Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is an unexpected death of a person with or without knowing cardiac causes are often occurring in less than an hour after the incidence of symptoms. In the case of physicians' knowledge of this incident, they can make appropriate decisions for the patients at-risk and reduce the number of such deaths significantly. The purpose of this paper is to examine different methods for predicting sudden cardiac death using electrocardiogram (ECG) signal from 1998 to recent years that can contribute to researchers to become familiar with the wide range of research conducted in this field.In this paper, studies using various methods to predict sudden cardiac death that has applied the data from the Physionet and MIT-BIH databases with a sampling frequency of 256 samples per second are reviewed. Both types of data have normal and abnormal sampling labels and the data recording time varies from a few seconds to minutes. In the field of SCD prediction, various studies have addressed the processing of the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal as well as the heart rate variability (HRV) signal in different domains, including time, time-frequency, and nonlinear domain. In time-domain processing the statistical characteristics of time signal such as the mean and standard deviation of heart rate, the mean and standard deviation of RR intervals, and Root Mean Square of the Successive Differences (RSSD) are used. Also, in the frequency domain, the power spectral density (PSD) of the signal energy is used in a very-low-frequency band, low-frequency band and, high-frequency band. Similarly, in the nonlinear domain, features such as Poincare plot, detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), common entropy, wavelet transform coefficients (WTC), and features of the recursive graph including Lmax, Lmean, correlation dimension (CD), etc. are used. In all of the proposed algorithms so far, researchers have been trying to inform the sudden death alarm in a larger interval than the time of death by separating the signals into different time periods and extracting various features.To evaluate the results of the proposed methods, each of the researchers analyzed the a-few-minute intervals before the SCD. Different classification methods are available to identify the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, such as support vector machine (SVM), multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP), radial base function neural network (RBF), k-nearest neighbor (KNN) and mixture expert (ME). The use of features introduced in different domains and different classifiers has led to the observation of different horizons of prediction in various studies. The results of these predictions are often free from the interpretations of clinical symptoms, and their maximum presented time with acceptable validity eventually reaches 4 minutes before the event, which is not an acceptable time for people who have attacked outside the hospital. Accordingly, the most prominent of these evaluations is the mixture expert methodology in which the best feature extraction methods are used in a new method for selecting the optimal feature space locally. This method makes it possible to select different features every minute before the event by choosing the optimal features for each one-minute interval of the signal as an episode which increases the prediction time from 4 minutes before the death to 12 minutes and allows the interpretation of clinical symptoms in terms of multiplication of the presence of the features per minute.Given the non-linear nature of the HRV signal and the similarity of the ECG signal in many time intervals, the use of the HRV signal has become more popular among scholars. The analysis of various studies shows that by approaching the time of death, linear features (time and frequency) can be predictive of death according to the sensible behavior and variations in patients' signal. Instead of moving away from the death interval, the use of chaotic and non-linear features is more effective. Therefore, a more precise selection of features in this area can be useful for increasing the horizon of prediction of death.


Obesity is the gift of modern age of machines and materialism. It is physiological, psychological and social disorder, which is most disfavored by modern society for social as well as medical reasons Acharya Charka has mentioned that a single Hetu (etiological factor) may produce single disease or group of diseases or many factors together produces single disease or group of diseases. Many etiological factors mentioned in the Ayurvedic texts but Diwaswapna is observed commonly in all housewives which cause obesity. Kaphavataj Prakriti H.W. were found more prone to Sthaulya so they should be advised proper diet regimens with exercise and made awareness about proper sleeping habits. Excessive indulgence of non-veg diet, nuclear family type, sedentary type of work, decreased awareness regarding exercise and food, faulty sleeping habits, Harshyanitya plays a major role in etiopathogenesis of Sthaulya.


We use a sample of over 80,000 Spanish companies started by a sole entrepreneur between 2004 and 2014, and distinguish between male and female entrepreneurs demand for credit, credit approval ratio, and credit performance. We find that female entrepreneurs who start a business are less likely to ask for a loan. Of the female entrepreneurs requesting a credit, the probability of obtaining one in the founding year is significantly lower than their male peers in the same industry. This lower credit access disappears over the subsequent years, once the company has a track record of profits and losses. We also observe that women-led companies that receive a loan in the founding year are less likely to default as compared to men-led companies. This superior performance disappears for subsequent years, coinciding with the disappearance of the lower credit access. Taking all these results together, we rule out both taste-based discrimination and statistical discrimination in the credit industry, and point to the possible presence of double standards which might be a consequence of implicit (unconscious) discrimination.


INTRODUCTION: In the present study, the stability and biocompatibility of a 30% polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) filling material implanted in the masseter muscle of rats were investigated according to the cytologic characteristics presented in the graft versus host reaction. METHODS: The study included 20 rats, which were divided into 4 groups: groups I, II, III, and IV corresponded to animals evaluated 7, 14, 45, and 60 days after surgery, respectively. The implant was placed in the right masseter muscle at the level of the mandibular angle. RESULTS: After 7 days, lymphoplasmacytic inflammatory infiltrates, a fibrous capsule, a large number of neutrophils, macrophages, and exudate were observed. The second group (14 days) showed granulation tissue composed of a lymphoplasmacytic inflammatory infiltrate, newly formed vessels, and a fibrous capsule. However, the second group also exhibited regeneration of the muscle fibers, and a decreased number of neutrophils and exudate. After 45 and 60 days, the inflammatory infiltrate decreased in intensity compared to the first 2 groups. CONCLUSIONS: The inflammatory reaction caused by PMMA is transient and does not compromise the function and the shape of the masseter muscle tissue, suggesting that PMMA is biocompatible.


A stress-chemistry method was used to investigate the expansion behavior of mortars made with steel slag sand (SSM). The results indicated that periclase and free CaO were the main mineral components resulted in expansion of SSM by means of volume increment and local stress concentration after hydration. So it can be concluded that stress concentration arised from enrichment and uneven distribution of expansile mineral components was the main reason resulted in the volume expansion of SSM. Model of expansion of SSM was built according to the characteristics of crack and types of versicolor particles.


The purpose of this study was to assess the phylogenetic utility of a large insertion (3 bp) in the 5.8S gene of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) in Cyperaceae and selected Juncaceae. This was done by reconstructing the character evolution of the insertion on a phylogeny derived from rbc L sequences. Results suggest that the insertion was gained once at the base of Cyperaceae followed by multiple losses in its most-derived taxa. Despite several homoplastic losses (CI ! 0.20), the pattern of insertion loss (RI ! 0.88), and base pair variation within the insertion were useful for defining sedge clades at various taxonomic levels. For example, whereas a loss of the insertion appeared to characterize a major terminal clade within Cyperaceae, both an insertion loss and sequence variation were consistent with infrageneric clades previously discovered in an ITS phylogeny of Eleocharis. The presence/ absence of the insertion also supported previous conclusions based on morphological and molecular data that tribe Scirpeae and Scirpus s.l. are polyphyletic. In the context of our current understanding of Cyperaceae relationships, evolutionary patterns related to this insertion provide additional support for groups defined in prior phylogenetic analyses. The present analysis also suggests that the controversial position of Oxychloe andina (Juncaceae) in previous rbc L analyses, as sister to Cyperaceae (Y12978) or as nested within Cyperaceae (U49222), is due to the fact that Y12978 is a Juncaceae/ Cyperaceae chimera, whereas U49222 is the sequence of a Cyperaceae contaminant. When U49222 is excluded from analyses and the Cyperaceae portion of Y12978 is removed, Juncaceae and Cyperaceae are monophyletic with Oxychloe positioned within a Juncaceae clade of single-flowered genera.


Appropriate data distribution has been found to be critical for obtaining good performance on distributed memory multicomputers such as the Thinking Machines CM-5, Intel Paragon, and IBM SP-1/SP-2. It has also been found that some programs need to change their distributions during execution for better performance (redistribution). This work focuses on automatically generating efficient routines for redistribution. We present a new mathematical representation for regular distributions called FALLS and then discuss algorithms for redistribution based on this representation. One of the significant contributions of this work is being able to handle arbitrary source and target processor sets while performing redistribution. Another important contribution is the ability to handle an arbitrary number of dimensions for the array involved in the redistribution in a scalable manner. Our implementation of these techniques is based on the MPI communication library. The results presented show the efficiency and scalability of our redistribution algorithm.


Trametes versicolor can degrade bark as a source for carbon necessity. Therefore, it secretes lignin peroxidase, mangan peroxidase, and laccase. The laccase enzyme was produced in high yield at pH of 5 and glucose concentration of 10 g L-1. In optimized medium, the enzyme activity was between 200 and 250 U L-1 when an inducer was absent. It was seen that the activity reached 400 U L-1 when phenol was used as an inducer. The molecular weight of purified laccase was found to be 80 kDa with SDS-PAGE, and kinetic constant Km and Vmax values for 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline)-6-sulfonate were determined to be 3.66 × 10-4 μM and 1652 U L-1, respectively. Because of these properties, these enzymes are widely used, free or immobilized, in industrial areas. Laccase enzyme decolorization of six different dyes was carried out. A decolorization capacity of 50-99% was achieved by cultivation for 20 days using a beginning dye concentration of 20 ppm. The removal of color with an active enzyme was obtained around 90%. Also, the laccase enzyme was conjugated, amine-functionalized, low-symmetry phthalocyanine. This conjugate was examined by both photodynamic therapy and chemosensor application. This conjugate fluorescence had a quantum yield of 0.32 (lifetime 3.59 ns) and efficiently generated singlet oxygen (quantum yield 0.4). The conjugate successfully displayed photodamage in HeLa and HuH-7 cells in the photodynamic therapy application. These results indicate that the conjugate represents an interesting agent with potential applications in photodynamic therapy. In addition, the chemosensor behavior of this compound to different metal ions has been studied, and this conjugate is displayed as a fluorescence chemosensor for the determination of Fe3+ions.


