Background Children with severe hypothyroidism are known to present with significant growth restriction. Institution of treatment with thyroxine results in catch-up growth. However, treatment commenced in pubertal period may result in loss of adult height in cases with longstanding severe untreated hypothyroidism. Objective The objective of our study is to evaluate the presentation, investigations and catch-up growth after initiation of treatment with Thyroxine. Methods We describe a retrospective case series of three peripubertal girls who presented with severe growth restriction as a result of primary autoimmune hypothyroidism between September 2014 and April 2015. Results Case : A 15 year old girl presented with 1 year history of constipation and short stature. Her pubertal staging was B3P3A2M1. Her height SDS was –4.99 and weight SDS was –3.22. Her TSH was > 100 mU/l, Free T4 was undetectable and TPO antibodies were positive. Her bone age was delayed by 5 years. Three months after starting treatment with thyroxine, her height SDS improved to –4.63. Case 2: A 13 year old girl presented with one year history of cold intolerance, poor growth, low mood and constipation. Her pubertal staging was B3P3A2M1. Her height SDS was -3.23 and weight SDS was –0.61. Her TSH was > 100 mU/l and FT4 was undetecTable. Her bone age was delayed by 15 months. Case 3: A 14 year old girl presented with dizziness and collapse at school. She also had 2 year history of cold intolerance, dry skin and dry hair. Her pubertal staging was B2P2A1M0. Her height SDS was –4.35 and weight SDS was –1.93. Her TSH was > 100 mU/l and free T4 was undetecTable. Thyroid ultrasound was suggestive of Thyroiditis with no nodules. Her bone age was delayed by 3 years. 6 months after starting treatment with Thyroxine, her height SDS improved to –3.43. All girls had normal response to growth hormone and gonadotropin stimulation tests, which confirmed that short stature was entirely secondary to severe hypothyroidism. Conclusions Prompt recognition of hypothyroidism in childhood is essential to initiate treatment early, so that adult height is not compromised.


In reinforcement learning, experience replay stores past samples for further reuse. Prioritized sampling is a promising technique to better utilize these samples. Previous criteria of prioritization include TD error, recentness and corrective feedback, which are mostly heuristically designed. In this work, we start from the regret minimization objective, and obtain an optimal prioritization strategy for Bellman update that can directly maximize the return of the policy. The theory suggests that data with higher hindsight TD error, better on-policiness and more accurate Q value should be assigned with higher weights during sampling. Thus most previous criteria only consider this strategy partially. We not only provide theoretical justifications for previous criteria, but also propose two new methods to compute the prioritization weight, namely ReMERN and ReMERT. ReMERN learns an error network, while ReMERT exploits the temporal ordering of states. Both methods outperform previous prioritized sampling algorithms in challenging RL benchmarks, including MuJoCo, Atari and Meta-World.


Introduction Menander's comedies insistently correlate male eros with Athenian citizen marriage. (1) Usually, the plays establish and affirm this link only retrospectively. In some cases, marriages based on a young citizen's attraction for a female citizen come about as if by accident, as chance events made possible by the last minute discovery of the heroine's true citizen identity. (2) For instance, the protagonists in Menander's Perikeiromene and Misoumenos are perfectly content to remain in nonmarital relationships. In the conclusion of both plays, however, the heroine's civic status is restored, allowing a relationship initially based on male erotic and emotional attraction to be normalized in marriage. Similarly, the rape plays establish a backhanded, seemingly inadvertent linkage between male desire and marriage. (3) In every case, Menander's comedies construct rape as an act of overwhelming male passion that eventually leads to the formation of a legitimate citizen marriage. The romantic plot in Menander's Dyskolos deviates significantly from these conventional patterns. In the prologue, the god Pan explains that he has made the protagonist Sostratos fall madly in love with the heroine in return for her careful tending (flattering, 37) of his shrine and the nymphs (39-44). The action opens with Sostratos explaining to his incredulous friend, the parasite Chaireas, that he has just seen a girl, fallen irrevocably in love, and decided to marry her. (4) After listening to Sostratos's story, Chaireas describes the services he usually provides for friends in love: [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (58-66) ...suppose one of my friends conceives a passion for a courtesan; right way I seize her and bring her, I get drunk, I set fires, I don't endure reason. It's necessary to have her before you find out who she is. Delay greatly increases passion, but a quick beginning means a speedy conclusion. Say a man suggests marriage with a freeborn girl; I'm a different man; I make inquiries about her family, economic status, and character. (5) In effect, Chaireas rehearses the conventional parts that he, the comic parasite, knows how to play. In so doing, he suggests that Sostratos has gotten his plots mixed up, that he is treating a freeborn girl like a courtesan. Chaireas does not, of course, succeed in convincing Sostratos of the error of his ways. Rather, the sole point of his brief appearance in the play seems to be to call attention to the unusual romantic plot about to unfold. (6) While the first scene underscores the novelty of Sostratos's immediate decision to marry for love, by the conclusion of the play the erotic basis of marriage (for men) is recast as an unquestioned orthodoxy when Sostratos's father simply states that eros makes a young man's marriage more secure (788-90). Thus, rather than following the more typical Menandrian strategy of retrospectively linking desire and marriage, the Dyskolos deploys eros specifically and explicitly to generate a citizen marriage. In contrast to other New Comic plays in which young men desire to marry women they love, in the Dyskolos Sostratos does not even know who the heroine is. (7) This "love at first sight" strategy has a twofold political significance: it neutralizes the implicitly political considerations of kinship, class, and social status which went into the making of Athenian marriages, even as it naturalizes the arbitrary rule limiting legitimate marriage to native Athenians. From 451/0 onwards, the democratic state restricted polis membership to men born from two native Athenians. (8) This restriction tightened the link between citizenship and marriage, allowing the state to use marriage to reproduce and maintain the borders of the specifically Athenian citizen community. In the Dyskolos, Sostratos ardently desires to obey the norms of civic matrimony and membership, not out of a sense of civic duty or conscious intention, but purely for reasons of personal romantic preference. …


Background: Pre-diabetes (PDM) is a state with impaired glucose tolerance and/or impaired fasting glucose where people are at risk for diabetes. In less than 3 years, PDM gets converted to diabetes. Physical activity (PA) is a boon to PDM and diabetes to gain control over the glycemic variability and insulin secretion, reduction in cardiometabolic risk, and improvement in overall health. Increasing PA helps delay or prevent the conversion of PDM to diabetes mellitus (DM), as well as helps prevent complications of diabetes effectively. Materials and Methods: The aim of the review was to understand the mechanism by which PA can help to prevent and manage DM. Research papers, manuscripts, and review papers on PA and its mechanism of action on prevention and management of diabetes were searched and relevant contents were studied. One hundred and twelve papers were chosen from online sources like Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed, Sci-Hub, and Library Genesis. Fifty-seven articles were shortlisted and out of them 54 included in this mini-review comprising of meta-analysis, systematic review, and randomized control trials. Fifty-seven articles were excluded due to irrelevant content in the contexts of diabetes and its mechanism. Result: The review resulted in getting a better understanding of the possible mechanisms by which PA works in prevention and management of DM and delaying the onset of diabetes in PDM. In addition to that, the highest known risk factors for diabetes in this current scenario are understood as physical inactivity among youngsters, along with low nutrition high-quality diet, stress, low-quality sleep, and associated fat and glucose metabolism. Conclusion: During pandemics like coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), physically being active also has its role in reducing resistance power and metabolism of fat and glucose, thereby increasing the risk for diabetes. It is always better to keep oneself with some exercise daily to maintain surface immunity high and strong to avoid diseases. This is possible by modification of lifestyle with yoga, exercises, and proper diet. Periodic incorporation of indoor–outdoor activities aiming at cutting short period of inactivity will help prevent and manage diabetes and other metabolic endocrine disorders to a large extent.


The need to calculate effective common volumes (ECVs) formed by the intersection of antenna beams arises in several communications (and radar) engineering problems. Order of magnitude calculations are easily made using assumptions such as top-hat antenna radiation patterns, disparate beam dimensions at the common volume, etc. Accurate calculations can be made in a straight forward way using numerical methods. It is thought, however, that an analytical formula allowing accurate calculations to be made without the need for a computer program would be useful. The paper derives such a formula and compares it for accuracy with results from a numerical program. The only assumptions used in the derivation are that the antennas have Gaussian radiation patterns and the antenna beams are approximately cylindrical in the region of the common volume. Within the constraints of these assumptions the formula is exact.


Workplace incivility is defined as rude behaviour that violates social norms at work. It has been linked to psychological distress (burnout), mainly in healthcare and educational settings. Burnout is a serious public health concern. Studies addressing the impact of workplace incivility on employee well-being in the hospitality industry are scarce. The primary aim of this study was to examine the relationship between workplace incivility and burnout among hotel employees. Cross sectional data for 385 Portuguese hotel employees (54% male; Mage=33.9, SD=11.3) were analysed using bootstrap regression models. Results revealed that (1) supervisor incivility was significantly more frequent than coworker incivility; (2) supervisor and co-worker incivility were significant positive predictors of emotional exhaustion and cynicism, the core components of burnout; (3) supervisor incivility was the stronger predictor of emotional exhaustion, and co-worker incivility the stronger predictor of cynicism; and (4) severe burnout was highly prevalent in our sample. This study provides insight into the phenomena of workplace incivility and burnout among Portuguese hotel employees. Our results have practical value for management strategies aiming to prevent or reduce burnout, which in turn has the potential to enhance individual, group, customer and organizational outcomes within the hospitality industry.


