This paper presents an overview of the theory and currently known techniques for multi-cell MIMO (multiple input multiple output) cooperation in wireless networks. In dense networks where interference emerges as the key capacity-limiting factor, multi-cell cooperation can dramatically improve the system performance. Remarkably, such techniques literally exploit inter-cell interference by allowing the user data to be jointly processed by several interfering base stations, thus mimicking the benefits of a large virtual MIMO array. Multi-cell MIMO cooperation concepts are examined from different perspectives, including an examination of the fundamental information-theoretic limits, a review of the coding and signal processing algorithmic developments, and, going beyond that, consideration of very practical issues related to scalability and system-level integration. A few promising and quite fundamental research avenues are also suggested.


This article proposes a new hybrid-excited dual-permanent-magnet generator with the relieving-dc-saturation (RDCS) structure for stand-alone wind power generation. The proposed generator integrates the stator dc source and rotor permanent-magnet (PM) source in a single brushless structure, which enables coordinated power generation and flexible power adjustment. Moreover, considering the parasitic saturation effect in the stator core caused by the dc field source, a constant PM bias is introduced at the stator side to construct an RDCS structure, so that the core utilization ratio is improved as well as the generator power density. In this article, the generator structure and the operation principle are introduced. Some leading design parameters are determined based on the sensitivity analysis. A finite element and genetic algorithm combined method is further adopted to realize a multi-objective design optimization, and the optimal design of the proposed topology is verified to be a potential generator candidate for stand-alone wind power generation.


Subsistence farmers have long recognized the importance of trees as a source of many goods, services and amenities. However, central to tree growing activities should be the development of opportunities for farmers to generate and improve their income by value adding. A variety of value-adding activities are undertaken in small-scale forestry in Leyte. This includes production of fuelwood, charcoal, lumber, furniture and novelty items. By increasing forestry revenue, value-adding encourages smallholders to plant more trees. Community forestry, as an alternative to individually owned forestry, allows smallholders to work together to increase productivity and creates opportunities for value adding. Since smallholders lack resources and other needed technical knowledge, the role of support organizations such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) are crucial for value-adding. These agencies can help smallholders in the processing of papers to make the venture legal and in establishing market linkage for the product that they will produce.


Abstract Sedges of Carex flava agg., typical of moist or wet habitats, are difficult to classify because of a lack of clear-cut morphological differences between them and the existence of numerous hybrids. This monograph presents results of research conducted in 2007-2012 in various parts of Poland. The plant material consisted of 1852 living specimens of Carex flava agg., collected from 80 localities, and dried specimens from 26 herbaria and from 7 private collections. The analysis involved 45 morphological characters (34 quantitative and 11 qualitative) and 9 soil parameters. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate statistical methods were used to process the data. The results confirm the taxonomic classification dividing the C. flava group into 4 species: C. flava s.s., C. lepidocarpa, C. demissa, and C. viridula. This classification is based on (i) a high observed level of morphological separation of these taxa, resulting mostly from differences in generative characters, i.e. length of the utricle and its beak, and percentage ratio of beak length to total utricle length; (ii) integrity of the taxa at the sites where they coexist, although some intermediate forms resulting from hybridization are also present; (iii) habitat preferences of the taxa, especially the preference of C. lepidocarpa for calcareous sites and of C. demissa for slightly acidic soils. Thus in Poland the analysed taxa are morphologically well-defined and show clear ecological preferences. Continuous variation of morphological characters was observed among specimens of C. viridula, so it is not justifiable to distinguish its subspecies (sometimes classified even as separate species), described previously in literature. Consequently, the 2 subgroups of C. viridula were treated as local variants (i.e. varieties: var. viridula and var. pulchella), considering their different habitat requirements. Additionally, 5 hybrids were distinguished within C. flava agg.: C. ×alsatica [= C. demissa × C. flava], C. ×ruedtii [= C. flava × C. lepidocarpa], C. ×schatzii [= C. lepidocarpa × C. viridula], C. ×subviridula [= C. flava × C. viridula], and C. demissa × C. viridula; as well as 2 hybrids with C. hostiana as one of the parents: C. ×fulva [= C. demissa × C. hostiana] and C. ×leutzii [= C. hostiana × C. lepidocarpa].


Dysfunctional emotional processing affects social functioning in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationship between emotional perception and response in social interaction has not been elucidated. Twenty-seven patients with schizophrenia and 27 normal controls performed a virtual reality social encounter task in which they introduced themselves to avatars expressing happy, neutral, or angry emotions while verbal response duration and onset time were measured and perception of emotional valence and arousal, and state anxiety were rated afterwards. Self-reported trait-affective scale scores and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) ratings were also obtained. Patient group significantly underestimated the valence and arousal of angry emotions expressed by an avatar. While valence and arousal ratings of happy avatars were comparable between groups, patient group reported significantly higher state anxiety in response to happy avatars. State anxiety ratings significantly decreased from encounters with neutral to happy avatars in normal controls while no significant decrease was observed in the patient group. The Social Anhedonia Scale and PANSS negative symptom subscale scores (blunted affect, emotional withdrawal, and passive/apathetic social withdrawal items) were significantly correlated with state anxiety ratings of the encounters with happy avatars. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia have interference with the experience of pleasure in social interactions which may be associated with negative symptoms.


The expression of two cellular oncogenes (c-myc and c-Ha-ras), the epidermal growth factor receptor gene, and two endogenous retrovirus-like sequences (rat leukemia virus and 30S) was examined in control (nonregenerating) rat livers and at various times after partial hepatectomy. One group of rats had been fed phenobarbital (0.05%) for 16 days prior to the partial hepatectomy. The feeding of phenobarbital (0.05%) itself led to a 65% decrease in the level of epidermal growth factor receptor RNA, but no major change in the level of c-myc, H-ras, rat leukemia virus, or 30S RNAs, in the control rat livers. There was a considerable increase (4- to 5-fold) in the level of c-myc transcripts, at 12 and 48 h after partial hepatectomy in the phenobarbital-treated rats, and at 12 and 24 h in the rats on the control diet. By 72 h, the level of c-myc transcripts returned to normal in both groups of rats. A slight increase (about 1.5-fold) in the level of c-H-ras transcripts was seen at 24 h, which returned to normal levels by 168 h, in the regenerating livers of both the phenobarbital-treated and control diet rats. The regenerating livers displayed a marked decrease (3- to 4-fold) in the level of epidermal growth factor receptor RNA in both the phenobarbital and control diet rats. A marked increase (5- to 6-fold) in the level of transcripts homologous to the endogenous rat leukemia virus-like sequence was seen at 24 h in all of the regenerating livers, but there was no significant change in the level of RNAs homologous to 30S. Thus, the proliferation of normal rat liver cells mimics some but not all of the changes in mRNA levels that we have previously described in rat liver tumors.


As an emerging petroleum producer, Kenya has the opportunity to use the benefits of its natural resource wealth to further economic and human development.  The main factor within the government's control that will determine the amount of potential government revenue from Kenya's petroleum wealth is the set of fiscal (tax) terms offered to international oil companies to explore for new sources of oil and natural gas. There is growing concern among resource-rich developing countries in Africa and beyond that multinational companies are employing aggressive tax avoidance strategies in order to increase their share of divisible revenue. Of the potential mechanisms through which companies seek to minimize their revenue payments to governments, an area of concern is the use of subsidiaries registered in tax havens. This report reveals the widespread use of tax havens and low tax jurisdictions in the corporate structures of companies holding petroleum rights in Kenya.


The extensiveness of a lesion may determine its seriousness. In burns and scalds, the importance of extent of lesion has long been recognized. Sixty-three years ago, Timothy Holmes 1 said, "These injuries have been variously classified, into four divisions by Heister and Callisen, into six by Dupuytren, and various other divisions have been proposed; all of them indicating the depth of tissue implicated in the injury . . . but another, and perhaps even more important, consideration is the extent of the burnt surface—a matter which necessarily eludes formal classification." It is indeed impossible, practically, to determine the actual extent of a lesion. But, what is of greater value, its extensiveness relative to the body surface can be readily estimated. To express such relationship, the lesion must be compared with factors in the body surface which (1) represent the total surface area of the body; (2) maintain a constant relation to each other


Monitoring the breathing air in tritium facility rooms for airborne tritium is a radiological safety requirement and a best practice for personnel safety. Besides audible alarms for room evacuation, these monitors often send signals for process shutdown, ventilation isolation, and cleanup system actuation to mitigate releases and prevent tritium spread to the environment. Therefore, these monitors are important not only to personnel safety but also to public safety and environmental protection. This paper presents an operating experience review of tritium monitor performance on demand during small (1 mCi to 1 Ci) operational releases, and intentional airborne in-room tritium release tests. The tritium tests provide monitor operation data to allow calculation of a statistical estimate for the reliability of monitors annunciating in actual tritium gas airborne release situations. The data show a failure to operate rate of 3.5E-06/monitor-hr with an upper bound of 4.7E-06, a failure to alarm on demand rate of 1.4E-02/demand with an upper bound of 4.4E-02, and a spurious alarm rate of 0.1 to 0.2/monitor-yr.


