Although many states recommend boron (B) fertilizer for fiber, fruit, and vegetable crops, information about B fertilization of turfgrasses is lacking. The objective of this research was to examine the effects of B fertilization on clipping yield, shoot production, and turf color in a creeping bentgrass [Agrostis palustris Huds. [= A. stolonifera var. palustris (Huds.) Farw.]} putting green. Both greenhouse and field studies were conducted, with B added at rates of 0, 1, 2, and 3 mg kg -1 B in the greenhouse study, and rates of 0, 1.1, 2.2, and 4A kg B ha -1 in the field study. Bentgrass in the greenhouse study was grown in a sand and peat mix, while bentgrass in the field study was grown on a native soil (loamy sand) putting green. Studied bentgrass cultivars were Penn A2, Penn G1, Penn G6, SR1020, Dominant, L-93, Crenshaw, and Penncross. In the greenhouse study, dry weight of bentgrass shoots increased as B rate increased. In the field study, in one year of two, B uptake by bentgrass increased as B rate increased. Dry weight of clippings, thatch depth, shoot density, and turf color were unaffected by B fertilization, indicating that B fertilization in the loamy sand soil was not needed. Increases in shoot dry weight observed in the greenhouse study suggest that further study of B fertilization of bentgrass in sand-based greens might be warranted.


Mistletoes, hemiparasites, contain many components with various biological activities and have been used in cosmetics industry. Loranthacease (1,000 species) and Viscaceae (550 species) have the most dominant species in mistletoes (nearly 1,600 species). It can be expected that the biological activities vary from species to species; therefore, we have tested Viscum album var. coloratum (Kom.) Ohwi (belonging to Santalaceae) and Loranthus tanakae Franch. & Sav. (belonging to Loranthacease) for a comparative study of their cosmetic properties, including antioxidant, antimelanogenic, and antiwrinkle activities. As results, the ethanol extract of L. tanakae had higher phenolic content and showed effective antioxidant activity and elastase inhibition. Meanwhile, the ethanol extract of V. album more effectively inhibited tyrosinase. Comparing with ethanol extracts, the water extracts of both mistletoes showed lower biological efficacy than the ethanol extracts or no significant effect. Thus, these results show that different extracts of mistletoe have different levels of biological activities, presumably because of the differences in their phytochemical profiles and because of the different extraction methods used.


Abstract— High speed friction experiments have been performed on the ordinary chondrites El Hammami (H5, S2) and Sahara 97001 (L6, S3) using an axial friction‐welding apparatus. Each sample was subjected to a strain rate of 103 to 104 s−1, which generated 250 to 500 μm‐deep darkened zones on each sample cube. Thin section analyses reveal that the darkened areas are composed of silicate glass and mineral fragments intermingled with dispersed submicron‐size FeNi and FeS blebs. Fracturing of mineral grains and the formation of tiny metallic veins define the extent of deformation beyond the darkened shear zone. These features are not present in the original meteorites. The shear zones and tiny veins are quite similar to certain vein systems seen in naturally deformed ordinary chondrites. The experiments show that shock deformation is not required for the formation of melt veins and darkening in ordinary chondrites. Therefore, the presence of melt veins and darkening does not imply that an ordinary chondrite has undergone severe shock deformation. In fact, high strain rate deformation and frictional melting are especially important for the formation of veins at low shock pressures.


Recent analysis of a corpus of infant-perspective head-camera images found an extremely right-skewed frequency distribution of objects present in 8to 10-month-old infants' visual environments (Clerkin, et al., 2017). Furthermore, the objects most pervasively present in these scenes have names normatively acquired first by learners of English. New analyses show that the names for these objects occur only sparsely in infants' environments, and object name frequency is not correlated with object visual frequency. Therefore, we designed a simple associative model simulating word-object co-occurrence in order to investigate how visual pervasiveness without high-frequency naming could lead to learning of word-object correspondences. With random sampling from distributions reflecting the actual frequency of words and objects in infants' environments, we find that the most frequent objects have a distinct advantage over less frequent objects in their conditional probability. This suggests visual experience with objects may be the principal predictor of early word-referent learning.