The empirical evidence of a non-monotone relation between income and obesity is not well explained. We build a theoretical model combining income inequality and social comparisons to explain the link between income and obesity and study tax policy implications for fighting obesity. We assume that differences in food consumption patterns between poor and wealthy households partly reflect positionality, which is the concern for social status. Our key assumption is that positionality for low-calorie food consumption is positively related to a country's wealth. In this framework, body weight outcomes reflect competing income and positionality effects, yielding the following results. We explain the link between average obesity rates, and standards of living and suggest the existence of a Kuznets curve for obesity. For cross sections of the population, we explain the observed correlation between income and obesity, which is positive in poor countries, and negative rich countries. We find that increasing the relative cost of high-calorie food is less effective at decreasing the relative weight of poor individuals in rich countries than in poor countries.


On September 30, 1965, six of Indonesia's highest ranking generals were killed in an effort by President Sukarno to crush an alleged coup. The events of that were part of a rapidly growing power struggle pro and anti-communist factions. The elimination of the generals, however, did little to increase and preserve Sukarno's power, though, and he was stripped of the presidency in 1967. Hunt's work is a unique and original examination of the events that culminated on that night in September, 1965. It is the first detailed account of the Indonesian Coup that reveals the previously unknown workings of the PKI's ultra-secret Special Bureau, a clandestine organization within the Communist Party that may be the prototype of other similar entities that flourished around the world in the mid-50's and 60s. No such expose of secret communist organizations committed to covert killings of the top military or political leaders of the country has ever been published. She establishes beyond any doubt that the PKI, under Chairman Aidit's direction, using the capabilities of a secret organization within the PKI that only Aidit and a handful of trusted high-level members of the Communist Party even knew about, and, most importantly, acting with President Sukarno's full knowledge and approval, planned and then-dramatically-failed to execute a bold plan to kill the top leadership of the Army and proclaim a new socialist state under President Sukarno's leadership with PKI Chairman Aidit as his proclaimed successor. At the time of the coup, government analysts as well as non-government scholars were of two minds. Some, like the group at Cornell University, were convinced that the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) had not been involved, that the coup was the action mid-level army officers against the top leadership. That was the official line at the time. Others were convinced that the PKI alone had planned and executed the coup in its long-held desire to remove the pro-U.S. army leadership. No one at the time saw the hand of Indonesia's world-famous President Sukarno in the affair.


Over the last two decades, regulatory thought in the UK has not fitted the strict deregulatory and regulatory dichotomy and has taken a more mature approach that is apparent in the adoption of recommendations by the Better Regulation Task Force. Therefore, we can talk here about a certain evolution. However, certain path dependence elements have still been present. Regulation has not been free from populist initiatives that occurred before this period, especially in the area of enforcement, nor from overreliance on previously successful solutions. An interesting aspect of regulatory initiatives adopted over this period is that they are both of an 'integrative' and 'diffusive' in character. It is difficult to speculate which theme has dominated. There are certain specific characteristics of regulation in the UK that have been preserved, but in general, regulation has often been consistent with regulatory themes in other countries, but not with academic thought. This has particular dynamics. Interestingly enough, whereas in the area of the environment, the UK could be considered as a pioneer, in terms of initiatives taken by organisations to which the UK is a party, regulatory steps have been rather reactive and minimal in scope.


Cyclosporine (CsA) nephrotoxicity shows characteristic tubular vacuolization (TV) which is endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in origin. However, the cellular events of CsA-induced TV and CsA-induced ER remained unclear. The aim of the present study was to study the nature of TV and the correlation to ER stress. Using proximal tubule NRK-52E cells in vitro and an in vivo model of acute CsA nephrotoxicity, we confirmed that CsA-induced TV was ER in origin and potentially reversible. Our results showed that CsA-induced ER stress and involved ER integrated stress response-related proteins (Bip/Grp78, ATF6, IRE1 and CHOP) but not cytoplasmic ER stress-related chaperones (HSP70, HSP40, HSP27, HSP90 and HSP60). Importantly, Bip/Grp78 was overexpressed on the membrane of TV and suppression of Bip/Grp78 blocked TV formation. In addition, suppression of Bip/Grp78-enhanced CsA-induced cell death and CsA-induced TV formation and Bip/Grp78 overexpression had a characteristic striped pattern in the tubulointerstitium. In summary, we demonstrate that CsA-induced TV was a potentially reversible process in which Bip/Grp78 overexpression is essential for TV formation. It is possible that Bip/Grp78 expression and TV formation may be involved in cellular defense mechanism against CsA nephrotoxicity.


In this paper a three-dimensional numerical computation on temperature and crown of rolls in hot strip rolling was evaluated based on finite element method and parallel computation technology with multiple CPUs. A comparison between calculated results and actual data collected from rolling mills was presented, which indicated the high accuracy of the model. The calculated results indicated that a significant impact in thin layer of work roll surface was brought by thermal load, while much weaker in the core. Furthermore, the temperature field and thermal crown of hot mill work rolls would reach a stabilized condition only when several rolling cycle be finished.


IN AN attempt to determine the true incidence of perforation of the gallbladder in a large series of necropsies, a review was made of 12,000 consecutive routine autopsies done at the Los Angeles County Hospital from April 1936 to January 1942. It is evident from the results of this large series of necropsies that the incidence and mortality of perforation of the gallbladder are much higher than heretofore generally believed. The argument for early operation for acute cholecystitis as a means of lowering the mortality from perforation is further strengthened by the presentation of an analysis of 105 cases of acute cholecystitis in which operation was performed at the White Memorial Hospital, Los Angeles, in the period between 1924 and 1944 and at the Glendale Sanitarium and Hospital, Glendale, Calif., in the period between 1927 and 1944. A vast amount of writing has been done on the subject of acute


We have estimated the dispersion of the inferred relative frequencies of Type-Ia and Type-II Supernovae (Niz/Nu) in our Galaxy by fltting the numerical results of Supernova nucleosynthesis to the solar-system abundances. The ratio Ni^/Nu is estimated to be 0.056-0.14, which is consistent with the Observation, if the model of Woosley and Weaver (1995, AAA 64.065.030 WW95) is adopted for Type-II Supernovae (SNe II). On the other hand, the upper limit of Nu/Nu becomes too large for the model of Hashimoto (1995, AAA 64.065.034 Ha95). However, Ha95 can fit the solar values better than WW95 as far as the abundant nuclei are concerned. These results mean that Ha95 can reproduce the main nuclei of the solar-system well and that WW95 can reproduce the solar values over a wide mass-number range. We also note that Ni^/Nu tends to become smaller if the delayed detonation model is adopted for Type-Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia). The dispersion of Ni&/Nu obtained in the present investigation is larger than that concluded by Tsujimoto et al. (1995, AAA 64.125.075), which will have an influence on the estimate of the average life time of SNe Ia's progenitors and/or the star-formation rate history in our galaxy.


Abstract The Kenyan general election of 2002, which put an end to Daniel Arap Moi's 24-year rule, has been subjected to much political analysis. The article takes as its point of departure the politico-religious movement Mungiki and the movement's own narratives of its role in the elections. Mungiki's narratives tell a story of alliances and behind-the-scenes political play that differs from the public version of events. It is argued that the movement's retrospective narratives provide a useful tool for exploring future possibilities for Mungiki's engagement in Kenyan politics. The narratives are primarily internal narratives, in that they are intended for the movement's own members. As such, they invite a discussion of Mungiki's perception of truth and, more broadly, of the relationship between narratives and truth.


In order to eliminate climate uncertainty w.r.t. cloud and convection parametrizations, superpramaterization (SP) [1] has emerged as one of the possible ways forward. We have implemented (regional) superparametrization of the ECMWF weather model OpenIFS [2] by cloud-resolving, three-dimensional large-eddy simulations. This setup, described in [3], contains a two-way coupling between a global meteorological model that resolves large-scale dynamics, with many local instances of the Dutch Atmospheric Large Eddy Simulation (DALES) [4], resolving cloud and boundary layer physics. The model is currently prohibitively expensive to run over climate or even seasonal time scales, and a global SP requires the allocation of millions of cores. In this paper, we study the performance and scaling behavior of the LES models and the coupling code and present our implemented optimizations. We mimic the observed load imbalance with a simple performance model and present strategies to improve hardware utilization in order to assess the feasibility of a world-covering superparametrization. We conclude that (quasi-)dynamical load-balancing can significantly reduce the runtime for such large-scale systems with wide variability in LES time-stepping speeds.


To examine the correlation between activation sequence fluctuation and arrhythmogenicity, we investigated temporal changes in the activation sequence by measuring activation times [negative first derivative of voltage over time (-dV/dt) in QRS] from the entire heart in 18 dogs. The heart was paced by constant atrial stimulation. The character of the activation sequence fluctuation was established by a principal component analysis, in which the first principal component was defined as a stable component of the sequence and the second or third component as a fluctuated component. Steady state contained 2.2 +/- 0.6% (percent total principal component, mean +/- SD) of fluctuated components, which appeared in a beat-by-beat manner (activation sequence alternans). Activation sequence alternans was observed only during flecainide administration and not during lidocaine or disopyramide administration. Fluctuated components at a high dose of flecainide significantly increased (3.3 +/- 0.8%). Ventricular fibrillation ensued in all dogs (n = 6) exposed to flecainide after an increase in activation sequence alternans. In conclusion, flecainide evoked local activation sequence alternans. This phenomenon correlated with the occurrence of ventricular fibrillation.


