This paper is a tutorial presentation of spatial growth of a transverse instability, associated with the propagation of an electromagnetic beam, with uniform or Gaussian irradiance along the wavefront. There are two approaches to the study of filamentation in a plasma. The results of the two approaches have been expressed in a form where they can be compared. It has been noted that the growth of the instability in the first approach is equivalent to the self-focusing of a ripple in the second approach. The dependence of the maximum growth rate and the corresponding optimum value of the wave number of the instability on the irradiance of the main beam has also been studied. Further a paraxial like approach has also been adopted to analyze the characteristics of propagation of aripple, when the dielectric function is determined by the composite (Gaussian and ripple) electric field profile of the beam. The effect of different parameters on the critical curves has been highlighted and the variation of the beam width parameter with the distance of propagation has been obtained for three typical cases viz of steady divergence, oscillatory divergence and self-focusing of the ripple.


Young et al. (Reports, 22 April 2011, p. 451) reported trends in global mean wind speed much larger than found by other investigators. Their report fails to reference these other investigations and does not discuss the consequences that such large wind trends would have on global evaporation and precipitation. The difference between their altimeter and buoy trends suggests a relatively large trend error.


This thesis demonstrates that the most popular periodical genre of the second half of the nineteenth century was the provincial newspaper. Using evidence from news rooms, libraries, the trade press and oral history, it argues that the majority of readers (particularly working-class readers) preferred the local press, because of its faster delivery of news, and because of its local and localised content. Building on the work of Law and Potter, the thesis treats the provincial press as a national network and a national system, a structure which enabled it to offer a more effective news distribution service than metropolitan papers.

Taking the town of Preston, Lancashire, as a case study, this thesis provides some background to the most popular local publications of the period, and uses the diaries of Preston journalist Anthony Hewitson as a case study of the career of a local reporter, editor and proprietor. Three examples of how the local press consciously promoted local identity are discussed: Hewitson's remoulding of the Preston Chronicle, the same paper's changing treatment of Lancashire dialect, and coverage of professional football. These case studies demonstrate some of the local press content that could not practically be provided by metropolitan publications. The 'reading world' of this provincial town is reconstructed, to reveal the historical circumstances in which newspapers and the local paper in particular were read. Evidence from readers demonstrates the many ways in which they used the local press, both collectively and individually, including its use in sustaining local identities and sense of place. However, the local press was only one factor among many in the development and sustenance of local identities.

The originality of the thesis lies in its introduction of empirical reading evidence into English newspaper history, its challenge to the taken-for-granted but problematic concepts of 'local' and 'national' newspapers in this period, its detailed study of the journalistic techniques used to capitalise on local patriotism, and its critique of many theories of nineteenth-century press history which have been based on a minority of the period's newspapers, those published in London.


Background Late onset epilepsy (LOE) is a common neurological problem throughout the world. It is an area that has not been fully explored in the developing countries like Nigeria. The aim of the present study is to  determine the pattern of presentation of late onset epilepsy with the view to identifying the etiologic as well as describe their electro-clinical pattern. Methods 120 consecutive patients presenting at the University College Hospital with LOE were recruited. A  detailed history was obtained in every case, and complete neurological examination was performed. EEGs were done in all patients. Contrast CT Scans and MRI were performed. Result One hundred and twenty subjects comprising 71 (59.2%) males and 49 (40.8%) females were studied. The ages of the patients ranged between 25 and 85 years with a mean of 53years (sd =14.6). The ages at onset of epilepsy ranged between 25 and 84 years with a mean of 52 (sd=14.8). All the subjects had classifiable seizure types, 31 (25.8%) had generalized seizure. The most common type of seizure was partial seizure diagnosed in 89 (74.2%) subjects. Fifty two (43.3%) of the subjects had abnormal neurological findings. Twenty one (30.9%) had cerebral infarcts and 20 (29.4%) had cerebral tumor. Those with symptomatic epilepsy were more likely to have neurologic deficit, simple partial seizure, secondarily generalized seizure, focal epileptiform discharges and focal slow waves. Conclusion The most common abnormalities in LOE were cerebral infarct and brain tumor. A careful history, neurological examination and an EEG are adequate in the initial work-up of patients with LOE.


In this paper, we obtain sharp estimates for the expected payoffs and prices of European call options on an asset with an absolutely continuous price in terms of the price density characteristics. These techniques and results complement other approaches to the derivative pricing problem. Exact analytical solutions to option-pricing problems and to Monte-Carlo techniques make strong assumptions on the underlying asset's distribution. In contrast, our results are semi-parametric. This allows the derivation of results without knowing the entire distribution of the underlying asset's returns. Our results can be used to test different modelling assumptions. Finally, we derive bounds in the multiperiod binomial option-pricing model with time-varying moments. Our bounds reduce the multiperiod setup to a two-period setting, which is advantageous from a computational


Modern gas insulated switchgears (GIS) technology has undergone continuous development since its introduction in the 1960's, when the use of sulphur-hexafluoride (SF6) gas was first introduced as an insulating and arc extinguishing medium. With the use of SF6, the world's first high voltage gas insulated switchgear was introduced into the market in 1968. Whilst many may consider this technology as mature, there have been continuous development-driven changes in GIS design, manufacture, test and operation. Consistent research and innovative development led to the nowadays compact and overall optimized switchgear. Today, GIS technology consists typically of a modular design and is filled with a minimum of SF6. The standardized structure is made to match various customers' specifications and allows realizing almost all substation configurations accordingly. Furthermore, it offers low life cycle costs and can be used for indoor and outdoor applications. What trends have shaped the GIS of today, and which will determine how GIS will further evolve into the future in terms of design, manufacture, test, and operation throughout its life cycle? What are the customers' visions and what are the manufacturers' answers?


ABSTRACT This paper investigates how and why Alevis in Turkey have insisted that they are not a minority community and have been reluctant to formulate their religio-cultural demands in the framework of minority rights, thereby challenging what is often called liberal multiculturalism. Inquiring into the type of minority community Alevis form, alongside Turkey's minority rights history, it explains why the case of Alevis necessitates a certain revaluation of liberal multiculturalism, as well as a reformulation of group-specific minority rights. We argue that the liberal multiculturalist understanding of minority rights may force minorities to lead a socially isolated and apolitical life, with no possibility to participate in a pluralistic reconstruction of the mainstream symbolic framework in society, which is contrary to the aims of Alevis in Turkey.


[1] Retrievals from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on EOS-Aura were included in the Goddard Earth Observing System version 4 (GEOS-4) ozone data assimilation system. The distribution and daily to seasonal evolution of ozone in the stratosphere and troposphere during 2005 are investigated. In the lower stratosphere, where dynamical processes dominate, comparisons with independent ozonesonde and Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapour by Airbus In-Service Aircraft (MOZAIC) data indicate mean agreement within 10%. In the troposphere, OMI and MLS provide constraints on the ozone column, but the ozone profile shape results from the parameterized ozone chemistry and the resolved and parameterized transport. Assimilation of OMI and MLS data improves tropospheric column estimates in the Atlantic region but leads to an overestimation in the tropical Pacific and an underestimation in the northern high and middle latitudes in winter and spring. Transport and data biases are considered in order to understand these discrepancies. Comparisons of assimilated tropospheric ozone columns with ozonesonde data reveal root-mean-square (RMS) differences of 2.9–7.2 Dobson units (DU), which are smaller than the model-sonde RMS differences of 3.2–8.7 DU. Four different definitions of the tropopause using temperature lapse rate, potential vorticity (PV), and isentropic surfaces or ozone isosurfaces are compared with respect to their global impact on the estimated tropospheric ozone column. The largest sensitivity in the tropospheric ozone column is found near the subtropical jet, where the ozone- or PV-determined tropopause typically lies below the lapse rate tropopause.


USING THEATRICAL IMPROVISATION TO RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONAL IMPROVISATION
Organizational improvisation is defined as 'conception as planning unfolds', meaning that thinking and doing happen simultaneously. Improvisation happens under conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity and time pressure. We will place our research in a context of new product development (innovation), because the conditions occur often in this context.
Our focus is on the role of the leader in an improvisational process. To research this we have chosen two leadership styles that should be beneficial to improvisation; servant leadership and rotating leadership. To get a clear view of the effects of these leadership styles, we have contrasted them with directive leadership.
Servant leaders lead from a low status rather than a high status. They lead by doing menial tasks and asking questions. Servant leaders are focused on getting the best out of their followers, instead of focusing on the results. Rotating leadership is team leadership. In rotating leadership the team member with the most capabilities to handle a certain situation will become the leader. When a new situation arises, another team member can take over the leadership role. A directive leaders takes all decisions himself and directs his followers to perform specific tasks.
To lead organizational improvisation, a leader has to make a synthesis between freedom and control. The team members need freedom to be able to have their input in the process, but the process needs to be controlled so that the improvisation does not get out of hand and the outcome is beneficial for the organization. Freedom and conflict with each other, but are both necessary for improvisation. We want to know if and how the leadership styles solve this paradox. Besides this we want to know if the leadership style positively affect the quality of the process and the product of improvisation.
To research the effect of these leadership styles, we use a method called theatrical simulation in the hyper reality. The method has its roots in philosophy and this is the first time it is used outside of philosophy. Theatrical simulation means we simulate reality with performers. The advantage of using performers is that it is possible to regulate personality and behavior within the simulation. Hyper reality means that the simulation takes place in an abstract, artificial reality that enlarges visible effects and shows the process in 15 minutes rather than hours of even days.
We have transformed all factors influencing organizational improvisation into an environment, relations and rules. The environment is medieval Europe, where guild masters make innovative products for their empress. The different relations symbolize the leadership styles. Directive leadership is portrayed by one guild master and three apprentices, servant leadership is translated as one abbot and three guild masters. Rotating leadership consists of four guild masters that all have the same status. The performers were given additional rules to accurately portray the leadership styles.
Our results indicate clearly that both servant and rotating leadership can handle the paradox between freedom and control. Servant leadership employs indirect control, which is not felt as control by the team members, so they still have their freedom. Rotating leadership gave all team members the possibility to control the process, but to take the freedom to experiment as well. Rotating leadership had the best scores on the quality of improvisation. The scores of servant leadership were also positive. Directive leadership could not, as we expected, deal with the paradox and had a negative effect on the quality of improvisation.
We discovered that attitude had a large effect on improvisation. Directive leadership leads to a natural negative attitude and servant leadership naturally lead to a positive attitude. A positive attitude is important for improvisation, as it determines how team members react to the uncertainty that is part of improvisation. A positive attitude makes team members regard uncertainty as an opportunity, rather than a threat.


