Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in women. Due to a lack of appropriate animal models, studies involving tumorigenicity, tumor progression and immune response at the molecular level are limited. We isolated many clones derived from thesurvivors of a transformed mouse ovarian epithelial cell line IG-10 in immune- competent mice and found that the clones displayed diverse phenotypes. Most clones were deficient in components of the MHC-I antigen presentation pathway. Soft-agarose colony assays showed different growth rates among clones. However, this did not completely correlate with each clone's in vivo tumorigenicity regarding growth, tumor mass and ascites formation, suggesting the possibility that the clones may display contrasting intrinsic gene expression. We therefore performed two types of arrays to evaluate gene expression at transcriptional and translational levels. The results showed differences in expression of COL4α5, NOS-2, and SOCS-1 genes at the transcriptional level, MIP-2 gene at the protein level and CCL5, CXCL-10, IL-1α genes at both transcriptional and protein levels between low and high tumorigenic clones. Thus, our animal cell model together with the identified genes may provide a useful tool to study ovarian cancer immune response, tumorigenicity and tumor-host cell interactions in the tumor microenvironment.


The ultrastructure of mesophyll chloroplasts of maize (Zea mays L.) was more severely affected by iron deficiency that induced mild chlorosis than was the ultrastructure of bundle sheath plastids. Ferredoxin and ribulose diphosphate carboxylase levels were severely decreased by iron deficiency. Malic enzyme was less affected, and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase activity remained high even under severe iron deficiency. Iron deficient leaves fixed carbon into malic and aspartic acids but the rate of entrance of carbon into the sugar phosphates and sucrose was greatly reduced compared to the control. Chlorophyll a/b ratios ranged from low values of less than 2 in severely iron deficient leaves to high values exceeding 4 in leaves showing little iron deficiency.


Abstract A 17-years-old male student has received several gunshots and was submitted to exploratory laparotomy. After surgery, he complained of pain in the lower limbs and a pulsatile abdominal mass. An abdominal computerized tomography (CT) scan was carried out and revealed an abdominal aorta pseudoaneurysm of about 8 cm in the larger diameter between the celiac trunk and the superior mesenteric artery. An arteriography confirmed the diagnosis and he was submitted to the lesion embolization with cotton suture wires attached to metallic guide wire fragments. After six months, an abdominal aorta Doppler ultrasonography and a new abdominal CT scan were ordered and depicted flow inside the pseudoaneurysm. The patient was then submitted to a new endovascular embolization, and an 18 x 58 mm uncovered stent was placed. After six months from the last procedure, a new abdominal CT scan showed exclusion of the lesion.Keywords: Aneurysm, false; embolization, therapeutic; aorta, abdominal. Resumo


The study examined the effect of human capital accounting on Earning per Share (EPS) of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Secondary data were collated from annual reports of the sixteen deposit money banks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange between 2006 and 2017. The study employed static panel data of fixed and random effect to explore the relationship between human capital accounting and EPS of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Post estimation test (Hausman Test) was also conducted to select the best and most consistent estimator. Random effect was selected to achieve the stated objective. The results of the random effect revealed that the pension and training and development have significant positive relationship with EPS while other salaries and wages have insignificant positive relationship except director's remuneration (RENMR) that has insignificant negative relationship with EPS. This also implies that training and development, and pension are critical factors that are germane to human capital accounting to boost the earning per share so as to enhance the performance of the banks. The reported adjusted R-Square of value of 0.3876 which is 39% of the systematic variation of the EPS of the firms could be jointly explained by the salaries and wages, training and development, director's remuneration and pension. Based on these finding, the management of banks should give priority to payment of pension and also engage in continuous training and development of their employees to enjoying better EPS.

 Key words: Human capital accounting, Earnings per Share (EPS), banking industry, panel data.


In many natural domains, risks and rewards are inversely related (Pleskac & Hertwig, 2014). We sought to understand how people might use this relationship in choosing among risky gambles. To do so we, manipulated risk-reward structures of monetary gambles to be either negatively or positively correlated, or uncorrelated. After substantial exposure to these environments, participants completed a speeded choice task among non-dominated gambles. Eye-tracking data from this task suggests that participants often shifted their attention to mainly one attribute in the correlated conditions, in which the risk-reward relationship was present. This was an adaptive strategy that resulted in a similar proportion of expected-value maximizing choices, compared to a more compensatory processing strategy.


The use of integrated information systems for healthcare has been started more than a decade ago. In recent years, rapid advances in information integration methods have spurred tremendous growth in the use of integrated information systems in healthcare delivery. Various techniques have been used for probing such integrated systems. These techniques include service-oriented architecture (SOA), EAI, workflow management, grid computing, and others. Many applications require a combination of these techniques, which gives rise to the emergence of enterprise systems in healthcare. Development of the techniques originated from different disciplines has the potential to significantly improve the performance of enterprise systems in healthcare. This editorial paper briefly introduces the enterprise systems in the perspective of healthcare informatics.


Three thousand, nine hundred and seventy five lactation records of Holstein- Friesian cows between 1968 and 1984 were used to investigate the existence of heterogeneity of variance in milk yield in Kenya. Coefficient of variation and standard deviations across herds were used to test heterogeneity of variance. Average herd standard deviation and coefficient of variation after correcting for the fixed affects were 672.2kg and 26.7% respectively, while scaled standard deviations between herds were 180.1kg and 3.4%.The scaling of observation s within individual herds by sample standard deviation minimized heterogeneity of variance of milk yield thereby increasing accuracy of selection. It was concluded that significant heterogeneity of variance in milk yield existed among herds and should be accounted for in sire and cow evaluation. The Kenya Veterinarian Vol. 25 2002: pp. 12-17


An adversarial attack is an algorithm that perturbs the input of a machine learning model in an intelligent way in order to change the output of the model. An important property of adversarial attacks is transferability. According to this property, it is possible to generate adversarial perturbations on one model and apply it the input to fool the output of a different model. Our work focuses on studying the transferability of adversarial attacks in sound event classification. We are able to demonstrate differences in transferability properties from those observed in computer vision. We show that dataset normalization techniques such as z-score normalization does not affect the transferability of adversarial attacks and we show that techniques such as knowledge distillation do not increase the transferability of attacks.


Author(s): Carratt, SA; Flayer, CH; Kossack, ME; Last, JA | Abstract: In the past few decades, the frequency and severity of wildfires in California has increased. The majority of studies on wildfire-related human health effects have focused on the criteria pollutants in smoke. However, there are other minor constituents of smoke that may impact human health, particularly in specific geographic regions in California. This review summarizes what we currently know about the contribution of pesticides and wildfire suppression chemicals to wildfire-induced human health effects. In California there is heavy use of pesticides in agricultural settings and at the urban interface. When wildfires burn land treated with pesticide, these chemicals and their combustion products are volatilized and can be inhaled by humans. These constituents can be transported long distances in smoke, although those at the highest risk for exposure are near the wildfire source. Toxicity of some pesticides by inhalation has been demonstrated, although the health effects of pesticide combustion products in smoke have not been characterized. In order to effectively fight wildfires, large volumes of wildfire suppression chemicals are used. Wildfire suppression chemicals include retardants, for long-term application, and foams, for short term application. Based on the available data, foams are more likely to have an impact on human health than retardants. Moreover, foams tend to be applied at the urban interface, while the retardants are generally applied in remote areas. Understanding the health effects of the compounds we choose to introduce into our environment and how they alter and are altered by extreme events like wildfires is an important consideration for fire and land management. Our investigation has uncovered that there are significant data gaps in this area.


Objective: It was the aim of this study to assess the efficacy and safety of combined forced hydration and diuresis with limited inversion during shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) by comparing this treatment modality with conventional SWL for lower calyceal nephrolithiasis. Patients and Methods: In this prospective, non-randomized study, we included 100 patients with lower calyceal calculi ≤2 cm. Fifty of them received conventional SWL and the other 50 underwent SWL combined with oral hydration, diuresis and 12° inversion position during SWL. Intravenous urography was performed for all patients prior to their treatment. Patients in both groups were treated on Dornier™ MPL 9000. Blood pressure monitoring was applied during the SWL session. Follow-up was performed the first and the third month after treatment with plain kidney-ureter-bladder X-ray and kidney-ureter-bladder ultrasound. Results: Clinical outcomes were available in 90 patients. Follow-up at 3 months showed that 83.3% of the patients belonging to the study group were rendered stone free, whereas 71.5% were stone free in the control (p > 0.05). Complications were minimal and not statistically significant. Conclusions: Forced diuresis and inversion therapy is very well tolerated; however, the stone-free rate was not significantly improved.