In this study we investigate the impact of the thin capitalization rule (TCR), introduced in Germany in 2008, on firms' capital structure, investment and profitability. The identification of the causal effects is based on the escape clauses in the regulation using a difference-in-difference approach. Our results present evidence that firms strongly react in order to avoid the limited deductibility of interest expenses: They either decrease their debt ratio or split their assets to use the exemption limit. The latter is especially used by firms with an interest result around the exemption limit of the interest barrier. In case the debt ratio is reduced, our results present evidence for a proportional increase of firms' tax base. In general, in the short term, no negative investment effects are caused by the TCR. This suggests that a part of the firms is able to substitute equity for debt at low costs or expects to be able to circumvent the regulation. However, investment might also be fixed in the short-run for example due to long-lasting contracts.


We
present an on-demand electrochemical mass spectrometry workflow for lipid
structural characterization with the capability of identifying double-bond and sn-positional
isomers. Two voltage-controlled
electrochemical reactions, interfacial electro-epoxidation and anodic corrosion
of a cobalt electrode, are cascaded in this strategy. The epoxidized products and
Co-adducted ions of lipids are fragmented in tandem MS to generate structure
characteristic fragments that indicate double-bond and sn-positions. The
unique feature of this workflow lies in the sequential localization of double
bonds, elucidation of sn-positions,
and collection of native lipid information in a single system and simply by tuning
ESI voltages. This feature, as well as low sample consumption, no need for
extra apparatus, and quantitative analysis, should allow wide applications in the
lipidomic field.


The field of neuroscience has received more and more publicity over recent
years, specifically by its claims to contribute to the understanding of childrens'
learning, education and development. However, progress in neuroscience
findings and its links with education have also been subject to controversy,
particularly with regard to how far the brain can inform understanding of social
processes. While educational psychologists have been identified as a discipline
potentially central to the debates about neuroscience (Hall, 2004), little research
has yet investigated the views of educational psychologists about the value or
relevance of this field in their discipline.
This research presents an analysis of views of ten educational psychologists
from two Local Authority services. The researcher carried out semi-structured
interviews and analysed the data using two approaches from the Discourse
Analytic tradition. Methods from Discursive Psychology and Foucauldian
Discourse Analysis were used to investigate how educational psychologists
discursively constructed the role of neuroscience in their discipline.
The combination of research tools yielded rich interview data. Ten discursive
sites were identified. Neuroscience was simultaneously viewed and identified
discursively as the Identification of Pathology or Deficit, an Additional
Explanatory Model, A Challenge to the Social Constructionist Worldview, and
Knowledge for Responsibility and Duty. Implications of these findings for
Educational Psychology practice are discussed. The prevalence of professional
eclecticism in the discipline was evident. Reference to educational
psychologists' frameworks and models for practice were notable and was
considered as points for discussion. Educational psychologists' constructions
gave rise to a variety of different subject positions, and therefore the actions
that are made possible by these positions. Methodological issues are also
considered, together with suggestions for future research.


Playing in the hospital brings benefits to the child and to the treatment. It works as a hospitalization coping strategy. This study aims at describing play choices adopted by children with cancer at hospital classrooms. Eighteen children with cancer aged between 6 and 12 participated in the study. The children were evaluated using the computerized instrument for assessing play in the hospital (APHcomp) and their parents responded to Rutter's child behavior scale-A2 (CBS). Their favorite play activities identified by the APHcomp were: drawing, watching TV and reading comic books. Presented behavior problems and emotional problems (61.1%) – according to the CBS. Of these, problems such as headache and fear stood out. The high frequency of problems shows the importance of psychological care, which can be provided by associating play activities and psychological techniques that are adequate to the demands in the context of this disease and hospitalization. Besides, to play appear during the hospital classrooms term, which pointed to possible benefits to play in the hospital and to the treatment of these kids.


Symptomatic acute HCV infection and interferon lambda 4 (IFNL4) genotypes are important predictors of spontaneous viral clearance. Using data from a multicohort database (Injecting Cohorts [InC3] Collaborative), we establish an independent association between host IFNL4 genotype and symptoms of acute hepatitis C virus infection. This association potentially explains the higher spontaneous clearance observed in some patients with symptomatic disease.


The sedimentology and stratigraphy of a multi‐phase glaciation sequence dating to Marine Isotope Stage 6 in the Rakaia Valley, South Island, New Zealand, is presented. This outcrop presents an example of the depositional signature of an end member of temperate valley glaciation, where voluminous sediment supply in a tectonically active setting combines with high annual temperatures and low seasonality to generate significant year‐round glacifluvial activity. Such glacial systems produce geological–climatic units that are dominated by thick sequences of aggradational gravels and proglacial lake sediments trapped behind outwash heads during deglaciation. At Bayfields Cliff, outwash sequences record an oscillating glacier margin marked by a sequence of glacier‐fed, Gilbert‐type deltas. The deltas are cut by numerous small‐scale, syndepositional, normal faults indicating both loss of glacier support and melt‐out of buried ice. A larger‐scale thrust fault system reflects late‐stage ice overrun. Braid plain gravels and chaotic disturbed glacial lake sediments are also recorded. A notable feature of these systems is the virtual absence of till in an environment with much other evidence for proximal ice. Cumulatively we regard these sediment–landform associations as diagnostic of debris‐laden, perhumid, temperate valley glacier systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This article seeks to provide a systematic reconstruction of the hermeneutic motifs in Ludwik Fleck's social epistemology and comparative cognitive sociology. The exegetical analysis of his work is extended and complemented by a hermeneutic critique of Fleck's psychologism. I begin with the recognition that Fleck's theory of the constitution of scientific facts involves a distinction between phenomena and observable facts. This distinction is underdeveloped in his book, but it plays a central role in his scientific papers. After discussing Fleck's constitutional theory by putting emphasis upon the historicity of scientific facts, I provide a rationale for the claim that the kind of sociality he attributes to the thought collectives is closer to the concept of interpretive trans-subjectivity rather than normative inter-subjectivity. To this sociality corresponds a concept of thought style as an open horizon of interpretation. By approaching the way in which such a horizon reveals and conceals a field of investigation, I finally discuss Fleck's concept of the "event of truth." The thesis is advocated that Fleck is not an adherent, but rather an opponent of social constructivism as it has been understood in the last half century.


The Liverpool strain of the mosquito Aedes aegypti was infected with microfilariae of the canine heartworm, Dirofilaria immitis, and was used to transmit heartworm larvae to three dogs. Methods of confirming heartworm infection in these dogs included the modified Knott's test, a commercial enzyme-linked-immunosorbent assay (ELISA), an indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) test, and post-mortem examination.


An open multicentre clinical trial of inhaled B-agonist, salmeterol, was carried out to assess its efficacy in adult Nigerian asthmatic patients. Seventy-four patients were recruited to the trial and 64 (86.48%) completed the trials. 50mcg of inhaled salmeterol was administered to the patients twice a day over a period of 2 weeks. The patients were assessed on weekly basis, at week 1, 2 and 3 subjectively and objectively using the protocol prepared by the sponsor of the study. Salmeterol was found to reduce symptoms of asthma considerably, both at day time and at night. The patient's tolerance to exercise improved significantly. The lung function assessed using Peak Expiratory Flow Meter (PEFR) showed significant improvement. Side effects were not encountered during the duration of the study. It was conclusively shown that overall, salmeterol is effective in the management of asthma in adult Nigerian patients.


