Indomethacin is a clinically classical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that has been marketed since 1965. The third polymorph, Form δ, was discovered by both melt and solution crystallization in 1974. δ-indomethacin cannot be cultivated as a large single crystal suitable for X-ray crystallography and, therefore, its crystal structure has not yet been determined. Here, we report the structure elucidation of δ-indomethacin by 3D electron diffraction and reveal the truth that melt-crystallized and solution-crystallized δ-indomethacin are in fact two polymorphs with different crystal structures. Intriguingly, both structures display plastic flexibility based on a slippage mechanism, making indomethacin the first drug to have two plastic polymorphs. This discovery and correction of a 47-year-old misunderstanding signify that 3D electron diffraction has become a powerful tool for polymorphic structural studies.


Photoplethysmography (PPG) is a noninvasive optical technology with applications including vital sign extraction and patient monitoring. However, its current use is primarily limited to heart rate and oxygenation monitoring. This study aims to demonstrate the utility of PPG for physiological investigations. In particular, we sought to demonstrate the utility of simultaneous data acquisition from several regions of tissue using remote/contactless PPG (rPPG). Specifically, using a high-speed scientific-grade camera, we collected rPPG from the hands (palmar/dorsal) of 22 healthy volunteers. Data collected through the red and green channels of the RGB CMOS sensor were analyzed. We found a statistically significant difference in the amplitude of the glabrous skin signal over the non-glabrous skin signal (1.41 ± 0.85 in the red channel and 2.27 ± 0.88 in the green channel). In addition, we found a statistically significant lead of the red channel over the green channel, which is consistent between glabrous (17.13 ± 10.69 ms) and non-glabrous (19.31 ± 12.66 ms) skin. We also found a statistically significant lead time (32.69 ± 55.26 ms in the red channel and 40.56 ± 26.97 ms in the green channel) of the glabrous PPG signal over the non-glabrous, which cannot be explained by bilateral variability. These results demonstrate the utility of rPPG imaging as a tool for fundamental physiological studies and can be used to inform the development of PPG-based devices.


The optimal resolution of a set of parameters to be estimated from a set of measurements of fluctuating intensity can be determined by computing the respective Fisher information matrix. This matrix is dependent upon the conditional distribution of the fluctuating intensity measurements, given the parameters to be estimated. It is assumed that fluctuating intensity is measured from circular complex Gaussian random (CCGR) fields. Such fields are commonly measured in acoustics, optics, and radar. For example, CCGR fields typically arise in scattering from fluctuating targets and surfaces, random sources, and ocean‐acoustic propagation scintillation. Distributions for intensity, log‐intensity, and acoustic flow (analogous to optical flow) are derived as a function of the measurement‐system averaging time and the temporal coherence of the fluctuating field under the CCGR field assumption. (This advances previous work in ocean‐acoustic propagation scintillation that was limited to instantaneous measurements.) It is shown that the Fisher information for a measurement of fluctuating intensity is expressed in terms of parameter variations over the expectation value of a logarithmic measure of intensity. This gives a mathematical justification for the engineering intuition that fluctuating intensity should be measured in logarithmic units to efficiently convey information. A generalized Fisher information matrix is derived for the estimation of parameters from intensity images.


This thesis discusses the development in Proto–Indo–European, Latin and Romance of a word–formation pattern which the most adequate terminology in use dubs 'verbal government compounds with a governing first member'; I use the shorthand 'pickpocket compounds'.
The first member of such compounds derives from a verb, while the second mostly represents its direct object: thus English pickpocket. Most English examples are functionally agent–nouns, referring to the agent of the implied verbal act. Nevertheless, they lack a suffix indicating this. By contrast, the more prolific type of compound agent–noun, represented by truck–driver, has the deverbal member second and carries an agentive suffix, ‑er.
Pickpocket compounds are attested in early strata of Greek and Indo–Iranian and in medieval strata of Germanic, Slavic and Romance. Latin has around a dozen examples. The scholarly debate, continued in this thesis, has been centred round two issues: (1) the morphological make–up of the type and (2) its historical origin.
(1) is preliminarily assessed in chapter 2, reviewing the basics of nominal composition and providing an account of the fundamental difference between pickpocket and truckdriver compounds. It contains a cursory discussion of Homeric Greek, Indo–Iranian and Germanic representatives. This comparative perspective on the morphology of the type is continued in chapters 3–5 on Latin and Romance. An important conclusion, and an answer to one of the most–discussed questions in the debate, is that these compounds cannot be considered univerbated imperative clauses.
(2) is likewise assessed preliminarily in chapter 2, offering an outline of the history of the Greek and Indo–Aryan material. Taking the history of the Latin/Romance material up for revision, chapters 3–5 conclude that Latin offers no evidence in support of a Proto–Indo–European type. The Romance type may have an origin in Latin; however, the theoretical considerations laid out in Chapter 2 suggest that given the relevant typological conditions, new compositional types may arise spontaneously. Finally, the medieval Germanic and Slavic types result from Romance adstrate and have no bearing on Proto–Indo–European; see the summary discussion in 6.3.


This article describes the design of an IQ impedance modulator radio front-end which is used to generate long range (LoRa) symbols with backscattering techniques, allowing building low-power devices that may be compatible with the current LoRa networks. It is shown that a linear frequency modulated (LFM) chirp can be generated by properly varying the phase of a reflected wave instead of directly varying its instantaneous frequency. The proposed device consists of two radio frequency (RF) transistors that generate a set of impedances by changing their gate bias, allowing reflecting their incident wave with predefined phase values. By joining these two reflected waves in quadrature, a new set of impedances is obtained whose phases vary 360°, on a constant Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) circle. In order to validate the proposed design, several LoRa symbols were generated and successfully transmitted and decoded. Measurements of the bit error rate (BER) versus signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were conducted and shown to be in accordance with other related work. Moreover, the impact of intentional perturbations added to the control bias voltages was analyzed and tests over-the-air (OTA) were performed for different indoor propagation scenarios.


If not accounted for, temperature effects on the water content and electrical conductivity measured with time domain reflectometry (TDR) will introduce significant errors. In this study, an automated TDR system was used to quantify the temperature dependence of the apparent dielectric constant and electrical conductivity in wet soils. Sandy, clayey, and organic soils were used to examine the effect of soil texture. The temperature correction factor for water content measurements was predicted, by using different dielectric mixing models, to lie between -0.00253 and -0.00419 theta degrees C-1, the negative value of the temperature correction factor indicating a decrease in the water content measurements with increasing temperature. These values agreed wed with the correction factor measured in sandy soils: -0.00269 theta degrees C-1. In soils with large specific surface, i,e,, clayey and organic soils, however, the temperature dependence was significantly lower, Large specific surface combined with high soil solution electrical conductivity resulted in a positive correction factor, i.e,, water content measurements increased with increases in temperature, The temperature dependence of the bulk electrical conductivity was investigated using different soils and soil solutions. The temperature dependence was close to that of the soil solution and was independent of soil texture. (Less)


Diane Schanzenbach provides an overview of recent trends in education policy in the United States, from kindergarten to the twelfth grade (K–12). She broadly discusses the input-based policies and market-based incentives to improve student achievement. The author begins with the major goal of education policy in the United States, which is concerned most with narrowing the gaps in educational attainment and skill levels between more advantaged and less advantaged students, notably those across racial groups and by socioeconomic status. Although the research base for education reform has expanded, the author observes that there is no overwhelming evidence in favor of a single policy change and that, at present, the literature is characterized more by disagreements than by consensus. Possibly the most straightforward policy in terms of implementation is to increase the funding available to schools. Studies of the results of such untargeted funding have produced mixed results, and many policymakers have concluded that such increases do not clearly lead to better student performance. As a result, policies have shifted toward targeted increases for specific inputs or for introducing market discipline to ensure that funding increases are used productively.


INTRODUCTION
Although brain injury incidence rates have been decreasing, the proportion of these injuries which are penetrating has been increasing. This study compares mortality amongst persons with penetrating and closed brain injuries and explores the relationship of early predictors of mortality.

METHODS
The study included 795 moderately or severely brain injured individuals identified through the UCLA Brain Injury Research Centre. Logistic regression was used to predict mortality by GCS level and brain injury type, controlling for age, gender, and presence of multiple trauma.

RESULTS
Of the 795 individuals, 110 had penetrating and 685 had closed brain injury. Case fatality rates were higher for penetrating than closed injuries for all GCS, gender, age, and cause of injury categories. When controlling for GCS level at admission, age, gender, and multiple trauma, those with penetrating injuries were 6.6 (95% CI = 3.9-11.1) times more likely to die.

CONCLUSIONS
As the pool of information about survival and recovery from penetrating injuries grows, decisions regarding clinical care and prevention activities can be more appropriately focused.


This paper outlines the development of a multiple-clock-cycle implementation (MCI) of a signal adaptive two-dimensional (2D) system for space/spatial-frequency (S/SF) signal analysis. The design is based on a method for improved S/SF representation of the analyzed 2D signals, also proposed here. The proposed MCI design optimizes critical design performances related to hardware complexity, making it a suitable system for real time implementation on an integrated chip. Additionally, the design allows the implemented system to take a variable number of clock cycles (CLKs) (the only necessary ones regarding desirable—2D Wigner distribution-presentation of autoterms) in different frequency-frequency points during the execution. This ability represents a major advantage of the proposed design which helps to optimize the time required for execution and produce an improved, cross-terms-free S/SF signal representation. The design has been verified by a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) circuit design, capable of performing S/SF analysis of 2D signals in real time.


