Protein secretion drives many functions in vivo; however, methods to link secretions with surface markers and transcriptomes have been lacking. By accumulating secretions close to secreting cells held within cavity-containing hydrogel nanovials, we demonstrate workflows to analyze the amount of IgG secreted from single human antibody-secreting cells and link this information to surface marker expression and transcriptional profiles from the same cells. Measurements using flow cytometry and imaging flow cytometry corroborated an association between levels of IgG secretion and CD138 expression. Using oligonucleotide-labeled antibodies and droplet-based sequencing, we show that pathways encoding protein localization to the endoplasmic reticulum, NADH complex assembly, and mitochondrial respiration were most associated with high IgG secretion. Altogether, this method links secretion information to cell surface and single-cell sequencing information (SEC-seq) and enables exploration of links between genome and secretory function, laying the foundation for numerous discoveries in immunology, stem cell biology, and beyond.


Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is one of the most aggressive malignancies in humans, being highly invasive and drug-resistant, limiting the effectiveness of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Concurrent Temozolomide (TMZ) and radiation is the standard of care for newly diagnosed GBM patients, however, patients respond poorly and prognosis remains dismal. TMZ response is limited to patients with hypermethylation of the methylguanine methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter. Despite recent advances in therapeutic strategies, treating GBM is still an unsolved clinical challenge requiring the investigation of novel approaches with better responses over approved therapies. RRx-001 is a novel ROS-mediated systemically non-toxic chemo-sensitizing epigenetic agent with vascular normalizing properties under investigation in Phase II clinical trials in brain metastases and GBM. We assessed whether RRx-001 is an effective approach for treating GBM by testing its effects alone and in combination with TMZ both in vitro as well as in GBM mouse models. RRx-001 induced cytotoxicity in human TMZ-sensitive as well as resistant patient-derived GBM cell lines. In addition, its effect in TMZ-sensitive GBM cells was greater than the one induced by TMZ alone. We then asked whether the in vitro effects of RRx-001 translated to therapeutic efficacy in vivo. To this end, we injected mice intracranially with a TMZ-resistant murine mesenchymal GBM cells, and treated tumor-bearing mice with RRx-001 alone and in combination with TMZ. RRx-001 treatment alone modestly prolonged survival compared to control cohorts, whereas the combination of RRx-001 and TMZ substantially prolonged survival compared to controls and either treatment alone. Moreover, histological evaluation of GBM tumors revealed that combination of RRx-001 and TMZ induced vessel hyperdilation and apoptosis compared to RRx-001 alone. Thus, in vivo RRx-001 combined to TMZ may also indirectly regulate tumor growth by modifying the tumor stroma. These data suggest that TMZ may still affect the microenvironment in TMZ-resistant tumors and that RRx-001 enhances these effects by both directly and indirectly restricting GBM growth, making it a promising therapeutic agent alone and in combination with TMZ. Citation Format: Veronica Steri, Bryan Oronsky, Jan Scicinski, Gabriele Bergers. RRx-001 is effective in temozolomide-sensitive and resistant GBM. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1245.


Children Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia 41 86 Acute myeloid leukaemia 8 18 0 Hodgkin's disease 5 11 0 Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma 8 21 0 Histiocytic medullary reticulosis 1 1 0 Histiocytosis X 6 15 0 Adults Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia 7 27 0 Total 76 179 1 Exposure to high tension power lines and childhood leukaemia: a pilot study To the Editor: Work initially carried out in Denver, USA, over a decade ago' and some subsequent studies' have implicated residence in close proximity to electrical power lines as a risk factor for the development of childhood leukaemia and possibly other cancers. These studies have generated controversy," and a body of evidencehas now been accumulated which has failed to show a link." None the less, the matter remains one of considerable general interest with serious implication for public policy.' We have attempted to study the question in an Australian context, using data obtained between 1972 and 1980 on the incidence of leukaemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and allied diseases occurring in the State of Tasmania." In this study lifetime residential histories were collected from 866 patients and matched controls. We have now carried out a pilot study on a subset of our original patients in which we have attempted to correlate these data with the location of high tension power lines, by examination of public maps" and information provided by the Hydro-Electric Commission (HEC) of Tasmania, in order to determine how many had resided within 50 metres of a line. This distance was chosen because beyond it, the strength of electric fields created by power lines approaches background levels." We have so far studied 76 cases, whose details are given in the Table. In this pilot study, controls were not assessed. The cases comprised all children in the original series, as well as all seven adults with the childhood type of leukaemia (acute lymphoblastic leukaemia); they had lived at a total of 180 Tasmanian addresses. Addresses outside Tasmania were not analysed. Complete data were available for all 180 addresses. We found one case in our series had had one address within 50 metres of a high tension power line. This was a child, born in 1963, who developed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in March 1978. In 1974-1975 she had lived for approximately one year at an address about 20 metres from power lines. None of the remaining 179 addresses was within 50 metres of a high tension power line. In Tasmania there are approximately 170000 residences, about 800 of which lie within 50 metres of a high tension power line (information on file, HEC). Based on these figures, and assuming the general population to have had the same number of addresses within 50 metres of power lines as the cases, it can be calculated that the expected number of addresses within 50 metres for the whole series is 0.8 (one


This paper examines the consequences of university patenting by using an original source of information: The point of view of French academic inventors, i.e. French university professors who are also inventors of European patents. Via a survey we collected information about 280 French academic inventors. This enables us to put forward new insights with respect to the effect of university patenting on the diffusion of scientific research, incentives to do basic research, commercialization of university inventions and access to upstream knowledge. In particular, the study suggests a tradeoff between enabling the transfer of university inventions to industry in some sectors and delaying the dissemination of scientific research. On the one hand, most academic inventors acknowledge a lag in their publication process directly attributable to the patent application but, on the other hand, in life science disciplines a large majority of respondents who have had one of their inventions commercialized, believe that this would not have been the case had a patent not been there.


Disease progression models are instrumental in predicting individual-level health trajectories and understanding disease dynamics. Existing models are capable of providing either accurate predictions of patients' prognoses or clinically interpretable representations of disease pathophysiology, but not both. In this paper, we develop the phased attentive state space (PASS) model of disease progression, a deep probabilistic model that captures complex representations for disease progression while maintaining clinical interpretability. Unlike Markovian state space models which assume memoryless dynamics, PASS uses an attention mechanism to induce "memoryful" state transitions, whereby repeatedly updated attention weights are used to focus on past state realizations that best predict future states. This gives rise to complex, non-stationary state dynamics that remain interpretable through the generated attention weights, which designate the relationships between the realized state variables for individual patients. PASS uses phased LSTM units (with time gates controlled by parametrized oscillations) to generate the attention weights in continuous time, which enables handling irregularly-sampled and potentially missing medical observations. Experiments on data from a realworld cohort of patients show that PASS successfully balances the tradeoff between accuracy and interpretability: it demonstrates superior predictive accuracy and learns insightful individual-level representations of disease progression.


This paper presents a practical approach to clinical dosimetry for electron beams at extended source-to-surface distance (SSD). Characteristics of electron beams from a Siemens MD-2 accelerator are presented at a nominal SSD of 100 cm and an extended SSD of 115 cm. Relative output factors are measured at both 100 and 115 cm SSDs for a range of square field sizes for each beam energy. The change of output with SSD does not follow the inverse square law, if the nominal SSD is used. This deviation is larger for lower beam energy and smaller field sizes. An effective SSD, , has been determined at for each beam energy as a function of field size. A comprehensive approach to treatment time calculations is proposed.


This study purposes to reveal the role of concept maps and mind maps to the improvement of reasoning and mastering concept ability of high school students on the circulatory system material. The method was quasy experimental with The matching Pretest-Posttest Group Design . The population was entire class XI in SMAN 24 Bandung. The samples determined using cluster random sampling was  class XI-1 and class XI-2. Class XI-1 given learning with concept maps, while the XI-2 given learning with mind maps. The instruments was questions form of reasoning and mastering concepts, questions of TOLT, questionnaire, and the results of students concept maps and mind maps. Measured aspects of reasoning and mastering concepts was cognitive dimension on the revised Bloom's taxonomy. The results showed 51.4% of the students in the map concept class was at concrete level and 48.6% was at transition level. While in mind map class, 81.8% of students was at concrete level, and 18.2% was at transition level. The average increasement of reasoning and mastering concepts from pretest and posttest.  in concept map class was 0.33 (moderate) and map mind class was 0.32 (moderate) . The results of t-test analysis was significant value of t count (0.66) > 0.05. its mean there was no significant differences from concept map and mind map class . Based on the result, showed that both of these learning tools can be used to develop reasoning and mastering concepts ability, although there was no significant difference between the results of the use of concept maps and mind maps.


A new fabrication process of a stem for an artificial hip joint has been investigated to improve mechanical properties and to reduce both the fabrication cost and consumption of expensive Ti alloys by swaging and die-forging into near-net-shape at room temperature, followed by local heat treatment and precise machining. In this study metastable Ti-Nb-Sn alloys consisting of non-cytotoxic elements (biocompatible Ti alloys) were used for biomedical applications. It is found that swaging at both ends of a rod before die-forging saves material consumption by approximately 50% in comparison with turning, and enhances subsequent age-hardening. In addition the cold die-forging enables the fabrication costs to decrease. It is suggested that high strength of higher than 1100 MPa in the proximal part connected to a stem head and low Young's modulus of less than 60 GPa in the distal part implanted in a femur can be obtained simultaneously in advanced Ti alloy stems.