This study examines the structure of the subtropical tropopause region over Tenerife (the Canary Islands, Spain; 28°N, 16°W) based on a 20 year (1992–2011) ozonesonde data and European Center for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts ERA‐Interim potential vorticity (PV) and zonal wind speed reanalysis. High‐resolution vertical profiles allowed a detailed description of the subtropical tropopause break and the associated subtropical jet stream (STJ), where models fail to properly simulate the upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS). The subtropical UTLS is revealed as a complex atmospheric region with a thickness ∼8 km, which is examined through the analysis and evaluation of four different tropopause definitions: thermal (TT), cold point, ozone (OT), and dynamical (DT) tropopauses. A novel method to determine the DT based on the vertical gradient of Lait's modified PV is presented and the concept of a second DT has been introduced for the first time. Monthly climatologies of tropopause height and potential temperature are calculated for double and single tropopause events. The 14.3 km height level is used to differentiate between tropical and extratropical UTLS regimes, intimately linked to the position of the STJ. There is fairly good consistency between all the defined tropopauses under the double tropopause scheme, except in spring, when the OT is observed at lower levels due to frequent baroclinic instabilities in the upper troposphere. As concerns to single tropopause events, the same pattern is found from April to June, reflecting the influence of analogous processes during these months. In winter, altitude differences between OT, DT, and TT resulted from poleward STJ excursions forced by blocking systems over the North Atlantic. Analysis of the tropopause inversion layer showed distinctive features for tropical and midlatitude tropopauses.


The objective of this paper is to present a new method for parallel load-flow calculations based on an effective decomposition of the network. In the solution process we utilize the block-parallel Newton method developed in [ 13, which involves only diagonal blocks of the Jacobian. The underlying structure is obtained by applying the epsilon decomposition algorithm [2,3], which eliminates weak coupling elements from the matrix. We demonstrate that the iterative process can be significantly accelerated by making certain modifications in mismatch evaluation for buses connecting different blocks. Experiments on the hypercube confirm that the proposed method is indeed effective, particularly for problems where a good initial approximation is available (such as outage assessment).


By decomposing the acoustic wave equation into incoming and outgoing components, an absorbing boundary condition can be derived to eliminate reflections from plane waves according to their direction of propagation. This boundary condition is characterized by a first‐order differential operator. The differential operator, or absorbing boundary operator, is the basic element from which more complicated boundary conditions can be constructed. The absorbing boundary operator can be designed to absorb perfectly plane waves traveling in any two directions. By combining two or more absorption operators, boundary conditions can be created which absorb plane waves propagating in any number of directions. Absorbing boundary operators simplify the task of designing boundary conditions to reduce the detrimental effects of outgoing waves in many wave propagation problems.


The International Criminal Court (ICC) established in 2002 under the Rome Statute with significant support from African States, which comprise thirty percent of the ICC's total membership.  After nearly two decades in operation, the ICC has issued a number of indictments to both sitting and ex-African leaders.  The African Union has criticized these indictments citing that the court seems to be overly concentrating its efforts on the African continent.  African leaders have claimed that the ICC had ignored the atrocities committed by western superpowers especially in the various wars on terror around the world.  Another notable concern is the absence of these major powers from the membership of the Rome Statute.  In response for example, several African states including Chad, Uganda, South Africa and Malawi have defied the ICC's requests to arrest and extradite Sudan's Omar al-Bashir for prosecution.  The latest of such defiance was Rwanda's refusal to arrest al-Bashir when he visited the country in March 2018.  This article traced the origin of African dissent against the ICC and examined its implications on justice for victims, international law, as well as the future of the court. This article examined some of the most prominent ICC investigations of African Heads of State and the criticisms against such action for example, state sovereignty and immunity of Heads of State.  The article also analyzed the role of the ICC in creating accountability for atrocities in Africa. It concluded that although the ICC has its deficiencies, it remains a very important avenue for ensuring accountability and justice for serious crimes in Africa. This exercise was achieved by extensive review and analysis of international law instruments, national legislation, textbooks, academic articles as well as reports pertaining to the formation and operation of the ICC.

 Key words: International Criminal Court (ICC), African Union, accountability, human rights, crimes against humanity.


Existing face super-resolution (SR) methods mainly assume the input image to be noise-free. Their performance degrades drastically when applied to real-world scenarios where the input image is always contaminated by noise. In this paper, we propose a Facial Attribute Capsules Network (FACN) to deal with the problem of high-scale super-resolution of noisy face image. Capsule is a group of neurons whose activity vector models different properties of the same entity. Inspired by the concept of capsule, we propose an integrated representation model of facial information, which named Facial Attribute Capsule (FAC). In the SR processing, we first generated a group of FACs from the input LR face, and then reconstructed the HR face from this group of FACs. Aiming to effectively improve the robustness of FAC to noise, we generate FAC in semantic, probabilistic and facial attributes manners by means of integrated learning strategy. Each FAC can be divided into two sub-capsules: Semantic Capsule (SC) and Probabilistic Capsule (PC). Them describe an explicit facial attribute in detail from two aspects of semantic representation and probability distribution. The group of FACs model an image as a combination of facial attribute information in the semantic space and probabilistic space by an attribute-disentangling way. The diverse FACs could better combine the face prior information to generate the face images with fine-grained semantic attributes. Extensive benchmark experiments show that our method achieves superior hallucination results and outperforms state-of-the-art for very low resolution (LR) noise face image super resolution.


With the speed-up of urbanization, the number of motor vehicles has increased rapidly, which is the main urban air pollutant source because of too much emitted exhaust gas. Based on the motor vehicle exhaust emissions in Shandong Province in 2006, using trend extrapolation and scenario analysis, predict the motor vehicle exhaust emissions for future planning. The results show that the motor vehicles in 2015and 2020 are 27.52 million and 34.53 million, which is 1.9times and 2.38 times of the motor vehicles in 2006, respectively. For the specific air pollutants from motor vehicles exhaust in 2020, SO2, NOx, PM2.5 and PM10 will reach 28.4 thousand tons, 356.7 thousand tons, 10.8 thousand tons and 12.2 thousand tons, which will be 3 times, 1.2 times, 5 times and 5 times of the emissions in 2006. The urban air pollutions caused by motor vehicles exhaust will be very serious.


The increasing knowledge of cellular and molecular mechanisms of human diseases allows envisaging the gene therapy by sonoporation as an emerging and promising therapeutic alternative. Sonoporation combines the local application of ultrasound waves and the intravascular or intratissue administration of gas microbubbles. In such a way, the permeability of vessels and tissues to the poorly permeant molecules is transiently increased. Ultrasound based modality offers new opportunities since ultrasound can be easily focused on a target tissue or organ and hence gene delivery and expression should be limited to the insonified region. Consequently, it might be possible to develop an efficient and safe tissue- or organ-specific delivery method by microbubble targeting and focused ultrasound. This review focuses on the current knowledge of sonoporation fundamentals and mechanisms. The sonoporation procedure and current preclinical trials will be then presented. Finally, the new challenges of sonoporation will be discussed.


Pruritus is a common, but very challenging symptom with a wide diversity of underlying causes like dermatological, systemic, neurological and psychiatric diseases. In dermatology, pruritus is the most frequent symptom both in its acute and chronic form (over 6 weeks in duration). Treatment of chronic pruritus often remains challenging. Affected patients who suffer from moderate to severe pruritus have a significantly reduced quality of life. The underlying physiology of pruritus is very complex, involving a diverse network of components in the skin including resident cells such as keratinocytes and sensory neurons as well as transiently infiltrating cells such as certain immune cells. Previous research has established that there is a significant crosstalk among the stratum corneum, nerve fibers and various immune cells, such as keratinocytes, T cells, basophils, eosinophils and mast cells. In this regard, interactions between receptors on cutaneous and spinal neurons or on different immune cells play an important role in the processing of signals which are important for the transmission of pruritus. In this review, we discuss the role of various receptors involved in pruritus and inflammation, such as TRPV1 and TRPA1, IL-31RA and OSMR, TSLPR, PAR-2, NK1R, H1R and H4R, MRGPRs as well as TrkA, with a focus on interaction between nerve fibers and different immune cells. Emerging evidence shows that neuro-immune interactions play a pivotal role in mediating pruritus-associated inflammatory skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis or chronic spontaneous urticaria. Targeting these bidirectional neuro-immune interactions and the involved pruritus-specific receptors is likely to contribute to novel insights into the underlying pathogenesis and targeted treatment options of pruritus.


DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE FOR RNA MOTIF SEARCH, PREDICTION AND ANALYSIS by Dongrong Wen RNA secondary and tertiary structure motifs play important roles in cells. However, very few web servers are available for RNA motif search and prediction. In this dissertation, a cyberinfrastructure, named RNAcyber, capable of performing RNA motif search and prediction, is proposed, designed and implemented. The first component of RNAcyber is a web-based search engine, named RmotifDB. This web-based tool integrates an RNA secondary structure comparison algorithm with the secondary structure motifs stored in the Rfam database. With a userfriendly interface, RmotifDB provides the ability to search for ncRNA structure motifs in both structural and sequential ways. The second component of RNAcyber is an enhanced version of RmotifDB. This enhanced version combines data from multiple sources, incorporates a variety of well-established structure-based search methods, and is integrated with the Gene Ontology. To display RmotifDB's search results, a software tool, called RSview, is developed. RSview is able to display the search results in a graphical manner. Finally, RNAcyber contains a web-based tool called Junction-Explorer, which employs a data mining method for predicting tertiary motifs in RNA junctions. Specifically, the tool is trained on solved RNA tertiary structures obtained from the Protein Data Bank, and is able to predict the configuration of coaxial helical stacks and families (topologies) in RNA junctions at the secondary structure level. JunctionExplorer employs several algorithms for motif prediction, including a random forest classification algorithm, a pseudoknot removal algorithm, and a feature ranking algorithm based on the gini impurity measure. A series of experiments including 10-fold crossvalidation has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the Junction-Explorer tool. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and the superiority of the tool over existing methods. The RNAcyber infrastructure is fully operational, with all of its components accessible on the Internet. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE FOR RNA MOTIF SEARCH, PREDICTION AND ANALYSIS


Simultaneous advances in processor and network technologies have made clusters of workstations attractive vehicles for high-performance computing. Emerging applications targeted for clusters are inherently interactive and collaborative in nature. These applications demand end-to-end quality of service (QoS) in addition to performance. Achieving predictable performance and ability to exploit resource adaptivity are also common requirements of these next generation applications. Providing QoS mechanisms for clusters to satisfy the demands of next generation applications is a challenging task. We propose a QoS framework that provides bandwidth guarantees for communication within a cluster. The framework consists of a novel network interface card (NIC)-based rate control mechanism and a coordinated admission control/scheduling mechanism. An interface is developed so that applications using the common message passing interface (MPI) standard can specify bandwidth requirements of their flows to the underlying network. The framework is developed and evaluated on a Myrinet cluster testbed for a range of scientific and visualization applications. The experimental evaluations demonstrate the various advantages such as predictability and resource adaptability associated with the framework. The proposed framework is quite unique and is the first of its kind in the literature to support next generation interactive and collaborative applications on clusters.


