value net of pension contributions subject to constraints that control project, operational, hazard, financial and longevity risks as well as an overall risk. The analysis illustrates the importance of integrating pension risk into the firm's ERM program by comparing firm value with and without integrating pension risk with other risks in an ERM program. We also show how pension hedging strategies can impact the firm's net value under the ERM framework. While the existing literature suggests that a longevity swap is less expensive than a pension buy-out because the latter is more capital intensive, this analysis shows that the buy-out is more effective in increasing firm value.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this study to develop minicourses in educational media for presentation to inservice teachers through the "week-end college" system at Trenton State College. The minicourses were 3eveloped primarily through consultation with experts in the field of educational media and administrators at Trenton State College. In addition to the consultations, an analysis of introductory courses in educational media was made. This analysis involved (1) the division of the introductory course objectives into minicourses, (2) the identification of specific educational media competencies, (3) the activities required of the student for developing the competencies, (4) the teaching strategies to be employed, and (5) the methods of evaluation. Three minicourses were developed through this study, each involving 15 classroom contact hours and one semester ho%r of course credit: (1) Instructional Materials Production and Utilization; (2) Utilization of Projection Equipment; and (3) Utilization of Recording Equipment. Each minicourse was developed according to the course outline format required by the college for the development of all new courses: course description, specific objectives, outline of course, teaching methods, bibliography, basic requirements, evaluation of course, and new course data sheet. The planned procedures for instructional implementation of the minicourses were determined thorough an analysis, a detailed outline for each minicourse, that divides the course into compet6ncy modules with specific objectives, activities, and methods of evaluation was developed. Outlines and competency modules are given for the three minicourses. (DMT)


As an academic librarian at a liberal arts university, I was asked by our school's art museum staff to collaborate on programming for an exhibition by African American illustrators of children's books. The exhibition, called Telling a People's Story: African-American Children's Illustrated Literature, ran on campus through June 2018 as the first of its kind. To represent 33 different artists, the nearly 130 works on display included paintings, pastels, drawings, and mixed-media works. Artists included veterans like Jerry Pinkney, who has been illustrating award-winning books since the 1960s, and younger artists like Javaka Steptoe, whose Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat won the 2017 Randolph Caldecott Medal.


With recent advances in signal processing and very-low-power wireless communications, wireless body sensor networks (WBSNs) are gaining wide popularity. A WBSN consists of multiple miniaturized sensors that are placed on the person's body and are capable of measuring and communicating different physiological signals over time. This study focuses on WBSNs that rely on electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. EEG signals measure the electrical brain activity through a collection of non-invasive wireless sensors placed on a patient's scalp. Two applications are studied: the development of brain computer interfaces (BCIs), and the detection of epileptic seizures. A BCI is a direct interface between the brain and a machine. It can be used for purposes such as helping a patient perform a task by thought only, i.e. without performing any motor actions. In such a case, the BCI has to detect the presence of specific command signals in the EEG signals. A WBSN has the advantage of being minimally obtrusive to the patient. This is because the signals are transmitted wirelessly from the person's body; a person can therefore move freely without worrying about surrounding wires. However, in WBSN applications, the energy available in the battery-powered sensors is limited. Different solutions to minimize the number of computations carried out and the amount of data transmitted by the sensor are therefore highly desired. In this study, we present computationally-efficient data reduction techniques to reduce the energy consumption at the sensor node while keeping the salient information in the EEG signals. To efficiently compress EEG signals at the sensor node, we propose the use of a compressed sensing (CS) framework. The proposed CS scheme is simple, nonadaptive and yields higher energy efficiency than existing frameworks. To obtain a high compression ratio, our CS framework exploits not only the temporal correlation within EEG signals in each channel as is the case in existing frameworks, but also the inter-correlation amongst different EEG channels. When applied to a simple BCI system, our proposed framework resulted in important energy savings (up to 60%) at the expense of a slightly reduced classification accuracy. Existing BCIs require all the EEG signals as input. Therefore, the EEG signals must be reconstructed as perfectly as possible at the receiver side. For seizure detection however, the main aim is not to reconstruct the EEG signals but to detect the occurrence of a seizure. In addition to the above CS technique, we examined different data reduction techniques at the sensor side of an EEG seizure detection system. The extraction and transmission of certain features of the EEG signals were found to yield best results. The performance of these techniques was evaluated based on power consumption and seizure detection efficacy. Experimental results showed that by performing low-complexity feature extraction and transmitting only the features that are pertinent to seizure detection, considerable overall energy is saved. The battery life of the system is increased 14 times relative to the conventional approach of transmitting all the original EEG signals, while the same seizure detection performance is maintained (94.1% sensitivity).