This study was designed to examine young children's art in the development of their literacy. Twenty children, involved in a literature-based art program, were observed and interviewed after the completion of various literacy episodes involving their art work. The children's art work was classified and described according to the characteristics of the literacy episodes and the samples that were produced. The responses to the interview questions were " descriptively analyzed. The results of this study indicate a strong interaction of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and children's art work in their literacy development. Children like to draw at home as well as school. They prefer to make their own decisions about their art work but family and friends significantly influence their decisions. Their creative expression leads to the kind of self-esteem and confidence necessary for success in any learning situation. Art expression was viewed as a learning process that enhanced their comprehension development, cognitive development, and language development. Children felt that their art work was important but few children internalized the significance. Children's art work in the classroom can support their reading, writing, and language development. Art expression opportunities should be provided in all activities and should be considered an alternate from of communication. This study's findings yield insight into the importance of young children's art in the development of their literacy. Longitudinal research is necessary to comprehend the developmental nature of this mode of learning in relation to reading, writing and language development over a longer period of time.


When it to climate change, we a host of paradoxes in the southern neighbourhood: on the one hand, it is by now common knowledge that the region will be the hardest hit in the world, but it is, at the same time, one of the least prepared to face this, and its publics do not perceive the problem as such. These points, taken together, one of the why the topic appeared prominently not just in the Survey but also in the Joint Communication 2021. 1 To make matters more puzzling, the region receives a daily abundance of sunshine but generates only 0.4% of its energy mix from solar power. 2 This means two things: on the one hand, there is considerable work to do to "future-proof" the region for what will come its way but, on the other, the untapped potential to do so is equally considerable. If leveraged well, climate change – or rather, measures to avoid it – could therefore become a crucial driver for modernisation in the region. Three areas be identified in this order of priority: firstly, publics in the southern neighbourhood need to be urgently made aware of the problem that they are facing, while states in the region need to prepare for those effects of climate change that can no longer be avoided; secondly, it will have to prepare for the coming energy transition in order to benefit from it; and, thirdly, it will have to decrease CO 2 emissions in order to avoid even worse consequences.


Architectural design studio is an active educational site: it is not only to be defined as a visible space; it is also a way of thinking and learning. Within its physical and virtual qualities, there seems to be the presence ofunique peer cultural signifying practices that are influential to the learning and social process ofthe design students. Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge concerning this intriguing and invisible phenomenon. This study is an attempt to investigate this phenomenon by unfolding its hidden manifesting elements and their relationships to the multiple events of design and social cognition. At the same time, this investigation will examine its possible benefits for the learning of design among students both at the personal and interpersonal level. This study also attempts to identify the fundamental differences between studio peer culture and other cultures, in different fields of study. It is considered as a useful approach by looking at this phenomenon from a different point ofview to verify its possible significant influences. A multiple-strategy that combined qualitative and quantitative approach for comparative measures was employed in this investigation. Such a strategy allows for the triangulation of results and findings in order to provide a richer picture of the cultural phenomenon being studied. The unfolding process began with qualitative investigation by using individual interviews to identify possible shared commonalities among the studio learning peers. Following this investigation was a focus group study that involved participants who had dual learning experiences in the design studio and other learning environments. Subsequently, a survey study was formulated based on 'constructs' identified in earlier findings. This was for the purposes of comparative and quantitative investigation oflarger samples. From the various stages of investigation, several interesting findings were revealed. There were notable commonalities shared among the design studio peers. Findings indicated that they had particular ways of learning and socializing with their peers. These were manifested in the form of meaningful words, models ofreferences, non-verbal behaviours and intrinsic values. These shared commonalities were further exemplified by findings from the comparative investigation. The findings revealed that studio peers had fundamental differences in the way they construed their learning, situational and social events in comparison with peers from different learning environments. One of the key contributions ofthis study is the provision of a more meaningful approach to understanding studio peer culture and its influences on design learning. This may also serves as an observational tool for design learning process and development.


The intra-subject variation in seminal parameters (e.g. volume; spermatozoal density, motility and normal morphology, and total spermatozoal count) have been examined in 172 men following a set ejaculatory pattern designed to exhaust their extra-gonadal spermatozoal reserve. The results have demonstrated that the motility and normal morphology of spermatozoa do not change significantly with ejaculation frequency. Also, while the volume of the ejaculate and the total number of spermatozoa decreased during a period of frequent coitus, an individual's depletion and recovery of his spermatozoal reserve could not be accurately predicted. It is suggested that coital frequency during the woman's periovulatory period could be modified by the partner's response to this test. Furthermore, while it is acknowledged that the variation in results from a 'routine' semen analysis is large, data obtained after depletion of the extra-gonadal reserve and recovery over a set time may have more value and could be the method of choice for the future.


The binding of bovine factor VIII: R to human platelets causes an agglutination of the platelets and subsequent responses that may serve as a model for the interaction of platelets with damaged vascular subendothelium. Purified bovine factor VIII: R was radiolabeled and its binding to formalin-fixed human platelets measured. Binding was rapid and readily reversible. At saturation, approximately 6 micrograms of factor VIII: R was bound per 10(9) platelets. Optimal agglutination of platelets by bovine factor VIII: R occurred in the pH range of 6.5 to 7.5, although binding was more extensive at lower pH. The isoelectric point of factor VIII: R was 4.3, indicating that it has a net negative charge at physiological pH. Binding and agglutination were both inhibited by increasing the ionic strength of the medium and by polycations like Polybrene and polylysine. Ristocetin promoted the binding of bovine factor VIII: R to platelets but did not promote the agglutination of platelets by bovine factor VIII: R. Concentrations of dextran sulfate that strongly inhibited agglutination actually increased the binding of factor VIII: R to platelets.


Twenty years into democracy in South Africa, poverty and disease continue to limit the life prospects of the majority of people. Researchers in higher education have an opportunity, not to mention a moral obligation, to direct their research towards finding ways to ensure that the expected fruits of democracy can be more evenly dispersed throughout society. Yet, in general, the knowledge produced by the academy has had little positive impact on the quality of life of those on whom research is conducted. This article argues for the need to adopt more inclusive and participatory paradigms and methodologies that challenge entrenched views that research is the prerogative of the academy. In particular, the author proposes that an action research paradigm may offer suitable ways to navigate new educational pathways suited for improving and sustaining social life in the 21st century. Such an approach will help to ensure that academic research remains relevant in today's complex and fast-changing world.


Current passenger car usage patterns and factors influencing usage are analyzed and projections of usage patterns in the mid-1980's are made. Current available data on six categories of vehicle accidents are analyzed and projections made of national accident patterns in the mid-80's; the effect of potential reductions in these projections as a result of safety programs and other factors related to driving safety are estimated. Based on the usage and accident projections, the characteristics of an RSV (weighing under 3,000 lbs C.W.) for operation in the mid-1980 traffic environment are described. A recommended set of specifications for the RSV are developed considering the potential safety payoff accruing to an increased level of safety performance, the need for energy conservation, availability of material resources, and changes in vehicle mix. (An executive summary of this report is presented in Volume I).


We present an ecient method for collision detection in the black-box KDS model for a set S of n objects in the plane. In this model we receive the object locations at regular time steps and we know a bound dmax on the maximum displacement of any object within one time step. Our method maintains, in O(( +k)n) time per time step, a compressed quadtree on the bounding-box vertices of the objects; here denotes the density of S and k denotes the maximum number of objects that can intersect any disk of radius dmax. Collisions can then be detected by testingO(( +k) 2 n) pairs of objects for intersection.


Multifarious forces have surrounded science and continue their—sometimes separate, sometimes coordinated—attempts to supplant a scientific approach to an explanation of important questions about us and the world we inhabit. We focus here on questions pertaining to biology and medicine, but no aspect of the scientific enterprise is immune from attack; and not all of the forces aligned against it are represented. The ones considered are: religion, neoliberalism, postmodernism, the "back-to-nature" movement, bioethical obstructionism, and the current POTUS, Donald Trump. We sit in amazement that at the amount of vitriol that has been leveled at science, but try to maintain civility in response. We would be irenic, not polemic; promoting true dialogue between respected scholars holding somewhat differing views. This is not as difficult as some would have you believe.


Interobserver agreement for the assessment of handicap in stroke patients was investigated in a group of 10 senior neurologists and 24 residents from two centers. One hundred patients were separately interviewed by two physicians in different combinations. The degree of handicap was recorded by each observer on the modified Ran kin scale, which has six grades (0-5). The agreement rates were corrected for chance (K statistics). Both physicians agreed on the degree of handicap in 65 patients; they differed by one grade in 32 patients and by two grades in 3 patients, K for all pairwise observations was 0.56; the value for weighted K (with quadratic disagreement weights) was 0.91. Our results confirm the value of the modified Rankin scale in the assessment of handicap in stroke patients; nevertheless, further improvements are possible. (Stroke 1988;19:604-607)


In spite of great strides in fight against hunger, yet an unacceptably large number of people still lack the food and quality they need for an active and healthy life. Out of 795 million undernourished people (consuming <1800 kilocalories a day) in the world (2014-16), the vast majority of the hungry (780 million) live in the developing regions - 233 million in Africa, 522 million in Asia and 34 million in Latin America & the Caribbean [1]. As regards the prevalence of under-nutrition which signifies deficiencies not only in energy, but protein, essential vitamins and minerals also, about 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient malnutrition [2]. Out of 667 million children under age 5 worldwide, 159 million are too short for their age (stunted) and 50 million do not weigh enough for their height (wasted) [3]. An estimated 45 percent of deaths of children under age 5 are linked to malnutrition [4].