to analyze the rate of progression of CKD in a population followed by a multidisciplinary team. Methods: We analyzed data from 209 patients (102 females) referred to the Nephrology Division, after at least 6 months under treatment by a multidisciplinary team(nephrologist, nutritionist, nurse and psychologist) patients were followed from January of 2002 until December of 2005. Glomerular filtration rate was estimated by MDRD equation (eGFR). Patients with eGFR below 15ml/min were excluded, and this value was considered the end-point for calculation of the rate of decline of renal function. Results are mean ± SD. Results: Hypertension was the main cause of CKD (31%) followed by Di- abetes (26%). Age was 60 ± 15 years, body mass index was 27 ± 5 kg.m 2 for femalesand 26 ± 4 kg.m 2 for males.Serum calcium,phosphorus and albumin were normal. Urea was 71 ± 36mg/dl, eGFR = 38 ± 20 ml/min. Systolic arterial pressure was 137 ± 20mmHg and diastolic= 80 ± 11mmHg; hematocrit = 37 ± 5%, hemoglobin =12.3 ± 1.7g/dl; cholesterol= 194 ± 42mg/dl, HDL-cholesterol= 36 ± 11mg/dl, LDL-cholesterol= 119 ± 54mg/dl; triglyceride = 167 ± 106 mg/dl; iPTH= 221 ± 221 pg/ml. referred treatment with eGFR = 45-30 ml/min, and the remaining with eGFR =29 to 15 ml/min. eGFR Conclusions: The present data show that a late referral population, did not show complications of uremia, and the rate of decline of GFR was lower than suggestted by K/DOQUI. We concluded therefore that, if followed by specialists and if possible by a multidisciplinary team, retarding the progression of CKD even in its more advanced stages is possible. Therefore conservative management is an efficient way to maintain CKD patients and to postpone renal substitutive therapy. Finally we believe that programs aiming this treatment should be encouraged to ameliorate care of CKD patients. Conclusions: This is the first report of differential prevalence of well- known renal associated abnormalities by ethnicity within a patient cohort in a universal access health care system. Improved understanding of these differences are important in order to understand the pardoxical finding of better prognosis for Asian Orientals on dialysis. These findings indicate that this occurs in spite of worse metabolic and hematologic abnormalities at earlier stages of CKD. Questions around race specific GFR and related laboratory test cut-offs should be pursued. but no preset time intervals for the follow up examinations could be demanded imperatively. Within the follow up period, there were a mean of 3.09 individual follow up examinations performed, each individual's mean follow up period was 5.66 years and the mean longest follow up period was 7.44 years. Primary outcome of interest was the development of kidney disease defined as a decrease of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) < 60 ml/min/1.73m 2 (calculated by the abbreviated Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) -equation) at the follow up examinations. Covariates included age, sex, GFR, body mass index, sports (endurance exercise ≥ 2 times/week), smoking status, total-, HDL-, LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, uric acid, fasting serum glucose, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, diagnosis of hypertension categories, and diabetes mellitus. A multivariable logistic generalized estimating equations model (taking into account the dependence between repeated measurements within the same individual at different follow up periods) was performed with respect to statistical significance resulting from univariate analysis of the covariates adjusted for age and sex. Variables were retained if Wald tests gave a P < 0.001. Results: The following parameters presented as odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals predicted new-onset kidney disease: Age (increase of 5 years), OR=1.35 (1.33 to 1.37); sex if female, OR=1.91 (1.70 to 2.16); MDRD-GFR ≥ 90 ml/min/1.73m 2 vs. 60-89 ml/min/1.73m 2 , OR=0.54 (0.50 to 0.73); sports, OR=0.64 (0.57 to 0.73); smoker, OR=1.69 (1.54 to 1.85); ex-smoker, OR=1.38 (1.22 to 1.56); uric acid (increase of 2 mg/dl), OR=1.71 (1.60 to 1.83); hypertension stage 1, OR=1.78 (1.60 to 1.99); hypertension stage 2, OR=2.28 (1.99 to 2.61); diabetes mellitus, OR=1.52 (1.11 to 2.10). Conclusions: Established cardiovascular risk factors predicted new-onset kidney disease. The impact of sex should be interpreted retentive, since sex appears in the numerator of the MDRD-equation. Higher GFR at baseline and sports were revealed as probably protective. as was the risk of the cardiovascular composite endpoint (Log Rank (Mantel-Cox 26.74 p < 0.000). For every 10ml decrement in estimated GFR there was a corresponding 33% increase in relative risk of death from any cause and a corresponding 20% increase in relative risk of the cardiovascular composite endpoint. Conclusions: Estimated GFR appears to discriminate prognosis between patients with established cardiovascular disease. These results emphasise the importance of recognising chronic kidney disease as a significant and potentially modifiable risk factor in patients with cardiovascular disease in the community. Data specified. NS: not significative. Anemia was defined as haemoglobin < 13 g/dL in men and < 12 g/dL in women. Conclusions: In our primary care population, we found a prevalence of CKD near 7%, mostly women aged 70 to 80 years. Patients with GFR < 60mL/min/1.73m 2 have a high prevalence of hypercholesterolemia and anemia, and 18.5% were diabetics. Only 12% of patients with CKD were nephrology referral. This patients were younger, present lower GFR with higher creatinine levels and worse control of LDL-cholesterol and anemia than non-referred. So we thought GFR estimation improved nephrology referral. – health problem. Although MS is known to be strongly associated with CKD in several cohort studies from different countries, it is not known which components of MS are more important than others for the development of CKD or which host factors play a significant part in the relationship between MS and CKD. To better understand the complex interrelationship between MS and CKD, we performed a cross-sectional study in non-institutionalized Korean civilian using the data of Korean NHANES in 2001. The Korean NHANES is a health survey of a nationally representative sample of the Korean population. Methods: Of 7,918 participants, 5,491 at age between 20 and 79 years were available for analysis for the prevalence of CKD (defined as dipstick proteinuria or a reduced GFR less than 60 ml/min per 1.73m 2 by MDRD formula). MS was diagnosed by NCEP-ATP III with the Asia-Pacific abdominal obesity criteria (90 cm for men, 80 cm for women). Results: The prevalence of CKD was in 8.7% of subjects (7.2% in men and 9.9% in women) and MS was seen in 25.7% (24.4% in men and 26.8% in women). The prevalence of CKD increased with age, especially in 60 years of age and over sharply in both genders. Although MS was a significant determinant of CKD in entire subjects [OR=1.68 (95% CI 1.36-2.09), p=.000], subanalysis revealed that it was only significant in younger men ( < 60 years) [OR=2.49 (1.50 to 4.12, p=.000) in men < 60, OR=1.04 (0.59 to 1.82, p=0.89) in men ≥ 60, OR=1.09 (0.69 to 1.72, p=0.73) in women < 60, OR=1.44 (0.95 to 2.17, p=.08) in women ≥ 60]. This finding suggested that MS was no more a significant determinant of CKD five CKD fasting hypertension: (1.70 p=0.000), central (1.54 p=0.000), HDL: TG p=0.008), hypertension: p=0.003), TG: Clinical Epidemiology & Pathophysiology of (ESRD). its vasculotoxic higher plasma predicts longer survival in dialysis patients. sought to determine if this same association exists in earlier stages of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) studying an incident cohort of 122 clinically stable pre-dialysis patients. Methods: Linear models were used to study the associations of UTN with baseline characteristics, renal function, traditional and non-traditional CV risk factors including homocysteine and acute phase reactive proteins, and previous history of CV disease (coronary artery, peripheral or cerebro- vascular disease, or heart failure). Cox's regression was used to model time-to-death asafunction of UTNconsidering thesamecovariates for adjustment plus a time-varying variable indicating progression to ESRD (progressed to ESRD vs. never/not yet progressed). Two separate models were built with either time-to-death from all causes or fatal CV events as outcomes. Results: Mean age at enrolment was 71 ± 11 years, 64% of patients were men, 24% diabetics and 58% had clinical CV disease. No correlation was found between baseline GFR (mean 32 ± 15 ml/min/1.73 m 2 ) and plasma UTN (mean 5 ± 3.6 ng/ml). In this cohort, plasma UTN (median 4.4 ng/mL, inter-quartile range: 2.0-7.4 ng/mL) was significantly higher (P < 0.01) than that in healthy subjects (median 2.8 ng/mL, inter-quartile range: 1.9-4.6 ng/mL). In adjusted analysis UTN correlated directly with serum albumin (1.66 ng/ml per g/dL, P=0.004) and inversely with pre-existing coronary artery disease (-1.66 ng/ml, P=0.01). During a mean follow-up of 41 months, 43 patients died, 29 from CV events. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, increased UTN similarly predicted lower risk for death from all and CV causes (Hazard Ratio 0.88; 95% Confidence Intervals 0.80-0.97). Both models included C-Reactive-Protein, previous history of CV disease and the time-varying indicator of progression to ESRD as direct predictor of death. None of the other clinical characteristics, comorbid conditions, nontraditional and traditional CV risk factors considered were significant at the two-tailed level of 0.05 or modified the regression coefficient of UTN. Conclusions: In patients with moderate to severe CKD plasma UTN is an inverse predictor of overall and CV mortality. Our findings confirm data observed in ESRD and suggest that UTN should not necessarily be viewed as a vasculotoxic peptide in CKD patients. undergoing non-emergent cardiac catheterization at a single inst


Norplant has recently been introduced in Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association (PFPPA) services in the last 3 years. This study covered the experience of Norplant and ECPs in WB and GS, using survey questionnaires and interview method. The total number of responders in Norplant survey were 178 (34%) of total population that received Norplant services. The total number of ECPs responders were 75 (33.3%) of total population that received service. Four focus groups were conducted, two FGs with beneficiaries and others with health care providers, who are working in PFPPA clinics in WB. Telephone interview was done in women's Health Center, Al-Bureij in GS and other calls to policy makers, healthcare providers at UNRWA and MOH in WB to understand their experience.
Study findings emerged that satisfaction and advantages was greatest for both method of Norplant and ECPs. The percentage of occurrence of side ei¬Â€ects and number of removed Norplant (29% in WB, 8.8% in Gaza) was acceptable rate compared with international studies. The most side ei¬Â€ects were change in menstrual cycle after using implants, mood change, bleeding/ spotting other than period and weight gain and this is in line with previous studies. The most common barriers of using Norplant and ECPs were lack of awareness and information of this new method among women, unavailability of Norplant in FPS except in PFPPA, considered it as a luxury element and cultural reasons such as misperception about Norplant. It is crucial to understand community and women's perceptions and incorporate these understandings into contraceptive consultations.
Study findings revealed that ECPs and Norplant are not available at UNRWA or MOH agenda. The main reasons for not using Norplant in MOH and withdraw it from Al-Bureij center in GS was the absent of capabilities for training and cultural issues. In recent study about "quality of FP services in Palestine"; highlighted the problem of having countless multi-modality in FP services that ei¬Â€ects quality of service. Another point is SRHS in Palestine are designed to serve married women only. ECPs pills should be oi¬Â€ered in essential drug list to ensure the availability for women in need. The PFPPA are Member Associate of IPPF. Running training sessions for insertion and removing Norplant, as well providing FP including Norplant and ECPs to beneficiaries is high quality service. The PFPPA has followed a practical guide and committed to increasing electiveness, evidence-based decision, and accountability.
Finally, Governments and policy makers should commit to ensure the implementation of a national FP strategy. The FP services should include modern contraceptive as Norplant and ECPs to meet women's need.