How to grow hair or sweat glands Unlike other mammals that must pant or seek shade or water when overheated, humans are able to self-cool to tolerate extreme heat. Sweat glands, which enable humans to run in marathons, are instrumental for this remarkable feat. Lu et al. investigated skin appendage diversity during development of the furry backs and sweaty paws of mice (see the Perspective by Lai and Chuong). They also examined human skin, which is capable of making both hairs and sweat glands in the same area of the body. Epithelialmesenchymal interactions, with varied signaling pathways that act at specific times in development, are key to producing different skin appendages for adaptation to the environment. Science, this issue p. 10.1126/science.aah6102; see also p. 1533 Mice and humans exploit the epithelial-mesenchymal circuitry in different ways to direct sweat gland or hair follicle generation. INTRODUCTION Across the vertebrate kingdom, epithelial appendages—including mammary, sweat, and salivary glands; hair follicles (HFs); teeth; scales; and feathers—begin to form during embryogenesis when WNT signaling instructs progenitors within the epithelial sheet to organize into morphologically similar placodes. Most animals restrict these epidermal appendages to distinct body regions. This paradigm shifted late in mammalian evolution; the dual presence of HFs and eccrine sweat glands (SwGs) in the skin is a recent acquisition of primates. Classical tissue recombination experiments from the 1960s revealed that mesenchyme directs the divergent downstream events that determine appendage specification and patterning. Relatively little is known about the specific spatiotemporal cross-talk and molecular mechanisms that underlie epithelial fate specification in response to mesenchymal signals. Elucidating the epithelial-mesenchymal cross-talk involved in regional skin appendage specification is integral to understanding how humans have adjusted these mechanisms to endow them with a greater capacity than that of their hairy cousins to live in diverse environments. RATIONALE The acquisition of SwGs and their importance in thermoregulation and water balance are underscored by human patients who suffer from the life-threatening condition of lacking SwGs, either from loss in severe burns or from genetic disorders. Conversely, a gain-of-function variant that elevates SwG numbers has been expanding among the Southeast Asian population, where excessive SwGs are desirable. By elucidating the underlying mechanisms that distinguish humans from other mammals in their ability to make both glands and follicles over their body skin, our findings could pave the way for future therapeutic advances in skin regeneration with dual appendages. RESULTS Using mouse as a model, we explored the differences between the back skin mesenchyme, which is only competent to specify HFs, and the foot skin mesenchyme, which can only make SwGs. Using genome-wide analyses and functional studies, we discovered that just after the formation of morphologically similar epidermal buds, appendage choice is determined through regional skin differences in mesenchymal expression of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). Probing into mechanisms, we showed that when BMPs are elevated in foot skin mesenchyme, BMP signaling is activated in both dermis and epidermis. This triggers a cascade of downstream signaling events. WNT signaling is elevated in the dermis and reduced in the epidermis. Mesenchymal fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) appear and affect the overlying epithelium. These converging pathways lead to suppression of sonic hedgehog (SHH) in the epithelium. This BMP:SHH antagonism within the epithelial bud specifies SwG fate and prevents HF fate. Moreover, by manipulating gene expression in vivo at specific developmental stages, we demonstrated that this signaling circuitry acts only within a narrow window of time during mouse embryogenesis. Thus, when SHH is ectopically expressed in foot skin epithelium during the permissive phase, HF-specific gene expression is up-regulated in the epithelial bud, whereas SHH signaling in the mesenchyme stimulates expression of BMP antagonists, further suppressing local BMP signaling and blocking SwG fate. In human skins, this antagonistic interplay of BMP:SHH signaling occurs temporally, in addition to spatially. The first bud waves are specified as HFs, and then a tipping in the balance of BMP:SHH signaling results in the last waves of buds becoming SwGs. CONCLUSION Our findings revealed a differential impact of BMP signaling on appendage fate specification that has ancient roots and occurs repeatedly throughout vertebrate evolution. In the evolutionary developmental biology view of BMP signaling and fate specification of integument, chicken scales and mammalian SwGs require BMP signaling to specify their fate, whereas feathers and HFs must suppress it. Our discovery of BMP-SHH antagonism in bud fate choice uncovered additional evolutionary parallels, this time between two even more distantly related epidermal appendages, the mammalian SwG and the fly wing. Our studies provide new insights into how elevated mesenchymal BMP signaling triggers a self-perpetuating molecular cascade that culminates in silencing of SHH signaling to suppress one appendage fate and specify another. In most mammals, the BMP:SHH antagonism is regulated spatially. Humans, however, have evolved to regulate it temporally, endowing them with greater ability to run marathons and survive in extreme climates. BMP-SHH antagonism specifies SwG versus HF fate. To specify SwGs, mesenchymal-derived BMPs and FGFs signal to epithelial buds and suppress epithelially derived SHH production. Conversely, hair follicles are specified when mesenchymal BMP signaling is inhibited, permitting SHH production. This antagonism is spatially restricted in most mammals but temporally regulated in humans, permitting the presence of HFs (pink), SwGs (purple), or both HFs and SwGs (pink with purple droplet) throughout our body skin. The gain of eccrine sweat glands in hairy body skin has empowered humans to run marathons and tolerate temperature extremes. Epithelial-mesenchymal cross-talk is integral to the diverse patterning of skin appendages, but the molecular events underlying their specification remain largely unknown. Using genome-wide analyses and functional studies, we show that sweat glands are specified by mesenchymal-derived bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) and fibroblast growth factors that signal to epithelial buds and suppress epithelial-derived sonic hedgehog (SHH) production. Conversely, hair follicles are specified when mesenchymal BMP signaling is blocked, permitting SHH production. Fate determination is confined to a critical developmental window and is regionally specified in mice. In contrast, a shift from hair to gland fates is achieved in humans when a spike in BMP silences SHH during the final embryonic wave(s) of bud morphogenesis.


Well-being has recently risen rapidly up the political agenda in Britain and beyond, signalled most clearly by Prime Minister Cameron's announcement in 2010 that well-being measures developed by the Office for National Statistics would be used to guide public policies. Here we seek to explain why well-being has risen up the British political agenda, drawing on Kingdon's multiple streams approach. While this approach has considerable merit, it does not acknowledge the complexity of multi-level governance in which policy, politics and problem streams can operate at different territorial levels. As such, we argue that the match between policy, politics and problem streams has to be not only temporal, but also spatial. The consequence is that, while in relation to measurement a paradigm shift may be taking place, in terms of decisive action there is some way to go before well-being can be described as 'an idea whose time has come'.


Carbon-coated nanoparticles, such as silica (SiO2) and titania (TiO2) can be used in a wide variety of applications: water splitting, polymer fillers, pigments, precursors for carbide formation, and as an electrode for Li-ion batteries. We propose a novel process for the synthesis of carbon-coated nanoparticles based on the use of multiple-diffusion flames, also known as a multi-element diffusion burner (MEDB, Hencken Burner). Ethylene (C2H4) is used as the precursor carrier gas, which, in a one-step process, enables the growth of carbon-coated nanostructures. The global equivalence ratio is maintained at 0.5, thus providing an oxygen-rich environment. The nanoparticles investigated using this setup are silica and titania, where hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) and titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) are used as these nanoparticles' precursors, respectively. The crystal phase and size of the silica and titania nanoparticles are determined using x-ray diffraction (XRD). The nanoparticles are further characterized using a Raman microspectrometer, where the patterns obtained from the spectrometer are also used to validate the growth of carbon on the nanoparticles. Thermogravimetric analysis is performed to determine the percentage of carbon in the samples. The morphology and crystal structure of the samples are characterized using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), with elemental mapping. The titania particle size ranged from 30 to 50 nm with a uniform carbon coating of 3 to 5 nm, as observed by HRTEM. The Raman pattern confirmed the growth of a graphitic structure in the coated particles, with the carbon content measured at 25% using TGA. The use of MEDB to produce carbon-coated nanoparticles is scalable, and this process could possibly be extended to carbon-coat a wide range of nanoparticles.


Styudents and faculty from two dental hygiene schools know that international dental hygiene is high-tech, education-and fun. In the fall of 1996, at the invitation of the Halsohogskolan-Jonkoping University, College of Health Sciences in Sweden, their dental hygiene department and that of Camosun College in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, jointly organized an ongoing e-mail exchange program between second year students. Students are assigned topics to research and then, with their international partner, are asked to share and discuss information on their findings. A six weekfaculty exchange took place in the fall of 1997 with each sharing their dental hygiene expertise. Both joint ventures have been very successful in promoting the use of high technology in education and fostering international dental hygiene learning and goodwill.


OBJECTIVE
The current study was designed to examine the impact of perpetrator and victim substance use on the sexual assault outcomes of penetration and victim injury.

METHOD
Women, ages 18-30 (n = 1,014), were recruited from households using random digit dialing. They completed computer-assisted measures, including the Sexual Experiences Survey (Koss et al., 1987). Women who reported sexual assault since age 14 (n = 359) were interviewed face-to-face regarding their most recent sexual assault incident.

