ABSTRACT Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology and the concept of supply chain management (SCM) could be a potentially compatible and mutually interdependent practice. The existing research on BIM focuses on improving project-based and intra-organisational goals, ignoring the impact of BIM on existing structured long-term Supply Chain (SC) partnerships. The purpose of this study is to explore the interdependences of BIM and cross-project long-term inter-organisational teams. Five projects in the Netherlands, with BIM and SCM implementation, were analysed empirically using case study methods, including interviews, documents analysis and live observations. The BIM-enabled SC partnerships adopted various SCM practices and displayed distinct BIM collaboration patterns. This exploration revealed three main patterns of BIM-based collaboration, that is, ad-hoc, linear and distributed, in the SC partnerships. The three patterns included various quasi-contractual, physical and digital means for BIM collaboration. The study suggests implications about BIM researchers and practitioners for not only implementing BIM, but also further integrating the construction SC.


The role of theory in qualitative health research is paramount for translation into practice and policy, since it moves beyond pure description of data, allowing interpretation of the social processes underpinning and potentially 'explaining' findings. However, the use of theory in empirical research proves challenging to undertake and subsequently articulate in theses and publications. This paper offers insight into how theory may be used in empirical research, drawing on both theory-driven and grounded theory approaches. The approach described assists researchers in bridging the central criticisms of these two methodological approaches. Furthermore, if offers researchers and students a step-by-step guide for integrating theory within and throughout the research process. Within our step-by-step guide, we provide examples from our own research that we hope will help readers to map the difficult terrain of using theory within and throughout their own research. Think of this paper as a guide to working with theory and research in an interconnected and interdependent way – a pluralistic approach for theory verification and generation.


In this work we present novel provably accelerated gossip algorithms for solving the average consensus problem. The proposed protocols are inspired from the recently developed accelerated variants of the randomized Kaczmarz method - a popular method for solving linear systems. In each gossip iteration all nodes of the network update their values but only a pair of them exchange their private information. Numerical experiments on popular wireless sensor networks showing the benefits of our protocols are also presented.


Rumors of Moore's Law demise have been greatly exaggerated! While transistors are not getting simultaneously smaller, faster and lower power every couple of years like for the past several decades, inexorable forces to cram more devices together are still running strong, except that they are now pushing upwards in the third dimension. Heterogeneity, monolithic vs. TSV-based scaling for 3D, and closing the energy loop (cooling and power delivery) will punctuate this talk as it explores the challenges and opportunities that IoT systems of the future face as they move away from planar Systems-on-Chip (SoC) to becoming three dimensional Systems-on-Anything (SoX, e.g. Systems-on-Package, Systems-on-Interposer, etc.).


A large share of urban freight in cities is related to construction works. Construction is required to create attractive, sustainable and economically viable cities. When activities at and around construction sites are not managed effectively, they can have a negative impact on the cities liveability. Construction companies implementing logistics concepts show a reduction of logistic costs, less congestion around the sites and improved productivity and safety. The client initially sets the 'ground rules' for construction in the tendering process. This paper explores how tendering for construction projects can support sustainable urban construction logistics. We explore the potential for tendering construction projects, by both public and private clients, for sustainable urban construction logistics and we present a conceptual framework for specifying 'logistics quality' as a quality criterion for EMAT (Economically Most Advantageous Tender). Our exploration results in questions for further research in tendering for sustainable urban construction logistics.


The intention of this dissertation is to better locate aspects of discourse on technology within the social sciences, especially the discipline of international political economy. To do this, I have focused on the idea of control, a concept which is applicable to both social organization and technological systems.

In the first chapter I develop the concept of control and outline its relationship to existing modes of social analysis. I identify the specific politics of control and discuss the role of electronic information processing and communications technology in social change. In Chapter Two I place the origins of electronic control technology (telegraphy, telephony and radio) within the wider euro-centric but tendentially global liberalinternationalist order dominant during most of the nineteenth century. In Chapter Three I consider the development of electronic control technology, including institutional formation, within the context of US industro-militarist development from around the end of the nineteenth century to 1945. Chapter Four is concerned with a study of the rise to central importance of microelectronics-based control technology in a context of post-war US hegemony. In Chapter Five I examine the construction anew of transnational politico-economic control arrangements dominated by transnational corporations and growing financial market structures, and the role of globally capable telematic networks in this development. Finally, in the last chapter, I attempt to identify and analyse the key characteristics of the emergent new world order, which I describe as cyber-financial, and which I consider to be a synthesis of preceding social control structures.

Aside from Chapter One, the procession of argument is roughly historical, covering around a century and a half, but with specific themes being dominant in each chapter. Methodologically, the dissertation is an attempt to further synthesize existing history and commentary in the light of manifest global change currently underway.


This paper touches on the interaction between monetary policy, fiscal policy and public debt management. The first part looks at public debt sustainability and monetary policy. When measuring the fiscal stance, data such as current fiscal income and expenditure, the scale of public debt, and the coverage of budget revenue and expenditure should be properly monitored. In addition, factors that could influence the mid-term fiscal stance should be taken into consideration. Central bank assets may not be used to offset public debt, and pension funds are not in practice used to offset gross government debt in most economies. To some extent, oil and commodity stability funds held by resource-abundant economies may be used to offset gross government debt. Monetary policy is influenced by the financing of the fiscal deficit by way of bond issuance. The second part is about the development of money markets, the maturity and yield curves of domestic government bonds, and the deepening of domestic financial markets and financial stability in China. The concluding part concerns the central bank and public debt management. There is no need for the central bank in economies with a well developed treasury bond market to issue debt of its own. In emerging economies, a regular rollover issuance of central bank debt may help to form a consecutive short-term risk-free yield curve, serving as a benchmark for pricing in money and bond markets. Central banks involved in public debt management need to coordinate closely with the debt management agency on the policy objectives for various macro control instruments associated with fiscal policy, monetary policy and public debt management. Full publication: Fiscal Policy, Public Debt and Monetary Policy in Emerging Market Economies


Advanced mass spectrometric procedures have been extensively used to provide an accurate structural characterization of aspartate aminotransferase from Sulfolobus solfataricus. The amino acid sequence of this enzyme had previously been deduced from the DNA sequence. The accurate molecular mass of the protein, determined using electrospray mass spectrometry, demonstrated that the amino acid sequence deduced was correct and ruled out the possible presence of large covalent modifications which had been postulated to fit the much higher molecular mass obtained from previous SDS/PAGE experiments.

The definition of the entire primary structure of aspartate aminotransferase from S. solfataricus was achieved by exploiting a new mass spectrometric mapping strategy. Initially, the molecular mass of relatively large protein fragments produced by CNBr hydrolysis was accurately determined using electrospray mass spectrometry. The protein regions where structural modifications had occurred were easily identified from their anomalous mass values. The corresponding CNBr fragments were then subdigested with suitable proteases and the resulting peptide mixtures were analysed by fast-atom-bombardment mass spectrometry. This mapping approach led to the detection of two partially modified lysine residues at positions 202 and 384, which had been converted to their N-ɛ-methyl derivatives to a substoichiometric extent.


Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have recently been proposed for a large range of applications in home and industrial automation, and for health and environment monitoring. Especially the ZigBee standard is getting rising attention as it can be used to implement wireless sensor networks, because of its low data rate and low power consumption. Increasingly there is a need to access wireless sensor network services from other IP- based networks. The DPWS has been chosen to implement the integration of the different forms of networking services. DPWS uses web services, XML, WSDL and SOAP protocol to connect various devices and services in home and industrial applications. It allows collaboration and dynamic reconfiguration of network services and devices. This paper will describe our idea of how DPWS can be used to integrate a wireless sensor network into other IP-based networks.


Arrival times of Pn and Sn phases from southeastern United States earthquakes listed in the Earthquake Data Reports from July 1970 to June 1977 show a scatter of 2 seconds (one standard deviation). In contrast, the Pg phase arrivals show a scatter of only 0.5 seconds. The difference in scatter was interpreted as indicating variation in the depth to the Moho. In order to evaluate Moho depths, a detailed refraction line and crustal model were developed along the axis of the Southern Piedmont Province from Central Georgia across South Carolina. Accurately located recent earthquakes and explosions occurring and recorded along the axis of the Southern Piedmont Province were used to define the travel time curves. The resulting travel times for the Southern Piedmont are described by; P = x/(5.5 km/sec) Pg = 0.4 + x/(6.05 km/sec) and Pn = 7.6 + x/(8.2 km/sec) with a scatter of ±0.5 seconds. The Sg and Sn velocities were 3.5 and 4.5 km/sec respectively. The implied crustal structure consists of a 2.6 km thick surface layer over a 30.4 km thick crust. � No evidence for an intermediatelayer in the crust was observed in the traveltimes but a 6.7 km/sec layer less than 6 km thick could exist at the base of the crust. Crustal thicknesses in the southeastern United States were computed from Pn-Pg times by comparison to the Southern Piedmont crustal model. In the Coastal Plain Moho depths of 40 km shallow toward the southeast to 29 km near the coast. Moho depths of 36 to 54 km were measured for the mountains of north Georgia, eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.


