Methane (CH4) is one of the most important greenhouse gases (IPCC, 2005). Lakes and reservoirs have been identified as important, but overlooked, sources to the global CH4 budget. CH4 emission pathways include dissolved gas exchange at the water surface, bubble transport (ebullition), and degassing at the turbines of a hydropower dam or further downstream (Soumis, et al., 2005). Ebullition is an extremely effective pathway as bubbles
mostly bypass oxidation at the sediment surface or in the water column and directly emit CH4. The stochastic nature of ebullition, however, makes it incredibly difficult to estimate; thus the aim of this study was to compare the traditional funnel method for measuring ebullition with a
mass balance system analysis, atmospheric CH4 measurements, and hydroacoustic surveying.
A yearlong CH4 survey was conducted at 2.5 km2 Lake Wohlen, a 90-yr-old run-of-river hydropower reservoir along the Aare River downstream of Bern, Switzerland. Dissolved CH4
([CH4]d) profiles were measured monthly at the river inflow and at the dam. Sediment surface and water surface CH4 diffusion and CH4 oxidation in the water column were measured and/or calculated. Gas trap funnels measured ebullition near the seabed; drifting chambers captured total surface CH4 emissions. A bubble dissolution model was used to assess fractions of CH4 dissolving into the water and emitted to the atmosphere from bubbles. Complete method details in DelSontro, et al. (2010). Drifting chamber campaigns were accompanied by hydroacoustic surveys using an echosounder (Simrad EK60, 120 kHz). Eddy covariance
measurements of atmospheric CH4 fluxes (EC/CH4) over the lake were made in conjunction with a cavity ringdown laser spectrometer (Los Gatos Research DLT-100). For details, see
Eugster and Pluss (in press).
It was discovered that [CH4]d increased by an order of magnitude along the reservoir and the [CH4]d accumulation was exponentially correlated with water temperature (T) (Figure 1a).
The bubble dissolution model predicted that 70% of bubble-conveyed CH4 would reach the atmosphere, resulting in ~470 mg CH4 m-2 d-1 emitted to the atmosphere at T=17°C. Sediment and surface diffusions did not vary much with season and played a much lesser role in CH4 emissions than ebullition. Methane oxidation was negligible in this oxic reservoir with an average 2-day residence time.
A system analysis was developed to better constrain the stochastic pattern of ebullition.
Assuming no ebullition in winter (T<10°C), sediment diffusion was estimated based on [CH4]d accumulation in water at a given flow rate. The [CH4]d accumulation and T regression was used to estimate [CH4]d from dissolving bubbles at various T regimes which, at T=17°C,
agreed well with funnel measurements (140 and 220 mg CH4 m-2 d-1, respectively). Using the bubble dissolution model results, sediment ebullition and atmospheric emissions were
calculated and agreed well with empirical results. Considering all CH4 dissolved into the water from rising bubbles will either degas at the turbines or further downstream, Lake Wohlen thus emits ~156 mg CH4 m-2 d-1 on average throughout the year (140 tons/yr; Figure
1b), the highest recorded for a temperate reservoir to date (Soumis, et al., 2005) and of which ~80% is from ebullition.
Drifting chambers captured emissions (mean, 855 mg CH4 m-2 d-1) much higher than those estimated with the system analysis at 17°C, but chambers were deployed in a highly active ebullition area. The chamber emissions agreed, however, with the peak CH4 emissions measured by EC/CH4 in the same region and are comparable to emissions estimated via hydroacoustics. These findings further highlight the importance in a potentially warming climate of (1) temperature-correlated CH4 ebullition emissions from temperate water bodies, and (2) these promising techniques for quantifying them.


This article describes and elaborates on a case of institutional entrepreneurship for sustainable development in higher education and research collaboration in a Swedish academic milieu. We argue, much in line with the contemporary international policy debate about climate change, that universities can and should have a leading role in producing new knowledge and innovation for the promotion of sustainable development. We consider that higher education and the whole university organisation, rather than just research, should be analysed regarding institutionalising sustainable development, which is not emphasised in the policy debate. In our conceptualisation of sustainable development, we argue that entrepreneurship and, more specifically, institutional entrepreneurship, can be used as an interesting normative and theoretical model. By drawing upon the concept of institutional entrepreneurship, we try to open up for the reflective exploration of three projects that illustrate the institutionalisation of sustainable development. While doing so, we identify the critical areas for further theoretical and empirical research from the perspective of institutional entrepreneurship.


This paper presents an efficient modular algorithm for the dynamic simulation of robots constrained through a single contact. Such configurations include single robots with closed-loop topologies, as well as, multiple robots with simple series, parallel, and bracing topologies. The modular nature of the algorithm enables the incorporation of existing open-chain models for the individual robots without significant reprogramming, while a general contact model extends the range of possible contact conditions to include both holonomic and nonholonomic constraints. The algorithm is validated through the simulation of two robots cooperating in parallel. This paper establishes an accurate framework for simulating simple robot systems with single contacts, which can be extended to multi-robot, multi-contact systems performing general tasks.


Introduction: The prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing in pediatric age and that is traditionally associated with worse oral health. However, in the literature this association is controversial. We intend to characterize the prevalence of overweight, obesity and caries in a pediatric population and check for an association between caries and body mass index.
Methods: Retrospective study of children aged 5 years or older, followed in a primary care unit in Lisbon.Demographic data such as age and sex, anthropometric data (height, weight and body mass index with percentile) and presence or absence of caries were analyzed.
Results: A sample of 1,398 children with an average age of 9.96 ± 3.39 years at the last visit was obtained, without gender predominance. In relation to the body mass index percentile, 3.1% had 97. Only 730 clinical records referenced oral health, with a caries prevalence of 59.5%. There was a statistically significant association between the body mass index percentile < 3 and caries (p = 0.004; odds ratio 4.27, confidence interval 95% 1.47-12.48) that was independent of age.
Discussion: These results reveal that approximately one in four children are overweight or obese and three in five have caries. Body mass index percentiles < 3 are associated with a higher prevalence of caries. It is vital to continue to promote healthy lifestyles in all primary care consultations.


Statecraft and Insect Oeconomies in the Global French Enlightenment (1670-1815) Pierre-Etienne Stockland Naturalists, state administrators and farmers in France and its colonies developed a myriad set of techniques over the course of the long eighteenth century to manage the circulation of useful and harmful insects. The development of normative protocols for classifying, depicting and observing insects provided a set of common tools and techniques for identifying and tracking useful and harmful insects across great distances. Administrative techniques for containing the movement of harmful insects such as quarantine, grain processing and fumigation developed at the intersection of science and statecraft, through the collaborative efforts of diplomats, state administrators, naturalists and chemical practitioners. The introduction of insectivorous animals into French colonies besieged by harmful insects was envisioned as strategy for restoring providential balance within environments suffering from human-induced disequilibria. Naturalists, administrators, and agricultural improvers also collaborated in projects to maximize the production of useful substances secreted by insects, namely silk, dyes and medicines. A study of these scientific and administrative techniques will shed light on how scientists, administrators and lay practitioners in the French Enlightenment came to assess and manage the risks and opportunities afforded by the related processes of commercial and ecological globalization.


The article moves from an auto-ethnographic approach to reflect on spaces and practices of conviviality in a tenement house located in Porta Palazzo, a neighbourhood of Turin characterized by longstanding immigration and cultural diversity. The "biography" of the building mirrors the story of the surrounding area: in the last century, it experienced multiple forms of mobility, hosting internal immigrants from southern Italy, then international immigrants from all over the world and finally a growing number of tourists attracted by its cosmopolitan atmosphere. Today the flats are therefore inhabited by a remarkably diverse population, among whom everyday conflicts, strategic alliances, exchanges and misunderstandings arise about the various dimensions of shared living. Recently, the tenants were engaged by the author in a participative project to collect stories and memories of the house which resulted in the decision to carry out a series of convivial activities in the large courtyard of the building. Analysing the process of (re)generation of social relations observed in this specific context, the article argues that anthropologists should consider the apartment buildings to be a field where they can apply their knowledge to realize initiatives that support inclusion, interaction and solidarity among residents. This is a challenge made even more urgent by the recent lockdown resulting from the Covid-19 epidemic.


Instance-level human analysis is common in real-life scenarios and has multiple manifestations, such as human part segmentation, dense pose estimation, human-object interactions, etc. Models need to distinguish different human instances in the image panel and learn rich features to represent the details of each instance. In this paper, we present an end-to-end pipeline for solving the instance-level human analysis, named Parsing R-CNN. It processes a set of human instances simultaneously through comprehensive considering the characteristics of region-based approach and the appearance of a human, thus allowing representing the details of instances. Parsing R-CNN is very flexible and efficient, which is applicable to many issues in human instance analysis. Our approach outperforms all state-of-the-art methods on CIHP (Crowd Instance-level Human Parsing), MHP v2.0 (Multi-Human Parsing) and DensePose-COCO datasets. Based on the proposed Parsing R-CNN, we reach the 1st place in the COCO 2018 Challenge DensePose Estimation task. Code and models are publicly available.


Routine dissection of right upper limb in a 45-year-old male cadaver revealed a variation in the branching pattern of the axillary artery. Normally the 2nd part of axillary artery gives two branches: the lateral thoracic and the thoraco-acromial, whereas the third part gives the anterior circumflex humeral, posterior circumflex humeral and subscapular arteries. But in this case the second part gave only one branch, i.e., thoraco-acromial and the third part gave the anterior circumflex humeral and a common trunk which gave the lateral thoracic, subscapular, posterior circumflex humeral, circumflex scapular and a muscular branch. Awareness about details and topographic anatomy of variation of axillary artery may serve as a guide for both radiologists and vascular surgeons. During surgeries for lymph nodes in the axilla and surgeries for pectoral region, presence of such variations must be kept in mind. © Int J Anat Var (IJAV). 2013; 6: 31–33.