Melanoma is a malignant tumor that arises from epidermal melanocytes with high morbidity and mortality, and currently, there are no effective conventional genotoxic treatments or systematic treatment. Increasing evidence shows that n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) exhibit anti-melanoma activity, but their anti-melanoma mechanism remains elusive. Here, C57BL/6 mice were injected with B16F10 melanoma cells via a tail vein to establish a lung metastasis model. n-3 PUFAs were significantly increased in lung metastatic tissues from mice treated with algal oil, especially rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Algal oil treatment significantly suppressed pulmonary metastases and outgrowth of melanoma cells, which was associated with autophagy induction, as evidenced by an increase in LC3-II levels. In addition, algae oil-triggered autophagy was mediated by inactivation of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase, and activation of c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNKs), which led to a decrease in p62 accumulation and decreased secretion of proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β). These results suggest that algal oil exerts its antitumourigenic activities via autophagy-mediated p62 elimination and anti-inflammatory properties.


While education in English has been advocated as a unifying and modernising force, it is also seen as a marker of imperialism and class privilege and a terrain of struggle among elite groups. Ruptures in such class-divided educational system in turn shape specific debates over development, democracy and social change. Uneven empowerment that an education in English generates also has its fallout in an increasing polarisation, fracturing and violence against caste, gender and religious lines.


Most family caregivers feel that they are failing their relatives by admitting them to a nursing home. The decision to institutionalise a family member is often a final desperate step after previous efforts to maintain a relative at home have broken down. Being able to recreate a valued identity as a family caregiver following the placement of a relative is vital. Reconstructing meaning through seizing possibilities for positive caring emerged as a significant aspect of a hermeneutic phenomenological study of family caregiving in nursing homes. Hermeneutic analysis of in-depth interview transcripts and observation field notes of 14 family caregivers experiences of caring uncovered 5 shared meanings: accommodating new and different ways of caring; feeling a part of the nursing home community; learning to care in stress-reducing ways; seeing the whole picture; and learning to seize possibilities for self. This paper will demonstrate how Heideggerian philosophy provided direction to reveal how meaning in everyday caregiving was disclosed, and Gadamerian philosophy shaped the process of generating understanding of such meaning from an interpretation of the stories shared. Detailed parts of family caregivers stories, those parts defined as significant by the narrators, will be merged with the researcher's interpretation of the meanings embedded in the stories shared. Findings will be discussed in terms of the empowering process family caregivers experience as they discover ways of setting up positive possibilities to continue caring within nursing homes. The implications of such findings provide a justification for the promotion of a shared ideology of care that recognises, and gives equal status to, pathphysiological, psychosocial and interactional ways of knowing. Ideological change will be examined in terms of the value of accessing family knowledge and expertise and articulating the need to develop caring partnerships which empower family caregivers to redevelop a sense of future which is viewed with hope, strength and positive anticipation.


In this paper, we propose a new embossing algorithm for gray images using Kalman filter. First, a 2D gray image is first converted to a one dimension vector; those vectors could be considered as a one-dimension discrete-time signal. Then, the performance of image filtering using Kalman filter for image is studied and according to its results, Canny edge detection operators are investigated to find edge map in a gray scale image. Finally, enhance contrast using histogram equalization has been applied. Compared with other conventional embossing method for images, it is an impressive experimental result using our proposed algorithm for gray image embossing. Practical results show that this algorithm can be exploited in different fields such as image pattern recognition.


Beyond its primary and secondary reinforcing effects, nicotine also enhances reinforcement from non-drug stimuli unrelated to smoking. Possibly relevant to that effect, preclinical research has shown that nicotine can maintain the effectiveness of a non-drug operant reinforcer across repeated presentations. Operant reinforcement is a dynamic process in which a reinforcer's ability to promote behavior decreases systematically with each presentation, leading to within-session declines in responding. Habituation to the sensory aspects of a reinforcer is the mechanism underlying declines in its effectiveness. Nicotine's effect on habituation of reinforcer effectiveness has not been demonstrated in humans. The current study was designed as a first step in translating animal research examining nicotine's influence on habituation of reinforcer effectiveness to a human sample. Using a within-subjects design, 30 dependent smokers (14 males, 16 females) participated in two experimental sessions, as part of a larger study. Sessions varied by nicotine condition, no nicotine after overnight abstinence (>12 hr; CO 10 ppm; "nicotine condition"). In each session, participants engaged in a 15-min operant response task to earn time viewing a preferred picture (attractive human model; 7 sec per earned reinforcer; fixed-interval 10 schedule), with unique pictures per session. Overall, reinforced responding and duration of responding were each significantly greater in the nicotine versus no nicotine condition. When examining within-session patterns of responding, rate of reinforced responding declined less sharply early in the trial and persisted longer under the nicotine versus no nicotine condition. Exploratory analyses suggested that neither self-reported withdrawal levels nor nicotine condition order influenced differences in patterns of responding between conditions. Overall, these results are an initial demonstration of nicotine's (via cigarette smoke) ability to maintain the effectiveness of a reinforcer longer, compared to a no nicotine control. Delaying declines in reinforcer effectiveness may be yet another way in which nicotine promotes smoking behavior.


The author focuses on the analysis of the forms and the role of trust in the structure of the market of the services of life insurance. Particularly on this market we could easily trace the role of trust. As we trust the insurance company not only money but our lives. The question is how much a consumer has to trust the company in this case? The research is done on the basis of the expert interviews and R-TGI data.


China's aggressive strategy to develop a modern economy is matched only by an even more ambitious program of technological development. The Chinese government has earmarked digital broadcasting as the pre-eminent media technology to emerge in China's expanding and diversifying mediascape. Yet, in spite of predictions of 30 million subscribers by 2005 and $220 billion in revenue by 2015, there is still much to do to sell digital broadcasting to consumers and achieve these targets. This study examines the challenges facing China's digital broadcasting industry using the theory of controlled commodification to critique implementation strategies. Emerging from this analysis is a deeper understanding of the contested role of media in China's socialist market economy, which has had an impact on the successful adoption of digital broadcasting at a crucial stage of development.


The lymantriid forest defoliators, Lymantria monacha L. (nun moth) and Lymantria dispar L. (gypsy moth) are particularly severe pests in other countries in the world, but the ability of these moths to utilise and complete development on Pinus radiata D. Don had never been established. In laboratory trials, colonies of central European L. monacha and Russian far east (flight capable) L. dispar were fed on foliage from three mature P. radiata trees originating from three different advanced-selection families from New Zealand. The results showed that both moths were capable of completing their development from egg to adult on these families of P. radiata. However, P. radiata was a less suitable host for development of L. dispar than Quercus velutina Lam. (black oak), as evidenced by higher mortality and slower growth. Lymantria monacha developed faster and survived better on P. radiata than it did on mature foliage of Picea glauca (Moench) Voss. Neonate L. monacha larvae favoured male pine cones from Pinus strobus L. as a food source, but when these were absent did complete their development on P. radiata needles. There was no difference in larval development between those on the three P. radiata families tested. The study suggests anaccidental introduction of L. monacha to New Zealand, even more so than L. dispar, could have a serious impact on P. radiata plantations.


Paediatric gynaecological problems, especially those involving the vulvar area, are common in childhood. The conditions frequently seen include recurrent bacterial vulvovaginitis, vulvar irritation, labial adhesions and dermatological conditions. The presentation and management of these conditions will be reviewed.


Seven compounds have been isolated from Cistanche deserticola. On the basis of spectral data (NMR, IR, MS, UV) they were identified as beta-sitosterol, daucosterol, succinic acid, triacontanol, acteoside, betaine and polysaccharose.


Objective: Explore the athletic trainer's level of self-confidence and experience in managing and treating exertional heat illness. Design: Non-experimental, exploratory and descriptive research design. Participants: 110 respondents, 46% male, 54% female, representing all 10 National Athletic Trainers' Association districts, highest representation from district four (N=50). Sixty-eight percent (68%) from high school outreach setting, 22% College or University settings, and 10% from clinic/hospital setting. Twety-one percent of respondents reported earning ≥55K annual salary. Sixty-seven percent hold Masters degrees while 43% have practiced ≥11 years. Intervention: The Athletic Trainer's Self-Confidence Scale (ATSCS), (scale range, 1=strongly agree to 7=strongly disagree) was distributed to certified athletic trainers via Qualtrics survey. Main Outcome Measures: One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post-hoc analysis and independent-sample t-tests were used to measure differences between respondents and ATSCS items. Validity and reliability of the ATSCS were evaluated using Pearson r correlations and Cronbach coefficient alphas. Results: ATSCS yielded satisfactory internal consistency and convergent validity (Pearson r correlations between scale items ranged from r=.19(p=.05) to r=.79 (p=.01); Cronbach coefficient alphas α=.82. Athletic trainers were confident (overall mean between all scale items was M=2.05±.95) in treating exertional heat illnesses. Athletic trainers were most confident (strongly agree to somewhat agree, M=1.50±.57) in their ability to "think of an emergency plan of action" if an athlete is experiencing an exertional heat illness. Athletic trainers were least confident (somewhat confident to somewhat not confident, M=3.39±1.94) in their ability to know the correct reading of the rectal thermometer to distinguish a heat illness emergency and the proper temperature for cold water immersion. Males were somewhat confident about knowing the correct reading of a rectal thermometer and proper temperature for cold water immersion compared to females who were undecided, M=2.86±1.85 to M=3.83±1.91, t(109) p=.009. Males were also somewhat confident in knowing the proper way to administer a rectal thermometer and cold water immersion compared to females who were undecided, M=2.76±1.67 to M=3.75±2.00, t(109) p=.007. ANOVA analysis (Tukey Post Hoc) indicated that athletic trainers earning more salary (≥55K) were more confident than athletic trainers at lower salaries (>25K) in solving difficult problems with heat illness athletes, M=1.52±0.73 to M=2.43±0.94, F(4,108)=2.87, p=.004. Conclusion: Athletic trainers are somewhat confident in their ability to handle exertional heat illness emergencies. The lowest levels of self-confidence are in their abilities to insert a rectal thermometer and execute cold water immersion and to know the correct readings of the rectal thermometer to distinguish different heat illnesses and the proper temperature for cold water immersion. Athletic training should engage in continuing education opportunities where they are instructed the proper way administer a rectal thermometer and cold water immersion, and know the correct readings. Entry-level educational programs should consider formal instruction and evaluation for care of exertional heat illnesses, and related clinical competencies.