The response of surface air temperature to solar activity has been investigated at a tropical region, Ibadan (7.43°N, 3.90°E) and Ikeja (6.55°N, 3.35°E), during the solar cycle #22 (1987-1996). A consistent and persistent diurnal variation in surface air temperature exists which shows an almost constant level in the early morning hours (0000 0600 hours LT.); a rise at sunrise till about 1500 hr LT., a subsequent fall to the constant level by about 1900 hr LT. at sunset. This is explicable in terms of tropospheric heating mechanisms in response to solar activity. The observed diurnal variation has consistent post-noon maximum at about 1500hr LT and is asymmetric about the maximum. The post local noon maximum may be due to the modulation of the solar effects by the tropospheric constituents capable of absorbing the transient radiant heat from the Sun through the upper atmosphere. Slight negative correlation (-0.4175, Ibadan and -0.2628, Ikeja) exists between the surface air temperature and solar activity at all time levels, which imply that the temperature increases with declining solar activity. Polynomial functions may be more suitable to model the relationship between the surface air temperature and solar activity. Keywords : surface air temperature, solar activity, post-noon, tropospheric heating Nigeria Journal of Pure and Applied Physics Vol. 4(1) 2005: 25-31


Histological aspects and changes in wet weight were studied on rat soleus muscles after denervation by cutting the sciatic nerve. The muscles were removed after a variable period of time from the third to the fiftieth day. There was a progressive fall off in wet weight and after the third week the muscles underwent 50% atrophy. Histological changes were most striking on sarcolemmal nuclei; they became vesicular, enlarged with prominent nucleolus and there was an apparent increase in their number. The muscle fibres changed their shape, becoming rounded and there was a 50% reduction in muscle fibre diameter after 50 days. Connective tissue abnormalities were minimal after 50 days and the striations remained intact.


Large energy consumers face mounting pressure due to recent energy cost increases, as well as regulatory requirements and limitations. Therefore, energy performance monitoring is an essential component of many modern businesses. Consumers must manage energy resources sparingly. However, managing the large datasets associated with large-scale operations can often become overwhelming. This creates the need for a simplified approach to performance monitoring. Energy monitoring and reporting systems have been created to address the requirements of specific applications such as DSM performance tracking. However, a more generic approach is required in order to include a comprehensive collection of energy data for additional applications. In this paper a generic data management solution is discussed. The system gathers a wide range of energy data suitable to address the needs of a variety of applications. Reports are compiled according to organisational levels. This ensures timely delivery of relevant reports to personnel at different organisational levels. Various features of the proposed improved performance monitoring system are described. Additionally, a case study on a DSM project demonstrates the implementation and use of the system. It was possible to improve the performance of the project after identifying and modifying its inefficient control philosophy.


This Essay describes the phenomenon of cultural bias in judicial decision making, and examines the use of testimonies and opinions of cultural experts as a way to diminish this bias. The Essay compares the legal regimes of the United States and Israel. Whereas in the United States, the general practice of using cultural experts in courts is well developed and regulated, the Israeli legal procedure has no formal method for admitting cultural expert testimony, and examples of opinions or testimonies of cultural experts in the Israeli legal system are sporadic. The Essay further argues that social science evidence is an essential but insufficient means of reducing the cultural bias of judges. Judges' reliance on cultural experts can also be fueled by a preexisting cultural agenda disguised as an informed judgment. The Essay concludes with a suggestion of measures that can be implemented alongside the use of cultural experts in order to increase judges' awareness to the cultural bias and mitigate its consequences.


We use Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detections and upper limits on non-recycled pulsars obtained from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) to constrain how the gamma-ray luminosity Lγ depends on the period P and the period derivative . We use a Bayesian analysis to calculate a best-fit luminosity law, or dependence of Lγ on P and , including different methods for modeling the beaming factor. An outer gap (OG) magnetosphere geometry provides the best-fit model, which is where a = 1.36 ± 0.03 and b = 0.44 ± 0.02, similar to but not identical to the commonly assumed . Given upper limits on gamma-ray fluxes of currently known radio pulsars and using the OG model, we find that about 92% of the radio-detected pulsars have gamma-ray beams that intersect our line of sight. By modeling the misalignment of radio and gamma-ray beams of these pulsars, we find an average gamma-ray beaming solid angle of about 3.7π for the OG model, assuming a uniform beam. Using LAT-measured diffuse fluxes, we place a 2σ upper limit on the average braking index and a 2σ lower limit on the average surface magnetic field strength of the pulsar population of 3.8 and 3.2 × 1010 G, respectively. We then predict the number of non-recycled pulsars detectable by the LAT based on our population model. Using the 2 yr sensitivity, we find that the LAT is capable of detecting emission from about 380 non-recycled pulsars, including 150 currently identified radio pulsars. Using the expected 5 yr sensitivity, about 620 non-recycled pulsars are detectable, including about 220 currently identified radio pulsars. We note that these predictions significantly depend on our model assumptions.


Despite its importance, human collective intelligence remains enigmatic. We know what features are predictive of collective intelligence in human groups, but we do not understand the specific mechanisms that lead to the emergence of this distributed information processing ability. In contrast, there is a well-developed literature of experiments that have exposed the mechanisms of collective intelligence in nonhuman animal species. We adapt a recent experiment designed to study collective sensing in groups of fish in order to better understand the mechanisms that may underly the emergence of collective intelligence in human groups. We find that humans in our experiments act at a high level like fish but with two additional behaviors: independent exploration and targeted copying. These distinctively human activities may partially explain the emergence of collective sensing in our task environment at group sizes and on times scales orders of magnitudes smaller than were observed in fish.


Pre-analytical variables interact with standard coagulation parameters. How these variables affect the platelet function analysis is not completely known. How collection site and puncture method affect multiple electrode aggregometry (MEA) and platelet function analyzer (PFA-100®) was compared regarding contact activation. First, volunteers scheduled for elective cardiac surgery had blood collected from four lines: venous, arterial, central venous and by venipuncture. MEA and PFA-100® were analysed blinded for site origin. Second, two samples (citrate, Corn Trypsin Inhibitor, CTI) were collected in syringe or vacuum tubes. Thrombin generation (TG) was determined. MEA was triggered by adenosine diphosphate (ADP, 6.4 µM), arachidonic acid (ASPI, 0.5 mM), collagen (Col, 3.2 µg/ml), ristocetin (Risto, 0.2 mg/ml) and thrombin receptor-activating peptide (TRAP, 32 µM). PFA-100® was triggered by collagen/epinephrine and collagen/ADP. TG was assessed in platelet-poor plasma with 1 pM tissue factor and 4 µM phospholipids and without trigger. Data were analysed using a two-way mixed-effects model for the intraclass correlation (ICC) and by the Mann–Whitney U-test. MEA and PFA-100® revealed good correlation (ICC) between the sites. CTI inhibited TG significantly more effective than citrate. Contact activation was independent of the collection method. Only the MEA ASPI test revealed significant differences between the two collection methods. Blood sampling from all lines for MEA and PFA-100® assays is justified. Contact activation is always present. Apparently this does not influence platelet function test results. Collection methods do not seem relevant, although, one should always consider using a standardized method.


Abstract Lekking is classified as a form of male-dominance polygyny in which males lack control of resources essential for the acquisition of females. Of particular interest to behavioral ecologists has been the mechanistic basis of male spatial aggregation and the maintenance of site fidelity over time. The "hotspot" hypothesis has been proposed as both an ultimate and proximate mechanism by which males aggregate in locations where females are likely to be encountered. The hypothesis has been extended to include areas of the environment that act to constrain females' use of space. Here, we test a prediction of this hypothesis for three species of manakins (Pipridae): that leks are located in places where fruit, the main food for these frugivorous birds, is plentiful. We compared four lek sites with four non-lek control sites of Golden-headed (Pipra erythrocephala), Wire-tailed (P. filicauda), and White-crowned (P. pipra) manakins in an Amazonian forest in Ecuador. Our results show that lek sites had higher fruit biomass than control sites. Moreover, lek sites had more plants bearing ripe fruit as well as a higher fruit biomass per plant than control sites. Thus, our results support the environmental hotspot hypothesis as an explanation for current lek site occupancy and suggest that fruit availability may also explain the placement of traditional manakin lekking sites. We also discuss a potential direct benefit for subordinate male manakins derived from the notion of central-place foraging and public information-sharing. Una Prueba de la Hipótesis de que Puntos que Concentran Recursos Explican la Ubicación de las Asambleas de Cortejo en Tres Especies de Saltarines (Pipridae) en Ecuador


Six hundred ambulatory women were screened with the Endo-pap cytology sampler in two medical centers. None of the women developed complications from the use of the instrument. Their smears were routinely processed together with cervical cytology smears. One hundred fifty-three of these women had a tissue diagnosis by endometrial biopsy, dilatation and curettage, or hysterectomy. Adequate cytology specimens were obtained in 93% of these patients. In these 153 patients, 32 (18%) had a tissue diagnosis of endometrial adenocarcinoma, and 31 patients had a tissue diagnosis of endometrial hyperplasia. The cytology samples obtained with this device were diagnostic of endometrial adenocarcinoma in 30 (94%) of these 32 patients and ten (32%) of the patients with endometrial hyperplasia. Two patients (1.6%) were diagnosed falsely positive. The Endo-pap cytology sampler is considered a safe and effective screening tool for endometrial adenocarcinoma. Its value in diagnosing endometrial hyperplasia remains to be determined.