Objectives Equine Veterinary practitioners can sustain significant injuries as a result of their work with horses but the incidence and type of injuries has never been quantified in the UK. Concerns about injury risks led the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) to commission a study of injuries. The objectives of this study were to Identify experience of occupational injuries occurring among equine veterinary practitioners (EVs). Estimate rates of occupational injuries. Compare accident rates with published UK data. METHOD A work related injuries questionnaire was developed, piloted and 3000 membership of BEVA surveyed. A workplace inspection was undertaken at an Equine Veterinary hospital. Findings were compared with published UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) data. Results 620 EVs completed the survey of whom 80% of respondents reported an injury defined as "an injury or event that required (self) treatment and/or time off work". Median number of injuries was three. The workplace inspection confirmed that many traditional working practices were unsafe and there was a lack of systematic safety risk assessment. Estimates of injury rates per 100,000 per year in EVs were between 5467 (if study is not representative of the rest of the EV population) and 26452 (if study is representative). Data published by the LFS reported rates of 11,320 per 100,000 for all veterinarians including EVs; 10,760 for prison service; 4,760 for construction workers and 4,610 for farm workers. Conclusion This study has identified equine veterinary practice as one of most hazardous occupations in the UK, when compared with other occupational groups. There is a need to establish safer systems of work and education of EVs and other horse handlers.


The present paper aims at studying the ideological discourse of the New York Times (and henceforth NYT) Op-Eds (originally short form for "opposite the editorial page", latterly known as "opinion editorial") written on Islam and Muslims, through the examination of linguistic structures that are embedded in this opinion discourse. The linguistic analysis is based on the theoretical framework of Critical Linguistics. Indeed, this analytical tool puts much emphasis on the fundamental role and centrality of ideology in articulating certain views and perceptions about Islam and Muslims. The data collected follows non-random sampling and is retrieved from the NYT database after three months of digital subscription. Within this journalistic discourse, language is viewed more than a vehicle for communication; it is a carrier of ideology, a site of struggle and an energy that transforms human experience into expression, or say simply opinion. The inclusion and exclusion of certain linguistic structures such as passive and active forms, the excessive use of quasi-synonymous terms and lexical items, as well as the (re)occurrence of a whole plethora of nominal constructions, suggest that a process of selection is particular if not exclusive to the opinion discourse of the New York Times Op-Eds addressing Islam and Muslims.


The halogenated hydroxyquinolines can cause serious, permanent neuropathy. Optic atrophy, causing permanent blindness, is the most commonly reported neuropathy in children. In young children, the onset of neuropathy is insidious and hard to diagnose. We, therefore, recommend that these drugs not be used in children, with two possible exceptions: the treatment of the asymptomatic cyst passer of E. histolytica in a person not living in an endemic area and the treatment of acrodermatitis enteropathica. If used, parents should be informed of the possible toxicity. Parents, child, and physician should diligently search for the first indication of neuropathy. These drugs are contraindicated in the treatment of nonspecific, chronic diarrhea, and "traveler9s diarrhea."


Abstract Efficient non-chemical weed control like flame weeding often requires repeated treatments. In weed control experiments the effect of each treatment may be estimated by removing and weighing the remaining weed biomass after the treatment, but the method influences the weed plants ability to regrow, and therefore it may influence the long-term effect of repeated treatments. Visual assessment of weed cover or image analysis do not affect the remaining parts of the weed plants after treatment, but the methods may have other disadvantages. In order to evaluate and compare three methods we measured changes in vegetation cover of perennial ryegrass after flaming by (1) a simple image analysis programme counting green pixels, (2) visual assessment of images and (3) by taking biomass samples. Plants were flame treated with eight different dosages (0, 20, 30, 35, 45, 60, 90 and 180 kg propane ha−1) and with various treatment frequency (2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 yearly treatments). Image analysis and visual assessment of images were easy methods to measure vegetation cover. The experiments showed that increasing dosages and frequent treatments resulted in increasing reduction of plant weight and vegetation cover. However, there were significant differences in the estimated effective doses (e.g., ED50 and ED90 values) depending on assessment method and treatment frequency. One reason could be that image analysis and visual assessment did not affect the remaining weed parts after treatment and therefore gave a more realistic picture of the long-term effect of repeated treatments. Image analysis was most useful for assessing the effect of repeated treatments when weed cover was relatively low (below 40%) and when plots contained relatively much withered plant material. However, when weed cover is close to 100%, dry weight measurements reflected the effect of the treatment better.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between pre-service teachers' confidence in technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning strategies. Moreover, the present study also analyzed the effect of gender on confidence in technological pedagogical content knowledge. The study was conducted with correlational research design. The study group of this study was comprised of 82 preservice teachers attending the Faculty of Education in a public university during the spring semester of the 2015-2016 academic years. In the study, the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Confidence Survey were used as data collection tools. Data were analyzed using Pearson product-moment correlation and independent samples t-test. At the end of the study, the results of independent samples t-test demonstrated that there was a significant difference in technological knowledge scores for males (M=4.24, SD=.65) and females [M=3.81, SD=.63; t(80)=-2.97, p=.004]. Besides, the results of this study revealed that there were various positive and significant correlations between variables of the study.