Recombinant canine granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rcG-CSF) was administered to clinically normal dogs, cyclic-hematopoietic dogs, and dogs undergoing autologous bone marrow transplantation, to determine whether rcG-CSF could be used to stimulate WBC production and function in normal and neutropenic dogs. To the normal dogs, rcG-CSF was administered by SC injection at rates of 1 microgram/kg of body weight, q 12 h; 2 micrograms/kg, q 12 h; or 5 micrograms/kg, q 12 h. A significant dose-dependent increase in the WBC count resulted from the stimulation of bone marrow progenitor cells. The increased WBC count was characterized by mature neutrophilia and monocytosis. Neutrophil myeloperoxidase and phagocytic activity were normal in rcG-CSF-treated normal dogs, demonstrating the production of normal functional neutrophils in response to rcG-CSF treatment. Recombinant canine G-CSF prevented neutropenia and associated clinical signs but did not completely eliminate the cycling of neutrophils in cyclic-hematopoietic dogs when it was administered at rates of 1 microgram/kg, q 12 h, and 2.5 micrograms/kg, q 12 h. The time to bone marrow reconstitution was not decreased in dogs treated with rcG-CSF at a rate of 2.5 micrograms/kg, q 12 h, for 13 days following autologous bone marrow transplantation. On the basis of our findings, we suggest that treatment with rcG-CSF is an effective way to stimulate myelopoiesis in dogs, but that the dose of rcG-CSF required to stimulate WBC production will vary depending on the cause of neutropenia. Recombinant canine G-CSF should be useful in stimulating production and maintaining function of WBC for treatment of clinical diseases seen commonly in veterinary practice.


Co-saliency detection aims to discover the common and salient foregrounds from a group of relevant images. For this task, we present a novel adaptive graph convolutional network with attention graph clustering (GCAGC). Three major contributions have been made, and are experimentally shown to have substantial practical merits. First, we propose a graph convolutional network design to extract information cues to characterize the intra- and inter-image correspondence. Second, we develop an attention graph clustering algorithm to discriminate the common objects from all the salient foreground objects in an unsupervised fashion. Third, we present a unified framework with encoder-decoder structure to jointly train and optimize the graph convolutional network, attention graph cluster, and co-saliency detection decoder in an end-to-end manner. We evaluate our proposed GCAGC method on three co-saliency detection benchmark datasets (iCoseg, Cosal2015 and COCO-SEG). Our GCAGC method obtains significant improvements over the state-of-the-arts on most of them.


Exposure of laying hens to chronic heat stress results in loss of egg production. It should be possible to improve hen resilience to chronic heat stress by genetic selection but measuring their sensitivity through internal temperature is time consuming and is not very precise. In this study we used infrared thermography to measure the hen's capacity to dissipate heat, in a commercial line of laying hens subjected to cycles of neutral (N, 19.6°C) or high (H, 28.4°C) ambient temperatures. Mean body temperatures (BT) were estimated from 9355 infrared images of wing, comb and shank taken from 1200 hens. Genetic parameters were estimated separately for N and H temperatures. Correlations between BT and plumage condition were also investigated. Wing temperature had low heritability (0.00 to 0.09), consistent with the fact that wing temperature mainly reflects the environmental temperature and is not a zone of heat dissipation. The heritability of comb temperature was higher, from 0.15 to 0.19 in N and H conditions, respectively. Finally, the shank temperature provided the highest heritability estimates, with values of 0.20 to 0.22 in H and N conditions, respectively. Taken together, these results show that heat dissipation is partly under genetic control. Interestingly, the genetic correlation between plumage condition and shank and comb temperatures indicated that birds with poor condition plumage also had the possibility to dissipate heat through featherless areas. Genetic correlations of temperature measurements with egg quality showed that temperatures were correlated with egg width and weight, yolk brightness and yellowness and Haugh units only under H conditions. In contrast, shell colour was correlated with leg temperature only at thermo-neutrality.


We investigated the effect of changes in water discharge from the Seton River Dam, British Columbia, on the physiological condition, passage time, and passage success of adult migrant sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka. Sockeye salmon were intercepted and nonlethally biopsied for blood plasma and energy status. A subset of these fish were fitted with radio transmitters and tracked under three different operational attraction flow levels. Indices of physiological stress and exhaustive exercise (e.g., plasma cortisol, glucose, lactate, osmolality, and hematocrit) did not differ among the attraction flow discharge levels that were examined, nor did they differ appreciably from those of other adult Fraser River sockeye salmon studied during upriver migrations in areas of natural, nonregulated flows. In fact, the fish appeared relatively unstressed after dam passage. Passage time was significantly longer (19.9 h) under intermediate discharge (12.7 m 3 /s) than under high (15.8 m 3 /s) or low (11.0 m 3 /s) discharges (9.3 and 7.0 h, respectively) but did not differ between high- and low-discharge periods. No differences in passage success or fishway ascent time were observed among the three discharges. Though we suspect that unique flow conditions were responsible for the longer passage time during intermediate discharge, a detailed hydraulic analysis is needed to further interpret our results.


Abstract. The diurnal, seasonal, and solar activity variations of the ionogram derived scale height around the ionospheric F-layer peak (Hm) are statistically analyzed at Wuhan (114.4° E, 30.6° N) and the yearly variations of Hm are also investigated for Wuhan and 12 other stations where Hm data are available. Hm, as a measure of the slope of the topside electron number density profiles, is calculated from the bottomside electron density profiles derived from vertical sounding ionograms using the UMLCAR SAO-Explorer. Results indicate that the value of median Hm increases with increasing solar flux. Hm is highest in summer and lowest in winter during the daytime, while it exhibits a much smaller seasonal variation at night. A common feature presented at these 13 stations is that Hm undergoes a yearly annual variation with a maximum in summer during the daytime. The annual variation becomes much weaker or disappears from late night to pre-sunrise. In addition, a moderate positive correlation is found between Hm with hmF2 and a strong correlation between the bottomside thickness parameter B0 and Hm. The latter provides a new and convenient way for empirical modeling the topside ionospheric shape only from the established B0 parameter set.


Burial in cemeteries created by and on the orders of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride Sufi order in Senegal, is said to guarantee passage to paradise. While many Mourides, understandably, prefer to have their corpses transported for burial in these cemeteries, others opt to be interred elsewhere. Focusing on the commune of Joal-Fadiouth in Senegal, I argue that the choices of Mourides concerning place of burial are influenced by histories of migration in the commune and the processes through which people develop ties to the area. In explaining Mourides' divergent preferences, the paper sheds light on broader questions of identity and rootedness, evolving conceptions of "place of origin" – as well as illuminating interactions between the religious and non-religious spheres in the lives of many Africans. I draw mainly on ethnographic research in the Thies and Diourbel Regions of Senegal.


The Culture-Repopulating Ability (CRA) assays is a method to measure in vitro the bone marrow-repopulating potential of haematopoietic cells. The method was developed in our laboratory in the course of studies based on the use of growth factor-supplemented liquid cultures to study haematopoietic stem/progenitor cell resistance to, and selection at, low oxygen tensions in the incubation atmosphere. These studies led us to put forward the first hypothesis of the existence in vivo of haematopoietic stem cell niches where oxygen tension is physiologically lower than in other bone marrow areas. The CRA assays and incubation in low oxygen were later adapted to the study of leukaemias. Stabilized leukaemia cell lines, ensuring genetically homogeneous cells and enhancing repeatability of results, were found nevertheless phenotypically heterogeneous, comprising cell subsets exhibiting functional phenotypes of stem or progenitor cells. These subsets can be assayed separately, provided an experimental system capable to select one from another (such as different criteria for incubation in low oxygen) is established. On this basis, a two-step procedure was designed, including a primary culture of leukaemia cells in low oxygen for different times, where drug treatment is applied, followed by the transfer of residual cell population (CRA assay) to a drug-free secondary culture incubated at standard oxygen tension, where the expansion of population is allowed. The CRA assays, applied to cell lines first and then to primary cells, represent a simple and relatively rapid, yet accurate and reliable, method for the pre-screening of drugs potentially active on leukaemias which in our opinion could be adopted systematically before they are tested in vivo.


Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease that affects the whole joint, with progressive articular cartilage loss. Healthy cartilage must maintain a balance between extracellular matrix synthesis and degradation. Metalloproteinases (Matrix metalloproteinases, MMPs and a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain with thrombospondin motifs, ADAMTSs) play an important role in cartilage degradation. The collagenases (MMP-1 and MMP-13) and aggrecanases (ADAMTS-4 and ADAMTS-5) are implicated in the development of OA because of their ability to degrade type 2 collagen and aggrecan. This project aims to identify compounds from the diet that could offer protection or slow the progression of OA via collagenase and/or aggrecanase inhibition.
Ninety-six dietary derived compounds selected from a Natural Product Library were screened at 10μM for IL1-induced and basal MMP13 inhibition in SW1353 and C28/I2 cells. Several compounds inhibited MMP13 at 10μM in both cell lines. Twenty compounds were selected for study in primary human articular chondrocytes. Of these compounds, apigenin and isoliquiritigenin showed the greatest inhibition of MMP13 while also inhibiting MMP1, ADAMTS4 and ADAMTS5. The effect of apigenin or isoliquiritigenin pretreatment on three pathways implicated in OA, the NFκB, TGFβ and Wnt pathways was analysed. Apigenin and isoliquiritigenin showed differences in the patterns of inhibition in the NFκB and TGFβ pathways. The Human Phospho-Kinase Array Kit was used to perform an unbiased dissection of the kinase pathways affected by apigenin and isoliquiritigenin. Apigenin and isoliquiritigenin had similar effects on many phosphorylation events, however there were kinase phosphorylation events that were specific to either apigenin or isoliquiritigenin treatment. Taken together these data suggest that the chondro-protective gene expression changes seen with apigenin and isoliquiritigenin treatment involves a complex network of signalling pathways that require further characterisation. If these compounds are able to get to the site of OA damage they may prevent progression of OA offering an alternative treatment.