Life courses and transition eventsAccording to life course theory, the experience of individuals consists of a succession of different phases making up the life span of those individuals' biography. Since they are embedded in the social life of the community from cradle to grave, individuals' life trajectories are marked by various transition events which lead from one phase to the next. At each stage of their lives, individuals occupy a different position in the social space, from which derive different roles and expectations (Giele and Elder 1998). Life phases are, for example, childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. In the course of their lives, individuals move from one phase to the next; and corresponding to each passage is a change of role. The various phases are interrelated: in fact, early events in the various spheres of experience (e.g. school, family, work) tend to influence the subsequent development of the life course in both the same sphere and others. For example, early school leaving induces individuals to marry at a young age, and this entails a greater likelihood of marital instability (Arosio 2013).The different phases of the life course may have different durations. Moreover, the number of phases in the life course and their order are neither predetermined nor the same for all individuals; nor do they depend solely on individuals' physical and biological development, although they may be partly influenced by the latter. The life course, in fact, reflects to a large extent the social and cultural context in which individuals live.However, life courses exhibit recurrent patterns which tend to vary greatly across different temporal and spatial contexts. Life courses change according to the culture and the historical period. In particular, some phases of the life course tend to lengthen or shorten (for example, in contemporary Western societies youth has lengthened with the passage of time, and so too has old age). Some phases disappear and others emerge. For example, according to the historian Philippe Aries (1960), the idea of childhood was born in Europe among the upper classes during the seventeenth century, but it became established only in the eighteenth century. It can therefore be stated that the life course is primarily a "social construct" (Berger and Luckmann 1966).Corresponding to each life phase is a different position in the social space and the relational system of the family, the group, and the society in which individuals are embedded. The shift from one life course phase to another is a transitional event which marks the end of the previous phase and the beginning of the new one. Important transition events in the life course are birth, entry into adulthood, marriage, and death. A transition event is a moment of change, and it is associated with numerous alterations. Transitional events involve a change of status (e.g. from that of a youth to that of an adult; from the status of a worker to that of a pensioner). The transition event causes a change in what individuals can and cannot do as prescribed both formally and informally by social norms. It also changes what is required of individuals and what others expect of them. The transition also involves the social surroundings of the individual who undergoes it, so that it is not just a personal change but also a change within the network of social relations to which the individual belongs.There are some transition events that may be normatively expected to the degree that they are considered "normal" in the person's social context. Others, however, may come unexpected, such as job loss, a sudden illness, winning a large sum of money. Both expected and unexpected events may give rise to either an improvement or a deterioration in the lives of individuals. They certainly cause a significant change, which in some cases can completely restructure the life course. For this reason, a transition event is a "crisis" in the sense that is a watershed between a "before" and an "after" (from the Greek word crisis meaning "separation") for both those undergoing the transition and the group to which they belong. …


This paper suggests that "systemic risk" (e.g., of financial market collapse, or of ecological calamity) has a distinctive kind of moral significance. Two intuitive data points need to be explained. The first is that the systematic imposition of risk can be wrongful or unjust in and of itself, even if harm never ensues. The second is that, even so, there may be no one in particular to blame. We can explain both ideas in terms of what I call responsibilities of "Collective Due Care." Collective Due Care arguably precludes purely aggregative cost-benefit decision-making and requires one kind of "precautionary" attitude in public choice.


There is no research which specifically investigates the influence of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) on topographic correction of satellite images. Such an investigation is necessary in view of the very high resolution (VHR) of recent sensors such as Ikonos and QuickBird and the low availability of accurate height information for the derivation of slope and aspect values. A comparative study of multispectral Ikonos images is presented using eight selected interpolation techniques with contour data. The DEM influence was evaluated by analyzing the variance and classification accuracy of topographically corrected images using the different DEMS. These were found to vary widely, with a 30 percent reduction in variance and a 20 percent improvement in overall classification accuracy between the worst and best performing interpolation techniques. Furthermore, smoothing techniques commonly used for the removal of noise in interpolated contour data or in existing DEMs were found to offer no significant improvement in intra-class variance or classification accuracy, when used with a grid resolution compatible with VHR images. However, a more rigorous planar slope function was found to be more effective, and when combined with the best interpolator, the natural neighbor, or Sibson, method, very high classification accuracy was achieved in the topographically corrected images.


Thermochronometric data can record the thermal history of rocks as they cool from high temperatures at depth to lower temperatures at the surface. This provides a unique perspective on the tectonic processes that form topography and the erosional processes that destroy it. However, quantitatively interpreting such data is a challenge because multiple models can do an equally good job at reproducing the data. In this article, we describe how inverse modeling can be used to improve quantitative interpretations of noble gas thermochronometric data on a variety of scales, ranging from mountain belts to individual mineral grains.


ABSTRACT Designing a new monorail suspension system for an existing monorail bogie to accommodate larger cars, locomotives and more passengers is a difficult and complicated problem to solve. This paper introduces a simulation of a mathematical model for a monorail suspension system that can be used as an analytical tool to investigate and predict the behavior of the model under different speeds and track conditions. In this paper, the simulation is performed to predict some dynamic characteristics monorail suspension system. This research work concentrates on the simulation of 15 degrees of freedom full-car Monorail suspension system. The model features the Monorail body, Front bogie, and rear bogie geometries, adopted equations of motion of the monorail suspension system and system matrices. Numerical Central Difference method was used to obtain the system responses subject to sinusoidal Track excitations. Three Track scenarios that have different loads and different driving speeds were conducted to investigate the monorail suspension system. The system results are analysed in terms of their dynamic responses. Fourier Fast transforms was used to calculate the frequency ranges of dynamic responses. As a result, some very important characteristics of the Monorail suspension system were revealed, with indicators that help to understand the effects of driving speeds and different loads, which can be used to better understand the system dynamic performance, to improve Monorail suspension system designs flaws detection.


For new parties, it is arguably crucial to receive news media attention. News media help shape a new party's image. What aspects such an image is made of is not clear from the literature. Some scholars have argued that a new party's perceived effectiveness is key. But is it really? Ideally, we would test this in the "clean" context of a new party that clearly falls to an abysmal state, of which increasing numbers of voters become aware. In 2014, the Dutch party 50Plus experienced exactly that. The present study examines this case, using a mixed-methods approach, involving a voter panel survey, an automated media content analysis, and a quasi-experiment. The findings show the dominant role of perceived effectiveness mediating the effect of visibility and tone of 50Plus coverage on propensity to vote for that party. Implications are discussed in light of the role of news media in democratic societies.


Correlation between pyruvate and lactate contents as well as between enzymes participating in turnover of the substrates (pyruvate- and lactate dehydrogenases, alanine aminotransferase, pyruvate kinase) were studied in rat liver tissue simultaneously with tumor growth and intensive thiaminotherapy. Thiamine, administered into rats carrying carcinosarcoma Woker-256 at a daily dose 12.5 mg/kg body weight, exhibited the normalizing effect on activity of enzymes studied, on quantitative content of LDH isoenzymes and on content of lactate in blood and of pyruvate in liver tissue. Possible effect of thiamine on pyruvate metabolism in tumoral impairment is discussed.


The present work aims to relate the positive effects of irrigation and mineral nutrition on coffee productivity, considering that the various existing methods and techniques involve a wide variation of dosage and nutrient splitting, due to the interaction between soil, water, climate, plant and area where the crop is located. Thus, through the methodology of literature review, a survey of research and theoretical notes of issues related to the benefits of irrigation and mineral nutrition was carried out, culminating in the focus of the fertigation technique. The study took into account aspects related to the rational use of water, the prevention of soil desertification and the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda. The analysis of the works and authors consulted made it possible to bring to the academic-scientific scope approaches that highlighted the fundamental role of fertigation in coffee farming.


ABSTRACT In this article, we aim to explore the shift in the relationship between the state and women's rights organizations (WROs) in Turkey in the post-2011 period, which was evinced in rising tensions between gender equality and gender complementarity discourses. We argue that, in the process of the vernacularization of global and/or international gender norms in Turkey, the conservative gender policy of the government corresponded to the endorsement of 'gender justice,' a particularistic approach formulated with reference to Islam. As such, the vernacularization of universal gender norms opened the way for the state in Turkey to solidify its legitimacy by instrumentalizing social divisions, marginalizing opposition WROs, and aligning with government-oriented organizations.


Stem cells are capable of both self-renewal and differentiation into many different cell types. These hallmark characteristics are regulated by other cells within the stem cell niche. In their Perspective,
 Wurmser
 et al.
 discuss the finding that endothelial cells in the neural stem cell niche secrete factors that influence neural stem cells to proliferate and become neurons (
 Shen
 et al.).


Label-free, holistic assays, monitoring, for example, the impedance of cells on electrodes, are gaining increasing popularity in the evaluation of G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) ligands. It is the strength of these approaches to provide the integrated cellular response non-invasively, highly automated and with a device-dependent time resolution down to several milliseconds. With an increasing number of samples to be studied in parallel, the available time resolution is, however, reduced and the cost for the disposable sensor arrays may become limiting. Inspired by protocols from organ pharmacology, we investigated a simple serial agonist addition assay that circumvents these limitations in impedance-based cellular assays. Using a serial addition of increasing concentrations of a GPCR agonist while continuously monitoring the sample's impedance, we were able to establish a full concentration-response curve for the endogenous agonist histamine on a single layer of U-373 MG cells endogenously expressing the histamine 1 receptor (H1R). This approach is validated with respect to conventional, parallel agonist addition protocols and studies using H1R antagonists such as mepyramine. Applicability of the serial agonist addition assay was shown for other GPCRs known for their signaling via one of the canonical G-protein pathways, Gq, Gi/0 or Gs as well. The serial agonist addition protocol has the potential to further strengthen the output of label-free analysis of GPCR activation.


