In this chapter I consider the range of political interpretations that have been placed upon "open access" to academic research. This stretches from those, like Jeffrey Beall, who condemn the phenomenon as a mode of "collectivizing production and denying the freedom of the press from those who prefer the subscription model of scholarly publishing", to those, such as John Holmwood, who see a danger in OA of neoliberal appropriation and re-enclosure (Beall 2013; Holmwood 2013b; Holmwood 2013a). I also examine the ways in which open access to reading can facilitate a co-productive mode of open access to writing; a mass intellectuality. Indeed, it strikes me that open access may be a fundamental historical pre-requisite for a mass intellectuality, in which a society-wide and disciplinarily ambiguous co-production and mutual harnessing of intellectual labour – wheresoever it may be found – can become possible.

Beginning from a description of the forms of open access, I note that there are intrinsic power motivations at play in the enforcement of OA mandates, often linked to corporate finance, and that, at this particular historical moment, it is possible to effect apolitical interpretations, socialist interpretations and capitalist interpretations of the movement. Like many social changes engendered by the internet – and while eschewing technological fetishism (Sayre 2005) – I also argue that it is very difficult to predict the outcomes, even if one group's intentions are clear.

From this diagnosis, I next move to suggest the ways in which those with a democratic outlook on mass intellectuality can take a role of intellectual leadership – through innovative experimentation – to act to decouple the potentially dangerous side-effects of OA from its liberating potential: an upending of traditional hierarchies of research universities based purely on extant accumulated capital. Finally, I note that OA on its own is not enough, amid radical projects, to re-think the hierarchies and divisions of labour, but that it can be a useful tool along that road, so long as proponents are vigilant for the dangers of recuperation and co-option.


This paper assesses the effect of Richard Florida's creative class on economic growth and development at two levels of spatial aggregation. First, I examine the dynamics of economic growth across US metropolitan regions and investigate how they relate to regional specialization and the concentration of talent in the high-tech industry. In addition to evidence of significant high-tech clusters, I identify important complementarities with regard to the interaction between the three Ts of regional development (talent, technology and tolerance) and regional growth dynamics. Using firm-level data, the regional analysis is then complemented by exploring the location of new high-technology plant openings and their relationship with university research and development (R&D) and the creative class. Specifically, I test the hypothesis that both university R&D and the presence of "creativity" generate spillovers which are captured locally in the form of new high-tech establishments, after controlling for important location factors such as local cost, demand and agglomeration economies. While the marginal impacts of increased R&D funding on county probability for new firm formation is modest, the mix of creativity and diversity—as proxied by the Florida measure—appears to be a key driver in the locational choice of new high-tech firms. Separate estimates indicate that these findings hold up across the major high-tech industries in the USA.


Throughout the world, the problem of buried unexploded ordnance (UXO) poses an enormous, persistent, and expensive problem. While UXO generally consists of sizable bodies of ferrous metal and can therefore be detected, with current technology it is extremely difficult to distinguish them reliably from typically widespread pieces of clutter. Thus the problem is one of subsurface discrimination. The authors previous modeling work on scattering of ground penetrating radar (GPR) from metallic objects surrounded by an infinite soil-like medium has suggested the utility of a number of key discriminants in broadband fully polarimetric sensing. In particular, resonance structure, induced field rotation and ellipticity, and bistatic observation of scattered signals were shown to offer key information about target shape and size. The authors investigate the effects on signature features of the proximity of a ground surface to the target, for the common case of shallow burial (<1 m). Overall, their analyses suggest that the key discriminants seen in scattering in an infinite medium survive the complex interactions with the ground surface. In some instances, these revealing signatures appear to be strengthened by the presence of a nearby surface. Multiposition backscatter also allows fundamental inferences about target elongation and symmetry when those cannot be obtained from single position viewing.


BACKGROUND
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disease of unknown etiology and unclear pathogenesis. Evaluation of the activation of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) family genes IκBα, p50, p52, p65, and c-Rel, potentially involved in the regulation of immunity, inflammation, angiogenesis, and tissue remodeling in SSc, was carried out.

METHOD
The study included 19 patients with limited SSc, 11 patients with early SSc, and 10 healthy persons constituting the control group. Real-time QRT-PCR was used to evaluate the mRNAs in peripheral blood samples.

RESULTS
The patients with early SSc showed a decrease in transcriptional activity of IκBα inhibitor and c-Rel subunit. Transcriptional activity decrease in the other patients with limited SSc included genes encoding c-Rel and p50, subunits of NF-κB factor.

CONCLUSIONS
Deregulation of intracellular signal transduction by NF-κB takes place at the beginning of SSc and in its fibrosis stage. Associations between clinical variables and NF-κB related gene expression as well as the activation of NF-κB family members in SSc patients should be addressed in future studies.


In mid-2005 the project team was commissioned with the task of gathering baseline data to assess potential socio-economic impacts from the expansion of sanctuary zones in Ningaloo Marine Park on visitors and residents in the Northern Gascoyne and to make a preliminary assessment of any short-term impacts.

Sanctuary zones are areas where commercial and recreational fishing are not permitted. With offshore recreational fishing (referred to as 'boat fishing' in this report) and, to a lesser extent, extractive-based diving, being popular activities undertaken by residents and also visitors to the Northern Gascoyne region of Western Australia, it was the task of the project team to gather baseline data on human usage of the Marine Park against which later studies might be assessed. The sanctuary zones were gazetted at the end of November 2004, with legislation enforcing restrictions on recreational fishing within the zones introduced in September 2005. It emerged during the course of the study that at least some visitors were under the false impression that sanctuary zone restrictions were already in force in December 2004. This obviously places a question mark over the degree to which 'baseline' data collected prior to September 2005 could be considered a pristine, pre-change measure of human usage, with sanctuary zone extension impacts perhaps already commencing before the beginning of the project period. For this reason, the project team incorporated various retrospective data-gathering methods to determine a baseline measure.

During the course of the project, it was also realised that data sources were relatively poor for the Ningaloo region, and that a significant part of the problem seemed to be a lack of awareness and commitment to robust social and economic monitoring by key agencies. Therefore, an additional objective, devised later in the project, was to propose a set of recommendations for policy makers in order to prioritise the need for robust social and economic monitoring beyond (and complementary to) external research initiatives such as the CSIRO Ningaloo Cluster Project which is now underway.

The report seeks to cater to two types of readers—those who are interested in the particular changes that resulted from the sanctuary zone changes to the Ningaloo Marine Park, and those that are interested in the challenges of tourism monitoring and socio-economic impact assessments in protected areas and regional destinations more generally. A key principle put forward in the report is that to understand the effects of any one factor on visitation in a region (in this case, sanctuary zone changes), the effects of all other relevant variables affecting visitation to the region also need to be comprehensively understood, if only for the purpose of ruling out confounding factors. Like most regional tourism destinations in Australia, a range of theories (one might call them 'myths') circulate regarding the key factors underlying visitation patterns in the Northern Gascoyne, and it was perhaps coincidental that radical shifts were occurring with some of these factors, such as rising fuel prices and changes in the international and domestic tourism markets, at the same time as the new Ningaloo Marine Park Management Plan came into effect. Disentangling the potential impacts from these different factors was an important task for the project team. Consequently, within the limitations of the available data sets, the report offers a cursory understanding of tourism patterns in the Northern Gascoyne that will be of use to various stakeholders interested in matters above and beyond sanctuary zones and impact assessments.


Bioethanol stillage, the main by-product of industrial bioethanol production, is a potential substrate for fructans. However, the determination and quantification of fructans in such complex sample matrices is still a challenge for the corresponding analytics to be overcome in order to allow for the identification and utilisation of such unused fructan sources. Especially a possible utilisation or rather the corresponding process development requires appropriate analytics first. Thus, this paper aims to illuminate the basics of fructan quantification in stillage and the corresponding challenges particularly arising with widely used HPLC-RID systems. On this basis, a new approach for fructan quantification is presented based on such HPLC-RID systems allowing for a reliable and especially simple fructan determination in bioethanol stillage for comparably high sample throughput. The developed method performs fructan quantification by determination of fructose and glucose equivalents after a targeted acidic hydrolysis adapted to the respective sample matrix. By means of two different stationary phases, the problem of limited resolution in case of HPLC-RID is overcome and thus measurement errors are reduced. The approach towards the adapted analytical method can be transferred easily to comparable complex sample matrices.


The objective of this study was to develop data that are broadly applicable to the release of trace metals from fly ash, and to quantify the rate of release as a function of the composition of the ash. Thirty-two samples of Class F fly ash from pulverized coal combustion boilers were leached with seven leaching solutions simulating natural fluids. The leachate was analyzed for 21 cations that were major, minor, or trace constituents of the ash. The rate at which metal ions are released from fly ash is a complex function of the alkalinity of the ash, the distribution of elements in various chemical compounds or minerals, and characteristics of the leachant solution, particularly its pH. In this experiment, the release of cations is defined as a solubility function with respect to the volume of leachant solution. During the first leaching interval, the ashes alkalinity is neutralized, and the release of metal ions, except for Ca, is relatively low. At some point, the release of metal ions increases by one or more orders of magnitude, and remains at that level, until the readily soluble ions are released. Then the elemental release decreases, again by one or more orders of magnitude. The solubility of an element is defined by the three volumetric functions and the median volumes for those functions. The N LF (neutralization leaching function) is describes the release of cations until the sample is neutralized (dMN/dVN, meq/L). The RLF (rapid leaching function) rate is the average slope of cumulative curve between inflection points (dML/dVL, meq/L). The TLF (terminal leaching function) is the average slope of cumulative curve after 2nd inflection point (dMT/dVT, meq/L). In a natural setting, if the infiltration rate is known (L/d), the time dependent release of the elements can be estimated. The results of this study show that most cations in fly ash are only slightly soluble, that elements, other than arsenic, tend to be most soluble in acid solutions, and that non-silicates tend to be more soluble than silicates.