Metal alloys consisting of a platinum group metal—ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium or platinum—and one or more transition metals are important for catalytic reactions in automobiles, chemistry, and petroleum production. In addition, many of the alloys used in aeronautics and electronics contain platinum group metals. Alloys beyond those currently used in these industries could be of value for many applications, but discoveries have been slow because the costs of trial and error—both in human time and materials—are prohibitive. In Physical Review X, Gus Hart at Brigham Young University, Utah, and colleagues present the largest and most comprehensive computational study of binary metallic platinum group metal alloys [1]. Their computations predict the thermodynamic stability of 28 compounds that haven't been reported in the literature experimentally. They also predict a few dozen configurations for other alloys, also as yet unreported, that may be experimentally accessible at the nanoscale. The results could thus point to binary phases that might otherwise be overlooked and perhaps lead to a more cost effective use of precious materials.


Wireless links can exhibit high error rates due to attenuation, fading, or interfering active radiation sources. To make matters worse, error rates can be highly variable due to changes in the wireless environment. Researchers and developers have explored a wide range of solutions to optimize communication in this difficult error environment, including traditional end-to-end solutions, link-layer solutions, and solutions involving layer four processing inside the network. A significant challenge is ensuring that systems with multiple layers of error control avoid compromising performance by duplication of effort. We argue and demonstrate that protocol-independent link-level local error control can achieve high communication efficiency even in a highly variable error environment, that adaptation is important to achieve this efficiency, and that inter-layer coexistence is achievable. The logical link control layer of our WaveLAN-based experimental LAN includes three error control mechanisms: local retransmission, adaptive packet shrinking, and adaptive error coding. Measurements generated on a variety of network topologies and trace-based error environments demonstrate the TCP performance improvements and good coexistence with TCP's end-to-end retransmission strategy.


The current research was aimed at examining how attachment styles are connected to attraction to death among eating disorder (ED) patients. A sample of 34 anorexic and 34 bulimic patients was matched by age, sex, and socioeconomic status to 37 normal controls. They were administered the Adult Attachment Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Multi-Attitude Suicidal Tendency Scale. Results show that ED patients scored significantly higher on the insecure attachment scale and were less attracted to and more repulsed by life than controls. No significant differences were found on death variables. A significant difference between the three attachment styles was found beyond depression. The results suggest a model that may explain the diversities of attachment styles and the relationship with death among ED patients. Insecure attachment style may explain the repulsion by life, while the illness itself may serve as a false "secure base" and may protect from the fear of death. Clinicians may thus attempt to replace the "illness secure base" by enriching the attraction to life.


This volume represents a tremendous amount of work on the part of the author and his associates. The attempt at brevity in the text is laudable, but its effect is detrimental except perhaps to an advanced student in the field of human embryology. The text is written in German with the English translation printed in a parallel column. Unfortunately, the translation is often too literal and not interpretive enough, so that readers not versed in German may have considerable difficulty comprehending the text. The usefulness of some of the definitions of terminology in the beginning of the book is greatly impaired because of complexity and vagueness of expression. The book consists of 3 main sections dealing with: (I) Human Ova, (II) Human Embryos, and (III) Body Regions in Human Embryos, followed by a few tables, references, and a mixed German and English index. Four of the tables correlate fetal age


Medium specificity is a theory, or rather a cluster of arguments, in aesthetics that rests on the idea that media are the physical material that makes up artworks, and that this material contains specific and unique features capable of 1) differentiating media from one another, and 2) determining the aesthetic potential and goals of each medium. As such, medium specificity is essential for aestheticians interested in matters of aesthetic ontology and value. However, as Noël Carroll has vehemently and convincingly argued, the theory of medium specificity is inherently flawed and its many applications in art history ill-motivated. Famously, he concluded that we should 'forget the medium' entirely. In this thesis, I reject his conclusion and argue that reconstructing a theory of medium specificity, while taking Carroll's objections into account, is possible. To do so, I offer a reconceptualization of the main theoretical components of medium specificity and ground this new theory in empirical research. I first redefine the medium not as the physical material that makes up artworks but as sets of practices – not the material itself but how one uses the material. I then show that what makes media specific and unique is not certain physical features, but the human responses, which can be empirically investigated, to the combination of practices that constitute media. This relation is one of response-dependence, albeit of a novel kind, which I develop by appealing to social metaphysics. The resulting theory is more complex but also much more flexible and fine-grained than the original and provides insight into a variety of current aesthetic theories.


We present a dense representation for Markov Logic Networks (MLNs) called Obj2Vec that encodes symmetries in the MLN structure. Identifying symmetries is a key challenge for lifted inference algorithms and we leverage advances in neural networks to learn symmetries which are hard to specify using hand-crafted features. Specifically, we learn an embedding for MLN objects that predicts the context of an object, i.e., objects that appear along with it in formulas of the MLN, since common contexts indicate symmetry in the distribution. Importantly, our formulation leverages well-known skip-gram models that allow us to learn the embedding efficiently. Finally, to reduce the size of the ground MLN, we sample objects based on their learned embeddings. We integrate Obj2Vec with several inference algorithms, and show the scalability and accuracy of our approach compared to other state-of-the-art methods.


A low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) contains either a neutron star or a black hole accreting materials from its low mass companion star. It is one of the primary astrophysical sources for studying stellar-mass compact objects and accreting phenomena. As with other binary systems, the most important parameter of an LMXB is the orbital period, which allows us to learn about the nature of the binary system and constrain the properties of the system's components, including the compact object. As a result, measuring the orbital periods of LMXBs is essential for investigating these systems even though fewer than half of them have known orbital periods. This article introduces the different methods for measuring the orbital periods in the X-ray band and reviews their application to various types of LMXBs, such as eclipsing and dipping sources, as well as pulsar LMXBs.


N-version programming has been proposed as a method of incorporating fault tolerance into software. Multiple versions of a program (i.e. `N') are prepared and executed in parallel. Their outputs are collected and examined by a voter, and, if they are not identical, it is assumed that the majority is correct. This method depends for its reliability improvement on the assumption that programs that have been developed independently will fail independently. An experiment is described in which the fundamental axiom is tested. In all, 27 versions of a program were prepared independently from the same specification at two universities and then subjected to one million tests. The results of the tests revealed that the programs were individually extremely reliable but that the number of tests in which more than one program failed was substantially more than expected. The results of these tests are presented along with an analysis of some of the faults that were found in the programs. Background information on the programmers used is also summarized.


Denial of service (DoS) attacks impose an imminent threat to the availability of Internet services. The alarming increase of such attacks coupled with the emergence of sophisticated DoS attack techniques, call for efficient defense mechanisms to counter these attacks. Although there has been ongoing research in this area—focusing on DoS prevention, mitigation, and traceback—the existing countermeasures lack in several qualitative and quantitative metrics. In this context, this dissertation makes two key contributions in the design and analysis of efficient, scalable schemes for DoS mitigation and traceback.
First, efficient perimeter mitigation schemes based on novel concepts, such as "protocol-determinism" and "victim-assistance" are proposed. The proposed schemes enable ISP edge routers to perform timely mitigation of both end-host and network exhaustion attacks. The proposed mitigation schemes have been evaluated through analytical studies for classical and advanced attacks quantifying security metrics, such as false positive and false negative rates, and performance metrics, such as effective attack rate and connection establishment latency increase. Our analysis shows that the proposed schemes offer very low false positive and false negative rates, and reduce attacker's effective attack rate significantly with an acceptable increase in connection establishment latency.
Second, hybrid IP traceback schemes that integrate the concepts of packet marking and packet logging in a novel manner are proposed. The goal is to achieve a drastic reduction in the number of attack packets required to conduct the traceback process. The proposed traceback schemes have been evaluated through a combination of analytical and simulation studies quantifying performance metrics, such as number of attack packets, storage overhead, and attack localization distance. Our studies show that the proposed traceback schemes are superior in comparison to the well known PPM scheme.
This dissertation opens up several directions for future research which includes (1) designing efficient mitigation schemes in the context of inter-domain network, (2) designing efficient mitigation schemes that employ traceback, and (3) designing a comprehensive DoS defense mechanism that integrates DoS prevention, mitigation, and traceback in an efficient manner.