Since we use a very strict control of the viability of the endothelium of the graft, we have no more failures in corneal grafting not even in cases with bad prognoses, such as Fuchs' endothelial dystrophy. On the contrary, in corneal grafting without this control, we had failures in 20% of the cases.


Background and Hypothesis: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with a prevalence of 2.76% among children ages 3-17 in the United States1. Some studies have linked total brain volume overgrowth or gyrification changes to ASD2,3,4. However, few have attempted to relate specific growth patterns to ASD. We hypothesize that regional differences in brain growth in subjects aged 12-24 months will correlate with diagnoses from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS).
Project Methods: The subjects for this study came from the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS)5. The CIVET pipeline was used to segment T1-weighted magnetic resonance images (MRIs) into surfaces using a non-linear classification method5,6,7. CIVET quality control outputs were used for validation and to select parameters for the tasks along with previous recommendations5,8. Analysis of Functional NeuroImages (AFNI) was used to convert the CIVET output format, and Connectome Workbench was used to calculate surface curvature. Using cortical reconstructions and surface curvatures from 12- and 24-month brains, anatomically-constrained Multimodal Surface Matching (aMSM) was applied to achieve point correspondence and generate individual cortical growth maps9,10.
Results: Within the IBIS database, we found 38 individuals with ASD and 121 controls with T1weighted scans at both 12 and 24-month time points. Once individual growth maps have been generated for all subjects, Permutation Analysis of Linear Models (PALM)11 will be used to determine statistically significant differences in the cortical growth patterns of ASD versus control groups.
Conclusion and Potential Impact: Research on autism may benefit from longitudinal studies of growth, as opposed to analysis of structural differences at later ages4. We concentrate on cortical growth before 24 months, which may serve as an earlier marker of ASD, when abnormal brain growth can be seen yet social deficits are not fully established5.

[1] Zablotsky B, Black LI, Blumberg SJ. Estimated Prevalence of Children With Diagnosed Developmental Disabilities in the United States, 2014–2016. NCHS Data Brief 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db291.pdf (accessed April 29, 2019).
[2] Libero LE, Schaer M, Li DD, Amaral DG, Nordahl CW. A Longitudinal Study of Local Gyrification Index in Young Boys With Autism Spectrum Disorder. Cereb Cortex. 2019;29(6):2575-87.
[3] Raznahan A, Toro R, Daly E, Robertson D, Murphy C, Deeley Q, et al. Cortical anatomy in autism spectrum disorder: an in vivo MRI study on the effect of age. Cereb Cortex. 2010;20(6):1332-40.
[4] Duret P, Samson F, Pinsard B, Barbeau EB, Bore A, Soulieres I, et al. Gyrification changes are related to cognitive strengths in autism. Neuroimage Clin. 2018;20:415-23.
[5] Hazlett HC, Gu H, Munsell BC, Kim SH, Styner M, Wolff JJ, et al. Early brain development in infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorder. Nature. 2017;542(7641):348-51.
[6] Shaw P, Malek M, Watson B, Sharp W, Evans A, Greenstein D. Development of cortical surface area and gyrification in attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder. Biol Psychiatry. 2012;72(3):191-7.
[7] Ad-Dab'bagh, Y., Einarson, D., Lyttelton, O., Muehlboeck, J.-S., Mok, K., Ivanov, O., Vincent, R.D., Lepage, C., Lerch, J., Fombonne, E., and Evans, A.C. (2006). The CIVET Image-Processing Environment: A Fully Automated Comprehensive Pipeline for Anatomical Neuroimaging Research. In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, M. Corbetta, ed. (Florence, Italy, NeuroImage). http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/users/yaddab/Yasser-HBM2006-Poster.pdf
[8] Shaw P, Kabani NJ, Lerch JP, Eckstrand K, Lenroot R, Gogtay N, et al. Neurodevelopmental trajectories of the human cerebral cortex. J Neurosci. 2008;28(14):3586-94.
[9] Garcia KE, Robinson EC, Alexopoulos D, Dierker DL, Glasser MF, Coalson TS, et al. Dynamic patterns of cortical expansion during folding of the preterm human brain. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018;115(12):3156-61.
[10] Robinson EC, Garcia K, Glasser MF, Chen Z, Coalson TS, Makropoulos A, et al. Multimodal surface matching with higher-order smoothness constraints. Neuroimage. 2018;167:453-65.
[11] Winkler AM, Ridgway GR, Webster MA, Smith SM, Nichols TE. Permutation inference for the general linear model. NeuroImage, 2014;92:381-397 (Open Access)


Metallic hafnium has good comprehensive performance that makes it the preferred material for control rods of nuclear reactors. The elemental composition, mechanical properties, the corrosion resistance and the physical characteristics of hafnium plate are researched during the development of control rod for reactors. It proved the manufacturing method of hafnium plate is appropriate, characteristic of materials meet the requirement of a control rod.


The demographics in Denmark are changing. People's life expectancy is increasing, which puts a strain on the home care resources. The aim of this article is to get a deeper insight to how a specific medication robot in elders' homes can be further developed and modified to create more independence. An insight to the end users is created through the use of participatory design methods. The methods illuminate the fact that the medication robots design is gawky, its alarm volume is too low, the robot itself is too big and that it lacks the functionality of being transportable.


In recent years, Indonesia's foreign policy seems to portray moderate Islamic identity. This is, however, in contrast with the practices of Indonesia's foreign policy itself. Historically, Indonesia has been avoiding the possibility of reflecting the Islamic identity, although the majority of Indonesia's population is Muslim. This situation raises a question, "Why does Indonesia's current foreign policy promote moderate Islamic identity?" The methodology used in this study is a qualitative method, specifically discourse analysis. There are four results of this study. First of all, by portraying moderate Islamic identity, Indonesia wants to distinguish itself from the other Muslim-majority countries, especially those in the Middle East region. Second, there are expectations from the international community, especially Western countries, to understand and to get closer to the Muslim world. Third, Indonesian Government wants to accommodate the voice of domestic Muslim community that has been expecting a better relation with the Muslim world. Last but not least, in accordance with the consistency of its worldview, Indonesia has a motivation to take part in international relations.


Spinal cord injury is a common form of trauma. Ginkgolide B can affect the function of the nervous system. This research established a rat spinal cord injury model to investigate the impact of ginkgolide B on spinal cord injury and its relationship with STAT1 signaling pathway. Spinal cord injury model was applied on rats according to the reference. The rats were randomly divided into sham operation group, spinal cord injury group, and ginkgolide B group. Inclined plate test and Basso Beattie Bresnahan (BBB) score were adopted for evaluation. Cell apoptosis was evaluated by TUNEL assay. Bcl-2, Bax, and p-STAT1 expressions were measured by Western blot. Ginkgolide B significantly reduced cell apoptosis induced by spinal cord injury at 12 h, 24 h, and 48 h (P<0.05). Bcl-2 increased, while Bax declined in spinal cord injury rat. Ginkgolide B treatment markedly decreased Bcl-2 level and elevated Bax expression (P<0.05). Cell number in the spinal gray matter obviously increased after ginkgolide B treatment for 12 h, 24 h, and 48 h compared with spinal cord injury group (P<0.05). Spinal cord injury enhanced STAT1 phosphorylation, whereas ginkgolide B declined STAT1 phosphorylation at 12 h, 24 h, and 48 h (P<0.05). Ginkgolide B significantly increased rat inclined plate test results and BBB score (P<0.05). Ginkgolide B showed protective role in spinal cord injury by affecting STAT1 signaling pathway.


Photodetectors are cornerstone components in integrated optical circuits and are essential for applications underlying modern science and engineering. Structures harnessing conventional crystalline materials are typically at the heart of such devices. In particular, group-IV semiconductors such as silicon and germanium open up more possibilities for high-performing on-chip photodetection thanks to their favorable electrical and optical properties at near-infrared wavelengths and processing compatibility with modern chip manufacturing. However, scaling the performance of silicon-germanium photodetectors to technologically relevant levels and benefiting from improved speed, reduced driving bias, enhanced sensitivity, and lowered power consumption arguably remains key for densely integrated photonic links in mainstream shortwave infrared optical communications. Here we report on a reliable 40 Gbps direct detection of chip-integrated silicon-germanium avalanche p-i-n photo receiver driven with low-bias supplies at 1.55 µm wavelength. The avalanche photodetection scheme calls upon fabrication steps commonly used in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor foundries, alleviating the need for complex epitaxial wafer structures and/or multiple ion implantation schemes. The photo receiver exhibits an internal multiplication gain of 120, a high gain-bandwidth product up to 210 GHz, and a low effective ionization coefficient of ∼0.25. Robust and stable photodetection at 40 Gbps of on–off keying modulation is achieved at low optical input powers, without any need for receiver electronic stages. Simultaneously, compact avalanche p-i-n photodetectors with submicrometric heterostructures promote error-free operation at transmission bit rates of 32 Gbps and 40 Gbps, with power sensitivities of −12.8dBm and −11.2dBm, respectively (for 10−9 error rate and without error correction coding during use). Such a performance in an on-chip avalanche photodetector is a significant step toward large-scale integrated optoelectronic systems. These achievements are promising for use in data center networks, optical interconnects, or quantum information technologies.