This thesis investigated the extent of age-related emotion recognition deficits across several emotions, presentations, and stimuli types. Evidence suggests that older adults (OAs) are less able than younger adults (YAs) to recognise emotions (Ruffman et al., 2008). However, clarity regarding the breadth of these age-related emotion recognition deficits may be thwarted by difficulties in comparing findings due to methodological variations and sample differences. The current research sought to address some of these issues by comparing the emotion recognition ability of OAs (59 to 84 years) to those of YAs (18 to 29 years). Phase 1 of the research used a series of tightly controlled experiments to measure emotion recognition (for happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust) and non-emotion processing from static faces, non-verbal vocalisations, and single words. Phase 2 employed unimodal and cross-modal presentations of dynamic faces and prosodic sentences to measure recognition of the same basic emotions as well as a different set of discrete emotions (joy, amusement, pride, anger, and surprise). In terms of deficits the only emotion for which OAs showed a consistent impairment was anger as seen when static faces were used, when all presentation types were compared in Phase 1 and in one experiment in Phase 2. Moreover there is evidence to suggest that this deficit for anger is a specific function of the older-older (70 years+) adults' performance. OAs were also impaired in recognising joy from prosodic sentences and older-older adults in recognising sad from faces. More generally OAs had a deficit in processing auditory information and older-old adults in processing static faces irrespective of the emotion content. In contrast, OAs showed a superior ability than YAs to recognise emotion from words (particularly sad) and disgust when all presentation types were compared in Phase 1. It is concluded, therefore, that OAs' emotion recognition deficits are not as widespread as previously reported and in many cases performance is maintained and even improves in later years.


Given the importance and social significance of passing down family stories to each generation, why do important family stories not get told? How should designers of digital family storytelling platforms address missing or incomplete parts of narratives? Drawing from the results of an interview-based, practice-oriented inquiry, we argue that non-telling should be considered an important and integral part of family storytelling. Our findings show that non-telling is not simply silence. Non-telling allows family members to observe protective and discretionary values essential to the identity-making and relational goals of family storytelling. We also show ways that a person's reticence is situated and may change over time. In our discussion, we provide design strategies for family storytelling technologies to make room for silence and incorporate the values, purposes, and practices of non-telling.


Studies have reported that exposure to pet therapy (PT) can reduce physiological and subjective stress and anxiety levels. The aim of this meta-analysis is to examine the efficacy of PT as a method for reducing physiological stress levels (blood pressure and heart rate) and subjective stress and anxiety scores (self-reported stress/anxiety). Further, we examined the effects of sample characteristics and modifications to the PT (different age groups and health status of participants across samples, whether a stressor was present, and individual versus group PT) as potential moderators of the relationship between PT and stress reactivity. Our searches incorporated articles published from May 2017 and earlier in PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and PubMed. This meta-analysis included 28 articles with 34 independent samples and contained a total of 1,310 participants. Using a random effects model, we determined that significant differences occurred in heart rate, self-reported anxiety, and self-reported stress after PT exposure compared with before PT. However, we did not detect significant differences in blood pressure after PT. Sample characteristics and modifications to the PT significantly moderated the effect of PT on stress responses. Our results suggest that PT can be an effective program for reducing stress reactivity.


The American Revolution was one of the most significant events in modern history. Not only did it demonstrate the ability of a significantly smaller group of people to rebel against their oppressors, it also spawned what would become the most powerful country in the world. And while these feats were impressive, it was the drafting of a constitution, the forging of a union between divided states, and the fashioning of a truly democratic form of government that caused this event to go down in the annals of history. The A to Z of Revolutionary America is not just about the grievances that led to war nor the actual war itself, but the subsequent period of trial and error-when success was far from certain and failure could never be ruled out-in which the thirteen states and those that followed were welded into the United States of America. This important epoch is examined in an introductory essay; a chronology; a bibliography; appendixes documenting the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and a list of all the Presidents of Congress under the Articles of Confederation; and over 1,100 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant people as well as the political, economic, and social events of the era.


A main objective of scheduling independent jobs composed of multiple sequential tasks in shared-memory and distributed-memory multiprocessor computer systems is the assignment of these tasks to processors in a manner that ensures efficient operation of the system. Achieving this objective requires the analysis of a fundamental tradeoff between maximizing parallel execution, suggesting that the tasks of a job be spread across all system processors, and minimizing synchronization and communication overheads, suggesting that the job's tasks be executed on a single processor. The authors consider a class of scheduling policies that represent the essential aspects of this processor allocation tradeoff, and model the system as a distributed fork-join queueing system. They derive an approximation for the expected job response time, which includes the important effects of various parallel processing overheads (such as task synchronization and communication) induced by the processor allocation policy. >


In supervised binary hashing, one wants to learn a function that maps a high-dimensional feature vector to a vector of binary codes, for application to fast image retrieval. This typically results in a difficult optimization problem, nonconvex and nonsmooth, because of the discrete variables involved. Much work has simply relaxed the problem during training, solving a continuous optimization, and truncating the codes a posteriori. This gives reasonable results but is quite suboptimal. Recent work has tried to optimize the objective directly over the binary codes and achieved better results, but the hash function was still learned a posteriori, which remains suboptimal. We propose a general framework for learning hash functions using affinity-based loss functions that uses auxiliary coordinates. This closes the loop and optimizes jointly over the hash functions and the binary codes so that they gradually match each other. The resulting algorithm can be seen as a corrected, iterated version of the procedure of optimizing first over the codes and then learning the hash function. Compared to this, our optimization is guaranteed to obtain better hash functions while being not much slower, as demonstrated experimentally in various supervised datasets. In addition, our framework facilitates the design of optimization algorithms for arbitrary types of loss and hash functions.


Harun Farocki's 2004 installation Counter-Music explores the issue of surveillance. It probes different kinds of surveillance and, in so doing, delineates historical trajectories, juxtaposing, for instance, state surveillance under Louis XIV in late-seventeenth-century France (through public streetlights) with more recent modes of observation via surveillance cameras (through closed-circuit-television systems). The tacit epicenter of Farocki's installation is the novel form of surveillance in which cameras are linked with automatic-recognition systems that no longer rely on human beings as observers: Human beings have been replaced by software designed to surveil. This new kind of surveillance, in which images are recorded and then "viewed" by automatic "eyes"—that is, analyzed by algorithmic software—generates what Farocki calls "operational images" to be used within systemic surveillance operations.


Earlier work often referred to as the "hole in the wall" experiments has shown that groups of children can learn to use public computers on their own. This paper presents the method and results of an experiment conducted to investigate whether such unsupervised group learning in shared public spaces can improve children's performance in school examinations. The experiment was conducted with "hole in the wall" (minimally invasive education, or MIE) kiosks in the rural Sindhudurg District of Maharashtra State, India. 103 children of the Grade 8 level, across 3 villages, were administered the curricular examination for 'Computer Science' for that grade. The results show that children who had learned at MIE kiosks were able to complete this curricular examination without being taught the subject. They scored only marginally lower than children who had been taught the 'Computers' curriculum in school throughout the school year. The results of this study throw new light on pedagogy for bridging the digital divide. It poses the question that similar learning may well be observed in whole or part in other subjects of the school curriculum.


. Reservoir regulation affects various streamflow characteristics from low to high flows with important implications for downstream water users. Still, information on past reservoir operations is rarely publicly available and it is hardly known how reservoir operation signals, i.e. information on when water is stored in and released from reservoirs, vary over a certain region. Here, we develop a statistical model to reconstruct reservoir operation signals from observed streamflow time series that encompass a period before and a period after a known year of reservoir construction. In a first step, a generalized additive 5 model (GAM) regresses streamflow time series from the unregulated pre-reservoir period on four covariates including temperature, precipitation, day of the year, and glacier mass balance changes. In a second step, this GAM, which represents natural conditions, is applied to predict natural streamflow, i.e. streamflow that would be expected in the absence of the reservoir, for the regulated period. The difference between the observed regulated streamflow signal and the predicted natural baseline should correspond to the reservoir operation signal. We apply this approach to reconstruct the seasonality of reservoir regulation, i.e. 10 information on when water is stored in and released from a reservoir, from a dataset of 74 catchments in the Central Alps with a known reservoir construction date. We group these reconstructed regulation seasonalities using functional clustering to identify groups of catchments with similar reservoir operation strategies. We find that reservoir management varies by catchment elevation, with seasonal redistribution from summer to winter being strongest in high-elevation catchments. These elevational differences suggests a clear relationship between reservoir operation and climate and catchment characteristics, which has 15 practical implications. First, these elevational differences in reservoir regulation can and should be considered in hydrological model calibration. Furthermore, the reconstructed reservoir operation signals can be used to study the joint impact of on including


High pressure fans for thermal power generation stations, especially biogas plants, usually operate in a spiral casing at high pressures of about p = 12.000–15.000 Pa and low flow rates of around Q = 100–600 m3 /s. The motor drive has a constant speed of 3.000 l/min. This corresponds to specific speeds of nq = 3–6 min−1 , which is already beyond the conventional range of single stage radial machines. Nowadays these fans for biogas plants usually operate at higher flow rates than specified or are multiple stage radial fans. Therefore a new class of radial impellers has been developed. These single stage impellers have a unique high pressure at a low flow rate operating point. In this work several impellers of this new class have been designed and validated with a commercial Navier-Stokes solver (ANSYS CFX). The design process is described in detail. It is based on a new extended analytical and numerical design method. It is shown that the prescribed unusual operating point can be achieved with single stage radial impellers. An in detail flow analysis is given showing the fundamental flow physics of these impellers.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


On April 14, 2017, the scholarly discipline-based education research community lost all-too-soon one of its innovative thought leaders, Ronald C. Clute (1944-2017).  After a successful career in traditional University academia, Dr. Clute (Ph.D. Notre Dame) became one of the first highly successful alternative academics, alt-ac, by starting and nurturing the Clute Institute as a family-run, academic publishing company that today serves as a national model for helping scholars distribute their work internationally.  Always generous with advice, some of the most important ideas he shared with new editors were to: (i) Invest in authors with great ideas, even when the writing is lousy; (ii) If a submission isn't a great idea, don't bother already too-busy reviewers with it; (iii) Plan on revising authors always being slower at responding than reviewers; (iv) Allocate more time to growing and nurturing your reviewer pool than you think; (v) Increase submissions by being visible at meetings and talking to presenters and (iv) run a formative review process that makes papers better rather than a summative rejection service.  These ideas are offered in respect for his longstanding work.