The paper gives insights into the characteristics of Vistula River Delta water landscapes, referring to the process of creating land out of water by Polish, Dutch and German settlers. Based on this, the paper presents an integrated strategy formed upon studies in cultural geography and aesthetics, and focused on enhancing the unique characteristics of the region and its rediscovery by tourism.
The long process of constructing Vistula River Delta landscape out of water, marshlands and alluvial deposits resulted in creating a unique polder territory structured by canals, dikes, systems of water locks and bridges. Patterns of canals and surrounding landscapes changed in time along with the development of hydro-engineering constructions, leading to the emergence of a unique cultural identity. After decades of negligence the Vistula River Delta landscape is currently being re-appreciated. New challenges arise, however, imposing questions on possible strategies for sustainable tourism that will lead to the discovery of historical waterways and their related landscapes in their natural-cultural unity, and not only provide visitors with knowledge about the region but also with the direct experience of this water–dependant territory. Developing a water-connections strategy by means of rivers and historic canals allows people to stay directly on water, participate with its rhythms and flows, and get insights into the unique topography negotiated between land and water. It will not only stimulate tourism but also contribute to the better appreciation of the heritage understood as a consequent continuous process of negotiating the boundaries between the river and inhabitable space – nature and architecture.


Virtual enterprise is the outcome of fierce competition in the world market. The selection of partners is one of the key factors for the success of virtual enterprises. Multi-agent system is an incompact agent federation composed of many agents, with its characteristics identical to virtual enterprises. It is, therefore, reasonable and effective to apply to the selection of enterprises' partner. The issue of trust is a hot topic in multi-agent system. The present trust model cannot well solve the problem of identifying the initial trust value of applicant agents. Moreover, there is room for improvement as to the calculation of agent trust value. This study puts forward a new trust management model based on multi-agent system. In the model, a fuzzy algorithm is used to calculate the initial value of the agent instead of a static definition. In addition, an independent validation module is used to test information reliability. Therefore, the problems of identifying initial trust value can be solved. Through system simulation, it is noted that based on the trust management model the cooperation rate has been enhanced and individual agent's income has risen by a big margin.


Northern First Nations in Canada have experienced environmental change throughout history, adapting to these changes based on personal experience interacting with their environment. Community members of Fort Albany First Nation of northern Ontario, Canada, have voiced their concern that their youths' connection to the land is diminishing, making this generation more vulnerable to environmental change. Community members previously identified the collaborative-geomatics informatics tool as potentially useful for fostering intergenerational knowledge transfer. In this article, we assess the potential of the informatics tool to reconnect youth with the surrounding land in order to strengthen the adaptive capacity of Fort Albany First Nation. The tool was introduced to students in an environmental-outreach camp that included traditional activities. Students used global positioning systems and geo-tagged photographs that were loaded onto the informatics tool. Semi-directed interviews revealed that the students enjoyed the visual and spatial capabilities of the system, and recognised its potential to be used in conjunction with traditional activities. This pilot study suggests that the tool has the potential to be used by youth to provide an opportunity for the intergenerational transfer of Indigenous knowledge, but further evaluation is required.


In this work we describe the Waiting List Corpus consisting of de-identified referrals for several specialty consultations from the waiting list in Chilean public hospitals. A subset of 900 referrals was manually annotated with 9,029 entities, 385 attributes, and 284 pairs of relations with clinical relevance. A trained medical doctor annotated these referrals, and then together with other three researchers, consolidated each of the annotations. The annotated corpus has nested entities, with 32.2% of entities embedded in other entities. We use this annotated corpus to obtain preliminary results for Named Entity Recognition (NER). The best results were achieved by using a biLSTM-CRF architecture using word embeddings trained over Spanish Wikipedia together with clinical embeddings computed by the group. NER models applied to this corpus can leverage statistics of diseases and pending procedures within this waiting list. This work constitutes the first annotated corpus using clinical narratives from Chile, and one of the few for the Spanish language. The annotated corpus, the clinical word embeddings, and the annotation guidelines are freely released to the research community.


The over-expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R), EGF and transforming growth factor alpha (TGFalpha) could be a mechanism for colorectal tumor cells to escape normal growth controls. Our aims were: (i) to evaluate EGF, TGFalpha, and EGF-R concentrations in neoplastic tissue and surrounding mucosa from 40 patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma, and (ii) to assess the expression of these growth factors and their receptor in relation to the tumor site. EGF, TGFalpha, and EGF-R were detected in either colorectal neoplastic tissue or surrounding mucosa. Significantly increased levels of EGF and EGF-R were present in neoplastic samples compared to surrounding mucosa. Furthermore, a significant increase in TGFalpha and in EGF levels was observed in the left-sided surrounding mucosa and left-sided neoplastic tissue, respectively. EGF-R stimulation by its ligands may play an important role in colorectal neoplastic tissue. Moreover, the higher content of growth factors in the left-side than the right-side colon suggests different growth properties in the proximal and distal colon.


BackgroundUnintentional injury or trauma remains the leading cause of death among young adults. About one fifth of these trauma patients require care in an intensive care unit (ICU) because of severity of injuries and comorbidities. Patients hospitalized in an ICU are at increased risk for nosocomial infections, such as urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bacteremia, and wound infections. Many of these patients will develop sepsis or septic shock, and some will progress to multiple organ failure and death. The balance between the proinflammatory and counterinflammatory immune response appears to be a driving factor in this progression. At present, there is no proposed method for the timely detection of the immune status in trauma patients, making rational decisions to use immune-altering therapies difficult. ObjectiveWe demonstrate that flow cytometry, with its capabilities to characterize and/or enumerate (a) leukocyte subtypes, (b) leukocyte activation markers, (c) leukocyte-derived cytokines and microvesicles, and (d) leukocyte function is well suited to monitor the immune status of critically ill trauma patients. MethodsInformation for the review was obtained from the extant literature. DiscussionWe suggest that flow cytometry is a research method that might aid nurse scientists in investigating the immune status of critically ill patients, the recovery status of conditions such as hemorrhagic shock and tissue injury and the relationship between cancer disease progression and symptoms. Therefore, flow cytometry has the potential to broaden nursing research priority areas so that a comprehensive approach to understanding the cellular response is attained.


Research on child English as a second language (ESL) learners has shown the benefits of task-based interaction for the use of different negotiation of meaning (NoM) strategies, which have been claimed to lead to second language learning. However, research on child interaction in foreign language settings is scarce, specifically research on a new prevalent methodology in Europe, content and language integrated learning (CLIL). The present study focuses on mainstream and CLIL English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' oral interaction while they completed a guessing game and a picture placement task. The researchers analysed the oral production of seventy-two 9- to 12-year-old children (in age- and proficiency-matched dyads) to examine the conversational strategies that were employed in both tasks. Findings indicated that younger learners negotiated for meaning more, and mainstream learners resorted to more conversational strategies than CLIL learners. Furthermore, task-based differences in the NoM strategies seemed to depend on age and instructional setting. The results seem to indicate that age, instructional setting, and the tasks in which these EFL learners were engaged had an impact on the NoM strategies they employed in task-based interaction.


Background and purpose: Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, New York City (NYC) vowed to "keep the subways running" despite the lack of plans in place for protecting the health and well-being of transit workers. This study was designed to assess the impact of employment during the early phase of the pandemic on this essential frontline workforce. Methods, settings, and study participants: A convenience sample of members (stratified by job title) of the NYC Transport Workers Union, Local 100, was recruited in August 2020 to participate in an anonymous, cross-sectional, internet-based survey. Results: The demographics of the sample participants (N = 645) reflected union membership, ie, 82 percent male, 29 percent Black; 27 percent Hispanic, and 59 percent ≥age 50 years. At the time of the "NYC Pause" (March 22, 2020) when mandatory stay-at-home orders were issued, transit workers had limited worksite protections. Many reported a lack of such basics as face masks (43 percent), hand sanitizer (40 percent), and disposable gloves (34 percent). A high proportion (87 percent) were concerned about getting infected at work. Lack of certain protections was significantly associated with both fear of contagion at work and mental health symptoms. Nearly 24 percent of participants reported a history of COVID-19 infection. Self-reported infection was significantly correlated with lack of certain protections, including respiratory masks (p 0.001), disposable gloves (p 0.001), and hand sanitizer (p 0.001). Infection was also significantly associated with mental health symptoms (p 0.001). By August 2020, despite participants reporting that many worksite protections were then in place, 72 percent of workers were still fearful for their safety at work, eg, because of potential exposure due to passengers not wearing masks, and risk of verbal abuse and physical assault by passengers angered when asked to wear face masks. Workers who were fearful for their safety at work were more than six times more likely to report mental health symptoms (p 0.001). Conclusions: Lack of worksite protections before "NYC Pause" (March 22, 2020) was significantly associated with self-reported infection, fear, and mental health symptoms in TWU, Local 100 members. To reduce the risk of adverse impacts associated with bioevents in all essential work groups, and across all essential occupational settings, infection control preparedness, early recognition of risk, and implementation of tailored risk reduction strategies are imperative. Pandemic preparedness is fundamental to protecting the health and well-being of essential workers and crucial in controlling the spread of disease in the community. Bioevent preparedness for all essential frontline workgroups will also help reduce occupational health inequities. Workers at risk, regardless of setting, deserve and have the right to equal protections under federal and state law.