RESULTS
As hypothesized, high levels of perpetrator intoxication decreased the likelihood of penetration occurring. When the victim was highly intoxicated however, penetration was more likely. Victim injury was more likely in assaults involving penetration. Higher levels of perpetrator intoxication in assaults involving a sober victim were also associated with greater odds of victim injury.

CONCLUSIONS
Perpetrator intoxication effects are consistent with the presumption that intoxication at high levels impairs male sexual function but increases male physical aggression. Victim intoxication increases vulnerability to penetration but does not reduce odds of injury.


In the Mongolian-speaking world Kalmyks are often identified as a "detached" part, a splinter of the large Asian cultural continent. The author insists that it is more correct to use such categories as "transculturation" and "cultural borderland" when analyzing the ethnic and cultural identity of Kalmyks. Obviously, Kalmyks cannot be characterized as the "ethnos without a culture" as they represent the "ethnos between the cultures". This ethnos is known to have created and preserved its own original border culture. The peculiarity of the Kalmyk culture should be studied by means of the transcultural theory as Kalmyks are a people which is, on the one hand, a typically oriental one (considering its anthropological features, mentality, language, religion, etc.) and, on the other hand, they live in Europe between the large Christian and Muslim worlds.


Keeping mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) tract communities in balance is crucial for host health maintenance. However, our understanding of microbial communities in the GI tract is still very limited. In this study, samples taken from the GI tracts of C57BL/6 mice were subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequence-based analysis to examine the characteristic bacterial communities along the mouse GI tract, including those present in the stomach, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, cecum, colon and feces. Further analyses of the 283,234 valid sequences obtained from pyrosequencing revealed that the gastric, duodenal, large intestinal and fecal samples had higher phylogenetic diversity than the jejunum and ileum samples did. The microbial communities found in the small intestine and stomach were different from those seen in the large intestine and fecal samples. A greater proportion of Lactobacillaceae were found in the stomach and small intestine, while a larger proportion of anaerobes such as Bacteroidaceae, Prevotellaceae, Rikenellaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Ruminococcaceae were found in the large intestine and feces. In addition, inter-mouse variations of microbiota were observed between the large intestinal and fecal samples, which were much smaller than those between the gastric and small intestinal samples. As far as we can ascertain, ours is the first study to systematically characterize bacterial communities from the GI tracts of C57BL/6 mice.


Background: Hyperlipidemia is one of the important risk factor for development of cardiovascular disease in post menopausal women.Our study compared the serum lipid profile and atherogenic index of plasma between premenopausal and post menopausal women.Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted in Kathmandu Medical College. A total number of 194 women in the age group 30 to 60 years were studied. They include 108 postmenopausal women and 86 premenopausal controls. Total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides were determined. Results: The mean value of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride were significantly increased in postmenopausal women when compared to premenopausal women. There was increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in postmenopausal women but the difference was not significant. The atherogenic index of plasma was increased in postmenopausal women (0.22 ± 0.25 mmol/l). This shows that postmenopausal women in our setting are at medium risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Atherogenic index of plasma was positively and significantly correlated with age (r= 0.29, p<0.05), body mass index (r=0.24, p<0.05), systolic blood pressure (r=0.20, p<0.05) and diastolic blood pressure (r=0.45, p<0.05).Conclusions: Postmenopausal women were at greater risk for developing cardiovascular disease when compared to premenopausal women due to increase in atherogenic lipid profile. There was a significant correlation of atherogenic index of plasma with age, body mass index, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure.Keywords: Keywords: Atherogenic index of plasma; lipid profile; menopause.


The labor market increasingly rewards social skills. Between 1980 and 2012, jobs requiring high levels of social interaction grew by nearly 12 percentage points as a share of the U.S. labor force. Math-intensive but less social jobs - including many STEM occupations - shrank by 3.3 percentage points over the same period. Employment and wage growth was particularly strong for jobs requiring high levels of both math skill and social skill. To understand these patterns, I develop a model of team production where workers "trade tasks" to exploit their comparative advantage. In the model, social skills reduce coordination costs, allowing workers to specialize and work together more efficiently. The model generates predictions about sorting and the relative returns to skill across occupations, which I investigate using data from the NLSY79 and the NLSY97. Using a comparable set of skill measures and covariates across survey waves, I find that the labor market return to social skills was much greater in the 2000s than in the mid 1980s and 1990s.


Letter discrimination performance is degraded when a letter is presented within an apparent motion (AM) trajectory of a spot. This finding suggests that the internal representation of AM stimuli can perceptually interact with other stimuli. In this study, we demonstrated that AM interference could also occur for pattern detection. We found that target (Gabor patch) detection performance was degraded within an AM trajectory. Further, this AM interference weakened when the differences in orientation between the AM stimuli and target became greater. We also revealed that AM interference occurred for the target with spatiotemporally intermediate orientations of the inducers that changed their orientation during AM. In contrast, the differences in phase among the stimuli did not affect the occurrence of AM interference. These findings suggest that AM stimuli and their internal representations affect lower visual processes involved in detecting a pattern in the AM trajectory and that the internal object representation of an AM stimulus selectively reflects and maintains the stimulus attribute.


The uniform and dense structure of thin films is influenced by the texture of films. It was good to have uniform and dense structure and bad to have an open columnar structure in TiN thin films. Therefore, the property of diffusion barrier of the TiN films in semiconductor also is related to the texture and microstructure of TiN coated layers. In this study, the relationships between the textures and microstructures and the properties of TiN films on semiconductor were investigated under different processing methods (PVD and MOCVD). The property of diffusion barrier of RF sputtered (PVD) TiN is better than that of metal organic chemical vapor deposited (MOCVD) TiN thin films. Also the property of diffusion barrier of PVD (111) textured TiN is better than that of PVD (100) textured TiN thin films on oxidized Si wafer.


Purpose Medical students develop clinical reasoning skills throughout their training. The Script Concordance Test (SCT) is a standardized instrument that assesses clinical reasoning; test takers with more clinical experience consistently outperform those with less experience. SCT studies to date have been cross-sectional, with no studies examining same-student longitudinal performance gains. Method This four-year observational study took place between 2008 and 2011 at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Students in two different cohorts took the same SCT as second-year medical students and then again as fourth-year medical students. The authors matched and analyzed same-student data from the two SCT administrations for the classes of 2011 and 2012. They used descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients, and paired t tests. Results Matched data were available for 260 students in the class of 2011 (of 303, 86%) and 264 students in the class of 2012 (of 289, 91%). The mean same-student gain for the class of 2011 was 8.6 (t[259] = 15.9; P < .0001) and for the class of 2012 was 11.3 (t[263] = 21.4; P < .0001). Each cohort gained more than one standard deviation. Conclusions Medical students made statistically significant gains in their performance on an SCT over a two-year period. These findings demonstrate same-student gains in clinical reasoning over time as measured by the SCT and suggest that the SCT as a standardized instrument can help to evaluate growth in clinical reasoning skills.


AN ACTIVE DEBATE iS now under way in the United States, Europe, and Japan about the scope for expansionary macroeconomic policies in the near term. Although unemployment is at postwar historical highs in Europe and the United States and inflation has receded rapidly in the major economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, there is remarkable reticence in advocating expansionary policies among the governments of OECD countries. One school of thought holds that much of the unemployment problem in Europe, and to a lesser extent in the United States and Japan, results from real wages at inappropriate levels and thus the problem cannot be ameliorated by adjusting demand-management policies. The West German Minister of Economics strongly enunciated this view. ' Nevertheless, our economies are still carrying the burden of an excessive real wage level from the seventies. A considerable part of current unemployment is due to the fact that labour has now become too expensive. . . . However, correcting false distribution relations needs time. A start has been made in most of the major industrial countries. The course must be held over the medium term if a growth process which does not bring with it a danger of inflation is to be set in motion and sustained. Because this view has gained widespread currency, and because I took


Particle size enlargement is the process of transforming fine particles into larger particles by the introduction of external forces, and is a value-added step in many processes involving powdered materials. There are many different reasons to enlarge particle size, including increased flowability and improved product shape and appearance. With the multitude of options available to achieve enlarged particle product, it can be difficult to narrow down the best method for the desired application. The main factor in selecting the right kind of method is to specify the type of end product required. In the pharmaceutical industry in particular, uniform flow of solid mixtures is one of the most important considerations in solid dosage manufacture. The particle size distribution, shape, hardness, and moisture content of the powder particles govern its flow and compactibility property. This article outlines making of enlarged particles and understanding their behavior.


Modern microprocessors are increasingly power-constrained as a result of slowed supply voltage scaling (end of Dennard scaling) in conjunction with the transistor density scaling (Moore's Law). Existing many-core power management techniques such as chip-wide/per-core DVFS, and core and cache adaptation are quite effective in isolation at moderate to high power budgets. However, for future many-core chip, the existing techniques do not scale well to large core counts, small time slices and stringent power budgets. We need a new solution that combines different adaptation and reconfiguration techniques. In this paper, we present Chrysso, an integrated, scalable and low-overhead power management framework. Chrysso consists of a three-step process: leveraging simple analytical performance and power models, pruning the search space early using local Pareto front generation, followed by global utility-based power allocation. This ensures scalable and effective dynamic adaptation of many-core processors at short time scales along multiple axes, including core, cache and per-core DVFS adaptations. By integrating multiple power management techniques into a common methodology, Chrysso provides significant performance improvements over isolated mechanisms within a given power budget without power-gating cores. On a 64-core system, Chrysso improves system throughput by 1.6× and 1.9× over core-gating at stringent power envelops for multi-program (SPEC) and multi-threaded (PARSEC) workloads, respectively.