Abstract Many species of marsh birds (e.g. rails and bitterns) are believed to be declining in North America, yet we lack an effective monitoring program to estimate their population trends. Broadcast of prerecorded calls to elicit vocalizations is a commonly used method in surveys of marsh birds, but whether gains in detection and index precision outweigh the drawbacks of call-broadcast is unclear. To evaluate the effectiveness of call-broadcast surveys, we pooled marsh-bird survey data from 8,047 point-count surveys contributed by 11 cooperators and compared numbers of birds detected and variation in numbers detected between call-broadcast and passive surveys. For most rails (particularly Virginia Rails [Rallus limicola]), call-broadcast surveys were effective at increasing the detection probability (e.g. average number of Virginia Rails detected per occupied point was 1.25 for call-broadcast surveys and 0.17 for passive surveys). The proportion of points at which no birds were detected was high for all species (range 74–99%) and was slightly lower on call-broadcast surveys as compared with passive surveys. Coefficient of variation (CV) among replicate surveys was higher for passive surveys, particularly for rails (average CV in number of birds detected per point was 209% for passive surveys and 189% for call-broadcast surveys). On the basis of those results, we recommend a marsh-bird monitoring protocol that includes an initial passive period followed by a period of call-broadcast to provide survey data that incorporate the benefits while avoiding the drawbacks of call-broadcast. We also recommend separating both the passive and the call-broadcast periods into 1-min subsegments that will allow estimates of components of detection probability within the monitoring effort. Efectividad de Censos que Reproducen Vocalizaciones Pregrabadas para Monitorear Aves de Pantano


Unpaired image-to-image domain translation involves the task of transferring an image in one domain to another domain without having pairs of data for supervision. Several methods have been proposed to address this task using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and cycle consistency constraint enforcing the translated image to be mapped back to the original domain. This way, a Deep Neural Network (DNN) learns mapping such that the input training distribution transferred to the target domain matches the target training distribution. However, not all test images are expected to fall inside the data manifold in the input space where the DNN has learned to perform the mapping very well. Such images can have a poor mapping to the target domain. In this paper, we propose to perform Langevin dynamics, which makes a subtle change in the input space bringing them close to the data manifold, producing benign examples. The effect is significant improvement of the mapped image on the target domain. We also show that the score function estimation by denoising autoencoder (DAE), can practically be replaced with any autoencoding structure, which most image-to-image translation methods contain intrinsically due to the cycle consistency constraint. Thus, no additional training is required. We show advantages of our approach for several state-of-the-art image-to-image domain translation models. Quantitative evaluation shows that our proposed method leads to a substantial increase in the accuracy to the target label on multiple state-of-the-art image classifiers, while qualitative user study proves that our method better represents the target domain, achieving better human preference scores.


My research has focused on understanding the relationship between structure and function in the human brain. Just like fingerprints, each person has a unique folding pattern in their brain. This convoluted folding pattern is surely part of what makes us individuals, but also introduces some difficulties into the field of neuroimaging. First among these difficulties is the challenge of ensuring you can compare the same brain area across a population of subjects. By using advanced analysis techniques I was able to create probabilistic maps of function brain areas, allowing one to predict the function of a particular brain area, only by knowing its anatomical location. Furthermore, I developed new analysis techniques to improve the effectiveness of group brain imaging studies. Finally, I used these new techniques to track the development of the brain's auditory system, in structure and function, through childhood, adolescence and into adulthood.


In a concurrent work, Villois et al. 2020 reported the evidence that vortex reconnections in quantum fluids follow an irreversible dynamics, namely vortices separate faster than they approach; such time-asymmetry is explained by using simple conservation arguments. In this work we develop further these theoretical considerations and provide a detailed study of the vortex reconnection process for all the possible geometrical configurations of the order parameter (superfluid) wave function. By matching the theoretical description of incompressible vortex filaments and the linear theory describing locally vortex reconnections, we determine quantitatively the linear momentum and energy exchanges between the incompressible (vortices) and the compressible (density waves) degrees of freedom of the superfluid. We show theoretically and corroborate numerically, why a unidirectional density pulse must be generated after the reconnection process and why only certain reconnecting angles, related to the rates of approach and separations, are allowed. Finally, some aspects concerning the conservation of centre-line helicity during the reconnection process are discussed.


This thesis is based on an interdisciplinary study between the conservation and urban planning fields. It addresses the topic of 'place conservation' which is referred to here as Urban Conservation Planning (UCP). This study provides an alternative perspective to the current planning-dominant, Western-centric literature on UCP. Unlike any other branch of conservation, UCP requires control over the urban environment which can only be achieved through urban planning. Most of the current UCP literature focuses on the planning/regenerative aspect of the profession and lacks connections to the theoretical developments in the conservation field. Particularly, understanding urban heritage beyond the 'built' aspect and addressing the theory of values at urban scale are often overlooked. In addition to this gap in the literature, the dominant narrative of UCP is mainly based on Western experiences and intellectual traditions while places beyond the West are poorly represented in this narrative. This study addresses the topic of UCP from a conservation perspective while dealing with the planning and management aspects imposed by the scale of urban heritage. It aims to contribute to the understanding of UCP beyond the Western world by examining the relevance of the dominant Western (English) narrative of UCP to the Arabian Gulf through the case study of Bahrain. Using qualitative research methods, this study composes and documents the contemporary Bahraini narrative of UCP through providing original data based on insiders' views and experiences of the research topic and triangulates the findings by examining case studies and other primary and secondary sources. The research explores the historical processes and evolution that contributed in forming the institutional organisation and legal framework for UCP in Bahrain. This includes examining the evolution of the definition of urban heritage and its values, the approaches used for UCP and the impact of the wider political and urban management context on the formation of an UCP assemblage in Bahrain to compare the findings to that of England. The research provides insights into the comparability of the evolution of theory and practice of UCP in England and Bahrain and the central role the wider political and urban management systems play in shaping the outcome of UCP in Bahrain. The findings of this research suggest that most of the challenges to UCP in Bahrain are coming from the local urban management culture including the institutional organisation, policy framework and power relations between the different governmental agencies concerned with UCP. These aspects contribute to the divide between urban planning and conservation in Bahrain and delay the establishment of a defined and functional UCP assemblage.


Multimedia data, being multidimensional by its nature, requires appropriate approaches for its organizing and sorting. The growing number of sensors for capturing the environmental conditions in the moment of media creation enriches data with context-awareness. This unveils enormous potential for eventcentred multimedia processing paradigm. The essence of this paradigm lies in using events as the primary means for multimedia integration, indexing and management.

Events have the ability to semantically encode relationships of different informational modalities. These modalities can include, but are not limited to: time, space, involved agents and objects. As a consequence, media processing based on events facilitates information perception by humans. This, in turn, decreases the individual's effort for annotation and organization processes. Moreover events can be used for reconstruction of missing data and for information enrichment.

The spatio-temporal component of events is a key to contextual analysis. A variety of techniques have recently been presented to leverage contextual information for event-based analysis in multimedia. The content-based approach has demonstrated its weakness in the field of event analysis, especially for the event detection task. However content-based media analysis is important for object detection and recognition and can therefore play a role which is complementary to that of event-driven context recognition.

The main contribution of the thesis lies in the investigation of a new eventbased paradigm for multimedia integration, indexing and management. In this dissertation we propose i) a novel model for event based multimedia representation, ii) a robust approach for mining events from multimedia and iii) exploitation of detected events for data reconstruction and knowledge enrichment.


1 Secretory potentials produced by stimulation of the salivary duct nerves were recorded intracellularly from cockroach isolated salivary glands. The secretory potential normally consisted of a 40–80 mV hyperpolarization of the gland cell. 2 Bretylium (0.1–1 Mm) reduced the amplitude of the secretory potential without affecting the response of the gland to dopamine (0.25–1 μm). In addition, bretylium caused an increase in the frequency of miniature secretory potentials and the appearance of nerve terminal action potentials. 3 Guanethidine (1 Mm) reduced the response to nerve stimulation without depressing the sensitivity of the salivary gland to dopamine (0.25–0.5 μm) and without causing an increase in the occurrence of miniature potentials. Higher concentrations (4–5 Mm) completely eliminated secretory potentials but also reduced the sensitivity of the gland cell to dopamine. 5 These results indicate a presynaptic depression of the secretory potential by both bretylium and guanethidine. It is suggested that, in this system, bretylium acts by depolarizing the nerve terminal while guanethidine does not.