In 1918, the Municipality of Bloemfontein saw the establishment of Batho as the new location for the town's black and coloured people as an opportunity to not only establish a so called model location but also a garden location. Batho's founding must be viewed within the historical context of British-style town and urban planning, as well as the racist and segregationist policies implemented by the Union Government. The model location ideology not only encompassed proper layout and improved amenities but also meant striving towards aesthetic ideals. Such ideals implied the beautification of Batho by means of laying out domestic and public gardens, as well as the mass planting of trees. In order to turn Batho into a garden location, the Town Council implemented certain initiatives which included efforts to secure a reliable water supply and to introduce special water tariffs; the allocation of allotment gardens; the provision of a fresh-produce market for location residents; the distribution of trees free of charge, and other tree-planting initiatives; and, finally, the provision of a public "park" for Batho. While some of the motivations behind these initiatives were, indeed, driven by aesthetic ideals, others were deeply rooted in segregationist thinking and ideology. The municipality's efforts and initiatives, as well as the Batho residents' reactions to these, were key factors in the quest to turn Batho into a garden location. These efforts, initiatives, and reactions are investigated and critically assessed in order to determine whether the municipality's attempts to create a garden location were "successful". This article focuses on the period considered to be Batho's "golden age", that is, 1918-1939.


Background How HILS have been integrating eye tracking technology into simulation based training. This introduced many technological opportunities and challenges. A look at how the need for further training in human factors led to the purchase of the eye tracking technology. Research has been carried out from a training perspective and a technical perspective. The complexity of the technology meant much training and testing has been implemented and has led to some tech hybrid simulation based training in cardiology and anaesthetics. Innovations The development of the streamlining of the technology to make it more accessible for users – replacing large laptop with tablet device and an easier way of wearing the technology to increase mobility. Pairing the eye tracking technology in simulation training along with Laerdal SimMan 3G and the Simbionix Angiomentor for hybrid technology enhanced training. Outcomes Ability to export video and data to analyse candidates behaviour and focus in clinical situations. Enhancement of skills for tech team and other operators with this extremely advanced technology. The integration of eye tracking technology in the training of clinicians and research at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and the Yorkshire and Humber region. Take-home messages The potential use of this and other advanced technology such as eye tracking in the future of clinical training and research? How we have merged this technology with our existing systems. How we learnt to use this technology to suit our centre's needs. Reference Makani Purva


The efficacy of five disinfecting agents was tested by a new microbiological method, i.e. the flow cytometry. The method is based on kinetic measurements of the effects of a disinfecting agent on the percent of live/dead cells detected with propidium iodide. E. coli ATCC52922 strain and S. aureus ATCC 29213 strain were used in the experiment. From the measurements the killing time 50 (KT50) was estimated as the period of time needed to kill 50% of microorganisms in the disinfected volume. KT50 for ethanol 70% was 11s and it was the most efficient disinfecting agent among all examined. Other commercial preparations were compared with ethanol 70% and were traced throughout the period of 5 min. The results were obtained rapidly, frequently in less than 10 min. In conclusion, the effectiveness of a particular antibacterial disinfectant preparation may be estimated quantitatively within a few minutes by the flow cytometry. The method proved to be very useful for a fast comparison of the effectiveness of various disinfectant preparation against pathological microorganisms.


Background Psoriasis makes stress in patients and stress could play a role on the onset and exacerbation of psoriasis. Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) are associated with a variety of psychological problems, mainly anxiety and depression, although most of patients suffer from both anxiety and depressive symptoms of limited and equal intensity accompanied by at least some autonomic features and excluding severe anxiety and depressive symptoms (mixed anxiety-depressive disorder or MADD). Objectives The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence of MADD in clinical practice among PsA patients from our registry on treatment with biological therapy (bDMARDs) and to analyze their possible relation with characteristics of the disease or treatments in these patients. Methods We included all PsA patients (met CASPAR criteria) following treatment with bDMARDs and included in our regional registry (reference population 2.055.000). Was recorded the history of attending a mental health consultation since PsA diagnoses and before starting biologics therapy and if they were diagnosed as a mixed of anxiety and depression disorder (F41.2, ICD-10) and treated by non severe anxiety and depressive symptoms. We used for this analysis sex, age, disease duration, current bDMARDs with or without current co-medication with csDMARDs (methotrexate or leflunomide or sulfasalazine) and HLA-B27 status. Continuous variables were reported as mean ± standard deviation. Categorical variables were reported as percentages and frequencies. All analyses were performed using SPSS software. Differences were considered statistically significant if p<0.05 (two-tailed). Results We have registered 604 PsA patients who have been treated with bDMARDs. Three-hundred and twenty nine (54.5%) patients were men, mean age was 53.3±12.6 years and disease duration of PsA was 12.4±8.7 years. MADD was diagnosed in 99 patients (16.4%), and was more frequent in women than in men (21.1% vs 12.5%, p=0.004), with no differences in age of diagnosis and disease duration of PsA, nail disease, dactylitis, uveitis or HLA-B27. MADD was more prevalent in patients with enthesitis (31.9% vs 12.0%, p<0.0001) and PsA with axial involvement was associated with MADD (p=0.003). Etanercept (42%) and adalimumab (36%) were bDMARDs more used -56.2% with associated csDMARDs - and 67.9% of patients remained in the first biologic with a mean follow-up of 4.9 years. Infliximab was most used bDMARDs in patients with previous MADD (p=0.001). Conclusions Mixed anxiety-depressive disorder was more prevalent in women with PsA in our registry. It was associated more frequently with the axial disease, enthesitis and most use of infliximab like bDMARDs established in these patients. References McDonough E, Ayearst R, Eder L, Chandran V, Rosen CF, Thavaneswaran A, Gladman DD. Depression and anxiety in psoriatic disease: prevalence and associated factors. J Rheumatol. 2014;41(5):887–96. Acknowledgements The authors are grateful for the support of the members of the Galician Society of Rheumatology (SOGARE). Disclosure of Interest None declared


This exhibition presents the outcome of an exciting collaborative project between Leicestershire County Council's Snibston Discovery Museum and The University of Huddersfield Fashion department.
The NEXT archive held at the museum was the research foundation for a project with second year design and promotion students. They used the archive to research garments and promotional material from the 1980's. The promotion students created a new fashion brand inspired by the items they had researched. The design students researched three archive garments and ephemera, which inspired and informed the designs of tailored womenswear outfits for Autumn/Winter 2013/14.
Leicestershire County Council Museum Service supported the unique opportunity for direct hands on research of the NEXT archive allowing students to handle garments and other original material. This research is vital for students to understand and explore techniques, textures, cut, design proportions, styles and aesthetics first hand. This research develops a students' skill in honest evaluation of products from a period they have not experienced first hand for themselves.
The students involved in the project were all from the following courses
BA(Hons) Fashion Design with Textiles
BA(Hons) Fashion Design with Marketing and Promotion
BA(Hons) Fashion Communication and Promotion


Abstract Ice stream discharge responds to a balance between gravity, basal friction and lateral drag. Appreciable viscous heating occurs in shear margins between ice streams and adjacent slow-moving ice ridges, altering the temperature-dependent viscosity distribution that connects lateral drag to marginal strain rates and ice stream velocity. Warmer ice deforms more easily and accommodates faster flow, whereas cold ice supplied from ice ridges drives advective cooling that counteracts viscous heating. Here, we present a two-dimensional (three velocity component), steady-state model designed to explore the thermal controls on ice stream shear margins. We validate our treatment through comparison with observed velocities for Bindschadler Ice Stream and verify that calculated temperatures are consistent with results from previous studies. Sweeping through a parameter range that encompasses conditions representative of ice streams in Antarctica, we show that modeled steady-state velocity has a modest response to different choices in forcing up until temperate zones develop in the shear margins. When temperate zones are present, velocity is much more sensitive to changes in forcing. We identify key scalings for the emergence of temperate conditions in our idealized treatment that can be used to identify where thermo-mechanical feedbacks influence the evolution of the ice sheet.


This paper empirically analyses whether both personal and corporate taxation have an impact on companies' capital structure decisions. We investigate the effect of the difference in taxation of debt and equity financing on capital structures. Our empirical results, based on a comprehensive panel of European firm-level data, suggest that a higher tax benefit of debt has the expected significant positive impact on a company's financial leverage. Particularly, we find evidence that the capital structures of smaller companies respond more heavily to changes in the tax benefit of debt. Additional analysis confirms that not only corporate taxes are relevant for corporate financial planning, but variation in capital income tax rates at the shareholder level implicates significant capital structure adjustments as well. Moreover, we find substitutive relationships between non-debt tax shields and the effect of the corporate tax rate on capital structures.


The activation sequence-1(as-1)-like element found in the promoter of some glutathione S-transferase (GST) genes, has been previously described as a salicylic acid (SA)- and auxin-responsive element. In this paper, we tested the hypothesis that the activating effect of SA on the as-1 element is mediated by oxidative species. Supporting this hypothesis, our results show that the antioxidants dimethylthiourea (DMTU) and 3-t-butyl-4-hydroxy-anizole (BHA) inhibit the SA-induced transcription of genes controlled by as-1 elements in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants [i.e. GNT35gene coding for a GST and (as-1)4 /β-glucuronidase(GUS) reporter transgene]. DMTU and BHA also inhibit SA-activated as-1-binding activity in nuclear extracts. Further support for the hypothesis that the as-1 element is activated by oxidative species comes from our result showing that light potentiates the SA-induced activation of the as-1element. Furthermore, methyl viologen, a known oxidative stress inducer in plants, also activates the as-1 element. Increasing H2O2 levels by incubation with H2O2 or with the catalase inhibitor 3-amino-1,2,5-triazole does not activate the (as-1)4 /GUS gene. On the contrary, 3-amino-1,2,5-triazole inhibits the activating effect of SA on the (as-1)4 /GUSgene. These results suggest that oxidative species other than H2O2 mediate the activation of theas-1 element by SA. Our results also suggest that even though the as-1 binding activity is stimulated by oxidative species, this is not sufficient for the transactivation of genes controlled by this element. The complex interplay between SA and reactive oxygen species in the transcriptional activation of defense genes is discussed.