Increase Kinesthetic Intelligence Through Play Activities Circuit With Ball. The purpose of this research was to determine the process of implementation of the circuit with a ball playing in increasing child kinesthetic intelligence in group A in Al Muhajirin Kindegarten Malang and to know the extent to which the results of the increase in child kinesthetic intelligence through a circuit with a ball playing in group A Al Muhajirin Kindegarten Malang.The method used in this research is an action research which refers to the model of a Classroom Action Research Kemmis and Mc. Taggart consist of four phase: planning, action, observation and reflection. This research consist of two cycles, each cycle consist of 8 times in actions. Analysis of the data used quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results showed an increase kinesthetic intelligence through circuits with a ball playing activities, it can be proven scoring average pre-action children's kinesthetic intelligence by 32.81%. And then increased in the first cycle by 37.44% to become 70.25%. Furthermore, from the first cycle to the second cycle kinesthetic intelligence of children increased by 17.91% from 70.25% to 88.16%. So the total increase kinesthetic intelligence of children ranging from pre-action, the first cycle to the second cycle is 32.81% 70.25% to 88.16%.


We present Earliness-Aware Deep Convolutional Networks (EA-ConvNets), an end-to-end deep learning framework, for early classification of time series data. Unlike most existing methods for early classification of time series data, that are designed to solve this problem under the assumption of the availability of a good set of pre-defined (often hand-crafted) features, our framework can jointly perform feature learning (by learning a deep hierarchy of \emph{shapelets} capturing the salient characteristics in each time series), along with a dynamic truncation model to help our deep feature learning architecture focus on the early parts of each time series. Consequently, our framework is able to make highly reliable early predictions, outperforming various state-of-the-art methods for early time series classification, while also being competitive when compared to the state-of-the-art time series classification algorithms that work with \emph{fully observed} time series data. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed framework is the first to perform data-driven (deep) feature learning in the context of early classification of time series data. We perform a comprehensive set of experiments, on several benchmark data sets, which demonstrate that our method yields significantly better predictions than various state-of-the-art methods designed for early time series classification. In addition to obtaining high accuracies, our experiments also show that the learned deep shapelets based features are also highly interpretable and can help gain better understanding of the underlying characteristics of time series data.


This project discusses the criminalization of sex work and the social and institutional aspects that affect its legality. While some individuals believe that these women are simply working for a living, using the assets they have available to them, other individuals believe that sex work is one of the most immoral things you can do with your body. They often think there is inescapable exploitation when it comes to sex work, often believing that it is different from other jobs that deteriorate your physical health to make money for the business exploiting your labour. However, there are, of course, people who believe that sex work is an inherent part of society and could have a positive role, and therefore the government and its citizens should attempt to make it accessible and safe for those workers. The unequal and negative perception of sex work could come from religious views of sex and women, social stigma, cultural norms, or government legislation that criminalizes sex workers. To discover the difference between Ukraine and Canada's sex work legislation, general statistics on each country will be explored, as well as gender inequality, historical legislation, social norms, the country's wealth, and violence statistics. The goal is not to determine if either country should change its legislation but to further understand the factors that may impact a country's harsher legislation against prostitution. As well to hopefully reduce stigma through education to make sex work a safer and less stigmatized option for those who would like to pursue a job in the industry. This is a complex problem, with little consensus among individuals, academics, government officials and sex workers. There is no universal way to solve it, nor a universal way to study and understand it. However, it is important to address societal inequality by researching, improving access to education, and further understanding it. Thus, what societal aspects affect legislation regarding sex work?


We examined the 204-nm UV Raman spectra of the peptide XAO, which was previously found by Shi et al.'s NMR study to occur in aqueous solution in a polyproline II (PPII) conformation. The UV Raman spectra of XAO are essentially identical to the spectra of small peptides such as ala(5) and to the large 21-residue predominantly Ala peptide, AP. We conclude that the non-alpha-helical conformations of these peptides are dominantly PPII. Thus, AP, which is highly alpha-helical at room temperature, melts to a PPII conformation. There is no indication of any population of intermediate disordered conformations. We continued our development of methods to relate the Ramachandran Psi-angle to the amide III band frequency. We describe a new method to estimate the Ramachandran Psi-angular distributions from amide III band line shapes measured in 204-nm UV Raman spectra. We used this method to compare the Psi-distributions in XAO, ala(5), the non-alpha-helical state of AP, and acid-denatured apomyoglobin. In addition, we estimated the Psi-angle distributions of peptide bonds which occur in non-alpha-helix and non-beta-sheet conformations in a small library of proteins.


Due to the increasing demand for traveling in public transportation systems and increasing traffic of vehicles, nowadays vehicles are getting to be intelligent to increase safety, reduce the probability of accident and also financial costs. Therefore, today, most vehicles are equipped with multiple safety control and vehicle navigation systems. In the process of developing such systems, simulation has become a costeffective chance for the fast evolution of computational modeling techniques. The most popular microscopic traffic flow model is car following models which are increasingly being used by transportation experts to evaluate new Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) applications. The control of car following is essential to its safety and its operational efficiency. This paper presents a car-following control system that was developed using a fuzzy model predictive control (FMPC). This system was used to simulate and predict the future behavior of a Driver-Vehicle-Unit (DVU) and was developed based on a new idea to calculate and estimate the instantaneous reaction of a DVU. At the end, for experimental evaluation, the FMPC system was used along with a human driver in a driving simulator. The results showed that the FMPC has better performance in keeping the safe distance in comparison with real data of human drivers behaviors. The proposed model can be recruited in driver assistant devices, safe distance keeping observers, collision prevention systems and other ITS applications.


Influence of Psychological Capital and Thinking Perspectives on Construction Safety Climate and Performance by Anne-Perrine Cades MS, City University of New York, 2010 MA, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, 2006 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Organizational Psychology Walden University February 2018 Abstract Understanding safety factors in construction is critical to reducing accident frequency and severity. Grounded in the safety performance model, this study was conducted to examine the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap), which consists of the shared variance of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism, and Past, Present, and Future thinking perspectives, on safety climate and performance. A nonexperimental quantitative design was used to determine whether PsyCap and thinking perspectives of construction project employees predicted safety performance and/or moderated the relationship between safety climate and performance across construction sites in different countries. 411 construction employees were recruited via a multistage and clustering strategy and took part in the study. The PsyCap Questionnaire, MindTime Profile Inventory, Group-Level Safety Climate Scale, and Safety Performance Measure were used to assess PsyCap, thinking perspectives, safety climate, and safety performance. Multiple regression was used to determine the effects of PsyCap and thinking perspectives on safety climate and safety performance. Results showed that Future and Present thinking predicted PsyCap as well as safety climate and safety performance in the construction industry. Further, safety performance accounted for variations in hope and efficacy, two PsyCap components. Findings might be used to influence thinking perspectives of team leaders in designing training, developing employees' efficacy levels,Understanding safety factors in construction is critical to reducing accident frequency and severity. Grounded in the safety performance model, this study was conducted to examine the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap), which consists of the shared variance of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism, and Past, Present, and Future thinking perspectives, on safety climate and performance. A nonexperimental quantitative design was used to determine whether PsyCap and thinking perspectives of construction project employees predicted safety performance and/or moderated the relationship between safety climate and performance across construction sites in different countries. 411 construction employees were recruited via a multistage and clustering strategy and took part in the study. The PsyCap Questionnaire, MindTime Profile Inventory, Group-Level Safety Climate Scale, and Safety Performance Measure were used to assess PsyCap, thinking perspectives, safety climate, and safety performance. Multiple regression was used to determine the effects of PsyCap and thinking perspectives on safety climate and safety performance. Results showed that Future and Present thinking predicted PsyCap as well as safety climate and safety performance in the construction industry. Further, safety performance accounted for variations in hope and efficacy, two PsyCap components. Findings might be used to influence thinking perspectives of team leaders in designing training, developing employees' efficacy levels, and preventing accidents and fatalities on construction sites. Influence of Psychological Capital and Thinking Perspectives on Construction Safety Climate and Performance by Anne-Perrine Cades MS, City University of New York, 2010 MA, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, 2006 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Organizational Psychology Walden University February 2018


The purpose with this study is to investigate how the two biggest political parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderate/Conservative Party, looks at a membership in the defense alliance North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The question have the illegal annexation of Crimea affected how the parties look at a membership in Nato will be answered and analyzed. How they discuss, how they believe that a membership can affect the Swedish foreign policy will be examined in this paper. Nato is a topic that during the last century's have divided the Swedish population into two groups: one that advocates a membership and one that fight's against a Swedish membership in the alliance. The debate about Nato has, since the illegal annexation of the Crimea, changed and are now more relevant than ever to discuss. This paper illustrates how the Moderate/Conservative Party and the Social Democrats argues in the debate regarding a membership in Nato. Since 2003 the Moderate/Conservative Party are in favor of a membership in the defense alliance Nato, what this paper will find out is why they want Sweden to become a member in Nato and how they argue for a membership. The Social Democrats are not in favor of a membership in the defense alliance, they advocates the defense line Sweden have had since the mid 1900s, the Non-alignment.