Nutraceutical is a food or food product that provides health and medical benefits, including the prevention and treatment of disease. Nutraceuticals are the products typically claim to prevent chronic diseases, improve health, delay the aging process, and increase life expectancy.Let us know something about one such nutraceutical. Wheatgrass is a commonly found herb in India contains enzymes like protease, cytrochrome, amylase, lipase, transhydrogenase and SOD (super oxide dismutase). Besides these enzymes, it also contains all the essential amino acids especially alanine, asparatic acid, glutamic acid, arginine and serine, which are helpful in providing good amount of protein in body which builds and repair tissues. Wheatgrass contains chlorophyll and flavonoids in good amount. It also contains vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E and minerals like iron, calcium and magnesium. Chlorophyll has been shown to build red blood cells quickly,cures anemia, normalise blood pressure by dilating the blood vessels. Chlorophyll has been shown to produce an unfavourable environment for bacterial growth in the body and therefore effective in increasing the body's resistance to illness. Probably the most important benefit of wheatgrass is, it is a cancer fighting agent. Many people strongly believe that the benefits of wheatgrass on cancer are real and that consuming wheat grass can help in the treatment and even in the prevention of cancer. Wheatgrass produces an immunization effect against many dietary carcinogens..Additional benefits of wheatgrass are better complexion and a healthy glow. The slowing of graying hair is also a benefit believed to come from wheatgrass. We can grow wheat grass in small cups, pots and trays very conveniently in our homes, so that we will have fresh juice and powder with minimum cost.


The data rate of a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication link can be improved if knowledge about the channel statistics is exploited at the transmitter. However, many realistic system scenarios require computationally prohibitive Monte Carlo methods in order to optimize the transmit covariance for maximization of the exact mutual information. This paper instead considers an approximative approach to maximize the performance of a communication link where covariance feedback is available at the transmitter. The algorithm presented is based on an asymptotic expression of the mutual information that allows correlation of both transmit and receive side of the system. From simulations we demonstrate significant gain over beamforming and pure diversity schemes in many realistic system scenarios.


: Inoculation of live Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis, culture supernatant, ammonium sulfate-fractionated crude exotoxin, or chromatographically purified exotoxin preparations into gnotobiotic small ruminants (n = 13) caused death of the ruminants within 48 hours. Characteristic changes observed in animals living greater than or equal to 2 hours after inoculation included hemorrhage and edema at the site of injection, severe hemolytic anemia and hemoglobinuria, dark red fluid in body cavities, lung edema, and icterus. The crude exotoxin preparation caused a syndrome of acute shock in 2 lambs that died within 15 minutes after inoculation. Clinical and pathologic responses of animals inoculated with culture supernatant and purified toxin were similar. Histopathologic evidence indicated that the exotoxin caused necrotic changes in the proximal convoluted tubules of the kidneys. Inoculation with live organisms caused multiple foci of suppurative inflammation in skeletal muscle and adjacent adipose tissue, whereas such changes were not observed in animals administered exotoxin preparations. Although C pseudotuberculosis exotoxin induced a hemolytic anemia in the experimental animals, it did not lead to in vitro lysis of ovine, caprine, or bovine erythrocytes, unless they had been sensitized with Rhodococcus (Corynebacterium) equi filtrate. The toxic sphingomyelin-specific phospholipase D from C pseudotuberculosis had a molecular weight of 31,000 daltons and an isoelectric point of approximately 9.6. The elution profile of exotoxin on a carboxymethyl Sephadex column was studied and the majority of the enzymatic activity was eluted by a NaCl gradient (0.25M to 0.7M) with a maximum at 0.35M NaCl.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Plants, starting from the germination of the seed in the vital process, until the formation of a new seed in the organization of all physiological events; they benefit from the chemical messengers they produce. These growth regulators, which are synthesized naturally as part of their metabolism, are plant hormones. However, there are also synthetic hormones used in plant production in agriculture. These artificial hormones are called plant growth regulators (PGR). Although there are a number of plant hormones identified today, there are five main plant hormone groups, mainly stimulating plant growth oxins, cytokinins and gibberellins, and inhibiting growth absicic acid and ethylene. All hormones are generally synthesized in the young organs of the plant. The only gaseous plant hormone is ethylene. And unlike other hormones, ethylene is more common in ripe fruits and aged leaves. In agriculture and tissue culture studies, the development of different parts of the plant can be encouraged by combining different proportions of plant hormones.


The automotive market is more and more interested in all-electric systems for the execution of the driving commands, i.e. in the so-called Drive-by-Wire (Db W) systems. The communication network of a DbW system is a critical component and, being the traditionalfieldbuses used in the cars not suited to highly dependable applications, new communication networks have been devised, built up around protocols that accommodate powerful techniques to assure the real-time exchange of information and some degree of redundancy. This paper illustrates the characteristics of the TTCAN protocol, one of the communication networks developed for Db W systems. It reports the results of a number of test carried out on a prototypal network with the aim of investigate the behavior of the protocol when it operates in nominal condition and when it is forced beyond the specification limit. Moreover, a technique for the synchronization of two or more TTCAN network has been experimented.


Summary : The best way to regulate the release of mercury to our environment is through pollution prevention – placing a declining cap on the use of mercury in products and processes. Such a cap could limit mercury releases to 10% of current levels from intentional uses, and 50% of process emissions by 2010. This approach would be far more effective than EPA's current strategy based on emissions controls, because it achieves dramatically greater reductions in total mercury releases, and reduces the problems of re-releases of mercury from wastes. The proposed level of abatement appears feasible, as major reductions in mercury use have been made in many sectors, and substitutes are available. The cap approach also promises to be much lower in cost than an emissions control strategy because the cost of preventing mercury from entering wastestreams is far less than treating the emissions afterwards. To illustrate, while mercury can be purchased for $3 a pound for use in various products, current regulations would require waste incinerators to spend $200-5400 a pound to remove the mercury from their emissions afterwards. In addition to users, a cap or other controls should be placed on the process emission of mercury from coal-fired plants and other sources, now about 25% of total releases. These steps would implement a pollution prevention approach, and could attain the virtual elimination of mercury releases at a relatively low cost.


We have investigated the effect of Nyctanthes arbortristis (50, 100, 200 mg/kg) and Calotropis gigantea leaves and flower chloroform (10, 20, 50 mg/kg) and Calotropis gigantea flower petroleum ether extracts (10, 20, 50 mg/kg) in high-fructose diet induced insulin resistance in rats. The fasting serum glucose, insulin, triglyceride and cholesterol levels were measured in blood serum for 27 days of treatment. The fasting serum glucose, insulin, insulin resistance index (FIRI) levels of high-fructose diet (control) rats significantly (P<0.001 vs. normal) increased, like wise, serum triglyceride, cholesterols significantly (P<0.001-P<0.01 vs. normal) increased. The Nyctanthes arbortristis and Calotropis gigantea leaves and flower treatment prevent significantly (P<0.001-P<0.01) vs. control) increase serum glucose, insulin, levels in high fructose-diet treated rats, except in glucose Calotropis gigantea leaves 50 mg/kg, while significantly (P<0.05-P<0.01 vs. control) decreased in triglyceride, cholesterol, except in triglyceride Nyctanthes arbortristis leaves 50 mg and in cholesterol Nyctanthes arbortristis leaves and flowers 50 mg. Further more, high-fructose diet (control) had higher in FIRI (P<0.001) than normal. In contrast, Nyctanthes arbortristis and Calotropis gigantea significantly (P<0.001) decreased FIRI in the high-fructose diet treated rats.


Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS) is widely used in the construction industry in large structures throughout the world. However, there is a concern with its use with ordinary Portland cement because of its propensity for autogenous shrinkage leading to cracking. Ternary blends of blast furnace slag/OPC and silica fume were therefore considered as a solution to avoid cracking. Ternary blends have the advantage of increasing early age strength as well as improving several other concrete properties. However, there is reluctance in the use of ternary blends of GGBFS where OPC becomes the minor ingredient. This is due to factors that include supply and demand, geographic location, economic considerations, and conservative attitudes. This paper examines the mechanical properties of such ternary blends as well as their resistance to chloride ion penetration. The paper demonstrates that the use of high volume blast furnace slag in which Portland cement becomes a minor ingredient offers superior performance in a harsh chloride environment.


Nrf2 (nuclear factor erytheroid-derived-2-like 2) transcriptional programmes are activated by a variety of cellular stress conditions to maintain cellular homoeostasis. Under non-stress conditions, Nrf2 is under tight regulation by the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS). Detailed mechanistic investigations have shown the Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1)–cullin3 (Cul3)–ring-box1 (Rbx1) E3-ligase to be the primary Nrf2 regulatory system. Recently, both beta-transducin repeat-containing E3 ubiquitin protein ligase (β-TrCP) and E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase synoviolin (Hrd1) have been identified as novel E3 ubiquitin ligases that negatively regulate Nrf2 through Keap1-independent mechanisms. In addition to UPS-mediated regulation of Nrf2, investigations have revealed a cross-talk between Nrf2 and the autophagic pathway resulting in activation of Nrf2 in a non-canonical manner. In addition to regulation at the protein level, Nrf2 was recently shown to be regulated at the transcriptional level by oncogenic K-rat sarcoma (Ras). A consequence of these differential regulatory mechanisms is the dual role of Nrf2 in cancer: the canonical, protective role and the non-canonical 'dark-side' of Nrf2. Based on the protective role of Nrf2, a vast effort has been dedicated towards identifying novel chemical inducers of Nrf2 for the purpose of chemoprevention. On the other hand, upon malignant transformation, some cancer cells have a constitutively high level of Nrf2 offering a growth advantage, as well as rendering cancer cells resistant to chemotherapeutics. This discovery has led to a new paradigm in cancer treatment; the initially counterintuitive use of Nrf2 inhibitors as adjuvants in chemotherapy. Herein, we will discuss the mechanisms of Nrf2 regulation and how this detailed molecular understanding can be leveraged to develop Nrf2 modulators to prevent diseases, mitigate disease progression or overcome chemoresistance.