This introduces you to a reliable approach for finding information and it identifies key library resources on diverse aspects of regional science.


Tonsillectomy has generally been regarded as an in-patient procedure. Presently though, due to rising costs and space constraints, it has increasingly became popular as a day case procedure world-wide. However, careful selection of patients is advised so as to avoid undue risks and possible resulting mortalities. To find out the suitability or otherwise of day case tonsillectomies in a resource poor country, taking note of possible complications arising from the surgeries and also pre-operative management modalities adopted to prevent these. Case notes of 52 Patients who underwent day case tonsillectomies and Adenotonsillectomies over a nine year period were reviewed. Indication for Surgery was recurrent tonsillitis for 11 (25.6) children and Adenotonsillar Hypertrophy for 32 (74.4%) children. The indication for surgery of all the adults was recurrent tonsillitis. Data extracted included age, sex, indication for surgery, procedure used for both Anesthesia and Surgery and complications arising from Surgery. 52 Patients met the criteria for day case surgeries. 43 (82.7) were Children and 9 (17.3%) were Adults. 49 patients (94.3) recovered well except 3 (5.7%) patients who had had complications and had to be admitted overnight afterwards. 1(1.9%) patient represented in the Hospital following earlier discharge for overnight admission. Day case Tonsillectomies/Adenotonsillectomies are relatively safe procedures especially when patients are carefully selected and pre-operative measures to encourage heamostasis instituted.

 Key words: Day case, costs, tonsillectomies, complications, haemostasis.


Background Chronic neck pain (CNP) is prevalent, and it reduces functional status and quality of life and is associated with deleterious psychological outcomes in affected individuals. Despite the desirability of massage and its demonstrated effectiveness in CNP treatment, multiple accessibility barriers exist. Caregiver-applied massage has demonstrated feasibility in various populations but has not been examined in Veterans with CNP or compared in parallel to therapist-delivered massage. Objective This manuscript described the original study design, lessons learned, and resultant design modifications for the Trial Outcomes for Massage: Care Ally–Assisted Versus Therapist-Treated (TOMCATT) study. Methods TOMCATT began as a 3-arm, randomized controlled trial of 2 massage delivery approaches for Veterans with CNP with measures collected at baseline, 1 and 3 months after intervention, and 6 months (follow-up). Arm I, care ally–assisted massage, consisted of an in-person, 3.5-hour training workshop, an instructional DVD, a printed treatment manual, and three 30-minute at-home care ally–assisted massage sessions weekly for 3 months. Arm II, therapist-treated massage, consisted of two 60-minute sessions tailored to individual pain experiences and treatments per week for 3 months. The treatments followed a standardized Swedish massage approach. Arm III consisted of wait-list control. Results Retention and engagement challenges in the first 30 months were significant in the care ally–assisted massage study arm (63% attrition between randomization and treatment initiation) and prompted modification to a 2-arm trial, that is, removing arm I. Conclusions The modified TOMCATT study successfully launched and exceeded recruitment goals 2.5 months before the necessary COVID-19 pause and is expected to be completed by early 2023. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03100539; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03100539 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/38950


This paper presents a case study showing the use of geomorphology to generate design recommendations for linear engineering projects. Landform variations have been described for the Yilgarn Craton in early geomorphological studies of Western Australia, and in programmes of regolith mapping and landscape dating. These variations relate to patterns of tectonics, weathering, erosion and cementation. The paper provides three scales of ground models that capture the material, morphology, environmental history and natural processes of the study area. It also reviews the variation of laboratory test results within the framework of the ground models in order to illustrate the practical value of this approach.


Secondary flows thru annular seals in pumps must be minimized to improve their mechanical efficiency. Annular seals, in particular balance piston seals, also produce rotordynamic force coefficients which easily control the placement of rotor critical speeds and determine system stability. A uniform clearance annular seal produces a direct (centering) static stiffness as a result of the sudden entrance pressure drop at its inlet plane when the fluid flow accelerates from an upstream (stagnant) flow region into a narrow film land. This so called Lomakin effect equates the entrance pressure drop to the dynamic flow head through an empirical entrance pressure loss coefficient. Most seal designs regard the inlet as a sharp edge or square corner. In actuality, a customary manufacturing process could produce a rounded corner at the seal inlet. Furthermore, after a long period of operation, a sharp corner may wear out into a round section. Notice that to this date, bulk flow model (BFM) analyses rely on a hitherto unknown entrance pressure coefficient to deliver accurate predictions for seal force coefficients. This paper establishes the ground to quantify the influence of an inlet round corner on the performance of a water lubricated seal reproducing a configuration tested by Marquette et al. (1997). The smooth surface seal has clearance Cr = 0.11 mm, length L = 35 mm, and diameter D = 76 mm (L/D = 0.46). The test case considers design operation at 10.2 krpm and 6.9 MPa pressure drop. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations apply to a seal with either a sharp edge or an inlet section with curvature rc varying from ¼Cr to 5Cr. Note the largest radius (rc) is just 1.6% of the overall seal length L. Going from a sharp edge inlet plane to one with a small curvature rc = ¼Cr produces a ∼20% decrease on the inlet pressure loss coefficient (ξ). A further reduction occurs with a larger circular corner; ξ drops from 0.43 to 0.17. That is, the entrance pressure loss will be lesser in a seal with a curved inlet. This can occur easily if the inlet edge wears due to solid particles eroding the seal inlet section. Further CFD simulations show that operating conditions in rotor speed and pressure drop do not affect the inlet loss coefficient, while the inlet circumferential swirl velocity does. In addition, further CFD results for a shorter (half) length seal produce a very similar entrance loss coefficient, whereas an enlarged (double) clearance seal leads to an increase in the entrance pressure loss parameter as the inlet section becomes less round.
 CFD predictions for most rotordynamic coefficients are within 10% relative to published test data, except for the direct damping coefficient C. For the seal with a rounded edge (rc = 5 Cr) at the inlet plane, both the direct stiffness K and direct damping C decrease about 10% compared against the coefficients for the seal with a sharp inlet edge. The other force coefficients, namely cross-coupled stiffness and added mass, are unaffected by the inlet edge geometry. The same result holds for seal leakage, as expected. A BFM incorporates the CFD derived entrance pressure loss coefficients and produces rotordynamic coefficients for the same operating conditions. The CFD and BFM predictions are in good agreement, though there is still ∼10% discrepancy for the direct stiffnesses delivered by the two methods. In the end, the analysis of the CFD results quantifies the pressure loss coefficient as a function of the inlet geometry for ready use in engineering BFM tools.


EcoLyst, a formulation of N-N-diethyl-2-(4-methylbenzyloxy) ethylamine hydrochloride containing 1 g/fl oz [4.5 oz/gal (33.8 g·L–1)] a.i., is a plant growth regulator that has been reported to increase soluble solids concentration (SSC) in juice oranges by 0.6% to 1.2%. Our objectives were to determine the effectiveness of EcoLyst application for increasing SSC in Florida oranges (Citrus sinensis) and grapefruit (C. paradisi), and to identify the optimum rate and time of application. Experiments were conducted for three seasons using 'Hamlin,' 'Pineapple,' and 'Valencia' sweet oranges; and for two seasons using 'Flame,' 'Marsh,' and 'Ray Ruby' grapefruit, all in commercial groves. EcoLyst was applied at 6 and 12 fl oz/acre (0.44 and 0.88 L·ha–1) for oranges and 16 and 32 ppm (mg·L–1) [effectively 9 and 18 fl oz/acre (0.66 and 1.32 L·ha–1) in most sprays] for grapefruit, and included Silwet L-77 adjuvant at 0.05%. Applications were made at several stages of development from prebloom to initial fruit set. In all cases, SSC was determined as juice corrected SSC, by adjusting refractometer readings based on titratable acidity. In 13 trials with sweet orange only fi ve displayed signifi cant increases in SSC (P ≤ 0.05) resulting from EcoLyst application. Two additional trials produced SSC increases signifi cant at P < 0.10. Even where signifi cant increases in SSC occurred they were typically observed in only one harvest and at one time of application and were always relatively low in magnitude (highest increase over controls was 0.38%). No rate or timing of EcoLyst application was consistently associated with best response, although eight of nine SSC increases observed in orange occurred with applications ranging from prebloom to 25% open fl owers. Only one signifi cant increase in SSC was observed in fi ve trials with grapefruit. In these studies, increases in SSC resulting from EcoLyst application were neither suffi ciently consistent nor large enough to justify a recommendation for commercial use in Florida citrus.


SUMMARY 1. Microbial communities play a central role in the functioning of freshwater ecosystems, but the impact of severe low flow on microbial processes at the floodplain scale is largely unexplored, especially in terms of patterns in decline of water level. The differential responses of benthic and interstitial microbial communities are also unknown. 2. We explored the structural and functional responses of bacterial and fungal communities to severe low-flow periods at the surface and deep in the sediment of three types of wetland, namely running water, upwelling zones and isolated pools. 3. The different wetland types exhibited distinct microbial communities but the low-flow period induced homogenisation of community composition among wetland types. Despite a convergence in microbial community composition, the response of microbial processes differed among wetland types during the low-flow period: a decrease in biomass and activity in running water and upwelling sites contrasted with an increase observed in isolated pools. 4. Microbial communities and processes deep in the sediment appeared less affected by the low-flow period and wetland type, but were not insensitive. Homogenisation of community compositions at 50 cm depth was observed 1 month after the low-flow period, suggesting drivers distinct from those at the surface. Our results demonstrate the predominant effect of environmental conditions on rates of microbial processes as opposed to community composition. 5. Wetland heterogeneity, in terms of modalities of water level decrease, seems to be important for the maintenance of microbial processes at the floodplain scale in the context of increasing frequency and severity of low-flow periods.