I enjoyed this beautifully produced book with its excellent black-and-white photomicrographs. One regrets that colored photomicrographs could not have been used throughout the volume. The isolated colored photomicrographs that were used were reduced, limiting their value. This book covers the subject of lymphoma of the skin, and the editors are to be congratulated in starting the volume with three chapters that give a good discussion of lymph node lymphoma pathology and classification of lymphoma. Throughout the book the classifications are clearly referenced, to the reader's benefit. The immunopathology of nodes and a diagnostic approach to lymph node changes are outlined in a clear fashion. When lymphoma in the skin is discussed, the problems of defining benign and malignant lesions are stressed. The gap between classification of lymphoma as a lymph node disease and lymphoma as a skin disease is not adequately bridged in this or other volumes. The B-cell tumors,


Self excitations of slender structures under axial flow have been reported in a large variety of local flow configurations. This paper reports on the analytical results of a research program aimed at studying basic phenomena leading to fluidelastic instabilities.
 A friction-based model is proposed to calculate the fluidelastic forces induced by axial flow. It is developed here for an axial flow between two surfaces. This method is an extension of the studies which were carried out by Miller (1970), Hobson (1982) and Mulcahy (1988). A pressure drop is introduced in the system with a local or continuous pressure drop factor. This model is based on a modal analysis and is presented for structures with several degrees-of-freedom.
 The continuity and momentum equations are integrated along the fluid domain thickness with the boundary conditions on the structure. A linearization of these equations gives the expression of the fluctuating velocity and pressure. With a modal analysis, the fluidelastic force expression is obtained by the integration of the pressure on the structure wall. Three terms, called added terms, are identified: inertial, damping and stiffness. For several cases and different locations of the pressure drop, the behavior of this system and the flutter instability are analysed.


There are many studies regarding the value of gaining cultural awareness, but limited empirical evidence has been shared on programs that use integrated learning and capacity building interventions to specifically build cultural competence in aspiring undergraduate leaders. This qualitative case study examined the effects of interventions designed to build intercultural competence in first-year honors students participating in a leadership development program using co-curricular activities, undergraduate research, and a short-term education abroad. Data collected from two cohorts who completed the first year of the program revealed students' perceptions of their short-term education abroad experience's impact on their intercultural competence and leadership development. The study demonstrates the value of integrated leadership and intercultural competence development among undergraduate students.


In this thesis work, fault tolerant control and operation of a Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) has been investigated. The MMC consists of multiple Sub Modules (SM). The MMC technology is rapidly evolving, and research is ongoing to make it suitable for more applications. Uninterruptable power distribution is more crucial than ever due to an increasing dependence on electric power supply for several operations, and the cost related to blackouts. The modularity of the MMC is advantageous for uninterruptable operation. If one SM fails, it can easily be bypassed and the converter can continue to operate. For the MMC the availability is very high, although the amount of components leads to a lower reliability than some of the conventional multilevel converters. A new fault tolerant control has been developed based on an idea of modifying the reference waveforms that is used in the modulation. This is to maintain balanced line to line voltages. The method addresses faults that occur within one of the SMs. The advantage of this method is that existing redundancies in the non-faulty phases is used to maintain the same voltage amplitudes as in the pre-fault state. This can potentially reduce the cost of the converter. Investigation of the Reference Modification Method (RMM) has been done theoretically, by computer simulation and in the laboratory. Theoretically the RMM has proven valid. The commercial value of the method is assumed to depend greatly on the amount of SMs present in the design. The computer simulation results indicate that the voltages and currents remain balanced and with the same amplitudes as in pre-fault condition. The RMM shows great potential based on the results in this report. Steady state values from simulation and hardware differ with approximately 15 %. This deviation is expected to be caused by underestimation of resistive losses in the hardware circuit. When the RMM was run on the hardware setup, arm voltage measurements showed the expected shapes and amplitudes. The phase voltages show a deviation by 6-7% from the steady state values and the line voltages a deviation of 4-5%. Unexpected arm current peaks in the faulty phase were observed. It is expected that these occurred due to how the test was conducted and not the method to be tested. Further investigation of the method should be done to verify the results in this report.


Mosquito-borne disease is an annual problem in Australia, with endemic pathogens such as Ross River virus infecting thousands of people each year. The recent emergence of Zika virus in South America and the Pacific, together with ongoing outbreaks of dengue viruses in Southeast Asia, generated great community interest in the most effective strategies to avoid mosquito bites. Large-scale mosquito control programs are not common in Australia and are limited in New South Wales (NSW). The use of topical insect repellents is a key recommendation by health authorities to prevent mosquito-borne disease. All products sold in Australia purporting to repel mosquitoes must be registered with the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. Despite around 100 commercial products registered as repelling mosquitoes, there are relatively few active ingredients used across these formulations. The most common are diethyltoluamide (DEET), picaridin, p-menthane-3,8-diol (PMD) and a range of plant-derived products (e.g. melaleuca, eucalyptus, citronella oils). Research has shown that each of these active ingredients varies in the duration of protection provided against biting mosquitoes. Recommendations by health authorities are informed by this research, but inconsistencies between recommendations and available repellent formulations and their concentration of active ingredients can cause confusion in the community. There are conflicts between the data resulting from scholarly research, marketing promotion by manufacturers and recommendations provided by overseas health authorities. A review was undertaken of NSW Health's current recommendations on choosing and using insect repellents, taking into consideration recent research and currently registered topical repellents.


Reproducibility has been shown to be limited in many scientific fields. This question is a fundamental tenet of the scientific activity, but the related issues of reusability of scientific data are poorly documented. Here, we present a case study of our attempt to reproduce a promising bioinformatics method [1] and illustrate the challenges to use a published method for which code and data were available. First, we tried to re-run the analysis with the code and data provided by the authors. Second, we reimplemented the method in Python to avoid dependency on a MATLAB licence and ease the execution of the code on HPCC (High-Performance Computing Cluster). Third, we assessed reusability of our reimplementation and the quality of our documentation. Then, we experimented with our own software and tested how easy it would be to start from our implementation to reproduce the results, hence attempting to estimate the robustness of the reproducibility. Finally, in a second part, we propose solutions from this case study and other observations to improve reproducibility and research efficiency at the individual and collective level. Availability last version of StratiPy (Python) with two examples of reproducibility are available at GitHub [2]. Contact firstname.lastname@example.com


For years, researchers have wondered whether the easily broken "fragile sites" that riddle the chromosomes are somehow involved in the genetic abnormalities that are a hallmark of aggressively growing cancer cells. The discovery of what appears to be an important new tumor-suppressor gene, called FHIT, in a fragile site on chromosome 3 now suggests that they are. FHIT's location there, for example, may render it susceptible to inactivation by chemical or viral carcinogens. Further studies are needed to confirm this, however, as the gene hasn't been definitively shown to be a tumor suppressor.


We re-examine the long-term price interaction between the Australian equity market and futures market based on bootstrap causality tests with leverage adjustments to take into account multivariate ARCH effects and with the use of a new information criterion to choose the lag order. We cover the period January 1, 1988 to May 10, 2002. We find that the futures price Granger-causes the spot price but not vice-versa. Hence, our results indicate that price discovery starts with the futures market and information transmission between the two markets is not efficient.


While China is developing a sophisticated national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy and allocating massive government funding to capture global market share in AI, Europe is simply going through the motions. Instead, the EU has made values and ethics in AI its top priority. Ironically, even if the EU's first priority is to shape AI ethics, it will be severely limited in its ability to do so if it is not leading the development and adoption of this technology. As Eline Chivot and Daniel Castro write for Euronews, Europe will not win the AI race by philosophizing on the sidelines. Rather, it needs to play hardball and focus on putting in place the investment, skills, data, and regulations needed to outcompete China.


The compositions of both organic and mineral parts of shells of Nautilus macromphalus, a Cenozoic nautiloid and Jurassic ammonites are compared. The microstructures of the fossil shells show minor diagenetic changes, despite their aragonitic mineralogy. The bulk analysis of the organic matrices, molecular weights, acidity and amino-acid contents have been studied. All the fossil shells are compositionally altered relative to modern counterparts, with the organic components both extensively lost and chemically modified. Alterations are variable within a single fossil site. Implications of these diagenetic changes for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions are examined.


Service members who are injured or come down with a disease while on active duty have two roads to seek compensation for disability benefits that are part of the enlistment contract. The first road is military disability retirement, administered by the armed services. The second road is VA compensation administered by the cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs. Both systems are near collapse due to a backlog of undecided claims and manifest injustices in awarding benefits to disabled veterans and dependents.Professor Reed proposes a radical reform of the dual compensation system by combining military disability retirement and VA benefits into a single program administered by the VA. He also proposes a "clean up" of the Va claims processing system to make the system work. That "clean up" includes setting deadlines for VA action, providing limited discovery for Board of Veterans Appeals hearings and re-writing the overly-complex Schedule for Rating Disabilities into a simple four step award system.


This paper describes the fabrication of chip-scale alkali atom vapor cells, for use in highly miniaturized atomic frequency references, using silicon micromachining and anodic bonding technology. The cells consist of silicon cavities with internal volume ranging from a few mm/sup 3/ to less than 1 mm/sup 3/. The cells were filled with cesium and nitrogen buffer gas either by chemical reaction of cesium chloride and barium azide, or by direct injection of elemental cesium within a controlled anaerobic environment. Cesium optical absorption spectra were obtained from the cells, and coherent population trapping resonances with linewidths of about 1 kHz were measured.


Baking Problems Solved, Second Edition, provides a fully revised follow-up to the innovative question and answer format of its predecessor. Presenting a quick bakery problem-solving reference, Stanley Cauvain returns with more practical insights into the latest baking issues. Retaining its logical and methodical approach, the book guides bakers through various issues which arise throughout the baking process.

 The book begins with issues found in the use of raw materials, including chapters on wheat and grains, flour, and fats, amongst others. It then progresses to the problems that occur in the intermediate stages of baking, such as the creation of doughs and batters, and the input of water. Finally, it delves into the difficulties experienced with end products in baking by including chapters on bread and fermented products, cakes, biscuits, and cookies and pastries.