The human sentence processor is able to make rapid predictions about upcoming linguistic input. For example, upon hearing the verb eat, anticipatory eye-movements are launched toward edible objects in a visual scene (Altmann & Kamide, 1999). However, the cognitive mechanisms that underlie anticipation remain to be elucidated in ecologically valid contexts. Previous research has, in fact, mainly used clip-art scenes and object arrays, raising the possibility that anticipatory eye-movements are limited to displays containing a small number of objects in a visually impoverished context. In Experiment 1, we confirm that anticipation effects occur in real-world scenes and investigate the mechanisms that underlie such anticipation. In particular, we demonstrate that real-world scenes provide contextual information that anticipation can draw on: When the target object is not present in the scene, participants infer and fixate regions that are contextually appropriate (e.g., a table upon hearing eat). Experiment 2 investigates whether such contextual inference requires the co-presence of the scene, or whether memory representations can be utilized instead. The same real-world scenes as in Experiment 1 are presented to participants, but the scene disappears before the sentence is heard. We find that anticipation occurs even when the screen is blank, including when contextual inference is required. We conclude that anticipatory language processing is able to draw upon global scene representations (such as scene type) to make contextual inferences. These findings are compatible with theories assuming contextual guidance, but posit a challenge for theories assuming object-based visual indices.


Clozapine (Clozaril) represents the first major advance in the pharmacological treatment of schizophrenia since the introduction of antipsychotics into clinical practice in the 1950s. Studies consistently support its efficacy for reducing positive symptoms in acutely psychotic patients and in treatment-resistant patients, for preventing positive symptom exacerbations as a maintenance treatment, and for reducing symptoms of hostility and violence. There is evidence to suggest that clozapine may improve social and occupational functioning and quality of life and may reduce affective symptoms, hospitalizations, secondary negative symptoms, and tardive dyskinesia. Its most significant side effects include agranulocytosis, seizures, weight gain, hypotension and tachycardia, sedation, and perhaps rebound psychosis (with abrupt discontinuation of medication). Schizophrenia Bulletin, 21(4):


Direct numerical simulations of three-dimensional flow and augmented convection in a channel with symmetric, transverse grooves on two opposite walls are performed using the spectral element technique. The flow is driven by a constant pressure gradient. A method employing an exponentially decaying temperature scale is developed and used to calculate the fully developed heat transfer coefficient for constant temperature boundary conditions. Results are presented for the Reynolds number range 180 < Re < 1175.
 A series of flow transitions is observed as the Reynolds number is increased, from steady two-dimensional flow, to traveling two and three-dimensional wave structures, and finally to three-dimensional mixing. Periodic ejection of slow moving fluid from the grooves causes significant flow rate unsteadiness. Three-dimensional simulations predict friction factor and Nusselt number values to within 20% of measured values over the narrow Reynolds number range where overlapping data exists. Two-dimensional simulations are found to be inadequate to calculate transport in this channel for Re > 400.


The European U23 Championships are an important competition showcasing young athletic talent. The expansion of competition in this age group provides a clear and contemporary rationale for studying these championships. Since its inception in 1997, this biennial competition has been used as a major milestone in the athlete's progress to world class competition. In this study, athletes competing from 1999 to 2013 in sprints, middle distance and steeplechase, long distance and race walks, hurdles and combined events, jumps and throws were observed. Their Global Wait (time taken between U23s and global championships) and Final Wait (transition time between U23s and reaching a final at global championships) along with successes were the criteria used for assessment. Interesting trends materialised regarding what events athletes continued to compete in or transitioned from (e.g. comparing throwers with combined events), and the time it took before competing at a global final (e.g. 800m women waited the longest). The measured success rate (finals and medal positions) of the U23 athletes within this study attests to the importance of these championships to athlete development.