Competition has forced companies to collaborate in manufacturing network settings to be capably to deliver complete subsystems. We suggest in this paper an analytical tool to analyze the linkages between manufacturing strategies and design of production systems in collaborative manufacturing network settings. We show how this analytical tool might be used to analyze how companies in such networks synchronize their manufacturing strategies and production systems in terms of competitive priorities and synergies between them. The findings in this paper are based on a series of interviews with people at companies in a collaborative network delivering heavy vehicles.


The field of organocatalysis has rapidly expanded over the past decade. Advantages of organocatalysts over many metal-based catalysts include air and moisture stability, low cost and potential reduced environmental impact. Moreover, there is no possibility of leaching of metallic species into the product, an important concern in pharmaceutical synthesis. Successful organocatalysts from the chiral pool include examples based on proline and the cinchona alkaloids.
These alkaloids are cheap, readily available and contain several functional groups that act as 'handles' for further modification. This project investigates the opiates as a hitherto unexplored class of alkaloid organocatalysts. Numerous opioid derivatives are known from the drug design and development process and provide a convenient starting point to expedite the synthesis of 'hit' organocatalyst analogues. The functional groups present also offer potential for further structural modification. A series of opioid derivatives have been synthesised, characterised and their potential to act as enantioselective organocatalysts has been evaluated. X-ray crystal structure analysis has
been carried out on a number of opioid derivatives. Although enantioselectivities have been modest, our studies prove that the morphinan 'skeleton' can be used as a novel chiral scaffold for organocatalysis.


Zinc is an essential trace element and catalytic/structural component used by many metalloenzymes and transcription factors. Recent studies indicate a possible correlation of zinc levels with the cancer risk; however, the exact role of zinc and zinc transporters in cancer progression is unknown. We have observed that a zinc transporter, ZIP4 (SLC39A4), was substantially overexpressed in 16 of 17 (94%) clinical pancreatic adenocarcinoma specimens compared with the surrounding normal tissues, and ZIP4 mRNA expression was significantly higher in human pancreatic cancer cells than human pancreatic ductal epithelium (HPDE) cells. This indicates that aberrant ZIP4 up-regulation may contribute to the pancreatic cancer pathogenesis and progression. We studied the effects of ZIP4 overexpression in pancreatic cancer cell proliferation in vitro and pancreatic cancer progression in vivo. We found that forced expression of ZIP4 increased intracellular zinc levels, increased cell proliferation by 2-fold in vitro, and significantly increased tumor volume by 13-fold in the nude mice model with s.c. xenograft compared with the control cells. In the orthotopic nude mice model, overexpression of ZIP4 not only increased the primary tumor weight (7.2-fold), it also increased the peritoneal dissemination and ascites incidence. Moreover, increased cell proliferation and higher zinc content were also observed in the tumor tissues that overexpressed ZIP4. These data reveal an important outcome of aberrant ZIP4 expression in contributing to pancreatic cancer pathogenesis and progression. It may suggest a therapeutic strategy whereby ZIP4 is targeted to control pancreatic cancer growth.


This Article examines the various impacts of the Restatement (Third) of Property's treatment of powers of appointment. It considers how the power of appointment device can be used by contemporary estate planners to achieve important non-tax dispositive goals: flexibility, control and creditor protection. The Article first highlights decisions made in the Law Institute - blessed Tentative Draft on powers of appointment that will impact estate planner. The author goes on to point out that the Tentative Draft provides property rules that differ in many instances from the tax rules and concepts on power of appointment, and then identifies aspects of the Tentative Draft that would usefully be clarified before its final publication.


Summary The soil nematode communities of natural beech forests and managed beech forests were surveyed in order to examine which community parameters, if any, would be suited to differentiate between the two management regimes. Nematodes were collected from mineral soil at three sites, each including managed and adjacent natural beech forests. Following enumeration and identification of nematodes to family level, relative abundance of trophic groups, adult/juvenile ratio, Shannon-index, Plant Parasitic Index (PPI) and Maturity Index (MI) were determined. A clear separation of samples according to site was found in a Canonical Community Ordination (CANOCO) that related nematode data and various soil parameters in each sample. Beech forests of Mid-Zealand (Suserup) had significantly lower sand content, higher pH, higher PPI and higher nematode diversity according to the Shannon-index than the forests of North Zealand (Farum and Rankeskov). A distinct difference in the distribution of families was observed between sites, which could be governed by differences in texture and pH. The MI of the two old natural forest sites (Farum and Suserup) was significantly higher than the comparable managed sites, while this was not the case for Rankeskov, which is in a less mature state. There was a significantly higher adult/juvenile ratio and higher relative abundance of bacterial feeders in the natural forests compared to the managed forests. The apparent relation between pH and Maturity Index in beech forests is discussed. We suggest dead wood input to be the driving variable leading to the observed differences in the nematode community between managed and natural forests of Zealand, Denmark. The marked site differences found in this study emphasizes the need to carefully choose reference areas where soil conditions etc. are very similar to the managed forest in question when reference schemes for nature-based forestry are being developed.


Highly stable poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) : phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) bulk heterojunction solar cells are fabricated by using an inverted geometry. The direct correlation between the morphology of the active layer and the device performance during continuous operation under illumination is revealed by in operando grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) and I–V measurements. Other than in devices with normal geometry, it is found that the P3HT : PCBM active layer shows a stable morphology during early operation times, which leads to an improved stability of the short circuit current and accordingly the power conversion efficiency of the inverted solar cell. Furthermore, the inverted P3HT : PCBM solar cells are long-term stable without encapsulation if they are stored under ambient dark conditions. It reveals that the power conversion efficiency preserves around 88% of the initial value after more than 150 days.


Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a key molecule in many biological processes. Studies in humans, mice, D. melanogaster, C. elegans, unicellular organisms and plants have shed light on the molecular pathways activated by elevated levels of CO2. However, the mechanisms that organisms use to sense and respond to high CO2 levels remain largely unknown. Previous work has shown that C. elegans quickly avoid elevated CO2 levels using mechanisms that involve the BAG, ASE and AFD neurons via cGMP- and calcium- signaling pathways. Here, we discuss our recent finding that exposure of C. elegans to high CO2 levels leads to a very rapid cessation in the contraction of the pharynx muscles. Surprisingly, none of the tested CO2 avoidance mutants affected the rapid pumping inhibition response to elevated CO2 levels. A forward genetic screen identified that the hid-1-mediated pathway of dense core vesicle maturation regulates the pumping inhibition, probably through affecting neuropeptide secretion. Genetic studies and laser ablation experiments showed that the CO2 response of the pharyngeal muscle pumping is regulated by the BAG neurons, the same neurons that mediate CO2 avoidance.


Ionic current through a charge-selective interface in a binary electrolyte is a basic element of many electrochemical engineering and microfluidic processes. Such current passage is diffusion-limited: it induces a decrease of electrolyte concentration towards the interface (concentration polarization, CP), expressed in the saturation of current upon increasing voltage at some value (limiting current, LC). With further increase of voltage, this saturation breaks down (overlimiting conductance, OLC). In open systems OLC is mediated by a microscale vortical flow which develops as a result of electroconvective instability (ECI) of quiescent CP near LC. Electroconvection (EC) is a flow driven by the electric force acting either upon the space charge of the interfacial EDL (electroosmosis, EO) or the residual space charge of the quasielectroneutral bulk (bulk EC). There are two types of EO, the equilibrium and the nonequilibrium one. The former relates to the action of the tangential electric field upon the space charge of the EDL, and the latter pertains to the similar action upon the extended space charge, forming next to the EDL near LC. For a perfectly charge-selective interface, CP is stable under the equilibrium EO or bulk EC, but nonequilibrium EO may cause ECI. For this reason until recently, ECI in CP was attributed to this latter mechanism. Lately, it was shown that imperfect charge-selectivity of the interface makes equilibrium ECI possible, driven by either equilibrium EO or bulk EC, or both. Here we identify and analyze the major surface and bulk factors affecting the ECI. These factors (diffusioosmosis, EO, bulk EC, and some newly identified ones) are manifestations of the electric force and pressure gradient, balanced by the viscous force acting in various locations in solution. The contribution of these factors to ECI in CP is analyzed for a varying interface permselectivity.


Rhythmic up - down movements of the lateral leaflets in the plant Desmodium gyrans (L.F.) DC. have been studied. Leaflet movements were recorded with a video-computer system, where the digital video signals from the CCD camera were processed in an ATARI 1040 ST computer using special software. The average period of the lateral leaflet movements at 24 0 C was estimated to be 3.5 min. It is proposed, however, that the rhythmic movements of the lateral leaflets might be due to the movement of water across the motor cells, i.e. shrinking and expansion of motor cells, and proton pumps, membrane potential changes and ion transports are responsible for water uptake and loss in motor cells. Leaflet movements in the presence of light stimuli were then studied. It was found that the leaflet always moved towards the direction of the light, whether it was applied from the abaxial or from the adaxial part of the pulvinus. A strong effect was found in both instances, namely the reduced amplitude of the leaflet movement and thus a shortened period. When the abaxial part was exposed to light, the leaflet oscillated in a lower position, but when the adaxial part was illuminated, it oscillated in an upper Detailed instructions for typing your article are given in the following. Since you have to send a camera-ready paper, you are personally responsible of the quality and appearance of your work. Please remember the following points in Particular: a) type upto 200 word abstract single column, b) use 9 pt Times New Roman font and single spaced lines for abstract, c) type the body of the paper in double columns, d) use 10 pt Times New Roman font and single spaced lines for body text, e) list of references in numerical order of appearance, f) supply good quality of figures and tables, g) the use of SI units is mandatory, h) no separate nomenclature, i) paper length should be limited to 10 pages, j) prepare the manuscripts in MSWORD selecting US letter size paper (8.5″× 11″), k) manuscripts should be submitted in DOS formatted 3.5′′ FDD along with a hard copy or E-mail the manuscripts and post the hard copy.