Background Kuntiz-type toxins (KTTs) have been found in the venom of animals such as snake, cone snail and sea anemone. The main ancestral function of Kunitz-type proteins was the inhibition of a diverse array of serine proteases, while toxic activities (such as ion-channel blocking) were developed under a variety of Darwinian selection pressures. How new functions were grafted onto an old protein scaffold and what effect Darwinian selection pressures had on KTT evolution remains a puzzle. Principal Findings Here we report the presence of a new superfamily of KTTs in spiders (Tarantulas: Ornithoctonus huwena and Ornithoctonus hainana), which share low sequence similarity to known KTTs and is clustered in a distinct clade in the phylogenetic tree of KTT evolution. The representative molecule of spider KTTs, HWTX-XI, purified from the venom of O. huwena, is a bi-functional protein which is a very potent trypsin inhibitor (about 30-fold more strong than BPTI) as well as a weak Kv1.1 potassium channel blocker. Structural analysis of HWTX-XI in 3-D by NMR together with comparative function analysis of 18 expressed mutants of this toxin revealed two separate sites, corresponding to these two activities, located on the two ends of the cone-shape molecule of HWTX-XI. Comparison of non-synonymous/synonymous mutation ratios (ω) for each site in spider and snake KTTs, as well as PBTI like body Kunitz proteins revealed high Darwinian selection pressure on the binding sites for Kv channels and serine proteases in snake, while only on the proteases in spider and none detected in body proteins, suggesting different rates and patterns of evolution among them. The results also revealed a series of key events in the history of spider KTT evolution, including the formation of a novel KTT family (named sub-Kuntiz-type toxins) derived from the ancestral native KTTs with the loss of the second disulfide bridge accompanied by several dramatic sequence modifications. Conclusions/Significance These finding illustrate that the two activity sites of Kunitz-type toxins are functionally and evolutionally independent and provide new insights into effects of Darwinian selection pressures on KTT evolution, and mechanisms by which new functions can be grafted onto old protein scaffolds.


[1] We investigate the regional fluid flow dynamics in a highly faulted transform area, the Tjornes Fracture Zone in northern Iceland which is characterized by steep geothermal gradients, hydrothermal activity, and strong seismicity. We simulate fluid flow within the Tjornes Fracture Zone using a high-resolution model that was based on the available geological and geophysical data and has the aim to represent the complex geological structures and the thermodynamical processes that drive the regional fluid flow in a physically realistic way. Our results show that convective heat flow and mixing of cold and saline seawater with deep hydrothermal fluids controls the large-scale fluid flow. The distribution of faults has a strong influence on the local hydrodynamics by focusing flow around clusters of faults. This explains the nature of isolated upflow zones of hot hydrothermal fluids which are observed in the Tjornes Fracture Zone. An important emergent characteristic of the regional fluid flow in the Tjornes Fracture Zone are two separate flow systems: one in the sedimentary basins, comprising more vigorous convection, and one in the crystalline basement, which is dominated by conduction. These two flow systems yield fundamental insight into the connection between regional hydrothermal fluid flow and seismicity because they form the basis of a toggle switch mechanism that is thought to have caused the hydrogeochemical anomalies recorded at Husavik before and after the 5.8 M earthquake in September 2002.


We studied the feasibility of immunocytochemistry (ICC), in situ hybridization (ISH), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) after Cellient™ automated cell block processing, and tested whether methanol‐based PreservCyt™ fixation could replace formalin fixation, in an attempt to eliminate toxic formaldehyde vapors. Immunostaining with 30 different antibodies was performed on cell blocks from 73 FNA specimens and 42 body cavity fluid specimens prepared by Cellient™ automated processing that uses the methanol‐based fixative (PreservCyt™). For each antibody we evaluated ICC in at least three different cell block specimens and compared it with immunohistochemistry (IHC) in formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded (FFPE) histological sections from the corresponding tumors. The quality of DNA and RNA in Cellient™ blocks was analyzed by ISH, applying a SYT gene break‐apart assay and EBER probes, respectively. Moreover, DNA quality was analyzed by PCR by using primer sets for DNA products of 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 base pairs, and evaluated by gel electrophoresis. When compared with IHC results in corresponding FFPE tumor tissue from the same patient, 24 out of 30 antibodies showed concordant ICC results. With FISH, distinctive hybridization signals were observed for SYT DNA sequences and EB virus RNA sequences. With PCR, DNA products, up to 600 base pairs in size, were readily observed after gel electrophoresis. The antibodies that showed concordant immunostaining in Cellient™ blocks could be applied to diagnostic algorithms that proved to be helpful in the discrimination of major tumor types (carcinoma, lymphoma, melanoma, and germ cell tumors), discrimination of carcinoma subtypes, and determination of primary tumor site in cases of metastatic carcinoma. In a separate study, we found that the application of ICC to this cell block technique provided additional diagnostic and clinically important information in 24% of 100 consecutive cases. The high quality of DNA and RNA in Cellient™ cell blocks allowed sensitive and specific molecular biologic analysis, in particular FISH and PCR. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2013;41:734–741. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This research work investigates and evaluates the effects of varying lime composition on the compressive and flexural strength of compressed silicate limestone bricks and compares the results to the local blocks and bricks used in the Kenya market. The mix ratio used to make limestone bricks was binder (cement replaced with hydrated lime powder), sand and water cement in ratio of 1:5:0.4. The results showed that an increase in the lime content results into a decrease in the strength properties of the bricks. Clay brick, natural stone block and concrete blocks were bought in the local market and crushed for comparison. It was observed that the optimum strength performance was obtained at 60% cement replacement with lime which corresponds to 6.08 and 3.05 MPa, respectively for compressive and flexural strength.

 Key words: Clay brick, natural stone block, silicate limestone compressed bricks, compressive strength and flexural strength.


The paper presents a novel method, Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimation (Zero-DCE), which formulates light enhancement as a task of image-specific curve estimation with a deep network. Our method trains a lightweight deep network, DCE-Net, to estimate pixel-wise and high-order curves for dynamic range adjustment of a given image. The curve estimation is specially designed, considering pixel value range, monotonicity, and differentiability. Zero-DCE is appealing in its relaxed assumption on reference images, i.e., it does not require any paired or unpaired data during training. This is achieved through a set of carefully formulated non-reference loss functions, which implicitly measure the enhancement quality and drive the learning of the network. Our method is efficient as image enhancement can be achieved by an intuitive and simple nonlinear curve mapping. Despite its simplicity, we show that it generalizes well to diverse lighting conditions. Extensive experiments on various benchmarks demonstrate the advantages of our method over state-of-the-art methods qualitatively and quantitatively. Furthermore, the potential benefits of our Zero-DCE to face detection in the dark are discussed.


BACKGROUND
The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine recommend discussing sexual orientation as part of the health supervision of all adolescents. Little is known about whether lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth hide their orientation from health care providers, which can potentially lead to missed opportunities in identifying individual health risks and provide appropriate screening and counseling.

OBJECTIVES
To describe the health care experiences of a nonclinical sample of LGB youth and identify factors associated with disclosure and nondisclosure of orientation to physicians.

DESIGN
Community-based participatory study using a self-administered questionnaire.

SETTING
Los Angeles youth empowerment conference held in October 2003 targeting high school-aged LGB youth.

PARTICIPANTS
One hundred thirty-one youth aged 14 to 18 years who identified themselves as LGB. Main Outcome Measure Physician's knowledge of participant's sexual orientation.

RESULTS
Thirty-five percent of the sample reported that their physician knew they were LGB. Bisexual youth were less likely than gay and lesbian youth to have disclosed. The strongest predictor of disclosure was having discussed sex or sexual health of any kind with a physician (odds ratio, 15.47; 95% confidence interval, 4.34-55.18). When asked what a physician could do to make talking about being LGB more comfortable, 64% of participants chose the survey response, "Just ask me."

CONCLUSIONS
Even among a nonclinical sample of LGB youth who were open enough about their orientation to attend a conference on the subject, only 35% reported that their physician knew their orientation. The results indicate that physicians had not discussed sexuality with most LGB youth in the study and that most youth would welcome such a discussion.


To the Editor.— We read with great interest Shwayder's 1 well-crafted tongue-in-cheek letter to the editor concerning the personal statements submitted by dermatology applicants. One of us has successfully completed the dermatology match, and the other has completed a more traditionally timed match in pediatrics and psychiatry. Together, we feel qualified to make some comments on the process as a whole. The dermatology applicant is at a great disadvantage, given the timing of the match. While all other matches are completed by March, dermatology is the only specialty whose match occurs in October—well after medical school graduation. Using Shwayder's checklist format, we would like to share some insight into why this ill-timed process might foster some of the personal statements Shwayder alludes to in his letter: "Possible" reasons why the dermatology match takes place in October include: A. It gives the applicant the opportunity to create two half-baked, poorly


The aim of this research was to study the effects of pre-slaughter transport and lairage on th e chemical serologic profile of swine, as well as its relationship with qualitative aspects of meat: pH, color and temperature. Forty eight Pietrain x Landrace pigs were monitored (24 females and 24 barrows). They were transported on straw bedding trucks without stops during 2 h and deprived of feed and water. Blood samples were taken before loading, at arrival to the slaughterhouse, after lairage and during bleeding (20 sec after they were electrically stunned). At arrival to the slaughterhouse pigs were randomly distributed in 4 groups: Rested (n = 24) non-rested (n = 24) these groups were also divided by sex. Blood samples were taken form groups 1 and 2 and the animals sent directly to the slaughter pens, whereas groups 3 and 4, after blood sampling, were taken to lairage pens. Glucose and Creatine Kinase (CK) showed a high increase in blood concentration, associated to an increase in muscular activity and a decrease in globulins concentration as a consequence of stress and immunosuppres sion. Hyperglycemia and lactic acidosis detected in animals without rest were statistically different (p<0.05) compared to the group that rested. Bicarbonate level significantly decreased (p<0.05) in non-rested animals as compared to rested animals. Results indicated that animals without rest before slaughter can show hemodynamic and metabolic alterations that lead to hyperglycemia, lactic acidosis and an abrupt descent of pH, altering the carcass color.