We study formation and long-term evolution of a circumstellar disk in a collapsing molecular cloud core using a resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulation. While the formed circumstellar disk is initially small, it grows as accretion continues, and its radius becomes as large as 200 au toward the end of the Class-I phase. A pair of grand-design spiral arms form due to gravitational instability in the disk, and they transfer angular momentum in the highly resistive disk. Although the spiral arms disappear in a few rotations as expected in a classical theory, new spiral arms form recurrently as the disk, soon becoming unstable again by gas accretion. Such recurrent spiral arms persist throughout the Class-0 and I phases. We then perform synthetic observations and compare our model with a recent high-resolution observation of a young stellar object Elias 2–27, whose circumstellar disk has grand-design spiral arms. We find good agreement between our theoretical model and the observation. Our model suggests that the grand-design spiral arms around Elias 2–27 are consistent with material arms formed by gravitational instability. If such spiral arms commonly exist in young circumstellar disks, it implies that young circumstellar disks are considerably massive and gravitational instability is the key process of angular momentum transport.


Increasing evidence focuses on acetaldehyde (ACD) as the mediator of the rewarding and motivational properties of ethanol. Indeed, ACD stimulates dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens and it is self-administered under different conditions. Besides the dopaminergic transmission, the endocannabinoid system has been reported to play an important role in ethanol central effects, modulating primary alcohol rewarding effect, drug-seeking, and relapse behavior. Drug motivational properties are highlighted in operant paradigms which include response-contingent punishment, a behavioral equivalent of compulsive drug use despite adverse consequences. The aim of this study was thus to characterize ACD motivational and rewarding properties employing an operant-conflict paradigm in which rats, trained to lever press in order to get ACD solution (0.9%), undergo extinction, reinstatement and conflict sessions, according to a modified Geller–Seifter procedure. Furthermore, the role played by CB1 receptor system in modulating ACD-induced effects were investigated through the administration of CB1 receptor antagonist, AM281 (1 mg/kg, i.p.) during the extinction-, relapse-, and conflict-experiments. Our results indicate that ACD is able to induce and maintain an operant behavior, a high number of responses during extinction, an increase in the lever presses during the reinstatement phase, and a higher emission of punished responses during the conflict experiments, when compared to controls. The administration of AM281 is able to decrease ACD-seeking behavior during extinction, the number of lever presses during reinstatement and to strongly decrease the punished responses for ACD. Our data strengthen the idea that ACD may be responsible for the central effects of ethanol, and pinpoint at the CB1 system as one of the neural substrates underlying its addictive properties.


Ore-forming processes are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that the earth originally had a basaltic crust, and that the continents have been derived from this crust and the mantle. The transformation was accomplished by a combination of disintegration, decomposition and redistribution of rock materials at the earth9s surface and reorganization of geosynclinal accumulations during orogenesis. Limited concentrations of metals may have formed during the solidification of the outer part of the earth, but these could not become available as ores except through drastic later disturbances of the outer crust. Ore-forming processes are considered in 4 groups: 1) Concentration by surface processes; 2) Concentration during the filling of geosynclines; 3) Concentration during orogenesis; 4) Concentration during stable platform modifications. Surface processes produce several types of ore deposits and help to shape the "charges" of geosynclines. During the accumulation stage in geosynclines, deposits enriched in metals may form 1) from the differentiation of basic intrusives as magmatic sulfide or oxide deposits, or as cavity filling, replacement or hotspring deposits formed by late stage hydrothermal extracts from these magmas, 2) through the outward migration of quantities of water originally included in the sedimentary fill. This water, with many substances dissolved, including metals, ranges in temperature from cool to hot, depending on the depths reached. In the late stages of accumulation, water in the deepest parts should be above the critical temperature and metamorphic changes in the sediments may have set in on an appreciable scale. All deposits formed before major deformation sets in, must be raised high above their level of formation to become available as ores. This is accomplished during the deformation stage and such ore deposits are normally deformed with the rest of the rocks. During the deformation stage in geosynclines, water solutions are moved about; metamorphic changes result in driving off of more water, both free and combined, and these solutions may form additional ores. Differential melting with solution of sedimentary and volcanic materials in deep parts gives rise to magmas with more or less metals, depending on the make-up of the material melted. Injection of magmas to higher levels results in driving off more water from the surrounding rocks and the magma itself may, at a late stage in its crystallization, yield solutions capable of forming metal-rich cavity filling and replacement deposits. Such injections and ore forming processes continue during a prolonged period following the climax of deformation. Those deposits brought close to the surface by subsequent erosion are available as ores, if rich enough in metals. Stable platform adjustments may result in the formation of ores related to layered basic intrusives, or to volcanic centers; also ores of Zn, Pb, Cu, V, and U in cover rocks. To improve understanding in discussions of deposits formed by hot water solutions, it is desirable that the word hydrothermal, used in reference to ore deposits or solutions, be stripped of all implications that the deposits or the solutions were derived from magmas.


From the Secretariat of the African Community of Practice on Managing for Development Results SYNOPSIS Since 2006, Uganda has made several oil and gas discoveries and the government hopes that the development of the sector will transform Uganda from a low-income into an upper middle-income country by 2040 and from a net importer to a net exporter of oil and its products with wider regional benefits. The oil and gas discoveries have led to high expectations for many institutions, communities, and individuals with reference to poverty-eradication development. Of particular concern for Uganda is that in Africa, countries dependent on oil and gas have tended to have weaker long-run growth, higher rates of poverty, and higher inequality than non-mineral-dependent economies at similar levels of income a situation that amounts to a resource curse. The paper discusses the possibility of avoiding the resource curse dilemma following oil and natural gas discoveries in Uganda. It is argued that the resource curse is not an economic inevitability, but the result of the governance challenges surrounding effective policy implementation. One often neglected possibility is that resource windfalls will damage countries that are initially susceptible to rent-seeking or institutional erosion, while countries with strong institutions will ride out and prosper from resource booms. Di John, (2011) views poor economic performance in the context of oil abundance and booms as outcomes of institutional arrangements, and the way that mineral rents are used is a by-product of the political struggles and the ruling class `s orientation at the time they are earned. Uganda stands to benefit from oil if the Government embraces transparency. Uganda can avoid the oil curse by improving information flow to concerned stakeholders, systematically combating corruption, as well as ensuring that growth is equitable, and that the oil and gas resources are used sustainably.


Acute Necrotizing Esophagitis (AEN) is rare and characterized by necrosis mucosa and submucosa in the distal esophagus at the gastroesophageal junction observed by endoscopy (EDG). It typically arises in patients with multiple comorbidities who have the significant systemic disease and immunocompromised. Specific precipitating events are associated with multiple factors as acute blood loss, sepsis, and immunosuppression. We report a 66-year-old woman with a deceased donor renal allograft 8 years early, which developed AEN in the septic shock setting by acute lithiasis cholecystitis. Infection by Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Helicobacter pylori (HP) was discarded. She was on immunosuppression regimen triple therapy. Comorbidities were: diabetic Mellitus type 2, cardiopathy, obesity, renal allograft recipient 8 years ago, and sepsis of urinary origin by Escherichia coli 15 days earlier. EDG showed devitalized and yellowish fibrous mucosa with areas of black dotted with ischemic appearance. Line Z was swollen. Therapy on Intensive Care Unit (ICU) support was a fluid infusion, catecholamine perfusion, antibiotics, and proton pump inhibitors. Recovery was complete. Neither stenosis nor perforation was evidenced in the long term. EDG at discharge showed a complete esophagus recovery. We describe the first case of AEN as a complication in long-term kidney transplant in which immunosuppression likely plays asubstantial role. Proper recognition and early management will result in an improved clinical outcome.


This paper presents a method for implementation of Gysel power combiners on back to back microstrip structure. In this method the topology of Gysel combiner is divided into two sections and then each section is implemented on one side of the back to back microstrip structure. An experimental prototype using proposed method was designed over frequency range from 2.9 to 3.1GHz. The results obtained from this prototype show a good agreement with EM simulation results.


The gelation and crosslinking features of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogels were scrutinized through the UV polymerization processes of poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate (PEGMA) and poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) mixtures. The real-time evolutions of the elastic moduli of the prepolymerized mixtures with different crosslinking ratios of PEGMA and PEGDMA and the photoinitiator concentrations were measured during photopolymerization. The rheological properties were compared with other properties of the PEG hydrogels, including the relative changes in the CC amounts in the mixtures before and after UV irradiation, water swelling ratio, gel fraction, mesh size, and mechanical hardness. As the portion of PEGDMA as a crosslinker increased, the final elastic modulus and gel fraction increased, whereas the swelling ratio and scratch penetration depth at the hydrogel film surface decreased because of the formation of compact networks inside the hydrogels. These results indicate that there was a good correlation between the rheological analysis for predicting the crosslinking transition during photopolymerization and the macroscopic properties of the crosslinked hydrogels. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41939.