Growing numbers of persons worldwide are beginning to call themselves "men who have sex with men" or "MSM." How has this subject position come into being so swiftly, without the kind of social and political organizing associated with so many claims to identity? And how might considering this novel form of selfhood help us craft anthropological responses to cultural phenomena whose conditions of historical emergence appear "untimely?" In this article, I develop a notion of "proleptic genealogy" to explore the origins of the MSM category, as well as transformations in the category with regard to enumeration, identity, and translocalization. In doing so, I show how anthropological inquiry can engage with emergent cultural logics through forms of anticipatory analysis.


Democracy is on trial in the climate crisis. It is charged with having failed to prevent dangerous climate change. To its critics, the very same features of democracy praised as its defining virtues—popular sovereignty, the accountability and responsiveness of elected officials, public debate and deliberation—are handicaps that impede effective climate action. However, this trial is not over and it would not be safe to deliver a verdict at this stage. The case for authoritarian regimes is flawed in both theory and practice and while it is late for preventing the worst impacts of climate change, there is still a window to provide a climate-safe future. Here, it is overwhelmingly democratic nations that are taking the lead. With this in mind, this Report focuses on democracy and the climate crisis in the Asia and the Pacific region. A regional approach based on case studies has been chosen to contextualize the challenges to democracy arising from this crisis. The Asia and the Pacific region is significant for several reasons—it is the most populous in the world; it is a region that will be disproportionately affected by climate change and where many countries are considered highly vulnerable; and, as this Report makes clear, it is also a place where there have been vibrant innovations to democratic institutions and practices for dealing with the climate crisis.


Stored product insect can cause consumer rejection and economic loss due to quality concerns and  phytosanitary regulation. Insect traps have been regularly used as a control method, however its effectiveness on controlling stored copra meal insect pests is not yet known.This study was carried out to compare the effectiveness of three types of insect traps for detection of insect pests of copra meal.The three types of insect traps were pitfall trap, probe trap, and ultraviolet (UV) light trap (blacklight and LED-light emiting diodes). Research was conducted at Laboratory of Entomology SEAMEO BIOTROP, Bogor and two storage facilities of copra meal in North Sulawesi. Laboratory experiment was conducted using completely randomized design with two factors and four replications. The first factor was the types of insect traps (pitfall trap, probe trap, and probe trap with UV LED) and the second factor was insect species ( Lasioderma serricorne (Herbst) and Tribolium castaneum (Fabricius)). The experiment at storage facilities was conducted with nested block design where the insect species trapped were nested in the insect traps. The result of laboratory experiment showed that the probe trap captured more insects (30.4%) significantly higher than pitfall trap (17.1%), however there was no significant difference of number of insects trapped in probe trap with and without UV LED. In addition the probe trap captured more T. castaneum and Tenebroides mauritanicus than other type of insects trap, but probe trap with UV LED was more effective to detect L. serricorne and Necrobia rufipes (Fabricius) in the stored copra meal.


Background Physical inactivity is a leading cause of obesity, chronic disease and premature mortality. Middle-age is a key lifestage for the development of these risks. In this study, uptake of active commuting is hypothesised to independently predict decreases in bodyweight and bodyfat. Methods UK Biobank is a survey of individuals aged 40–69 at baseline (2006–2010; n = 502,656) selected via NHS patient registers. A subsample participated in a repeat assessment (2012–2013, n = 20,346). For this study, individuals with complete data on analytic variables at baseline and follow-up were selected (n = 4,132). BMI was calculated from objectively measured height and weight (kg/m2). Baseline BMI was subtracted from follow-up BMI to generate the outcome of interest: BMI change. Two binary exposure variables were derived from self-reported commuting mode: (i) experiencing a transition from car commuting at baseline to active/public modes at follow-up; (ii) transition from active/public modes at baseline to car commuting at follow-up (reference categories were those who had retained their baseline mode at follow-up). A range of time-varying and time-invariant socioeconomic, demographic, health and behavioural factors were identified as potential confounders. Nested multivariate linear regression models were fitted using Stata 14. All analyses were replicated using objectively measured percentage body fat change as a supplementary outcome. Results Experiencing a transition from car commuting at baseline to a public/active modes at follow-up (n = 469) independently predicted a −0.30 kg/m2 decrease in BMI (95% CI −0.48 to −0.13), compared with stable car commuting (n = 3,545). Conversely, experiencing a transition from active/public transport commuting to car commuting (n = 405) was significantly and independently predictive of a 0.32 kg/m2 increase in BMI (95% CI 0.13 to 0.50), when compared with stable use of active or public modes (n = 1,272). Adjustment for hypothesised time-varying and time-invariant socioeconomic, demographic, health and behavioural hypothesised confounders did not attenuate the effects of commute mode transition on BMI change. results from complementary percentage body fat analyses were corroborative. Conclusion To the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to use UK Biobank's nested cohort to investigate the effects of active commuting on adiposity. The findings suggest a causal relationship between active commuting and objectively measured markers for obesity in this middle-aged UK sample. Sample size constraints necessitated the combining of active and public modes, leading to probable underestimation of effects for walking and cycling. This research supports the case for interventions to promote active commuting as a population-level policy response to the prevention of obesity in mid-life.


Millions of children have multiple nutritional deficiencies, threatening their optimal growth, development, and quality of life. Revealing the magnitude and underlying biology of malnutrition from a greatly expanded set of practical biomarkers will be critical for developing appropriately targeted and evaluated interventions. However, our abilities to reveal and quantify the many forms of malnutrition, other than by anthropometry and occasional use of biochemical indicators, remain limited. Plasma proteomics holds great promise as a basis for developing novel biomarkers to facilitate assessment of growth, micronutrient status, inflammation, and other health status of populations while also providing biological insight into causes and adverse consequences of malnutrition. Discovery-driven plasma proteomics has been shown to reveal functional biomarkers of nutritional and health status, identifying clusters of protein biomarkers from which field-friendly, comprehensive, and low-cost methods could be developed for assessing populations. In this brief review, we summarize several key discoveries to date and discuss potential public health applications of proteomics-based biomarkers in reporting the extent and metabolic features of undernutrition in low-resource settings.


The effect of a diet enriched with mullet bottarga on the lipid profile (total lipids, total cholesterol, unsaturated fatty acids, α-tocopherol, and hydroperoxides) of plasma, liver, kidney, brain, and perirenal adipose tissues of healthy rats was investigated. Rats fed a 10% bottarga enriched-diet for 5 days showed body weights and tissue total lipid and cholesterol levels similar to those of animals fed control diet. Univariate and multivariate results showed that bottarga enriched-diet modified the fatty acid profile in all tissues, except brain. Significant increases of n-3 PUFA, particularly EPA, were observed together with a 20:4 n-6 decrease in plasma, liver, and kidney. Perirenal adipose tissue showed a fat accumulation that reflected the diet composition. The overall data suggest that mullet bottarga may be considered as a natural bioavailable source of n-3 PUFA and qualify it as a traditional food product with functional properties and a potential functional ingredient for preparation of n-3 PUFA enriched foods.


The crystal morphology, melt-crystallization and mechanical properties of poly (trimethylene terephthalate)/maleinized poly (octene-ethylene)/organo-montmorillonite nanocomposites were investigated by using polarized optical microscopy (POM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and universal material testing machine, respectively. The results suggest that the nanocomposites form smaller or imperfect microcrystallites with lower melting point due to the influence of OMMT components and the nanocomposites have increased crystallization rate because OMMT is an effective nucleation agent. However, the crystallinity decreases because of the thickening effect of OMMT in the composites. The nanocomposite with 2%OMMT has the largest tensile and impact strength.


A detailed description is provided of a new worm algorithm, enabling the accurate computation of thermodynamic properties of quantum many-body systems in continuous space, at finite temperature. The algorithm is formulated within the general path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) scheme, but also allows one to perform quantum simulations in the grand canonical ensemble, as well as to compute off-diagonal imaginary-time correlation functions, such as the Matsubara Green function, simultaneously with diagonal observables. Another important innovation consists of the expansion of the attractive part of the pairwise potential energy into elementary (diagrammatic) contributions, which are then statistically sampled. This affords a complete microscopic account of the long-range part of the potential energy, while keeping the computational complexity of all updates independent of the size of the simulated system. The computational scheme allows for efficient calculations of the superfluid fraction and off-diagonal correlations in space-time, for system sizes which are orders of magnitude larger than those accessible to conventional PIMC. We present illustrative results for the superfluid transition in bulk liquid 4He in two and three dimensions, as well as the calculation of the chemical potential of hcp 4He.


ABSTRACT This research explored how sensitive spatiomotor biases, or location-response integration effects, are to differences between visual environments. According to feature integration and episodic retrieval theories, a target's location and response are integrated to form an event representation in memory. A repetition of the prior location or target response retrieves the previously associated response or location, respectively. This leads to interference or slower responding when the retrieved event information mismatches the current event. In the four experiments here, to generate these spatiomotor biases, participants discriminated serially presented target stimuli that randomly repeated or changed location. Crucially, the visual environment of the target changed from moment-to-moment by either adding or removing distractors and placeholders. Spatiomotor biases were strong and robust across all environmental changes, with minimal to no effect of the environment on them. Thus, the spatiomotor biases generalize very well beyond the environments in which they are generated, showing that the representation of a target location and response event is not necessarily integrated with the representation of the global visual environment.