ABSTRACT This study presents a high-resolution palynological analysis for the Abu Roash 'A' Member in the hydrocarbon-rich Abu Gharadig Basin, North Western Desert, Egypt. Thirty-one rock samples, spanning the upper Coniacian to lower Campanian Abu Roash 'A' Member (180 m) from the Badr El Din (BED) 2-3 borehole, were investigated. Highly diverse and well-preserved assemblages of organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts were recorded. A total of 220 species belonging to 123 genera were identified from different levels throughout the studied succession. The marine dinoflagellate cysts represented herein by 160 species allowed three palynological assemblage zones to be recognised. These include the Satyrodinium haumuriense-Isabelidinium belfastense-Odontochitina operculata Assemblage Zone (early Campanian), Dinogymnium acuminatum-Nelsoniella aceras-Odontochitina porifera Assemblage Zone (Santonian), and Cyclonephelium filoreticulatum-Spinidinium echinoideum Assemblage Zone (late Coniacian). Approximately 17 species representing 14 dinoflagellate cyst genera are identified for the first time in the Cretaceous record of Egypt. A comparison to published palynological data from neighbouring areas reveals that several significant events are synchronous throughout the Western Desert, suggesting a common similarity of water masses. Palynofacies and palynomorph analyses of the whole samples led us to define two palynofacies assemblages, which indicate that the Abu Roash 'A' Member was deposited during a successive oscillation of sea level from distal inner to middle neritic conditions. A sequence stratigraphic framework assessment was carried out to trace the relative response of the sedimentological organic matter distribution to the changes of sea level. Four third-order transgressive–regressive sequences (SQ2–SQ5) and two incomplete transgressive–regressive sequences (SQ1 and SQ6) are constructed through the Abu Roash 'A' Member.


The lack of consensus in society on the most important problems of history negatively affects the formation of the collective memory of the younger generation. The socialization of millennials (in the terms of N. Howe and W. Strauss) has specific features that become the main tool for the formation of a new collective identity. The purpose of this article is to reveal the features of the collective memory of student youth on the example of the perception of the events of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in the conditions of a super-tolerant postmodern society. The following concepts were chosen as the methodological basis of the research: social construction (P. Berger, T. Luckmann), the concept of collective memory (M. Halbwachs, P. Nora, A. Assman), as well as the post-structuralist direction of postmodernism (Z. Bauman, J. Baudrillard). The empirical base of the study was formed by the results of a large-scale research project of the Russian Society of Sociologists "Russian Students on the Great Patriotic War". To study the peculiarities of young people's perception of the events of the war years, problematic issues, actualized by modern socio-political processes, were selected. The novelty of the results was predetermined by the identification of young people's opinions about controversial issues of history and about the modern portrait of a patriot. The results obtained during the research may be of interest to researchers studying youth problems.


Several cloned lines of natural suppressor (NS) cells were studied for their expression of the TCR complex. Almost all bore the CD3+CD4-CD8- surface phenotype with the alpha, beta TCR as judged by immunofluorescent staining. Immunoprecipitation experiments showed a spot on two-dimensional gels which is characteristic of the TCR heterodimer, but neither gamma- nor delta-chains could be precipitated with the appropriate antibodies. NS cells were stimulated to proliferate in vitro with anti-CD3 antibodies and PMA in the presence of irradiated spleen cells. However, anti-CD3 antibodies did not inhibit the suppressive activity of the NS cells. The role of the TCR complex in the suppressive function of these cells remains to be elucidated.


Reactor neutrinos play an important role in determining parameter theta_{13} in the lepton mixing (PMNS) matrix. A next important step on measuring PMNS matrix could be to build another reactor neutrino experiment, for example, DaYa bay in China, to search the possible oscillations via sin^2 (2theta_{13}) and Delta m^2_{13}. We consider 4 different schemes for positions of three 8-ton detectors of this experiment, and simulate the results with respect to an array of assumed ''true'' values of physics parameters. Using three kinds of analysis method, we suggest a best scheme for this experiment which is to place a detector 2200m ~ 2500m symmetrically away from two reactors, and to put the other two detectors closer to their corresponding reactors respectively, almost at a 100m ~ 200m distance. Moreover, with conservative assumption on the experimental technique, we construct series of allowed regions from our simulation results, and give detailed explanations therein.


For the first time, significant numbers of patients with some solid cancer histologies can be successfully treated using immunological means. Progress in our understanding of immune activation, homeostasis and regulation has reached a "tipping point" that has enabled the development of multiple anti-tumor immune-based strategies. Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) of anti-tumor T cells after the depletion host immune cells causes objective regression in about 50% of the patients. Work on therapeutic cancer vaccines is intensive and will actively be discussed at the meeting. The challenge now is to control and direct the potent new weapons in at the immunotherapist's disposal. This meeting will bring the key scientists who are securing the basic foundations of the new immunology and the translational immunotherapists who are pioneering strategies that objectively work in the clinic.


The duty to treat has been at the center of the moral and public debate surrounding the physician-patient relationship, especially in epidemics. The topic of discussion may be the physician who "fights" (the "hero physician"), the contaminated professional, the doctor who refuses to treat or the resigning physician. This may increase potential conflicts between the physicians' individual values and those of their patients, conflicts that can have personal and social consequences. Doctors implicitly assume that treating patients may generate risks for his/her own well-being, but none should accept risks related to insufficient protective equipment or inappropriate protocols, or other external causes that unjustifiably increase them. Everybody involved in healthcare has the duty to minimize the risks imposed on the patient; otherwise not only physicians are at risk, but also patients and society, which could receive less healthcare or even develop other diseases. Keywords: Coronavirus infections. Pandemics. Risk. Beneficence.


Cochlear implants (CIs) were originally aimed at restoring speech perception for patients with profound hearing loss. Many postlingually deafened CI patients report that music is not well perceived while others enjoy it. Music consists of complex sounds composed of tones with harmonic structure of overtones and temporal fine structure. The harmonic structure is not preserved by the current standard (Std) ACE (advanced combination encoders) mapping and the temporal fine structure is not well encoded. The mapping is believed to produce distortion due to compression oin the low frequency range.
In 2008 we proposed two new semitone (Smt) mappings (Smt-LF and Smt-MF) in two frequency ranges (130-1502 Hz and 440-5040 Hz) respectively (Omran et al. 2008). Smt mapping is expected to preserve the harmonic structure representation of overtones and this may improve melody recognition with CIs. In this paper two psychoacoustic experiments (melody contour identification (MCI) (Galvin et al. 2007) and instrument recognition (IR)) were conducted with three different conditions (Std, Smt-MF and Smt-LF mappings) with CI recipients by streaming processed stimuli directly to the implant.
The MCI test included five patterns (rising - rising falling - flat - falling rising – falling). Each pattern consisted of five tones; each tone had a fundamental frequency and four overtones. The lowest fundamental frequency of each pattern is called "root". Signals had two different roots A3 (220 Hz) and A4 (440 Hz).
Proposed nine patterns with three roots (A3, A4 and A5) by Galvin et al. (2007) were examined in a pilot test. This test took a long time and the preliminary results showed a possibility to reduce the number of patterns to five and eliminate the fifth octave root (A5). In the IR test, four pairs of instruments (Trumpet and Trombone, Flute and Clarinet, Violin and Cello, Guitar and Piano) from four groups (Brass, Woodwind, Struck and String instruments) respectively were used.
MCI and IR tests were conducted with 8 CI recipients. Results from MCI tests showed an improvement with Smt mapping in respect to Std mapping or at least similar results. However, wrong identification occurred with notes having filtered out partials. CI recipients showed an increase in identifying melody contour patterns with Smt mappings. Instrument identification performance decreased with semitone mappings.


1761 Inhibition of angiogenesis is currently perceived as one of the promising strategies in the cancer therapy. Thalidomide (Thalomid®) and its Immunomodulatory Drug (IMiD®) analogs have entered into clinical trials for the treatment of various types of cancers. Lenalidomide (Revlimid®, CC-5013) is currently being assessed in oncology clinical trials worldwide. In this study we have compared the anti-angiogenic mechanisms of thalidomide and lenalidomide in a variety of experimental systems representing distinct events of the angiogenic process. Endothelial cell (EC) proliferation is stimulated by growth factors. Neither thalidomide nor lenalidomide have an appreciable inhibitory effect on growth factor-induced proliferation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). In both the HUVEC and B16-F10 mouse melanoma tube formation assays, lenalidomide appears to be at least 10-fold more potent than thalidomide, the latter indicating that effects extend to vessels lined by tumor cells. However, in endothelial cell migration assays, thalidomide is more active than lenalidomide; in both the HUVEC and B16-F10 monolayer scratch migration assays, thalidomide is clearly more potent than lenalidomide in preventing the migration of cells into the wounded/scratched region. In assays of HUVEC migration towards specific angiogenic factors, such as VEGF, bFGF, and TNF-α, thalidomide is also more potent than lenalidomide. Interestingly, assays where the whole physiological process of angiogenesis can be studied show differential sensitivities. Lenalidomide is more potent in the rat aorta assay, whereas thalidomide is more potent in the human umbilical explant assay. Mechanistic studies on signal transduction events triggered by VEGF show that both thalidomide and lenalidomide partially inhibit Akt phosphorylation in VEGF-induced HUVEC. Furthermore, inhibitory effects on the phosphorylation of Gab1, a scaffolding protein upstream of Akt activation, have been observed. In summary, our data indicate that both thalidomide and lenalidomide interfere with key events in the angiogenic process and that they can be differentiated qualitatively depending on which component part is studied.