The concept of university–industry partnership sustainability (UIPS) stands for well-adjusted progress among key players from universities and industry by sustaining their welfare, both in the present and in the future. This paper sought to develop an evaluation system for UIPS. The need for such a system is justified at three levels: the micro level (i.e., research and innovation performance, transfer and absorptive capability, and technology development), the meso level (i.e., institutional arrangements, communication networks, and local and indigenous rules) and the macro level (i.e., supply and demand, regulations, financing, taxes, culture, traditions, market, climate, politics, demographics, and technology). The UIPS evaluation system developed in this study offers the possibility of calculating a fair value of UIPS and providing recommendations for improving university–industry (U–I) partnerships. This can be of great importance for entrepreneurial universities that would like to strengthen their corporate links and/or reduce/reverse the "hollowing effect" of globalisation in disadvantaged regions. Additionally, this paper also contains discussions on the advantages, limitations, and managerial implications of this proposal.


Widespread degradation of tropical forests is caused by a variety of disturbances that interact in ways that are not well understood. To explore potential synergies between edge effects, fire and windstorm damage as causes of Amazonian forest degradation, we quantified vegetation responses to a 30‐min, high‐intensity windstorm that in 2012, swept through a large‐scale fire experiment that borders an agricultural field. Our pre‐ and postwindstorm measurements include tree mortality rates and modes of death, above‐ground biomass, and airborne LiDAR‐based estimates of tree heights and canopy disturbance (i.e., number and size of gaps). The experimental area in the southeastern Amazonia includes three 50‐ha plots established in 2004 that were unburned (Control), burned annually (B1yr), or burned at 3‐year intervals (B3yr). The windstorm caused greater damage to trees (>10 cm DBH) in the burned plots (B1yr: 13 ± 9% of 785 trees; B3yr: 17 ± 13% of 433) than in the Control plot (8 ± 4% of 2,300; ± CI). It substantially reduced vegetation height by 14% in B1yr, 20% in B3yr and 12% in the Control plots, while it reduced above‐ground biomass by 18% of 77.7 Mg/ha (B1yr), 31% of 56.6 (B3yr), and 15% of 120 (Control). Tree damage was greatest near the agricultural field edge in all three plots, especially among large trees and in B3yr. Trunk snapping (70%) and uprooting (20%) were the most common modes of tree damage and mortality, with the height of trunk failure on the burned plots often corresponding with the height of historical fire scars. Of the windstorm‐damaged trees, 80% (B1yr), 90% (B3yr), and 57% (Control) were dead 4 years later. Trees that had crown damage experienced the least mortality (22%–60%), followed by those that were snapped (55%–94%) and uprooted (88%–94%). Synthesis. We demonstrate the synergistic effects of three kinds of disturbances on a tropical forest. Our results show that the effects of windstorms are exacerbated by prior degradation by fire and fragmentation. We highlight that understorey fires can produce long‐lasting effects on tropical forests not only by directly killing trees but also by increasing tree vulnerability to wind damage due to fire scars and a more open canopy.


To the Editor. —Because psychiatric symptoms are nonspecific and commonly occur in medical as well as psychiatric disease, a variety of diagnostic examinations have been suggested as appropriate screening tests for patients with such complaints. At the Louisiana State University Medical Center (Shreveport), a roentgenographic skull series has been routinely ordered for all patients admitted to the inpatient psychiatric service, to help detect unsuspected and treatable disease involving the CNS. We assessed the value of such screening for patients with psychiatric symptoms, by retrospectively studying 100 consecutive patients admitted to our medical center's inpatient psychiatric service. Each patient had undergone a routine roentgenographic skull series consisting of four views: posteroanterior, right lateral, left lateral, and Towne projection. The patients' medical records were examined for such clinical factors as presence of focal neurologic signs, history of trauma or documented neurologic disorder, and clinical diagnosis. The clinical diagnoses included schizophrenic disorder (30 patients),


It is well accepted that health and social care professionals work under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. This reality shapes the education of students, which aims to equip them for such practice. Part of this complexity arises from having to work with others from a range of other health professions, often with very different professional assumptions about 'health' and how health and social care should be provided. The research described in this paper pertains to a compulsory course for second–year occupational therapy and social work students. Located early in their programs, before substantial experience in practice contexts, the course aims to increase students' readiness for interprofessional practice through both content and learning together. Action Research (AR), a well-established methodology for enhancing quality in learning and teaching, was used to make and evaluate systematic changes to the course. Through two AR cycles, we first gained an understanding of students' preparedness for interprofessional learning using established scales and then used open-ended questions to elicit their experiences of learning together. We found that explicitly using three models of health provided an important scaffolding for promoting students' identity formation as occupational therapists or social workers, in that it helped them to locate themselves and other profession with whom they might work. Strengthening students' professional identity and understanding of the perspectives of other health professionals, as well as understanding health as a complex concept, is important for preparing them for the complexity and uncertainty that arises from working with other health professionals.


The semiarid Mahafaly region in southwestern Madagascar is not only a unique biodiversity hotspot, but also one of the poorest regions in the world. Crop failures occur frequently, and despite a great number of rural development programs, no effective progress in terms of improved yields, agricultural income, or well-being among farming households has been observed. In addition to the severe development challenges in the region, environmental degradation and the loss of biodiversity are prevailing issues. This paper takes a social-ecological systems perspective to analyze why the region appears locked in poverty. Specifically, we address the socialecological interaction between environmental factors such as low and variable precipitation, the lack of sustainable intensification in agriculture resulting in recalcitrant hunger, and several environmental degradation trends. The study is based on (i) longitudinal data from 150 farming households interviewed at high temporal resolution during the course of 2014, and (ii) extensive recall surveys from the southwestern Madagascar project region. The analysis reveals a complex interplay of pronounced seasonality in income generation due to recurrent droughts and crop failures making local farmers highly risk averse. This interplay results in a gradual depletion of environmental assets and hinders the accumulation of capital in the hands of smallholder farmers, and improvements in agricultural production even where environmental conditions would allow for it. As a result, households are insufficiently buffered and insured against repetitive income and food security shocks. This can be understood as a set of interacting, partly nested social-ecological traps, which entrench the Mahafalian smallholder population in deep poverty while the productivity of the environment declines. We provide new insights on the interplay between hunger, poverty, and loss of environmental assets in a global biodiversity hotspot. Finally, we propose a set of key issues that need to be considered to unlock this severe lock-in and enable transformation toward a more sustainable development in southwestern Madagascar.


Abstract Purpose: Reliable dose estimation is an important factor in appropriate dosimetric triage categorization of exposed individuals to support radiation emergency response. Materials and methods: Following work done under the EU FP7 MULTIBIODOSE and RENEB projects, formal methods for defining uncertainties on biological dose estimates are compared using simulated and real data from recent exercises. Results: The results demonstrate that a Bayesian method of uncertainty assessment is the most appropriate, even in the absence of detailed prior information. The relative accuracy and relevance of techniques for calculating uncertainty and combining assay results to produce single dose and uncertainty estimates is further discussed. Conclusions: Finally, it is demonstrated that whatever uncertainty estimation method is employed, ignoring the uncertainty on fast dose assessments can have an important impact on rapid biodosimetric categorization.


Ectoparasites are a major concern in sheep and goat flocks, wherever sheep and goat are kept. A cross-sectional study was carried out in the districts of Kola Tembien and Tanqua Abergelle from September 2014 to June 2017 with the objectives of identifying external parasites to their species level. Randomly selected sheep and goats were clinically examined for the presence of ectoparasites or lesions and identified in National Animal Health Diagnostic and Investigation Center (NAHDIC) by using taxonomical and entomological examination. A total of 237 sheep and goats were examined randomly for the presence of external parasites.  Eight species of external parasites were identified and found on both species of animals. The species of external parasites with their prevalence included Amblyomma variegatum (35.4%), Rhipicephalus parvus (22.8%), Rhipicephalus praetextatus (8.4%), Rhipicephalus pulchellus (7.6%), Ctenocephalides felis felis (5.1%), Linognathus africanus (11.8%), Rhipicephalus evertsi (2.5%), Hyalomma truncatum (6.5%). Both in sheep and goats, there was no significant difference between infestation of external parasites and the associated risk factors except for Amblyomma variegatum which was higher in Tanqua Abergelle (25.7%) than Kola Tembien (9.7%). The odd of infestation by Amblyomma variegatum in goat was 3.5 higher than in sheep. To minimize the prevalence of external parasites urgent and well-coordinated external parasites control measures should be taken.

 Key words: External parasites, identification, kola tembien, small ruminant, Tanqua Abergelle.