Cine films were used to study swimming in the frog, Hymenochirus boettgeri (Tornier) during near-vertical breathing excursions. The animals generally decelerated during hindlimb flexion (recovery phase) and accelerated throughout hindlimb extension (power phase). Body velocity patterns of frogs are distinct from those of other drag-based paddlers, such as angelfish and water boatman, where the body is accelerated and decelerated within the power stroke phase. The propulsive force, estimated for a single sequence from quasi-steady drag and inertial considerations, was positive throughout extension. The upper and lower bounds of this estimate were calculated by considering additional components of the force balance, including the net effect of gravity and buoyancy, and the longitudinal added mass forces associated with the body. Consideration of the force balance implies that simple drag-based propulsion may not be sufficient to explain the swimming patterns observed in frogs.


Increasing the thermal and electrical conductivity of typically insulating polymers, such as nylon 6,6, opens new markets. A thermally conductive resin can be used for heat sink applications. An electrically conductive resin can be used in static dissipative and Electromagnetic Interference/Radio Frequency Interference shielding applications. This research focused on adding various carbon based conductive fillers and a chopped glass fiber to nylon 6,6. These materials were extruded and injection molded into test specimens. Tensile tests as well as in-plane electrical resistivity, in-plane thermal conductivity, and through-plane thermal conductivity tests were conducted. One successful formulation consisted of 10% 3.2 mm chopped E-glass fiber/15% Thermocarb (high quality synthetic powdered graphite)/5% carbon black/70% nylon 6,6 (all % in wt%). For this formulation, the in-plane electrical resistivity was reduced from 10 15 ohm-cm (neat nylon 6,6) to 15 ohm-cm. The through-plane thermal conductivity increased from 0.25 W/mK (neat nylon 6,6) to 0.7 W/mK. The tensile elongation at failure was 1.4%.


Water management problems are part of the general environment and development problems in rural areas, and promoting use of water resources has become a serious issue for communities. This paper investigates water management problems in Umm Kedada, Toisha and Laitgarelnabi localities in eastern Darfur, based on official local governmental statistics and data provided by working nongovernmental organizations. The main findings give average annual rainfall of 289 mm for the whole area with some geographic differences between south and north parts. Chi-square values for type of distribution of water stations give 2.5 for Umm Kedada, 0.6 for Toaisha, and 13.1 for Laitgarelnabi depicting uniform distribution in Toaisha, random in Umm Kedada and clustered in Laitgarelnabi. The total budget of annual water production in the study area is 20,854,253,000 liters. Water stations produce double the amount produced by surface wells but producing less than those operated by nongovernmental organizations. Local water authority estimates per capita per day water consumption at 18 liters, while for animals it was estimated on average at 22.5 liters per head per day. Human population consumes 2% of total water produced while 98% was consumed by animal population. Comparing the daily recommended level for an individual to remain healthy by World Health Organization with what was daily allocated by local authority, gives a difference as high as 8,579,960 liters or as low as 5,901,760 liters. This requires tripling or doubling of water production to meet with the higher level of 50 liters, or the lower level of 40 liters recommended by World Health Organization. Balancing total water production of 20,854,253,000 liters with the estimated annual consumption by local authority for both populations which equals 22,178,860,920 liters gives a deficit of 1,324,607,920 liters annually. In addition, a rural household in the study area pays thirty times the price of money to buy water compared with any urban household. Managerial problems of water sector are that, the majority of the water stations were dug in remote areas and face chronic shortage in trained technical staff and financing. Nongovernmental organizations have successfully contributed to training of * Department of Geography, University of Khartoum.


In order to satisfy the requirement of the structural health monitoring (SHM) for the light sensor with high sensitivity, a novel large-area and flexible lead zirconate tiatnate (PZT)/polyvinyl-butyral (PVB)/additives composite film was fabricated by tape casting method. The microstructure, piezoelectric and diezoelectric properties of the PZT/PVB/additives composite films were investigated systematically. Thanks to the additives (dibutyl phthalate + castor oil), the flexibility and uniformity of PZT/PVB composite films are improved significantly compared with conventional PZT/PVB composite films. The surfaces of the PZT/PVB/additives film are smooth and more resistant to surface cracking. From the SEM micrographs, it can be observed that micro holes exist in the PZT/PVB composite films and agglomeration phenomenon is noticeable. On the contrary, PZT particles are well dispersed in PVB matrix and there is few obvious micro hole in the PZT/PVB/additives composite films. Furthermore, from the EDS results, it can be seen that PZT particles deposit in the bottom surface of the PZT/PVB film, however uniform deposition of PZT particles is achieved in the PZT/PVB/additives. In addition, due to the additives, the improvement of the piezoelectric and dielectric properties of PZT/PVB composite films is observed at a high volume fraction of PZT (φ (PZT) >60%). At φ (PZT) = 85% the largest piezoelectric constant (d ) reaches 44pC/N, which is much high than that of the reported PZT/PVDF films. Moreover, the dielectric constant (e) of the PZT/PVB/additives film (at room temperature and a frequency of 1 kHz) is higher that of the PZT/PVB film with the same φ (PZT), and the dielectric losses (tan δ) is lower. Both the improved piezoelectric and diezoelectric properties are desirable for the new piezoelectric sensor application. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/273


Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 ) could, potentially, be exploited as a means to increase seed yield and maintain food security, especially for cereal grains. Although there have been multiple cultivar trials indicating that significant yield variation occurs, the basis for these differences has not been entirely elucidated. Here we focus on two rice cultivars that differed in field trials to their yield sensitivity to elevated CO2 : Yangdao6hao (YD6), and Wuyunjing23 (W23) to assess whether observed yield differences (YD6 > W23) were associated with concurrent changes in leaf-level characteristics. At ambient levels of CO2 , leaf net photosynthesis (A) of YD6 was compatible with that of W23. However, at elevated CO2 , A was higher for YD6 relative to W23. The stability of leaf Rubisco content, biochemical characteristics (Vc,max, and Jmax ), nitrogen enzymatic activity, and chlorophyll concentration differed significantly, with greater values observed for YD6 relative to W23 at elevated CO2 . While such results are consistent with other studies, we also demonstrate that a higher ratio of carbon sinks (seed) to carbon sources (leaf), were linked to increases in cytokinins, and slower flag leaf senescence for the YD6 relative to the W23 cultivar at elevated CO2 . While additional data for a broader genetic selection are needed, the current study suggests a link between source/sink carbon assimilation, maintenance of photosynthetic biochemistry, and slower leaf senescence for rice cultivars that show a stronger yield response to projected CO2 levels. This information, in turn, may provide suitable metrics for future CO2 selection among rice cultivars.


Unpolarized FTIR and Raman spectra were collected in the regions 4000–4600 cm–1 (NIR) and 100–4000 cm–1 from previously synthesized and characterized amphiboles in the systems richterite–fluoro-richterite, potassic-richterite–potassic-fluoro-richterite, rubidium-richterite–rubidium-fluoro-richterite, and potassic-richterite–deuterated potassic-richterite. The NIR spectra of Na-, K-, and Rb-richterites have peaks at 4325, 4210 cm–1, and 3735–3730 cm–1. All three peaks decrease in intensity with increasing F content, indicating that the higher-energy peaks are combination bands involving the principal OH-stretch at 3735–3730 cm–1 and two OH-libration modes, the frequencies of which can be calculated from the relation ωcombination ≈ ωOH + ωlibration; these are 590 and 475 cm–1, respectively. The FTIR spectra of the richterite–fluoro-richterite and potassic-richterite–potassic-fluoro-richterite series show decreasing intensity and eventual disappearance of the band at ∼600 cm–1 with increasing F in accord with the assignment of this band as due to OH-libration. Raman spectra of the potassic-richterite–deuterated potassic-richterite amphiboles in the low-energy region show the disappearance of two peaks at 585 and 473 cm–1 that we have assigned to OH-libration modes. Collectively, these spectroscopic results indicate that there are two OH-libration modes at ∼590 and ∼475 cm–1 in these synthetic richterites and, by implication, in all monoclinic OH-bearing amphiboles with filled A sites. Similarly to FTIR, the relative intensities of the stretching modes associated with OH-A-OH and OH-A-F local configurations in the Raman spectra provide a reliable estimation of the F content in these A site-filled amphiboles.


THE medical profession is to be commended for its awareness of pyelitis and other infections of the upper part of the urinary tract, but, we fear, this has been achieved to the exclusion of an entity which is not quite so frequent but is much more puzzling, even if less serious. Urethritis in girls has received cursory mention but has never been accorded the emphasis which its incidence and importance merit.1This entity may be defined as an inflammation of the urethra which is most prominent in the proximal portion and which may extend onto the trigone with or without active demonstrable bacterial infection.2Occasionally, it is referred to in passing, although, as a matter of fact, it is not a minor or infrequent annoyance but a major problem little recognized by the general practitioner and pediatrician, and even at times overlooked by the urologist. There are too


E-cadherin is a homophilic adhesion molecule that maintains homotypic intercellular adhesion between epithelial cells such as epidermal keratinocytes. E-cadherin is also expressed on resident murine epidermal γδ T cells, known as dendritic epidermal T cells (DETCs), but they express another receptor for E-cadherin, αE(CD103)β7 integrin, as well. In this study, we analyzed functional differences between E-cadherin–mediated homophilic binding and heterophilic binding of αEβ7 integrin to E-cadherin in heterotypic intercellular adhesion of DETCs to keratinocytes. E-cadherin, but not αEβ7 integrin, was downregulated on activation of DETCs in vivo and in vitro. Short-term (1-h) adhesion of DETCs to keratinocytes in vitro was primarily mediated by αEβ7 integrin, and blocking of the binding of αEβ7 integrin to E-cadherin inhibited the lysis of keratinocytes by DETCs. Stable binding of E-cadherin on DETCs to plate-bound recombinant E-cadherin was observed only after 24-h culture in vitro. Cytokine production and degranulation by DETCs in response to suboptimal TCR cross-linking and mitogen stimulation were augmented by coligation of αEβ7 integrin. In contrast, engagement of E-cadherin on DETCs with immobilized anti–E-cadherin Ab, plate-bound recombinant E-cadherin, and E-cadherin on keratinocytes inhibited DETC activation. Therefore, E-cadherin acts as an inhibitory receptor on DETCs, whereas αEβ7 integrin acts as a costimulatory receptor. Differential expression of E-cadherin and αEβ7 integrin on resting and activated DETCs, as well as their opposite functions in DETC activation, suggests that E-cadherin and αEβ7 integrin on DETCs regulate their activation threshold through binding to E-cadherin on keratinocytes.


The pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) is a serious pest which attacks a number of important crops worldwide, including grains, corn, potatoes and alfalfa, and it spreads viral diseases among the plants it feed on. It reproduces sexually and asexually and, since it occurs within a short period aphids can establish many colonies and spread easily. Interestingly, it has been found that pea aphids have a high number of sugar transporter facilitator encoding genes, and the most highly expressed of these is Ap_ST1, which is expressed in the aphid's gut, which functions as a transporter for the sugar molecules; mainly mannose and glucose.
The newly discovered tool RNA interference (RNAi) has become a powerful technique to improve plants resistance against insects due to its high specificity. This study demonstrates that using conventional dsRNA against the sugar transporter gene Ap_ST1 reduces the gene's expression level. Using a range of dsRNA concentrations proves that RNAi trigger effect can be occur when applying dsRNA in a small quantity. The effect of RNAi was only observed on the gene expression level and there was no alteration noticed on the phenotype or the pest movement. This is due to the presence of the other sugar transporter encoding gene Ap_ST3, which facilitates the transportation of the sugar molecules into the gut. Thus, this study shows that RNAi could be a promising alternative biological tool in the control and management of pea aphids.


Today, more and more foreigners go to China and are emerged into studying Chinese. Thereinto, how to write Chinese characters is a very important and difficult task. As computers and internets develop, many teachers for Chinese Education want to use pattern recognition technologies to automatically evaluate and direct the quality of Chinese characters written by foreign students through document scanning. Actually, this is a handwritten character evaluation and identification problem. In this paper, we investigate and compare several character identification methods for Chinese Education within a classification framework. First, some two-class classification techniques with different features and classifiers (BP neural networks and SVMs) are investigated to identify each handwritten Chinese character. Moreover, in character identification, positive examples are always conjunctive, but negative examples are diffused in most cases. Consequently, we use one-class classification technique (one-class SVMs) to perform this handwritten character identification. In order to overcome the sensitivity to the SVM parameters, we propose a variant one-class SVM system - Bagged One-Class SVMs, which integrate many one-class SVMs with sample bagging. Some experiments of evaluating real handwritten Chinese characters by foreigners are performed, which show that general handwritten character identification is a big challenge and one-class classification technique is a potential researching and developing direction.


Aim: The purpose of this research was to evaluate clinical and functional results of patients that we treated them with wrist arthroscopy. Material and Methods: Patients treated with wrist arthroscopy between February 2012 and June 2017 were retrospectively evaluated. Patients' disease, treatment, effected side, preoperative and postoperative Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (Q-DASH) score and postoperative Mayo score were recorded. Results: There were 78 (49 female and 29 male) patients. Mean age was 38±14.91 (16-81 years) years. Mean follow-up time was 45,4±17.93 (range, 6-72 months) months. There were 22 (28.2%) ganglion cyst, 15 (19.2%) triangular fibrocartilage complex tears, 11 (14.1%) Kienböck's disease and 8 (10.3%) intraarticular distal radius fracture. All patients Quick-DASH scores statistically significantly improved at final follow-up compared to preoperative status (p<0.001). There was no major complication in any of the patients. Conclusion: The wrist arthroscopy is efficient and minimal invasive technique with low complication rates and good clinical results for common wrist pathologies.


The circulation of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) is a significant problem worldwide. In this work we characterize the isolates and reconstruct the spread of a multi-clone epidemic event that occurred in an Intensive Care Unit in a hospital in Northern Italy. The event took place from August 2015 to May 2016 and involved 23 patients. Twelve of these patients were colonized by CRKP at the gastrointestinal level, while the other 11 were infected in various body districts. We retrospectively collected data on the inpatients and characterized a subset of the CRKP isolates using antibiotic resistance profiling and whole genome sequencing. A SNP-based phylogenetic approach was used to depict the evolutionary context of the obtained genomes, showing that 26 of the 32 isolates belong to three genome clusters, while the remaining six were classified as sporadic. The first genome cluster was composed of multi-resistant isolates of sequence type (ST) 512. Among those, two were resistant to colistin, one of which indicating the insurgence of resistance during an infection. One patient hospitalized in this period was colonized by two strains of CRKP, both carrying the blaKPC gene (variant KPC-3). The analysis of the genome contig containing the blaKPC locus indicates that the gene was not transmitted between the two isolates. The second infection cluster comprised four other genomes of ST512, while the third one (ST258) colonized 12 patients, causing five clinical infections and resulting in seven deaths. This cluster presented the highest level of antibiotic resistance, including colistin resistance in all 17 analyzed isolates. The three outbreaking clones did not present more virulence genes than the sporadic isolates and had different patterns of antibiotic resistance, however, were clearly distinct from the sporadic ones in terms of infection status, being the only ones causing overt infections.