Modern Line of Sight (LOS) radio technologies including software defined radios are the fundamental building blocks of the future game-changing High Speed and High Capacity Internet Protocol based Airborne Networks (HSCAN) for the U.S. military. The Air Force currently has multiple ongoing initiatives to develop this future HSCAN [1]. The chief capability amongst many others that the Air Force envisions for HSCAN is the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communication. This paper discusses the challenges of operating the current VoIP standard technologies over HSCAN networks and proposes collective techniques to overcome these challenges to make VoIP operable over HSCAN.


Background/Aims: Infection with Acinetobacter baumannii was emerging as one of the leading causes of mortality after donation after cardiac death transpalantion. Methods: We reported a case of a recipient who underwent DCD renal transplantation and later got infected by A.baumannii. Etests were done to verify the susceptibility test results in clinic. Whole-genome analysis was applied to investigate the resistant mechanism at gene level. Results: The pathogen was isolated from his draining liquid the day after the surgery, and susceptibility test reavealed that it was sensitive to tigecycline. However, the isolate obtained from the draining liquid became tigecycline-resistant after fifteen-day administration of tigecycline. The Susceptibility tests showed that the pathogen recovered from tigecycline resistance and became intermediated to tigecycline. Whole-Genome analysis revealed the genetic level change leading to tigecycline resistance and we identified the location of mutation by comparing the whole genome sequence of the isolates. Three loci were figured out which may contribute to drug resistance, including genes encoding HTH domain protein, MFS transporter and AdeS. Conclusion: Understanding the genetic characteristics associated with drug resistance mechanism and antimicrobial profiles of pathogen is important in controlling infection outbreak and preventing serious complications and gives a new insight into the development of antimicrobial agents.


The soil water retention curve (SWRC) is the most commonly used relationship in the study of unsaturated soil. In this paper, the effect of porosity on the SWRC is investigated by numerically modeling unsaturated soil using the Shan-Chen multiphase Lattice Boltzmann Method. The shape of simulated SWRCs are compared against that predicted by the van Genuchten model, demonstrating a good fit except at low degrees of saturation. The simulated SWRCs show an increase in the air-entry value as porosity decreases.


The phthalocyanines are a family of intensively coloured compounds, with some important properties and are classified as important materials for many applications. Structurally, a phthalocyanine is similar to a porphyrin. In chapter one, a brief introduction of their synthesis, properties, and applications is given along with some examples of phthalocyanine dimers. The preparation of new functionalised phthalocyanine and porphyrin compounds has been the subject of intense research over the last three decades in order to develop new
commercial applications. Numbers of phthalocyanine and porphyrin dimers and oligomers have been generated using a variety of linkages. The first aim of this project to synthesise a chromophore (a zinc phthalocyanine) linked to the meso-position of the porphyrin core via a
flexible spacer. The synthesis of such models presents several challenges due to very long synthetic routes and tedious separation using currently available methods. To achieve this a range of reactions was explored with the aim of attaching a 1,6-hexanediol linker at the
peripheral position of the phthalocyanine. The second aim was to prepare a dimer of phthalocyanine material with enforced communication between the phthalocyanines. This dimer was eventually achieved by oxidative Eglinton coupling of the corresponding monomeric phthalocyanine ethyne. The third aim was to synthesise a dinitrobenzene-bridged bis-macrocyclic system such as between a phthalocyanine and porphyrin in order to investigate chemistry which could be applicable to a variety of metallo- and free-base porphyrins and phthalocyanines. The fourth aim was synthesis of a trimeric porphyrin with flexible linkages and different metal centres (to allow further selective complexation). All the results of this synthesis are presented together in chapter 2, and the detailed experimental and characterisation appears in chapter 3.


The process of European integration forces the scientific community to reflect on the importance of the national level as the appropriate one for the analyses of social inequalities. Especially among the studies on poverty and deprivation there is growing concern about the choice of the proper geographical reference. Indeed, within the research on poverty, beside the 'traditional' approach based on a national poverty line other studies rely on different geographical thresholds, either supra-national (the pan-european approach) or sub-national (the regional approach). I aimed to add to this debate an additional level of investigation, centred on the theoretical relevance of trans-national clusters of European regions that is cluster of regions that could belong to different nation-states but that nonetheless show more economic, social and institutional similarities than those existing among different 'areas' belonging to the same nation-state.
In order to analyse the micro and macro determinants of poverty, I organized this thesis balancing both theoretical and methodological aspects.
The first chapter reviews the most important literature on social inequality, distinguishing between the micro-level perspective (i.e. individualization theory versus cumulative risks theory) and, the macro-level one emphasizing, above all, the institutional rules in shaping social inequalities underlined by the political economy, the economic sociology, the urban sociology and the economic theories. In the second chapter I overviewed, discussed and problematized the several conceptualizations, operationalisations and measurations of poverty, therefore it represents a theoretical and methodological contribution at the contemporary debate on poverty as well as an important starting point for the analysis presented in the three empirical chapters.
 From a methodological point of view, on the one hand I used complex statistics techniques (the multiple imputation methods) to create an high-quality database for the analysis of poverty by a multidimensional, longitudinal and regional-comparative perspective. On the other one, this thesis is valuable for using cutting edge techniques in the area of poverty and social exclusion. More specifically, in the first two empirical chapters (Ch. 3 and 4) I specified several multilevel models (random intercept and random slope too) in order to disentangle the household and individual level determinants of poverty from the macro-level ones, and also to describe which of the macro-institutional perspective (national, European, regional or trans-national) is the most useful in describing e predicting the distribution of poverty within the European regions analysed. While in the last empirical chapter (Ch. 5) I specified an econometric panel model to specifically analyse the true state dependence in poverty; so doing I focused also at the social exclusion phenomena. Furthermore, every model presented in the three empirical chapters has been specified using several operationalization of poverty (that is, using the national, European, regional and trans-national poverty lines).
The main conclusions of this thesis are linked with the validity and reliability of the relative poverty measure and the institutional concepts of welfare-states, economic regions and trans-national clusters.
First of all, it seems that the relative measure of poverty is a good one to predict and describe the phenomena. Indeed, the micro-determinant of poverty are not affected by the poverty line (national, European, regional or trans-national) used in the models proposed. Obviously the number of people at risk of poverty are affected by such definitions, but the relative structure of relation among the individual and household determinant are not.
Secondly, it seems that the macro-determinant of poverty are affected by the poverty line definition and, above all, the variation produced on the country-variables effect is not coherent with the welfare state interpretation of poverty and social exclusion. On the contrary, the regional and the trans-national perspectives effects are more stable regardless the poverty line adopted, and they help to capture the most part of the regional variance among the European regions analysed.
Furthermore, I pointed out the interaction effect between the individual characteristics linked to labour market position (i.e. unemployed status) and the regional framework: the random slope models show the significant impact of the regional context in shaping the social exclusion experience.
Finally, it is important that these results are coherent with both multilevel and panel models.


This experiment was performed in order to clarify the effect of acute phase response following the induction of endotoxemia by Escherichia coli serotype O55:B5 and regarding its comparative treatment with dexamethasone and fl unixin meglumine in the Iranian fat-tailed sheep. Fifteen, clinically healthy, one-year old Iranian fat-tailed ewes were randomly assigned into three equal (n = 5) experimental groups, comprising of a control group, and a Dexa and a Flnx group. Lipopolysaccharide from Escherichia coli serotype O55:B5 was administered intravenously at 20 μg/kg. All experimental groups underwent intravenous fl uid therapy for 120 minutes after lipopolysaccharide injection. 180 minutes after lipopolysaccharide, Dexamethasone (in Dexa group at 1 mg/kg) and fl unixin meglumine (in Flnx group at 2.2 mg/kg) were injected, along with the intravenous fl uid for 60 minutes. The control group received only lipopolysaccharide and was treated with an intravenous fl uid without any drug. The researchers collected blood samples from all the ewes and assayed separated sera for serum acute phase proteins (serum amyloid A and haptoglobin) and infl ammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interferon-gamma). In all experimental groups there a rapid increase was noted in the amount of acute phase proteins and infl ammatory cytokines after endotoxemia induction (P 0.05). The fi ndings also revealed that immediate intravenous administration of dexamethasone and fl unixin meglumine reduced and controlled the acute phase response in sheep endotoxemia due to Escherichia coli serotype O55:B5.


The thesis is concerned with the impact of population ageing on the future trends of male employment and unemployment in Japan, since it is thought that rising unemployment amongst older people will increase the dependency rate, leading to a reduction in capital accumulation and slower economic growth. The study is based on material and data obtained while researching in Japan for one year and draws heavily on Japanese-language sources. First, the role of rapidly falling fertility in stimulating economic growth in Japan is examined, followed by a detailed analysis of employment practices across different sizes of company in Japan that draws on surveys published by government and private institutions. It is found that existing analyses of Japanese employment practices ignore the importance of workforce age structure in internal labour markets. An efficiency age structure hypothesis that stresses labour demand rigidities is formulated: it is hypothesised that large firms with internal labour markets attempt to maintain a given internal age structure to maximise workforce efficiency. This behaviour implies that as the population ages, the unemployment rate of older men will rise. The implications of this hypothesis are examined at a micro level through an analysis of the adjustments firms have made to employment practices; and at the macro level through an analysis of the macro labour market. The absorptive capacity of small companies and self-employment for older men was examined using cohort analysis. Finally the impact of government policy on the labour market for older men is examined and assessed. Government policy is divided into two main categories: labour market intervention and public pension reform. The thesis indicates that raising the pension eligibility age will not reduce dependency unless employment practices that generate unemployment of older people are changed.