Abstract Background Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has had a significant impact on hospitals, including the occupational health departments in charge of handling healthcare worker (HCW) staffing during high rates of exposure and infection of HCWs. HCWs who were exposed to a patient or community member infected with SARS-CoV-2 were required to isolate from work for a minimum of 14 days from the date of exposure. Aims This study was aimed to assess the relative risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection following different types of workplace and community exposures. Methods We analyzed the details of workplace and community exposures of HCWs to SARS-CoV-2 at Montefiore Medical Center in New York between 22 June 2020 and 22 November 2020. Results Of 562 HCW SARS-CoV-2 exposures analyzed, 218 were from the community and 345 were from the workplace. Twenty-nine per cent of community exposures resulted in infection, which was significantly greater than workplace exposure infection (2%). Household community exposures resulted in a larger frequency of infection than non-household community exposures. Of the seven infections after workplace exposures, five had qualifying exposures to a co-worker and two were exposed to an infected patient during a non-aerosolized procedure. Conclusions HCW exposure to SARS-CoV-2 continues to present staffing challenges to healthcare systems. Even with deviations from standard personal protective equipment protocol, workplace exposures resulted in low frequencies of infection. In our study, the primary source of HCW infection was exposure in the community. Our findings support investing in efforts to educate around continued masking and social distancing in the community in addition to interventions targeted at addressing vaccine hesitancy.


Contrary to the popular image of Victorian Britain as an era of unbridled capitalism, the Victorians took financial transgressions seriously. Legal reforms passed in the second half of the nineteenth century made it possible for bankers to be held criminally responsible for their actions. The prosecutions which became commonplace by the end of the nineteenth century were high-risk and did not always succeed, but they had important economic and social effects. They restored market confidence in times of crisis, established the City of London's good reputation, and demonstrated the fairness of the criminal justice system. In addition, by punishing transgressions in a highly visible way, prosecutions defused demand for radical structural reforms, thus bolstering rather than undermining free enterprise. The lack of prosecutions following the recent banking crisis is thought to prove the inadequacy of existing laws and the government is therefore proposing to make reckless misconduct in the management of a bank a criminal offence. But it is doubtful whether such a reform would be either viable or necessary. Laws first passed in Victorian Britain define publishing false information to shareholders in prospectuses and balance sheets as fraud. It is easier to gain convictions based on fraudulent misrepresentation than recklessness, and in the past these laws have been successfully used to convict bankers and other directors who were reckless with their shareholders' money. These laws are still in place, and have been stiffened since 1900, but regulators have shown little willingness to test their applicability in the current crisis. This absence of political will has led to the effective decriminalisation of fraud. This will make it harder to clean up the City, and will foster radical critiques of the criminal justice system in particular and of the state in general.


Mefenamic acid (MA) is one of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, it is widely used probably due to having both anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity, the main side effects of mefenamic acid include gastrointestinal tract (GIT) disturbance mainly diarrhea, peptic ulceration, and gastric bleeding. The analgesic effects of NSAIDs are probably linked to COX-2 inhibition, while COX-1 inhibition is the major cause of this classic adverse effects. Introduction of thiazolidinone may lead to the increase in the bulkiness leads to the preferential inhibition of COX-2 rather than COX-1 enzyme. The study aimed to synthesize derivatives of mefenamic acid with more potency and to decrease the drug's potential side effects, new series of 4-thiazolidinone derivatives of mefenamic acid were synthesized IVa-g. The synthetic procedures for target compounds and their intermediates are designed to be as follows: acylation of secondary amine of mefenamic acid by chloroacetylchloride to produce compound (I), then reaction between compound (I) and hydrazine hydrate to form hydrazine derivative of mefenamic acid (compound II). After that, Schiff base formation by addition of seven benzaldehyde derivatives and finally, cyclization in presence of thioglycolic acid to form 4-thiazolidinone heterocyclic ring. The characterization of the titled compounds has been established on the basis of their spectral FTIR, 1HNMR data, and by measurements of their physical properties. In vivo acute anti-inflammatory effect of the synthesized compounds was evaluated in rats using egg-white induced edema model of inflammation. The tested compounds and the reference drug produced significant reduction of paw edema with respect to the effect of dimethyl sulfoxide 10%v/v (control group). Compound IVe showed more potent effect than mefenamic acid at 240-300 min, while at time 300 min, compounds IVa and IVd exhibit more potent anti-inflammatory effect than mefenamic acid (50mg/kg, i.p.) as they reduced paw edema significantly more than mefenamic acid at mentioned intervals (p<0.05) . On the other hand compound IVc exhibited lower anti-inflammatory effect.


Gas absorption calorimetry has been employed to probe the intercation of water and carbon dioxide with transition metal ion (TM = Mn2+, Fe2+, Co2+, Cu2+, and Zn2+) exchanged zeolite A samples. There appears to be a two-phase region, indicative of a guest-induced flexibility transition, separating hydrated zeolite A and its dehydrated form, both of which have variable water content in the single phase region. The differential enthalpy of absorption as a function of water loading directly identifies different strengths of multiple interactions along with possible binding mechanisms of Zn-A and Mn-A exhibiting the highest water absorption with most exothermic initial enthalpies of -125.28 ± 4.82 and -115.30 ± 2.56 kJ mol-1. Zn-A and Mn-A also show moderately good capture ability for CO2 with zero-coverage negative enthalpies of -55.59 ± 2.48 and -44.07 ± 1.53 kJ mol-1. The thermodynamic information derived from differential enthalpy, chemical potential and differential entropy elucidated the multistage interactive behavior of small guest molecules (H2O/CO2) and ion-exchanged frameworks.

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A simple and sensitive system for simultaneous preconcentration of Mn(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) at trace level by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) is proposed. Amberlite XAD-2010 packed in a column was used as sorbent. Analyte ions were sorbed in the column as their 8-hydroxyquinoline chelates; they could then be eluted by 1 mol L -1 HNO 3 in acetone. The analytical conditions including pH, amounts of 8-hydroxyquinoline, sample volume etc. on the quantitative recoveries of the analytes were investigated. The effects of the concomitants ions on the recoveries of the analytes column were also studied. The detection limits, corresponding to three times the standard deviation of the blank, were found to be in the range of 0.10-0.40 μg L -1 . The accuracy of the procedure was measured by analyte determinations in certified reference materials (CRM NIES No. 7 Tea Leaves and TMDW-500 Drinking Water). The applications of the presented system were performed by the analysis of some environmental samples including water samples.


Lower respiratory tract infections are the leading cause of death due to infectious diseases in both the developing world and developed world. The clinical problem is more complicated than the high profile killers, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, since the infections are caused by a wide variety of infectious agents, including bacteria and viruses, and covers a variety of clinical conditions. For some of the infectious agents, effective vaccines are available, but in all cases there is a need for new medicines, especially in antibacterial therapy. Over the last fifty years many new classes of antibiotics have been discovered, and antimicrobial therapy created the era of modern medicine. However, this trend has slowed down in recent years. The existing progress is being eroded by emergence of resistance against most of the classes of antibiotics. The challenge is that there is now very little research and development of new antibiotics within the pharmaceutical industry: it has become a neglected disease. The majority of drugs under development are improvements on existing classes of medicines. There are two major reasons for this lack of investment. First, the difficulty of achieving a return on investment, given the costs of drug development and the short period of therapy. Second, in recent years, there have been many uncertainties around the regulatory pathway. On top of all this, the promised fruit of the pathogen sequencing and target-based high-throughput screens has not added much to our armamentarium. However, given the mortality and morbidity, the identification of new antibiotics is still a fertile area for research, and a major commitment is needed to keep us from falling behind in the fight against these infections. Without new classes of drugs to fight infection, the long term consequence will be dramatic: a return to the pre-antibiotic era.