In our paper, Regulatory Expenditures, Economic Growth and Jobs: An Empirical Study, (http://ssrn.com/abstract=1831654) we applied econometric methods to fifty years of data in an effort to quantify the relationship between the size of the federal regulatory bureaucracy and important macroeconomic outcomes such as economic growth and private sector employment. We found that reducing the amount spent on federal regulatory agencies by even modest amounts could have significant positive effects on both private sector output and employment. In conducting our analysis, we measured the extent of regulation in the economy using a dataset on regulatory agency budgets dating back to 1960, collected by the Regulatory Studies Center ("RSC") at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. — led by former OIRA Director Susan Dudley — and the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at the Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In two recent releases by the RSC, including a Commentary (December 2011) and Working Paper (March 2012), Center researchers evaluated our work and provided a much-appreciated independent replication of our econometric results. RSC researchers also conducted some analysis of their own, specifying models that differed substantially from our own and, as a consequence, reached different conclusions. Indeed, in their own words, the Center's researchers observe that "…there is no evidence of a causal relationship between changes in regulatory budget and macroeconomic performance. In fact most of our point estimates suggest, if anything, a positive relationship between changes in the on-budget costs of federal regulation and macroeconomic outcomes." In light of its source, we found this conclusion is interesting. If the amount spent on regulation has no macroeconomic effect, then why does the RSC bother to compile the data? Or, if regulation has a "positive" effect on the economy, as the Center's researchers suggest, then why do small businesses list regulation as the most important hurdle to growing their business (a statistic listed in the Center's Commentary and Working Paper)? Unlike the Regulatory Studies Center's own researchers, however, we are not yet prepared to limit their annual report on the Regulators' Budget to a largely fruitless counting exercise, or, in light of our own research, argue that regulation, if anything, has a positive effect on the economy. In this Response to Comments, we demonstrate, once more, that the data on federal regulatory expenditures is a useful tool for measuring regulation in econometric analysis of the macroeconomy. We also show that the RSC's "preferred" statistical model is defective, and does not produce robust estimates. Moreover, a minor adjustment to the Center's "preferred" model renders results very similar to ours — regulation reduces economic activity. We also demonstrate that our estimates are robust across estimation techniques and modeling choices. Thus, we again conclude that if policymakers wish to stimulate jobs and reduce federal spending, then responsibly trimming the regulatory budget remains a viable option.


Question As a family physician who works in the local community emergency department, my skills include performing lumbar puncture in young children and infants. I hear conflicting recommendations in regard to provision of analgesia during lumbar puncture in these patients. Does local analgesia affect the success rate of the procedure? What is the best practice for analgesia in young children and infants?Answer Lumbar puncture is one of the most commonly encountered painful procedures in pediatric medicine; it is imperative for timely diagnosis of central nervous system infections in febrile young infants. For many years it has been documented that health care providers provide suboptimal analgesia, despite the understanding that this is a painful procedure for infants and children of all ages. Using a lidocaine and prilocaine combination or a 1% lidocaine infiltration (or both) is recommended and has been associated with improved outcomes during the procedure.


Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have made remarkable progress, attaining super-human performance across various domains. This presents us with an opportunity to further human knowledge and improve human expert performance by leveraging the hidden knowledge encoded within these highly performant AI systems. Yet, this knowledge is often hard to extract, and may be hard to understand or learn from. Here, we show that this is possible by proposing a new method that allows us to extract new chess concepts in AlphaZero, an AI system that mastered the game of chess via self-play without human supervision. Our analysis indicates that AlphaZero may encode knowledge that extends beyond the existing human knowledge, but knowledge that is ultimately not beyond human grasp, and can be successfully learned from. In a human study, we show that these concepts are learnable by top human experts, as four top chess grandmasters show improvements in solving the presented concept prototype positions. This marks an important first milestone in advancing the frontier of human knowledge by leveraging AI; a development that could bear profound implications and help us shape how we interact with AI systems across many AI applications.


Cortical dysplasia is associated with intractable epilepsy and developmental delay in young children. Recent work with the rat freeze-induced focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) model has demonstrated that hyperexcitability in the dysplastic cortex is due in part to higher levels of extracellular glutamate. Astrocyte glutamate transporters play a pivotal role in cortical maintaining extracellular glutamate concentrations. Here we examined the function of astrocytic glutamate transporters in a FCD model in rats. Neocortical freeze lesions were made in postnatal day (PN) 1 rat pups and whole cell electrophysiological recordings and biochemical studies were performed at PN 21–28. Synaptically evoked glutamate transporter currents in astrocytes showed a near 10-fold reduction in amplitude compared to sham operated controls. Astrocyte glutamate transporter currents from lesioned animals were also significantly reduced when challenged exogenously applied glutamate. Reduced astrocytic glutamate transport clearance contributed to increased NMDA receptor-mediated current decay kinetics in lesioned animals. The electrophysiological profile of astrocytes in the lesion group was also markedly changed compared to sham operated animals. Control astrocytes demonstrate large-amplitude linear leak currents in response to voltage-steps whereas astrocytes in lesioned animals demonstrated significantly smaller voltage-activated inward and outward currents. Significant decreases in astrocyte resting membrane potential and increases in input resistance were observed in lesioned animals. However, Western blotting, immunohistochemistry and quantitative PCR demonstrated no differences in the expression of the astrocytic glutamate transporter GLT-1 in lesioned animals relative to controls. These data suggest that, in the absence of changes in protein or mRNA expression levels, functional changes in astrocytic glutamate transporters contribute to neuronal hyperexcitability in the FCD model.


ABSTRACT Since 2011, the term "album app" has been used more frequently by journalists in the music and technology fields. It refers to a new album format that at first seemed an invitation to improvisation; one could re-create a musical piece while listening to it. The result is that the roles of composing, performing and listening become nearly indiscernible in the album app context. The author also discusses the album app's relationship to "open works," a term that was coined and investigated by Eco in 1959, a period that disposed of different technologies to apply very similar statements.


Vapour compression via ejectors has become a topic of interest for researchers in the field of air
conditioning and refrigeration. Ejectors have the benefit of being extremely reliable with stable
operation and no moving parts leading to essentially maintenance free operation. However, these
devices typically have very low efficiencies due to the low entrained mass flow rate of the low pressure
secondary stream relative to the high pressure primary stream mass flow rate. The entrainment of the
secondary stream and mixing between the primary and secondary streams are therefore dominant
features which require investigation. Entrainment and mixing typically occurs under conditions of
compressible, turbulent flow with strong pressure gradients. Steam ejectors, which are the focus of
the present work, have the added complexity of condensation effects which must be accommodated
in modelling and simulation work. Condensation in the primary nozzle of steam ejectors alters the
steam flow properties relative to properties derived from ideal gas modelling, which is sometimes
used for steam ejector analysis work. By performing computational simulations for non-equilibrium
wet steam flow in a representative primary nozzle, the altered steam jet properties that arise during
the nozzle expansion process are demonstrated, via empirical correlations, to be of sufficient
magnitude to affect the mixing rate, and thus the entrainment ratio, of steam ejectors. For the
particular primary nozzle and flow conditions considered, it was estimated that these changes in
steam properties would cause around 29% increase in the mixing layer growth rate for the wet steam
case relative to the ideal gas case. To further explore the influence of wet steam mixing effects, the
non-equilibrium wet steam computational simulation approach was then expanded to the case of a
complete ejector. Under particular conditions for the choked flow ejector operation, results indicated
that the non-equilibrium wet steam model simulates an entrainment ratio that is 10% higher than that
for the ideal gas model. The non-equilibrium wet steam model also gives a higher critical back pressure
by about 7% relative to the ideal gas model. Enhanced mixing layer growth, which arises due to steam
condensation in the primary nozzle, was identified as the main reason for higher entrainment ratio of the ejector simulations using the wet steam model. Higher pitot pressure of the mixture at the diffuser
entrance for the wet steam simulation was also identified as the reason for higher critical back
pressure for the ejector relative to the case of ideal gas simulation.

To estimate the relative significance of pressure-driven effects and mixing-driven effects on the
secondary stream entrainment, ideal gas computational simulations were also performed. Under a
fixed operating condition for the primary and discharge streams, the ejector entrainment ratio was
more strongly influenced by the mixing effects at lower secondary pressure. For a particular ejector
and associated operating conditions, about 35% of the ejector entrainment ratio was attributable to
mixing effects when the secondary stream pressure lift ratio was 4.5, while this portion was reduced
to about 22% when the secondary stream pressure lift ratio was 1.6. Given the significance of ejector
mixing effects and the lack of consensus on the most appropriate model for turbulent mixing in steam
ejectors, an experimental investigation was performed to provide direct data on the mixing of wet
steam jets in steam ejectors for model development and validation of computational simulations. Pitot
and cone-static pressures within a high pressure supersonic steam jet that mixed with low pressure
co-flowing steam were obtained. Results from the non-equilibrium wet steam simulations were
analysed to give values of pitot pressure and cone-static pressure values using both equilibrium and
frozen-composition gas dynamic models. The equilibrium analysis appeared reasonable for the pitot
pressure, whereas the frozen-composition analysis was a better approximation for the cone-static
pressure. Differences between the experimental data and the wet steam computational simulations
were in the vicinity of 25% at certain locations. The static pressures downstream of the nozzle exit
were lower than the triple point, but energy exchanges associated with the transitions to and from
the solid phase were not incorporated in the wet steam model. The development of such a model is
required before definitive conclusions can be made regarding the accuracy of the turbulence
modelling.