The anthropological sciences have long been interested in how hunter-gatherers perceive and interact with their spatial environment. The spatially flexible and dynamic modes of subsistence and residence typical of many hunter-gatherer communities have been considered to be key factors in the social organisation and ideological framing of such communities. However, close attention to spatial representation—in the form of categories and distinctions as they surface in everyday communication and behaviour, for example—has so far been largely restricted to certain subfields within the language and cognitive sciences. This inquiry, on the other hand, has not been concerned with the hunter-gatherer category as such, and it has rarely addressed spatial representations in their sociocultural context. The present special issue aims to highlight the potentials of a closer integration of these different research perspectives in advancing our understanding of hunter-gatherer space. The contributions—written by experts on a diverse set of communities—address a range of representational phenomena of core concern to this aim. This introductory paper presents space as a domain of inquiry into meaning, it reviews the literature on spatial representation among hunter-gatherer communities, and it outlines some of the major patterns of hunter-gatherer spatial strategies that emerge from the literature and the present contributions. Pointing to both diversity and commonalities across communities, the data offer new views of promising ways forward in the inquiry into hunter-gatherer relationships with the environment. (Less)


Modeling of reservoirs has become more mathematically sophisticated over the last twenty years. In particular stochastic models have become the norm in very many, if not most reservoir studies. The reasons for this are threefold 1) The advance of stochastic reservoir modeling as a science exposed the shortcomings implicit in the older deterministic models, namely underestimation of the role of heterogeneity. 2) Stochastic methods provide the best mechanism to incorporate various data types into a model. 3) They allow for some understanding and modeling of the uncertainty present in the reservoir. We have arrived at a point in time where many of the standard techniques for modelling are available in all of the principal commercial software packages (which is not to say that the methods cannot and should not be improved further). It may therefore be a good time to ask the wider question about how they are being used in practice particularly with regard to the major issue of understanding risk. In this presentation we look at how closed mathematical models, while being a fundamental building block, do not lead, on their own, to a good methodology for understanding risk. An analogy with the mathematisation of risk in banking and the credit markets is noted. The conclusion, which is very obvious, is to increase the amount of speculative geological model building and peer to peer discussion about scenarios. However, the current practice of reservoir modeling provides stumbling blocks making users reluctant, or even unable to easily explore differing scenarios. Indeed this difficulty extends beyond heterogeneity modeling into geophysics, petrophysics etc. To change this is a big task, which we don't pretend to have resolved here, but by shining light on the problem, and by making a small suggestion to improve matters for heterogeneity modeling, we hope to open discussion about the subject.


Seamlessly blending features from multiple images is extremely challenging because of complex relationships in lighting, geometry, and partial occlusion which cause coupling between different parts of the image. Even though recent work on GANs enables synthesis of realistic hair or faces, it remains difficult to combine them into a single, coherent, and plausible image rather than a disjointed set of image patches. We present a novel solution to image blending, particularly for the problem of hairstyle transfer, based on GAN-inversion. We propose a novel latent space for image blending which is better at preserving detail and encoding spatial information, and propose a new GAN-embedding algorithm which is able to slightly modify images to conform to a common segmentation mask. Our novel representation enables the transfer of the visual properties from multiple reference images including specific details such as moles and wrinkles, and because we do image blending in a latent-space we are able to synthesize images that are coherent. Our approach avoids blending artifacts present in other approaches and finds a globally consistent image. Our results demonstrate a significant improvement over the current state of the art in a user study, with users preferring our blending solution over 95 percent of the time. Source code for the new approach is available at https://zpdesu.github.io/Barbershop.


The activation of the transcription factor Nrf2 inhibits neuropathy and modulates the activity of delta-opioid receptors (DOR) in type 2 diabetic mice but the impact of Nrf2/HO-1 pathway on the antinociceptive actions of cannabinoid 2 receptors (CB2R) has not been assessed. Using male mice BKS.Cg-m+/+Leprdb/J (db/db) we investigated if treatment with cobalt protoporphyrin IX (CoPP), an HO-1 inductor, inhibited mechanical allodynia, hyperglycemia and obesity associated to type 2 diabetes. The antinociceptive effects of JWH-015 and JWH-133 (CB2R agonists) administered with and without CoPP or sulforaphane (SFN), a Nrf2 transcription factor activator, have been also evaluated. The expression of Nrf2, HO-1, NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) in sciatic nerve and that of the CB2R on the dorsal root ganglia from animals treated with CoPP and/or SFN were assessed. CoPP treatment inhibited allodynia, hyperglycemia and body weight gain in db/db mice by enhancing HO-1/NQO1 levels and reducing JNK phosphorylation. Both CoPP and SFN improved the antiallodynic effects of JWH-015 and JWH-133 and expression of CB2R in db/db mice. Therefore, we concluded that the activation of antioxidant Nrf2/HO-1 pathway potentiate the effects of CB2R agonists and might be suitable for the treatment of painful neuropathy linked to type 2 diabetes.


One hundred and twenty (120) four weeks old Ross breed broiler finisher birds were used to study the effect of feeding maggot meal as a replacement for fish meal on erythrocyte indices and serum biochemical constituents. The birds were divided into 5 treatment groups identified as T1, T2, T3 , T4 and T5 with 24 birds per group. Each group was replicated 3 times with 8 birds per replicate. Five experimental diets were formulated at (T1 0%), (T2 20%), (T3 30%), (T4 4%) and T5 50%) and fed to the birds in a completely randomized design (CRD). Water and feed were provided ad libitum. The experiment lasted for 5 weeks. The results showed that the erythrocyte values were similar (p>0.05) between the treatment groups, however, higher numerical values were observed in birds fed 50% maggot meal replacing fish meal. Many of the serum biochemical constituents did not show any significant difference (p>0.05) between the treatment groups, however, the cholesterol values showed significant difference (p 0.05) between the treatment groups. The enzyme activities did not differ significantly (p>0.05) between the treatment groups. The results of this study suggest that maggot meal replacement of fish meal in finisher broiler diet was not detrimental to erythrocyte and serum biochemical constituents of broiler finisher birds. Key Words: Maggot meal, blood, erythrocyte, serum biochemistry, broilers


Recent evidence shows that there is great heterogeneity in the price setting frequency across sectors, and that those changing prices frequently do so even under low inflation. What happens to price setting strategies of sticky price goods under moderate inflation? We built a dataset of monthly newspaper and magazine prices for Colombia, for the period 1960-2005, an exceptional example of prolonged moderate inflation. Within this macroeconomic scenario, and the novel database, we study the frequency of price adjustment, the relative importance of time- and state-dependent theories, and their evolution as inflation declined from moderate rates to single digits.


ABSTRACT

In recent years, the health effects of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have attracted increasing attention. However, there is no published literature conducting a bibliometric analysis to explore the tendency. The purpose of this study is to provide a bibliometric analysis of the research on the health effects of VOCs over the past 16 years.
Based on the data retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database, several bibliometric indicators mainly including topics (keywords), journals, co-citation relationship, leading countries and institutions were evaluated. Among the 1,035 articles, the top three high-yield years were 2018 (n = 122), 2016 (n = 120), and 2017 (n = 105). Through co-citation analysis, TOP 10 clusters were obtained (respectively, BTEX, VOCs, indoor air, radon, indoor chemistry, VOC, photocatalytic oxidation, urinary metabolites of volatile organic compounds, fungal volatiles and nitrogen dioxide). Then, by constructing co-occurrence network of keywords, we revealed that "exposure" and "emissions" are two hotspots in the literature examined. Also, the results demonstrated that USA is the leading country (n = 294) and TSINGHUA UNIV. is the leading institution (n = 24). Moreover, the top three popular journals publishing the topic on health effects of VOCs were identified, respectively Atmos. Environ., Environ. Sci. Technol. and Indoor Air.
Notably, in the literature examined, the most common diseases potentially associated with VOCs are mainly involved in the respiratory system, blood system and inflammation.
Therefore, this study assessed publications on health effects of VOCs using bibliometric approaches, which provided the research status and trends of the topic and potential hints to future investigation in this field.


The incidence of moulds including toxigenic Aspergillus section Flavi, and aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) were determined in 36 samples of three spices. Moulds were isolated and characterized by conventional mycological techniques while AFB1 was analyzed by Thin-layer chromatography with fluorescent detection coupled with an immunoaffinity clean up step. About 67% (24 out of 36) of the spices were contaminated by moulds belonging to four genera: Aspergillus, Fusarium, Penicillium and Rhizopus. Aspergillus was the most predominant (78.9%) genera and a total of 220 Aspergillus section Flavi isolates were obtained. The incidence of A. flavus (63.2%) was higher than that of A. tamarii (36.8%). Approximately, 68% of A. flavus isolates from the spices produced aflatoxins in neutral red desiccated coconut agar (NRDCA). Only 19.4% of the spices were contaminated with AFB1 and the concentrations in 8.3% of calabash nutmeg exceeded the NAFDAC permissible limit of 20 µg/kg aflatoxin in foods in Nigeria. Of the three spices, calabash nutmeg showed the highest significant (p<0.05) mould count (3.45 Log 10 CFU), incidence of toxigenic Aspergillus section Flavi (50%) and AFB1 (50%). Spices especially calabash nutmeg are prone to contamination by moulds including toxigenic Aspergillus. Consequently, the risk of aflatoxicosis may be high and as such may threaten public health safety due to regular consumption of the spices though aflatoxin levels were low .