Introduction: Cyclosporine is known as an immunosuppressive drug. Selenium has antioxidant characteristics. This study investigated the synergistic effects of radiation therapy emitted from Gamma rays with the protective effect of selenium after suppressing the immune system of rats with cyclosporine. Methods: 60 adult male mice, randomly divided into 6 groups (5 experimental groups, and one control group). Experimental group number 1: technetium + cyclosporine; group number 2: iodine 131 + cyclosporine; group number 3: selenium + cyclosporine; group number 4: cyclosporine + technetium + selenium; group number 5: cyclosporine + iodine131 + selenium. Experimental groups 1 and 4 treated with 75 mCi Technetium in a volume of 0.5 ml through intraperitoneal injection. Experimental groups 1 and 5 treated with 0.5 ml iodine 131 (30 mCi). Experimental groups 3, 4 and 5 received 0.1 mg of selenium per kg of their body weight through gavage method. Control group also treated with 0.5 ml normal saline containing 50 mg cyclosporine per kilograms of their body weight to minimize statistical errors. Six hours after treatment with cyclosporine, about 1 ml of heart blood for determining the content of lymphocytes taken and every 6 hours the population of rats has been counted. Results: Percentage of lymphocytes and survival rate was significantly decreased in the experimental group 2. Survival rate of rats in the experimental groups 3, 1, and 4, significantly increased compared to the control group. Conclusion: Treatment with cyclosporine and iodine-131 has a meaningful synergistic effect in the reduction of lymphocyte percentage and also survival time. Selenium and low doses of Technetium has the ability to neutralize the synergistic effect of cyclosporine and iodine-131.


In this paper, improvement of mechanical properties of unreinforced masonry walls based on the laboratory test results is discussed. Various masonry specimens have been tested by Portable Structural Testing Equipment (PSTE). Masonry prisms have been reinforced with indigenous materials (wire mesh and bamboo) and confined with reinforced concrete elements. The tensile strength, shear strength and lateral resistance of masonry walls increases up to 5.4, 2.73 and 5.65 times respectively by using plaster, wire mesh, bamboo and confinement. The Indigenous materials used in this research work are cheap and easily available as compared to FRP and other materials. Analysis for lateral resistance of masonry walls has been made by using different relationships.


The leucine zipper downregulated in cancer 1 (LDOC1) has been proposed as a regulator of transcription and cell signaling. We have previously demonstrated that LDOC1 is differentially expressed in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), this study was designed to characterize LDOC1 expression in thyroid follicle originated cancer tissues and to specifically evaluate its function in thyroid carcinogenesis. LDOC1 expression was performed in human normal thyroid and thyroid cancer. LDOC1 function was characterized, in two PTC cell lines (TPC1 and BCPAP), through the analysis of in vitro cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion along with in vivo tumor xenograft growth. Transduced BCPAP cells were stimulated with tumor necrosis factor α, and the levels of nuclear P65, Bax, Bcl‐2, c‐Myc, and XIAP were assessed. A luciferase reporter assay was used to measure nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) activity, and the functional connection between LDOC1 effect and NF‐κB activity was determined using a specific NF‐κB inhibitor. Our results revealed that LDOC1 was translocated from the nucleus to the cytoplasm in human thyroid cancer, and was significantly downregulated in PTC compared with normal thyroid. LDOC1 overexpression in TPC1 resulted in a significant suppression of the malignant phenotype, whereas LDOC1 ablation in BCPAP promoted this phenotype. Additional studies demonstrated that LDOC1 ablation facilitated nuclear P65 expression and NF‐κB activity. NF‐κB inhibition reversed the effects of LDOC1 ablation on proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion. Our findings confirmed that LDOC1 is a novel therapeutic target in PTC and provides new insight into the role of LDOC1 in PTC progression, through NF‐κΒ signaling suppression.


The molecular mechanisms of how n-3 PUFA excert anticancer properties are not well understood. Thus, the cancer chemopreventive properties of EPA and DHA were the core subject of in vitro studies. Furthermore, samples (n=89) of the first randomised controlled human trial intervening with lean and oil-rich fish, the FISHGASTRO trial, were screened ex vivo for markers of chemoprevention. It was shown that EPA and DHA impair cell growth and induce apoptosis. Gene expression was affected in a time- and substance-specific manner. Overall, genes connected with biotransformation, cell cycle control, signalling pathways, apoptosis, and inflammation were altered. More specifically, SOD2 induction and probably an enhanced peroxidase activity due to GSTT2 induction indicate reduction of oxidative stress. Whereas GSTT2 was induced by EPA it was reduced by DHA in HT29 cells. Anti-inflammatory activity can be attributed to COX-2 decrease by DHA in both cell types. In contrast, EPA induced COX-2 in LT97 cells. It was not possible to prove that faecal water (FW)-incubated LT97 cells were an appropriate source for biomarker identification to test the hypothesis that additional consumption of fish is beneficial for gut health. There was no marked alteration of genotoxicity or apoptosis by fish-intervention. The evidence of the comparably small impact of FW on the modulation of global gene expression in LT97 cells and the influence of an additional consumption of fish still require final assessment. The extent to which these findings may be related to a lack of impact of oil-rich fish needs further clarification. In conclusion it was shown, that EPA and DHA exert chemopreventive properties in vitro. As the results from the human intervention study were not appropriate to judge the in vivo situation, there is still a need to prove the hypothesis that oil-rich fish acts in a colon cancer chemopreventive manner.


One of the main constraints of machine learning is the common lack of annotated data. This constraint becomes even more significant when it comes to deep learning, as its performance is usually proportional to the amount of annotated data available. Active Learning emerged as a way of overcoming this drawback. Its goal is to let the model actively select which samples does it wants to learn from in order to achieve a competent performance with as few annotated data as possible. It has proven to significantly reduce the number of annotated data needed in some fields such as text or image classification. However, its potential has not been explored in a complex task such as Instance Segmentation. The goal of this Master thesis was the application of Active Learning to an Instance Segmentation task through the design and development of different Active Learning frameworks. The experiments were done using two different datasets: Common Objects into Context and the one proposed by the Data Science Bowl 2018. The sampling strategies implemented were divided into classification-based, mask-based, mask+class based and semi-supervised. The classificationbased framework measures the uncertainty of an image using the probability the model gives to each instance when associating a class to them. The mask-based framework measures the uncertainty as the spatial uncertainty a model has with the predicted masks. In the third framework, mask+class-based, the previous uncertainties were combined into one sampling strategy. Finally, the semi-supervised framework includes and additional approach that labels automatically the most certain samples using the masks and classes predicted by the model. This thesis can be considered as a starting point in the study of the application of Active Learning techniques to Instance Segmentation tasks. However, the results obtained were really promising. The different methods managed to achieve a reduction in the number of necessary segmented images. The inclusion of a semi-supervised framework to the Active Learning cycle could reduce the annotation effort even more. Another insight obtained was the importance of the balance of the different classes in the batch and the representativeness of this images with respect to the underlying sampling space.


Acinar cells that located near the islets of Langerhans (juxta or peri-insular acinar cells) differ from those lying at a certain distance from the islets (tele-insular acinar cells). The present investigation was conducted to reveal the morphological differences between peri and tele-insular acinar cells in the pancreas of Gecko, Tarentola annularis using light and electron microscopes and to evaluate the relationship between endocrine and exocrine pancreatic tissues. Histological examination of the exocrine pancreatic tissue revealed a clear zymogen halo or zymogen mantle around the islet cells. Ultrastructural examination showed that peri-insular cells around the islets of Langerhans display considerable synthesizing activity than those cells in the tele-insular region. In the peri-insular region, the pancreatic acinar cells are morphologically differentiated into three types; dark, light, and centroacinar cells. Dark acinar cells are the most common cells in this region. They have well-developed rough endoplasmic reticulum, well developed Golgi apparatus, large number of mature zymogen granules, and euchromatic nuclei. In the tele-insular region, only two types of acinar cells are detected; dark acinar and centroacinar cells. Dark acinar cells have flattened form of rough endoplsmic reticulim cisternae with the prevalence of the vesicular form of rough endoplasmic reticulum. Reduced Golgi apparatus, small numbers of mature secretory granules, and heterochromatic nuclei. The present work indicated that exocrine parenchyma is under the influence of islets hormones and that both the pancreatic exocrine and endocrine tissues form closely an integrated organ.


Stress-induced cytokine changes may be the link between stress and the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders such as depression, and organic diseases such as infections, autoimmune diseases and cancer. We tested the effect of stress on interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-22, tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interferon (IFN)-γ serum levels in male Wistar rats. Rats underwent either acute stress by forced swimming (N = 8), chronic restraint stress (N = 8), or were not subjected to any stress (N = 8). IL-2 serum levels were significantly higher in forced swimming, but not in restraint stress rats, compared to non-stressed rats. IL-4, IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α levels were higher in both forced swimming and restraint stress compared to non-stressed rats. IFN-γ production was significantly decreased by restraint stress, but not by forced swimming. IL-22 was not affected significantly by either stress condition. Alterations in the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α may indicate a pathophysiological pathway from acute and chronic stress to the development of depression. Changes in IL-4 and IL-10 may link acute and chronic stress to autoimmune disorders, allergies or cancer. The reported changes in IFN-γ could provide an explanation for the higher susceptibility to infection seen in life periods associated with sustained levels of stress.