A high-throughput screening campaign was conducted to interrogate a 380,0001 small-molecule library for novel D2 dopamine receptor modulators using a calcium mobilization assay. Active agonist compounds from the primary screen were examined for orthogonal D2 dopamine receptor signaling activities including cAMPmodulation and b-arrestin recruitment. Although themajority of the subsequently confirmed hits activated all signaling pathways tested, several compounds showed a diminished ability to stimulate b-arrestin recruitment. One such compound (MLS1547; 5-chloro-7[(4-pyridin-2-ylpiperazin-1-yl)methyl]quinolin-8-ol) is a highly efficacious agonist at D2 receptor–mediated G protein–linked signaling, but does not recruit b-arrestin as demonstrated using two different assays. This compound does, however, antagonize dopaminestimulated b-arrestin recruitment to the D2 receptor. In an effort to investigate the chemical scaffold of MLS1547 further, we characterized a set of 24 analogs of MLS1547 with respect to their ability to inhibit cAMP accumulation or stimulate b-arrestin recruitment. A number of the analogs were similar to MLS1547 in that they displayed agonist activity for inhibiting cAMP accumulation, but did not stimulate b-arrestin recruitment (i.e., they were highly biased). In contrast, other analogs displayed various degrees of G protein signaling bias. These results provided the basis to use pharmacophore modeling and molecular docking analyses to build a preliminary structure-activity relationship of the functionally selective properties of this series of compounds. In summary, we have identified and characterized a novel G protein–biased agonist of the D2 dopamine receptor and identified structural features that may contribute to its biased signaling properties.


An airborne gamma ray survey was conducted for the Scottish Office Environment Department of coastal and inland parts of SW Scotland to define existing background levels, to locate features worthy of further attention, and to demonstrate the emergency response capabilities of radiometric methods. Coastal areas were surveyed with 500 m line spacing. Inland areas were specified to 2 km line spacing, however it was possible to achieve 1 km line spacing in the majority of the inland zone.

Fieldwork was conducted between the 1st and 16th February 1993. A total of over 17,000 gamma ray spectra were recorded, using a 16 litre NaI spectrometer mounted in a helicopter flying at 50-75m ground clearance and 120kph. A total area of 3650 km2 was surveyed in 41.6 flying hours, from roughly 4370 line kilometres. The data were reduced in the field using standard SURRC procedures for background subtraction, stripping of spectral interferences, altitude correction, and calibration. Preliminary maps of the distribution of 137Cs, 40K, 214Bi, 208Tl, and estimated ground level gamma dose rate were produced during the fieldwork period using working calibration values derived from previous surveys. A set of core samples was collected from Wigtown Merse, Longbridgemuir and Caerlaverock merse for calibration purposes, and aerial observations were performed at these sites.

Further soil sampling and ground level in-situ gamma spectrometry was performed in the summer of 1993 to investigate the applicability of the calibration to a range of upland soil types and topographical environments. These locations received peak deposition from the Chernobyl accident, are vulnerable to wet deposition, and are difficult to monitor rapidly using ground based methods. A total of 76 soil cores, subdivided into 168 separate samples was thus collected for high resolution gamma spectrometry in the laboratory. This was conducted from April to November 1993.

For the terrestrial sites the aerial survey estimates based on the working calibration, were in good agreement with both in-situ gamma spectrometry and the results of core analysis. This validates the preliminary maps in these contexts, and confirms that a general calibration is sufficient for fallout mapping under emergency response conditions. On coastal salt marsh sites (merse), where aged deposits of Sellafield derived activity have accumulated, subsurface activity profiles for 137Cs and 241Am and the presence of superficial levels of 134Cs were observed from the soil cores. Similar features have been observed in previous surveys. In these cases the effects of source burial must be taken into account to avoid underestimation of activity levels by both ground-based and aerial gamma spectrometry. A separate set of detailed maps for the principal merse sites was therefore prepared using a calibration factor derived from the soil cores from this context. There are prospects for developing spectral analysis procedures to account for source depth in aerial surveys. Source burial on the merse also has implications for sampling techniques, and for dose rate measurement, which would merit further consideration.

The radiometric maps show clearly the distributions of each individual nuclide and indicate the contribution which individual localised features make to the overall gamma ray dose rate. Naturally occurring nuclides reflect the underlying geological and geomorphological contexts of the landscape. The main granite intrusions, most notably at Cairnsmore of Fleet, the Loch Doon Granodiorite, Glencairn of Carsphairn, the Dalbeattie granite, and Criffel Pluton are readily visible in 40K, 214Bi and 208Tl maps, and control their local radiation environments. A number of areas of enhanced 214Bi, which may reflect radon potential, were noted. A transient radon associated 214Bi signal was observed on the west of the Wigtown peninsular during the survey. Examination of spectral data in the vicinity of Dundrennan has confirmed that there is no evidence of widespread terrestrial contamination arising from the use of depleted uranium projectiles on the range.

The 137Cs map indicates the environmental distribution of this nuclide in considerable detail. Levels of 137Cs range from approximately 2 kBq m-2, a level consistent with global weapons' testing fallout, from 2-40kBq m-2 on terrestrial sites affected by deposition from the Chernobyl accident, and from 40 kBq m-2 to over 200 kBq m-2 on tide washed pastures which have accumulated marine sediments from the Irish Sea. All three levels are represented within the survey zone, in a manner which is consistent with the findings of previous aerial surveys in adjacent areas, and with ground based studies.

The main Chernobyl deposition in Dumfries and Galloway appears to have occurred between an area just east of the Nith, and Glenluce. The northern limit has not yet been defined, and there may be grounds for considering extension of the northern and particularly eastern limits of the inland survey zone. Within the survey zone the deposition pattern is complex, including both upland and lowland components. The plume trajectories for deposition inferred from these observations are oriented northwards rather than in the NW directions predicted by meteorological derived estimates. This may explain the contradiction between results from the Central Highlands and the estimated fallout patterns. The data presented here both add to previous knowledge, and serve as a baseline against which any future changes can be measured.

The survey provides systematic coverage of the sedimentary and terrestrial coastal system for the first time, and has identified a number of merse sites which have accumulated radioactivity from past marine discharges from Sellafield, and which are not routinely monitored under existing Scottish Office arrangements. Some of these locations are extensive and fall within SSI's; furthermore they are key sites for studying future deposition trends. It would seem prudent to review radiological assessments in the light of this work to ensure that the patterns of occupancy and sensitive ecologies of the merse are taken fully into account.

The emergency response potential of aerial radiometrics has been clearly demonstrated in this project. It provides the only practical means of providing comprehensive environmental measurements of remote and upland landscapes on a short time scale, with an effective area sampling density some 106-107 times greater than soil sampling. Results are compatible with ground based approaches, and could focus ground based efforts effectively under emergency conditions. Modern approaches to data recording and analysis are able to produce maps during the survey period. National baseline mapping in Scotland, at 1 km resolution, would require less than 800 flying hours; 20 km line spacing would take roughly 40 hours of flight time. A long term programme of high resolution national baseline mapping, coupled to an emergency response standby arrangement, would provide an extremely cost effective way of preserving the capability developed since the Chernobyl accident, while producing high quality environmental data for research purpose


We describe a technique to assist in the placement of percutaneous anchoring sutures when used in poorly accessible tunnels such as in rhinoplasty by using a sucker tube to guide retrieval and placement of the suture needle. This technique avoids unintended catching of the needle on soft tissue within the tunnel, which could prevent the structure from becoming anchored at other than in its intended location.


The robustness of smart grids is challenged by unpredictable power peaks or temporal demand oscillations that can cause blackouts and increase supply costs. Planning of demand can mitigate these effects and increase robustness. However, the impact on consumers in regards to the discomfort they experience as a result of improving robustness is usually neglected. This paper introduces a decentralized agent-based approach that quantifies and manages the tradeoff between robustness and discomfort under demand planning. Eight selection functions of plans are experimentally evaluated using real data from two operational smart grids. These functions can provide different quality of service levels for demand-side energy self-management that capture both robustness and discomfort criteria.


Abstract Ordovician proglacial deposits form gas reservoirs in the In Amenas field, Illizi Basin, Algeria. Depositional models were developed to understand the context and disposition of the main reservoirs through an evaluation of core and analogous outcrops from the Tassili N'Ajjer. Tunnel valleys initially accumulated sandstones with tractional structures. Subsequent failures of subaqueous grounding line sediment deposited proglacial debrites comprising poorly sorted argillaceous sandstone with granules. These were interbedded with high-density turbidity sandstones; their fine grain size indicates they were dynamically disconnected from the lithologically varied debrites. A lobate geometry has been defined for one subsurface composite turbidite. Periodic catastrophic outflows, possibly evacuating subglacial lakes, incised the network of subglacial tunnels and in the process delivered sand to the turbidite outwashes. Bedforms indicate high-energy, transcritical to supercritical outflows that were stable for extended periods. During ice retreat, a period of ice margin stability may have occurred due to grounding over the In Amenas granitic palaeohighs. Outwash fan apices were located along this grounding line with feeder channels developing where the substrate was more easily eroded such as between the palaeohighs. Following further ice retreat, deposition evolved to variably sinuous channels and thence to pelagic fines with dropstones.


Abstract. The purpose of this application, under Article 70.2 of the Code, is to conserve the current usage of the generic name Brachystoma Meigen, 1822 for a well-established genus of brachystomatid flies. The type species of Brachystoma has long been assumed to be Syrphus vesiculosus Fabricius, 1794, designated by Blanchard in 1840. However, the correct type species is Brachystoma longicornis Meigen, 1822, designated by Westwood in 1840, which is currently recognized as a valid species of Trichopeza Rondani, 1840. Acceptance of the earlier designation would threaten stability of nomenclature and taxonomy of the common and worldwide genus-group name Brachystoma Meigen, 1822 and make it the senior synonym of Trichopeza Rondani, 1840, thus requiring species in Brachystoma to be associated with the next available generic name Blepharoprocta Loew, 1862. To avoid the nomenclatural instability that would result from following the Principle of Priority, it is proposed that all type fixations for Brachystoma Meigen, 1822 prior to that of Syrphus vesiculosus Fabricius, 1794 by Blanchard (1840) be set aside.


Dahlan, A.R,. 2008. Geology of Kawengen , Ungaran Timur District, Semarang Regency, Central Java Province. Geological Mapping Report, Unpublished, Geological Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Diponegoro University, Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia.