In this paper we develop a path-integral formulation of {ital classical} Hamiltonian dynamics, that means we give a functional-integral representation of {ital classical} transition probabilities. This is done by giving weight one'' to the classical paths and weight zero'' to all the others. With the help of anticommuting ghosts this measure can be rewritten as the exponential of a certain action {ital {tilde S}}. Associated with this path integral there is an operatorial formalism that turns out to be an extension of the well-known operatorial approach of Liouville, Koopman, and von Neumann. The new formalism describes the evolution of scalar probability densities and of {ital p}-form densities on phase space in a unified framework. In this work we provide an interpretation for the ghost fields as being the well-known Jacobi fields of classical mechanics. With this interpretation the Hamiltonian {ital {tilde H}}, derived from the action {ital {tilde S}}, turns out to be the Lie derivative associated with the Hamiltonian flow. We also find that the action {ital {tilde S}} presents a set of Becchi-Rouet-Stora- (BRS-)type invariances mixing the original phase-space variables with the ghosts. Together with a Sp(2) symmetry of the pure ghosts sector, they form a {ital universal}more » invariance group ISp(2) which is present in any Hamiltonian system. The physical and geometrical meaning of the ISp(2) generators is discussed in detail: in particular the conservation of one of the generators is shown to be equivalent to the Liouville theorem. The ISp(2) algebra is then used to give a modern operatorial reformulation of the old Cartan calculus on symplectic manifolds.« less


Blonc, S, Perrot, S, Racinais, S, Aussepe, S, and Hue, O. Effects of 5 weeks of training at the same time of day on the diurnal variations of maximal muscle power performance. J Strength Cond Res 24(1): 23-29, 2010-The purpose of this study was to investigate whether maximal muscle power production in humans is influenced by the habitual time of training to provide recommendations for adapting training hours in the month preceding a competition. Sixteen participants performed maximal brief squat and countermovement jumps and short-term cycle sprints tests before and after 5 weeks of training. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a Morning-Trained Group (MTG, 7:00-9:00 hr) or an Evening-Trained Group (ETG, 17:00-19:00 hr). They trained and performed the evaluation tests in both the morning and evening in their naturally warm and moderately humid environment. The results indicated a significant increase in performance (approximately 5-6% for both tests) after training for both groups but failed to show any time-of-day effect on either performance or training benefit. These findings could be linked to the stabilization of performances throughout the day because of the passive warm-up effect of the environment. In summary, our data showed that anaerobic muscle power production could be performed at any time of day with the same benefit.


Abstract This paper studies the efficiency of collusion between supervisors and supervisees. Building on Tirole (1986)'s results that deterring collusion with infinitely risk averse supervisors is impossible, while it is costless to do so under risk neutrality, we develop here a theory of collusion based on a trade-off between the risk premia required by (less extreme) risk attitudes and incentives. This allows us to link the efficiency of collusion to the supervisor's risk aversion and to various parameters characterizing the economic environment in which collusion may take place. We are then able to derive implications for the design of organizations, like determining how the number of tasks/agents per supervisor or the level of competition may impact on the cost of collusion, studying the impact of vertical integration on those same costs, or characterizing the role of uncertainty on side-contracting.


These two volumes of readings attempt to bring some degree of structure to a relatively diffuse field. Because of the sheer volume of high-quality work in development economics research, they are intended as a sampling of work at the frontier of the field, rather than as a comprehensive overview. Volume II: Empirical Microeconomics focuses on empirical work. Topics covered include the relationship between wages and health, the role of human capital and demographic change, the internal structure of households, information imperfections in factor markets, the permanent income hypothesis, the possibility of Pareto-efficient allocation of risk in villages, and the relationship between property rights and investment decisions.


Throughout time, regardless the level of financial growth and prosperity of a country,
matters such as the equal access in health services which offer quality, organization and
financial efficiency are among the most important concerns of the citizens as well as the
governments' which form their healthcare policy each time. The remedy as a means of
practice and provision of healthcare is an important social and financial good and this fact
makes its management substantially difficult. In global as well as in national level, the field
of hospital medication, its commission and management has become the centre and one of
the most important and weighting factor which influences the proper function and provision
of efficient health services on behalf of the hospitals.
The European Union (from now on E.E) has established a series of directives which
regulate the procedures of making public contracts, provisions of goods and by extension
material for the hospitals. These directives were either adopted from the member states as
they were or passed into the national legislation of the states many years now.
In Greece, although the community directives have already been assimilated in our
national legislation (2004/18/EΚ, 17/2004/EΚ and 2014/24/EΚ) through the Presidential
Decree 118/07, Presidential Decree 60/07 and the Law 3861/2010, we observe that until
recently the legal procedures for the material for the hospitals are not applied. The
provisions of the public hospitals occur mainly by a selective application of the current
legislation and with procedures which are on the verge of being considered illegal. Lack of
material for the hospitals, huge stock up in the stores and expired medicines are a common
phenomenon of the current health system due to afore mentioned.
The problems already mentioned and the need for rationalization of the cost of the hospitals
have led Greece to attempt recently to adjust to the community directives and apply clear
and predefined procedures in the commission of the medicines .The result of this attempt
was the reformation of the National Health System with the establishment of the E.Π.Υ
(Committee of Health Commissions) (Ν. 3580/2007) and the specification of the IT-based
auction (Ν. 3846/2010) as the main procedure for the commission of the medicines. A
procedure, which in its present form and after a lot of modifications, has positively
contributed in the achievement of especially low prices. Therefore, many and diverse
problems as well as malpractices have been noticed during the IT-based auctions and the
general results although can be characterized positive, they cannot have the necessary
effect.
The present dissertation will attempt to give a global picture concerning the tender
procedures that are being followed for the commission of the medicines in the public
hospitals of the country, in the E.E as well as the results that have been achieved through
these procedures. Initially, what medicine means will be clarified as well as their different
kinds which are the object of the contracts. Specifically, the definitions of the prototypes,
the generics, the COMP medicines will be analyzed in order for the analysis of the frame of
their commission to be easily perceived. Then, in chapter 2, the basic principles and the
laws concerning the public commissions will be presented. Principles such as the technical
specification, the framework agreement, the contract, the manifest, the award criteria and
many more must be fully perceivable in order for a further and deep analysis of the topic to
be possible.
The third chapter shows particular interest since it includes a reference of the
respective legislation of commissions in hospitals in the countries of the E.E but the further
study of specific states of the E.E. In the fourth chapter follows the analysis of the national
frame of the commissions in the hospitals and the body that takes part in the completion of
the procedures, while at the same time it is presented and analysed the last act of IT-based
auction with its supplements. Then, in chapter 5, the data concerning the prices of
medicines coming from the first three IT-based auctions are presented as well as the
pharmaceutical expenditure per hospital for every healthcare region. In chapter 6, the last
one, the advantages and disadvantages of the auctions will be presented along with the
various illegal actions which have been noticed occasionally while in the end some
suggestions for the improvement of the current legal framework of commissions will be
presented.


Process Introspection is a fundamentally new solution
to the process state capture and recovery problem suitable for use
in high-performance heterogeneous distributed systems. A process
state capture and recovery mechanism for such an environment has
the primary requirement that it must be platform-independent:
process checkpoints produced on a computer system of one
architecture or operating system platform must be recoverable on a
computer system of a different architecture or operating system
platform. The central feature of the Process Introspection approach
is automatic transformation of program code to incorporate state
capture and recovery functionality. This program modification is
performed at a platform-independent intermediate level of code
representation, and preserves the original program semantics. The
attractive properties of this approach include portability, ease of
use, and flexibility with respect to basic performance trade-offs
and application-specific requirements. Our solution is novel in its
true platform and run-time system independence—no system support or
non-portable code is required by our core mechanisms. Experimental
results obtained using a prototype implementation of the Process
Introspection system indicate this mechanism can be applied to
computationally demanding scientific applications automatically,
resulting in very low run-time overhead (typically below 10%) and
efficient state capture and recovery service.


Perhaps the most important application of accurate personal identification is securing limited access systems from malicious attacks. Among all the presently employed biometric techniques, fingerprint identification systems have received the most attention due to the long history of fingerprints and their extensive use in forensics. Fingerprint matching is the process used to determine whether two sets of fingerprint ridge detail come from the same finger. There exist multiple algorithms that do fingerprint matching in many different ways. Some methods involve matching minutiae points between the two images, while others look for similarities in the bigger structure of the fingerprint. Conventional security systems used either knowledge based methods (passwords or PIN), and token-based methods (passport, driver license, ID card) and were prone to fraud because PIN numbers could be forgotten or hacked and the tokens could be lost, duplicated or stolen. To address the need for robust, reliable, and foolproof personal identification, authentication systems will necessarily require a biometric component. This paper gives a brief review in the area of fingerprint identification. The aim of this paper is to review various latest minutiae based, correlation based and other global, local methods for fingerprint matching and status of success of concurrent methods with its advantage and disadvantage.


Background/Objective: There are few studies in the literature focused on rural hip fracture epidemiology, and fewer still that consider hip fractures at a specific county level or trauma center (TC) region. The aim of this study is to elucidate patterns of injury events and injury burden of hip fractures in a rural trauma center in northeast Indiana.

Patients and Measurements: We ascertained 2019 hip fracture cases that consisted of three sets of data, namely, emergency department visits (ED), hospitalizations (IP), and deaths from clinical databases. We analyzed the cases by fracture type, measured incidence rates (IRs) per 1,000 county residents and described the injury pattern of hip fractures by variables such as county of residence, age, and sex. We considered the mechanism of injury (cause) of the fractures as well as the injury burden based on the above three sets.

Results: A ratio of roughly 2:1 was found for extracapsular to intracapsular hip fractures. Injury patterns showed that the study counties had similar incidence rates with a range of 0.96 to 1.41 per 1,000 residents. Males and females ages 0-69 years had similar incidences of hip fracture. Overall, females had a 41% higher incidence rate of hip fractures than males. Injury burden indicated a similar distribution of ED to IP to mortality cases across the five study counties, and the majority (98.4%) of hip fractures with known causes of injury were due to falls.