We assessed summation of contrast across eyes and area at detection threshold (C(t)). Stimuli were sine-wave gratings (2.5 c/deg) spatially modulated by cosine- and anticosine-phase raised plaids (0.5 c/deg components oriented at +/-45 degrees ). When presented dichoptically the signal regions were interdigitated across eyes but produced a smooth continuous grating following their linear binocular sum. The average summation ratio (C(t1)/([C(t1+2)]) for this stimulus pair was 1.64 (4.3 dB). This was only slightly less than the binocular summation found for the same patch type presented to both eyes, and the area summation found for the two different patch types presented to the same eye. We considered 192 model architectures containing each of the following four elements in all possible orders: (i) linear summation or a MAX operator across eyes, (ii) linear summation or a MAX operator across area, (iii) linear or accelerating contrast transduction, and (iv) additive Gaussian, stochastic noise. Formal equivalences reduced this to 62 different models. The most successful four-element model was: linear summation across eyes followed by nonlinear contrast transduction, linear summation across area, and late noise. Model performance was enhanced when additional nonlinearities were placed before binocular summation and after area summation. The implications for models of probability summation and uncertainty are discussed.


This paper introduces TOPKAPI (TOPographic Kinematic APproximation and Integration), a new physically-based distributed rainfallrunoff model deriving from the integration in space of the kinematic wave model. The TOPKAPI approach transforms the rainfall-runoff and runoff routing processes into three 'structurally-similar' non-linear reservoir differential equations describing different hydrological and hydraulic processes. The geometry of the catchment is described by a lattice of cells over which the equations are integrated to lead to a cascade of non-linear reservoirs. The parameter values of the TOPKAPI model are shown to be scale independent and obtainable from digital elevation maps, soil maps and vegetation or land use maps in terms of slope, soil permeability, roughness and topology. It can be shown, under simplifying assumptions, that the non-linear reservoirs aggregate into three reservoir cascades at the basin scale representing the soil, the surface and the drainage network, following the topographic and geomorphologic elements of the catchment, with parameter values which can be estimated directly from the small scale ones. The main advantage of this approach lies in its capability of being applied at increasing spatial scales without losing model and parameter physical interpretation. The model is foreseen to be suitable for land-use and climate change impact assessment; for extreme flood analysis, given the possibility of its extension to ungauged catchments; and last but not least as a promising tool for use with General Circulation Models (GCMs). To demonstrate the quality of the comprehensive distributed/ lumped TOPKAPI approach, this paper presents a case study application to the Upper Reno river basin with an area of 1051 km2 based on a DEM grid scale of 200 m. In addition, a real-world case of applying the TOPKAPI model to the Arno river basin, with an area of 8135 km2 and using a DEM grid scale of 1000 m, for the development of the real-time flood forecasting system of the Arno river will be described. The TOPKAPI model results demonstrate good agreement between observed and simulated responses in the two catchments, which encourages further developments of the model.


Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to describe the medical informatics program and training at the University of Zagreb, School of Medicine (Croatia). Methods: We reviewed the medical informatics program, training and research for medical students at the integrated pre-graduate and graduate level, as well as at the postgraduate education and research level. Results: We present three approaches to teaching and training medical students in medical informatics at the integrated pre-graduate and graduate level. These are (1) Basics of medical informatics taught early in the medical curriculum, (2) Medical informatics which uses students' clinical knowledge and is taught towards the end of the medical curriculum, and (3) individualized research programs. Both Basics of medical informatics and Medical informatics are courses tailored in line with the IMIA Recommendations on Medical Informatics Education for IT users, and adjusted to students' attitudes to medical informatics issues and the position of the courses in the medical curriculum. Postgraduate studies, as the higher level of education at the School of Medicine, also include several mostly elective medical informatics courses dealing with general medical informatics methodology and health information system management in both clinical medicine and public health. Included are also simulation modeling, methods of machine learning and knowledge discovery in medical domains, as well as medical statistics and methods oriented towards free textual data analysis. The postgraduate level includes in addition telemedicine, electrophysiological methods in research, and evidence based medicine. Conclusions: Medical students are starting to recognize the role of information in their future profession. They require medical informatics applications to support their professional work with patients, as well as their research. In particular they express interest in machine learning, simulation modeling, medical decision making, data security, e-learning, and evaluation of ICT based medical applications.