Sudhin N. Ghose's tetralogy of novels published between the late 1940s and 1950s was once hailed by its reviewers as among the best representations of Indian English literature. Now, however, Ghose and his novels have been almost completely forgotten. This disappearance from the memory of the readers and literary critics alike of a body of work praised so highly just five decades ago is a curious phenomenon. Even more curious is the strange and persistent 'mis-categorisation' of these novels of Ghose. From their very publication, the novels have been (mis)read, as autobiographies, and thus have never been explored as part of the otherwise thoroughly mapped terrain of the twentieth century Indian English fiction. This article tries to bring back the focus on Ghose's novels and probe into the causes behind their initial success and subsequent failure to achieve a widespread circulation, attract a substantial amount of critical attention or even find a place in the category of Indian English fiction. It is an attempt to read the novels as part of the twentieth century Indian English fiction and the larger context of the metropolitan 'alterity industry' through which the image of 'traditional' India has been produced and consumed for the last two centuries. But it is also an attempt to explain why Ghose's novels stand out as unique specimens that cannot be easily reconciled to any available category of anglophone Indian literature.


Introduction: Recent studies have reported that high and low maternal pre-pregnancy weight is accompanied with adverse pregnancy outcome including preterm labor and low birth weight or macrosomia. The purpose of the present study is to find the relationship between maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and spontaneous preterm labor and birth weight. Methods: This cohort study was performed on 576 pregnant women who referred to Shahid Akbarabadi hospital in Tehran in year 2008. 396 women finally finished the study. Maternal BMI was determined at the first prenatal visit (between 8-12 weeks of pregnancy) then the women were followed up to delivery. Gestational age at the time of delivery and neonatal weight were recorded and their results were investigated in four groups: underweight (BMI<20 kg/m2), normal weight (BMI=20-24.9 kg/m2), over weight (BMI=25-29.9 kg/m2) and obese (BMI=30-40 kg/m2). Data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 15), T-test, ANOVA, Chi-square and Pearson correlation tests and linear regression model. P less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The women in all BMI groups had no significant differences according to age, height, history of abortion and occupation. 21 women (5.3) were underweight, 198 women (50) had normal weight, 117 women (29.5) were overweight and 60 (15.2) were obese. No case of morbidly obese was seen. Obesity had positive correlation with higher gestational age at the time of delivery (r=0.213, p=0.015) and more birth weight (r=0.361, p=0.008). In contrast, low birth weight had correlation with low maternal weight (r=0.157, p=0.041). Macrosomia was more in obese women (p=0.022) and BMI had positive correlation with macrosomia (r=0.224, p=0.034). Preterm labor showed a negative correlation with BMI (r=-0.124, p=0.004) and preterm labor was seen more in women with lower BMI (p=0.035). Conclusion: Overweight women was more high risk for macrosomia, while, low birth weight (LBW) and spontaneous preterm labor were seen more in underweight mothers.


The objective of this paper is to summarize the work that has been developed by the authors for the last several years, in order to demonstrate that the Theory of Characteristic Modes can be used to perform a systematic design of different types of antennas. Characteristic modes are real current modes that can be computed numerically for conducting bodies of arbitrary shape. Since characteristic modes form a set of orthogonal functions, they can be used to expand the total current on the surface of the body. However, this paper shows that what makes characteristic modes really attractive for antenna design is the physical insight they bring into the radiating phenomena taking place in the antenna. The resonance frequency of modes, as well as their radiating behavior, can be determined from the information provided by the eigenvalues associated with the characteristic modes. Moreover, by studying the current distribution of modes, an optimum feeding arrangement can be found in order to obtain the desired radiating behavior.


The best interests of the child has become an central facet of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in expulsion cases. This article argues that the indirect application of the best interests of the child as an interpretive benchmark for Article 8 ECHR is not the end point of State's responsibilities under Article 3 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This article argues that the ECtHR's case law presents significant limitations in the subject matter scope of the best interests of the child, and limitations to the way in which it incorporates them into the Article 8 ECHR balancing exercise. This article acts as a thought experiment by modelling an alternative mode of decision-making. It asks what the best interests of the child might look like as the substantive human right at the centre of decisions about the expulsion of foreign nationals.


Among the various issues that remain open in the field of accretion onto black hole X-ray binaries (BHBs) is the question of how gas accretes at very low Eddington ratios, in the so-called quiescent regime. While there is general agreement that X-rays are produced by a population of high-energy electrons near the BH, there is controversy concerning the modeling of the contributions of inflowing versus outflowing particles and their relative energy budget. Recent Spitzer observations of three quiescent BHBs have shown evidence for excess emission with respect to the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of the companion star between 8-24 μm. We suggest that synchrotron emission from a partially self-absorbed outflow might be responsible for the observed mid-IR excess, in place of, or in addition to, thermal emission from circumbinary material. If so, then the jet synchrotron luminosity, integrated from radio to near-IR frequencies, exceeds the measured 2-10 keV luminosity by a factor of a few in these systems. In turn, the mechanical power stored in the jet exceeds the bolometric X-ray luminosity by at least 4 orders of magnitude. We compile the broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) of A0620-00, the lowest Eddington-ratio stellar mass BH with a known radio counterpart, by means of simultaneous radio, optical, and X-ray observations, and the archival Spitzer data. We are able to fit the SED of A0620-00 with a maximally jet-dominated model, in which the radio through the soft X-rays are dominated by synchrotron emission, while the hard X-rays are dominated by inverse Compton at the jet base. The fitted parameters land in a range of values reminiscent of the Galactic center supermassive black hole Sgr A*. Most notably, the inferred ratio of the jet acceleration rate to local cooling rates is 2 orders of magnitude weaker than higher luminosity, hard-state sources.


Introduction High teenage pregnancy rates in the UK reflect low levels of contraceptive use. Young people have a negative perception of contraceptive services and experience significant practical barriers to their use. Dedicated young people's services are considered an effective way to improve access. However it is costly to provide two parallel services (one for older and one for young clients) and competition for resources between two services limits the opening hours of both. In this way access by clients of all ages may be reduced. We have piloted an alternative approach. We provide quality mainstream services (open to clients of all ages) with extended hours and no appointment necessary. This is combined with targeted outreach to facilitate access by the under-25s. The outreach programme includes the development of close links between the clinic and local schools, youth services, social services and voluntary sector organisations. This paper presents one part of the evaluation of this service. Methods Patients registering in the 6 months before and 18 months after the development of the new service completed an anonymous questionnaire. This collected demographic details and data on their source of information about the service. Results The number of clients of all age groups registering at the new service in the first year doubled. The number of new users aged under 16 years increased by 12-fold in the first 18 months. The number of young people citing a school sex education class as their source of information about the clinic increased by more than five-fold. Conclusion This model of contraceptive service provision significantly increases service access by young people. It represents an effective alternative to dedicated services for young people.


Background and Aim: Clinical education is one of the most important parts of education in medicine and its aim is to providing the expert and efficient workforce to meet the needs of societies. The aim of current study was to evaluate clinical education in pediatrics wards of hospitals affiliated to the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences according to the Ministry of Health standards in 2015. Methods: The current survey is a cross-sectional study which was conducted during 2015. Faculty members, assistants and interns were selected from each pediatrics wards of Imam Hossein, Shohada Tajrish, Loqman and Mofid hospitals as the study population. The assessment tool is a self-made questionnaire. Data were analyzed with SPSS-16. Results: In the present study, 95 people from the Loqman (n=16), Imam Hossein (n=12), Shohada (n=15) and Mofid (n=52) Hospitals were participated. Among the participated people, 27 (28.4 %) were interns, 50 were (52.6 %) assistants and 18 (18.9 %) were professors. The findings of this study showed that none of the standards of clinical training did not apply according to the Ministry of Health standards from the perspective of faculty members, residents and interns. In all cases, faculty members in comparison to residents and interns, reported a higher rating to outpatient clinics, teaching round, grand round, morning reports, journal reports, and center of clinical skills, respectively. In all the hospitals, the center of clinical skills and journal clubs received the lowest scores. Conclusion: It can be concluded from the results of this study that from the perspective of residents, faculty members and interns none of the clinical training standards defined by the Ministry of Health, were fully respected. This is while morning reports were favorable and acceptable. However, some standards such as those related to clinical skill centers and journal clubs are facing weaknesses and as regards to their importance, considerations are required for their promotion and improvement.


The chronic shortage of doctors in rural India seriously impacts the quality of health care available to villagers. In recent years, there has been considerable excitement in digital diagnostics as a possible answer to this situation by allowing non-doctors to diagnose and treat patients. In this article, the author focuses on one such diagnostic tool that has gained serious traction among transnational health foundations and state governments alike. The focus is on the customization and localization of this software through a pilot study in central Himalayas. A baseline survey and extensive interviews are conducted for categorization and population of health data content. This entailed analyzing the segmentation and transfer of health information on disease history and symptoms from the patient to the software as well as situating this study in the larger understanding of the healthcare system in this community. In doing so, the author argues that much of such health information is difficult to categorize and sufficiently vague to not provide for a confident diagnosis. Further, the data population of the treatment segment is deeply political and sociocultural. This article thereby problematizes the innate assumption underlying the design of such software, that it is possible to diagnose and treat patients based on pure information.


Public insecurities about crime are widely assumed to erode individual well-being and community cohesion. Yet, robust evidence on the link between worry about crime and health is surprisingly scarce. This paper draws on data from a prospective cohort study (the Whitehall II study) to show a strong statistical effect of mental health and physical functioning on worry about crime. Combining with existing evidence, we suggest a feedback model in which worry about crime harms health, which, in turn, serves to heighten worry about crime. We conclude with the idea that, while fear of crime may express a whole set of social and political anxieties, there is a core to worry about crime that is implicated in real cycles of decreased health and perceived vulnerability to victimization. The challenge for future study is to integrate core aspects of the everyday experience of fear of crime with the more layered and expressive features of this complex social phenomenon.