This study pays close attention to Chinese slash fanfiction amateur female writers and their writing experiences. This research investigates in what kind of ways their writing experiences relate to a sense of female empowerment. The analysis emphasizes how slash writing as a seemingly individual and private experience connects itself to a larger community of writers and readers, and how this practice extends to the lived realities of gender and sexuality in mainland China. Using qualitative data from epistolary interviews with ten Chinese female slash writers, this study argues that writing slash fanfiction in mainland China is a boundary-blurring art. Through crossing and obscuring boundaries between private and public, fantasies and reality, individual and community, Chinese female slash writers retrieve a sense of agency and empowerment in their experiences of writing slash fanfiction through exploring affective experiences, reconciling with sexual fantasies, and serving and participating in a female community.


This paper presents a means for determining and reporting power transfer limits with respect to avoiding thermal, low voltage, and voltage collapse problems. The technique uses contingency analysis to select the most limiting contingencies, then generates PV curves for the selected cases. Adaptive transfer increments and limits on the transfer range to study are used to give the algorithm the speed necessary for on line applications. The results of the computer implementation of the approach are also presented.


Tungsten is a leading candidate material for the diverter in future nuclear fusion reactors. Previous experiments have demonstrated that surface defects and bubbles form in tungsten when ex- posed to helium and hydrogen plasmas, even at modest ion energies. In some regimes, between 1000K and 2000K, and for He energies below 100eV, fuzz like features form. The mechanisms leading to these surfaces comprised of nanometer sized tungsten tendrils which include visible helium bubbles are not currently known. The role of helium bubble formation in tendril morphology could very likely be the starting point of these mechanisms. Using Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, the role of helium and hydrogen exposure in the initial formation mechanisms of tungsten fuzz are investigated. Molecular dynamics simulations are well suited to describe the time and length scales associated with initial formation of helium clusters that eventually grow to nano-meter sized helium bubbles. MD simulations also easily enable the modeling of a variety of surfaces such as single crystals, grain boundaries or tendrils .While the sputtering yield of tungsten is generally low, previous observations of surface modification due to plasma exposure raise questions about the effects of surface morphology and sub-surface helium bubble populations on the sputtering behavior. Results of computational molecular dynamics are reported that investigate the influence of sub-surface helium bubble distributions on the sputtering yield of tungsten (100) and (110) surfaces induced by helium ion exposure in the range of 300 eV to 1 keV. The calculated sputtering yields are in reasonable agreement with a wide range of experimental data; but do not show any significant variation as a result of the pre-existing helium bubbles.Molecular dynamics simulations reveal a number of sub-surface mechanisms leading to nanometer- sized fuzz in tungsten exposed to low-energy helium plasmas. We find that during the bubble formation process, helium clusters create self-interstitial defect clusters in tungsten by a trap mutation process, followed by the migration of these defects to the surface that leads to the formation of layers of adatom islands on the tungsten surface. As the helium clusters grow into nanometer sized bubbles, their proximity to the surface and extremely high gas pressures can cause them to rupture the surface thus enabling helium release. Helium bubble bursting induces additional surface damage and tungsten mass loss which varies depending on the nature of the surface. We then show tendril-like geometries have surfaces that are more resilient to helium clustering and bubble formation and rupture. Finally, the study includes hydrogen to reveal the effect of a mixed 90%H-10%He plasma mix on the tungsten surface. We find that hydrogen greatly affects the tungsten surface, with a near surface hydrogen saturation layer, and that helium clusters still form and are attractive trapping sites for hydrogen.Molecular dynamics simulations have also investigated the effect of sub-surface helium bubble evolution on tungsten surface morphology. The helium bubble/tungsten surface interaction has been systematically studied to determine how parameters such as bubble shape and size, temperature, tungsten surface orientation and ligament thickness above the bubble impact bubble stability and surface evolution. The tungsten surface is roughened by a combination of adatom islands, craters and pinholes. The study provides insight into the mechanisms and conditions leading to various tungsten topology changes, most notably the formation of nanoscale fuzz.An atomistic study of the mechanisms behind initial phases of tungsten nano-fuzz growth has determined that tungsten surfaces are affected by sub-displacement energy helium and hydrogen fluxes through a series of mechanisms. Sub-surface helium atom clustering, bubble nucleation, growth and rupture lead to tungsten surface deformation. Helium clustering processes vary near grain boundaries or in tendril-like surface geometries. In the presence of hydrogen, these mechanisms are coupled with hydrogen surface saturation. Finally, further investigation to connect these atomistic mechanisms to nano-size tungsten fuzz growth is needed to get a comprehensive under- standing of the effects of low energy helium and hydrogen on tungsten.