The objectives of this research are to investigate the influence of geographical distance on the cointegration relationship in order to increase knowledge on the issue, and to indentify its role in Brazilian agricultural markets. With this intention, the cointegration framework is applied allowing for the presence of multiple structural breaks in the long run equation. The inclusion of breaks is in response to the multiple changes of the agricultural system during the period of investigation. The spatial integration is calculated between each market pair. The cointegration coefficient and geographical distance relationship is calculated by means of an OLS regression, taking into account the quality of roads and the proximity to a border or port. The effect of the distance depends on the product. In the case of rice markets, there is a weak, negative and significant relation. Concerning soybeans, the relationship is not significant. After allowing for the inclusion of breaks in the long run, the results remain unvaried. In addition, the region and a better access to export points are the main variables in the definition of the prices.


Financial skill/literacy is the ability to understand how money and economy work, how people earn or make money, and how they invest and use it to help themselves and others. Many advantages arise from improvement of financial skill and it follows that financial skill can result in economic growth. This article empirically examines whether or not financial skill causes economic growth and shows that financial skill brings growth compared to other skills (e.g., English and information technology [IT]); however, financial skill does not necessarily shrink the economic divide. Financial skill plays a role in most theories of persistent inequality.


Most households persistently invest in riskless assets but not stocks, and may do so because they perceive information required for market participation to be costly relative to expected benefits. In a Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM) increased risk aversion, income risk, and lower resources reduce the information expense sufficient to deter stockholding. Bivariate probit analysis using the 19831989 Survey of Consumer Finances shows that households with lower risk aversion, higher education, and greater wealth who were nonstockholders in 1983 had an increased conditional probability of entering by 1989, whereas 1983 stockholders with lower resources, more limited education, and greater risk aversion were more likely to be nonstockholders by 1989.


Osteomyelitis is a common disease of the poor in the rural population in India. It occurs commonly in children. During the period 1963 to 1979 500 cases of osteomyelitis of various bones have been studied from the point of view of aetiology, pathology and presentation. Acute cases were treated by resting the part and appropriate antibiotics. Incision and drainage of abscesses was performed whenever necessary. Chronic cases were treated by sequestrectomy. Sequestrectomy and saucerization are contraindicated where an involucrum is not formed. Sequestrectomy in such cases leads to collapse of the periosteal tube and a flail limb. This challenging problem was successfully treated in most of the cases. Chronic osteomyelitis is a nonspecific infection. In 25 cases the histopathology of biopsy material from the operated area showed tuberculous tissues. These case of tuberculous osteomyelitis of long bones have a granular sequestrum and thick sclerosis of the cortical bone. Such cases need a full course of antituberculous drugs.


: The results of intermittent normobaric hypoxytherapy in 42 patients with bronchial asthma (BA) and 14 patients with chronic obstructive bronchitis (COB) are analyzed. The positive effect is obtained in 76% of patients with BA and 92.8% of patients with COB. In the group of patients with BA the best effect was achieved for atopic form of BA--in 90% of patients, the effect was less pronounced for infection-allergic form--in 73.9% and for mixed form of BA--in 66.7%. In the process of treatment the attacks of asphyxia disappeared or became more occasional in 60.7% of patients; in 32.1% the attacks were more easily arrested or stopped independently; 33.8% of patients decreased doses of constantly taken drugs; in 33% cough ceased or decreased, sputum became to expectorate better; in 41% of patients dyspnea disappeared and considerably decreased. Improvement of the state in 54% of patients was retained for one year and more, in 29%--for 6 months, in 16.6%--for 3-4 months. The course of treatment consisted of 20-25 sessions. The patients breathed in hypoxic gas mixture containing 10% of oxygen (HGM-10) under intermittent conditions alternating with respiration of free air.