BACKGROUND
The aim of the present study was to analyze the clinical characteristics and fluid alterations in neurologic infection by varicella herpes zoster virus in hospitalized patients.

METHODS
A retrospective study of the cases with neurologic involvement by the varicella herpes zoster virus in patients admitted in the authors' hospital from March 1991 to March 1993 was carried out.

RESULTS
Our of the 14 patients studied with neurologic involvement by the varicella herpes zoster virus, 10 were males (71%) with a mean age of 38 years (range: 13-83 years). Only 4 patients (28%) presented a base disease (diabetes mellitus in 2 cases and HIV infection in another 2). In 10 cases (71%) the appearance of cutaneous lesions was prior to neurologic manifestations (between 1 and 30 days before neurologic clinical manifestations). All the patients presented hyperthermia at some time. The most common symptoms were: headache, vomiting, confusion and/or neck stiffness, with meningitis, encephalitis and neurologic foci and mixed pictures. In 4 cases (28%) the cephalorhachidian fluid did not present analytical changes suggestive of viral meningitis. All the patients underwent i.v. acyclovir treatment at a dosis of 10-15 mg/kg/8 h with good evolution, with no deaths being observed. In 3 out of the 6 cases presenting neurologic foci the evolution was slow with sequelae following treatment completion.

CONCLUSIONS
Neurologic involvement by the varicella herpes zoster virus does not clinically defer from other neutrotropic virus. Fluid alterations were compatible with benign lymphocytary meningitis although some cases of encephalitis showed normal LCR. Taking into account that none of the patients herein reported died and considering the mortality associated with meningitis or encephalitis by varicella herpes zoster referred in the literature in untreated patients, the authors believe that the use of acyclovir is obligatory in these cases.


This article will examine the evidence for woodland management in Scotland from the 12th to the 16th centuries and will try to draw some overall conclusions about that management and how effective it was. Although there are difficulties in using medieval documentary evidence in terms of its Latin and Scots vocabulary, it does show that woodland was being managed throughout this period by enclosing woods, excluding animals and allowing time for regrowth – in other words, by coppicing and possibly, in some instances, by coppicing on a formal rota. Pollarding, shredding and growing coppice with standards may also have taken place. Examples of woodland management will be looked at in more detail in Darnaway and Campsie Forests. Despite this management, there is no doubt that a shortage of timber did develop in Scotland in areas of heavy use, especially from the 14th century onwards. What appears to have happened was that the majority of users of the woods were the lord's tenants and men. Their requirements were not for large timbers but for small trees and underwood. Consequently, in many places where underwood survived it was cut before it could grow into timber and, despite efforts in the 15th century by lords, parliament and the king, young wood continued to be cut at the expense of future supplies of timber.


Multi-walled carbon nanotubes ( MWCNTs) was used, as a catalyst carrier, to load cerous sulfate for catalyzing the synthesis of n-butyl propionate. The effects of nitric acid concentration, reaction time and reaction temperature on the purification of MWCNTs were investigated. The effects of molar ratio of butyl alcohol to propionic acid, the cerous sulfate load and the reaction time on the conversion of butyl acid were studied by single factor experiment method and orthogonal experiment method, respectively. The results show that the optimal conditions for purifying MWCNTs are: nitric acid concentration of 4 M, reaction time of 8 h and reaction temperature of 103°С and the optimal conditions for synthesizing n-butyl propionate are: molar ratio of butyl alcohol to propionic acid of 1.5:1, use level of loaded cerous sulfate of 0.15 g and reaction time of 70 min. The conversion of butyl acid for the MWCNTs loaded cerous sulfate reaches 96.7% which is higher than that for the unloaded cerous sulfate and the use level of cerous sulfate for the former is much less than that for the latter under same operation conditions.


Cek5 is a recently identified receptor-type tyrosine kinase of the Eph subclass that is nearly ubiquitously expressed during embryonic development (Pasquale, 1991). Cek5 is predominantly expressed in the avian CNS throughout development, and high levels remain apparent in adult neurons. By means of immunofluorescence microscopy and high- resolution immunoelectron microscopy, Cek5 was found to be expressed in many regions of the chicken brain at various developmental stages, most notably in the hippocampus and cerebellum. The highest concentration of Cek5 was observed in the molecular layer of the cerebellum, associated within the axons of mature granule cells (parallel fibers) and with the cell bodies of immature granule cells. In the axons of parallel fibers, Cek5 was concentrated in the fasciculated nonsynaptic portions. This localization, together with the "adhesion" motifs present in the Cek5 extracellular region suggest that Cek5 may interact with other cell surface-associated molecules and be involved in the growth, guidance, and/or bundling of certain unmyelinated axonal processes. Alternatively (or in addition), Cek5 may represent the receptor for a neurotrophic substance, similar to several other neuronal transmembrane tyrosine kinases.


The government initiative in the implementation of smart city concept is an effort in the management of a city. In the governance of a town, public service is one of the most important aspects. Improving public services requires public role because the society is the direct users of public services. One role of the community in improving public service is to provide information or complaint to the government. However, the media where the public reports such information has yet been optimum. Therefore, the researcher assumed that the public needs certain media as well as some support system where they can make complaints related to public service. The support system is in the form of e-complaint system installed on smartphones equipped with geotagging techniques to determine exactly where the complaint is made (location) and geofencing method to determine which territory the complaint belongs to. In this study, the researcher explained the process of designing module for geotagging and geofencing-based e-complaint system. Several experiments were conducted to find out the accuracy of these techniques. With 94% accuracy, geofencing was a suitable technique to apply. In addition, geotagging techniques using EXIF of a digital image was considered the most suitable technique for the e-complaint system rather than other geotagging techniques.


Tiwari P. and Hasegawa H. (2004) Demand for housing in Tokyo: a discrete choice analysis, Reg. Studies 38, 27–42. Housing is a commodity which is a bundle of characteristics specific to a housing market, tenure, income and other household characteristics. Voluminous literature exists on housing demand in which a quantitative measure defined as housing services is used to measure housing demand. Housing or, more precisely, the service stream from a housing unit, is a heterogeneous commodity. Some dimensions, such as age or size of structure, are measured on a continuous scale; others, such as tenure or type of structure, are discrete properties. Measuring the volume of housing services as housing expenditure, as is done in previous research, essentially ignores the heterogeneity, and, for large number of policy purposes like impact of tax on tenure choice, choice between owning and renting, etc., the distribution of housing consumption into qualitatively different categories, is of more interest than an aggregate qualitative measure of housing expenditure alone. Earlier research has addressed the issues of methodologies in housing demand estimation and different market and related differences in demand elasticities. The econometric theory of joint discrete/continuous models is well studied, and there exist a variety of applications. However, there is a paucity of research applications to analyse housing demand using discrete models. The limited research in this area has focused only on American or German housing markets. There is no research on housing markets, which treats housing demand as discrete choices for Japan, despite the economic importance of the Japanese economy. We model housing demand in Japan using a discrete choice model. A nested multinomial logit model (NMNL) is the basic analytical tool for our analysis. The microeconomic and econometric foundations of NMNL models encompass the elegant theory of housing economics of a utility maximizing household. NMNL models impose a hierarchical structure on the choice set that can be visualized in the form of a decision tree. Three dimensions of choice, tenure, dwelling size (as number of rooms) and structure type (as type of unit) generate these steps of clustering. This paper estimates the choice probabilities and demand elasticities of various housing alternatives for Tokyo using 1993 housing survey data for 23 wards.


The article discusses whether and to what extent an Arctic dimension in Chinese climate policy exists, and whether there are signs of potential linkages between China's engagement in the Arctic and its domestic climate policies. Although the Arctic is not directly addressed in domestic climate policy, the article concludes that an Arctic dimension exists, in the following areas: the growing awareness in China of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, climate risk, resilience and vulnerability, which has contributed to increased attention to climatic change in the Arctic and its impact on China; polar scientific research, which is largely climate related, plays a significant role in determining China's Arctic climate agenda; China's climate policymaking and domestic institutional set-up is a contributing factor to climate engagement in the Arctic; China's status as an observer nation in the Arctic Council might potentially raise the profile of domestic climate policies and lead to the addition of an Arctic pillar to national climate change strategies. Citation: Heggelund G, Han C. China's climate policy: does an Arctic dimension exist? Adv Polar Sci, 2016, 27: 139-145, doi: 10.13679/j.advps.2016.3.00139


Here, we report on recent experimental results obtained with Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) hydrophones for underwater sound pressure detection. Investigated optical hydrophones consist of FBGs coated with ring shaped polymers of different size. Coating material has been selected to provide mechanical amplification through a low elastic modulus combined with acoustic impedance matching. Underwater acoustic measurements carried out in the range 4-35KHz reveal a resonant behaviour depending on the coating size. This behaviour is consistent with numerical analysis performed using finite element method and presented in part I. In addition, good linearity was observed versus local sound pressure demonstrating a minimum detectable sound pressure of few Pascal.