Hyperdiploid B cells have been found in autoimmune NZB mice as they age. The hyperdiploid cells were found to be clonal both on the basis of cytogenetic analysis and studies of immunoglobulin gene rearrangements at the DNA level. Studies of the inheritance of the hyperdiploid traits in both F1 and backcrosses, as well as NZB recombinant inbred strains, revealed that the presence of hyperdiploid B cells was an inherited recessive trait linked to autoimmune hyperactivity. In addition, hyperdiploid B cells were found to possess a unique chromosome pair which lacked terminal C-bands. This observation allowed analysis of the fate of transferred NZB hyperdiploid B cells into unirradiated recipients. The hyperdiploid B cells were found to expand in recipients and become the dominant population in several lymphoid organs. Spontaneously occurring hyperdiploid B cells were not observed in NZB-xid mice possessing the CBA/N X chromosome, which confers abnormal B cell maturation and results in decreased autoimmunity in NZB-xid mice. Following the discovery that CD5+ B cells were elevated in certain autoimmune states, hyperdiploid B cells were examined and found to be CD5+ B cells as well. The malignant cell in chronic lymphocytic leukemia is also a CD5+ B cell. The hyperdiploid B cells of NZB mice appear to have many of the features of autoimmune B cells, as well as malignant cells.


Background: Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) isoenzymes have been reported as a potential diagnostic marker for pancreatic cancer, but their prognostic value in pancreatic cancer remains unclear. The aim of this investigation was to identify the prognostic value of ADH genes in human patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD). Materials and methods: An RNA sequencing dataset and corresponding survival profiles of PAAD were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Survival analysis and gene set enrichment analysis were used to investigate the prediction value and potential mechanism of ADH genes in PAAD prognosis. Results: Survival analysis of ADH genes suggests that a high expression of ADH1A (adjusted P = 0.037, adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 0.627, 95% CI = 0.404–0.972) and ADH6 (adjusted P = 0.018, adjusted HR = 0.588, 95% CI = 0.378–0.914) were associated with a significantly decreased risk of death, while a high expression of ADH5 was associated with a significantly increased risk of death (adjusted P = 0.043, adjusted HR = 1.564, 95% CI = 1.013–2.414). Joint effects analysis of three ADH gene prognostic markers suggests that the prognosis difference for any marker combination was more significant than that for any individual marker. The potential mechanism of ADH1A and ADH6 in PAAD prognosis was that a high expression of ADH1A and ADH6 was involved in the P450 pathway and biological processes, while high ADH5 expression was involved in transforming growth factor β regulation-related pathways and biological processes, Wnt, the cell cycle, ErbB, and mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathways. Conclusion: Our data suggest that ADH1A , ADH5 , and ADH6 expression may be potential prognostic markers of PAAD and in combination have a strong interaction and better predictive value for PAAD prognosis.


Quantile regression has been successfully used to study heterogeneous and heavy-tailed data. In this work, we study high-dimensional varying-coefficient quantile regression model that allows us to capture non-stationary effects of the input variables across time. We develop new tools for statistical inference that allow us to construct valid confidence intervals and honest tests for nonparametric coefficient at fixed time and quantile. Our focus is on inference in a high-dimensional setting where the number of input variables exceeds the sample size. Performing statistical inference in this regime is challenging due to the usage of model selection techniques in estimation. Never the less, we are able to develop valid inferential tools that are applicable to a wide range of data generating processes and do not suffer from biases introduced by model selection. The statistical framework allows us to construct a confidence interval at a fixed point in time and a fixed quantile based on a Normal approximation. We performed numerical simulations to demonstrate the finite sample performance of our method and we also illustrated the application with a real data example.


1. What is dementia? (definitions, causes, differential diagnosis). 2. Neuropsychological and neurological symptoms of dementia. 3. Psychiatric and behavioural symptoms in dementia. 4. Assessment of dementia. 5. Reversible causes of dementia. 6. Management of dementia. 7. Problems that carers and families face elder abuse. 8. Services for patients with dementia and their carers. 9. Younger people with dementia different ethnic groups dementia and learning disability. 10. Dementia, ethics and the law. 11. Alzheimer's disease. 12. Vascular dementia. 13. Frontal lobe dementia. 14. Dementia and Parkinson's Disease. 15. Dementia and other neurological diseases. 16. Dementia and alcohol. 17. Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. Selected references/further reading. Appendices: Useful addresses & websites for self-help groups, voluntary organizations etc. Glossary.


In 1996 the World Bank launched a comprehensive knowledge sharing initiative, based on the understanding that development knowledge is a global public good that belongs to everyone, and from which everyone should benefit. The main objectives were to develop a world-class knowledge management system and to improve and expand the sharing of development knowledge with clients and partners, as well as among Bank staff, in order to improve the quality of Bank operations and to enhance the capacity of client countries to achieve their development goals. But has the Bank met these objectives? To answer this question, this report discusses the Operations Evaluation Department's assessment of the knowledge initiative.


This essay discusses the factors which are encouraging or disabling collaborative decision making and legal processes in environmental disputes. As a commentary on Brad Karkkainen's article on the use of collaborative processes in situations of both "natural and legal destabilization" events, the article reports on several successful environmental collaborative processes, highlighting the new process expertise and new knowledge of consensus-based, multi-jurisdictional decision making. It also suggests some countervailing factors and impediments to the effective use of collaborative dispute resolution in both environmental and other complex multi-party disputes. The essay concludes by outlining some challenges to the field of collaborative decision making and legal and social change and offers some suggestions for meeting those challenges, such as linking levels of governments and solutions to a variety of governance problems, using more flexible and contingent outcomes and "resolutions," developing a wider scope of "triggering events" and creative solutions, and considering rigorously the relationship of formal legal endowments to less formal processes for legal and political decision making.


Within the scope of the project 'Assessment of the Interactions between Spacecraft and Electric Propulsion Systems' (AISEPS) a database has been developed comprising the digitalization of all openly available plume data of European electric propulsion systems from the early sixties up to today. The data includes experimental and theoretical results from ground testing, in-flight measurements and numerical simulations. The database has now been evolved to an online platform with the intention to provide a valuable tool for the electric propulsion community. The status of the database and the functionality of the online platform are being presented, and the future use of this tool is being discussed.


The aim with this paper is to present a research project which takes it´s standpoint from children's perspective at after-school care. In thestudy we have worked together with children at three different after-school care units. We have worked with a so called mosaic approachwhich means that we have used different data gathering methods like interviews, map drawing and children's photos of their unit. We havealso conducted ethnographic observations at the units. During the study we have invented the different data gathering methods bydiscussing them with children. In this paper we present results which focus upon children's view of their own possibility for participation andwhat children themselves express they like to do in after-school care.


BACKGROUND
Elevated left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) gradients during exercise can occur in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) as well as in athletes and normal controls. The authors' staged exercise protocol calls for imaging at rest and during each stage of exercise to evaluate the mechanism of LVOT obstruction at each stage. They investigated whether this staged approach helps differentiate HCM from athletes and normal controls.

METHODS
They reviewed pediatric exercise stress echocardiograms completed between January 2009 and October 2017 at their center and identified those with gene-positive HCM, athlete's heart, and normal controls. Children with inducible obstruction (those with no LVOT gradient at rest who developed a LVOT peak gradient > 25 mm Hg during exercise) were included. LVOT peak gradient, velocity time integral, acceleration time, and deceleration time were measured at rest, submaximal stages, and peak exercise.

RESULTS
Compared with athletes, HCM patients had significantly higher LVOT peak gradients at rest (P = .019), stage 1 of exercise (P = .002), and peak exercise (P = .051), as well as a significantly higher change in LVOT peak gradient from rest to stage 1 (P = .016) and from rest to peak (P = .038). The acceleration time/deceleration time ratio of the LVOT Doppler was significantly lower in HCM patients compared with normal controls at peak exercise.

CONCLUSIONS
The HCM patients who develop elevated LVOT gradients at peak exercise typically manifest early obstruction in the submaximal stages of exercise, which helps to differentiate them from athletes and normal controls.


Small Flow Completion Time (FCT) of short-lived flows, and fair bandwidth allocation of long-lived flows have been two major, usually concurrent, goals in the design of resource allocation algorithms. In this paper we present a framework that naturally unifies these two objectives under a single umbrella; namely by proposing resource allocation algorithm Markov Active Yield (MAY). Based on a probabilistic strategy: "drop proportional to the amount of past drops", MAY achieves very small FCT among short-lived flows as well as max-min fair bandwidth allocation among long-lived flows, using only the information of short history of already dropped packets. It turns out that extremely small amount of on-chip SRAM (roughly 1 bit per flow in Pareto-like flow size distributions) is enough for storing this drop history. Analytical models are presented and analyzed and accuracy of results is verified experimentally using packet level ns2 simulations.


Foreign policy analysis (FPA) in a classical sense entails focusing on agents (individuals or groups of individuals). In the case of the European Union (EU), FPA becomes more problematic. Firstly, the question arises of what a foreign policy of the EU really means. This article defines EU foreign policy in a wider sense, namely along the lines of what is known as EU's external action. It focuses however on the security aspect of the EU's external action – the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and its defence dimension, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Furthermore, a problem of identifying agents arises in the EU setting in large part because of the complex institutional setup of the CFSP/CSDP. Although final decisions are made at the level of the Council, the policy itself is drafted and prepared at lower levels of policy-making (working parties, committees and agencies) based in Brussels. This article proposes a discursive institutionalist model of analysis, applicable to any organization of the policy process. After presenting the model's ontological and epistemological positions, as well as theoretical underpinnings, the article elaborates on the different levels of information processing and meaning construction by actors and their role in setting the overall foreign policy discourse by shaping the coordinative discourses1 during this early phase of the policy-making process.