 Uses a detailed and clear question and answer format that is ideal for quick reference

 Combines new, up-to-date problems and solutions with the best of the previous volume

 Presents a wide range of ingredient and process solutions from a world-leading expert in the baking industry


fair to say that while the majority of plant biochemists are not prepared to accept his singularly personal view of photosynthesis they have hesitated, because of his undoubted eminence, to dismiss it entirely. While we ourselves are not qualified to comment, we suspect that his theory concerning the origin of cancer cells' might promote an entirely similar reaction. Nevertheless we feel compelled to draw attention to a chemically induced condition which appears to be remarkably consistent with his proposals. We refer to the increasing number of reports23 on the toxic effects of methyl viologen and related bipyridyls such as the weed killers Diquat and Paraquat. It is now well established that poisoning by these agents is characterized by a proliferation of the epithelium of the lung.4 Methyl viologen can accept electrons from reduced coenzymes and carriers of appropriate redox potential and then undergo rapid reoxidation at the expense of molecular oxygen which is in turn reduced to hydrogen peroxide. In the absence of sufficient catalase, accumulation of peroxide will itself be damaging, but the point that we wish to emphasize is that near anaerobiosis is also easily established. Thus in some oxygen-producing photosynthetic systems the addition of methyl viologen is rapidly followed by a fall in oxygen to a concentration at which it can no longer be readily detected by polarographic measurement. Therefore, even in a well-aerated oxygen-consuming system, such as lung epithelium, methyl viologen (because of its rapid autoxidation and affinity for oxygen) might also be expected to promote near anaerobic conditions within the cells. Oxygen diffusing into the cells would then be consumed as long as the methyl viologen continued to undergo cyclic reduction and reoxidation. External administration of oxygen would facilitate this process. The effect of cycling would be to promote reoxidation of reduced coenzymes6 in such a way that the normal processes in which energy is conserved as ATP would be by-passed. As we understand it, this is also the crux of Warburg's theory of carcinogenisis. It may be that this striking parallel (between Warburg's proposals and this chemically induced proliferation of a wellaerated tissue) is entirely fortuitous, but at least it would appear to merit further investigation.-We are, etc.,


In the United States, variable annuity contracts are mutual funds with tax-deferred investment gains containing an additional embedded put option with a stochastic maturity date. At death, the beneficiary - or estate - of the policy owner is assured to receive the greater of the account market value and the original investment premium, perhaps with a minimally guaranteed "roll up" rate. Payment for this life-contingent claim, is not made up front, but rather deducted continuously from the account in the form of a constant insurance expense ratio. This proportional expense stands in contrast to a fixed periodic - or initial - insurance premium and is what differentiates our research from previous analysis of similar equity-linked life products. In this paper we value the guaranteed minimum death benefit (GMDB) of a variable annuity by melding the tools of continuous-time financial economics and the actuarial theory of mortality functions. Specifically, we solve for the equilibrium insurance expense ratio that funds the embedded put option. We demonstrate that the equilibrium expense ratio solves a type of fixed point equation that relates the risk-neutral expected present value of costs and benefits. From an analytic perspective, with an assumed constant force of mortality, we show that the present value of the guaranteed minimum death benefit is the Laplace transform - in time - of the classical Black-Scholes/Merton equation adjusted for dividends, where the dividend is the insurance expense ratio. Remarkably, the final expression can be obtained in closed form and does not even involve the normal density. On the other hand, when the mortality is given a more realistic continuous time Gompertz structure, we obtain quite robust expressions and numerical values for the equilibrium insurance expense ratio. Finally, using a cross section of average insurance expense ratios (known as Mortality and Expense charges) provided by Morningstar Data - and reasonable estimates of market volatility - we conclude that in most cases the insurance industry is charging variable annuity holders approximately five to ten times the economic value of the guarantee.


The most common unhealthy lifestyle factors like cigarette smoking and drinking alcohol have controversial reports on how these impact male fertility. The present study assessed the potential effects of these habits on sperm quality, male reproductive hormones, and blood plasma oxidative profile in 133 infertile men with 124 fertile, healthy controls. Among the participants, 28 (10.8 %), 29 (11.2 %), 33 (12.8 %), 34 (13.2 %) fertile men were non-alcoholics and non-smokers (total abstainers), smokers, alcohol drinkers, and smokers plus alcohol drinkers, respectively. On the other hand, 32 (12.4 %), 30 (11.6 %), 34 (13.2 %), 37 (14.3 %) infertile men were total abstainers, smokers, alcohol drinkers, and smokers plus alcohol drinkers, respectively. The conventional sperm parameters and reproductive hormone levels were found to be significantly different in the subsets of infertile men than those of fertile men (p<0.001). In these subsets of infertile men, blood plasma malondialdehyde, nitric oxide concentrations were significantly higher and superoxide dismutase, reduced glutathione activities were significantly lower when compared to fertile men and infertile men total abstainers group (p<0.001). In infertile subjects, particularly smoking-alcohol drinking group was more affected than only smoking or alcohol drinking groups. Furthermore, these oxidative markers were correlated with sperm concentration, motility, and morphology, except nitric oxide concentration, which was only associated with sperm motility. These findings highlighted that blood plasma antioxidants are as efficient as seminal plasma antioxidants in male fertility evaluation.


High resilience is characterised by qualities of equanimity, perseverance, self-reliance, meaningfulness and existential aloneness. The aims of the present study were both to explore how the oldest of old men and women with estimated high resilience talk about experiences of becoming and being old, and to discuss the analysis of their narratives in terms of the foundational concepts of the Resilience Scale (RS). Thematic narrative interviews collected from 24 old people were analysed using content analysis, and the following themes were identified: feeling connected, feeling independent and creating meaning. The themes can be seen as congruent with the underlying concepts of the Resilience Scale; however, the themes were markedly gendered. A combination of both quantitative and qualitative research may contribute to a new angle of approach towards our understanding of resilience. In nursing practice it is of importance to both stimulate social contacts in the present and listen to narratives from the past to increase resilience among the oldest patients.


A severe atypical pneumonia designated as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) by The World Health Organization broke out in China and menaced to more than other 30 countries between the end of the year 2002 and June of the year 2003. A novel coronavirus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) has been recently identified as the etiological agent responsible for the infectious SARS disease. Based on extensively scientific cooperation and almost two-year's studies, remarkable achievements have been made in the understanding of the phylogenetic property and the genome organization of SARS-CoV, as well as the detailed characters of the major proteins involved in SARS-CoV life cycle. In this review, we would like to summarize the substantial scientific progress that has been made towards the structural and functional aspects of SARS-CoV associated key proteins. The progress focused on the corresponding key proteins' structure-based drug and vaccine developments has been also highlighted. The concerted and cooperative response for the treatment of the SARS disease has been proved to be a triumph of global public health and provides a new paradigm for the detection and control of future emerging infectious disease threats.


INTRODUCTION The distribution, and occurrence, of sulphides and opaque oxides as normal accessory minerals or minor constituents in the common igneous rocks has received little detailed attention, although the subject has an important bearing on both petrogenesis and ore genesis. Variations in the species of sulphide and oxide minerals, in their contained metals, and in their different positions in the crystallization sequence of the rock silicates are present and should have a significant bearing on the time and manner of possible metal departure from a magmatic source. The correlation of these variations with different rock types and rock occurrence has given some interesting and unexpected results. Normal igneous rocks, with a considerable range in composition and texture and from many widely scattered localities, were studied in polished sections, supplemented, in a few cases, by thin-section study. The study was intended to outline and generally survey the field rather than to . . .


"Istituto Italiano per la storia antica" has just celebrated the eightieth anniversary of its foundation. It was established on 25 February 1935, within the context of the systematic reorganization of historical studies that the Fascist regime carried out in the mid-1930s. This paper provides a survey of the fifty years of history of the previous organization (starting in 1883, the foundation year of "Istituto storico italiano"); the historiographical debate that led to the creation of an Institute devoted specifically to Ancient History; and the centralist logic that underpinned the regime's organizational and political choices in that endeavour. It then offers an overview of the history of the Institute since its foundation. The early history of the Institute (1935-43) stands out as especially instructive. It was created as a national centre for the promotion and coordination of the study of ancient (especially Roman) history in Fascist Italy. It emerges as an instance of the dissociation between rhetoric and practice that was a distinctive feature of many aspects of Fascism, and is especially apparent in its ideological exploitation of Roman antiquity.


The Limits of Length of overthrust Blocks If a rupture plane of low dip exist in the earth's crust emergent at the surface, and if a stress exist in the overlying prism which tends to move it toward the emergent side, the movement is restrained by the friction of the surfaces in contact on the rupture plane. If, further, the stress be due to a pressure applied from without to the cross-section of the prism, then, in order that the prism may move, and so be thrust over the underlying rock-mass, the pressure must exceed the friction on the rupture plane. If the stress be tangential in direction and uniformly distributed in the cross-section of the prism, then the limiting length of the prism which may be moved is determinable; since, when the stress necessary to overcome the frictional resistance becomes greater than the strength of the material of the . . .


Yu, V. Y. H. (1976). Archives of Disease in Childhood, 51, 305. Cardiorespiratory response to feeding in newborn infants. Milk feeds were given through indwelling nasogastric tubes to 14 infants with respiratory distress. Similar cardiorespiratory disturbances were observed when the infants were fed (5 ml/kg per feed) human milk, cow's milk, or distilled water. Pao, fell after a feed but recovered to the prefeed value at 30 minutes, at which time Paco, had fallen and the respiratory rate had increased. No changes in pH, heart rate, or blood pressure were observed. Portal sinus pressures rose after feeding in association with an increase in central venous pressure. In contrast, when the ill infants were fed human milk at a volume of 2 * 5 ml/kg per feed no consistent changes in any of the measurements were found. These studies suggested that the cardiorespiratory effects were related to volume displacement resulting from feeds being introduced into the stomach. The relation of the increase in central venous pressure and the magnitude and direction of shunting in infants with the respiratory distress syndrome is uncertain. Adverse effects may be avoided by giving smaller, and therefore even more frequent, feeds.