Reproductive technologies to synchronize estrus and ovulation in cattle have enhanced the ability to practically utilize artificial insemination to increase both genetic merit and reproductive management of beef and dairy herds. The ability to successfully synchronize a follicular wave and ovulation, in heifers and cows, has improved substantially in recent years. Consequently, pregnancy rates to a single fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI) can approximate that of insemination following spontaneous estrus. Despite these advances, a subset of heifers and cows often has a physiologically immature dominant follicle at the time of GnRH-induced ovulation. These animals will exhibit reduced pregnancy rates and decreased embryonic survival if a pregnancy happens to become established. The physiological mechanisms underlying the preceding decreased fertility have been a focus of our laboratories and may include an effect of the follicular microenvironment on both oocyte competence and the maternal environment. Oocytes must have adequate opportunity to complete cytoplasmic and molecular maturation during the final stages of oocyte maturation that occur within the preovulatory follicle. Follicular status, during the proestrus period, must be such that adequate circulating concentrations of estradiol are present before FTAI to increase oviductal transport of gametes and enhance both the luteinizing capacity of granulosa cells and progesterone receptor population in the post-ovulatory uterus. Following ovulation, the follicle's transformation to a functional corpus luteum to secrete adequate amounts of progesterone is essential for the establishment of pregnancy. The physiological status of the preovulatory follicle, prior to FTAI, greatly affects the concepts discussed above and has an important impact on pregnancy establishment and maintenance in cattle.


Singing-ground Survey data for 2009 indicated that indices for singing American woodcock (Scolopax minor) males in the Eastern and Central Management Regions are not significantly different from 2008. There was no significant 10-year trend for woodcock heard in either management region during 1999-2009. This represents the sixth consecutive year that the 10-year trend estimate did not indicate a significant decline in the Eastern Region. The 10-year trend in the Central Region returned to stability after showing a significant decline last year. Both regions have a long-term (1968-09) declining trend of-1.1 % per year. The 2008 recruitment index for the U.S. portion of the Eastern Region (1.8 immatures per adult female) was 11.1 % greater than the 2007 index and 7.6 % above the long-term regional index, while the recruitment index for the U.S. portion of the Central Region (1.6 immatures per adult female) was 6.3 % greater than the 2007 index and was 1.1 % lower than the long-term regional index. Estimates from the Harvest Information Program indicated that U.S. woodcock hunters in the Eastern Region spent 169,000 days afield and harvested 104,700 woodcock during the 2008-09 season, while in the Central Region, hunters spent 369,800 days afield and harvested 174,300 woodcock.


We investigate an ongoing user-driven collaborative knowledge engineering and interaction design process. The anticipated outcomes are knowledge-based support applications for health care professionals and other actors in the dementia domain. The two major goals for the activity in focus are: (1) to accomplish international collaboration across organizational, language and professional boundaries in the modeling of knowledge and design of interaction, and (2) in a local community provide ICT-support for collaboration and communication between organizations, increase knowledge development in individual actors and increase the quality of dementia care. The semantic web-based prototype system ACKTUS is introduced as a tool for modeling and communicating knowledge and interaction, and its role in the process is evaluated. The activity is organized as a part of a collaborative work between different organizations to develop their local clinical practice. Obstacles and success factors when enabling the endusers to design their own tools are detected and discussed.


The boson peak appears in all amorphous solids and is an excess of vibrational states at low frequencies compared to the phonon spectrum of the corresponding crystal. Until recently, the consensus was that it originated from "defects" in the glass. The nature of these defects is still under discussion, but the picture of regions with locally disturbed short-range order and/or decreased elastic constants has gained some traction. Recently, a different theory was proposed: The boson peak was attributed to the first van Hove singularity of crystal lattices which is only smeared out by the disorder. This new viewpoint assumes that the van Hove singularity is simply shifted by the decreased density of the amorphous state and is therefore not a glass-specific anomaly. In order to resolve this issue, we use computer models of a four-component alloy, alternatively with chemical disorder (high-entropy alloy), structural disorder, and reduced density. Comparison to a reference glass of the same composition reveals that the boson peak consists of additional vibrational modes which can be induced solely by structural disorder. While chemical disorder introduces fluctuations of the elastic constants, we find that those do not lead to sufficient local softening to induce these modes. A boson peak due to a reduction of density could be excluded for the present metallic system.


Background: Febrile convulsion is the most common central nervous system disease seen in children. There are hypotheses that threshold of neuron excitation may be affected by iron deficiency anemia. Effect of Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) on febrile seizures and recurrent febrile seizure is investigated. Materials and Methods: Across sectional study was conducted among 121 children with febrile convulsion who divided into 2 groups: 70 with simple febrile seizure and 51 with complex febrile seizure. Results: No significant differences had been found between both groups in demographic variables. Analysis of blood showed that low levels of Hemoglobin (HB), Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH) and S. ferritin levels and high Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW) were more frequent in complex group than simple group at P value<0.05. Iron deficiency anemia was found in 24% of all patients. Recurrence of febrile seizure was 52.1% of all patient, was more likely to occur in IDA patients than those with no IDA in about 2.5 folds, (OR=2.53, Pvalue= 0.037). Conclusion: Febrile seizures associated with iron deficiency anemia. Complex febrile seizure is more frequent with iron deficiency anemia than in those with simple febrile seizures. Febrile seizures are significantly associated with higher recurrence in patients with iron deficiency anemia.


Most of the research in parallel data mining and machine learning algorithms is focused on improving the efficiency of existing algorithms. However, our focus is the improvement of the solution quality, or model accuracy. We are looking for "smart" strategies to invest parallel compute resources in order to achieve a better exploration of the search space by exploring several solutions in parallel, referred to as Widening. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical properties of a neighborhood-based Widening using a type of neighborhoods, optimality neighborhoods and contrast this communicationless approach to the straightforward beam-like Top-k Widening approach, which requires communication. We show a bound on the number of parallel workers needed for the communicationless approach to guarantee that it has a solution of the same quality as the Top-k approach. In addition to the theoretical comparison, we experimentally compare these two approaches in terms of running time and quality of final solution, using a widened version of the greedy algorithm for set cover problem.


Abstract Vitamin E, vitamin A, and carotenoids are essential micronutrients for animals because of their antioxidant and immunostimulant functions and their implications for growth, development, and reproduction. In contrast to mammals and birds, information about their occurrence and distribution is generally lacking in reptiles, constraining our understanding of the use of these micronutrients. Using high-performance liquid chromatography, we determined the concentrations of vitamin E, vitamin A, and carotenoids in plasma, storage sites (liver and abdominal fat bodies), and in the colored ventral skin of male Common Lizards, Lacerta vivipara. All tissues shared a similar micronutrient profile, except the liver, which also showed traces of vitamin A1. The main vitamin E compound present was &agr;-tocopherol followed by lower concentrations of &ggr;-(&bgr;-)tocopherol. Vitamin A2 was the main vitamin A compound and it showed the highest concentration in the liver, where vitamin A2 esters and traces of vitamin A1 were found. Lutein was the main carotenoid, and it formed esters in the liver and the ventral skin. Zeaxanthin and low concentrations of &bgr;-carotene were also present. The liver was the main storage site for carotenoid and vitamin A, whereas hepatic vitamin E concentrations resembled those present in abdominal fat bodies. Compared with abdominal fat bodies, the ventral skin contained lower concentrations of vitamin A and vitamin E, but similar concentrations of carotenoids. These results suggest that important differences exist in micronutrient presence, concentration, and distribution among tissues of lizards and other taxa such as birds and mammals.


The objectives of present study were to study the water quality, zooplankton
distribution and its community structure along a salinity gradient in Langat
river estuarine system (20 46'N, 1010 26' E), during low and high tides. Five
sampling stations from the coastal area to the upstream were chosen for this
study. Station 1 was in the coastal area while Station 5 was at the most
upstream, the rest of the Stations (Stations 2,3 and 4) are located in between,
passing along the river gradient. Zooplankton and water samples were
collected and analyzed monthly for a period of 12 months (January to
December 2003).
The water quality, nutrients and zooplankton distribution changed according
to the stations and tides. The mean salinity ranged from 32.94k1.20 PSU in coastal waters to 27.78k1.21 PSU in upstream station during high tide.
During low tide, the mean salinity in the most upstream station was as low
as 1.00k0.90 PSU. Higher Dissolved Oxygen values ranged (means of
5.84k0.35 to 7.09k0.13 mgL-1) during high tide and it decreased (means of
3.91k0.71 to 5.22k0.71 mgL-1) during low tide. On the other hand, the
nutrients such as total ammonia nitrogen (ranged from 0.0014k0.001 mgL-1 to
2.5714k0.980 mgL-I), nitrite+nitrate-nitrogen (ranged from 0.0021k0.001
mgL-1 to 0.8100k0.211 mgL-1) and total phosphorus (ranged from
0.0712k0.024 mgL-1 to O.867Ok 0.3241 mgL-l) showed increasing trend from the
coastal areas to the upstream. The highest chlorophyll a was recorded at
Station 3 with mean values of 10.27k0.84 pgL-I and 3.94k1.06 pgL-1 during
high and low tide, respectively.
The mean zooplankton density was lowest in the coastal areas (16.21 x 103
k4679.07 individuals m-3) and highest in Station 4 with a mean value 119.81 x
103k43338.73 individuals m-3 during high tide. Copepods dominated
zooplankton populations contributing >80% in all the stations throughout
the sampling period. The other zooplankton groups such as cnidarians,
appendicularians, polychaetes, ostracods, chaetognaths and shrimp larva
were distributed in coastal estuarine areas whereas echinoderm larvae were
restricted to coastal waters and cladocerans were found only at the upstream
stations (Stations 3-5).This study recorded 50 species of copepods which was dominated by the
calanoids, Acartia spinicauda, A. amboinensis and A. erythraea accounting for
28%, 18% and 11% of the total copepod populations, respectively. High
species diversity occurred in Station 1 decreasing towards the upstream.
Species diversity varied depending on the tides, being higher during high
tides and than low tides. Some copepod species were highly restricted to the
high salinity levels (>30 PSU) while some species could tolerate wide range
of salinity from 5 - >30 PSU. Major stenohaline species was Oithona simplex
and major euryhaline species were Acartia spinicauda, A. amboinensis and A.
erythraea. Zooplankton biomass study showed the highest in station 3 (dry
weight 6l2.3Of 26.31 mg m-3 high tide) and lowest in Station 2 (150.051t 54.71
mg m-3 during low tide).
This study showed that water quality, nutrient concentrations and the
distribution of zooplankton varied according to tides, where high tides
resulted in better water quality, higher zooplankton density and higher
species diversity compared to low tides. On the other hand, water quality
was better and species diversity higher in coastal areas compared to other
stations throughout the sampling period regardless of tides.