Meeting healthcare needs is a matter of social justice. Healthcare needs are virtually limitless; however, resources, such as money, for meeting those needs, are limited. How then should we (just and caring citizens and policymakers in such a society) decide which needs must be met as a matter of justice with those limited resources? One reasonable response would be that we should use cost effectiveness as our primary criterion for making those choices. This article argues instead that cost-effectiveness considerations must be constrained by considerations of healthcare justice. The goal of this article will be to provide a preliminary account of how we might distinguish just from unjust or insufficiently just applications of cost-effectiveness analysis to some healthcare rationing problems; specifically, problems related to extraordinarily expensive targeted cancer therapies. Unconstrained compassionate appeals for resources for the medically least well-off cancer patients will be neither just nor cost effective.


The objective of the present study was to evaluate parasitemia and packed cell volume patterns of dogs experimentally inoculated with two isolates of Babesia canis: one from Belo Horizonte (BH) and the other from Lavras (Lv), Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Both isolates showed similar patterns, with the peak of parasitemia occurring three days post-infection. From the fourth day, parasitemia was detected in low levels (0.01%) with small periodical increases. The packed cell volume decreased after the parasitemia beginning, with oscillations during the experimental period. All dogs remained apparently normal, except one, which had been inoculated with the BH isolate and presented classical clinical signs of babesiosis (weakness, anemia, hemoglobinuria and depression). The results suggest that the studied isolates have low pathogenicity, and point to the need for further studies aiming to characterize the subspecies of Brazilian isolates.


Glanzmann9s thrombasthenia (GT) is the result of the absence or of an altered and dysfunctional expression on the platelet membrane of the fibrinogen receptor (glycoprotein [GP] IIb/IIIa complex). Various molecular genetic mechanisms have been found to be responsible for this inherited disease. In a patient with a severe type of GT, we have found a splice variant in the GP IIIa gene that leads to premature chain termination. Immunoprecipitation experiments, using monoclonal antibodies specific for GP IIb/IIIa, showed that GP IIb/IIIa was not detectable on the platelet membrane. Amplification of reversely transcribed platelet GP IIIa mRNA by the polymerase chain reaction and subsequent sequence analysis showed a 86-bp deletion, which corresponds to exon i of the GP IIIa gene. This deletion results in a shift of the reading frame leading to eight altered amino acids followed by a premature termination codon. Analysis of the corresponding genomic DNA fragments showed three mutations in the exon i-intron i boundary region of the GP IIIa gene. One of these mutations is a G-->T transition that eliminates the GT splice donor site in the wild type. This base pair change creates a restriction site for the enzyme Mse I. Allele-specific restriction enzyme analysis (ASRA) with Mse I of amplified genomic DNA of the parents and the proposita showed that both parents (who are first cousins) are heterozygous, whereas the proposita is homozygous for the G-->T substitution.


Purpose
Music mood is an important metadata type on online music repositories and stream music services worldwide. Many existing studies on mood metadata have focused on music websites and services in the Western world to the exclusion of those serving users in other cultures. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this gap by exploring mood labels on influential Chinese music websites.

Design/methodology/approach
Mood labels and the associated song titles were collected from six Chinese music websites, and analyzed in relation to mood models and findings in the literature. An online music listening test was conducted to solicit users' feedback on the mood labels on two popular Chinese music websites. Mood label selections on 30 songs from 64 Chinese listeners were collected and compared to those given by the two websites.

Findings
Mood labels, although extensively employed on Chinese music websites, may be insufficient in meeting listeners' needs. More mood labels of high arousal semantics are needed. Song languages and user familiarity to the songs show influence on users' selection of mood labels given by the websites.

Practical implications
Suggestions are proposed for future development of mood metadata and mood-enabled user interfaces in the context of global online music access.

Originality/value
This paper provides insights on understanding the mood metadata on Chinese music websites and uniquely contributes to existing knowledge of culturally diversified music access.


The subdifferential calculus for the expectation of nonsmooth random integrands involves many fundamental and challenging problems in stochastic optimization. It is known that for Clarke regular integrands, the Clarke subdifferential equals the expectation of their Clarke subdifferential. In particular, this holds for convex integrands. However, little is known about calculation of Clarke subgradients for the expectation for non-regular integrands. The focus of this contribution is to approximate Clarke subgradients for the expectation of random integrands by smoothing methods applied to the integrand. A framework for how to proceed along this path is developed and then applied to a class of measurable composite max integrands, or CM integrands. This class contains non-regular integrands from stochastic complementarity problems as well as stochastic optimization problems arising in statistical learning.


In accordance with the development of recent computer technology, the dependency of railway signaling system on the computer software is being increased further, and accordingly, the testing for the safety and reliability of railway signaling system software became more important. This thesis suggested an automated testing tool for coding rules on this railway signaling system software, and presented its result of implementation. The testing items in the implemented tool had referred to the international standards in relation to the software for railway system and MISRA-C standards. This automated testing tool for railway signaling system can be utilized at the assessment stage for railway signaling system software also, and it is anticipated that it can be utilized usefully at the software development stage also.


Abstract The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of feeding oil supplement on mammary gland development and milk production responses in Holstein cows. Ten multiparous Holstein cows (42.2±9.2 d before calving, 3.25±0.25 body condition score, and 620±35 kg body weight) were randomly assigned to treatments. Treatments were a diet with oil added as palm oil (PO; n=5), or fish oil (FO; n=5) given to cows until 63 d in milk. Milk yield was recorded daily, milk composition (fat, protein, lactose, total solid and somatic cell count) was measured weekly and fatty acid profiles of milk fat were determined at first and last week of the experiment. Samples of mammary tissue were obtained at 7 and 63 d in milk by biopsy gun. Tissue slides were analyzed by Image J software. Results showed that fish oil supplemented diet compared to the palm oil supplemented diet increased milk production after 6 weeks of lactation (P<0.05), content of polyunsaturated fatty acids milk fat (P<0.05) and docosahexaenoic acid (P<0.01). Moreover, n-6:n-3 ratio was decreased by fish oil supplement (P<0.05). Histological studies showed that FO increased the relative percentage of tissue area occupied by epithelial cells as well as a number of total alveoli in each microscopic field (P<0.05). Data suggested that feeding fish oil during the dry period and early lactation could improve development and function of the mammary gland in the dairy cow.


Reverse osmosis (RO) network design problem is presented in this study for seawater desalination. The RO pressure vessel is multiple spiral wound modules connected in series. We exploit in this study the RO pressure vessel operation by considering stream property variations within the pressure vessel itself. The design problem allows extraction of high-quality permeates from different locations along the pressure vessel length. Superstructure optimization is adopted to model the RO network in order to find: (1) optimal arrangement of the process units, (2) optimal permeate extraction locations, and (3) production of several permeate streams with different qualities. Several case studies are presented to show the applications of the proposed mathematical programming model. In general, lower treatment cost and higher permeate recovery can be achieved by allowing permeate extraction streams from the RO pressure vessels. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J 60: 520–532, 2014


The article deals with the issues of forensic examination as a mean of establishing evidence in civil proceedings, highlights the peculiarities of construction and technical examination in cases of termination of a person's right to share in the common property.

The author concludes that provision of the construction and technical examination in cases related to the termination of a person's right to a share in the common property requires an integrated approach. An expert shall use various methods, evaluate the object of an examination according to various criteria, and make consistent and logical conclusions in order to prepare an informative report.

Proper justification of the plaintiff's position and proof of the technical impossibility of dividing the disputed property provides court with the grounds to satisfy the claim on termination of the right to a share in the residential building even with large area. However, like any other evidence, the expert's report does not have a predetermined force for the court and is subject to assessment in conjunction with other evidence and circumstances of the case.


OF DISSERTATION THE FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE, MINORITY FAITHS, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF RELIGIOUS INDEPENDENCE AFTER RAWLSIAN LIBERALISM The conversation to which my dissertation belongs is that which preoccupied John Rawls in Political Liberalism, namely: (1) how it is possible that a religiously and morally pluralistic culture like ours lives cooperatively from one generation to the next, and (2) The extent to which religious or moral convictions are appropriate bases for political action. My three-essay dissertation is about aspects of this investigation that affect minority or nonmainstream religious and cultural groups, since legal institutions, and theoretical models of them (such as Rawls's and Ronald Dworkin's) are in many ways ill-suited to accommodate their ways of life. In the first essay, I consider Rawlsian obstacles to developing a religiously impartial conception of "substantial burdens" on religious free exercise within First Amendment jurisprudence. I apply this question to federal cases in which Native American tribes sought to prevent government uses of land that would be, they claimed, catastrophic to their cultural survival and all citizens' safety. I propose a jurisprudential model that places a heavier burden on judges to listen and perhaps translate such views, counting non-mainstream forms of reasoning as legally cognizable and sufficient to create a prima facie constitutional case, where current models would not. In the second essay, because few conceptions of justice require that law be cognizable and justifiable to everyone, I review liberal conceptions of what makes a cultural group or person "irrational" or "unreasonable." With a focus on public education, and cases like Wisconsin v. Yoder and Mozert v. Hawkins in mind, I argue that approaches to "unreasonableness" from the likes of Rawls, Charles Larmore, Jonathan Quong, and Stephen Macedo are well-intentioned but unduly restrictive, insofar as they tend to, by definitional fiat, exclude citizens who embody widely recognized civic virtues, or who at least pose no threat to a stable democracy. In doing so, I argue that they instantiate the sort of social circumstance that Herbert Marcuse calls one-dimensionality. In the third essay, I consider whether a meaningful and practical model for "group rights," which would include the right of peoples to preserve their cultures, can be developed within American jurisprudence. This argument is largely inspired by a paper from political scientist Vernon van Dyke, and considers overcoming challenges to this notion wrought by contemporary forms of liberalism and vehement public disagreement over recent, pertinent Supreme Court decisions involving associational rights, like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Citizens United v. FEC.