The current review aims to outline the likely medical applications of nanotechnology and the potential of the emerging field of nanomedicine. Nanomedicine can be defined as the investigation area encompassing the design of diagnostics and therapeutics at the nanoscale, including nanobots, nanobiosensors, nanoparticles and other nanodevices, for the remediation, prevention and diagnosis of a variety of illnesses. The ultimate goal of nanomedicine is to improve patient quality-of-life. Because nanomedicine includes the rational design of an enormous number of nanotechnology-based products focused on miscellaneous diseases, a variety of nanomaterials can be employed. Therefore, this review will focus on recent advances in the manufacture of soft matterbased nanomedicines specifically designed to improve diagnostics and cancer chemotherapy efficacy. It will be particularly highlighted liposomes, polymer-drug conjugates, drug-loaded block copolymer micelles and biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles, emphasizing the current investigations and potential novel approaches towards overcoming the remaining challenges in the field as well as formulations that are in clinical trials and marketed products.


Groundnut is a crop that can be grown under varied production conditions (in intercropping or rotation with cereals). In Niger, the production of groundnut is decreasing over the year due to drought and low soil nutrients. In this work, an agro-morphological evaluation of five groundnut genotypes (55-437, ICG12697, ICG4750, JL24 and ICG8751) under water deficit was carried out in order to identify the best performing genotypes for seed and forage production. Intermittent water deficit was imposed from the 53rd day after sowing, which was the beginning of pod filling. The other plants were well watered until harvest. The results showed that in water stress conditions all yield parameters (pod number, pod weight, seed number, seed weight, harvest index and pod filling rate) and vegetative parameters (aerial biomass and height) with the exception of the number of branches decreased. The principal component analysis revealed that genotypes with a good harvest index and high pod filling rate have good seed yield. Therefore, harvest index and filling rate can be used for the selection of genotypes under water stress conditions. The genotypes 55-437, ICG4750 and ICG12697 proved to be the best performers under water stress and well-watered conditions. These ones accumulate vegetative biomass as proportionate way to the production and filling of the seeds in contrast to JL24 and ICG8751, which tend to accumulate vegetative biomass to the detriment of the production and filling of pods.

 Key words: Agromorphologic, yield, groundnut, water deficit, Niger.


Mutations in α, β, or γ subunits of the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) can downregulate ENaC activity and cause a severe salt-losing syndrome with hyperkalemia and metabolic acidosis, designated pseudohypoaldosteronism type 1 in humans. In contrast, mice with selective inactivation of αENaC in the collecting duct (CD) maintain sodium and potassium balance, suggesting that the late distal convoluted tubule (DCT2) and/or the connecting tubule (CNT) participates in sodium homeostasis. To investigate the relative importance of ENaC-mediated sodium absorption in the CNT, we used Cre-lox technology to generate mice lacking αENaC in the aquaporin 2-expressing CNT and CD. Western blot analysis of microdissected cortical CD (CCD) and CNT revealed absence of αENaC in the CCD and weak αENaC expression in the CNT. These mice exhibited a significantly higher urinary sodium excretion, a lower urine osmolality, and an increased urine volume compared with control mice. Furthermore, serum sodium was lower and potassium levels were higher in the genetically modified mice. With dietary sodium restriction, these mice experienced significant weight loss, increased urinary sodium excretion, and hyperkalemia. Plasma aldosterone levels were significantly elevated under both standard and sodium-restricted diets. In summary, αENaC expression within the CNT/CD is crucial for sodium and potassium homeostasis and causes signs and symptoms of pseudohypoaldosteronism type 1 if missing.


During March 2009 in the public gardens and the University of Sciences of Kenitra city (Morocco), 60% of leaves of 100 plants of pomegranate (Punica granatum L. 'Nana') presented foliar lesions that affecting the aesthetic appearance of this ornamental plant. Bipolaris spicifera was isolated from ten necrotic lesions of 25 leaves. The artificial inocula tion of the healthy leaves of three plants of Punica granatum L. 'Nana' by conidial suspension of the pathogen induced the same lesions to that observed in nature. The diseased foliar surface and the total number of diseased leaves 30 days after inoculation with B. spicifera conidial suspension were 37.5% and 78. Conidia production of B. spicifera on inoculated leaves was 0.81 x 10 5 spore cm -2 and the fungus was re-isolated from lesions on inoculated plants. This is the first report of B. spicifera on pomegranate in Morocco.


PURPOSE
A phase II trial was performed to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of a combination of ifosfamide (IFX) and mitoxantrone (MXN) as first-line chemotherapy for metastatic breast carcinoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Between January 1990 and August 1991, 48 patients with metastatic breast cancer were entered onto the study. Therapy consisted of IFX 2 g/m2 given as a 1-hour intravenous (IV) infusion on days 1 to 3; mesna 400 mg/m2 as an IV bolus immediately before and 4 hours after IFX administration and 2,000 mg orally 8 hours after IFX administration on days 1 to 3; and MXN 12 mg/m2 as an i.v. bolus on day 3. Cycles were repeated every 21 days until progressive disease (PD) or severe toxicity developed.

RESULTS
One patient was considered not assessable for response. Objective regression (OR) was observed in 28 of 47 patients (60%; 95% confidence interval, 46% to 74%). Six patients (13%) had a complete response (CR) and 22 (47%) had a partial response (PR). The median time to treatment failure for the whole group was 9 months (range, 1 to 28); median survival was 19 months (range, 2 to 28). There were no treatment-related deaths. The limiting toxicity was myelosuppression. Leukopenia occurred in 37 patients (77%) and was grade 3 or 4 in 19 patients (40%). Nausea and vomiting were observed in 38 patients (80%), mucositis in 16 patients (33%), and grade 2 hematuria in two patients (4%). Eight patients (16%) developed mild neurotoxicity.

CONCLUSION
The combination of IFX plus MXN is an active regimen against metastatic breast cancer with moderate toxicity that deserves further evaluation.


Background and aims In preterm infants, early non-invasive continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) use decreases "bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) or death" compared with early intubation. However, it was not yet clear whether early Intubation-for-SURfactant-followed-by-Extubation to NCPAP (INSURE) is more effective to prevent BPD or Death or "BPD or death" or either than keeping infants on NCPAP. This systematic review aimed to investigate this question. Methods This systematic review included randomised control trials comparing the INSURE and NCPAP for preterm infants with or at high risk of respiratory distress syndrome who had never been intubated before the study entry. Primary outcomes included BPD at 36 weeks postmenstrual age, Death, and "BPD or Death". A systematic literature search was conducted of MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, and CINAHL as well as conference proceedings and trial registrations. Two reviewers independently selected studies and extracted data. Meta-analyses were conducted with a random-effect method using Review manager 5.2 (statistical significance with two-sided p-value of 0.05). Results Nine trials were included from 1622 non-duplicate records. The meta-analysis results were shown in a table with pooled risk ratios (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Abstract PS-284 Table 1 Outcomes Studies (Number, N) INSURE (events, n/N) NCPAP (n/N) RR [95% CI] BPD 5 125/519 146/518 0.85[0.71,1.02] Death 7 60/698 63/701 0.94[0.67,1.32] BPD or Death 5 175/569 197/569 0.88[0.76,1.02] Pneumothorax 9 21/775 43/774 0.51[0.24,1.07] Sever intraventricular haemorrhage 7 22/660 29/665 0.79[0.45,1.39] Conclusions The rates of BPD, Death or "BPD or Death" were lower in infants receiving INSURE versus NCPAP group although, the differences did not reach statistical significance.


A dynamic model that describes the mass transport and attenuation of odor‐causing air emissions (i.e., hydrogen sulfide and other reduced sulfur compounds) in a biofiltration unit was developed and incorporated into a software package called Biofilter™. Mechanisms included advective flow, mass transfer from the bulk phase to the biofilm, biofilm internal diffusion, and biological reaction in the biofilm. A dimensionless analysis revealed that the mass transport and attenuation of target compounds can be characterized by several dimensionless groups. Model equations were converted to ordinary differential equations using orthogonal collocation and the resulting ordinary differential equations were solved using the DGEAR algorithm. Numerical solutions were verified by comparing model simulations to analytical solutions. The model simulations showed that the existence of a water layer surrounding the biofilm in a biofiltration unit lowers the removal efficiency of hydrogen sulfide. A sensitivity analysis of model parameters (including the film transfer coefficient, biofilm diffusivity, biofilm thickness, maximum specific biomass growth rate, yield coefficient, half‐saturation coefficient, and initial active biomass concentration) using data from two biofilters located at the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Water Pollution Control Facilities, showed that biofilm internal diffusion and biofilm kinetics have a significant effect on hydrogen sulfide removal, while external mass transfer has little effect.


Dan Kahan's recent article, Two Conceptions of Emotion in Risk Regulation, continues a useful exchange between Kahan and Cass Sunstein about the differences between their prominent approaches to risk regulation: Kahan's cultural cognition approach, which inquires into how emotional appraisals of value influence decision making, and Sunstein's heuristics and biases approach, which focuses on the cognitive mechanisms that shape perceptions about risk. A major contribution of Kahan's work has been its insight into the pervasiveness of emotional influences on the decision-making process. The recognition that emotion pervades decision making raises a difficult normative question: how to distinguish the influences that contribute to good judgment from those that distort judgment. This normative question in turn gives rise to a difficult practical question: how to address the influences that cause distortion. In this brief Response, I argue that tackling this evaluative task requires avoiding mirror impulses: emotions should neither be privileged as inherently desirable nor marginalized as inherently irrational. They should be judged based on what they contribute to the cognitive task at hand. The task at hand, as the Kahan/Sunstein debate defines it, is determining how government should regulate risk. In exploring the question of how this task is best approached, I will also raise a question about how it is defined. I suggest that the very act of framing issues of government policy in terms of risk regulation reflects certain assumptions about how issues present themselves and what sorts of cognitive processes might be required to address them.