In this paper, we analyze the risk taking behavior of banks in emerging economies, in a context of international bank competition. In the spirit of Vives (2002 and 2006) who has developed the notion of "external market discipline", our paper introduces a new channel through which depositors can exercise pressure to control risk taking. They can reallocate their savings away from their home country to a more protective system of a developed economy. In such a frame- work, we show that there is no univoque relationship between the information disclosure of risk management and excessive risk taking. This relationship depends on the degree of financial openness of the emergent country, which ultimately defines how e¤ective the market discipline is. Furthermore, we analyze the risk taking choice of banks in emergent economies in presence of deposit insurance. We find no monotone relationship between the likeliness of excessive risk taking of banks in the emerging country and the level of deposit insurance.


This study was performed to reveal the anatomy of the cervical canal in Angora goats. For this purpose, sixty genital tracts of adult Angora goats in estrus, weighing from 40 to 50 kg, obtained from Konya slaughterhouses, were used. The materials were examined by dissection and latex cast techniques. In dissections, the vaginal protrusions were star, duckbill, crescent, spiral, cluster and bump-shaped. In the materials with latex cast and dissection, because the circular folds were of high volumes in the caudal half of the cervical canal, the blind sacs were deeper than those of the cranial half. Based on the latex cast, we have noticed with interest that the cervical canal had a convexity in dorsal direction because its cranial and caudal thirds were curved ventrally. It was concluded that the anatomical structure of the cervical canal mentioned in this study might be considered in intrauterine catheter applications in Angora goats.


We investigated the effect of elevated CO2 on the growth and mycorrhizal colonization of three tree species native to north-eastern American forests (Betula papyrifera Marsh., Pinus strobus L. and Tsuga Canadensis L. Carr). Saplings of the tree species were collected from Harvard Forest, Massachusetts, and grown in forest soil under ambient (c. 375 ppm) and elevated (700 ppm) atmospheric CO., concentrations for 27-35 wk. In all three species there was a trend to increasing whole-plant, total-root and fine-root biomass in elevated CO2 , and a significant increase in the degree of ectomycorrhizal colonization in B. papyrifera and P. strobus, but not in T. Canadensis. However, in T, Canadensis the degree of colonization with arbuscular mycorrhizas increased significantly. In both the ambient and elevated environments, on the roots of B. papyrifera and P. strobus 12 distinct ectomycorrhizal morphotypes were identified. Distinct changes in the ectomycorrhizal morphotype assemblage of B. papvrifera were observed under CO2 enrichment. This change resulted in an increase in the frequency of ectomycorrhizas with a higher incidence of emanating hyphae and rhizomorphs, and resulted in a higher density of fungal hyphae in a root exclusion chamber.


The prion protein (PrP) misfolds and oligomerizes at pH 4 in the presence of physiological salt concentrations. Low pH and salt cause structural perturbations in the monomeric prion protein that lead to misfolding and oligomerization. However, the changes in stability within different regions of the PrP prior to oligomerization are poorly understood. In this study, we have characterized the local stability in PrP at high resolution using amide temperature coefficients (TC) measured by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The local stability of PrP was investigated under native as well as oligomerizing conditions. We have also studied the rapidly oligomerizing PrP variant (Q216R) and the protective PrP variant (A6). We report that at low pH, salt destabilizes PrP at several polar residues, and the hydrogen bonds in helices α2 and α3 are weakened. In addition, salt changes the curvature of the α3 helix, which likely disrupts α2–α3 contacts and leads to oligomerization. These results are corroborated by the TC values of rapidly oligomerizing Q216R‐PrP. The poly‐alanine substitution in A6‐PrP stabilizes α2, which prevents oligomerization. Altogether, these results highlight the importance of native polar interactions in determining the stability of PrP and reveal the structural disruptions in PrP that lead to misfolding and oligomerization.


A retrospective cohort study was performed to examine the extent and clinical significance of misclassification associated with using the current United States AIDS case defining category of an initial CD4 count < or = 200 cells x 10(6)/l (< or = 200) compared with a definition requiring two consecutive counts below this level. The main outcomes examined were the probability of subsequent CD4 counts > 200 x 10(6)/l (> 200) and progression times to AIDS and death. Of the 2025 predominantly male homosexual HIV-positive patients attending two hospital based HIV clinics with initial CD4 cell counts < or = 200, 1524 (75%) subsequently had consecutive counts < or = 200, but only half did so at the next CD4 count. Ten per cent had either no further or only non-consecutive counts < or = 200, and 15% had only one CD4 count available for analysis. The cumulative proportion of patients with a CD4 count > 200 at one year after a first count of < or = 200 was about twice (39%) that observed among the subgroup with at least two consecutive counts < or = 200 (19%). The times from the initial counts of < or = 200 to AIDS and death were also shorter by six months and two months, respectively, in the subgroup with two or more consecutive counts < or = 200. A significant proportion of patients will be prematurely classified as having a CD4 cell count < or = 200 if a single CD4 count below this level is accepted. A definition of two consecutive counts < or = 200 should be adopted in preference to a single count < or = 200 for natural history studies and clinical trials, in which precise estimates of the time to or from a defined CD4 threshold are important. In surveillance programmes, however, such an approach may be impractical because of missing or infrequent serial CD4 counts, although adjustments can be made based on these estimates of premature misclassification.


Abstract We present an experimental investigation of entrainment and the dynamics near the turbulent/non-turbulent interface in a dense gravity current. The main goal of the study is to investigate changes in the interfacial physics due to the presence of stratification and to examine their impact on the entrainment rate. To this end, three-dimensional data sets of the density and the velocity fields are obtained through a combined scanning particle tracking velocimetry/laser-induced fluorescence approach for two different stratification levels with inflow Richardson numbers of $\mathit{Ri}_{0}=0.23$ and $\mathit{Ri}_{0}=0.46$ , respectively, at a Reynolds number around $\mathit{Re}_{0}=3700$ . An analysis conditioned on the instantaneous position of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface as defined by a threshold on enstrophy reveals an interfacial region that is in many aspects independent of the initial level of stratification. This is reflected most prominently in matching peaks of the gradient Richardson number $\mathit{Ri}_{g}\approx 0.1$ located approximately $10{\it\eta}$ from the position of the interface inside the turbulent region, where ${\it\eta}=({\it\nu}^{3}/{\it\epsilon})^{1/4}$ is the Kolmogorov scale, and ${\it\nu}$ and ${\it\epsilon}$ denote the kinematic viscosity and the rate of turbulent dissipation, respectively. A possible explanation for this finding is offered in terms of a cyclic evolution in the interaction of stratification and shear involving the buildup of density and velocity gradients through inviscid amplification and their subsequent depletion through molecular effects and pressure. In accordance with the close agreement of the interfacial properties for the two cases, no significant differences were found for the local entrainment velocity, $v_{n}$ (defined as the propagation velocity of an enstrophy isosurface relative to the fluid), at different initial stratification levels. Moreover, we find that the baroclinic torque does not contribute significantly to the local entrainment velocity. Comparing results for the surface area of the convoluted interface to estimates from fractal scaling theory, we identify differences in the interface geometry as the major factor in the reduction of the entrainment rate due to density stratification.


Purpose To mathematically model clearance curves of cholate administered intravenously (13C) and orally (2H) to patients with chronic hepatitis C (HALT-C cohort). Background First-pass hepatic extraction of cholate can be measured in humans after simultaneous oral and intravenous administration of dual isotopes. Cholate escaping hepatic extraction enters the systemic circulation and is defined by cholate shunt. In 286 patients with fibrotic stages of chronic hepatitis C, cholate shunt correlated with cirrhosis on liver biopsy, varices on endoscopy, splenomegaly on ultrasonography, platelet count, and biochemical markers of disease severity. However, the method of measuring cholate shunt required multiple samples of blood (n=14) collected over 3 hours. Methods 20 mg of 24-13C cholic acid was dissolved in NaHCO3, mixed with 5 ml 25% human albumin and injected through an intravenous catheter over 2 min. 40 mg of 2,2,4,4-2H cholic acid was dissolved in water and taken orally. Blood was drawn at baseline and 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 150 and 180 minutes post-dose. The cholates were isolated by extraction from serum with Sep-Pak C18 cartridge, acidification, ether extraction, methylation, TMS derivatization, and capillary GC/MS isotope ratiometry. Cholate shunt was calculated as AUCoral/AUCiv × Doseiv/Doseoral × 100%. Results Deconvolutional analysis was performed on the 14-point intravenous and oral clearance curves to obtain the minimal amount of points and time period required to regenerate the full curves. We compared models ranging from 2 to 7 time points spanning time periods from 5 to 180 minutes. The optimum model was 5 time points bracketing inflection points in the clearance curves and encompassing a time period of 90 min. This analysis indicates that cholate shunt may be accurately determined from 5 samples of blood obtained at 5, 20, 45, 60 and 90 minutes post dose. The accuracy of the 5-point "minimal model" in measurement of cholate shunt was 98.1 ± 1.4% of that calculated using all 14 time points. Conclusion The 5-point model accurately defines cholate shunt. The reduced number of samples and decreased time period of sampling greatly improve the applicability of measuring cholate shunt in humans.