A 60-year-old woman developed an anterior uveitis of unknown etiology in her right eye. Topical treatment was corticosteroids led to a regression of the inflammation, but three months later a severe relapse occurred, followed by endophthalmitis and blindness. At this time a previously unknown pulmonary tuberculosis was diagnosed. In histologic sections of the enucleated eye numerous acid-fast bacilli were demonstrated. Diagnostic and therapeutic considerations are discussed.


The forced expiratory volume over 0·75 second (F.E.V.0·75) was measured monthly for 3 years in 28 working ex-miners with pneumoconiosis and for one year in 17 normal laboratory workers. A significant annual cyclical variation of 0·044 litre amplitude was found in the ex-miners, with minimum and maximum values on 2 February and 3 August respectively. In the normal subjects the amplitude of the change was about 0·10 litre. An attempt was made to relate the changes in ventilatory capacity in the ex-miners to those in environmental temperature, relative and absolute humidity, and barometric pressure. Dry-bulb temperature showed a cyclical pattern in phase with that of ventilatory capacity, but there was no strong correlation between the deviations from these cyclical components, which would have been desirable to support a causal relation between change of temperature and of ventilatory capacity. There was no definite evidence of a relationship between any other of the environmental parameters and ventilatory capacity. Fourteen of the ex-miners had purulent sputum at intervals but remained at work. Immediately after these attacks the ventilatory capacity was not lower than before, but those having attacks showed a greater annual decline in their F.E.V.0·75. We think that the cyclical variation in ventilatory capacity is not directly caused by the environmental conditions measured, or by sputum purulence, but could represent an intrinsic biological rhythm which is perhaps modified by the environmental temperature.


Summary The respiratory behaviour of Locusta migratoria is altered at the onset of flight. The neuronal processes and some of the mechanisms underlying these alterations were studied by using intracellular recording and staining techniques. It has previously been reported that abdominal pumping ceases for the first seconds of flight. Our data indicate that this phenomenon is not due to inhibition of the respiratory system, since most interneurones and some motoneurones maintain a respiratory rhythm during the onset of flight activity. Likely explanations for the cessation of the abdominal pumping are: (1) increased stiffness of the abdomen due to maintained activation of abdominal muscles and (2) decreased rhythmic modulation in abdominal motor units due to tonic excitatory input. Two major changes occur in the respiratory system at the onset of flight: (1) the rhythm is reset by an activation of inspiratory and inactivation of expiratory neurones, and (2) the respiratory rate is increased. The increase in the respiratory rate at the onset of flight is in part due to an activation of inspiratory interneurones which are capable of accelerating the respiratory rhythm. The changes in the respiratory system coinciding with the initiation of flight suggest a feedforward mechanism linking both behaviours. Tonic interneurones, involved in the initiation of flight and influencing respiration, might be involved in linking respiration and flight. At flight onset, one group of these simultaneously disinhibited respiration and flight and thus contributed both to an increase in the respiratory rate and to an activation of the flight system. Another group evoked flight and had variable effects on respiration. One tonic interneurone had a depressing effect on the respiratory rate. We conclude that respiration is centrally linked to flight in part by the same interneurones controlling the initiation of flight. The existence of such a feedforward mechanism in the locust resembles the situation found in vertebrates, where locomotory and respiratory behaviour can be driven from the same brainstem region.


There is an odd coexistence between two conflicting safety policies that may well be pursued by the same accident prevention agency. The first seeks to improve safety by alleviating the consequences of risky behaviour. It may take the form of seat belt installation and wearing, airbags, crashworthy vehicle design, or forgiving roads (collapsible lamp posts and barriers). This policy offers forgiveness for a moment of inattention or carelessness. The second policy seeks to improve safety by making the consequences of imprudent behaviour more severe and includes things such as speed bumps, narrow street passages, and fines for violations. Here, people are threatened into adopting a safe behaviour; a moment of inattention or carelessness may have a dire outcome.

While these two policies seem logically contradictory, neither is likely to reduce the injury rate, because people adapt their behaviour to changes in environmental conditions. Both theory and data indicate that safety and lifestyle dependent health is unlikely to improve unless the amount of risk people are willing to take is reduced.

In any discussion about injury prevention the criterion of success should be clearly specified, or else confusion abounds.1, 2 What is it that we want to achieve: fewer accidents per unit distance driven? Per hour of exposure to traffic? Or per head of population per year?

Sometimes the choice of denominator is obvious. We wish to reduce the number of suicides per head of population, not per pistol or km of available rope. Success in promoting electrical safety is not measured in terms of fewer cases of electrocution per kwh consumed.

In the domain of traffic, do we want to provide more mobility per case of death or injury, or do we want fewer cases of death and injury? That these two measures of success are not interchangeable is …


Abstract This paper examines the effect of waterborne lead exposure on infant mortality in American cities over the period 1900 to 1920. Variation across cities in water acidity and the types of service pipes, which together determined the extent of lead exposure, identifies the effects of lead on infant mortality. In 1900, a decline in exposure equivalent to an increase in pH from 6.675 (25th percentile) to 7.3 (50th percentile) in cities with lead-only pipes would have been associated with a decrease in infant mortality of 7% to 33%, or at least twelve fewer infant deaths per 1,000 live births.


This paper traces how the government policies on land rights have evolved over recent decades in Nepal and analyses the roles of existing power relations and vested interests in shaping their development and implementation. It is shown that historically entrenched power relations existing in the patrimonial political system have led to a highly unequal distribution of land. Ways to reduce inequality in land ownership to provide access to land for real farmers are essential, but due to these same entrenched power relations, they have not been implemented in earnest and land reforms over the last few decades have been unsuccessful. As a result, the same types of pre-capitalist social relations have persisted in rural areas. These relations have not been able to generate an agrarian surplus that can be invested in agriculture or other sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the concept of 'property rights' in relation to land has created a new problem in agrarian development in recent years, by fostering an environment in which people invest in land not to increase production but for speculation. As a result, it has become extremely difficult for poor people to purchase land to have a housing lot or for farming. The present democratic politics and institutions in the post 2006 context have still not shown any capacity or the interest to address the issue of land. Accordingly, the prospects for change at the moment seem bleak even though the rhetoric has increased. Moreover, the changed context calls for a new concept of land reform. This would take into account changes in the agrarian structure and an agrarian economy where mobility is high and injection of cash from outside the country has increased. It is finally argued that successful land reform should be led by grassroots political movements, with limited external intervention.


We have designed a mobile -PDA-based- interface for real-time control of virtual characters in multiuser semi-immersive virtual environments - using a large rear-projection screen. The proof-of-concept implementation we present shows the potential of handheld devices as powerful interfaces to virtual reality applications. This technique eliminates the display of floating menus and other widgets over the simulation screen. A brief discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of using a handheld for 3D interaction is presented as well.


C415 diffraction technique, having like Te source a layer type-n is presented in this work. The samples were grown with structure GaSb-n/GaSb-p on GaSb-n substrate by LPE technique. The diffusion process was done through heat treatment to different temperatures and times. The results obtained with X-ray diffraction are in agreement with the photoluminescence measurement.


Questionnaires are presented as reliable measure of motor imagery (MI), i.e. the ability to mentally simulate a movement in an internal perspective. Although there is some evidence that MI is domain-specific (i.e., i.e., higher scores for motor imagery may be generated by people with extensive real-world experience and practice), MI studies have typically employed fixed and generic movements as items. Thus, we investigated the content validity of the movement items of the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire–2 (VMIQ-2). Sixty participants were divided in groups of athletes (competitive and not-competitive, with an extensive motor experience) and not-athletes (with a reduced motor experience) and analysed by means of a mixed factorial MANOVA. The three MI modalities, external visual, internal visual and kinesthetic imagery, did not result in significantly different scores between the groups. We recommend caution in using MI generic questionnaires in studies that compare people with different motor experiences. Moreover, we suggest that the structure of the questionnaires should be redesigned, in order to make them adaptable to the specific needs of professionals and researchers.