Conclusions and Potential Impact: We elucidated the injury patterns and burden of hip fractures in a verified level II trauma center region. The results of this study have the potential benefit for the future development of hip fracture prevention programs for rural, elderly populations in northeast Indiana.


The maximum rate at which classical information can be reliably transmitted per use of a quantum channel strictly increases in general with N , the number of channel outputs that are detected jointly by the quantum joint-detection receiver (JDR). This phenomenon is known as superadditivity of the maximum achievable information rate over a quantum channel. We study this phenomenon for a pure-state classical-quantum channel and provide a lower bound on CN/N, the maximum information rate when the JDR is restricted to making joint measurements over no more than N quantum channel outputs, while allowing arbitrary classical error correction. We also show the appearance of a superadditivity phenomenon-of mathematical resemblance to the aforesaid problem-in the channel capacity of a classical discrete memoryless channel when a concatenated coding scheme is employed, and the inner decoder is forced to make hard decisions on N -length inner codewords. Using this correspondence, we develop a unifying framework for the above two notions of superadditivity, and show that for our lower bound to CN/N to be equal to a given fraction of the asymptotic capacity C of the respective channel, N must be proportional to V/C2 , where V is the respective channel dispersion quantity.


Recent multigene phylogenetic analyses have contributed much to our understanding of eukaryotic phylogeny. However, the phylogenetic positions of various lineages within the eukaryotes have remained unresolved or in conflict between different phylogenetic studies. These phylogenetic ambiguities might have resulted from mixtures or integration from various factors including limited taxon sampling, missing data in the alignment, saturations of rapidly evolving genes, mixed analyses of short- and long-branched operational taxonomic units (OTUs), intracellular endoparasite and ciliate OTUs with unusual substitution etc. In order to evaluate the effects from intracellular endoparasite and ciliate OTUs co-analyzed on the eukaryotic phylogeny and simplify the results, we here used two different sets of data matrices of multiple slowly evolving genes with small amounts of missing data and examined the phylogenetic position of the secondary photosynthetic chromalveolates Haptophyta, one of the most abundant groups of oceanic phytoplankton and significant primary producers. In both sets, a robust sister relationship between Haptophyta and SAR (stramenopiles, alveolates, rhizarians, or SA [stramenopiles and alveolates]) was resolved when intracellular endoparasite/ciliate OTUs were excluded, but not in their presence. Based on comparisons of character optimizations on a fixed tree (with a clade composed of haptophytes and SAR or SA), disruption of the monophyly between haptophytes and SAR (or SA) in the presence of intracellular endoparasite/ciliate OTUs can be considered to be a result of multiple evolutionary reversals of character positions that supported the synapomorphy of the haptophyte and SAR (or SA) clade in the absence of intracellular endoparasite/ciliate OTUs.


Foot surgery often induces severe postoperative pain. Sciatic nerve block is a good alternative for its treatment. We report two cases of continuous lateral popliteal sciatic nerve block using two different stimulating catheters. The lateral approach may offer some advantages. Stimulating catheters may be useful to verify correct catheter tip positioning. This technique seem to be easy to use and provided excellent pain relief.


This thesis consists of three essays. The first essay (thesis chapter two) investigates the 29 bank combinations between 1900 and 1931 that reduced the Canadian banking sector from 35 to 11 banks. The concentration of the Canadian banking industry is examined using the four-firm and the Hirshman-Herfindahl (HHI) indexes using monthly data on bank branches per institution and region, and nationally. Most of the substantial increase and variation in bank concentration in the national and regional HHIs based on bank branches are explained by merger activity. The second essay (thesis chapter three) examines the merger of La Banque Nationale (LBN) with La Banque d'Hochelaga (LBdH). This merger was facilitated by a generous financial arrangement with the Quebec government, and continuing federal government loans. As Bennett and Loucks (1996) conclude, political connections ensured a long period of forbearance for LBN and facilitated LBN's rescue. Accounting and reporting window dressing also assisted the rescue of the economically insolvent and too-important-to-fail LBN. These findings support the conclusions of Kryzanowski and Roberts (1993, 1999) that forbearance and window dressing played an important role in preventing the failure of many Canadian banks during the 1920s and 1930s. The third essay (thesis chapter four) examines the failure costs of the 29 Canadian bank failures since Confederation for various stakeholder groups over four sub periods with different safety net regimes. The determinants (including safety net regime) of four total loss measurement metrics are estimated. With the introduction of explicit deposit insurance and the abolition of double liability, the proportion of total losses directly borne by banks and the government increased significantly, and the proportion borne directly by shareholders of the failed bank decreased significantly. This finding supports the conclusion of Kane (1985) that deposit insurance creates moral hazard among bank stakeholders. These results also extend the work of Kryzanowski and Roberts (1993, 1998, 1999) by suggesting that forbearance heightened bank-specific losses and lessened bank industry-specific losses during the two most recent sub periods due to careful monitoring and control of bank failure and closure by the government and the CBA (Canadian Bankers Association)


CASE DESCRIPTION
A 14-week-old 8.5-kg (18.7-lb) sexually intact female Springer Spaniel was evaluated because of chronic rhinitis with bilateral mucopurulent nasal discharge. The dog had a history since birth of sneezing and oronasal reflux of food and liquid.

CLINICAL FINDINGS
Oral examination under anesthesia revealed a short, incompletely formed soft palate with bilateral clefts. A pseudouvula was not a prominent feature of the condition in this dog.

TREATMENT AND OUTCOME
The dog underwent 1-stage reconstruction of the soft palate by means of a split-thickness soft palate hinged flap and bilateral buccal mucosal rotation flaps. Long-term follow-up obtained 3 years after surgery revealed the dog to be in good general health, with resolution of oronasal reflux; however, occasional episodes of mild sneezing and nasal discharge persisted. Oral examination under sedation revealed attenuation of the bilateral clefts; however, a normal soft palate length was not achieved.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Compared with previously described techniques, this technique offered the possibility of 1-stage reconstruction of the soft palate in dogs, rather than having 2 staged procedures performed, and a robust tissue combination that was expected to be less prone to trauma. This technique may be particularly suitable for affected dogs where a pseudouvula is not a prominent feature and appears to be applicable to a variety of skull morphologies. Owners should be made aware that the absence of normal palatine muscle within the reconstructed palate may affect function, but even where normal function is not regained, a good quality of life with minimal clinical signs may be achieved.


The development of biomedical nanoparticulate materials for use in diagnostics is a delicate balance between performance, particle size, shape, and stability. To identify materials that satisfy all of the criteria it is useful to employ automated high-throughput (HT) techniques for the study of these materials. The structure and performance of surfactant templated mesoporous silica is very sensitive to a wide number of variables. Variables, such as the concentration of the structure-directing agent, the cosolvent and dopant ions and also the temperature and concentration of quenching all have an influence on the structure, surface chemistry, and therefore, the performance of the mesoporous silica nanoparticles generated. Using an automated robotic synthetic platform, a technique has been developed for the high-throughput preparation of mesoporous silica and gadolinium-doped silicate (gadoliniosilicate) nanoparticulate MRI contrast agents. Twelve identical repeats of both the mesoporous silica and gadolinosilicate were synthesized to investigate the reproducibility of the HT technique. Very good reproducibility in the production of the mesoporous silica and the gadolinosilcate materials was obtained using the developed method. The performance of the gadolinosilicate materials was comparable as a T(1) agent to the commercial MRI contrast agents. This HT methodology is highly reproducible and an effective tool that can be translated to the discovery of any sol-gel derived nanomaterial.


This article describes the student's opinion about the discipline Administration of Adult Nursing Assistance, developed in the 7th term of nursing graduation course in UFRGS Nursing School. The aspects evaluated were: organization, objectives, theoretical framework, subjects relevance, teaching strategies, field of practice learning and supervision. It's a qualitative study, the instrument used is a questionary with open questions, which allows the students write their points of view about the discipline. The population selected was all students of 7th term of course in 1996/1 and 1996/2 (77 students), but only 34 students answered the instrument. The data were analyzed by Bardin (1977) conteud analysis approach.


Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common histological type of primary bone cancer. The present study was designed to identify the key genes and signaling pathways involved in the metastasis of OS. Microarray data of GSE39055 were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, which included 19 OS biopsy specimens before metastasis (control group) and 18 OS biopsy specimens after metastasis (case group). After the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified using the Linear Models for Microarray Analysis package, hierarchical clustering analysis and unsupervised clustering analysis were performed separately, using orange software and the self-organization map method. Based upon the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery tool and Cytoscape software, enrichment analysis and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis were conducted, respectively. After function deviation scores were calculated for the significantly enriched terms, hierarchical clustering analysis was performed using Cluster 3.0 software. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis was used to identify the terms that were significantly different. Those terms that were significantly different were validated using other independent datasets. There were 840 DEGs in the case group. There were various interactions in the PPI network [including intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM1), transforming growth factor β1 (TGFB1), TGFB1-platelet-derived growth factor subunit B (PDGFB) and PDGFB-platelet-derived growth factor receptor-β (PDGFRB)]. Regulation of cell migration, nucleotide excision repair, the Wnt signaling pathway and cell migration were identified as the terms that were significantly different. ICAM1, PDGFB, PDGFRB and TGFB1 were identified to be enriched in cell migration and regulation of cell migration. Nucleotide excision repair and the Wnt signaling pathway were the metastasis-associated pathways of OS. In addition, ICAM1, PDGFB, PDGFRB and TGFB1, which were involved in cell migration and regulation of cell migration may affect the metastasis of OS.