Malaria Consortium's inSCALE project has been working in Uganda to help scale up quality integrated community case management programmes to improve child health. This Learning Paper details the process of establishing Village Health Clubs that aim to improve the motivation and performance of community health workers -- known as village health team members in Uganda.


This paper examines the astonishing parallels in the depictions of childhood experience in the works of Polish writer Bruno Schulz and German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, which so far have not received any attention in research. For both authors, the experience of the child−be it autobiographically remembered as in Adorno, or fantastically transformed as in Schulz−bears the characteristics of transcendental experience manifest in everyday life. As similar as the childhood images and scenes in Schulz and Adorno might be, their significance points in two different directions. While for Schulz, the experience of the child leads back to an original meaning of things and thus to myth, for Adorno, it points to the conditions of a new order and thus to utopia.


We explore whether our models for starbursts, quiescent star-forming galaxies and for active galactic nuclei (AGN) dust tori are able to model the full range of Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) spectra measured with Spitzer. The diagnostic plot of 9.7 μm silicate optical depth versus 6.2 μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) equivalent width, introduced by Spoon and coworkers in 2007, gives a good indication of the age and optical depth of a starburst, and of the contribution of an AGN dust torus. However, there is aliasing between age and optical depth at later times in the evolution of a starburst, and between age and the presence of an AGN dust torus. Modelling the full IRS spectra and using broad-band 25–850 μm fluxes can help to resolve these aliases. The observed spectral energy distributions require starbursts of a range of ages with initial dust optical depth ranging from 50–200, optically thin dust emission ('cirrus') illuminated by a range of surface brightnesses of the interstellar radiation field, and AGN dust tori with a range of viewing angles.


In this article, three nanofiltration (NF) membranes of increasing molecular weight cutoff ranging from 200 to 2000 were characterized by using solute rejection method and atomic force microscope (AFM) imaging. The membranes were all made of polyamide; thus, by using membranes made from the same polymer, it is hoped that the uncertainty imposed by the polymeric materials is eliminated and a better understanding of the relationship between the membrane characteristics and its separation performance is gained. Three approaches were used to fit the solute rejection data: characterization using information provided by the manufacturer, characterization using limiting rejection data, and characterization using the full rejection data. The characterization based on the information by the manufacturer was found to be quite misleading especially for larger pore size membranes. The method based on solute rejection data shows that the characteristics of the membranes were within that expected for NF membranes. It was possible to explain some of the membrane rejection performance based on the characteristics obtained. However, the result from AFM study shows the existence of wide pore size distribution of the membranes. This may be the reason why there have been some inconsistencies and non-uniformity in the membranes performance.


The focus of this article is on the main aspects of economic governance in Greece during the period 2015–19 where the syriza-anel coalition party was in power. In August 2015, the syriza-anel government faced the dilemma either to accept a new agreement with the EU partners (as eventually happened) or go bankrupt and leave the Eurozone, becoming detached from EU solidarity mechanisms. A third program was agreed, offering Greece an additional €86 billion loan over a three-year period. The third programme was unnecessary considering that the syriza-anel governance inherited 0.8% growth rate and some progress in the structural reforms demanded during the first two agreements in 2010 and 2011. However, the political choices made had the consequence of Greece returning to recession in 2015 and 2016.


transfusion include the post-transfusion syndrome, hepatitis, and prolonged virus excretion by those infected. This leads in turn to infection, during the ensuing postpartum months, of those mothers who are not immune-a serious risk if this occurs at a time when the mother is again pregnant. J. O'H. TOBIN Department of Virology, Churchill Hospital, Oxford. J. W. T. BENSON, Department ofHaematology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, WCIN 3JH.


The structure of election administration is a crucial component of the democratic project of any state. In Nigeria, it is widely acknowledged that the structural character of the country's election management body –the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has over the years become the focal points at which elections are compromised. With insights from interviews and focused group discussion; conducted amongst INEC commissioners, staff and representatives of political parties within the period: 2009-2011, this paper is a graphic analysis of how the structure of INEC complicates the election administration process and democratic sustainability in Nigeria.


This article discusses the relationship between literary form and contemporary ecological anxiety in Douglas Coupland's novel Generation A . Coupland's speculative fiction envisions a possible future in the wake of Colony Collapse Disorder, but the more generalized eco-anxiety the novel explores is applicable to a number of contemporary environmental issues ranging from climate change to ocean acidification. I argue that Coupland's novel invites readers to consider the problem of representing ecological problems characterized by global scale, temporal uncertainty, and multiple origins. I then explore how Coupland responds to these challenges by stretching form in two directions. First, he juxtaposes and recycles a series of stories in a manner that capitalizes on lateral, shortened forms of attention, leading readers to detect larger patterns of significance within a database of what might initially seem like insignificant or banal details. Second, he cultivates the development of a form of "hive mind" among characters and readers that stretches ideas of personhood beyond the corporeal boundaries of the individual subject. The latter opens new possibilities for conceiving of a collective, networked mode of political agency in the era of social media and global scale effects.


The rapid progress in modern technologies and paying more attention to food safety has prompted new green technologies superior than chemical methods in the food industry. In this regard, enzymes can decrease the usage of chemical reactions but they are sensitive to environmental effects (pH and temperature). In addition, enzymes are scarcely possible to be reused. Consequently, their application as natural catalysts is restricted. Using nanotechnology and the possibility of enzyme immobilization on nanomaterials has led to nanobiocatalysts, resulting from the integration of nanotechnology and biotechnology. Nanocarriers have individual features like nanoscale size, excellent surface/volume ratio, and diversity in construction to improve the activity, efficiency, stability, and storage stability of enzymes. Nanobiocatolysts have a wide range of applications in purification, extraction, clarification, production, and packaging of various products in the food industry. Furthermore, the application of nanobiocatalysts to identify specific components of food contaminants such as microorganisms or their metabolites, heavy metals, antibiotics, and residual pesticides has been successful due to the high accuracy of detection. This review investigates the integration of nanotechnology and food enzymes, the nanomaterials used to create nanobiocatalysts and their application, along with the possible risks and legal aspects of nanomaterials in food bioprocesses.


The new Internet is evolving into the vision of the Internet of Things, where physical world entities are integrated into virtual world things. Things are expected to become active participants in business, information and social processes. Then, the Internet of Things could benefit from the Web Service architecture like today's Web does; so Future service-oriented Internet things will offer their functionality via service-enabled interfaces. As demonstrated in previous work, there is a need of considering the behaviour of things to develop applications in a more rigorous way. We proposed a lightweight model for representing such behaviour based on the service-oriented paradigm and extending the standard DPWS profile to specify the (partial) order with which things can receive messages. To check whether a mashup of things respects the behaviour, specified at design-time, of composed things, we proposed a static verification. However, at run-time a thing may change its behaviour or receive requests from instances of different mashups. Then, it is required to check and detect dynamically possible invalid invocations provoked by the behaviour's changes. In this work, we extend our static verification with an approach based on mediation techniques and complex event processing to detect and inhibit invalid invocations, checking that things only receive requests compatible with their behaviour. The solution automatically generates the required elements to perform run-time validation of invocations, and it may be extended to validate other issues. Here, we have also dealt with quality of service and temporal restrictions.


The number of transistors on an integrated circuit keeps doubling every two years. This increasing number of transistors is used to integrate more processing cores on the same chip. However, due to power density and ILP diminishing returns, the single-thread performance of such processing cores does not double every two years, but doubles every three years and a half.
Computer architecture research is mainly driven by simulation. In computer architecture simulators, the complexity of the simulated machine increases with the number of available transistors. The more transistors, the more cores, the more complex is the model. However, the performance of computer architecture simulators depends on the single-thread performance of the host machine and, as we mentioned before, this is not doubling every two years but every three years and a half. This increasing difference between the complexity of the simulated machine and simulation speed is what we call the simulation speed gap.
Because of the simulation speed gap, computer architecture simulators are increasingly slow. The simulation of a reference benchmark may take several weeks or even months. Researchers are concious of this problem and have been proposing techniques to reduce simulation time. These techniques include the use of reduced application input sets, sampled simulation and parallelization.
Another technique to reduce simulation time is raising the level of abstraction of the simulated model. In this thesis we advocate for this approach. First, we decide to use trace-driven simulation because it does not require to provide functional simulation, and thus, allows to raise the level of abstraction beyond the instruction-stream representation.
However, trace-driven simulation has several limitations, the most important being the inability to reproduce the dynamic behavior of multithreaded applications. In this thesis we propose a simulation methodology that employs a trace-driven simulator together with a runtime sytem that allows the proper simulation of multithreaded applications by reproducing the timing-dependent dynamic behavior at simulation time.
Having this methodology, we evaluate the use of multiple levels of abstraction to reduce simulation time, from a high-speed application-level simulation mode to a detailed instruction-level mode. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of the impact in accuracy and simulation speed of these abstraction levels and also show their applicability and usefulness depending on the target evaluations. We also compare these levels of abstraction with the existing ones in popular computer architecture simulators. Also, we validate the highest abstraction level against a real machine.
One of the interesting levels of abstraction for the simulation of multi-cores is the memory mode. This simulation mode is able to model the performanceof a superscalar out-of-order core using memory-access traces. At this level of abstraction, previous works have used filtered traces that do not include L1 hits, and allow to simulate only L2 misses for single-core simulations. However, simulating multithreaded applications using filtered traces as in previous works has inherent inaccuracies. We propose a technique to reduce such inaccuracies and evaluate the speed-up, applicability, and usefulness of memory-level simulation.
All in all, this thesis contributes to knowledge with techniques for the simulation of chip multiprocessors with hundreds of cores using traces. It states and evaluates the trade-offs of using varying degress of abstraction in terms of accuracy and simulation speed.