Skin samples from three adult patients with dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) and granular IgA deposits in the papillary tips were studied using ultrastructural immunogold technique. IgA positive, so-called DH bodies were identified as amorphous clumps--most probably immunocomplex aggregates--scattered throughout the upper papillary dermis. Dermatitis herpetiformis bodies were seen underneath the basement membrane, sometimes along microfibrillar bundles, as well as adjacent to the papillary collagen fibers and within the surface (microfibrillar) region of elastic tissue. Some DH bodies, however, were not related to any fibrillar components. The collagen and elastic fibers, microfibrillar bundles, anchoring fibrils, and elastic microfibrils themselves were unlabeled. Dermatitis herpetiformis bodies were not found in normal human skin. The results of our ultrastructural study indicate that DH bodies either are bound to a nonfibrillar component of dermal connective tissue or represent deposits of immune complexes trapped in DH skin.


It is established that active pyelonephritis and operative stress are accompanied with structural and functional changes in erythrocytic membranes: cholesterol and its ethers rose in quantity as well as difficulty oxidized phospholipids, cation adenosine triphosphatase activity changed. Being nonspecific, these changes seemed more pronounced in the active phase of chronic pyelonephritis. Minor structural rearrangement of membrane lipids in surgical patients indicated uneventful postoperative period. It is suggested that bacterial inflammation in the kidneys and urinary tracts may be related to the above shifts. The adjuvant use of dimephosphone produced a clear-cut membrane-stabilizing effect clinically reflected by reduced inflammation and improved renal function.


Collaborative machine learning involves training models on data from multiple parties but must incentivize their participation. Existing data valuation methods fairly value and reward each party based on shared data or model parameters but neglect the privacy risks involved. To address this, we introduce differential privacy (DP) as an incentive. Each party can select its required DP guarantee and perturb its sufficient statistic (SS) accordingly. The mediator values the perturbed SS by the Bayesian surprise it elicits about the model parameters. As our valuation function enforces a privacy-valuation trade-off , parties are deterred from selecting excessive DP guarantees that reduce the utility of the grand coalition's model. Finally, the mediator rewards each party with different posterior samples of the model parameters. Such rewards still satisfy existing incentives like fairness but additionally preserve DP and a high similarity to the grand coalition's posterior. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of our approach on synthetic and real-world datasets.


An outbreak of diarrhoea due to Salmonella worthington in five newborn babies, 5 weeks after a similar outbreak in 13 babies for which no cause had been found, occurred in the nursery of a maternity ward. The source of infection was traced to the contaminated rubber tubing of a mechanical suction apparatus. S. worthington was isolated from the rubber tubing and the Y connexion of the suction apparatus from which all the five infected babies had received suction. Reflux of contaminated amniotic fluid into the sterile catheter connected to the apparatus some time before use could have been the means of introducing the infected material to the oropharynx of the newborn babies, and amniotic fluid, acting as a good medium to support the growth of S. worthington, might be iesponsible for the long-lasting contamination.


Abstract In 1956, 52 % of urban men and 42 % of rural men smoked cigarettes. By 2010, the disparity had flipped: 24.7 % of urban men and 30.6 % of rural men smoked. Smoking remains the greatest preventable cause of mortality in the United States, and understanding the underlying causes of place-specific differences in behavior is crucial for policy aimed at reducing regional inequality. Using geocoded data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort, I estimate a dynamic model that captures smoking behavior, location decisions, and education over thirty years. Simulation of the estimated model demonstrates that selection on permanent unobserved variables that are correlated with smoking cessation, both in native populations and in those who migrate between rural and urban areas, explains 70.9 % of the urban/rural smoking disparity. Alternatively, differential tobacco control policies explain only 9.6 % of the urban/rural smoking disparity, which suggests that equalizing cigarette taxes across regions may fail to bridge gaps in behavior and health. This paper emphasizes that rural smoking disparities are largely driven by who selects into rural communities.


A key aspect of disease prevention and early detection for improved treatment, across a range of medical disciplines, is the development and implementationof prognostic models. Formulating such models, however, involves a range of practical challenges and associated statistical and epidemiological concerns. Although analytical approaches are generally well described for proper design, model development, and further analysis and validation of prognostic models, these methods and approaches are often poorly implemented. Overcoming these challengesmust involves a combination of utilization of appropriate methodology (and statistical expertise) and better integration of resources across studies.


Deflection-based techniques are being widely used to evaluate the structural integrity and for estimating the elastic moduli of in-service pavements. These deflections can be non-destructively induced and measured using various commercially available devices. In recent years, the Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) has gained worldwide acceptance among most highway agencies due to its versatility and ease of use. However, as with any testing using subject-driven, instrumented devices, the major concerns of the end usefulness of the resulting data are accuracy and precision. Although a level of uncertainty is always inherent to any measurement process, it must also be appropriately quantified or assessed. Therefore, the Florida Department of Transportation initiated the present field study to assess the level of precision of FWD measurements on flexible pavements. Deflection data were acquired using three FWD units concurrently on four different asphalt pavement sections. The precision was then addressed in terms of testing repeatability and reproducibility. In addition, the effects of buffer designs on deflection measurements were also evaluated. This paper presents a description of the testing program, data collection efforts, and subsequent analyses and findings. Precision statements for repeatability and reproducibility of field measurements were developed and are summarized herein. A generally high level of repeatability and reproducibility of the deflection measurements is demonstrated.


Aggregation patterns are often visually detected in sets of location data. These clusters may be the result of interesting dynamics or the effect of pure randomness. We build an asymptotically Gaussian test for the hypothesis of randomness corresponding to a homogeneous Poisson point process. We first compute the exact first and second moment of the Ripley K-statistic under the homogeneous Poisson point process model. Then we prove the asymptotic normality of a vector of such statistics for different scales and compute its covariance matrix. From these results, we derive a test statistic that is chi-square distributed. By a Monte-Carlo study, we check that the test is numerically tractable even for large data sets and also correct when only a hundred of points are observed


The method of maximum likelihood estimation based on Median Ranked Set Sampling (MRSS) was used to estimate the shape and scale parameters of the Exponentiated Exponential Distribution (EED). They were compared with the conventional estimators. The relative efficiency was used for comparison. The amount of information (in Fisher's sense) available from the MRSS about the parameters of the EED were be evaluated. Confidence intervals for the parameters were constructed using MRSS.


An algorithm for the parallel solution of large sparse sets of linear equations, given their factor matrices, is developed. It is aimed at efficient practical implementation on a processor of the multiple instruction multiple data stream (MIMD) type. The software required to implement the algorithm is described. In addition, the amount of memory necessary for data retention during execution is considered and related to that which is required on single processor systems. Hardware developed for the implementation of the algorithm is described. Bus contention for the system is outlined and shown to be insignificant. Possible bus contention problems for systems differing in the number of processors and speed of processing elements are also considered. A simulator modeling the execution of the algorithm on large systems has been implemented. The performance of the algorithm, in terms of execution speed enhancement relative to the theoretical maximum, is shown to be good.


Extracellular matrix (ECM) produced by Schwann cells is known to promote growth of several types of neurites (Ard et al., 1987). Whether a similar material produced by astrocytes may be available to promote neurite growth during CNS development is now open to question. The present study was undertaken to define conditions under which cultured astrocytes deposit the ECM components laminin and heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG), and to relate this deposition to the ability of astrocytes to support neurite growth. The use of 2 different culture media permitted the growth of astrocytes either with or without these ECM components. Neonatal rat cortical astrocytes were cultured by the method of McCarthy and de Vellis (1980) and studied by immunocytochemistry and electron microscopy. Astrocytes grown in serum- containing medium for 5 or 9 d after subculturing were shown to have fibrillar patches of ECM containing both HSPG and laminin immunoreactivity. Immunoreactivity for the 2 molecules was usually colocalized. In contrast, astrocytes subcultured for 5 d in defined medium showed no immunocytochemical staining for either laminin or HSPG and had no ECM visible in EM. Formation of stellate processes was increased when cells were grown in defined medium compared with that seen in serum-containing medium, and growth of the population was slower. In 3 other conditions, attainment of stellate morphological differentiation by the astrocytes was correlated with diminution in immunostaining for ECM components. (1) In older cultures (30–42 d after subculturing), stellate, mitotically quiescent cells showed relatively little HSPG or laminin immunoreactivity. (2) Cultures initially maintained in serum-containing medium and then converted to defined medium lost much of their immunoreactivity for ECM components and developed longer processes. (3) When neurites from fetal rat dorsal root ganglion explants grew across monolayers of astrocytes in serum- containing medium, diminution of ECM immunostaining and development of stellate processes were seen in areas directly contacted by the neurites. ECM-containing laminin and HSPG did not appear to be necessary for neurites to interact with astrocytes. In defined medium, in which no ECM was detected, dorsal root ganglion neurites were found in contact with astrocyte surfaces rather than on the rat tail collagen substratum on the culture dish.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Background:Nasal transmucosal midazolam is effective for premedication of pediatric patients; however, 61-74% of these patients cry at nasal drug administration. Sublingual benzodiazepines, including midazolam, are effective in adults. The current blinded randomized study compared acceptance of and behavioral responses to transmucosal midazolam administered via the intranasal and sublingual routes. Methods:Ninety-three patients aged 0.5-10 yr were stratified by age: 30 infants and toddlers, 0.5-2 yr; 39 preschoolers, 2.1- 5 yr; and 24 school age, 5.1-10 yr. They were randomized to receive 0.2 mg/kg of midazolam in the nose or under the tongue without or with additional flavoring. For the group receiving sublingual flavored midazolam, the syringe tip was dipped in candy flavor and sugar. Duration of crying and compliance with instructions for sublingual drug administration were recorded. Hemoglobin oxygen saturation by pulse oximetry and sedation score were recorded by three observers before drug administration, at 2.5-min intervals for 10 min, at separation from parents, and during induction with halothane in O2. Results:Children accepted midazolam administered via the sublingual route better than that given intranasally. In children not crying before drug administration, the frequency and duration of crying was greater following intranasal compared with sublingual administration (71% vs. 18% (P<0.0001) and 48 ± 56 vs. 25 ± 49 s (P = 0.004), respectively). Lack of total compliance with instructions for sublingual administration did not alter drug effect, and there were no differences between the three study groups in maximum sedation, response to separation from parents, and behavior at induction of anesthesia; 80% displayed adequate or excellent behavior. Finally, the addition of candy flavor did not improve acceptance of or compliance with sublingual midazolam administration. Conclusions:Sublingual administration of midazolam is as effective as, and better accepted than, intranasal midazolam as a preanesthetic sedative in children.