We investigated point defects induced in rad-hard Fluorine-doped optical fibers using both a mixed source of neutrons (fluences from 1015 to 1017 n/cm2) and γ-rays (doses from 0.02 to 2 MGy) and by a γ-ray source (dose up to 10 MGy). By combining several complementary spectroscopic techniques such as radiation-induced attenuation, confocal micro-luminescence, time-resolved photo-luminescence and electron paramagnetic resonance, we evidenced intrinsic and hydrogen-related defects. The comparison between the two irradiation sources highlights close similarities among the spectroscopic properties of the induced defects and the linear correlation of their concentration up to 1016 n/cm2. These results are interpreted on the basis of the generation processes of defects from precursors sites, that are common to both γ-rays and neutrons. In contrast, the highest neutron fluence (1017 n/cm2) causes peculiar effects, such as the growth of a photoluminescence and variations of the spectral and decay properties of the emission related with nonbridging oxygen hole centers, that are likely due to silica network modification.


PURPOSE: To study the epidemiological characteristics and the results of strabismus surgery of high myopic patients under topical anaesthesia. METHOD: Retrospective study of nine high myopic patients with restrictive myopic myopathy (RMM) that underwent surgery in the last year and with a minimum follow-up of at least 6 months following surgery. Clinical findings, alteration of the extrinsic ocular motility (EOM) and response to surgical treatment were evaluated in each case. RESULTS: RMM was more frequent in women, average age was 46 years and average refractive error was 14 diopters. Diplopia was the most frequent reason for consultation, followed by the wish to undergo surgery because of an aesthetically unacceptable strabismus. High myopia was the most frequent etiology. One case was secondary to decompensated fourth cranial nerve palsy. The alteration of the EOM more frequently observed was endotropia associated with hypotropia. The recurrence rate of the deviation was 44%, occurring generally in the immediate postoperative period. In these cases botulinum toxin is a valid treatment option. CONCLUSIONS: Topical anaesthesia offers undoubted advantages for a better adjustment of diplopia in RMM surgery. During the intraoperative adjustment it is convenient to overcorrect the horizontal deviation and to undercorrect the vertical deviation.


Abstract Reliability of power converter in the electric drivetrain of a vehicle can be a criterion for the comparison of various converter topologies, cooling system designs and control strategies. Therefore, reliability prediction is important for the design and control of vehicles. This paper presents an approach for quantitative evaluation of the reliability of converters for multiphase motor drives for electric vehicles (EVs) after considering the driving cycle. This paper provides a good background of reliability quantification so that it is easy to extend the presented approach to other applications. The models of subsystems have been selected to have excellent computational efficiency with good accuracy which is necessary for simulating long driving cycles. A simple vehicle model is used to obtain the traction motor torque demand for various points of the driving cycle. A multiphase interior permanent magnet synchronous motor has been used for traction motor. The operating voltage and currents of the motor are found using maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) control of IPMSM. The analytical loss calculation has been used to find the losses of switching devices of the converter. A thermal model of silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET has been used to calculate junction temperature from the losses. The model developed here gives the failure rate and mean time between failures (MTBF) of switching devices of the inverter, which can be used to determine the failure rate. The model has been used to find the transition probabilities of a Markov model which can be used to quantify the reliability of converters of multiphase electric drives.


Powders of Ce0.8Gd0.2O1.9 were synthesized by co-precipitation and amorphous citrate routes and their compositions and structures were compared. Co-precipitation process was carried out at room temperature, while amorphous citrate synthesis was performed at 60-70 °C. The powders obtained were calcined at 700 °C for 1 h. X-ray diffraction analyses showed that a single fluorite structure was formed by both synthesis techniques. Pellets from these powders were prepared by compaction at 30 kN/cm2 and sintered at 1593 °C in air. WDS analysis confirmed the homogeneity of the pellets. The sintered pellets obtained by amorphous citrate and by coprecipitation routes showed relative densities over 97 % of the theoretical density. These results indicated that the citrate amorphous route is an interesting and simple technique to prepare gadolinium-doped ceria powders with high sinterability.


Context. The reflection nebula NGC 7129 has long been known to be a site of recent star formation as shown, e.g., by the presence of deeply embedded protostars and HH objects. However, studies of the stellar population produced in the star formation process have remained rudimentary. A major step forward has been made with recent Spitzer imaging of the region. Aims. This study represents the next step towards a systematic assessment of the pre-main sequence population in NGC 7129. Completeness of the pre-main sequence sample is necessary for studying key features that allow the star-forming process to be understood, such as disk evolution, dynamical evolution, and mass function. At a presumed age of ∼3 Myr, NGC 7129 is in the critical range where disks around young stars disappear. Methods. We make use of X-ray and IR imaging observations to identify the pre-main sequence stars in NGC 7129. We define a sample of young stellar objects based on color–color diagrams composed from IR photometry between 1. 6a nd 8μm, from 2 MASS and Spitzer, and based on X-ray detected sources from a Chandra observation. Results. This sample is composed of 26 Class II and 25 Class III candidates. It has been selected from infrared sources in the Chandra field (287 objects with photometry in all four Spitzer/IRAC bands, 811 objects with near-IR photometry) and the 59 X-ray sources detected with Chandra. The sample is estimated to be complete down to ∼0.5 M� . The most restricted and least biased subsample of pre-main sequence stars is composed of lightly absorbed (AV < 5 mag) stars in the cluster core. This sample comprises 7 Class II and 14 Class III sources and has a disk fraction of 33 +24 −19 % and a median X-ray luminosity of log Lx [erg/s] = 30.3. Conclusions. Despite the various uncertainties related to the sample selection, absorption, mass distribution, distance, and, consequently in the computation of disk fraction and X-ray luminosities, the data yield consistent results. In particular, we confirm the age of ∼3 Myr for the NGC 7129 cluster. The derived disk fraction is similar to that of σ Orionis, smaller than for Cha I (∼2 Myr), and larger than for Upper Sco (5 Myr). The X-ray luminosity function is similar to that of NGC 2264 (2 Myr) but fainter than for the Orion Nebula Cluster (1 Myr). The pre-main sequence census should be further refined and extended with optical photometric and spectroscopic searches for cluster members.


We outline several approaches to allow individual die to be encapsulated within a silicon substrate, which we define as a cavity wafer, without causing wafer bow. This technique forms the basis for a novel integrated ultra high density (i-UHD) wafer-level packaging platform. The iUHD process begins with a standard Si wafer that is patterned and dry etched to form cavities that accept buried components. After etching, the wafer is blanket metalized. Individual commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) die are placed onto an adhesive film and precision transferred to the substrate wafer. Low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) encapsulant is injected into the cavity surrounding the die. Finally, the adhesive film is removed to reveal a planar surface on the reconstructed core wafer. Multilayer interconnect is fabricated on both sides of the core using standard wafer fabrication techniques. A challenge to this approach has been that curing and shrinkage of the encapsulant, as well as its CTE mismatch with silicon, creates wafer bow. In this paper we present a technique that eliminates bow by mirroring the die-side wafer cavities about the neutral bending axis.


This article presents a research on friction and wear properties of titanium composite lubricating grease containing ultrafine PTFE particles by using scanning electron microscopy to observe surface morphology of the worn steel balls and EDS to analysis the main elements in the worn surface of steel ball. The results show that the compound titanium grease with 3% ultrafine PTFE has the best wear and friction reduction properties. Its friction coefficient decrease about 25.5%, the diameter of wear scar decrease about 23.2%. The appropriate amount of PTFE particles go into the frictional surface with the grease, form the PTFE particle layer on the frictional surface, which reduces the direct contact of metal to metal, effectively reduces the friction and wear.


Dynamics of spatial distribution of temperature over the dorsal surface of white rat cerebral cortex was studied through the skull with the thermovision technics. Visual, somatosensory and acoustic stimulation revealed both diffuse and regionally specific thermoreactions of the brain as well as multiple local termoresponses. After injection of KCl into the cortex temperature waves spreading over the cortex were obtained. Mechanisms of brain patterned thermoreactions dealing with blood flow and neuronal metabolic thermoproduction are discussed.