The goal of building recommender system is to generate personalized recommendations to users. Recommender system has great value in multiple business verticals like video on demand, news, advertising and retailing. In order to recommend to each individual, large number of personal preference data need to be collected and processed. Processing big data usually takes long time. The long delays from data entered system to results being generated makes recommender systems can only benefit returning users. This project is an attempt to build a recommender system as service with low latency, to make it applicable for more scenarios. In this paper, different recommendation algorithms, distributed computing frameworks are studied and compared to identify the most suitable design. Experiment results reviled the logarithmical relationship between recommendation quality and training data size in collaborative filtering. By applying the finding, a low latency recommendation workflow is achieved by reduce training data size and create parallel computing partitions with minimal cost of prediction quality. In this project the calculation time is successfully limited in 3 seconds (instead of 25 in control value) while maintaining 90% of the prediction quality.


99Mo tracer diffusion in Fe79-yMo8Cu1B12+y (y = 0, 3, 5) alloys was studied using serial sectioning method in the temperature range 573 – 773 K. Sputtering by Ar+ ions was applied as a sectioning technique. The measurement was carried out with the ribbon-like samples prepared by planar flow casting technique and crystallized before the diffusion experiment by a thermal shock in vacuum. The structure was formed by areas of three distinct types differing in chemical composition r = at. % Mo / at. % Fe: (i) r = 0.02 (crystallites of Fe, mean size d ~ 150 nm), (ii) r = 0.09 (relaxed phase; d ~ 150 nm) and (iii) r = 0.83 (boride phase; d ~ 30 nm). The measured profiles were linear in co-ordinates ln cMo vs. x1.5 (cMo – concentration of Mo in depth x), indicating that the diffusion of 99Mo was controlled by "type A-B" kinetics.


Background:We compared biomarkers of vascular dysfunction among HIV-infected children to a demographically similar group of uninfected children and determined factors associated with these biomarkers. Methods and Results:We measured several biomarkers of vascular dysfunction: C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and monocyte chemoattractant protein −1 (MCP-1) (inflammation); fibrinogen and P-selectin (coagulant dysfunction); soluble intracellular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM), soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM), and E-selectin (endothelial dysfunction); and leptin (metabolic dysfunction). Anthropometry, body composition, CD4%, HIV viral load, and antiretroviral therapy were recorded. Mean age was 14.8 years (106 HIV-infected children) and 12.3 years (55 control children). Sex and body mass index Z scores were similar. Infected children had higher sICAM, sVCAM, MCP-1, IL-6, and fibrinogen levels. E-selectin (P = 0.07), and CRP (P = 0.08) trended to be greater in the HIV group, yet leptin and P-selectin were similar. In multivariable analyses in the HIV-infected children alone, each 1 standard deviation increase in waist to hip ratio was associated with increases in sICAM (17%), MCP-1 (19%), IL6 (18%), and CRP (59%). CD4% was inversely associated with sVCAM, MCP-1, IL6, fibrinogen, and CRP. Conclusions:HIV-infected children have higher levels of biomarkers of vascular dysfunction than healthy children. Risk factors associated with these biomarkers include higher waist to hip ratios and HIV disease severity.


This paper describes an ontology design pattern for modeling algorithms, their implementations and executions. This pattern is derived from the research results on data mining/machine learning ontologies, but is more generic. We argue that the proposed pattern will foster the development of standards in order to achieve a high level of interoperability among in silico scientific experiments. We describe the intent of the pattern, provide competency questions and the pattern formalization. We also present an example instantiation of the pattern in the machine learning domain.


According to attachment theory, the infant shapes perceptions on self and significant others based on his or her experience with the primary caregiver. These perceptions include thoughts and beliefs regards the extent to which the self is worthy of love, and the extent to which others are reliable sources of love and protection. Thoughts and beliefs about the self are defined as working models of self, thoughts and belief about others are defined as working models of others. To date, attachment researchers have characterized individual differences in working models predominantly in terms of valence (positive versus negative). However, there are both theoretical and empirical reasons to suggest that it may not be sufficient, and that working models also differ between individuals in terms of stability and organizational structure. Accordingly, the current thesis investigated the proposal that individual differences in attachment relates to change in working models, in specific models of significant others, in response to transient evaluative events. Five studies examined the association between individual differences in attachment and systematic fluctuations in appraisals of significant others (romantic partners), and the psychological processes that underlie them. Study 1 showed that people with high levels of attachment anxiety hold unstable views of their romantic partners. Study 2 and Study 3 provided evidence that under threat to the ego or threat to the relationship people with high levels of attachment anxiety decrease esteem for their romantic partner. In Study 4 and Study 5 higher levels of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were both associated with greater ambivalence towards the romantic partner. Overall, findings supported the proposal that working models of attachment differ not only in terms of how positively or negatively others are perceived, but also in terms of the temporal stability of these perceptions. These findings have implications for research in the domains of attachment and romantic relationships, and on romantic relationships' functioning


The transformer is one of the main components in the power network and transformer windings are one of the most expensive elements in the power transformer. Optimisation of winding distances is one of the most important parameters during the manufacturing of transformer. The distance between the windings in the two winding transformers is well known to transformer designers and manufacturers. However, insulation of the high voltage transformer with additional winding and tap winding is still a major problem for transformer designers. In this study, the additional winding to tap winding distance optimisation is made for a high voltage power transformer. Optimisation of the transformer's windings just not minimises the cost of the transformer but also increases the lifetime of the transformer. With additional winding and tap winding in high-voltage transformers, insulation distance is a major concern for minimising the cost and size of the high voltage transformer. In this study, an approach is made to balance the cost, size, and safety of high voltage transformers. The optimised distance and position between tap winding and additional winding are determined by using the finite element analysis. The finite element method results were also verified by making a prototype transformer.


This paper presents a new robustified data-driven fault detection approach, connected to closed-loop subspace identification. Although data-driven detection methods have recently been reported in the literature, attention has not yet been given to a robust solution coping with identification errors. The key idea of this paper is to analytically quantify the effect of the identification errors on the residual generator of a new data-driven detection approach, namely FICSI. The comparisons of the proposed robust FICSI detection scheme with both its nominal counterpart and the nominal data-driven PSA solutions have verified the effectiveness of accounting the identification errors in improving the performance of the data-driven detection scheme.


In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), cooperative communication represents a potential candidate to combat the effects of channel fading by exploiting diversity gain achieved via cooperation among the relays nodes. However, for the energy-constrained WSN, to what extent cooperative communication can save energy consumption for a successful packet transmission is still unknown. Energy efficiency of cooperation and direct transmission schemes in WSN is studied and compared in this paper. The expressions of energy efficiency of the two schemes are derived, respectively. The numerical results reveal that for the small distance separation between the source and destination nodes, the direct transmission scheme is more energy efficient than cooperation and the relay location, packet size, and modulation level have important effects on energy efficiency. At last, energy efficiency maximization for the cooperative communication system is achieved by optimizing both the packet size and modulation level jointly


The rejection of eggs of brood parasites in several species of hosts is based on cues only at the blunt pole (BP) and not at the sharp pole (SP) of the foreign and own eggshell. We investigated whether intraclutch variation is confined to a specific egg pole in species where the extent of intraclutch variation in the overall egg appearance is known to positively covary with either egg rejection rate or the probability of being parasitized. For the two poles separately, we analysed intraclutch variation of eggshell brightness and blue chroma. We quantified intraclutch variation as the standard deviations of these colour metrics, instead of their coefficients of variation which would represent a statistically flawed approach. Pooling measurements of brightness across the whole egg surface led to statistically non-significant results and masked positive correlations of BP brightness with egg rejection or parasitism risk, respectively. In contrast, patterns of blue chroma were important across the whole egg. Thus, the traditional whole egg 'averaging' approach may mask biologically important effects of intraclutch variation when the variation and potential signalling functions of egg appearance are confined to a specific egg part (brightness). However, analyses based on only BP and SP eggshell region specific data may also lack the power to detect effects of phenotypic traits that do not vary between egg poles (blue chroma). We advocate the use of a combination of region-specific and whole-eggshell based colour metrics and manipulations in cognitive, perceptual, and ecological studies of foreign egg rejection.