The unique nature of the Ogallala Aquifer presents interesting and confounding problems for water policymakers who are coping with changing groundwater rules in Texas. The purpose of this article is to link previous efforts in water policy research for the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas with current collaborations that are ongoing with regional water planners. A chronological progression of economic water modeling efforts for the region is reviewed. The results of two recent collaborative studies are presented that provide estimates of impacts of alternative policies on groundwater saturated thickness, water use, net farm income, and regional economic activities.


Background and purpose Older patients with a displaced femoral neck fracture (FNF) are often treated with a cemented primary hemiarthroplasty (HA). The DAICY trial investigates whether high-dose dual-impregnated antibiotic-loaded cement (DIAC) including gentamicin and clindamycin can reduce the risk of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in comparison with low-dose single-impregnated gentamicin antibiotic-loaded cement (SIAC), in patients ≥ 60 years treated with a cemented HA for a displaced FNF. Study design The trial is a national, multicenter, register-based, cluster-randomized, crossover trial. Patients ≥ 60 years with a non-pathological, displaced FNF (Type Garden 3–4/AO 31-B2 or B3) suitable for HA according to local guidelines are eligible for inclusion. Participating orthopedic departments will be randomized to start with either SIAC (control group) or DIAC treatment (intervention group) for 2 years. After 2 years, the study departments will then change to the other treatment arm for the remaining 2 years of the study. Approximately 7,000 patients will be included. The study is pragmatic in that the choice of implant brands, surgical approach and peri- and postoperative protocols follow the local routines of each participating department. All outcome variables will be retrieved after linkage of the study cohort to the following Swedish registers: the Fracture Register, the Arthroplasty Register, the National Patient Register and the Prescribed Drug Registry Outcome The primary outcome will be periprosthetic joint infection of the index joint within 1 year after surgery. Secondary outcomes will be any reoperation on the index joint, mortality within 90 days and 1 year, resistance patterns of causative bacteria in cases of PJI, and health economics. Potential added value This trial is designed to support or refute the efficacy of DIAC used in patients with a displaced FNF, potentially reducing PJI and resource allocation. Start of the trial and estimated duration The DAICY trial started recruiting patients in January 2022 and will continue recruiting for approximately 4 years. Complete follow-up expected in 5 years.


We study the error resilience of the message exchange task: Two parties, each holding a private input, want to exchange their inputs. However, the channel connecting them is governed by an adversary that may corrupt a constant fraction of the transmissions. What is the maximum fraction of corruptions that still allows the parties to exchange their inputs? For the non-adaptive channel, where the parties must agree in advance on the order in which they communicate, the maximum error resilience was shown to be 1/4 (see Braverman and Rao, STOC 2011). The problem was also studied over the adaptive channel, where the order in which the parties communicate may not be predetermined (Ghaffari, Haeupler, and Sudan, STOC 2014; Efremenko, Kol, and Saxena, STOC 2020). These works show that the adaptive channel admits much richer set of protocols but leave open the question of finding its maximum error resilience. In this work, we show that the maximum error resilience of a protocol for message exchange over the adaptive channel is 5/16, thereby settling the above question. Our result requires improving both the known upper bounds and the known lower bounds for the problem.


In this second article (cf. Hofmeyr 2016), like the previous one, I would like to introduce Johannes Hoornbeeck and the Further Reformation, besides other goals, to the Anglo-Saxon world. This article focuses primarily on the 17th-century theologian Johannes Hoornbeeck and some of his views within the context of the Further Reformation. I address the issue related to an analysis of Hoornbeeck's contributions as a missiologist, a theologian with a clear ecumenical and irenical orientation, and a historical theologian. In my opinion, he can be regarded as the second most prominent theologian, besides Gisbertus Voetius. In some respects, Hoornbeeck even surpasses him. This critical overview also focuses on the Further Reformation as an ecclesiastical and theological development.