In 1987, five years after his death, Georges Perec's last completed novel, Life A Users Manual, was published in Britain and America to great acclaim. In the following ten years all of his completed, published, novels and his final uncompleted novel, were published in English translation plus a collection of shorter, non-fiction works. And in 2014, his first, but unpublished, novel, Portrait of a Man, was also published. Further, in 1993, the translator of many of his most significant works, David Bellos, produced an exhaustive biography called Georges Perec: A Life In Words that was highly praised and which won the Prix Goncourt for Biography in 1994. As well as garnering significant critical acclaim all of these works in translation sold well. So for a French writer, who died young, Perec probably achieved greater prominence and commercial success in translation than many French writers, if not quite reaching the household name status of a Sartre, Camus, De Beauvoir, or Derrida. On the other hand, it is also true that he remains somewhat unknown and enigmatic. And this is perhaps because he cannot be slotted into any easily recognised categories and he remained somewhat elusive as a "personality". His final three major works – A Void, W, and Life a Users Manual – may seem, on the surface, lightweight, ludic, constructed with and round a number of self-imposed rules and constraints, and rather haphazardly put together. This surface appearance is a consequence of his membership of OuLiPo where the literary and personal content might seem subservient to the mathematical and games-playing demands and skills. And yet, at the same time, each of them deal, if somewhat elliptically, with some very intense and personally and historically significant themes – of mass destruction and genocide, of abandonment, emptiness and anomie, and of how to speak of the unspeakable. And they do so in a way that unexpectedly hits the reader with great emotional force. Moreover, unlike his perhaps better-known near contemporary Patrick Modiano, Perec never wrote the same book twice, preferring, as he put it, to try and write in every style possible.  John Sturrock sums up the situation in this way: Perec was a Parisian and an intellectual in many of his tastes, but too nervous and too sincerely democratic ever to have wanted to start pronouncing on this and that in the megaphone role of the of a Paris intellectual….(Like Jean-Paul Sartre and others) Perec, too, went to Left-Bank cafes, not in his case to lay down any law…but rather to play the pinball machines…Which is a more human way than most of coping with ennui. (Sturrock, 1997, px). All this makes him hard to categorise and so, perhaps easy to ignore or overlook. Sturrock also points out that anyone reading Perec is better off knowing the terrible facts of his childhood, " since not knowing them will make at least some of his writings seem much less affecting than they actually are "(ibid, pxi). I hope, in what follows, that by uncovering something of what lies concealed in 'W', his greatest and most challenging work, that it will be easier to appreciate the depth of his skill and the extent of his importance as a contemporary writer.


Examines accountability in training and enterprise councils and uses executive pay as an example of changing mechanisms and values. Discusses a number of issues crucial to public sector management: democracy in "quangoland"; public sector ethics; what constitutes a private, as opposed to a public, organization. Contributes to the debate on the wider reordering of the machinery of government: the emergence of "quangoland" and the implication of this for accountability and democracy. One of the central issues in this is the seeming confusion over lines of responsibility, and how responsibility is divided between agency executives and Ministers in Parliament. Draws a contrast between the determination of pay for executives in the newly "private sector" Training and Enterprise Councils and their predecessors and counterparts in nationalized industries and local government. Highlights many of the central debates in the vastly changed world of public sector management in Britain.


The structure and operating principle of rolling movable teeth reducer are introduced in this paper. Through the virtual prototype technology, the modeling of rolling movable teeth reducer is made by Pro/E software,and is had the kinematics simulation and dynamic analysis by ADAMS software. The simulation results show that the speed curves of the input shaft and the output shaft of rolling movable teeth reducer coincide with the theory transmission. It proves correctness of virtual prototype. The mechanical properties of rolling movable teeth reducer is obtained by the time-domain graph of meshing force. It provides the basis for the optimization design and engineering analysis of reducer.


Reduction of propagation delay is very important for high speed applications. This paper gives an idea about the delay reduction on divided-by-4/5 counter. The delay is reduced by domino logic. Dynamic domino logic circuits are widely used in advanced digital Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) circuits because it is uncomplicated to implement and low cost. Domino logic is a CMOS based approximation of the dynamic logic techniques. It was technologically advanced to speed up the circuit. Compare to static Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) logic, dynamic domino logic deals better performance. Domino gates naturally consume higher dynamic switching and leakage power and display weaker noise immunity as compared to static Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) gate. In this paper, dynamic logic flip-flop such as Extended True-Single-Phase-Clock (E-TSPC) flip-flop based divided-byN/N+1 counter is used for high speed and low power applications. And the proposed work is then compared with the static Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) logic.


Due to the increasing diversity and the continuous evolution of existing parallel systems, solving efficiently a target problem by using a single algorithm or writing efficient and portable programs is becoming a challenging task. In this paper, we present a generic framework that integrates performance models with adaptive techniques in order to design efficient parallel algorithms in heterogeneous computing environments. To illustrate our approach, we study the matrix multiplication problem, where we compare different parallel algorithms. Experiments demonstrate that accurate performance predictions obtained from analytical performance models allow us to select the most appropriate algorithm to use depending on the problem and the platform parameters.


Vitiligo is an acquired depigmenting disorder characterised by the loss of functional melanocytes from the cutaneous epidermis. A role for autoimmunity is supported by the presence of circulating antibodies and T lymphocytes which react against melanocyte antigens in patients with vitiligo. The identification and characterisation of these autoantigens will improve understanding of the immune response in vitiligo, and may allow development of better therapies and diagnostic tools. Candidate immunoregulatory genes may predispose to vitiligo. However, this study failed to find an association between vitiligo and a polymorphism of the cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4), although the polymorphism increases the likelihood of autoimmune endocrinopathy patients developing vitiligo. The epitopes on melanocyte-specific antigens tyrosinase and Pmel17 which are recognised by antibodies in vitiligo patient sera were identified by molecular mapping. Multiple regions of tyrosinase and at least two domains on PmeI17 were identified as B cell epitopes. Sequence analysis revealed that the tyrosinase epitopes are likely to be cross-reactive with tyrosinase-related proteins but that the antibody response to Pmel17 is distinct. Antibody reactivity to a melanocyte protein, MelanA, targeted by a cellular immune response in vitiligo and melanoma was investigated by immunoblotting and radioimmunoassay. No MelanA-specific antibodies were isolated suggesting that either it is not a target of the humoral immune response in vitiligo, or that antibody reactivity was not detectable by the methods used. To identify novel vitiligo autoantigens, a melanoma cDNA expression library was constructed in a phage-display cloning system and immunoscreened with vitiligo patient IgG. Several possible autoantigens were enriched by this technique, including proteins previously characterised as autoantigens in other disorders. Additionally, humoral reactivity was identified to a protein with a possible role in pigmentation, the melanin-concentrating hormone receptor 1 (MCHR1). MCHR1-specific antibodies were detected in 16.4% (9/55) of vitiligo patients but not in other diseases or healthy control subjects. The study demonstrates the usefulness of phage-display for further autoantigen identification in vitiligo.


The purpose of the current study was to investigate variations in teacher–child relationships in childcare classrooms in Budapest, Hungary (N = 172 children in 43 classrooms), and to examine whether variations were associated with child and/or teacher characteristics. In addition, cultural variation was examined with reference to an American comparison group (N = 36 children in nine classrooms). Teacher–child relationships were found to vary in the in levels of closeness, conflict and over-dependence. There was more variation within as opposed to between classrooms, indicating that child attributes play an important role in teacher–child relationships. Girls had better relationships with their teachers than boys, characterised by higher levels of closeness and lower levels of conflict. Higher levels of shyness were associated with more conflicted teacher–child relationships for boys, and less conflicted ones for girls. Teachers with higher levels of neuroticism and depression tended to report more conflicted relationships with children. Hungarian teachers reported more closeness in their relationships with younger children, whereas American teachers reported higher levels of relationship closeness with older children. Hungarian teachers reported higher levels of over-dependence of the children in their classrooms than did American teachers. Educational implications as well as limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.


One century ago (1910), the Hungarian mathematician Alfred Haar introduced the simplest wavelets in approximation theory, which are now known as the Haar wavelets. This type of wavelets can effectively be used to fit data in statistical applications. It is well known that for a general regression model, it is not easy to write estimations of its parameters in analytical forms. However, regression models generated from the Haar wavelets are easy to compute. In this article, we introduce how to use the Haar wavelets to formulate regression models and to fit data. In addition, we mention some variations of the Haar wavelets and their possible applications.


15 Reflecting on the links between intentions and outcomes is a key practice of a learning organization (Garvin 2000). The AfterAction Review (AAR) is a formal reflection process intended to assist groups in capturing lessons learned from a task. AARs typically ask four questions regarding fire-response operations: (1) what did we set out to do, (2) what actually happened, (3) why is there a difference between the first two, and (4) what should we continue/what should we change? Since the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center sponsored training workshops on AARs for the fire community in 2002, the practice seems to have been widely adopted. You can hear the term almost every where you go these days, from engine bays to incident command posts. But just how widely has the practice been implemented? Are all levels and all functions in the fire organization conducting AARs? How good are AARs as currently practiced at getting at root causes of discrepancies, and is the practice having a positive impact on performance?


The genetic landscape of classical myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) is in large part elucidated. The MPN-restricted driver mutations, including those in JAK2, calreticulin (CALR), and myeloproliferative leukemia virus (MPL), abnormally activate the cytokine receptor/JAK2 pathway and their downstream effectors, more particularly the STATs. The most frequent mutation, JAK2V617F, activates the 3 main myeloid cytokine receptors (erythropoietin receptor, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor receptor, and MPL) whereas CALR or MPL mutants are restricted to MPL activation. This explains why JAK2V617F is associated with polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia (ET), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) whereas CALR and MPL mutants are found in ET and PMF. Other mutations in genes involved in epigenetic regulation, splicing, and signaling cooperate with the 3 MPN drivers and play a key role in the PMF pathogenesis. Mutations in epigenetic regulators TET2 and DNMT3A are involved in disease initiation and may precede the acquisition of JAK2V617F. Other mutations in epigenetic regulators such as EZH2 and ASXL1 also play a role in disease initiation and disease progression. Mutations in the splicing machinery are predominantly found in PMF and are implicated in the development of anemia or pancytopenia. Both heterogeneity of classical MPNs and prognosis are determined by a specific genomic landscape, that is, type of MPN driver mutations, association with other mutations, and their order of acquisition. However, factors other than somatic mutations play an important role in disease initiation as well as disease progression such as germ line predisposition, inflammation, and aging. Delineation of these environmental factors will be important to better understand the precise pathogenesis of MPN.