The term "Intra-cranial space occupying lesion" (ICSOL) is used to represent any neoplasm, benign or malignant, primary or secondary, as well as any inflammatory or infectious mass lying within the cranial cavity. It also includes haematomas, different types of cysts, and vascular malformations Magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a simple, easily available, noninvasive, cost effective and easily reproducible investigation modality for intracranial pathologies. After undergoing this study, prompt and accurate diagnosis may help in better management. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted at Department of Radio-diagnosis, Basaveshwara Teaching and General hospital attached to M. R. Medical college, Kalaburagi. The study design was a one and half year observational study. The present study was conducted from December 2014 to June 2016. Result: We found the predominant cause of intracranial space occupying lesions to be neoplasms (64%). Of the neoplastic lesions 65% were intra-axial and 35% were extra axial. Gliomas (14 cases) were the most prevalent intra-axial neoplasms and meningiomas (6 cases) the most prevalent extra-axial neoplasms. Infections comprised 30% of all cases most of which were tuberculomas. The rest 6% of cases were formed by tumefactive demyelinating lesions of multiple sclerosis. Irrespective of cause, the predominant presenting symptoms were headache and neurological deficits, seen in 22 patients each, followed by seizures (20 patients). Even in infections, whether tuberculomas or abscesses, many of the patients did not present with fever or meningismus making the diagnosis difficult clinically. Conclusion: Magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a newer non invasive modality which provides biochemical information about different tissues that cannot be obtained by conventional MRI alone even after contrast administration. It complements MRI and is particularly useful when the MRI findings are inconclusive. It characterizes lesions based on metabolite patterns and ratios. Choline, N-acetyl aspartate, creatine, lactate, lipids, alanine, amino acids and myoinositol are the major metabolites studied.


Abstract : The concentration of sea salt aerosol was measured aboard the USNS HAYES at 16m height in the western South Atlantic Ocean from February 3-19, 1981. Aerosol samples were collected using a NRL-designed, automated sampler coupled to a programmable environmental monitoring system. Simultaneous measurements of wind speed and direction, air and water temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure and atmospheric radon concentration were also made nearly continuously along the cruise track. Emphasis on functional relationships between synoptic measurements of sea salt aerosol and local wind speed showed the overall correlation between these two parameters to be poor (r approx 0.3 for 249 data point sets), However, when the data is separated into discrete meteorological and/or oceanographic events, most short term correlations are significantly improved. In this region of the South Atlantic Ocean, we attribute the low overall correlation between synoptic measurements of salt aerosol and wind speed to the effects of hysteresis, condensation processes and varying structure of the turbulent boundary layer. The sea surface temperature varied widely during this cruise and seemed to directly influence the atmospheric salt load, regardless of wind speed in many cases. Deterministic predictions of instantaneous sea salt aerosol values will require improved real-time methods for characterizing the marine boundary layer. Alternatively, modelling sea salt aerosol concentrations might be most practically effected using a statistical approach.


Food safety education from farm to end user is essential in the mitigation of food safety concerns associated with fresh produce. Iowa State University developed a multi-disciplinary three-level sequential program ("Know," "Show," "Go") to provide a holistic approach to food safety education. This program provides knowledge on GAP (Know); guides development and documentation of food safety practices (Show); and aids in grower's readiness for third party auditing (Go). Evaluations suggest this program is effective in changing long term food safety knowledge, attitude, and behaviors. The multi-disciplinary sequential approach can be used by other Extension programs to reach.


This article was developed from the premise that prior work experience provides students with a competitive advantage in the job market since this experience is looked upon favorably by recruiters of college graduates for entry level positions. The article focuses on the characteristics of prior work experience and their relationship with effective socialization. Hypotheses were tested using survey data from 131 college graduates participating in a Career Development Program. The findings provide insight into the dynamics of prior work experience and effective socialization, however, they raise questions regarding the "benefits" of prior work experience.


ABSTRACT Animal shelters commonly experience difficulties finding homes for dogs with pre-existing medical or behavioral issues. The purpose of this study was to investigate the various factors that contribute to people's willingness to consider adopting dogs with different behavioral and medical needs and backgrounds. A web-based survey was created using the Qualtrics platform. The sample size for this study was (n = 752). Results from generalized linear mixed models and latent regression models showed that, overall stimulus, dogs described as having behavioral issues were viewed as less adoptable, less appealing, and more demanding of resources than dogs described as having medical issues. However, while women perceived dogs with behavioral issues as less adoptable than dogs with medical issues, men viewed dogs with behavioral issues as more adoptable than dogs with medical issues. Dogs described as friendly were perceived as most adoptable followed by (in order) dogs with an abuse history, dogs with allergies, and dogs that jumped/pulled. Dogs with diabetes or separation anxiety were perceived as least adoptable. Dogs described as having a history of abuse were viewed as more adoptable, more affectively appealing, and less demanding of resources than dogs with either medical or behavioral issues. Participants who currently had a dog or who were raised with a dog as a child tended to view stimulus dogs as more adoptable than their counterparts who didn't currently have a dog or who didn't have a dog as a child. Married persons viewed dogs as more adoptable than unmarried persons, and younger persons viewed dogs as more adoptable than older persons. Understanding the attitudes/beliefs of potential dog adopters toward various medical and behavioral issues provides animal rescue and adoption groups with valuable information on how best to market dogs who have medical or behavioral problems. Shelters can offer potential adopters training classes for dogs with behavioral problems and "how-to" educational classes for those who adopt dogs with medical problems. The purpose of this study was to examine the various factors that contribute to people's willingness to consider adopting dogs with different behavioral and medical attributes and backgrounds. There are few extant research studies related to the perceived adoptability of dogs with pre-existing medical and behavioral problems.


The objective of this study was to determine the effects of aging on sympathetic neurotransmission in an important vascular resistance bed, the kidney. The experimental model utilized was the isolated perfused kidney from male Fischer 344 rats, 6, 12 and 24 months of age. Stimulus-induced (supramaximal V, 30 pulses, 1 msec) overflow of endogenous norepinephrine was examined over a wide range of frequencies (0.25-12 Hz) under three conditions: 1) control; 2) after inhibition of neuronal and extraneuronal uptake; and 3) after blockade of alpha adrenoceptors. Absolute overflow of norepinephrine was significantly greater in the 24-month group compared to the 6- and 12-month groups. Because renal catecholamine content was not significantly different between the three groups, fractional overflow also was significantly greater in the 24-month group. Despite the increase in overflow in the 24-month group, control vasoconstrictor responses to nerve stimulation were not significantly different between the three groups. Inhibition of neuronal and extraneuronal uptake did not significantly alter the relationship between fractional overflows in the three groups. In the presence of alpha adrenoceptor blockade, utilized to eliminate the influence of inhibitory prejunctional alpha adrenoceptors, fractional overflow of norepinephrine was increased in each group compared to control. However, after alpha adrenoceptor blockade, fractional overflow was not significantly different between the three age groups. In conclusion, aging results in a decrease in prejunctional alpha adrenoceptor influence and increase in norepinephrine release from renal sympathetic nerves, but not alterations in vascular response to sympathetic nerve activation.


Some endodontists use iodoform in Sealapex in order to rend it more radiopac. This procedure is empiric and for this reason we decided to observe, histologically, if the iodoform introduces some modification in the biological properties of Sealapex. Thirty root canals of dogs' teeth were overinstrumented and filled, by lateral condensation technique, with gutta percha points and Sealapex, with or without iodoform. The iodoform was added in two different proportions: 30 mg or 112 mg for one centimeter of the base and one centimeter of the catalyst of Sealapex. The pieces were removed for histological studies, 6 months after the treatment. The histological results showed that Sealapex encourages apical closure by cementum deposition and that the addition of iodoform does not change that biological property.


This thesis have investigated technical and economical challenges for deploying WiMAX networks in rural districts of Africa. Africa has a fixed telephone line penetration of only 3%, which is a significant barrier for diffusion of Internet access using dial-up and DSL. In many rural areas of Africa the Internet penetration is close to zero. The WiMAX technology is capable of delivering broadband services to large geographical areas at low cost. In the thesis, the properties of WiMAX have been discussed and compared to other technologies for Broadband Wireless Access, such as Wi-Fi, WiBRO and different 3G telephony technologies. The situation for telecommunications in Africa has been investigated in the thesis. While the density of fixed telephone lines and Internet access is on a very low level, mobile telephony is on the rise, with an annual growth rate of 65% and a mobile subscriber penetration rate close to 10%. There are significant variations in the regulatory regimes from state to state on the continent. Regulations are often unsystematic and lacks transparency. Other challenges for telecommunication providers include the low level of income, lack of electricity, harsh climate and theft of cables and equipment. Ghana has been used as a case study, and different deployment scenarios using WiMAX has been investigated. The prices of user equipment and lack of computers will probably limit the residential uptake in rural, low-income areas. It has been suggested a deployment scenario for providing ICT services for rural districts in Ghana using WiMAX as access technology. The scenario is based on a collective solution, which implies the sharing of end-user equipment in order to reduce the financial threshold for low-income rural inhabitants to use telecommunications. An economical analysis has been performed for this scenario, and the results indicate that the suggested scenario is economically viable in rural areas where the population density exceeds 100 inhabitants per square kilometer.


This paper describes the high current behavior of a lateral, n-channel, high-voltage transistor. The starting points are TCAD experiments where the phenomenological behavior is analyzed. Based on these results a transistor high current model is derived, which is based on the vertical integrated free carrier concentration in the drift region. The important model parameter is the gate voltage, which defines the boundary condition for the free electron concentration at the beginning of the drift region. Because of the coupling of the carrier continuity equation and the Poisson equation (drift-diffusion model), this boundary condition plays a major role, and defines the carrier concentration inside the drift region. Together with an intrinsic low-voltage transistor model (intrinsic NMOS transistor), a series network is solved numerically. The network behavior reflects the TCAD experiments quite well and covers the different electrical regimes (the on-resistance regime, the quasi-saturation regime, and the saturation regime). The model output is compared with the TCAD experiments and the measured transistor data as well.