Feminists have been concerned about the debasement of women in sexually explicit material. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of domination and sexual inequality in x-rated videocassettes through a content analysis of 45 widely available x-rated videocassettes. The sample was randomly drawn from a list of 121 adult movie titles widely available in family videocassette rental stores in southern California. Over half of the explicitly sexual scenes were coded as predominantly concerned with domination or exploitation. Most of the domination and exploitation was directed by men toward women. Specific indicators of domination and sexual inequality, including physical violence, occurred frequently. The growth of the videocassette rental industry and the popularity of x-rated films, coupled with the messages these films convey, is a cause for concern.


Abstract. Stratigraphy, detailed structural mapping and a crustal-scale cross section across the NW Zagros collision zone provide constraints on the spatial evolution of oblique convergence of the Arabian and Eurasian plates since the Late Cretaceous. The Zagros collision zone in NW Iran consists of the internal Sanandaj–Sirjan, Gaveh Rud and Ophiolite zones and the external Bisotoun, Radiolarite and High Zagros zones. The Main Zagros Thrust is the major structure of the Zagros suture zone. Two stages of oblique deformation are recognized in the external part of the NW Zagros in Iran. In the early stage, coexisting dextral strike-slip and reverse dominated domains in the Radiolarite zone developed in response to deformation partitioning due to oblique convergence. Dextral-reverse faults in the Bisotoun zone are also compatible with oblique convergence. In the late stage, deformation partitioning occurred during southeastward propagation of the Zagros orogeny towards its foreland resulting in synchronous development of orogen-parallel strike-slip and thrust faults. It is proposed that the first stage was related to Late Cretaceous oblique obduction, while the second stage resulted from Cenozoic collision. The Cenozoic orogen-parallel strike-slip component of Zagros oblique convergence is not confined to the Zagros suture zone (Main Recent Fault) but also occurred in the external part (Marekhil–Ravansar fault system). Thus, it is proposed that oblique convergence of Arabian and Eurasian plates in Zagros collision zone initiated with oblique obduction in the Late Cretaceous followed by oblique collision in the late Tertiary, consistent with global plate reconstructions.


OBJECTIVE
Kt/V urea has been used to assess adequacy of peritoneal dialysis. However, Kt/V urea only reflects the clearance of solute without taking into consideration the effects of dietary protein intake (DPI). The objective of this study is to evaluate the value of Kt/V based on nitrogen balance and to observe if it is the best adequacy index.

METHODS
On the premise that nitrogen balance is obtained, we calculated the minimal adequate dialysate volume and dialysis index (DI), Kt/V and solute removal index (SRI). We compared the values of DI, Kt/V and SRI to evaluate the adequacy of peritoneal dialysis.

RESULTS
Kt/V was changed with DPI and body weight of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) patients. We cannot define adequate dialysis with a single value while DPI and body weight are different since CAPD, SRI and Kt/V are numerically equal. However, dialysis index (DI) can reflect the minimal adequate dialysate volume when DPI and body weight are different and, thus, reflects the adequacy of dialysis.

CONCLUSIONS
DI reflects the balance between DPI and solute clearance; thus, it is more useful to evaluate dialysis adequacy than Kt/V and SRI in clinically stable peritoneal dialysis patients.


Summary: Rat lung surfactant contains glycoproteins with molecular weights of about 38,000, 32,000 and 26,000, which are not of serum origin and appear to form an integral part of surfactant as its apoproteins. An enzyme-linked immunoassay for these apoproteins has been developed, in which the antigen is sandwiched between specific antibodies raised in two different species. The assay is capable of measuring 10–160 ng of the apoproteins per ml of lung homogenate or amniotic fluid with a coefficient of variation of less than 5%. The immunoassay has been used to quantitate apoproteins in rat lungs during pre- and postnatal development, as well as in amniotic fluids at different stages of pregnancy. The apoproteins become detectable in the lungs of 18-day-old fetuses. The lung content of apoproteins increases 4-fold in 19-day-old fetuses, 18-fold in 20-day-old fetuses and 38-fold in 21-day-old fetuses. The lungs of newborn rats contained twice as much apoproteins as the lungs of 21-day-old fetuses. During the postnatal period, the apoprotein content of the lung showed a 3-fold increase in adults as compared to newborn rats. Apoproteins could be detected for the first time in the amniotic fluids of 19-day-old pregnant rats, and their concentration rose 2–3-fold at 20 and 21 days of pregnancy. Our results in this study show that surfactant apoproteins, like pulmonary surfactant lipids, appear in fetal lungs during the late stages of gestation and their amounts increase rapidly as gestation progresses. Furthermore, presence of surfactant aproproteins in fetal lungs can be monitored by quantitation of apoproteins in amniotic fluids during late stages of pregnancy.


By means of a philosophical reading of Norbert Wiener, founder of cybernetics, this thesis attempts to derive anew the concepts of internet and control. It develops upon Wiener's position that every age is reflected by a certain machine, arguing that the internet is that which does so today. Grounded by a critical historiography of the relation between the Cold War and the internet's invention in 1969 by the 'network' of J. C. R. Licklider, it argues for an agonistic concept of internet derived from Wiener's disjunctive reading of figures including Claude Bernard, Walter Cannon, Benoit Mandelbrot, John von Neumann and above all, his Neo-Kantian inflected reading of Leibniz. It offers a counter-theory of the society of control to those grounded by Spinoza's ethology, notably that of Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, and attempts to establish a single conceptual vocabulary for depicting the possible modes of conflict through which an internet is determined.


Aminoglycosides are very commonly used antibiotics to treat life threatening infections because they display many highly desirable properties. The major limitations to their uses being their adverse effects, such as nephrotoxicity. The purpose of present study was to see and compare the morphological changes in kidneys caused by the use of aminoglycosides in animal model. The study was conducted on eighteen male local breed rabbits weighing 1 to 1.75 Kg and age ranging from 8 to 10 months for the period of 20 days. These animals were divided in three groups at random with 6 animals in each group. Two groups (G & A) were given Aminoglycosides namely Gentamicin and Amikacin in doses 10 times larger than corresponding human clinical dose to produce experimental nephrotoxicity while third group being control was injected only isotonic saline. After sacrificing the animals the histological examination of the kidneys revealed morphological changes mainly involving the renal tubules which show patchy necrosis along with hyaline and granular casts in their lumina. Dropped out tubular cells were also seen in the lumina of some of the renal tubules. The lining epithelial cells show hydropic changes with cytoplasmic vacuoles at some areas while regeneration at others. The glomerulae showed mild hypercellularity and congestion in most of the sections. The renal interstitium showed infiltration by polymorphonuclear leukocytes, lymphocytes, plasma cells and macrophages while the renal vascular changes were limited to focal congestion only but the changes were more pronounced in gentamicin treated group. It is concluded that Aminoglycosides cause nephrotoxicity by producing damaging effects on renal tubules especially at higher does, so their administration should carefully be monitored for early detection and prevention of toxic effects.


Aim: This is done from regulatory perspective to ensure the efficacy, quality, as well safety of the herbal drugs present in a plant. Materials and Methods: Standardization of plants material by high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC): HPTLC is a method to standardize and identify the chemical component which is expected to be present in a medicinal plant. This is done from regulatory perspective to ensure the quality, efficacy, and safety of the herbal drugs present in a plant. Results and Discussion: The flower of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis was dried and pulverized. The phytoconstituents of the pulverized plant material were extracted with methanol. Quercetin, reported to have anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, vasodilator effects, antiobesity, antihypercholesterolemic, and antiatherosclerotic, etc., activities, was selected as the active biomarker for quantification of the aforementioned plant material. HPTLC was carried out for quantification. The percentage content of quercetin in H. rosa-sinensis methanolic extract was found to be 0.30% w/w by HPTLC. Conclusion: The percentage content of quercetin in methanolic extract of H. rosa-sinensis flower was found to be 0.30% w/w. This was determined by a calibration curve with the equation of Y = 3303.952*X + 2991.844.


Rural Tamil medium students face many problems after getting admission in Professional Engineering Colleges. Their problems were of academic, social, cultural and emotional in nature. The intensity of their worries varies from person to person and their ability to adjust to the new demands. Through a well framed questionnaire, information from rural Tamil medium students studying in professional engineering colleges located within Chennai was collected and studied using CETD Matrix.The solution obtained as a column matrix gives the associated number which is transformed into graph. The graphs depict the highest group of students who are considered to slow learners.


Pavement Life Cycle Management is a 2-year international project aiming at supporting European National Road Authorities (NRAs) to introduce sustainability in their practices by providing training on Life Cycle techniques and a user-friendly package to support their widespread implementation. The first task in Pavement Life Cycle Management (Pave-mentLCM) project is the creation of a Sustainability Assessment (SA) framework that complies with EN15643-5 and consequently include the three pillars of sustainability, use a life cycle ap-proach and use quantifiable sustainability performance indicators. This paper presents the first steps towards the creation of the framework which includes the following steps: 1) review of the available Product Category Rules (PCRs) related to asphalt mixtures and pavement activi-ties; 2) definition of the object of the assessment; 3) review and survey of NRAs practices of the main research efforts in Europe towards the definition of sustainability performance indicators.