Framing decision options as gains or as losses affects how we evaluate those options. The current study assessed the effects of gainand loss-framing on the acquisition of outcome values across decisions and on the dynamics of computer mouse responses to those decisions. In a series of 36 decisions per block, four arbitrary symbols were presented, two of which were assigned high points (e.g., 20) and two of which were assigned low points (e.g., 5). Participants (N=86) learned to choose high values and avoid low values when values were positive and to choose low values and avoid high values when they were negative. Loss-framed outcomes (i.e., negative valence) were learned faster and more reliably. Response trajectories following acquisition were slower, more curved and exhibited greater vacillation when choosing between two poor outcomes. These effects were stronger when poor outcomes were negatively valenced.


BH01 Methotrexate monotherapy for alopecia universalis: a successful treatment not to be overlooked Sophie Rolls St Woolos' and The Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, UK Alopecia areata (AA) has a lifetime risk of 2% and carries huge psychological burden. Management of this refractory disease is challenging. There is no standard treatment that is consistently effective and therefore therapeutic options are numerous. Methotrexate (MTX) is a conventional therapy for autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, and is well tolerated. Despite lack of high-quality randomized controlled trial evidence, it has been proven that females with AA have significantly better outcomes when treated with MTX. We report the case of a 25-year-old woman with alopecia universalis (AU), successfully treated with MTX monotherapy. At the age of 19 years, our patient was diagnosed with AU; she experienced total hair loss over 1 month. Her hair spontaneously regrew over 1 year without the need for treatment. At 23 years of age, she developed a further episode of AU. Her medical history included atopic dermatitis, which was well controlled with topical therapy. She was initiated on 5 mg oral MTX once weekly, which was titrated gradually up to 20 mg, with folic acid 5 mg on non-MTX days. A good response was noted from 4 weeks, with evidence of regrowth over the scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, trunk and limbs. She developed complete regrowth of her scalp, except for two band-like areas above her ears. Her eyebrows and eyelashes have regrown well and she continues to develop hair regrowth on her limbs. To date, she has been on 20 mg MTX once weekly for 15 months. Overall, she tolerated the treatment well, experiencing manageable fatigue and nausea, which subsided when MTX was switched from oral to subcutaneous administration (Metoject). Laboratory investigations remained within normal limits throughout treatment. Our case highlights that MTX monotherapy can be a successful treatment for AA and should not be overlooked. It is safe, well tolerated and leads to cosmetically acceptable regrowth. Furthermore, it avoids the sequelae associated with corticosteroids and is a good option to consider in patients with prognostic features associated with better outcomes, such as adults and female patients. BH02 (P25) Assessing the clinicophenotypic characteristics and metabolic changes in males with early-onset androgenetic alopecia and altered hormonal profile: a comparative cross-sectional study Vinay Keshavamurthy, Rajsmita Bhattacharjee, Anuradha Bishnoi, Akanksh Kaushik, Naresh Sachdeva, Arnab Pal, Tarun Narang and Sunil Dogra PGIMER, Chandigarh, India Men with early-onset androgenetic alopecia (AGA) are at a significantly increased risk of insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease, and frequently show an abnormal hormonal milieu (Cannarella R, Condorelli RA, Dall'Oglio F et al. Increased DHEAS and decreased total testosterone serum levels in a subset of men with early-onset androgenetic alopecia: does a male PCOS-equivalent exist? Int J Endocrinol 2020; 2020: 1942126; Sanke S, Chander R, Jain A et al. A comparison of the hormonal profile of early androgenetic alopecia in men with the phenotypic equivalent of polycystic ovarian syndrome in women. JAMA Dermatol 2016; 152: 986–91). This study was conducted to determine the clinicophenotypic characteristics, and prevalence of hormonal and metabolic changes in men with early-onset AGA. Consecutive male patients with AGA aged < 30 years with a Norwood– Hamilton grade ≥ 3 were recruited in this comparative crosssectional study, and were classified based on endocrine evaluation as those with altered hormonal profile (group A) and those with normal hormonal profile (group B). Both groups were then compared with each other for difference in disease phenotype and severity (Norwood–Hamilton grade), insulin resistance and parameters of metabolic syndrome (Adult Treatment Panel III guidelines). Of 100 patients with AGA, 34% had an altered hormonal profile, 44% had insulin resistance and 26% had metabolic syndrome. Presence of altered hormonal profile had significant association with insulin resistance and severe alopecia (≥ grade 4 on the Hamilton–Norwood Scale). On subgroup analyses, patients in group A who also had insulin resistance had significantly higher prevalence of ≥ grade 4 alopecia (P = 0 004). The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was not affected by an altered hormonal milieu. Altered hormonal profile, as well as insulin resistance, was noted in one-third of male patients with early-onset AGA. Those with an altered hormonal profile exhibited higher prevalence of insulin resistance and were likely to have severe grades of AGA. The limitation of the study include its crosssectional study design.


Across the country a new poverty agenda is emerging. These efforts are limited by the political consensus that has emerged since welfare reform and focus, as has always been the case, on the "deserving" - in today's iteration, primarily the working poor. Mirroring national and international trends, the means of governance of these new social welfare programs has also begun to change. Where once there was a set of programs ostensibly controlled through law and regulations, in growing pockets there is now radical devolution and abandonment of traditional legal and rule making structures. Experiments in policy, program structure, and governance frameworks proliferate. These new governing structures are closely aligned with new-governance theory, which in turn holds out the promise that, through a process of deep democratic participation and continual experimentation and redesign, the governing enterprise will produce a set of policies that are more responsive to the real needs of those in poverty. This Article argues, however, that prevalent governing mechanisms of the new poverty agenda diminish rather than enhance accountability and responsiveness. Programs structures undermine the ability of recipients to ensure that these benefits are being fairly administered. Moreover, contrary to the best of new-governance theory, the absence of substantive participation by poor communities in goal-setting and program design fundamentally undermines the experimentalist enterprise. The new poverty policy "experiments" reveal an unwillingness to test the subordination-tinged political assumptions of "deservingness" and "undeservingness" that lie at the heart of the new poverty policy, thereby limiting the ability of the experimentalist enterprise to create more responsive poverty policy. Despite these striking failures, however, new poverty programs could realize the deep democracy promise of new governance. If governing systems include effective structures to ensure accountability both to those who seek to benefit and to the communities that seek to participate in designing and evaluating programs, new-governance frameworks can be strategically deployed to facilitate the creation of a more responsive new poverty agenda.


Abstract. Sea state data are of major importance for climate studies, marine engineering, safety at sea and coastal management. However, long-term sea state datasets are sparse and not always consistent, and sea state data users still mostly rely on numerical wave models for research and engineering applications. Facing the urgent need for a sea state climate data record, the Global Climate Observing System has listed "Sea State" as an Essential Climate Variable (ECV), fostering the launch in 2018 of the Sea State Climate Change Initiative (CCI). The CCI is a programme of the European Space Agency, whose objective is to realise the full potential of global Earth observation archives established by ESA and its member states in order to contribute to the ECV database. This paper presents the implementation of the first release of the Sea State CCI dataset, the implementation and benefits of a high-level denoising method, its validation against in situ measurements and numerical model outputs, and the future developments considered within the Sea State CCI project. The Sea State CCI dataset v1 is freely available on the ESA CCI website (http://cci.esa.int/data, last access: 25 August 2020) at ftp://anon-ftp.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/esacci/sea_state/data/v1.1_release/ (last access: 25 August 2020). Three products are available: a multi-mission along-track L2P product (http://dx.doi.org/10.5285/f91cd3ee7b6243d5b7d41b9beaf397e1, Piollé et al., 2020a), a daily merged multi mission along-track L3 product (http://dx.doi.org/10.5285/3ef6a5a66e9947d39b356251909dc12b, Piollé et al., 2020b) and a multi-mission monthly gridded L4 product (http://dx.doi.org/10.5285/47140d618dcc40309e1edbca7e773478, Piollé et al., 2020c).


This article investigates the urban transformation in Amsterdam in the sixteenth century. Building archaeological and dendrochronological surveys indicate that from about 1530 on, houses were renewed, while houses from before that year are virtually absent. The year 1530 may be linked to an imperial order of 1521, in which Charles V decreed that the existing wooden buildings in Amsterdam had to be demolished and had to be replaced by stone buildings. The municipality, which since 1524 had a building supervisor, with alignment officials who came under his leadership since 1528, started to keep a building administration and formulated a comprehensive building code in 1531. The growth of the population and the resulting pressure on public space, made the city government to create space for traffic and trade. This led to modifications of roads, embankments and building blocks and inflationary rising real estate prices. For a large group of citizens who could benefit from the increasing prosperity of that time, this economical high tide was an occasion to invest in real estate, which led to a sustainable renewal of the housing stock, of which some houses have survived until the present day.