The challenges of climate change will exacerbate the problems of water availability for agricultural production especially in Nigeria where the predominant farming system is rainfed. There are therefore, calls to promote soil water conservation (SWC) practices under the concept of 'conservation agriculture'. Yet, lack of land tenure security may hinder its adoption and continuous usage. This study assessed the extent to which land tenure security affects the farming systems and welfare outcomes of rural smallholder farmers, through the adoption of SWC technologies in South Western region of Nigeria. In contrast to the existing literature on conservation adoption, the study differentiated between perceived and legal land tenure security and allows for joint use of different SWC technologies since these are not-mutually exclusive. 240 structured questionnaires were administered to head farmers in the study area. Using structural equation and double hurdle models, the study showed that land tenure security in terms of legal documentation induced the adoption of more expensive SWC practices such as controlled irrigation while perceived tenure security induced cheaper SWC technologies adoption. Based on combined adoption, tenant farmers tended to adopt several SWCT but the cheapest ones such as straw mulching on ridged land. The study further found that farmers who adopted more expensive SWCT, cropped their fields at least twice yearly. However, these were dependent on their crop choices. Given the same crop type, adopting SWCT increased cropping intensity, use of other inputs and gross margin of the farmers. On average, farmers with secure land tenure and SWCT adoption, had better welfare outcome in terms of per-capita expenditure. This study thus concluded that agricultural innovation adoption driven by land tenure security has the potential to improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers.


The aims of this study are to present and to evaluate the Quranic portrayal of Jesus as found in surahs three, four, and nineteen. Chapter one incorporates a brief introduction leading to the presentation of what the Qur'an says about Jesus within the prescribed limits, and in the light supplied by Christian and Muslim exegetes. The second chapter appraises, in relation to the Qur'an, the relevant Biblical and apocryphal views of Jesus, noting the parallels, differences and additions afforded by the canonical and non-canonical accounts. Chapter three examines, from a wide Christian perspective, a number of different Christological viewpoints. Subsequently, each Christology is examined in relation to Islamic Christology. The pertinent points are discussed in detail, noting similarities and differences. Chapter four examines the Quranic material relating to the question of the death of Jesus and this involves an appraisal of various Muslim traditions which prove to be contrary to the Qur'an. Chapter five presents an evaluation of Islamic Christology. It is argued that there is substantial agreement between the Qur'an and the Bible with regard to Jesus. From the Unitarian and Liberal Christian viewpoints, Islamic Christology is an acceptable Christology. On the other hand, it is argued that Islamic Christology, from the orthodox Christian perspective, is not worthy of consideration as a legitimate Christology because it does not incorporate the concept of Incarnation.


The Houma Covenant texts are complete and systematic oaths of alliance with clear writing and a neat structure. What is more striking is the amount of polymorphic characters contained in the Covenant. The most distinctive feature of the characters is their diversity, which is mainly reflected in the different writing styles and systems in various states. This paper probes the characteristics and laws of the internal structure of characters in the Spring and Autumn period and seeks to understand the characteristics of the polymorphic characters at that time. Through characters used in the Covenant, the paper aims to explore the dating signs of characters between the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States. In this regard, the Houma Covenant undoubtedly provides us with hard-won data, giving us a definitive answer to the interpretation of the dating signs, and the phenomenon of polygraphs in the Houma Covenant can be roughly presented as a new and old form of the side of a Chinese character. In addition, the frequency of different forms of a character in variants for names is in accordance with the old and new order of glyphs. That is, the newer the glyph is, the more frequently it is used, and vice versa, which is also a notable trend in the glyphs of the Houma Covenant.


Supported bimetallic nanoparticles are particularly attractive catalysts due to increased activity and stability compared to their monometallic counterparts. In this work, gold-based catalysts have been studied as catalysts for the selective base-free oxidation of glucose. TiO2-supported Au–Pd and Au–Cu series prepared by the sol-immobilization and precipitation-reduction methods, respectively, showed a significant synergistic effect, particularly when the theoretical weight ratio of the two metals was close to 1 : 1 (with an actual experimental bulk Au/Pd molar ratio of ca. 0.8 and ca. 0.4 for Au/Cu) in both cases. XPS analysis showed that the presence of Auδ+, Pd2+ and CuOH species played an important role in the base-free glucose oxidation.


PURPOSE
We studied retrospectively the interaction between c-erbB2 overexpression and adjuvant tomoxifen in node-negative breast cancer patients enrolled in the Gruppo Universitario Napoletano 1 (GUN-1) trial.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
c-erbB2, evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 145 of 173 patients randomly assigned to 2-year adjuvant tamoxifen or no further therapy, was considered overexpressed if greater than 10% of the cells showed specific membrane staining. The role of each prognostic variable and their independent effect were studied using the Cox model. Disease-free (DFS) and overall (OAS) survival curves were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method.

RESULTS
As of November 30, 1994, the median follow-up period was 12 years. c-erbB2 was overexpressed in 43 of 145 patients (29.7%), which directly correlated with tumor size and inversely with estrogen receptor (ER) level. At univariate analysis, overexpression of c-erbB2 did not affect either DFS or OAS; tamoxifen had a greater effect on reducing the risk of recurrence than of death. Addition of c-erbB2 to a multivariate Cox model that contained menopausal status, tumor size, nuclear grade, and treatment as covariates did not affect the significance of the model for DSF or OAS, whereas addition of the first-order interaction between c-erbB2 and tamoxifen was statistically significant both for DFS and OAS. The same result was obtained when the model contained ER status and ER-tamoxifen interaction. Indeed, adjuvant tamoxifen significantly prolonged DFS and OAS in c-erbB2-negative cases, whereas it had no effect on DFS and OAS in c-erbB2-positive patients.

CONCLUSION
In early-stage breast cancer patients, overexpression of c-erbB2 is a marker of lack of efficacy of adjuvant tamoxifen.


Splicing is an essential cellular process which is carried out by the spliceosome in order to remove the introns and join the exons present in pre-mRNA transcripts. A variety of spliceosomal mutations have been recently identified in the myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a heterogeneous group of hematopoietic stem cell malignancies, revealing a new leukemogenic pathway involving spliceosomal dysfunction. Splicing factor genes are the most frequently mutated genes found in MDS, with mutations occurring in more than half of all patients. The high mutation frequency in different components of the spliceosome in MDS indicates that aberrant splicing may be a common consequence of these mutations in this disorder. RNA sequencing studies using MDS patient bone marrow cells and different mouse models have identified several downstream targets of the splicing factor mutations. Aberrant splicing of these target genes may contribute to MDS pathogenesis, however functional studies are required in order to fully determine the effects of the aberrant isoforms on disease phenotype. Splicing inhibitors are currently being developed and may be used as therapeutic agents to target aberrant pre-mRNA splicing in MDS and other cancers with splicing factor mutations. The mouse models expressing splicing factor mutations may prove particularly valuable for pre-clinical testing of these drugs.


The properties of nanocomposite tantalum carbide/amorphous hydrocarbon (TaC/a-C:H) thin films depend closely on reactive magnetron sputtering deposition process conditions. The chemical composition and structure trends for TaC/a-C:H films were obtained as a function of three deposition parameters: acetylene flow rate, applied direct current (dc) bias voltage, and substrate carousel rotation rate. Films were deposited according to a 2^3 factorial experimental design to enable multiple linear regression modeling of property trends. The Ta/C atomic ratio, hydrogen content, total film thickness, TaC crystallite size, and Raman spectra were statistically dependent on acetylene flow rate, applied dc bias voltage, or both. Transmission electron microscopy revealed a nanometer-scale lamellar film structure, the periodicity of which was affected mostly by substrate carousel rotation rate. The empirical property trends were interpreted with respect to hypothesized growth mechanisms that incorporate elements of physical vapor deposition and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition.