Relational event models are becoming increasingly popular in modeling temporal dynamics of social networks. Due to their nature of combining survival analysis with network model terms, standard methods of assessing model fit are not suitable to determine if the models are specified sufficiently to prevent biased estimates. This paper tackles this problem by presenting a simple procedure for model-based simulations of relational events. Predictions are made based on survival probabilities and can be used to simulate new event sequences. Comparing these simulated event sequences to the original event sequence allows for in depth model comparisons (including parameter as well as model specifications) and testing of whether the model can replicate network characteristics sufficiently to allow for unbiased estimates.


Permafrost tundra contains more than twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere, and it is warming six times as fast as the global mean. Tundra lakes dynamics is a robust indicator of global climate processes, and is still not well understood. Satellite data, particularly, from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a suitable tool for tundra lakes recognition and monitoring of their changes. However, manual analysis of lake boundaries can be slow and inefficient; therefore, reliable automated algorithms are required. To address this issue, we propose a two-stage approach, comprising instance deep-learning-based segmentation by U-Net, followed by semantic segmentation based on a watershed algorithm for separating touching and overlapping lakes. Implementation of this concept is essential for accurate sizes and shapes estimation of an individual lake. Here, we evaluated the performance of the proposed approach on lakes, manually extracted from tens of C-band SAR images from Sentinel-1, which were collected in the Yamal Peninsula and Alaska areas in the summer months of 2015–2022. An accuracy of 0.73, in terms of the Jaccard similarity index, was achieved. The lake's perimeter, area and fractal sizes were estimated, based on the algorithm framework output from hundreds of SAR images. It was recognized as lognormal distributed. The evaluation of the results indicated the efficiency of the proposed approach for accurate automatic estimation of tundra lake shapes and sizes, and its potential to be used for further studies on tundra lake dynamics, in the context of global climate change, aimed at revealing new factors that could cause the planet to warm or cool.


The recent rise in the number of English-medium journals in non-Anglophone countries stems from the hegemony of English in global scholarly communication, and language requirements outlined by such journals to authors offer a valuable yet often overlooked source of information in terms of underlying values and assumptions concerning knowledge production and circulation. Drawing on the notion of "semiperiphery" to refer to Brazil's current standing within global scientific publishing, this exploratory study focuses on author guidelines of Brazilian English-medium journals indexed in the SciELO database to map language requirements established for manuscript submission and to assess, from a discursive perspective, whether they reinforce or disprove dominant ideologies regarding academic publishing, knowledge construction and dissemination, and the status of English as the academic lingua franca. The research data included 98 journal guidelines sections from seven subject areas, and results suggest that journals across the disciplinary spectrum endorse the primacy of (native speaker) English in knowledge dissemination, which calls for a critique of scientific monolingualism on the part of research policymakers, in Brazil and elsewhere


The Road Departure Crash Warning System Field Operational Test (RDCW FOT) was conducted to assess the safety impacts, driver acceptance levels, and the maturity of road departure crash warning systems as installed on a light vehicle platform. This paper presents the experimental design, performance of the road departure system in naturalistic use, and analyses of safety impacts of the technology using surrogate measures. Use of the system led to a 50% reduction in the observed rate of events in which the equipped vehicle came within 0.1 m of a lane edge in steady-state lane-keeping situations. Lane changes performed without the use of a turn signal were reduced by 43% on freeways and ramps and 24% on surface roads. Levels of lateral acceleration in curves was not significantly different, except on ramps, where a significant change in the 90th percentile values of lateral acceleration were observed for a within-subject comparison. There were no observed effects of risk homeostasis and no evidence of significant negative unintended consequences.


A conventional approach to image analysis is to perform separately feature extraction at a low level (such as edge detection) and follow this with high level feature extraction to determine structure (e.g. by collecting edge points using the Hough transform. The original image Ray Transform (IRT) demonstrated capability to extract structures at a low level. Here we extend the IRT to add shape specificity that makes it select specific shapes rather than just edges, the new capability is achieved by addition of a single parameter that controls which shape is elected by the extended IRT. The extended approach can then perform low-and high-level feature extraction simultaneously. We show how the IRT process can be extended to focus on chosen shapes such as lines and circles. We confirm the new capability by application of conventional methods for exact shape location. We analyze performance with images from the Caltech-256 dataset and show that the new approach can indeed select chosen shapes. Further research could capitalize on the new extraction ability to extend descriptive capability.


Artificial vision for manufacturing is a very important step when the process is automatic, so to improve productivity with high quality, this investigation presents a new method for manufacturing by applying artificial intelligence for tool selection; in the proposed method, a camera takes a picture and artificial program is applied to process the image and thus generate it to the size of the cutting tool. This chapter describes the development of a new method by programming using artificial vision to select the cutting tool. The experimental results show that the combination of artificial vision and programming is capable of selecting the correct tool.


This article is a critical analysis of kinetic dataavailable on carbocationic polymerizations. A survey of published propagation rate constant (kp) data revealed several orders of magnitude differences. In this article, an explanation of this apparent discrepancy is offered with a case study involving the carbocationic polymerization of 2,4,6-trimethylstyrene (TMS). With the polymerization mechanism originally proposed for this system, kp = 1.35 × 104 L mol−1 s−1 was extracted from experimental data with the Predici polyreaction package. The alternative mechanism yielded kp = 1.01 × 107 L mol−1 s−1, close to that predicted by Mayr's Linear Free Energy Relationship (LFER). We propose that true rate constants can only be obtained from direct competition experiments or from kinetic interpretation based on independently proven mechanisms. The second part of this review discusses critical analysis of the temperature and concentration dependence of various living IB systems. Comparison of the temperature dependence in systems initiated with 2- chloro-2,4, 4- trimethylpentane (TMPCl)/TiCl4 from various laboratories yielded of ΔH ∼−25 and −34.5 kJ/mol for high and low TMPCl/TiCl4 ratios, respectively. Aromatic (cumyl-type) initiators show ΔH ∼ −40 kJ/mol, whereas H2O/TiCl4 in the presence of the strong electron- pair donor dimethylacetamide gave ΔH = −12 kJ/mol. The significant differences indicate different underlying mechanisms with complex elementary reactions. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 5394–5413, 2005


Myanmar (formerly Burma) has 150 species of
formally described amphibians (5 salamanders, 2 caecilians, and 143 frogs) and
more than 200 species of reptiles (2 crocodilians, 20 turtles, 100+ lizards,
and 100+ snakes). This herpetofauna was never the focus of a countrywide survey
and study until recently, from 1997 through 2010. This treatise is the
beginning of an overview of this fauna through sets of generic identification
keys and checklists for adult amphibians, crocodilians, and turtles of Myanmar.
It offers a partial summary of the biological findings of the Myanmar
Herpetology Survey from 1997 through 2010, together with rapid assessment surveys
during 2014−2017 for Fauna & Flora International's Myanmar Programme and
recent herpetological research and surveys of other zoologists.


The hot compression simulation of an experimental Mg-Zn-Nd alloy at different temperatures is studied by the Gleebe-1500 equipment. The deformation is performed with the strain rates 0.1s-1, 0.01s-1 and 0.002s-1. The plastic deformation behavior is analyzed at different temperatures and the deformation activation energy is calculated. The microstructures of experimental alloy during the deformation process are observed. The results show that the working hardening, dynamic recovery and dynamic recrystallization (DRX) operate under different temperatures and strain rate. The DRX starts when the temperature is over 473K and the DRX grain size after hot deformation is only 5~10μm. So the refined grains improve both the tensile strength and elongation of alloys at room temperature. The precipitate phase Mg12Nd impede the movement of dislocations, it benefit to the mechanical properties and grain refining of magnesium alloy.


In the latest video coding frameworks, efficiency of motion vector (MV) coding is becoming increasingly important because of the growing bit rate portion of motion information. However, neither the conventional median predictor, nor the newer schemes such as the minimum bit rate prediction scheme and the hybrid scheme, can effectively eliminate the local redundancy of motion vectors. In this paper, we present the prioritized reference decision scheme for efficient motion vector coding, based on the H.264/AVC framework. This scheme makes use of a boolean indicator to specify whether the median predictor is to be used for the current MV or not. If not, the median prediction is considered not suitable for the current MV, and this information is used for refining the possible space of a group of reference MVs including 4 neighboring MVs and the zero MV. This group of MVs is organized to be a prioritized list so that the reference MV with highest priority is to be selected as the prediction value. Furthermore, the boolean indicators are coded into the modified code words of mb type and sub mb type, so as to reduce the overhead. By applying the proposed scheme, the structure and the applicability problems with the state-of-theart MBP scheme have been overcome. Experimental result shows that the proposed scheme achieves a considerable reduction of bits for MVDs, compared with the conventional median prediction algorithm. It also achieves a better and much stabler performance than MBP-based MV coding. key words: video coding, motion vector coding, motion vector difference, median prediction, prioritized reference decision


A model for the refractive index of InGaAsP and its dependence on the carrier density is presented. Full transport calculations for electrons and holes in heterostructures, including temperature effects, are used to show that the maximum injected carrier density is limited by electron heterojunction leakage for low-cladding doping and by recombination in the tuning layer for high-cladding doping. With the effective index method, we can then compute the maximum propagation constant change as a function of the waveguide geometry. Thermal effects are important only in the case of poor heatsinking. Using these results, we can estimate a maximum tuning range of more than 15 nm for optimized Bragg reflection gratings. >


Accumulating evidence has revealed that malignant cell growth is regulated by complex mechanisms involved in genetic and epigenetic factors. Among human cancers, cancer in the liver (hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)) is characterized by the evidence that it is usually based on chronic liver diseases such as liver cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis, in which the liver is persistently regenerating following hepatic injury. This raises the possibility that repeated hepatocyte proliferation may cause disorder of genes that are regulating the cell cycle in hepatocytes, thus causing HCC. In this article, recent studies focusing on liver regeneration and cancer are reviewed from the viewpoint of the cell cycle that is regulated by cyclin and the associated proteins.


Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are human rights, thus they should be universally accessible. Young women and girls are often considered a disadvantaged group with low access to human rights. Various feminist scholars have highlighted gender inequality as the cause of this marginalisation. Intersectionality scholars instead argue the marginalisation of women to be more complex. The approach emphasises that oppressed women and girls are not only discriminated because of their gender but that the prevalence of intragroup discrimination hampers them from accessing their rights. This thesis aims to study if and how social identities, more specifically class and ethnicity, affect adolescent girls' access to sexual and reproductive health and rights within the South African school realm. A case study is conducted on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, focusing on secondary- and high school teachers and on how the subject Life Orientation is implemented to create access to SRHR.Empirical results of the study indicate that class- and ethnic belonging impacts the access of female students to their rights in various ways. Monetary resources, information and knowledge influence social identities and access to SRHR in Life Orientation. As well as overall school conditions, including level of school violence and harassment. Finally, this thesis illustrates that privileged girls are also impeded from accessing their SRHR, due to the implementation of school fees. This system allows guardians to gain substantial influence and constrain school teachings of controversial topics.


Surmmary
'Coat fractions' were prepared from spores of six Bacillus species by mechanical disruption, centrifugation, and digestion with lysozyme. The coats were successively extracted with dilute NaOH, treated sonically (mildly), and digested with the proteolytic enzyme preparation Pronase. Bacillus megaterium QM B1551 was studied in detail. Electron microscopic studies were made at the various stages. Three fractions were obtained and partly characterized chemically. The alkali-soluble fraction consisted mainly of protein(s). The paracrystal fraction solubilized by sonic treatment consisted mainly of protein with a chemical composition and physical characteristics similar to those of keratins. The final resistant residue fraction of the coats after hydrolysis contained amino acids, phosphorus and muramic acid, and may be composed of a phosphomuramyl polymer to which a peptide and/or protein is linked. Electron microscopic observation suggested that the spore coat of B. megaterium QM B1551 consisted of at least three components: a middle, paracrystal fraction is sandwiched between or 'cemented' with the alkali-soluble fraction on one side and the resistant residue layer on the other. Large differences were found in the composition of the coats and in the P contents of the resistant residue of the various organisms.


Lattice reduction algorithms have been proved to be one of the most powerful and versatile tools in public key cryptanalysis. In this work, we primarily concentrate on lattice attacks against (EC)DSA with nonce leakage via some sidechannel analysis. Previous works relying on lattice reduction algorithms such as LLL and BKZ will finally lead to the "lattice barrier": lattice algorithms become infeasible when only fewer nonce is known. Recently, Albrecht and Heninger introduced lattice algorithms augmented with a predicate and broke the lattice barrier (Eurocrypt 2021). We improve their work in several aspects.We first propose a more efficient predicate algorithm which aims to search for the target lattice vector in a large database. Then, we combine sieving with predicate algorithm with the "dimensions for free" and "progressive sieving" techniques to further improve the performance of our attacks. Furthermore, we give a theoretic analysis on how to choose the optimal Kannan embedding factor.As a result, our algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art lattice attacks for existing records such as 3-bit nonce leakage for a 256-bit curve and 2-bit nonce leakage for a 160-bit curve in terms of running time, sample numbers and success probability. We also break the lattice records on the 384-bit curve with 3-bit nonce leakage and the 256-bit curve with 2-bit nonce leakage which are thought infeasible previously. Finally, we give the first lattice attack against ECDSA with a single-bit nonce leakage, which enables us to break a 112-bit curve with 1-bit nonce leakage in practical time.


SUMMARY The mechanism involved in dopaminergic neuronal death remaims unknown. Increased oxidative stress, inhibition of mitochondrial respiratory chain and apoptosis have been suggested as possible factors mediating cellular death. This article reviews the most important findings reported in parkinsonian brains related to nigral neuronal death.


There is wide recognition that the world we live in is complex. This can be seen in the many academic papers within the field of social science, which explore a plethora of issues that this complexity throws up. The aim of this paper is to offer a new paradigm for this research. This paper offers the 'normal chaos' paradigm as a basic premise for research into the management of complex processes.
The idea of normal chaos emerged from research in the ways society learns from public inquiries. It demonstrates that those conducting inquires have a clear view of how the world works. While not stated explicitly, their views come across very clearly within the comments they make and the recommendations they offer. This worldview has been labelled the 'perfect world' paradigm.
The construct of normal chaos at first provided an alternative lens through which to theorise about resilient ways of organising and managing stressful situations. Subsequently it has been seen to have much wider application. Normal chaos offers a direct challenge to work based on the premise that increasing control and coordination provides the way to manage complex situations. The new proposition suggests that control and coordination mechanisms are limited and that the pursuit of 'more of the same' soon reaches a point of diminishing returns. The construct suggests that we cope rather than control such situations. The aim of this paper is to outline this premise. From a methodological perspective, the purpose of this paper is to offer an initial catalytic framework that stimulates thinking about these complex situations. It will first explain what is meant by the paradigms labelled 'perfect world' and 'normal chaos'. It will explain the literature that has been used to shape our thinking. And finally, it will describe the studies that have already taken place and the next steps in the research.


Sivaramakrishnan, K. "Science, Environment and Empire History: Comparative Perspectives from Forests in Colonial India." Environment and History 14, no. 1 (Feb., 2008): 41–65. doi:10.3197/096734008X271850 . Books reviewed in this essay: Agrawal, Arun. Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects. New Ecologies for the Twenty-first Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Anker, Peder. Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Arnold, David. The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape and Science, 1800–1856. Culture, Place, and Nature. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006. Barton, Gregory A. Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography 34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Drayton, Richard. Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Rajan, S. Ravi. Modernizing Nature: Forestry and Imperial Eco-Development, 1800–1950. Oxford Historical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. All rights reserved. © 2008 The White Horse Press


This paper evaluates a placement coaching program implemented in Zurich during 2009-2013 that focused on the reemployment of persons drawing disability insurance (DI) benefits. A private company was commissioned to implement the program. Kernel-based matching and radius matching with bias adjustment estimators combined with difference-in-differences are applied to administrative panel data. The estimates point to a successful project in terms of a reduction in DI benefits and an increase in income even in the medium-run. A simple cost-benefit analysis suggests that the project was a profitable investment for the social security system. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the results are robust to confounders and further specification issues. An interesting policy implication is that it seems possible to enhance the employment prospects of disabled persons with a relatively inexpensive intervention which does not include any explicit investments in human capital.


Barnacle encrustation negatively influenced every aspect of swimming in the scallop Chlamys hastata measured in this study. Scallops swam significantly longer, travelled further and attained greater elevation once epibiotic barnacles had been removed. Shell morphometry of barnacle-encrusted scallops was similar to shells of unencrusted scallops. Specifically, shell length was positively allometric with shell height and shell mass was negatively allometric. However, adductor muscle mass scaled isometrically to shell height, in contrast to unencrusted scallops. In the laboratory, the drag coefficient (Cd) of barnacle-encrusted scallops decreased after barnacle removal, in contrast to sponge-encrusted scallops in which no decrease in Cd was detected when the sponge was removed from the scallop's valves. Furthermore, scallops swimming with barnacle encrustation required more energy than did unencrusted scallops. Although there was no significant difference in aerobic energy expenditure between swimming barnacle-encrusted and unencrusted scallops, differences in anaerobic energy expenditure were detected. Specifically, barnacle-encrusted scallops required more arginine phosphate than unencrusted scallops to swim to exhaustion although octopine levels were similar. Thus, barnacle encrustation dramatically decreased a scallop's ability to swim, partly by increasing the drag coefficient experienced by the scallop and the energy required for swimming.


Abstract In this research, a newly developed moth-flame optimization algorithm (MFO) is presented for solving optimization problems in manufacturing industry. A well-known milling optimization problem is solved to emphasize the effectiveness of the MFO in the optimization of manufacturing problems. In the optimization problem solved in this paper, the main aim is to maximize the profit rate for multi-tool milling operations considering difficult constraints. The results demonstrate that the MFO is an effective optimization method for the solution of manufacturing optimization problems.


Research on click models usually focuses on developing effective approaches to reduce biases in user clicks. However, one of the major drawbacks of existing click models is the lack of scalability. In this work, we tackle the scalability of Expectation-Maximization (EM)-based click models by introducing ParClick, a new parallel algorithm designed by following the Partitioning-Communication-Aggregation-Mapping (PCAM) method. To this end, we first provide a generic formulation of EM-based click models. Then, we design an efficient parallel version of this generic click model following the PCAM approach: we partition user click logs and model parameters into separate tasks, analyze communication among them, and aggregate these tasks to reduce communication overhead. Finally, we provide a scalable, parallel implementation of the proposed design, which maps well on a multi-core machine. Our experiments on the Yandex relevance prediction dataset show that ParClick scales well when increasing the amount of training data and computational resources. In particular, ParClick is 24.7 times faster to train with 40 million search sessions and 40 threads compared to the standard sequential version of the Click Chain Model (CCM) without any degradation in effectiveness.