Despite the long-standing research interest in the pre-deal phase of mergers and acquisitions, many important questions remain unanswered. We review and synthesize the extensive but rather fragmented research on this topic area in the fields of management, finance, accounting, and economics. We organize our review according to six themes, that is, deal initiation, target selection, bidding and negotiation, valuation and financing, announcement, and closure, which represent the main categories of activities performed during the pre-deal phase. Our review shows that most of the existing research relies on a rather high-level, simplified, and static conception of the pre-deal phase. On the basis of our review, we put forward a research agenda that calls for a more granular examination of individual activities and decisions, a more comprehensive analysis of the interplay among the different actors involved in the pre-deal phase, a better understanding of the role of the temporal dynamics, and the extension of the theoretical base from variance-based to process-based theorizing.


OBJECTIVE
To study a local effect of pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP(1-27)) on glucose-evoked insulin release under in vivo conditions.

INTERVENTION
Glucose and PACAP(1-27) were locally infused to the pancreas via the superior pancreaticoduodenal artery without interrupting the blood supply.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Plasma insulin and glucose concentrations were determined in samples obtained from the superior pancreaticoduodenal vein and the aorta. Superior pancreaticoduodenal venous blood flow was measured to compute the net output of insulin.

RESULTS
PACAP(1-27) (0.005-5 microg) increased the basal insulin secretion by about 15 folds in a dose-dependent manner. Local infusion of either glucose (5%) or PACAP(1-27) (0.05 microg) resulted in a significant increase in the basal insulin output to about 300 microU x min(-1)g(-1), which was highly reproducible upon the second administration of the same dose with an interval of 30 min. When PACAP(1-27) was simultaneously given during glucose infusion, the increased insulin output due to glucose was further enhanced to about 600 microU x min(-1)g(-1). The net increase in PACAP(1-27)-induced insulin output in the presence of glucose was significantly greater than that obtained with PACAP(1-27) alone. There exists a strong and highly significant correlation between changes in glucose level and those in insulin output when both glucose and PACAP(1-27) were administered simultaneously.

CONCLUSION
The results indicate that PACAP(1-27) directly enhances the glucose-evoked insulin secretion in the endocrine pancreas in anesthetized dogs. The study suggests that PACAP may play a local facilitating role in insulin secretion in response to glucose loading.


Abstract Individuals and businesses use insurance as one important means of dealing with uncertainty. While the insurance industry does not require the elimination of risk, for insurance to be affordable and available it must take into account all the elements affecting risk. Underwriters must perceive the satisfaction of certain minimum needs if insurance is to function in circumstances of or affected by weather modification.


This study was aimed at exploring the application value of three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound based on deep learning and continued nursing health monitoring (CNHM) mode in promoting the recovery of bladder cancer patients after surgery. 60 patients who underwent muscular noninvasive superficial bladder cancer and bladder perfusion treatment were selected as the research objects. The patients were randomly divided into two groups: an experimental group (30 cases) and a control group (30 cases). Patients in the experimental group adopted a CNHM model during the bladder perfusion treatment. The patients in control group adopted ordinary health monitoring mode. All patients underwent 3D ultrasound examination, and all images were processed using the convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm. All patients were followed up regularly within 12 after the treatment. The imaging data, quality of life, satisfaction, and complications of the two groups of patients were compared in each time period. The ultrasound image processed by the CNN algorithm was clearer than that processed by the original method, showing higher image quality and more prominent lesion features. After 12 months of health monitoring intervention, the overall health status, scores of various functional areas, and score of functional subscales of the experimental group were greatly higher than those of the control group, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The incidence of adverse reactions in the experimental group was much lower than that in the control group, and the difference was statistically obvious (P < 0.05). The comparison of the recurrence rate between the two groups of patients in each time period was statistically significant. The satisfaction score of the experimental group was much higher than the score of the control group, showing statistically significant difference (P < 0.05). CNN algorithm showed high application value in 3D ultrasound image processing, and the CNHM model was very beneficial to the postoperative recovery of bladder cancer patients.


The Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is also one of the oldest breeds. Muslims believed, that Arabian horses came from Allah. From the very beginning of Islamic religion horses were very important part of this tradition and for this reason horses were the topic of many myths and legends. One original story tells how Muhammad chose his foundation mares by a test of their courage and loyalty: after a long journey through the desert, the Prophet turned his herd of horses loose to race to an oasis because they desperately needed a drink of water. Before the herd reached the water, Muhammad called for the horses to return to him. Only five mares responded. Because they faithfully returned to their master, though desperate with thirst, these mares became his favorites and were called Al Khamsa,meaning, the five.These mares became the legendary founders of the five "strains" of the Arabian horse. Muslims loved Arabians, horses were the subject of poems, they were described in Koran. Nevertheless, the Nomads train this animals very hard. This training and desert climate make Arabians very strong and tough, and today they are the most expensive horses in the world.


This paper proposes a low-energy solution for CAM-based highly associative I-caches using a segmented word-line and a predictor-based instruction fetch mechanism. Not all instructions in a given I-cache fetch are used due to branches. The proposed predictor determines which instructions in a cache access will be used and does not fetch any other instructions. Results show an average I-cache energy savings of 44% over the baseline case and 6% over the segmented case with no negative impact on performance.


Abstract : Formulas for the pseudoinverse of a compact operator are applied to linear system identification and scattering function estimation from a finite set of noisy measurements. The results is a nonparametric estimator possessing several desirable features. The approach encompasses the Modified Discrete Fourier Transform and is applied herein to the important problem of closely object resolution in radar/optical signal processing. (Author)


Background: Chronic pain and fatigue are two cardinal features of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and how to effectively treat these conditions continues to be a challenge. The underlying mechanisms and the relationship between AS-related pain and fatigue remain poorly understood. The present study was conducted, therefore, to explore the brain functional and structural changes associated with pain and fatigue in AS. Methods: A total of 65 AS patients (48 men and 17 women; 32.33 ± 8.6 years) and 53 age- and sex-matched controls were enrolled in the study. The patients underwent clinical assessment based on Total Back Pain scores, Fatigue Severity Scale, Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index, (BASDAI), high-sensitivity C-reactive Protein (hsCRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Using 3T magnetic resonance imaging (3T-MRI), we analyzed the brain functional (connectivity and nodal properties) and structural (covariance and gray matter volumes) differences between AS patients and controls. Furthermore, we extracted the values of the significantly changed regions in the AS cohort and explored their association with pain and fatigue. Results: In AS patients, there were functional and structural abnormalities distributed in the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), sensory/somatomotor network (SMN), dorsal attention network (DAN), task control network (TCN), and visual network, and some regions showed both types of changes. Among these, the functional connectivity (FC) between the left insula and medial prefrontal cortex, the betweenness centrality of the left medial prefrontal cortex and the gray matter volume of the right putamen tracked both pain and fatigue. In addition, pain was related to within-DMN FC disruption and nodal function / gray matter volumes changes in DMN, SN, and the visual network, while fatigue mainly involved the SMN, DAN, and TCN. Moreover, certain changes were also related to BASDAI and inflammation level. Conclusion: This study offers new insights into understanding the neural mechanism of AS-related pain and fatigue, and could help to stratify patients based on the correlation features and ultimately move towards a personalized therapy.


'Stimmung'. The Career of a Concept in Music and Science between 1750 and 1850. The German word 'Stimmung' originally refers to the musical praxis of tuning instruments. Whereas the English concepts of 'tonus' and 'atunement' used to describe the physical status of the body developed independently from the psychological 'mood', 'Stimmung' was used metaphorically in both physiology and psychology in the discussed period. This leads to various interrelations between the areas of knowledge involved. The paper investigates these on a synchronic and diachronic level. By concentrating a) on the analogy between musical strings and nerve fibres within the framework of a mechanistic conception of the body and b) on the metaphoric use of 'Stimmung' as a psychological concept describing the general mood of an individual, it becomes evident that the different metaphorical adaptations do not only have consequences within the specific area of knowledge, but also lead to distinct interpretations of musical effect. The second half of the paper concentrates on the diachronic development of 'Stimmung' in physiology and analyses the shifts within the semantic field of the metaphor occurring during the transformation from a mechanical to an organic conception of the body. On a theoretical level the emphasis lies on the conceptual potential of vague metaphors and the function of marginal metaphors in periods of theory change. In this context the results question Thomas Kuhns theory of an abrupt, gestaltlike change of theory by emphasizing the importance of continuous shifts within the semantic fields of vague metaphors.


Longitudinal force-length relationship of the rat esophagus was studied in vitro in three age groups: 1 mo, 3 mo, and 12 mo. The length of maximum force development (MFD) occurs at 1.4-1.5 times the in vivo length for all age groups. The active force developed at MFD increases markedly with age. The difference in the active forces in the 3-mo and 12-mo age groups is due to differences in cross section because the active stress of the esophagus in the longitudinal direction is approximately equal for the two age groups. The active stress in the 1-mo-old rats is lower than in the 3-mo-old rats, suggesting an increased contractility of the esophagus with age in this period of development.


The feasibility of Geographical Indications (GI) for the Kodagu coffee has been explored, as the coffee is grown under shade and unique conditions in the midst of rich biodiversity; as a result, the productivity of coffee turns out to be relatively low. The results have indicated that productivity of coffee is lower (6 q/ acre) when grown under high shade and native tree cover than under low shade condition (8.9 q/acre). Although, the difference in cost of cultivation between the two shade conditions is not significant, the net gain is to the tune of Rs 10.40/kg for the planters growing under low shade and exotic trees cover. The net loss has been estimated to be around Rs 15.50/kg for the planters growing under high shade and native trees cover. The marginal loss in the productivity of coffee due to shade is not directly reimbursable through the shade benefits. Hence, the coffee planters need to be compensated through a price premium for their products produced under rich biodiversity, thus requiring the GI that ensures quality and price.