Threats that have been primarily targeting nation states and their associated entities have expanded the target zone to include the private and corporate sectors. This class of threats, well known as advanced persistent threats (APTs), are those that every nation and well-established organization fears and wants to protect itself against. While nation-sponsored APT attacks will always be marked by their sophistication, APT attacks that have become prominent in corporate sectors do not make it any less challenging for the organizations. The rate at which the attack tools and techniques are evolving is making any existing security measures inadequate. As defenders strive to secure every endpoint and every link within their networks, attackers are finding new ways to penetrate into their target systems. With each day bringing new forms of malware, having new signatures and behavior that is close to normal, a single threat detection system would not suffice. While it requires time and patience to perform APT, solutions that adapt to the changing behavior of APT attacker(s) are required. Several works have been published on detecting an APT attack at one or two of its stages, but very limited research exists in detecting APT as a whole from reconnaissance to cleanup, as such a solution demands complex correlation and fine-grained behavior analysis of users and systems within and across networks. Through this survey paper, we intend to bring all those methods and techniques that could be used to detect different stages of APT attacks, learning methods that need to be applied and where to make your threat detection framework smart and undecipherable for those adapting APT attackers. We also present different case studies of APT attacks, different monitoring methods, and mitigation methods to be employed for fine-grained control of security of a networked system. We conclude this paper with different challenges in defending against APT and opportunities for further research, ending with a note on what we learned during our writing of this paper.


Here we present the synthesis and characterization of a new 2′-N-Guanidino,4′-C-ethylene bridged thymidine (GENA-T) modified oligonucleotide possessing North-locked sugar conformation. Incorporation of GENA-T nucleotide though did not change the thermal stability of the oligonucleotides toward the complementary RNA; it significantly increased the stability of the parallel triplex at pH 7. The melting temperature of the triplex was increased by +9.5 °C as compared to that of the isosequential unmodified sequence. Moreover this modification imparted exceptional nuclease stability to the oligonucleotides for over 33 h. This study clearly demonstrates that GENA-T modified oligonucleotides could improve triplex formation with phenomenal enzymatic stability and could be used for various biomedical applications.


Research management in relation to Research and Development (R&D) has found a comprehensive and powerful tool in the Current Research Information System (CRIS). Publications on the subject are still emerging, so knowing what research has been done and its contributions presents an opportunity to build theoretical and reference frameworks, and to identify gaps and potential opportunities for future developments in information technology. Various articles covering these systems were analyzed with the objective of identifying the research areas, countries and institutions in which they were published, as well as their research approaches, contributions and topics covered. A systematic mapping of literature was carried out, which included 33 articles published on Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, from 2007 to 2017. To ensure valid results, the evaluation guide for researchers was used during for the design and review phases of the systematic mapping studies, as well as the corresponding evaluation rubric; in addition, a strategy to define direct decision rules on how to classify an article based on the results of evaluations of multiple researchers was adopted. The findings show that the main research areas are Information Science & Library Science and Computer Science; the largest concentration of publications is found in Europe; research focuses on Evaluation Research; contributions are oriented to create processes and models, and to describe the applications and uses of CRIS. It is concluded that there are areas of opportunity for the development of research in this area, such as the expansion of the research areas in which it is used, the possibilities of collaboration, sharing and exchange at a global level, and the coverage towards integration issues with open access. Keywords— Research management; current research information system; systematic mapping; technology; information system; information technology.


pathologic finding about one or more characteristics of uveal melanoma, following the rules of the TNM AJCC v8 classification system as they pertain to distant metastases.


Abstract. This study aims to analyse the dynamics of land-use and land-cover (LULC) in a selected southern Amazonian area (Brazil), monitoring and distinguishing trajectories in NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) variations for the last three decades. The area, with a total of 17336 km², has been subject to significant LULC changes associated with deforestation progress and use of fire. Considering available Landsat time series, it was selected an image per year from 1984 to 2013 (path/row -231/66), at a particular period of year, atmospherically corrected using LEDAPS tools. NDVIs values were generated for each selected image. Furthermore, the images of 1984 and 2010 still underwent a classification of LULC differentiate five categories: water, forest, secondary/degraded forest, savannah/pasture and crop/bare soil. The trajectories in NDVI variation values were analysed by R software, considering intersections of classified categories. The pixels identified as forests on the images of 1984 and 2010 displayed stable trajectories of NDVI values, with average value 0.824 and coefficient of variation 3.9%. While the pixels of savannah/pasture, which was periodically affected by fire, had an average NDVI value 0.585 and coefficient of variation 15,1%. The main regressive trajectory was the transition "forest to crop/bare soil", identifying 1999 as the starting point in the drop in NDVI values, associated with an increase of the deforested areas. Therefore, the results show distinct trajectories associated with NDVIs and LULC changes that assist in better understanding the dynamics of ecological processes and the human impacts operating in the area.


Pasteurized milk from Alpine goats was processed into control and accelerated ripened Jack cheeses. Mesophilic culture, Lactococcus lactis subsp lactis, was added to ferment cheese milk at the rate of 2% (v/v). The same culture was grown in 1 I batches of tryptic soy broth and bacterial cells were harvested by centrifugation. Harvested cells were washed with distilled water, disrupted, and the cellular extract was mixed with curd at 0.14 and 0.27 (g/100 g) to accelerate ripening of the treated cheeses. Control cheese did not contain any additional cellular extract. The treated cheeses had higher percentages of water soluble nitrogen when compared with the control. Similarly, the activity of endo- and exopeptidases was the lowest in the control during aging while the treatment with 0.14% extract had the second highest and the treatment with 0.27% extract had the highest level of enzymic activity. Electrophoretic analysis of the caseins in the cheese revealed that β-casein was the most abundant casein and was less susceptible to proteolysis while α s 2 and κ-caseins were the second and the third major caseins in goat milk Jack cheese, respectively.


Prostate cancer selectively metastasises to the bone. To investigate the importance of prostate epithelial cell adhesion to bone marrow cells in this process we examined the binding of human primary prostatic epithelial cells (PEC) to human bone marrow stromal cultures (BMS). We found that PEC derived from both malignant and benign tissue showed greater adhesion to BMS than to benign prostatic fibroblasts (median difference was 340% and 200% respectively), skin fibroblasts or plastic tissue culture plates. Adhesion to BMS grown from the bone marrow of patients with prostatic skeletal metastases was no different from those grown from normal bone marrow. The role of integrin molecules in these cell interactions was determined. Collagen type I and fibronectin were found to increase PEC adhesion whereas vitronectin and laminin did not. Inhibition studies demonstrated that although there was heterogeneity between samples, antibodies against the integrins alpha2 and beta1 consistently inhibited PEC binding to BMS. This result was more marked for PEC derived from malignant tissue. However studies investigating the effects of disintegrins and anti-alpha3 and anti-alpha5 integrins indicated that for a percentage of patients these integrins and RGD (arginine, glycine, aspartamine)-dependent binding pathways were also involved. In summary, the results indicate that BMS are adherent to primary PEC derived from both malignant and benign tissue. The integrin alpha2beta1 is a major contributor to this interaction.


ABSTRACT The Tinto River (Huelva, southwestern Spain) is an extreme environment with a rather constant acidic pH along the entire river and a high concentration of heavy metals. The extreme conditions of the Tinto ecosystem are generated by the metabolic activity of chemolithotrophic microorganisms thriving in the rich complex sulfides of the Iberian Pyrite Belt. Molecular ecology techniques were used to analyze the diversity of this microbial community. The community's composition was studied by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) using 16S rRNA and by 16S rRNA gene amplification. A good correlation between the two approaches was found. Comparative sequence analysis of DGGE bands showed the presence of organisms related to Leptospirillum spp., Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, Acidiphilium spp., "Ferrimicrobium acidiphilum," Ferroplasma acidiphilum, and Thermoplasma acidophilum. The different phylogenetic groups were quantified by fluorescent in situ hybridization with a set of rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes. More than 80% of the cells were affiliated with the domain Bacteria, with only a minor fraction corresponding to Archaea. Members of Leptospirillum ferrooxidans, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, and Acidiphilium spp., all related to the iron cycle, accounted for most of the prokaryotic microorganisms detected. Different isolates of these microorganisms were obtained from the Tinto ecosystem, and their physiological properties were determined. Given the physicochemical characteristics of the habitat and the physiological properties and relative concentrations of the different prokaryotes found in the river, a model for the Tinto ecosystem based on the iron cycle is suggested.


In this Research-in-Progress paper, we explore a practice-based view of Enterprise System (ES) implementation. Drawing on Andrew Pickering's "Mangle of Practice", we discuss how an Enterprise System becomes a workable system over time through a dialectic of resistance and accommodation.
Based on a longitudinal study of an ES implementation project in a global IT organization located in the U.S, we identified the temporal dimensions of an ES that emerged as a result of organizational practice. We further explore how activities of knowing are conducted through organizational practice. The study indicates some promising contributions. First, the study will contribute to IS research by
offering a novel view that allows IS researchers to understand ES implementation as a cultural and historical practice. Second, the study will contribute to IS methodology by showing how a longitudinal research study is powerful to study ES implementation when we adopt a practice-based view. Third, the study will contribute to knowledge management literature by especially focusing on how the materiality of technology plays an important role in knowing activities in ES implementation projects.
Finally, the study will contribute to practitioner research by bringing back managerial attention to 'practice' and explains how bringing attention to organizational practice is important in ES implementation.