Starting the third year of his term, President Joko Widodo launch OPP package (Operation Combating Extortion). The spirit of the eradication of extortion seem so terrible. But until now still many findings in the community, if not more entrenched but membudidaya. Illegal Payments or extortion is charging fees in place that should not be charged or levied. Law enforcement to combat illegal payments related to the abuse of office or authority has stipulated in Article 3 of Law Corruption Law 31 Year 1999 jo Law No. 20 of 2001. Occupation (occupation), which also contained a number of power and authority became the main instrument of the possibility of evil. The law with the problem that arises is how the law works to realize the clean state of the culture korupsi.Metode used is normative and sociological approach that looks at the effectiveness of the operation of the Act with symptoms, behavior, and law enforcement by using the Law of Development Theory that the law of view the overall principles and rules that govern the lives of the people in it, including institutions and legal processes to realize it in reality purpose is to build mental, moral character and state officials (officials) are anti-corrupt. Build law not only limited commitment, but as a means to change attitudes and ways of thinking and behavior bureaucratic apparatus and society together. Because a result like this causes a decrease in the level of public confidence in the law, effect on lazy to work, officials absent from their duties. Law enforcement eradication of extortion there must be effective support and commitment from all stakeholders, communicated effectively, control the decisive, strong integrity officers to combat complaints of extortion by creating a network of central and regional level that seriously responded via online. Moral renewal of man as a supervisor and perpetrator eradication of extortion to create good governance and a prosperous society. Keywords : corruption, extortion, renewal bureaucracy


Background Although the efficacy of tacrolimus for inducing remission of refractory ulcerative colitis (UC) is established, its efficacy for maintaining remission of UC has not been evaluated. Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of tacrolimus compared with thiopurines for maintaining remission in patients with refractory UC. Methods Twenty-four UC patients treated with tacrolimus and 34 treated with thiopurines to maintain remission were enrolled as the tacrolimus group and the thiopurine group, respectively. In the tacrolimus group, 82.8% of the patients were treated with tacrolimus for induction of the remission, whereas 70% of the patients in the thiopurine group were induced remission with either corticosteroid or cytapheresis. Proportions of patients who kept steroid-free remission between the tacrolimus and the thiopurine groups were compared. Maintenance of remission using tacrolimus or thiopurines was defined as no need for other therapies other than aminosalicylates without relapse for at least 3 months. Secondarily, to determine whether the response to thiopurines affects the long-term efficacy of tacrolimus maintenance therapy, the overall cumulative relapse-free survival based on the Kaplan-Meier method was estimated in thiopurine-naive or thiopurine-intolerant patients and thiopurine-refractory ones in the tacrolimus group. Results Remission was successfully maintained in 17 patients (70.8%) of the tacrolimus group, and 28 patients (82.4%) of the thiopurine group. The overall cumulative relapse-free survival of thiopurine-naive or thiopurine-intolerant patients in the tacrolimus group was similar to that in the thiopurine group, and significantly higher than that of thiopurine-refractory patients in the tacrolimus group. Conclusion Maintenance therapy with tacrolimus for patients with UC could be considered an alternative to thiopurine therapy.


Purpose: To determine if fluorescein angiographic (FA) findings after intravitreal ranibizumab (IVR) for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) conform to a class effect previously described with bevacizumab. Methods: Single-center retrospective case series of all infants treated with 0.2 mg (0.02 mL) IVR for Type 1 ROP from July 2016 to November 2018. FA were obtained at 40, 52, 62, and 72 weeks of postmenstrual age (PMA) using wide-angle photography. FA images were analyzed and the peripheral avascular areas measured with ImageJ using a reference disc diameter (DD). Based on the extent of the avascular area and tortuosity of the retinal vessels all eyes were classified into four categories: complete vascular maturity (vascularization within 2 DD of the ora serrata), VAA (avascular area >2 DD of the ora serrata), VAT (avascular area >2 DD of the ora serrata and posterior tortuosity), and reactivation (recurrence of stage disease). Results: About 13 infants were enrolled and 24 eyes were available in this study. None of the eyes reached complete vascular maturity at an average PMA of 60 weeks, 7 (29%) eyes presented with VAA, 8 (33%) with VAT, and 9 (37.5%) reactivated. The reactivated eyes presented with the largest area of peripheral ischemia, followed by the VAT and then the VAA groups (p = 0.02). Conclusion: IVR conforms to the previously described regression patterns following intravitreal bevacizumab for ROP indicative of a class effect. Follow-up using FA might help to optimize the management of these infants after injection of the drug.


On the basis of the very successful free volume theory applicable to wide length scales from electrons to small molecules, macromolecules, colloidal particles and even granules, hypothetical particles dubbed "freevons" are proposed to fill up the free volume available in any system from microscopic atomic world to the macroscopic universe. The Eyring's rate process theory that has a wide applicability to many chemical and physical phenomena is assumed to govern the behaviors of freevons. It turns out that for keeping the universe to expand in an accelerated manner, the freevons must form the paired structures, like electrons paired in superconductivity state and helium-3 atoms paired in superfluidity state; at about 5 K, there is a temperature induced phase transition happening and the Hubble's constant is predicted to dramatically increase, implying that the universe will inflate even further rapidly. The universe is therefore viewed as particles, the stars and galaxies, dispersed in the superfluidity freevon sea and the gravity is considered to be induced from the force density, usually defined as a negative gradient of pressure in fluid mechanics. The Newton's gravity equation is thus easily obtained under those assumptions, and similarly the Coulomb's Law can also be obtained using the same approach. In this superfluiditiy framework, the volumes rather than the masses of particles are found to be important in determining the gravitational forces. The expansion driving force comes from the activity or concentration gradient of freevons formed at the beginning of the big bang, and there is no need to postulate a dark energy or dark matter to be responsible for such an accelerated inflation; Or freevons can be considered "dark matter". Our approach may bridge many different theories in astrophysics field and provide a possibility to use quantum mechanics to study the universe through exploring the quantum mechanics behaviors of freevons.


A seven-year-old male domestic shorthaired cat was presented with persistent dyspnoea. Thoracic radiography and echocardiography revealed pulmonary oedema and a mass at the base of the heart. At necropsy the mass was found to be an aortic body chemodectoma that had metastasised to the sternal lymph node. This is a rare tumour in the cat, the third reported case where there was evidence of metastasis, and only the second reported case where there was evidence of lymphocytic infiltration of the primary tumour. Pulmonary oedema is an unusual presentation of this tumour in the cat.


Ductile iron (DI) owes many of its attractive mechanical properties to the graphite nodules in its structure. However, since galvanic coupling can occur between the graphite nodules and the matrix in aggressive environments, these nodules can, at the same time, reduce its corrosion resistance. In this study, composite carbide coatings were grown on the surface of GGG-80 using the thermoreactive diffusion (TRD) process. The process was carried out at 900, 1000, and 1100 °C for 1 h using nanosized Fe-V and Fe-Cr powders. The coatings were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), two-dimensional profilometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and microhardness tests. The corrosion behavior of the coatings were evaluated in three different solutions (3.5 wt% NaCl, 5 wt% H2SO4, and 5 wt% HNO3) using electrochemical open-circuit potential (OCP) and potentiodynamic polarization measurements. Microstructures and hardness tests showed that the nodular graphite in the surface was dissolved at the TRD process temperatures and that a coating of 12–36 µm thickness and 2461–3200 HV0.05 hardness was obtained. The corrosion resistance of the composite coating was up to 10, 33.5, and 75 times higher than the uncoated GGG-80 in NaCl, H2SO4, and HNO3, respectively. The improvement in corrosion resistance was a direct result of the formation of complex carbides and the elimination of graphite nodules in the surface of the alloy.


Let $n,k,b$ be integers with $1 \le k-1 \le b \le n$ and let $G_{n,k,b}$ be the graph whose vertices are the $k$-element subsets $X$ of $\{0,\dots,n\}$ with $\mathrm{max}(X)-\mathrm{min}(X) \le b$ and where two such vertices $X,Y$ are joined by an edge if $\mathrm{max}(X \cup Y) - \mathrm{min}(X \cup Y) \le b$. These graphs are generated by applying a transformation to maximal $k$-uniform hypergraphs of bandwidth $b$ that is used to reduce the (weak) edge clique covering problem to a vertex clique covering problem. The bandwidth of $G_{n,k,b}$ is thus the largest possible bandwidth of any transformed $k$-uniform hypergraph of bandwidth $b$. For $b\geq \frac{n+k-1}{2}$, the exact bandwidth of these graphs is determined. Moreover, the bandwidth is determined asymptotically for $b=o(n)$ and for $b$ growing linearly in $n$ with a factor $\beta \in (0,1]$, where for one case only bounds could be found. It is conjectured that the upper bound of this open case is the right asymptotic value.


Switzerland remains a neutral state outside of the European Union (EU). This paper examines realist, liberal, and constructivist theories of neutrality to explain Switzerland's unwillingness to join the EU after the cold war. Five other neutral states have decided to participate in the EU while maintaining their neutrality. The continued Swiss reluctance is best explained by a historic identity that the Swiss perceive is threatened by membership in the EU. Realism's focus on great power politics and state's pursuit of power offers little to explain Swiss neutrality. Liberalism offers an explanation for the enticement of membership, but it is constructivism that explains both the nature of Swiss neutrality and its continuing ability to shape Swiss foreign policy by preventing membership in the EU.


To evaluate the anti-obesity effect of Agrimonia pilosa L., this study investigated that ethyl acetate extract from A. pilosa L. (EAAP) suppresses lipid accumulation and inhibits expression of adipogenic marker genes, such as peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ (PPARγ), CCAAT-enhancer-binding protein α (C/EBPα), glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4), and adiponectin in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. We demonstrated that EAAP inhibited adipocyte differentiation and expression of PPARγ and C/EBPα mRNA levels in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, EAAP reduced the PPARγ transcriptional activity stimulated by rosiglitazone in HEK 293T cells and decreased the expression of GLUT4 and adiponectin in 3T3-L1 cells. These results suggest that EAAP inhibits preadipocyte differentiation and adipogenesis by blocking of PPARγ and C/EBPα gene expression in 3T3-L1 cells.