A case of unilateral temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pseudoankylosis of a fractured condyle that fused to the mandibular notch is presented. A 6-year-old girl who had a traumatic accident at the age of 1 and a half years developed pseudoankylosis of the right TMJ. After the accident, she was transported to an orthopedic clinic for an X-ray examination. No bone fractures were evident. She had difficulty in opening her mouth after the injury, but no doctors were consulted until she was 3 and a half years old. She then underwent another X-ray examination by an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. The surgeon claimed that she suffered a fracture during the accident and recommended a mouth opening exercise. He later referred the patient to us because the exercise was not effective. The interincisal distance on mouth opening was 15mm at presentation. A panoramic X-ray film and CT examinations showed that a fractured condyle had fused to the mandibular notch struck against a zygomatic arch, resulting in hypomobility of the mandible. The patient underwent open surgery under general anesthesia. The operation included complete resection of the fused condylar segment and a rigid fixation of it to the stump of the condyle with titanium screws. Two years 10 months after surgery, the interincisal distance on mouth opening was 37mm, and no disturbance of jaw development or asymmetry of the face was observed.


This paper investigates the relationship between CO2 emissions, energy consumption, population growth and economic growth in Nigeria during the period 1980-2012. The paper adopts autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach for cointegration with structural breaks and Toda-Yamamoto non-granger causality approach. Based on the result, there is no evidence of unidirectional causality running from CO2 emissions and energy consumption to economic growth and strong unidirectional causality running from CO2 emissions, energy consumption and economic growth to population growth was found. The long run and short run estimates show that energy consumption and population growth have strong and positive impact on CO2 emissions in the long-run and short run whereas economic growth impact weakly and negatively on CO2 emissions in the short-run. The inverted U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is supported graphically and analytically in the long run with a turning point of 4.87. This means Nigeria has reached the required level of per capita real GDP to get an inverted U-shaped EKC. The main policy prescriptions among others is that Nigeria government should increase environmental taxation in order to reduce the rate of fossil fuel used by individuals which may lead to a reduction in per capital CO2 emissions.


A meshless collocation method based on radial basis function (RBF) interpolation is presented for the numerical solution of Maxwell's equations. RBFs have attractive properties such as theoretical exponential convergence for increasingly dense node distributions. Although the primary interest resides in the time domain, an eigenvalue solver is used in this paper to investigate convergence properties of the RBF interpolation method. The eigenvalue distribution is calculated and its implications for longtime stability in time-domain simulations are established. It is found that eigenvalues with small, but nonzero, real parts are related to the instabilities observed in time-domain simulations after a large number of time steps. Investigations show that by using global basis functions, this problem can be avoided. More generally, the connection between the high matrix condition number, accuracy, and the magnitude of nonzero real parts is established.


Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a serious threat on today's Internet. As the traffic across the Internet increases day by day, it is a challenge to distinguish between legitimate and malicious traffic. This thesis proposes two different approaches to build an efficient DDoS attack detection system in the Software Defined Networking environment. SDN is the latest networking approach which implements centralized controller, which is programmable. The central control and the programming capability of the controller are used in this thesis to implement the detection and mitigation mechanisms.

In this thesis, two designed approaches, statistical approach and machine-learning approach, are proposed for the DDoS detection. The statistical approach implements entropy computation and flow statistics analysis. It uses the mean and standard deviation of destination entropy, new flow arrival rate, packets per flow and flow duration to compute various thresholds. These thresholds are then used to distinguish normal and attack traffic. The machine learning approach uses Random Forest classifier to detect the DDoS attack. We fine-tune the Random Forest algorithm to make it more accurate in DDoS detection. In particular, we introduce the weighted voting instead of the standard majority voting to improve the accuracy. Our result shows that the proposed machine-learning approach outperforms the statistical approach. Furthermore, it also outperforms other machine-learning approach found in the literature.


As the use of machine learning in high impact domains becomes widespread, the importance of evaluating safety has increased. An important aspect of this is evaluating how robust a model is to changes in setting or population, which typically requires applying the model to multiple, independent datasets. Since the cost of collecting such datasets is often prohibitive, in this paper, we propose a framework for analyzing this type of stability using the available data. We use the original evaluation data to determine distributions under which the algorithm performs poorly, and estimate the algorithm's performance on the "worst-case" distribution. We consider shifts in user defined conditional distributions, allowing some distributions to shift while keeping other portions of the data distribution fixed. For example, in a healthcare context, this allows us to consider shifts in clinical practice while keeping the patient population fixed. To address the challenges associated with estimation in complex, high-dimensional distributions, we derive a "debiased" estimator which maintains p N -consistency even when machine learning methods with slower convergence rates are used to estimate the nuisance parameters. In experiments on a real medical risk prediction task, we show this estimator can be used to analyze stability and accounts for realistic shifts that could not previously be expressed. The proposed framework allows practitioners to proactively evaluate the safety of their models without requiring additional data collection. Proceedings of the 24 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS) 2021, San Diego, California, USA. PMLR: Volume 130. Copyright 2021 by the author(s).⇤Equal Contribution.


A new notion of controllability for quantum systems that takes advantage of the linear superposition of quantum states is introduced. We call such a notion von Neumann controllability, and it is shown that it is strictly weaker than the usual notion of pure state and operator controllability. We provide a simple and effective characterization of it by using tools from the theory of unitary representations of Lie groups. In this sense, we are able to approach the problem of control of quantum states from a new perspective, that of the theory of unitary representations of Lie groups. A few examples of physical interest and the particular instances of compact and nilpotent dynamical Lie groups are discussed.


We present Cygnus X in a new multi-wavelength perspective based on an unbiased BLAST survey at 250, 350, and 500 μm, combined with rich data sets for this well-studied region. Our primary goal is to investigate the early stages of high-mass star formation. We have detected 184 compact sources in various stages of evolution across all three BLAST bands. From their well-constrained spectral energy distributions, we obtain the physical properties mass, surface density, bolometric luminosity, and dust temperature. Some of the bright sources reaching 40 K contain well-known compact H ii regions. We relate these to other sources at earlier stages of evolution via the energetics as deduced from their position in the luminosity–mass (L–M) diagram. The BLAST spectral coverage, near the peak of the spectral energy distribution of the dust, reveals fainter sources too cool (∼10 K) to be seen by earlier shorter-wavelength surveys like IRAS. We detect thermal emission from infrared dark clouds and investigate the phenomenon of cold "starless cores" more generally. Spitzer images of these cold sources often show stellar nurseries, but these potential sites for massive star formation are "starless" in the sense that to date there is no massive protostar in a vigorous accretion phase. We discuss evolution in the context of the L–M diagram. Theory raises some interesting possibilities: some cold massive compact sources might never form a cluster containing massive stars, and clusters with massive stars might not have an identifiable compact cold massive precursor.


There is an increasing demand of agents that can promote mucosal healing in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays a critical role in epithelial regeneration and repair, and stimulating regeneration in the damaged epithelium by modulating Wnt signaling has been suggested as a potential treatment option for IBD. To guide development of Wnt modulating therapeutic molecules for IBD, an understanding of how Wnt signaling may be altered in IBD tissues is required. While earlier work showed altered Wnt pathway gene expression in UC tissues, these studies failed to consider disease conditions (moderate vs severe) and patient treatment history on expression of the Wnt family genes. These previous studies utilized RT-qPCR or microarray and did not reveal how Wnt pathway gene expression might be affected specifically in the epithelium and in the adjacent stromal stem cell niche. Here we report our work investigating expression patterns of Wnt pathway genes in UC biopsies from 12 patients with moderate and severe disease. Patients had either received no anti-TNF treatment or had gone through anti-TNF treatment and partially responded to the treatment.

 Expression of a set of Wnt pathway genes was assessed in UC colon and rectum biopsies by RNAscope in situ hybridization and compared to expression patterns in normal control colon. The genes included the Wnt target genes AXIN2, LGR5 and RNF43, Wnt ligands and the FZD5 and LRP6 receptors enriched in the intestinal epithelium as well as key Wnt signal modulators RSPO1-4.

 Expression of Wnt target genes were mildly reduced in the UC colon epithelium, while their expression in some crypts appeared much lower. Overall expression levels of Wnt pathway genes did not differ between moderate and severe UC colon and Wnt target gene expression was more affected in the anti-TNF treated colons, which may reflect more refractory disease. Expression of FZD5, LRP6 and the key niche factor RSPO2, was reduced in the UC colon. RSPOs are normally expressed in the stromal cells next to the crypt bottom stem cell compartment but this expression pattern was disrupted in the UC colon as a result of immune cell infiltration. Although expression of Wnts was induced in the UC colon tissues, the location of expression was altered due to tissue damage, potentially making the Wnts less accessible to the intestinal stem cells.

 Reduced expression of Wnt receptors, RSPOs and Wnt target genes indicate insufficient Wnt signal induction in the damaged colon epithelium of UC patients. This suggests that repair of the damaged epithelium by Wnt agonist treatment may constitute a new mechanism of action and benefit patients with UC.