This paper examines the incentives for countries to report disease outbreaks such as swine flu, avian flu and SARS to the international community. Even cursory analysis suggests countries have conflicting incentives regarding whether to report an outbreak. Reporting an outbreak may bring medical assistance, but also trigger trade sanctions to contain an outbreak. Modeling the decision as a signaling game where a country has private but imperfect evidence of an outbreak provides additional insights. First, not all sanctions discourage reporting. Sanctions based on fears of an undetected outbreak (false negatives) encourage disclosure by reducing the relative cost of sanctions that follow a reported outbreak. Second, improving the quality of detection technology may not promote the disclosure of private information about an outbreak because more informative reports could also trigger harsher sanctions. Third, informal surveillance - an important channel for publicizing outbreaks - functions as an exogenous, public signal that is less likely to discourage disclosure than better technology. Informal surveillance can counter false positive and false negative formal disclosures, reducing the relative sanctions for disclosing an outbreak.


The creation of user interfaces usually involves various people in different roles and several tools that are designed to support each specific role. In this paper we propose a tool for rapid prototyping that allows all parties involved to directly interact with the system under development. The tool is based on task tree development and integrates the system designer, the user interface designer, the usability expert, and the user interface developer in a common process. The final system is derived from two sources, the task model specified by the system architect and the final user interface specified by the user interface developer and designer. Aggregating the runtime system and the design tools into one complete integrated system is our approach to bridge the gap between the user interface designer working on system mock-ups and the actual developers implementing the system.


This study examines the data of students from Finland (n = 8,829) and Turkey (n = 4,848) who participated in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The purpose of this study is to discern whether the use and availability of information and communication technologies (ICT) at home and at school have a differential impact on academic achievement in mathematics and science. In both countries, structural equation modeling analyses revealed that the use of ICT at school for mathematics lessons was negatively associated with mathematics, while the use of ICT at home for schoolwork was not associated with mathematics and science. The availability of ICT at home and at school was positively associated with achievement in Turkey, but not in Finland. Finally, the use of ICT for entertainment was associated positively with achievement in Turkey, but negatively in Finland. These results have implications for the adoption of ICT in formal and informal learning environments.


Stool surveys were conducted on children 2--10 years of age in 27 villages within Dacca District and around this index area (1,668 children were sampled), revealing an endemic focus of Fasciolopsis buski infection to the south and the east of Dacca District. In order to determine the seasonal variation in the total snail populations and the natural rate of F. buski infection in the snails, two species of planorbid snails, Segmentina (Trochorbis) trochoideus and Hippeutis (Helicorbis) umbilicalis, were periodically sampled for 12 months from a village endemic for F. buski infection. Gymnocephalous cercariae were found in S. (T.) trochoideus snails during August, September and October. The size of the snail population (n = 1,275) was significantly correlated with inches of rainfall (r = +0.62; P less than 0.05) and water temperature (r = +0.59; P less than 0.05). The natural infection rate of F. buski in the snails ranged from 0.5--2%. Snails from non-endemic areas were exposed to 3--10 miracidia. A total of 13 of 49 (27%) of H. (H.) umbilicalis and 6 of 14 (43%) of S. (T.) trochoideus had gymnocephalous cercariae present 4 to 6 weeks after exposure to miracidia. Thus, snail strain variation is unlikely to be a barrier to F. buski transmission.


Many implementation barriers relate to lifestyle interventions (LIs) being developed by scientists. Exploring whether implementation of non-evaluated LIs is less complicated, might offer insight how to improve the use of effective interventions. This study aimed to identify influencing factors for implementation and compare factors between evidence supported and non-evaluated LIs. Evidence-supported (n = 7) and non-evaluated LIs (n = 7) in hospitals, general practices and community care organizations were included as cases. Semi-structured interviews (n = 46) were conducted. Additionally, documents (n = 207) were collected describing intervention, implementation process, and policy. We used a stepwise approach to inductively identify factors, organize them by diffusion phase, and an existing framework. A total of 37 factors were identified. 'Dissemination' factors were mainly observed in evidence-supported LIs. 'Compatibility to existing structures' ('adoption'), 'funding' and 'connection to existing care processes' ('implementation') was factors identified in all cases. 'Quality control' and 'ongoing innovation' ('maintenance') were reported in evidence-supported interventions. In all domains of the framework factors were observed. Factors identified in this study are in line with the literature. The findings do not support the assumption that implementation of non-evaluated LIs is perceived as less complex.


For continuous-time nonlinear deterministic system models with discrete nonlinear measurements in additive gaussian white noise, the extended Kalman filter (EKF) covariance propagation equations linearized about the true unknown trajectory provide the Cramér-Rao lower bound to the estimation error covariance matrix. A useful application is establishing the optimum filter performance for a given nonlinear estimation problem by developing a simulation of the nonlinear system and an EKF linearized about the true trajectory.


ABSTRACT This study aims to analyze how selected student and school factors may affect teacher job satisfaction, in addition to teacher factors, through multilevel regression and commonality analysis of U.S. data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013. In the overall model of teacher job satisfaction, the factors of low achievers, behavioral problems, SES, classroom discipline climate, school location, principal job satisfaction, school autonomy for instruction, participation among stakeholders, experience, teacher self-efficacy, teacher-student relationship, teacher cooperation, and effective professional development are important predictors for teacher job satisfaction based on the values of beta weights and structure coefficients. Furthermore, the commonality analysis reveals that student, school, and teacher factors uniquely contribute 4.19%, 7.07%, and 6.41% of variance, respectively. Findings provide significant implications for educational policies on teacher job satisfaction and retention.


Many studies suggest that third sector organisations need to identify and grasp opportunities related to fund-raising, commercial trading activities, the acquisition of volunteers (including voluntary employees), collaboration with for-profit businesses, and so on, in order to compete with others in the marketplace (Cooney, 2011; Gainer & Padanyi, 2005; Macedo & Pinho, 2006). The aim of this study is to investigate the importance of marketing activity within Northern Ireland third sector organisations (Charity, Community and Voluntary and Social Enterprise). The organisations and leaders selected for this study will be current and past participants of the part time Level 5 Advanced Diploma in Sustainable Investment for the Third Sector (AdDipSITS) developed by Ulster University Business School in partnership with Atlantic Philanthropy and Charity Bank. Approximately 75 third sector leaders have completed the programme, with 50 currently studying. Leaders on this programme demonstrate their commitment to helping their organisations rise to the new challenges that are emerging in the sector. This study is designed to investigate the: • Marketing mind set of leaders • Role and marketing needs of third sector organisations • Marketing perceptions/misconceptions held • Strengths and weaknesses of existing marketing activities and identify potential gaps • Impact of the AdSITS marketing module on marketing practice and mind-set. Timescale: March 2016 Pre-knowledge audit questionnaire gain understanding of the marketing mind set of leaders, identifying perceptions/misconceptions, role and marketing needs, and potential gaps in marketing activity • March 2016 – April 2016 Literature review • May 2016 - Focus group to explore key findings from pre knowledge audit • June 2016 - Post knowledge audit questionnaire to understand how marketing mind set has changed from involvement on course, engagement with other students and reading literature with reflection on marketing practice. • July – 2016 Dissemination . This study will make recommendations on how senior leaders within the third sector in NI can implement purposeful marketing practices to support sustainability.


This paper presents an efficient algorithm for multimodal statistical causality analysis based on Multiple-Output Gaussian Processes. Signals from different information sources (modalities) are jointly modelled as a Multiple-Output Gaussian Process, and then, using a novel approach to statistical causality based on Gaussian Processes (GP), we study linear and non-linear causal effects between the different modalities. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in a novel machine learning application on studying the relationship between electronic cryptocurrency spot price dynamics and Natural Language Data specific to the crypto sector, which we conjecture influences retail investor behaviour. The investor sentiment is extracted from the Natural Language Data via methods developed in the area of statistical machine learning known as Natural Language Processing (NLP), and we develop novel sentiment index models that add to existing approaches. To capture sentiment, we present a novel framework for text to time series embedding, which we then use to construct a sentiment index from publicly available news articles. We compare our sentiment statistical index model to alternative methods in the NLP literature. Furthermore, in regards to the multimodal causality, the investor sentiment is our primary modality of exploration, in addition to price and a technology-related indicator (hash rate). Analysis shows that our approach is effective in modelling causal structures of variable degree of complexity between heterogeneous data sources, and illustrates the impact that certain modelling choices for the different modalities can have on detecting causality.


This paper investigates the influence of harmonic distortion on the life reduction of power capacitors when connected in parallel to power converters operating with randomly-varying loads. A probabilistic life model is employed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of standard design procedures for capacitors operating in distorted regimes. This approach is applied to a working example based on measurement data obtained from a busbar feeding a ski-lift resort. Either a capacitor bank or a system consisting of a shunt filter plus a capacitor bank is considered for reactive power compensation. It is shown that capacitor design made on the basis of voltage derating of 20% may be not sufficient to ensure satisfactory life performance.