Regional mapping administratively into three regions including Eastern Ungaran and Bergas District, Semarang Regency and Mranggen District , Demak Regency, Central Java Province. Ungaran regional geology has been mapped by a geologist, but in general scale. This study aims to conduct geological mapping in a more detailed scale.
Geomorphology mapping area is divided into three units based on its morphogenesis, namely fluvial landform unit, denudasional structural landform unit, and denudasional landform unit. Stratigraphy mapping area is divided into five units, from the old to the young as follows: unit carbonaceous claystone unit; sanstone units, limestone units, volcanic breccia units, and units of alluvial deposits. Geological structure of this area are anticline and sincline, shear fault produced by the tectonic forces of the north-south Java direction, and shear structures.
Geological history began on: Late Miocene, sedimentation environment of the ocean basins (continental slope), deposited by turbidit, carbonaceous limestone units contained tufaceous sanstone layer material is the result of volcanic origin redimentation of volcano, then still in the environment and the same process, deposited unit of sandstone. Pliocene until Plistocene phase the volcanic breccia deposited and volcanic sedimentation; when Holocene erosion process, forming alluvial deposits.
Georesources of this area is limestone and sandstone mining deposits. While the potential for disaster in the form of landslides (landslide) and the crumbling rock (rock fall) on the slopes - the slopes of the hills.

Keywords: geomorphology, Stratigraphy, structure, potential


Analysis of 10 fistulae in 9 patients, all male. The etiology was diverse although there was a predominance of colovesical diverticulitis. Mictional urinary symptomatology was most frequent. In one case symptoms had been first referred 10 months earlier, while the others ranged between 24 hours and 15 days. Cystography was the radiological procedure which diagnosed more cases whereas cystoscopy was the endoscopic procedure which provides more data. Seven fistulae were treated surgically, in 5 instances with curative and 2 with palliative purposes. Three cases were subsidiary to surgery. 44.4% of patients died within one month from diagnosis.


In fat and muscle cells, insulin stimulates the movement to and fusion of intracellular vesicles containing GLUT4 with the plasma membrane, a process referred to as GLUT4 translocation. Previous studies have indicated that Akt [also known as PKB (protein kinase B)] phosphorylation of AS160, a GAP (GTPase-activating protein) for Rabs, is required for GLUT4 translocation. The results suggest that this phosphorylation suppresses the GAP activity and leads to the elevation of the GTP form of one or more Rabs required for GLUT4 translocation. Based on their presence in GLUT4 vesicles and activity as AS160 GAP substrates, Rabs 8A, 8B, 10 and 14 are candidate Rabs. Here, we provide further evidence that Rab10 participates in GLUT4 translocation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Among Rabs 8A, 8B, 10 and 14, only the knockdown of Rab10 inhibited GLUT4 translocation. In addition, we describe the subcellular distribution of Rab10 and estimate the fraction of Rab10 in the active GTP form in vivo. Approx. 5% of the total Rab10 was present in GLUT4 vesicles isolated from the low-density microsomes. In both the basal and the insulin state, 90% of the total Rab10 was in the inactive GDP state. Thus, if insulin increases the GTP form of Rab10, the increase is limited to a small portion of the total Rab10. Finally, we report that the Rab10 mutant considered to be constitutively active (Rab10 Q68L) is a substrate for the AS160 GAP domain and, hence, cannot be used to deduce rigorously the function of Rab10 in its GTP form.


Pine trees are highly important to Florida's ecosystems and economy. There are seven species of native pines, and each grows best in a particular environment. People have found varied uses for each species as well. Several species are of commercial value and are cultivated and managed to provide useful products such as paper, industrial chemicals, and lumber. Some species are also managed to enhance wildlife habitat and to provide attractive landscapes. Of course, many pines grow naturally. Like any natural resource, pines may provide more benefits if they are managed wisely. This 11-page fact sheet gives an overview of the features and identification of the major pines found in Florida. Written by Niels Proctor and Martha Monroe, and published by the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, April 2016.
FOR21/FR003: Common Pines of Florida (ufl.edu)


Iron sulfide nanocomposites have been prepared through reactions of bis[bis(trimethylsilyl)amido]iron(II) or zerovalent iron nanoparticles (NPs) with hydrogen sulfide gas. The chemical composition of these materials was analyzed by TEM, XRD, WAXS and Mossbauer measurements. Decomposition of bis[bis(trimethylsilyl)amido]iron(II) under an H2S atmosphere in the presence of palmitic acid produces thin iron sulfide nanoflakes, which seemingly consist of Fe2S2 and Fe7S8. The sulfidation of 9 nm zerovalent iron NPs with H2S yields thin nano flakes exhibiting the same iron sulfide phases and residual iron. Remarkably, treatment of slightly larger iron NPs (13 nm) with H2S (or alternatively benzylthiol) yields well‐shaped iron–iron sulfide core‐shell particles. These particles exhibit a crystalline iron core and an amorphous iron sulfide shell, which likely consists of Fe2S2, Fe7S8 and Fe1−XS. Magnetic measurements on these core‐shell particles show a decrease of the total magnetization (compared to bulk iron) coming along with the sulfidation process. Owing to the partially preserved ferromagnetic character these iron–iron sulfide core‐shell particles were found to have magnetic heating properties.


Scalable training of large models (like BERT and GPT-3) requires careful optimization rooted in model design, architecture, and system capabilities. From a system standpoint, communication has become a major bottleneck, especially on commodity systems with standard TCP interconnects that offer limited network bandwidth. Communication compression is an important technique to reduce training time on such systems. One of the most effective methods is error-compensated compression, which offers robust convergence speed even under 1-bit compression. However, state-of-the-art error compensation techniques only work with basic optimizers like SGD and momentum SGD, which are linearly dependent on the gradients. They do not work with non-linear gradient-based optimizers like Adam, which offer state-of-the-art convergence efficiency and accuracy for models like BERT. In this paper, we propose 1-bit Adam that reduces the communication volume by up to $5\times$, offers much better scalability, and provides the same convergence speed as uncompressed Adam. Our key finding is that Adam's variance (non-linear term) becomes stable (after a warmup phase) and can be used as a fixed precondition for the rest of the training (compression phase). Experiments on up to 256 GPUs show that 1-bit Adam enables up to $3.3\times$ higher throughput for BERT-Large pre-training and up to $2.9\times$ higher throughput for SQuAD fine-tuning. In addition, we provide theoretical analysis for our proposed work.


This text studies various geometric properties and algebraic invariants of smooth projective varieties with infinite fundamental groups. This approach allows for much interplay between methods of algebraic geometry, complex analysis, the theory of harmonic maps and topology. Making systematic use of Shafarevich maps, this work isolates those varieties where the fundamental group influences global properties of the canonical class. The book is primarily geared towards researchers and graduate students in algebraic geometry who are interested in the structure and classification theory of algebraic varieties. There are, however, presentations of many other applications involving other topics as well - such as Abelian varieties, theta functions and automorphic forms on bounded domains.


In a market with price impact proportional to a power of the order flow, we find optimal trading policies and their implied performance for long‐term investors who have constant relative risk aversion and trade a safe asset and a risky asset following geometric Brownian motion. These quantities admit asymptotic explicit formulas up to a structural constant that depends only on the curvature of the price impact function. Trading rates are finite as with linear impact, but are lower near the target portfolio, and higher away from the target. The model nests the square‐root impact law and, as extreme cases, linear impact and proportional transaction costs.


In a three-year prospective study, computed tomographic (CT) and surgical findings were compared for nine large breed dogs with lumbosacral stenosis. Surgically-excised tissue was examined histologically in seven dogs and additional necropsy evaluation was performed in one dog. The CT abnormalities observed at sites of confirmed cauda equina compression were: loss of epidural fat, increased soft tissue opacity, bulging of the intervertebral disc margin, spondylosis, thecal sac displacement, narrowed intervertebral foramen, narrowed vertebral canal, thickened articular process, articular process subluxation, articular process osteophyte, and telescoped sacral lamina. The CT characteristics of lumbosacral degenerative disease and discospondylitis were similar to those described in humans. In three dogs, CT findings at the site of cauda equina compression were consistent with congenital or developmental spinal stenosis, but the method of surgical exposure precluded confirmation. Epidural fibrosis (eight dogs) and multi-level CT abnormalities (six dogs) were identified but the cause(s) and significance were unknown.


Introduction: we previously reported (Vitolo U, JCO 2013) the results of a randomized study with brief first-line chemoimmunotherapy followed by rituximab maintenance vs observation. With a median follow-up of 42 months, 3-year Progression Free Survival (PFS) and Overall Survival (OS) were 66% and 89%, respectively. The addition of Rituximab maintenance gave a benefit to the patients: 2-year PFS was 81% for rituximab maintenance versus 69% for observation with a HR of 0.63 (95% CI: 0.38-1.05, p=0.079), although not statistically significant. Moreover we also found that achievement of Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) negativity predicted a better PFS: 3-year PFS 72% vs 39%, HR 3.1 (Ladetto M, Blood 2013). Overall these data showed the good efficacy of this brief chemoimmunotherapy regimen in elderly FL patients. Aim of this analysis was to report long-term outcome and long-term toxicities of this regimen. Methods: From January 2004 to December 2007, 242 treatment-naive patients aged 60-75 years with FL Grade I, II and IIIa were enrolled by 33 FIL centres. Patients had to have advanced (high tumor burden stage II or stage III-IV) disease requiring treatment: 4 monthly courses of R-FND (standard doses of Rituximab, Fludarabine, Mitoxantrone, Dexamethasone) every 28 days followed by 4 weekly Rituximab infusions as consolidation. Responders patients [complete remission (CR) + unconfirmed CR + partial remission (PR)] were randomized to brief rituximab maintenance (Arm A), once every 2 months for a total of 4 doses, or observation (Arm B). MRD for the bcl-2/IgH translocation was determined on bone marrow cells in a centralized laboratory belonging to Euro-MRD consortium, using qualitative and quantitative PCR. Results: a total of 234 patients began chemoimmunotherapy: after induction and consolidation treatment overall response rate was 86%, with 69% CR. Of these, 210 completed the planned treatment and 202 responders were randomized. Up to date, median follow-up were 96 months from enrollment and 87 months from randomization; additional follow-up data were available for 127/146 (87%) not relapsed/progressed patients. Five- and 7-year PFS for the whole population were 57% and 51%, respectively; 5- and 7-year OS for the whole population were 85% and 80%, respectively. From enrollment, an advantage in term of PFS and also OS was observed in FLIPI low risk patients: 7-year PFS was 67% for low risk versus 38% for intermediate-high risk patients (p Conclusions: the present long-term results of this trial with a prolonged follow-up of 7 years confirm that a good outcome is achievable in elderly FL patients with a short-term chemoimmunotherapy (R-FND + Rituximab consolidation) with a 7-year PFS of 51% and low toxicity. In addition these results did not show clear evidence in favor of a shortened Rituximab maintenance after R-fludarabine containing chemotherapy. Conversely, the achievement of PCR negativity maintains predictive value for a better outcome. Disclosures Off Label Use: Rituximab maintenance was not licensed in first-line treatment for follicular lymphoma at that time in Italy; Rituximab was provided free by Roche.