An investigation into the field tests used to test for ammonia in fly ash was conducted for comparison to the ASTM C311-07 ammonia determination by the ion selective electrode (ISE) test method. "Ammonia tube result" (ATR) refers to a Gastec tube reading on trapped gas over a slurried fly ash mixture that is correlated to the ISE results by linear regression. This paper contains the following: A comparison of the actual ammonia measurement in the lab by ISE and EPA Method 350.1. Testing was performed on the same samples and in duplicate as a confirmation. The statistical correlation of ASTM C-618–08a, class C fly ash by the ATR to the ASTM C311-07 test method is demonstrated which is comparable to the correlation with the EPA method. A discussion of the differences between the ATR and referenced analytical methods on both ASTM C 618 - 08a class C and class F fly ashes is presented. The effect of sodium hydroxide addition as a catalyst for the ammonia release was significant for both ASTM C-618–08a class C and class F fly ash but differences were noted and are presented.


New research developments in the recovery of function following neurological trauma as well as basic and applied research relevant to music perception and production, seem to point to the suggestion that specific music therapy interventions that directly address the restoration of function as opposed to developing compensatory mechanisms, in certain circumstances, may now be a more appropriate treatment approach. We will address the issue of appropriate timing for the introduction of each strategy and discuss potential outcomes of each approach. As one might imagine, much of this research is published in the neurological journals, which music therapists may not regularly consult. It seems challenging enough just to keep abreast of new music therapy literature. Further, there is so much neurological research that the music therapy clinician often finds it difficult to know where to begin. This text provides an overview of a growing concept related to recovery known as neuroplasticity, and how specific training models in music therapy utilize this relatively recently identified phenomenon. Also, a framework will be provided to help guide the practicing clinician when attempting to build a lineage of systematic thought relevant to the use of music in neurorehabilitation, as well as discuss the frequently employed concept of behavioural compensation. Some music therapy literature that relates to these different concepts is outlined. Discussions surrounding the decision to use either of these two approaches are presented in relation to stages of recovery and the clinical presentation of the client.


It is shown that, using the generalized perturbation method ( GPM ) with screened Coulomb interactions that ensures its consistency with the force theorem, one is able to obtain effective interactions that yield an accurate and physically transparent description of configurational energetics in the framework of the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method within the atomic sphere and coherent potential approximations. This is demonstrated with calculations of ordering energies, short-range order parameters, and transition temperatures in the CuZn, CuAu, CuPd, and PtCo systems. Furthermore, we show that the GPM can be used to obtain Heisenberg exchange interaction parameters, which, for instance, capture very well the magnetic configurational energy in bcc Fe.


Fimbriae are protein-based filamentous appendages that protrude from the bacterial cell surface and facilitate host adhesion. Two types of fimbriae, FimA and Mfa1, of the periodontal pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis are responsible for adherence to other bacteria and to host cells in the oral cavity. Both fimbrial forms are composed of 5 proteins, but there is limited information about their polymerization mechanisms. Here, the authors evaluated the function of Mfa5, one of the Mfa1 fimbrial accessory proteins. Using mfa5 gene disruption and complementation studies, the authors revealed that Mfa5 affects the incorporation of other accessory proteins, Mfa3 and Mfa4, into fibers and the expression of fimbriae on the cell surface. Mfa5 is predicted to have a C-terminal domain (CTD) that uses the type IX secretion system (T9SS), which is limited to this organism and related Bacteroidetes species, for translocation across the outer membrane. To determine the relationship between the putative Mfa5 CTD and the T9SS, mutants were constructed with in-frame deletion of the CTD and deletion of porU, a C-terminal signal peptidase linked to T9SS-mediated secretion. The ∆CTD-expressing strain presented a similar phenotype to the mfa5 disruption mutant with reduced expression of fimbriae lacking all accessory proteins. The ∆porU mutants and the ∆CTD-expressing strain showed intracellular accumulation of Mfa5. These results indicate that Mfa5 function requires T9SS-mediated translocation across the outer membrane, which is dependent on the CTD, and subsequent incorporation into fibers. These findings suggest the presence of a novel polymerization mechanism of the P. gingivalis fimbriae.


The specific design was a panel study used to determine the Management Information Systems (MIS) data collection methods for university administrators' decision-making process in South East Nigeria universities. This study was conducted in the ten public universities in South-East, Nigeria. One research question and one hypothesis guided the study. The design of the study was a survey research. The population of the study was made up of 589 university personnel consisting of Heads of Department, Deputy Registrars and Directors of Management Information Systems (MIS) / Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Units in the universities. The sample of the study was made up of 30 respondents that constituted the experts' panel and were selected from the ten public universities in South-East Nigeria. The experts' panel was made up of 30 experts consisting of 10 directors of Management Information Systems/Information Communication Technology, 10 academic staff and 10 administrative staff purposively selected from the 10 public universities in South-East Nigeria. Data were collected using a 10 item questionnaire developed by the researchers and titled: MIS Decision-Making Questionnaire (MISDMQ). Three experts from University of Nigeria, Nsukka validated the instrument. The final draft of the instrument had a 4-point scale of Very Appropriate, Appropriate, Inappropriate, and Very Inappropriate. The instrument was pre-tested on 17 respondents from a public university in Kogi State, Nigeria. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha Formula. A reliability coefficient of 0.88 was obtained for the entire instrument. During the round one survey, the 10item questionnaire was administrated to the respondents. 8 items reached the panelists consensus while 2 items could not reach the consensus based on a mean cut-off point of 3.00 and standard deviation of less than 1.00. In the round two survey, the 8 items were re-administered to the respondents, while 1 item were discarded. 7 items that reached the panelist consensus in the round two surveys were retained for data analysis while the one item on which consensus was not reached was discarded. The mean score was used to answer the research question. t-test was used to test the hypotheses. Among others it was found that 7 data collecting procedures were accepted and included in the MIS data collection methods for university administrators' decision-making process in South East Nigeria universities. There were no significant differences between the mean responses of administrators and MIS experts regarding data collection procedures. Based on the findings of the study, one major educational implication was that the MIS has a high potential for making relevant information available for decision making process. It was recommended that universities in African Journal of Educational Management, Teaching and Entrepreneurship Studies VOL.1 No: 1 May-August, 2020 https://ajemates.org 14 South-East, Nigeria should adopt the MIS data collection procedures to provide relevant information for effective and efficient management of the institutions. MIS units should organize workshops and seminars for the university administrators on how to collect relevant data/information for MIS decision-making process in the university.


The way mankind has responded to the dark sky throughout history has determined humanity's scientific and cultural progress. In this way, astronomy is in some way connected to everything. This fascinating theme is explored here. George Reed examines the powerful influence of the cosmos on cultural and societal development, reviewing mankind's historical propensity for projecting human experience into a cosmic framework and the centuries-old relationship between astronomy and astrology, the result of which is the emergence of the age of science. Since then, he writes, the purpose of astronomy has been to observe celestial objects for the advancement of scientific knowledge, while astrology deals only in the possibility that celestial bodies influence events on Earth. Reed asserts that the movement away from an inward-looking, 'meaningful' cosmos toward an outward-gazing, impersonal one is a shift that has had enormous repercussions in every aspect of human life. He points out that astrology provides a scheme in which the believer is an integral component of an animistic, cyclical universe. Conversely, the pursuit of science and astronomy is a mechanistic, linear activity, which seeks extrinsic answers in terms of precise relationships between sense perceptions. "Dark Sky Legacy" probes the divergent approaches to the universe that compel individuals and cultures to pursue astrology or astronomy, the intuitive or the analytical. Blending modern science, ancient science, mythology, history, literature, and naked-eye astronomy, and spiced with fascinating detail about astronomy, astrology, celestial mythology, and calendar development, the book is an engrossing study of the profound impact of mankind's relationship with the universe.


Cloud-based Personal Health Record systems (CB-PHR) have great potential in facilitating the management of individual health records. Security and privacy concerns are among the main obstacles for the wide adoption of CB-PHR systems. In this paper, we consider a multi-source CB-PHR system in which multiple data providers, such as hospitals and physicians are authorized by individual data owners to upload their personal health data to an untrusted public cloud. The health data are submitted in an encrypted form to ensure data security, and each data provider also submits encrypted data indexes to enable queries over the encrypted data. We propose a novel Multi-Source Order-Preserving Symmetric Encryption (MOPSE) scheme whereby the cloud can merge the encrypted data indexes from multiple data providers without knowing the index content. MOPSE enables efficient and privacy-preserving query processing in that a data user can submit a single data query, the cloud can process over the encrypted data from all related data providers without knowing the query content. We also propose an enhanced scheme, MOPSE+, to more efficiently support the data queries by hierarchical data providers. Extensive analysis and experiments over real data sets demonstrate the efficacy and efficiency of MOPSE and MOPSE+.


Cellular processes like motility, chemotaxis, phagocytosis and morphogenesis are dependent on the dynamic regulation of the actin cytoskeleton. This cytoskeleton system is tightly controlled by a number of diverse actin-binding proteins (ABPs) by various mechanisms described as nucleation, polymerization, capping, severing, depolymerization and sequestration. The ABPs are grouped based on sequence identity as in the Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome protein homology domain 2 (WH2), and the calponin homology domain (CH) containing proteins.In this work, we elucidate the crystal structures of hybrids of gelsolin domain 1 with thymosin β4, ciboulot domain 2, and the second WH2 domain of N-WASP each bound to actin. We show that the single WH2 motif containing protein thymosin β4 in part sequesters actin by binding its pointed end via a C-terminal helix. This interaction prevents the addition of bound actin protomers to the barbed end of the filament. We propose that sequence variations in some WH2 motifs conferred F-actin binding ability to multiple repeat-containing proteins. These F-actin binding domains interact with the barbed end of a filament and the adjacent WH2 motifs are then freed to add their bound actin to the growing filament end. We demonstrate the binding of ciboulot domains 2 and 3 to both G- and F-actin and that full length ciboulot is capable of binding two actin monomers simultaneously. We have also cloned, expressed, purified and crystallized rod domains 14-16 from the actin crosslinking protein a-filamin. Preliminary X-ray crystallography data gives us hope that we shall be able to solve the structure of this triple domain repeat.