For us neonatologists, research about necrotizing enterocolitis always incites great curiosity, because our understanding of its physiopathology is largely speculative, and this illness haunts the neonatal intensive care unit. Nowadays, as viability increases, the prevalence of necrotizing enterocolitis is becoming more important because we are taking care of more immature and lower birth-weight infants. Many conditions inherent to prematurity may provoke enterocolitis. However, its pathogenesis is complex and multifactorial; therefore, it is important to emphasize the risk factors besides prematurity: perinatal asphyxia with hypoxia-ischemiareperfusion injury, enteral feeding, and bacterial colonization and/or translocation of the gastrointestinal tract. Prematurity is the single greatest risk factor; decreasing gestational age is associated with an increased risk for necrotizing enterocolitis. Preliminary analysis of the other risk factors shows that immaturity may provoke all of them, since prematurity and asphyxia are commonly associated. Moreover, providing appropriate nutrition for premature infants is not a simple task, and sometimes the absence of human milk obliges us to prescribe infant formulas based on cow milk proteins. These artificial diets could theoretically cause the aggression of immature intestinal mucosa, especially if ischemia is present as a result of asphyxia. In addition, the precise relationship between enteral feeding and the occurrence of necrotizing enterocolitis has not yet been defined, but it is still accepted that the interaction between substrate delivered into the gastrointestinal tract and luminal bacteria plays an important role in the onset of mucosal injury. Another factor that must be highlighted is intestinal bacterial colonization. Microorganisms from vaginal delivery and maternal contact colonize the newborn. The feeding type also presents a primordial aspect in this colonization. Premature infants are sometimes delivered by cesarean section, which changes their bacterial colonization. Additionally, contact with the mother (skin to skin) is postponed because the intra-uterine environment must be mimicked by incubators in the neonatal intensive care unit, where bacterial colonization will be totally different and will include more aggressive microorganisms. Bacterial colonization can also be altered by artificial respirators and many procedures that are commonly used to keep immature infants alive, which unfortunately increases morbidity and mortality and perhaps initializes necrotizing enterocolitis. In this context, several studies have been conducted focusing on clarifying the pathogenesis of enterocolitis, emphasizing the initial inflammatory response. Much knowledge has been accumulating about local and systemic inflammatory mediators. Experimental studies have played an important role in the elucidation of several mediators, such as tumor necrosis factor and platelet-activating factor. Until now, all experiments have had a premise of an illness model, i.e., that necrotizing enterocolitis was already in progress, and the results of the experiments would be used in its treatment.


Members of the family Secoviridae, referred to as secovirids, are plant viruses that share features with animal and human viruses of the family Picornaviridae and other insect or marine viruses of the order Picornavirales. These common features include a conserved structure of the icosahedral virus particles, the expression of viral proteins by proteolytic cleavage of large polyproteins and viral replication proteins with conserved sequence motifs, including the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and protease. Secovirids also share the distinguishing feature of encoding specialised proteins that enable their movement in plant and counteract plant defence mechanisms, such as RNA silencing. The family Secoviridae includes eight genera. Members of the genera Comovirus, Fabavirus, Nepovirus, Cheravirus, Sadwavirus and Torradovirus have a bipartite positive-strand RNA genome, whereas members of the genera Sequivirus and Waikavirus have a monopartite genome.

Key Concepts

Many plant viruses are related to animal and human viruses of the family Picornaviridae and to other picorna-like viruses infecting algae and arthropods.
A recent update in the taxonomy of plant picorna-like viruses has led to the creation of the family Secoviridae which amalgamates the previous families Comoviridae and Sequiviridae as well as the genera Cheravirus, Sequivirus and Torradovirus.
Secovirids share common characteristics including having both similar virus particle structures and genomic organizations and requiring specialised proteins to facilitate their movement within the host plant or counteract plant defence mechanism.
Secovirids produce their proteins in the form of large polyproteins that are cleaved at specific sites by a viral protease.
Replication of the viral RNA occurs in large protein complexes in association with intracellular membranes from the host.
Plant cells infected with secovirids generally display tubular structures that are composed of the viral movement protein, contain virus-like particles and traverse the cell wall. These tubular structures are involved in the movement of the virus from cell to cell.
Secovirids can be transmitted through seeds and pollen or with the help of nematode or arthropod vectors and their spread in the field is largely dependent on their mode of transmission.
Some secovirids have been successfully exploited as plant vectors, allowing epitope presentation for vaccine production, expression of proteins in plants and silencing of endogenous plant genes.

Keywords:

picornavirales;
protease;
virus taxonomy;
plant–virus interactions;
cell-to-cell movement;
virus replication


In online advertising systems, having a good knowledge of user behavior is crucial for click-through rate (CTR) prediction. In recent years, many researchers turn to seek a better way of user representation by modeling the behavior sequences with recurrent neural network (RNN). However, recurrent layers implicitly adopt the assumption that elements with different orders are fundamentally different, which is inefficient in many practical scenarios with much uncertainty and complicated hidden states. In this paper, we follow the paradigm of Relation Network (RN), and propose a new model called Similitude Attentive Relation Network (SARN). The user behavior is modeled as a graph, where nodes correspond to the visited items and edges correspond to the relations. To capture the latent user interest better, the model concentrates on the relations between items, rather than the translation on the time series. More specifically, the model tries to learn the similarity between items in a semantic space through a learnable dot-product operation and blend both of the item representations and relational information together as the final relations. We define our user representation on an attentive pooling of the relations directly. To verify the effectiveness of our method, extensive experiments on two public datasets and one real-world online advertising dataset are conducted. Experimental results show that our methods achieve usually better performance than others. Besides, we explore the properties of our model by controlled experiments and show the learned relational knowledge by visualizing the inner states of SARN.