This paper gives an overview of the properties of all possible equilibrium sequences of compact strange-matter stars with nuclear crusts, which range from strange stars to strange dwarfs. In contrast to their non-strange counterparts--neutron stars and white dwarfs--their properties are determined by two (rather than one) parameters, the central star density and the density at the base of the nuclear crust. This leads to stellar strange-matter configurations whose properties are much more complex than those of the conventional sequence. As an example, two generically different categories of stable strange dwarfs are found, which could be the observed white dwarfs. Furthermore the authors find very-low-mass strange stellar objects, with masses as small as those of Jupiter or even lighter planets. Such objects, if abundant enough, should be seen by the presently performed gravitational microlensing searches.


The decision of intubation and mechanical ventilation in poisoned patients with impaired consciousness can be a difficult task. The present study aimed to evaluate the power of Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE II), rapid acute physiology score (RAPS) and rapid emergency medicine score (REMS) at admission in predicting the need of intubation and mechanical ventilation in drug overdose patients with disturbed consciousness level (DCL). This prospective observational study was conducted on 104 poisoned patients who were admitted to Tanta Toxicological Unit with a DCL. Four scoring systems (GCS, APACHE II, RAPS and REMS) were recorded for all patients on admission. Discrimination was evaluated using receiver operating characteristics curve and calculating the area under the curve (AUC). Twenty-four cases required mechanical ventilation. The mechanically ventilated patients had significantly lower value of GCS and higher values of APACHE II, REMS and RAPS than other group (p < 0.001). Although the APACHE II score has the best AUC value (0.796) in predicting mechanical ventilation, there was no statistically significant difference between the four scores. GCS > 8 had 100% negative predictive value, while REMS > 8 had 100% positive predictive value.


Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) have recently become more popular as a biologically plausible substitute for traditional Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). SNNs are cost-efficient and deployment-friendly because they process input in both spatial and temporal manner using binary spikes. However, we observe that the information capacity in SNNs is affected by the number of timesteps, leading to an accuracy-efficiency tradeoff. In this work, we study a fine-grained adjustment of the number of timesteps in SNNs. Specifically, we treat the number of timesteps as a variable conditioned on different input samples to reduce redundant timesteps for certain data. We call our method Spiking Early-Exit Neural Networks (SEENNs). To determine the appropriate number of timesteps, we propose SEENN-I which uses a confidence score thresholding to filter out the uncertain predictions, and SEENN-II which determines the number of timesteps by reinforcement learning. Moreover, we demonstrate that SEENN is compatible with both the directly trained SNN and the ANN-SNN conversion. By dynamically adjusting the number of timesteps, our SEENN achieves a remarkable reduction in the average number of timesteps during inference. For example, our SEENN-II ResNet-19 can achieve 96.1% accuracy with an average of 1.08 timesteps on the CIFAR-10 test dataset. Code is shared at https://github.com/Intelligent-Computing-Lab-Yale/SEENN.


Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is the second commonest nosocomial infection in paediatric intensive care units. New definitions about VAP have been proposed recently for better epidemiological study and clinical trials. Management approach is mainly based on adult recommendation because of scanty paediatric studies. Multidrug resistant microorganisms can cause both the early and the late onset VAP. Possible risk factors for VAP include longer duration of ventilation, immunodeficiency, use of immunosuppressive drugs, neuromuscular blockade, genetic syndrome(s), reintubation and transport of critical patients. To have a more reliable diagnosis, quantitative or semi-quantitative bacterial cultures using bronchoscopic or nonbronchoscopic methods should be performed before initiation of the de-escalation therapy, which is the current trend of management. The threshold bacterial count of bronchoalveolar lavage in diagnosing pneumonia is still controversial in Paediatrics. Initial empirical treatment with combination antibiotics therapy providing a broad spectrum cover to decrease the mortality should be considered, which could later be narrowed to single sensitive antibiotic based on bacterial culture. Shorter duration of antibiotic(s) of 8 days is equally effective as the 15-day treatment except in Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia. Good nursing care with utmost infection control practice is the paramount element in the prevention of VAP.


Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs) are hygroscopic liquids composed of a hydrogen bond donor (HBD) and acceptor (HBA). Their physical, chemical and electrochemical properties can be tailored to use them as solvents for different applications, i.e. electrodeposition, catalysis, extraction, etc. This can be done by changing the HBD, as well by adding water. However, the interrelated influence of H2O and HBD on the structure of the electrolyte, and on the behavior of the active species is not fully understood. In this work, we select nickel electrodeposition as a case study and we combine electrochemical techniques (cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry) with UV-vis spectroscopy and molecular dynamics to understand the influence of water and HBD on the electrochemical behaviour of DESs. The unique combination of these different experimental and modelling techniques provides new insights into the field. The addition of H2O changes, not only the interactions between the constituents of the liquid, but also the coordination of metal cations, which is reflected in the electrochemical performance of different DESs. More importantly, we show that, in the presence of very little (between 0.1 wt% and 2.8 wt%) and high (>4.5 wt%) water contents, DESs behave differently, and the changes in their electrochemical behavior are caused by both the complexation of metal cations and the electrolyte transport properties.


PURPOSE
To determine whether molecular genetic analysis of ocular-adnexal lymphoid tumors, combined with histopathology and tumor location, is helpful in predicting which patients will develop systemic lymphoma.

METHODS
A combined retrospective and prospective study of 77 patients with ocular-adnexal lymphoid tumors was performed. The tumors were subdivided into conjunctival, orbital, and eyelid lesions, and all were studied using both routine histopathology and molecular genetic analysis.

RESULTS
Most lesions (70%) were small cell lymphomas of the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue type, and the majority of tumors (90%) contained monoclonal or oligoclonal populations of lymphocytes discovered on molecular genetic analysis. Additionally, 72% of tumors exhibiting clonality had more than one gene rearrangement. Fifty-three percent of patients developed extraocular lymphoma sometime during the course of their disease. Patients with gene rearrangements on Southern blot hybridization had a 52% incidence of nonocular disease, compared with 63% of those without rearrangements. Patients with conjunctival tumors had a 37.5% incidence of nonocular disease, those with orbital tumors had a 54% incidence, and those with eyelid tumors had a 100% incidence of nonocular lymphoma. Only two patients died as result of systemic lymphoma.

CONCLUSIONS
Most ocular-adnexal lymphoid tumors are lymphomas of the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue type. The majority of tumors exhibit gene rearrangements on molecular genetic analysis, and this technique was not helpful in predicting which patients would develop nonocular lymphoma. Tumor location did have predictive value: Conjunctival lesions had the lowest incidence of nonocular lymphoma, and lid lesions had the highest incidence. Even with disseminated disease, most patients have a favorable prognosis with treatment.


The aim has been to improve the performance and acceptability
of anaerobic digestion (AD) by increasing the extent of the biodegradation
of organic solids. This should then give a greater biogas yield
and a reduced solids residue per unit of feed. Higher gas production
means a greater contribution to renewable energy targets and reduced
solids output is important because disposal could become more
of a problem in future, particularly with domestic waste and sewage
sludge. The literature review discussed a number of methods that have
been developed under the name of enhanced digestion to attempt to
achieve increased solids breakdown. These include feed pre-treatments
and temperature staging and acid/methane phased digestion. Another
method is to retain solids within the digester and this project investigated
the anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR) as a means of
achieving this. Previous work using sewage sludge in ASBRs had reported
an increase in gas production and flotation of thickened solids
instead of settling, which improved performance. An objective of this
project was to replicate this behaviour, but it could not; settlement
not flotation took place and the settlement performance quickly deteriorated.
This poor settlement led to low supernatant quality, with
high levels of suspended solids, and solids losses and decreased mean
solids retention time. However at all stages the biogas output of the
ASBR was similar to the traditional control CSTR, suggesting that
the ASBR should be capable of better performance if the settlement
problem could be overcome. The ASBR was also found to give better
pathogen destruction and also a lower capillary suction time (implying
better dewaterability), than the CSTR. [Continues.]


Following the introduction of pre-hospital thrombolysis, the acquisition and interpretation of the 12 lead ECG has become a routine part of UK paramedic practice. Although there is a growing body of evidence that confirms the diagnostic ability of paramedics in this area, little is known regarding the ability of paramedics to scrutinise the 12 lead ECG for other abnormalities. Recent publication of NICE guidance (NICE, 2010) relating to transient loss of consciousness (T-LOC) requires practitioners responsible for assessment of the 12 lead ECG post T-LOC to be competent in identifying a range of abnormalities. This paper describes a novel assessment framework in the form of a mnemonic designed to assist paramedic students in scrutinising the ECG for abnormalities post T-LOC. The need for further research to validate this assessment framework in educational and clinical settings is emphasised.