AIM: To develop medicinal approaches to correction of hemodynamic disturbances in vibration disease (VD) associated with arterial hypertension. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study compared hypotensive and hypodynamic efficiency of amlodipin, diltiazem, enalapril, perindopril and indapamide in 74 VD patients with arterial hypertension (SAP 140-179 mm Hg, DAP 90-109 mm Hg; mean age 54.8 years, mean exposure to vibration 26.8 years). Before and after the treatment course the patients were examined with ultrasound by the following parameters: left ventricular contractility, left and right ventricular diastolic function, left atrial function. RESULTS: Amlodipin reduced left ventricular volume both in systole and diastole as well as maximal intramyocardial tension without significant change in contractility, raised a contraction reserve of the left atrium, improved ventricular relaxation. Diltiazem potentiates contractility of the left ventricle and atrium without marked impact on relaxation and tension of the myocardium. Enalapril and perindopril cause positive hemodynamic shifts. Perindopril vs enalapril was more effective in easing intramyocardial systolic tension of the left ventricular wall and in improving the diastolic function. Indapamid vs calcium antagonists and ACE inhibitors had a weaker effect on arterial pressure, no significant effect on left ventricular contraction, peripheral hemodynamics. Left atrial function was hyperactive. This was observed also in response to the other drugs. CONCLUSION: Amlodipin produced in patients with VD and AH more positive hemodynamic effects, reduced isotonic hyperfunction of the left ventricle, improves diastolic function of the ventricles. Amlodipin and perindopril are more promising prognostically in relation to reduction of left ventricular myocardial mass.


Robert C. Hannum* Anthony N. Cabot This paper sheds light on the age-old argument as to whether poker is a game in which skill predominates over chance or vice versa. Recent work addressing the issue of skill vs. chance is reviewed. This current study considers two different scenarios to address the issue: 1) a mathematical analysis supported by computer simulations of one random player and one skilled player in Texas Hold'Em, and 2) full-table simulation games of Texas Hold'Em and Seven Card Stud. Findings for scenario 1 showed the skilled player winning 97 percent of the hands. Findings for scenario 2 further reinforced that highly skilled players convincingly beat unskilled players. Following this study that shows poker as predominantly a skill game, various gaming jurisdictions might declare poker as such, thus legalizing and broadening the game for new venues, new markets, new demographics, and new media. Internet gaming in particular could be expanded and released from its current illegality in the U.S. with benefits accruing to casinos who wish to offer online poker.


Failure of implementation of strategies is ubiquitous as the phenomenon is still not well understood. This stems from the fact that it is still a neglected subject in strategy research, leading to a lack of development of theory and its subsequent cumulation to guide further research and practice. Yet its understanding holds the key to understanding of Sustained competitive advantage and strategic change. Methodologically, research on implementation has been hampered by the poor use of processual studies and the requirements of considerable time and effort at doing them. Thus a necessity exists for the development of a mid range theory of implementation which could guide research and through them practice. This paper attempts to fill this gap. Using a multiple case embedded design; a processual study of the implementation of four national programmes in three states was conducted. An iterative process of explanation grounded in data coupled with literature enfolding facilitated the development of a mid range theory. It positions the concept of resource dependency as central to process of implementation. It utilizes the concept of "Implementation organization" from public policy, "Cognitive architecture" from literature on learning, construct of "Motivation to produce" representing the fields of organizational theory and strategic management and concepts of VRIN resources and "attention theory" to develop this theory of implementation. Implementation has been shown to be the management of resource dependency of the organization, characterized by the identification of "Key resources". The management of this requires attention of the top management to facilitate direction of the macro processes in line with the stated aim and governance of the micro processes for effective execution of the service delivery components. Thus implementation is a function of attention, direction and governance.


Objectives: This study was conducted to determine if thalassemia patients were getting quality care in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan, as per international standards and to identify determinants for better quality of thalassemia care. Design: A cross sectional study was conducted using interview based structured questionnaire, which was developed using standards of thalassemia care used by International Thalassemia Foundation. Setting: Five healthcare facilities catering to the needs of thalassemia patients in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan. Participants: Data were collected from 315 thalassemia patients from May to August, 2016. Main outcome measure: Survey data on quality indicators. Results: Results showed that almost half of thalassemia patients (48.5%) were getting poor quality of care. On average patients were getting only 63.93% of possible quality care for the disease. The most deficient quality area was management of complications where patients were getting only 49.1% of possible care. Better quality of care was likely to be received by those patients who were educated, patients with educated fathers, those visiting private facilities and those who were visiting facilities in Islamabad. Those with concomitant diseases were also likely to receive better care. Conclusion: Quality of care provided to thalassemia patients was well below the international standards for the care of thalassemia. There is a need to take urgent action to improve quality of care in the country.


Underwater image pre-processing is absolutely necessary due to the quality of images captured under water. When capture such images, quality of images degrade due to many factors like ripples in water, lack of availability of light, organic matter dissolved in water etc and also such images are captured from a very small distance , so the images must be pre processed before applying any kind of operation on these images. Different filtering techniques are available in the literature for pre-processing of underwater images. The filters used normally improve the image quality, suppress the noise, preserves the edges in an image, enhance and smoothen the image. In this paper comparative analysis of various Filters for such underwater images is presented. Keyword----Underwater image preprocessing, Homomorphic Filter, Anisotropic Filter, Wavelet filter


Context: Since most of the fruits are rich in vitamins, minerals, and salts they often have significant effects on human health; hence, continuous consumption of fruits, because of water, sugar, fat, protein, vitamins, and etc. plays a significant role in prevention and treatment of many diseases. In this regard, Holy Quran, the book of healing and mercy, has dragged human attention toward certain fruits such as grape, olive, pomegranate, date, and fig. Certainly, there are physical and mental benefits to humans, in this notice of Knowing God. The current study aimed to evaluate therapeutic properties of Quranic fruits and their effects on health promotion. Evidence Acquisitions: The current study was a review research which was conducted according to Islamic references such as Holy Quran and Islamic interpretations, medical narratives, traditional and modern medicine books, published articles, and advanced internet search. Results: In Holy Quran, God has mentioned grape 11 times, olive 6times, pomegranate 3 times, date once (palm tree 20 times), and fig once. Of course, in one case olive has been indirectly mentioned. Note that, these fruits have been mentioned together, in some verses; such as Surah At-tin verse 1: "by the fig and the olive!". From another side, traditional medicine books and modern clinical findings show that these fruits are effective in the treatment of cancers, cardio-vascular diseases, Alzheimer, hyper tension, bad cholesterol, infection and inflammation, and also improvement of immune system, and health of various body organs. Conclusions: After evaluating traditional medicine books and modern medical findings about the properties of Quranic fruits and their effects, it was concluded that consumption of any one of these fruits (grape, olive, pomegranate, date, and fig) in daily diet, plays significant role in health promotion.


We report the long-term results of a therapeutic trial of prednisone in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, comparing the age at which 16 treated patients and 38 controls lost the ability to ambulate. Survival curve analysis and group mean comparisons indicate that ambulation was significantly prolonged, by approximately two years, in the prednisone-treated group compared with the control group. The results of this study indicate that prednisone therapy has a long-term beneficial effect in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, in addition to the short-term palliation we previously reported. Further studies are needed to establish optimal treatment schedules using prednisone and to develop improved therapeutic agents.


Community policing is a strategic consideration for contemporary policing, especially when police organisations worldwide increasingly seek cost-effective and sustainable methods of combating crime. The principle of community policing recognises the community and its leaders as equal partners in the prevention and reduction of crime. Hence, there is a need for research to interrogate how different police organisations have considered community policing as a panacea to their policing challenges. This study sought to evaluate the role of traditional leaders in community policing and crime prevention in the community of Chief Madliwa, Nkayi District in Matabeleland North Province of Zimbabwe. Interviews were carried out with eight village heads, four headmen and three key informants. Four focus group discussions were conducted to collect the villagers' insight on the role of traditional leaders in community policing and crime prevention. Participants were identified using purposive and convenience sampling. The findings revealed that community policing is an effective strategy for crime prevention and that traditional leaders play a pivotal role in the success of community policing and crime prevention. Traditional leaders play an integral role in the recruitment of members of the Neighbourhood Watch Committee, assist with organising the business community to cooperate with the police in the fight against crime and play an important role in organising the community to attend crime awareness campaigns arranged by the police.


Bangka-Belitung is known as tin producer and it geologically contains higher concentrations of natural radionuclides than most other areas. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of terrestrial gamma radiation in Bangka-Belitung Islands. The external gamma radiation dose rate from terrestrial gamma-rays have been measured at one meter above the ground by means of a portable gamma spectrometer at 66 survey points. The terrestrial gamma dose rates in Bangka island range from 43.67 to 511.54 nGy h -1 with a mean of 183.45 nGy h -1 , while in Belitung island they range from 15.54 to 416.39 nGy h -1 with a mean of 132.60 nGy h-1. From this work, a strong correlation was found between dose rates found from in-situ radiation measurements and dose rates calculated theoretically from radioactivity contents of the soil at the same locations. Generally, Bangka-Belitung islands have higher outdoor natural gamma dose rates than the world average value of 0.058 μGy h -1 for the regions with normal background radiation specified by United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). Received: 27 August 2014; Revised: 05 March 2015; Accepted: 30 March 2015


No other author uses abstract nouns as extensively as Jane Austen. Three of her six novels even draw on such words for their titles: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. Terms like 'elegance', 'gentility' and 'propriety' seem to define her well-ordered, judgemental world. In making the fine moral, psychological and social discriminations on which her plots depend, Jane Austen draws on the vocabulary of her age, which is both more abstract and more fixed than that of today. But as this study shows, she was capable of subtlety and even ambiguity in her deployment of such key concepts. Here, Maggie Lane, acclaimed author of many Jane Austen books, turns her attention to the fascinating nuances of Austen's language and the way it embodies her most profound beliefs about human conduct and character.