Whether in response to robo advising, artificial intelligence, or crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin, regulators around the world have made it a top policy priority to supervise the exponential growth of financial technology (or "fintech") in the post-crisis era. However, applying traditional regulatory strategies to new technological ecosystems has proved conceptually difficult. Part of the challenge lies in managing the trade-offs that accompany the regulation of innovations that could, conceivably, both help and hurt consumers as well as market participants. Problems also arise from the common assumption that today's fintech is a mere continuation of the story of innovation that has shaped finance for centuries.

This Article offers a new theoretical framework for understanding and regulating fintech by showing how the supervision of financial innovation is invariably bound by what can be described as a policy trilemma. Specifically, we argue that when seeking to provide clear rules, maintain market integrity, and encourage financial innovation, regulators have long been able to achieve, at best, only two out of these three goals. Moreover, today's innovations exacerbate the trade-offs historically embodied in the trilemma by breaking down financial services supply chains into discrete parts and disintermediating traditional functions using cutting edge, but untested, technologies, thereby introducing unprecedented uncertainty as to their risks and benefits. This Article seeks to catalogue the strategies taken by regulatory authorities to navigate the trilemma, and posits them as operating across a spectrum of interrelated responses. The Article then proposes supplemental administrative tools to support not only market, but also regulatory experimentation and innovation.


Research problem: For knowledge workers, such as IT professionals, the ties within their social network are a major channel for communicating the requisite knowledge and information. While prior studies tended to favor higher network centrality (i.e., larger volume of network ties), in this study, the researchers argue that centrality can reduce communication efficiency if the diversity of the ties is low. Research question: Which characteristic of communication ties, volume or diversity, has more influence on knowledge workers' performance? Literature review: Using social network analysis (SNA) as the theoretical framework, a review of the literature shows that social network ties have important performance implications because they can enhance an individual's access to valued resources. Studies have also examined the performance impact of "hindrance network centrality," or how frequently a person is described by other network members as a hindrance to their performance. However, current research has overlooked the possible negative communication consequences of centrality in regards to redundant information, which may negatively affect job performance. Methodology: The current study employs a quantitative approach, using the standard SNA method of a "name generator" questionnaire to collect network data. Participants were 98 people in the IT department at a large defense company. We identified 3905 relationships and analyzed them with the UCINET software. Subsequently, social network variables, as well as performance and human capital variables were analyzed in logistic regressions. Results and discussion: Results showed a significant relationship between constraint, a measure of tie diversity, and performance. Centrality, the measure of tie volume, however, was not significantly related to performance. Our findings about the volume versus diversity of communication ties have important implications for professional communicators in the age of fast-growing social network media. A limitation of our study is that we approximated communication ties with social network links. We suggest that future studies further validate our findings by using a more direct measure of communication ties.


Summary CellProfiler Analyst allows the exploration and visualization of image-based data, together with the classification of complex biological phenotypes, via an interactive user interface designed for biologists and data scientists. CellProfiler Analyst 2.0, completely rewritten in Python, builds on these features and adds enhanced supervised machine learning capabilities (in Classifier), as well as visualization tools to overview an experiment (Plate Viewer and Image Gallery). Availability CellProfiler Analyst 2.0 is free and open source, available at http://www.cellprofiler.org/releases and from GitHub (https://github.com/CellProfiler/CellProfiler-Analyst) under the BSD license. It is available as a packaged application for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows and can be compiled for Linux. We implemented an automatic build process that supports nightly updates and regular release cycles for the software. Contact email@example.com Supplementary information Supplementary Text 1: Manual to CellProfiler Analyst; updated versions are available at CellProfiler.org/CPA Supplementary Data 1: Benchmarking performance of classifiers in CPA 2.0 versus CPA 1.0


Background:Homeless persons who suffer of mental illness are one group which is marginalized worldwide. Homeless people have a fragmentary contact with healthcare and many of those who have drug abuse problems and mental illness are still undiagnosed. Still, this is not their only issue when various state agencies argue about who will take responsibility for this persons. Aim: To describe the factors that are perceived supportive or restrictive by homeless people with mental illness. Method: The material has been gathered via systematic and unsystematic searches and the study was designed as a literature review. The articles which responded to the aim of this study were included and it resulted in twelve articles. Results: The approach and attitudes of the healthcare workers is experienced negatively by the homeless persons because of their discrimination and stigmatization. Experiences suck as lack of coordination and cooperation between healthcare, lack of health insurance, social isolation and poor paid jobs or no jobs at all are also common. Still, there were some positive experience such as healthcare workers and staff who listened, care and implicated themselves in the homeless person's problems and situation, they gave them presents or made jokes. Conclusion: The healthcare workers needs knowledge about homeless people's experience of various factors that promote or sets limits in promoting health. This knowledge is needed in order to improve the healthcare workers approach.


Disturbances generated by forest restoration treatments have the potential for enhancing the establishment of nonnative species thereby impeding long-term native plant recovery. In a ponderosa pine forest next to the Fort Valley Experimental Forest, Arizona, we examined the establishment of nonnative species after three alternative treatments with different intensities of tree thinning, coupled with prescribed burning and an untreated control, in relation to total species abundance and richness. Pretreatment data were collected in 1998 and postreatment responses were measured from 2001 through 2006. Total herbaceous cover and richness were significantly higher in the two more intensely thinned areas compared to the control over the entire post-treatment period. Native species were the most prevalent in terms of cover (92%) and richness (90%) across all treated units, though greater understory plant responses were linked to heavier amounts of tree thinning. Nonnative species abundance and richness also increased significantly in response to restoration treatments, particularly in the two more intense treatments. The proportion of nonnative abundance to the total abundance within the two heavily treated areas decreased through time and began to converge back towards the undisturbed control unit. One year following treatments, 15% of the total cover (27%) was composed of nonnative species in the heaviest treated unit. This proportion dropped almost 50% by the fifth year following treatment. Our results suggest that disturbances associated with restoration treatments can facilitate establishment of nonnative plants, however the post-treatment plant community was increasingly dominated by native species.


Single stage hydrothermal pretreatment was conducted mostly for converting biomass to ethanol. It was optimized to increase the sugar yield benefiting the following ethanol production process, but also produced inhibitors impacting the ethanol yield. Overall optimization must take into account the yield of both the sugars and the inhibitors. We were evaluating two-stage acid-alkaline pretreatment to convert Miscanthus, one potentially profitable biomass in the Midwest, to reduce the production of inhibitors while maintaining a high sugar yield. In the first stage, dilute acid treatment with 0.49% sulfuric acid was conducted at 160 oC for 20 min for hemicelluloses removal. The second stage was carried out by aqueous ammonia treatment with 1:1 ammonia biomass loading at 240 oC for 10 min for delignification. The results indicated that two-stage pretreatment produced at least 730% more xylose, but 60% less inhibitor (acetic acid) than one-stage pretreatment, two-stage acid or alkaline pretreatment. In addition, one-stage acid pretreatment was optimized to degrade hemicelluloses by varying pretreatment temperature (160, 170, 180 oC), residence time (20, 35 min) and sulfuric acid concentration (0.5, 0.75, 1.0 wt%). The highest xylose yield of 12.6% was achieved at 160 oC, 20 min, and 0.75 wt% H2SO4 , with the lowest inhibitor production of 35.8 acetic acid, 0.96 HMF, and 24.1 mg/g dry biomass furfural. Therefore, the advantages of two-stage acid-alkaline pretreatment over the other two-stage pretreatments and one-stage pretreatments was testified and a better operating condition was found through optimization in the acid stage.


We describe and illustrate lesions in an outbreak of lead arsenate poisoning in beef cattle that ingested pesticide residues stored in an abandoned building of a former orange orchard. Of 70 exposed cattle, 14 had diarrhea, paresis, ataxia, recumbency, and/or seizures. Ten of the affected animals died after a clinical course of 12–18 h. Pathologic findings in 3 steers included extensive necrohemorrhagic, ulcerative rumenitis, omasitis, and abomasitis; lymphocytolysis in lymphoid organs; and nephrosis. Hepatic arsenic and lead levels in cases 1–3 were 20, 24, and 31 ppm, and 8.3, 25, and 9.4 ppm, respectively. Lesions in the forestomachs and lymphoid tissues have been rarely reported in cases of lead arsenate poisoning. In southern South America, these lesions are indistinguishable from those produced by Baccharis coridifolia, a toxic plant that contains macrocyclic trichothecenes, thus these conditions should be considered in the differential diagnosis of necrotizing lesions in alimentary and lymphoid organs.


cultivated land transfer is an important way to deal with the conflict between the cultivated land fragmentation of landholders and the large-scale agricultural modernization in china. The farm households, as the direct user of culti - vated land, play a key role in the cultivated land transfer. For this paper, a survey of 1 396 farm households in 74 villages, 64 townships, 42 counties in Jiangxi, the traditional agricultural province, was conducted. Using this information, a logistic regression model was employed and the attitudes of those farm households were analyzed using the family characteristics, the household economic factors and the resource endowments. The results showed that there is a little incentive for the cul - tivated land transfer and no macro-environment exists for the cultivated land transfer market because of the low economic benefits. Farm households which moved out to urban areas for employment play the most important role in the cultivated land transfer and become the largest force to drive the cultivated land transfer out. Family income also affects the cultivated land transfer; the income of farm households transferring cultivated land in is much lower than those of the cultivated land transferring out. in addition, the topographic characteristic of cultivated land is also an important factor influencing the cultivated land transfer; it is easier to transfer land out if the terrain is flat, but it is more difficult if the land is fragmented.