In this study, firstly, enrichment experiments were carried out on the epithermal gold ore belonging to the Konya-İnlice region containing 2.38 ppm Au-containing oxide type ore and 1.39 ppm Au-containing sulfur ore with using Falcon device as a gravity enrichment method. In these group experiments, the effects of parameters such as centrifugal force, bowl type effect, and a solid ration of feeding were investigated. As the second enrichment method, the conventional flotation technique was applied. In these enrichment experiments, appropriate grain size, flotation time, amount of reagent, and amount of depressant, and pH effect were investigated. The results of these tests showed that while a concentrate assaying 4.79 ppm Au content was obtained with 7 % recovery with Falcon Concentrator, a concentrate with 8.37 ppm Au content with 36.37 % recovery was obtained with flotation tests. Thus, if the middlings were theoretically distributed, the final concentrate recovery increased to 78.10% recovery increases to 78.10%.


The soil samples were collected from pomegranate, fig, grapevine, berry, date palm, lemon and orange to identify the nematodes of the genus Basiria in the fruit orchards of Khuzestan province (Southwestern Iran). After extraction, fixation and transferring to anhydrous glycerol, the nematodes were mounted on microscopic slides. Nematodes identified at the species level, based on morphological and morphometrical characters, using a light microscope equipped with a drawing tube and valid keys. In this study, three species were identified, namely: B. berylla, B. gracilis and B. graminophila. Morphometrics and light micrography were provided for the studied species. This is a new record of B. berylla and B. gracilis for the nematode fauna in the Khuzestan province. According to available references, this is the first report of B. berylla from berry and fig and B. gracilis from grapevine in Iran.


Bacterial lipolytic enzymes were originally classified into eight different families defined by Arpigny and Jaeger (families I-VIII). Recently, the discovery of new lipolytic enzymes allowed for extending the original classification to fourteen families (I-XIV). We previously reported that G. thermodenitrificans EstGtA2 (access no. AEN92268) belonged to a novel group of bacterial lipolytic enzymes. Here we propose a 15th family (family XV) and suggest criteria for the assignation of protein sequences to the N' subfamily. Five selected salt bridges, hallmarks of the N' subfamily (E3/R54, E12/R37, E66/R140, D124/K178 and D205/R220) were disrupted in EstGtA2 using a combinatorial alanine-scanning approach. A set of 14 (R/K→A) mutants was produced, including five single, three double, three triple and three quadruple mutants. Despite a high tolerance to non-conservative mutations for folding, all the alanine substitutions were destabilizing (decreasing T m by 5 to 14°C). A particular combination of four substitutions exceeded this tolerance and prevents the correct folding of EstGtA2, leading to enzyme inactivation. Although other mutants remain active at low temperatures, the accumulation of more than two mutations had a dramatic impact on EstGtA2 activity at high temperatures suggesting an important role of these conserved salt bridge-forming residues in thermostability of lipolytic enzymes from the N' subfamily. We also identified a particular interloop salt bridge in EstGtA2 (D194/H222), located at position i -2 and i -4 residues from the catalytic Asp and His respectively which is conserved in other related bacterial lipolytic enzymes (families IV and XIII) with high tolerance to mutations and charge reversal. We investigated the role of residue identity at position 222 in controlling stability-pH dependence in EstGtA2. The introduction of a His to Arg mutation led to increase thermostability under alkaline pH. Our results suggest primary targets for optimization of EstGtA2 for specific biotechnological purposes.


Community video production and the creation of a low-watt TV station is examined as a vehicle for youth to explore citizenship, democratic production, and community engagement. Using critical pedagogy as a theoretical framework, Eust Van Television (EVTV) brought together 10 youth and a researcher1 facilitator1 mentor. The project began with workshops on community media, visual mapping, and brainstorming sessions to explore neighbourhood stories and issues. Participants wrote a manifesto to position their ideas of community video and media democracy and created 10 short videos exploring their neighbourhood. After a community screening, the group built and erected a low watt TV transmitter and broadcast the pilot series. As a participatory, community based, critical media education project, EVTV provided an opportunity for youth to gain agency through the creation of a low watt station, and for the researcher to retlect on pedagogical practice and the role of technology within democratic media production.


Split air conditioning (AC) is the most widely used in the community for both commercial and domestic utilities. At the present refrigerant which used in Split AC is mostly common group of HFCs, such as R410a. R410a is a zeotropic refrigerant and if there is a leak in the system, it cannot be added this refrigerant. This will increase the cost of maintenance. The aims of this research is to investigate the retrofit of R410a with R32 on the Split AC system. The R32 is chosen because it has higher latent evaporation heat at the same temperature and has less effect on global warming. The refrigeration effect, the power consumption and the system performance are the main three quantities that want to be examined in this research which are observed before and after retrofit. Experimental investigation conducted during this research, including design and manufacture of experimental equipment, calibration and tools installment, collecting the experimental data and analysis by quantitative description method before and after retrofit. The results informed that cooling effect increased during the research, but the COP system has a slight decrease about 4%. R32 refrigerant is quite feasible as a retrofit refrigerant to R410a refrigerant.


This scientific report presents the results of a dedicated experiment that was conducted within the framework of the Low-latitude ionospheric Sensor Network (LISN) observatory to measure the characteristics of medium-scale (hundreds of km) Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs) as they transit through the low-latitude ionosphere. A small array of 3 GPS receivers separated by 4-5 km placed in a triangular configuration was installed near Huancayo in Peru possessing several characteristics of a radio-interferometer. During the campaign days, 17–30 July 2008, TIDs were observed daily. On July 20, 2008 between 22 and 24 UT several TIDs moved across the small array of GPS receivers with a velocity near 130 m/s, were directed northward and had wavelengths close to 450 km. Other GPS receivers that were operating hundreds of km away from Huancayo show also similar TEC traces and provide a phase velocity equal to 150 m/s. This value was measured using the GPS at Piura, Cuzco and Huancayo. Based on this positive result, we conclude that small and/or regional arrays of GPS receivers can be used at low latitudes to study the role that gravity waves may have on seeding plasma bubbles.


The estimation of multivariable predictors with good performance in high dimensional settings is a crucial task in biomedical contexts. Usually, solutions based on the application of a single machine learning model are provided while the use of ensemble methods is often overlooked within this area despite the well-known benefits that these methods provide in terms of predictive performance. In this paper, four ensemble approaches are described using LASSO base learners to predict the vital status of a patient from RNA-Seq gene expression data. The results of the analysis carried out in a public breast invasive cancer (BRCA) dataset shows that the ensemble approaches outperform statistically significant the standard LASSO model considered as baseline case. We also perform an analysis of the computational costs involved for each of the approaches, providing different usage recommendations according to the available computational power.


This paper develops a general stochastic model of a frictionless security market with continuous trading. The vector price process is given by a semimartingale of a certain clr;zss, and the general stochastic integral is used to represent capital gains. Within the framework of this model, we discuss the modern theory of contingent claim valuation, including the celebrated option pricing formula of Black and Scholes. It is shown that the security market is complete if and only if its vector price process has a certain martingale representation property. A multidimensional generalization of the Black-Scholes model is examined in some detail, and some other examples are discussed briefly.


This study was conducted to assess the drug prescribing trend of anti-hypertensive and hypoglycemic agents in hypertensive and diabetic patients in tertiary care private Hospital. The study was prospective, cross-sectional and observational study. A total of 100 prescriptions were recorded. 56% were males as compared to 44% females. The age group of the patients varied from 30 to 90 years with majority individual above 50 years of age. 59% patients were hypertensive; 26% patients were diabetic and 15% had both the diseases. For the treatment of HTN, both mono-therapy and combination therapy were followed. In mono-therapy, amlodipine was most commonly prescribed followed by losartan. In combination therapy, a two-drug combination consisting of calcium channel blockers (amlodipine) and diuretics (furosemide /hydrochlorothiazide) were given to the majority of patients, followed by Diuretics and Angiotensin receptor blocker combination. Among diabetic hypertensive, 66.67% of patients were treated with single anti-hypertensive drug and 33.35% of patients were treated with anti-hypertensive drug combinations with oral hypoglycemics. This study showed that calcium channel blockers were the most prescribed antihypertensive agents while biguanides were the mostly prescribed among anti-diabetic agents. Combination therapy was observed in a high percentage of prescriptions in hypertensive patients. Prescribing pattern among antihypertensive showed some dubitable adherences to existing evidence-based JNC guidelines . Sunsari Technical College Journal 2015, 2(1):44-47


The Spitzer Deep, Wide-Field Survey (SDWFS) is a four-epoch infrared survey of 10 deg2 in the Boötes field of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey using the IRAC instrument on the Spitzer Space Telescope. SDWFS, a Spitzer Cycle 4 Legacy project, occupies a unique position in the area-depth survey space defined by other Spitzer surveys. The four epochs that make up SDWFS permit—for the first time—the selection of infrared-variable and high proper motion objects over a wide field on timescales of years. Because of its large survey volume, SDWFS is sensitive to galaxies out to z ∼  3 with relatively little impact from cosmic variance for all but the richest systems. The SDWFS data sets will thus be especially useful for characterizing galaxy evolution beyond z ∼  1.5. This paper explains the SDWFS observing strategy and data processing, presents the SDWFS mosaics and source catalogs, and discusses some early scientific findings. The publicly released, full-depth catalogs contain 6.78, 5.23, 1.20, and 0.96 × 105 distinct sources detected to the average 5σ, 4″-diameter, aperture-corrected limits of 19.77, 18.83, 16.50, and 15.82 Vega mag at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 μm, respectively. The SDWFS number counts and color–color distribution are consistent with other, earlier Spitzer surveys. At the 6 minute integration time of the SDWFS IRAC imaging, >50% of isolated Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty cm radio sources and >80% of on-axis XBoötes sources are detected out to 8.0 μm. Finally, we present the four highest proper motion IRAC-selected sources identified from the multi-epoch imaging, two of which are likely field brown dwarfs of mid-T spectral class.