A review of available evidence favours the view that most lenticular galaxies are former spirals that have been stripped of gas rather than galaxies in which all gas was used up at the term nation of proto-galactic collapse. An analysis of new homogeneous colour observations of ellipticals by Sandage & Visvanathan suggests that E1 galaxies are slightly redder than are ellipticals of type E5. This situation might have arisen if (1) the mass spectrum of star formation, and hence the rate of heavy element enrichment, depended on turbulence and if (2) turbulence in proto- E1 galaxies was m ore violent than it was in proto- E5 galaxies. Analysis of new data that have recently become available shows that the luminosity distribution of elliptical galaxies contains more luminous objects than does the luminosity distribution of lenticulars. This result suggests that the mass spectrum of lenticular galaxies is deficient in high mass objects when com pared with that of ellipticals. The frequency with which barred spirals occur is found to depend on both Hubble type and on galaxy luminosity but not on environmental factors such as membership in clusters or binary systems. It is shown that statistically selected samples of 'binary' galaxies are heavily contaminated by cluster members. This result, and a selection effect described in the text, lower the credibility of galaxy mass:light ratios determined from studies of binary galaxies. Finally, it is noted that the brightest galaxies in clusters of BM type I are much more likely to be binaries than is the case for first-ranked galaxies in clusters of BM type III.


Background—Nitric oxide (NO) may have a role in the pathophysiology of tissue injury in response to inhaled ozone in animals. Methods—A double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover study was undertaken to investigate the eVects of inhaled ozone in 10 normal and 10 atopic asthmatic volunteers. Subjects were exposed to 200 ppb ozone or clean air for four hours with intermittent exercise, followed by hourly measurement of spirometric parameters and exhaled NO for four hours. Nasal NO and methacholine reactivity were measured and exhaled breath condensate and induced sputum samples were collected four and 24 hours after exposure. Results—Exposure to ozone caused a fall in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) of 7% in normal subjects (p<0.05) and 9% in asthmatic subjects (p<0.005). There was a 39% increase in sputum neutrophils at four hours in normal subjects (p<0.05) and a 35% increase at four hours in asthmatic subjects, remaining high at 24 hours (p<0.005 and p<0.05, respectively). There were no diVerences between normal and asthmatic subjects. There were no changes in methacholine reactivity, exhaled or nasal NO, nitrite levels in exhaled breath condensate, or sputum supernatant concentrations of interleukin 8, tumour necrosis factor á, or granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor in either group. Conclusions—Exposure to 200 ppb ozone leads to a neutrophil inflammatory response in normal and asthmatic subjects but no changes in exhaled NO or nitrite levels. (Thorax 1999;54:1061–1069)


The innovative Ultra Compact Combustor (UCC) is an alternative to traditional turbine engine combustors and has been shown to reduce the combustor volume and offer potential improvements in combustion efficiency. Prior UCC configurations featured a circumferential combustion cavity positioned around the outside diameter (OD) of the engine. This configuration would be difficult to implement in a vehicle with a small, fixed diameter and had difficulty migrating the hot combustion products at the OD radially inward across an axial core flow to present a uniform temperature distribution to the first turbine stage. The present study experimentally tested a new UCC configuration that featured a circumferential cavity that exhausted axially into a dilution zone positioned just upstream of the nozzle guide vanes. The combustor was sized as a replacement burner for the JetCat P90 RXi small-scale turbine engine and fit inside the engine casing. This combustor configuration achieved a 33% length reduction compared to the stock JetCat combustor and achieved comparable engine performance across a limited operating range. Self-sustaining engine operation was achieved with a rotating compressor and turbine making this study the first to achieve operation of a UCC powered turbine engine.


Two groups of National Merit Scholarship students were selected on the basis of attendance at educational institutions ranked high or low in the production of future scholars and scientists. Four hypotheses pertaining to expected personality differences between matched groups from both sources were explored by means of the following instruments: the Omnibus Personality Inventory, the Strong Vocational Interest Blank, and the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values. In general, the hypotheses were firmly supported, and it was concluded that students of high ability attending highly productive institutions have a pattern of traits, values, and attitudes which is more closely related to serious intellectual pursuits than have students of high ability attending less productive institutions (16).


Carnitine is an essential molecule for the transfer of long chain fatty acids through the inner mitochondrial membrane, for beta-oxidation (1). The long chain fatty acids provide a large proportion of the energy requirement of the myocardium. Thus, adequate amounts of tissue carnitine are required to maintain the normal function of the myocardium (2). Experimental studies on acute myocardial ischemia and clinical investigations of patients with congestive cardiac failure have indicated that the myocardial carnitine content was significantly lowered in both conditions, in contrast to raised or normal blood carnitine (3-5). In the present study, alterations in serum carnitine levels were assessed in patients with atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD) who did not exhibit any signs of cardiac failure. The possibility of a correlation between serum carnitine levels and the severity of the disease was also investigated in these patients. The subjects were assessed angiographically, and grouped according to the severity of the coronary artery disease (CAD) as control (n=15) and patients having mild (n=15), moderate (n=15), and severe (n=20) CAD. Serum free L-carnitine levels were measured in all of these groups by an enzymatic spectrophotometric method. There were no significant differences between the serum carnitine levels of the controls and mild and moderate CAD patients. On the other hand, a marked difference was observed between controls and the severe CAD patients (P< O.O1).These results imply that serum carnitine measurements cannot be used to define the presence of CAD, but they can be markers of advanced atherosclerotic lesions.


Considerable work has focused on Collaborative Consumption (CC) from a managerial standpoint. Little academic research has been conducted into this specific concept. This paper proposes two theoretical contributions in that regard: 1) a definition of CC that enables to determine effectively whether any given resource distribution system can be labelled as CC or not; 2) the scope and limits of CC by contrasting it with other forms of exchanges. Consumers' capacity to switch side from obtainment to provision or from "obtainer" to "provider" role constitutes the key criteria to identify a resource distribution system as being a form of CC. We define CC as the set of resource circulation systems which enable consumers to both obtain and provide, temporarily or permanently, valuable resources or services through direct interaction with other consumers or through a mediator. Collaborative Consumption is therefore a concept which stands in sharp contrast with the notion of Conventional Consumption. Conventional consumption – which underlies classic marketing thought – is a type of resource distribution system which involves passive consumers (not obtainers), who cannot, or are not given the capacity to, provide any resource or service (not providers). Incapable of engaging either in obtainment or in provision, their role is limited to that of buying – monetary exchange - and consuming organization-made resources or services, and, in the case of tangible resources, to discard them. In contrast, Collaborative Consumption involves not mere "consumers" but "obtainers" who may also be "providers". In sum, consumers' capacity to switch roles from provider to obtainer and from obtainer to provider, in a given resource distribution system, constitutes the key distinguishing criteria between conventional consumption and CC. We also introduce the consumer process that is specific to Collaborative Consumption by emphasizing that CC involves not only delegation, such as in conventional consumption, but also empowerment and quasi-empowerment. More specifically, delegation assumes that there is a clear distinction between organizations which produce and sell goods and consumers who buy those goods produced and sold by organizations. Consumers rely on organization-made advertising, texts, logos, labels, trademarks, brands and other communication to choose among the broad array of goods or other types of resources that are offered to them. Empowerment means that consumers are empowered to collaborate directly with each other. They organize, arrange and negotiate informally the terms and conditions of the exchange of valuable resources, including goods or services. Under the concept of empowerment, consumers engage in what we call pure collaboration, where both the obtainer and the provider are consumers, such as in a secondhand purchase or sale at a flea market. As a middle-ground between delegation and empowerment, quasi-empowerment involves consumer-to-consumer exchanges that are mediated by a third-party, which is typically an organization. Under the concept of quasi-empowerment, consumers engage either in sourcing collaboration or in trading collaboration. Sourcing collaboration means that the provider provides a resources or service to the obtainer through a mediator. On the other hand, trading collaboration means that the obtainer obtains a resource from the provider through that specific mediator.


Background: Our psychiatric Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) group wishes to develop adolescent psychiatry OSCE stations. The literature regarding adolescent standardized patient (SP) selection methods and simulation effects, however, offered limited assurance that such adolescents would not experience adverse simulation effects. Purpose: Evaluation of adolescent SP selection methods and simulation effects for low- and high-stress roles. Method: A two-component (employment-psychological) SP selection method was used. Carefully selected SPs were assigned across three conditions: low-stress medical role, high-stress psychosocial role, and wait list control. Qualitative and quantitative measures were used to assess simulation effects. Results: Our selection method excluded 21% (7% employment and 14% psychological) of SP applicants. For SP participants, beneficial effects included acquisition of job skills and satisfaction in making an important contribution to society. SP reactions of discomfort to roles were reported. Long-term adverse effects were not identified. Conclusions: A two-component adolescent SP selection method is recommended. Adolescent SP benefits outweigh risks.


Land-use change (LUC) is a contentious policy issue because of its uncertain, yet potentially substantial, impact on bioenergy climate change benefits. Currently, the share of global GHG emissions from biofuels-induced LUC is small compared to that from LUC associated with food and feed production and other human-induced causes. However, increasing demand for biofuels derived from feedstocks grown on agricultural land could increase this contribution. No consensus has emerged on how to appropriately isolate and quantify LUC impacts of bioenergy from those of other LUC drivers. We reviewed the literature and illustrate some strategies to minimize bioenergy-related LUC, including ways to increase land's total productivity and the design and implementation of effective land use policies. The best strategies to reduce LUC risk will vary geographically, requiring a balancing of the advantages and limitations of potential options within the local context together with other goals (social, environmental, economic, energy security, and diversification).