Objects in object-oriented languages have often been treated as a special kind of entity different from other variables or constants. Similarly, their types, which are typically called classes, have often been treated differently from other types. This complicates the understanding of these concepts. The present paper proposes to see the classes as module types leading to a very natural integration of objects and classes into the framework of con- temporary programming languages. The main part of the paper contains typing rules for mod- ule types for assignment and for value and variable parameters. It is shown that the rules for reference parameters in some existing languages lead to unexpected results and sometimes to undefined behavior. Furthermore, assignment involving dereferenced pointers to modules is studied for the first time in detail. The paper shows that the type compatibility rule for pointer assignment is not sufficient for deref assignment. The last part of the paper contains a com- parison of the language definitions and of compilers for Borland Pascal with Objects, C++, Oberon, and Object CHILL.


: Clearly, all considerations for wheelchair performance and their applicability to optimization of mobility are related to user position relative to the main wheel axis. It is also obvious that wheelchair performance is enhanced by a center of gravity position rearward of that which is characteristic of the generic wheelchair. The only obvious features of the generic wheelchair are excessive static stability and limitation of body motion. Perhaps at this stage the reader may be ready to accept some of the arguments presented above, but have reservations about prescribing a less stable wheelchair for the more severely disabled (e.g., quadraplegics). Consider that the reduction of rolling resistance, decrease in downhill turning tendancy, and required turning force would likely be even more important to the user with marginal physical capacity. This would appear as an attractive trade for reduction in static stability. The number of factors unfavorably affected by increased static stability would suggest the use of an anti-tipping device rather than designed static stability if this is thought to be an important consideration.


This paper introduces the Sylvester graphical lasso (SyGlasso) that captures multiway dependencies present in tensor-valued data. The model is based on the Sylvester equation that defines a generative model. The proposed model complements the tensor graphical lasso (Greenewald et al., 2019) that imposes a Kronecker sum model for the inverse covariance matrix by providing an alternative Kronecker sum model that is generative and interpretable. A nodewise regression approach is adopted for estimating the conditional independence relationships among variables. The statistical convergence of the method is established, and empirical studies are provided to demonstrate the recovery of meaningful conditional dependency graphs. We apply the SyGlasso to an electroencephalography (EEG) study to compare the brain connectivity of alcoholic and nonalcoholic subjects. We demonstrate that our model can simultaneously estimate both the brain connectivity and its temporal dependencies.


The IEEE 802.15.3 MAC enables high-rate communications between devices in a wireless personal area network and has good support for applications requiring quality of service (QoS). To meet applications' QoS requirements, such as delay and jitter, the channel time allocation (CTA) scheduler plays an important role in sizing and positioning CTAs within each super-frame. In this paper, we first present a novel CTA sharing protocol, called VBR-MCTA that enables the sharing of CTAs belonging to streams with the same group identity. This allows our protocol to exploit the statistical characteristics of variable bit rate (VBR) streams by giving unused time units to a How that requires peak rate allocation. We then present two optimizations to VBR-MCTA, namely VBR-Blind and VBR-TokenBus. The former, by giving ownership of a CTA in a round-robin manner without consideration to traffic profiles, does not consume any valuable "air-time" with signaling overheads. The latter allows a CTA to be shared by multiple devices that take turns owning unused "air-time" from CTAs. We have simulated VBR-MCTA and its optimizations in the ns-2 simulator over an implementation of the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC. Our results show that VBR-TokenBus has the best delay and jitter as it provides a one to six milliseconds reduction in both compared to standard CTA methods. VSR-Blind, although having performing poorer than MCTA-Token or VBR-MCTA, is still significantly better than traditional CTA methods at a reduced overhead.


Recent developments in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the heart have refocused attention on the potential of MR and continue to attract intense interest within the radiology and cardiology communities. Improvements in speed, image quality, reliability, and range of applications have evolved to the point where cardiac MR imaging is increasingly seen as a practical clinical tool. As is often the case with MR imaging, not all of the most powerful techniques are necessarily easy to master or understand, and many-nonspecialists and specialists alike-are challenged to stay abreast. This review covers some of the major milestones that have led to the current state of cardiac MR and attempts to put into context some concepts that, although technical, have a real impact on the diagnostic power of cardiac MR imaging. Topics discussed include functional imaging, myocardial viability and perfusion imaging, flow quantification, and coronary artery imaging. A review such as this can only scratch the surface of what is a dynamic interdisciplinary field, but the hope is that sufficient information and insight are provided to stimulate the motivated reader to take his or her interest to the next level.


Limited feedback improves link reliability with a small amount of feedback from the receiver to the transmitter. In cellular systems, the performance of limited feedback will be degraded in the presence of other cell interference, when the base stations have limited or no coordination. This paper establishes the degradation in sum rate of users in a cellular system, due to uncoordinated other cell interference and feedback delay. A goodput metric is defined as the rate when the bits are successfully received at the mobile station, and used to derive an upper bound on the performance of limited feedback systems with delay. This paper shows that the goodput gained from having delayed limited feedback decreases doubly exponentially as the delay increases. The analysis is extended to precoded spatial multiplexing systems where it is shown that the same upper bound can be used to evaluate the decay in the achievable sum rate. To reduce the effects of interference, zero forcing interference nulling is applied at the receiver, where it is shown that the effect of the interference on the achievable sum rate can be suppressed by nulling out the interferer. Numerical results show that the decay rate of the goodput decreases when the codebook quantization size increases and when the Doppler shift in the channel decreases.


Non-residential economic activities are the heart of mixed-use streets. That makes mixed-use streets extremely difficult to get successfully planned and developed: activities require, in order to keep on flourishing and nurturing city life, certain conditions around. Those conditions, in turn, depend on spatial as well as non-spatial drivers, and equally they depend on each other. Like the emergence and evolution of living organisms, that of mixed-use streets goes through an infinite succession of individual and collective initiatives the vast majority of which are destined to fail due to adverse "environmental" conditions. Managing such conditions is the only chance that designers have to influence the development and evolution of main streets in their plans. One of the most profound spatial determinants of non-residential uses in cities is street centrality. Multiple Centrality Assessment (MCA) is a computer-operated procedure for mapping the centrality of urban streets and spaces. It applies to spatial cases a set of methods drawn from research into the physics of complex networks in nature, society, culture and technology which emerged in the late 1950s and have gained momentum since the 1990s. Centrality is a critical element of the structure of all complex networks; its importance in spatial networks has been widely acknowledged in geography, transportation planning and regional analysis, as linked to a notion of proximity. In urban design, since the mid 1980s Space Syntax has developed a wider understanding of centrality in urban systems. The MCA has re-interpreted these as a special class of complex networks. In both centrality goes beyond proximity, dealing with how people experience and navigate the system of streets and intersections. The importance of street centrality for urban designers and planners is twofold: it influences collective behavior – impacting on key-dynamics such as real estate values, land use and crime; it is a primal factor in development and evolution of city form over time.


Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) are key materials in the conception of car body structures, permitting to reduce their weight while increasing their behavior in crash conditions. Nevertheless, the weldability of AHSS presents some particular aspects, in that complex failure types involving partial or full interfacial failure can be encountered more often than with conventional mild steels during destructive testing, despite high spot weld strength levels. This paper aims at characterizing the behavior of different AHSS spot welds under two quasi-static loading conditions, tensile shear and cross tension, often used in the automotive industry for the determination of their weldability. Interrupted cross tension and tensile shear tests were performed and spot welds failure was investigated with optical micrographs, SEM fractography and 3D-tomography in order to follow the three-dimensional crack paths due to the complex loading modes. A limited number of failure zones and damage mechanisms could be distinguished for all steel grades investigated. Moreover, numerical simulation of the tests was used to better understand the stress state in the weld and the influence of geometrical features such as weld size on the occurrence of the different failure types.


To analyze the changes in the Upper Danube Floodplain, we used aerial photos to quantify the change of landscape pattern from 1963 to 2010. We focused on typical floodplain habitats, i.e., riparian forest and floodplain grassland. We used landscape metrics and transformation matrix to explore changes in land cover structure and composition. The active floodplain experienced increasing fragmentation from 1963 to 2010. Despite an increase of aggregation, riparian forest suffered a 2.3% area loss from 1995 to 2010. Arable land in the active floodplain declined by 28.5%, while its patch size significantly increased. Elevation, distance to river and soil quality were the most relevant environmental factors for the land cover change in the floodplain. Higher soil quality or longer distance to river led to an increase of conversion from grassland into arable land; grassland patches with poorer soil quality were likely to change into riparian forest; riparian forest closer to the river and with a lower height above mean water level tended to remain stable. This comprehensive understanding of historical land cover change and environmental factors is needed for the enhancement of landscape functions and sustainable development in the floodplain.