Abstract: The protein kinase inhibitor K‐252a has been shown to promote cholinergic activity in cultures of rat spinal cord and neuronal survival in chick dorsal root ganglion cultures. To determine the mechanism by which K‐252a acts as a neurotrophic factor, we examined the effects of this molecule on a human neuroblastoma cell line, SH‐SY5Y. K‐252a induced neurite outgrowth in a dose‐dependent manner. Coincident with neurite outgrowth was the early tyrosine phosphorylation of 125‐ and 140‐kDa proteins. The phosphorylation events were independent of protein kinase C inhibition because down‐regulation of protein kinase C by long‐term treatment with phorbol ester did not prevent K‐252a‐induced tyrosine phosphorylation. Similarly, the protein kinase C inhibitors H7, GF‐109203X, and calphostin C did not induce the phosphorylation. We have identified one of the phosphosubstrates as the pp125 focal adhesion protein tyrosine kinase (Fak). Induction of phosphorylation coincided with increased Fak activity and appeared to be independent of ligand/integrin interaction. The induction of Fak phosphorylation by K‐252a was also observed in LA‐N‐5 cells and primary cultures of rat embryonic striatal cells but not in PC12 cells. The protein kinase C‐independent induction of tyrosine phosphorylation and the identification of Fak as a substrate of K‐252a‐induced tyrosine kinase activity suggest that this compound mediates neurotrophic effects through a novel signaling pathway.


Drilling process consisting of drag bits which are used over drilling boreholes concerning generation along with research about oil and gas regularly undergo against caustic vibrations. As mentioned, vibrations will be able to cause the drag bit along with drillstring various breakdown concerning equipments. This project, a non-linear design concerning rotational and axial motions of drillstring plus bit act suggested. Furthermore, dynamics concerning two drive complexes considering translational along with rotational motions regarding drillstring is being advised. Regarding mentioned model, translational along with rotating motions concerning drag bit are reached in the process of result regarding total dynamic action. The consequences concerning numerous viable criteria covering dynamic action are considered including objective in producing an undisturbed drilling. Using appropriate selection concerning operational criteria can help in minimizing the consequences regarding bit-bounce also stick-slip. It is anticipated to aid lower time lost in drilling operation along with costs sustained because of caustic vibrations


Variational Autoencoder (VAE), a simple and effective deep generative model, has led to a number of impressive empirical successes and spawned many advanced variants and theoretical investigations. However, recent studies demonstrate that, when equipped with expressive generative distributions (aka. decoders), VAE suffers from learning uninformative latent representations with the observation called KL Varnishing, in which case VAE collapses into an unconditional generative model. In this work, we introduce mutual posterior-divergence regularization, a novel regularization that is able to control the geometry of the latent space to accomplish meaningful representation learning, while achieving comparable or superior capability of density estimation. Experiments on three image benchmark datasets demonstrate that, when equipped with powerful decoders, our model performs well both on density estimation and representation learning.


The demand for university education in Kenya has significantly increased. Many secondary school graduates and the working class look for opportunities to pursue university education. There are also students from other countries who would like to study in Kenya. This diversity of sources of university student population has posed challenge to student admission policies. The study focused on effectiveness of student admission policies in public and private universities in Kenya. Data was collected from a sample of 502 university students using a structured questionnaire. It was found that public universities did not have the necessary national and ethnic diversity of students; however, majority of students were studying courses of their preferences. Faith based private universities considered religious faith of students before accepting or rejecting applications for admission. It was found that public universities admitted students of higher grades than private universities. It was recommended that the government formulates policies regulating student admissions to guarantee transferability of student grades across universities, acceptable diversity of students and exemption rules for admission in public and private universities.


Small vane, 10-mm-diameter cone penetrometer and 12.7-mm-diameter piezocone devices have been developed to measure soil properties in centrifuge models during flight. This paper presents tests with these devices on kaolin and Gault clay in a normal gravity field. Empirical cone factors were shown to increase with increasing overconsolidation ratio but were found to depend on other factors such as cone size and testing rates. The values also differed considerably between the two clays used. Tests with the small piezocone have shown that the ratio of pore pressure to point resistance decreases slightly with the overconsolidation ratio, but not enough for this ratio be used as a method for determining overconsolidation ratio (OCR). As shown by other workers, pore pressures acting around the tip influence measured tip resistance and should be taken into account when interpreting cone resistances in clays. Dissipation tests with the piezocone have yielded values of coefficient of consolidation agreeing very well with those from swelling tests on clay cakes.


A series of Rh- and Ir-hybrid catalysts with varying tether lengths has been prepared by immobilization of RhI, RhIII and IrIII complexes on carbon black via radical grafting. The performance of the different catalysts was assessed for the hydrosilylation of phenylacetylene with Et3SiH. The efficiency of the catalysts was dependent on the length of the tethers to the surface. The RhIII- and IrIII hybrids afforded the β(Z)-vinylsilanes, as observed for the analogous homogeneous RhIII catalyst. No distinct product selectivity was observed when using the homogeneous RhI precursors as catalysts. However, on using the RhIII hybrid catalysts derived from the RhI precursors to promote hydrosilylation, the major products were the α-vinylsilanes and the origin of the difference in reactivity was found to be a chemical modification of the catalysts during immobilization. Substrate scope is demonstrated for a number of alkynes, and feasible mechanisms supported by DFT calculations are proposed.


: Introduction of antibiotic-resistant bifidobacterial and lactobacterial strains, separately or together, does not decrease the degree and duration of contamination of the small intestine by enterobacteria after oral administration of antibiotics in large doses. The use of antibiotic-resistant bifidobacterial and lactobacterial strains allows one to decrease contamination of the small intestine by enterobacteria, resulting from the administration of antibiotics in near-therapeutic doses. The therapeutic effectiveness of bacterial preparations with respect to antibiotic dysbacteriosis has been found to depend on the level of resistance to the administered antibiotic. Antibiotic-resistant strains of bifidobacteria decrease the number of opportunistic microorganisms in the intestine in cases of dysbacteriosis caused by irradiation and administration of antibiotics.


Using single-cell transcriptional profiling we mapped the immune system of the naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber), a small but long-lived and cancer-resistant subterranean rodent. Both splenic and circulating immune cells were examined in healthy young animals and following an infection-mimicking lipopolysaccharide challenge. Our study revealed that the naked mole-rat immune system is characterized by a high myeloid to lymphoid cell ratio that includes a novel, lipopolysaccharide responsive, granulocyte cell subset not found in the mouse. Conversely, we find that naked mole-rats do not have a cell subset that corresponds to natural killer cells as defined in other well-characterized mammalian species. Supporting this finding, we show that the naked mole-rat genome has not expanded any of the gene families encoding diverse natural killer cell receptors, which are the genomic hallmarks of species in which natural killer cells have been described. These unusual features suggest an atypical mode of immunosurveillance and a greater reliance on myeloid-biased innate immunity.


The crux of this paper is based on the pattern drafting of woven fabrics. It is necessary because many textile designers or weavers cannot generate and develop their personal pattern drafts for weaving. It is obvious that they mainly copy other people's designs to weave. This paper therefore has provided an easy and simple way to learn, focus and develop their original designs to weave. The practical production method is used to create, generate and develop the pattern drafts in this paper. The paper focuses on the components of the pattern draft which will surely help to forecast and have a view of the appearance of the design before it is woven on the cloth. In conclusion, the weaver will be able to record and document his/her original works for posterity.


A Good Death is based on a survey in East London and provides a wide range of fascinating and helpful insights into all aspects of experiencing death and surviving grief. The voices in the book are those of people who have managed to cope despite being under the shadow of impending death. Their experience could be a comfort to anybody in a similar situation. A Good Death is intended for people who are dying, for their lay and professional carers and for student doctors, nurses and social workers.


Abstract Though mergers and acquisitions comprise a significant share of aggregate economic activity in the US, researchers disagree on the effect and importance of M&A determinants. Such disagreement stems from adherence to disparate theoretical models that preclude the use of significant explanatory variables. Our paper contributes to this scattered literature by demonstrating the presence of significant bias in the most common approaches to this question. We do so by comparing the Neoclassical, behavioral, and macro approaches to explaining M&A activity. Finding that the assumptions of these respective paradigms have inhibited individual researchers from including important determinants of M&A, we show that these constraints have generated misleading point estimates. By constructing a more holistic model of M&A activity, we produce more accurate estimates of merger determinants and reveal the bias of previous estimation techniques. Additionally, we relax the common, yet unrealistic, assumption that firms are homogeneous, showing that the determinants of M&A vary by firm size, region, and sector. These results demonstrate that an aggregated approach to merger determinants conceals important variation.


In this contribution we report on the influence of Mn doping on various physical properties of Li4Ti5−xMnxO12 (x = 0, 0.005, 0.025, 0.01, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1 and 0.2). Spinel-type (space group Fd3m, a = 0.8358 nm) Li4Ti5−xMnxO12 was produced as highly uniform and polyhedral shaped powder in a size range between 200 and 400 nm. The crystal structure of Li4Ti5−xMnxO12, the morphology and the Mn-ion distribution have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning and transmission electron microscopies (SEM and TEM). The oxidation state of Mn and the conductivity behavior of Mn-substituted Li4Ti5−xMnxO12 samples have been studied using multi-frequency electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). Mn is incorporated as Mn2+, and these ions increase the conductivity of Li4Ti5O12; a conductivity value of 0.48 × 10−8 S cm−1 was measured for Li4Ti5−xMnxO12 with x = 0.075, which is ten-fold larger than that of undoped Li4Ti5O12.