We introduce a new stereo formulation which does not use pixel and disparity models. Many problems in vision are treated as assigning each pixel a label. Disparities are labels for stereo. Such pixel-labeling problems are naturally represented in terms of energy minimization, where the energy function has two terms: one term penalizes solutions that inconsistent with the observed data, the other term enforces spatial smoothness. Graph cuts are one of the effi- cient methods for solving energy minimization. However, exact minimization of multi labeling problems can be performed by graph cuts only for the case with convex smoothness terms. In pixel-disparity formulation, convex smoothness terms do not generate well reconstructed 3D results. Thus, truncated linear or quadratic smoothness terms, etc. are used, where approximate energy minimization is necessary. In this paper, we introduce a new site-labeling formulation, where the sites are not pixels but lines in 3D space, labels are not disparities but depth numbers. For this formulation, visibility reasoning is naturally included in the energy function. In addition, this formulation allows us to use a small smoothness term, which does not affect the 3D results much. This makes the optimization step very simple, so we could develop an approximation method for graph cut itself (not for energy minimization) and a high performance GPU graph cut program. For Tsukuba stereo pair in Middlebury data set, we got the result in 5ms using GTX1080GPU, 19ms using GTX660GPU.


Between 1999 and 2001, archaeological excavations undertaken just south of the town of Delémont prior to the construction of the A16 Transjurane motorway led to the discovery of five sites dating to the metal ages : Le Tayment, La Beuchille, La Deute, Les Prés de La Communance and La Communance. All contained remains of Late Bronze Age occupations and most produced finds dating to the Late Iron Age. Two sites furnished evidence of Early Iron Age settlements. The geology of the sites is discussed in the first section of this volume (chap. 2). After placing each site in its geomorphological context and presenting their general stratigraphy, particular problems posed by three of the five sites (Le Tayment, La Deute and Les Prés de La Communance) are examined in detail. The concluding part of this analysis consists of a discussion of the palaeoenvironment and human impact on sediment formation. The features and the finds discovered at each site are described in the following five chapters. The site of Le Tayment (chap. 3) is very small, not only in terms of its excavated surface, but also in the number of features and finds. Any conclusion must therefore remain doubtful. We can roughly date the first occupation to the Late Bronze Age, the second probably occurred during the early or the middle phase of the Late Iron Age. The rare features do not permit any firm conclusions about settlement type or extent, but they are probably the remains of an isolated farmstead. La Beuchille (chap. 4) lies on a wide and in modern times intensively cultivated terrace. Agriculture seems to have obliterated the original archaeological layers and destroyed some of the features as well as thoroughly mixed the finds. The majority of the artefacts can be assigned to the first, Late Bronze Age occupation (Ha B2). Any surviving prehistoric features also appear to belong to this phase. Several finds date to the Late Iron Age, others to the roman period and document a limited or temporary occupation of the site at these times. Among the undated finds is a small assemblage of iron slag and hammerscale, the scant remains of a smithy established during the Late Iron Age or the roman period. La Deute (chap. 5) occupies a narrow terrace in a lateral valley and revealed traces of two occupations. The older phase dates to the Late Bronze Age (Ha B1/ early B2). The original archaeological layer has been completely eroded and the buildings were probably situated just to the southwest of the excavated area. Two fragments of wire fibulae date the second phase to the Late Iron Age (La Tène C2/D1a). At this time, an isolated farmstead occupied most of the terrace. Two post-built buildings and several pits cover the northern half of the site, while the southern part revealed traces of a smithy. Les Prés de La Communance (chap. 6) is the largest site and consists of four independent occupation zones. They were occupied respectively at the end of the Late Bronze Age (Ha B3, zone A), during the Early Iron Age (Ha C, zone D), the early phase of the Late Iron Age (zone C) and probably the middle phase of the Late Iron Age (zone B). Excepting A, every zone provided clear plans of post-built structures. They represent the remains of isolated farmsteads consisting of one to three buildings of varying function. The assemblages consist mostly of potsherds. Several fragments of pottery made with pyroxene-enriched clay were found in zone C, confirming the Early La Tène date of this particular farmstead and proof of economic ties to the Kaiserstuhl region in the Upper Rhine Valley, nearest source of pyroxeneenriched clay. The site of La Communance (chap. 7) is best known for its roman mausoleum, but also provided finds dating to two, possibly three prehistoric periods. Most of the prehistoric pottery can be assigned to the Late Bronze Age (Ha B3) and were found in disturbed sediments displaced during the construction or the demolition of the roman mausoleum. The absence of features or in situ finds renders any further interpretation of this occupation impossible. Two complete pottery vessels found during the 1948 excavation belong to a second occupation dating to the Early Iron Age (Ha C or D1). Traces of fire and burnt bones, badly documented at the time, suggest the presence of an Early Iron Age cemetery about 300 m to the north of the roman mausoleum. A small number of potsherds found in the layers associated with the mausoleum appear to date to a late phase of the Late Iron Age, but they could also belong to vessels made in the Celtic tradition during roman times and deposited during the construction of the monument. In the concluding section of the volume, the results obtained from the different sites are correlated and discussed in the regional context. In the Delémont Valley, little is known about prehistoric settlement before the Bronze Age. A considerable number of Late Bronze Age sites were documented in recent years and can be inserted into a chronological framework. Numerous features and finds from the Iron Age document the subsequent settlements. However, little can as yet be said about local Bronze Age architecture. The oldest house plans date to the Iron Age (Halstatt C) and usually represent single-aisled postbuilt structures of modest size. Standing alone or in small groups, these buildings represent the remains of isolated farmsteads. The absence of similar features from the Late Bronze Age sites of the Delémont Valley probably indicates a preference for other building techniques that do not require the use of posts, such as frame construction based on sill beams or Blockbau. Translation : Robert Fellner


Recent development of laser technology toward the realization of high-power laser has opened up a new research area exploring various fascinating phenomena governed by strongly photoexcited electronic states in diverse fields of science. In this chapter, we review the laser-induced Fano resonance (FR) in condensed matter systems, which is one of the representative resonance effects successfully exposed by strong laser field. The FR of concern sharply differs from FR effects commonly observed in conventional quantum systems where FR is caused by a weak external perturbation in a stationary system in the following two aspects. One is that the present FR is a transient phenomenon caused by nonequilibrium photoexcited states. The other is that this is induced by an optically nonlinear process. Here, we introduce two physical processes causing such transient and optically nonlinear FR in condensed matter, followed by highlighting anomalous effects inherent in it. The first is a Floquet exciton realized in semiconductor superlattices driven by a strong continuous-wave laser, and the second is the coherent phonon induced by an ultrashort pulse laser in bulk crystals.


The prediction of plasma rotation is of high interest for fusion research due to the effects of the rotation upon magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities, impurities, and turbulent transport in general. In this work, an analysis method was studied and validated to reliably extract momentum transport coefficients from neutral beam injection (NBI) modulation experiments. To this end, a set of discharges was created with similar background profiles for the ion and electron temperatures, the heat fluxes, the electron density, and the plasma rotation that, therefore, should exhibit similar momentum transport coefficients. In these discharges, a range of temporal perturbations were imposed by modulating and varying the power deposition of the NBI, electron-cyclotron-resonance heating (ECRH), and ion-cyclotron-resonance heating (ICRH). The transport model including diffusion, convection, and residual stress was implemented within the ASTRA code. The Prandtl number Pr=χφ/χi was assessed via the GKW code. A convective Coriolis pinch was fitted and the intrinsic torque from the residual stress was estimated. The obtained transport coefficients agree within error bars for sufficiently small imposed temperature perturbations, as would be expected, from the similar background profiles. This successful validation of the methodology opens the door to study the parametric dependence of the diffusive and convective momentum transport of the main ions of the plasma as well as the turbulent intrinsic torque in a future work.


Colicins are bacterial toxins that kill Escherichia coli and related cells; their mode of action is of interest in protein import and toxicology. Colicins translocate across the E. coli outer membrane and periplasm by interacting with several receptors. This translocation process involves interaction of the colicin with the outer membrane porin OmpF and subsequently with the integral membrane protein TolA. The N-terminal domain of colicin N is involved in the import process. Our aim was to produce a large quantity of colicin A for functional and structural studies. It is a prerequisite to have a correctly folded and stable protein for these studies. The commonly utilised expression system uses the Lex A promoter, which requires induction with toxic mitomycin C, though the yield is low. Here we present the production of an E. coli toxin and its immunity protein in E. coli using a safe inducible promoter.


Abstract. With the completion of the Beijing Five-year Clean Air Action Plan by the
end of 2017, the annual mean PM2.5 concentration in Beijing dropped
dramatically to 58.0 µg m−3 in 2017 from 89.5 µg m−3 in 2013. However, controversies exist to argue that favourable
meteorological conditions in 2017 were the major driver for such a rapid
decrease in PM2.5 concentrations. To comprehensively evaluate this
5-year plan, we employed a Kolmogorov–Zurbenko (KZ) filter and WRF-CMAQ (Weather Research and Forecasting and the Community Multi-scale Air Quality) to quantify the relative contribution of meteorological conditions and the
control of anthropogenic emissions to PM2.5 reduction in Beijing from
2013 to 2017. For these 5 years, the relative contribution of
emission reduction to the decrease in PM2.5 concentrations calculated
by KZ filtering and WRF-CMAQ was 80.6 % and 78.6 % respectively.
KZ filtering suggested that short-term variations in meteorological and
emission conditions contributed majorly to rapid changes in PM2.5
concentrations in Beijing. WRF-CMAQ revealed that the relative contribution
of local and regional emission reduction to the PM2.5 decrease in Beijing
was 53.7 % and 24.9 % respectively. For local emission-reduction
measures, the regulation of coal boilers, increasing use of clean fuels for
residential use and industrial restructuring contributed 20.1 %,
17.4 % and 10.8 % to PM2.5 reduction respectively. Both models
suggested that the control of anthropogenic emissions accounted for around
80 % of the PM2.5 reduction in Beijing, indicating that
emission reduction was crucial for air quality enhancement in Beijing from
2013 to 2017. Consequently, such a long-term air quality clean plan should be
continued in the following years to further reduce PM2.5 concentrations
in Beijing.