The genetic changes and corruption of kinase activity in melanomas appear to revolve around a central axis: mitogenic signaling along the RAS pathway down to transcription regulation by pRB. Epidemiological studies point to the importance of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the etiology of melanoma, but where and how UV radiation is targeted to contribute to the oncogenic signaling remains obscure. Animal models of melanoma genesis could serve to clarify this issue, but many of these models are not responsive to UV exposure. Most interesting advances have been made by using transgenic mice that carry genetic defects that are known to be relevant to human melanoma: specifically, dysfunction in the tumor suppressive action of p161NK4a or a receptor tyrosine kinase/RAS pathway, that is constitutively activated in melanocytes. The latter types of mice appear to be most responsive to (neonatal) UV exposure. Whether this is due to a general increase in target cells by melanocytosis and a paucity or complete lack of pigment, or a possible UV‐induced response of the promoter–enhancer of the transgene or a genuinely independent and additional genetic alteration caused by UV exposure needs to be established. Importantly, the full effect of UV radiation needs to be ascertained in mice with different pigmentation by varying the wavelengths, UV‐B versus UV‐A1, and the exposure schedules, i.e. neonatal versus adult and chronic versus intermittent overexposure. Intermittent UV‐B overexposure deserves special attention because it most strongly evokes proliferative responses in melanocytes.


Objective To identify specific ECG and clinical predictors that separate atherosclerotic sudden cardiac death (SCD) from incident coronary heart disease (CHD) (non-fatal events and non-sudden death) in the combined cohorts of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study and the Cardiovascular Health Study. Methods This analysis included 18 497 participants (58% females, 24% black individuals, mean age 58 years) who were initially free of clinical CHD. A competing risk analysis was conducted to examine the prognostic significance of baseline clinical characteristics and an extensive electronic database of ECG measurements for prediction of 229 cases of SCD as a first event versus 2297 incident CHD cases (2122 non-fatal events and 175 non-sudden death) that occurred during a median follow-up time of 13 years in the Cardiovascular Health Study and 14 years in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study. Results After adjusting for common CHD risk factors, a number of clinical characteristics and ECG measurements were independently predictive of SCD and CHD. However, the risk of SCD versus incident CHD was significantly different for race/ethnicity, hypertension, body mass index (BMI), heart rate, QTc, abnormally inverted T wave in any ECG lead group and level of ST elevation in V2. Black race/ethnicity (compared to non-black) was predictive of high SCD risk but less risk of incident CHD (p value for differences in the risk (HR) for SCD versus CHD <0.0001). Hypertension, increased heart rate, prolongation of QTc and abnormally inverted T wave were stronger predictors of high SCD risk compared to CHD (p value=0.0460, 0.0398, 0.0158 and 0.0265, respectively). BMI was not predictive of incident CHD but was predictive of high SCD risk in a quadratic fashion (p value=0.0220). On the other hand, elevated ST height as measured at the J point and that measured at 60 ms after the J point in V2 were not predictive of SCD but were predictive of high incident CHD risk (p value=0.0251 and 0.0155, respectively). Conclusions SCD and CHD have many risk factors in common. Hypertension, race/ethnicity, BMI, heart rate, QTc, abnormally inverted T wave in any ECG lead group and level of ST elevation in V2 have the potential to separate between the risks of SCD and CHD. These results need to be validated in another cohort.


mHealth, the use of mobile technologies for healthcare management and delivery, offers great promise to promote health and improve care. However, to date, most mHealth treatments have failed to demonstrate a significant impact on clinical outcomes, and there is surprisingly little knowledge of factors that drive its efficacy. This study examines mHealth effectiveness by investigating both mHealth design and social support. To do so, we leverage one of the world's largest field experiments on improving the health of expectant mothers and reducing the rate of cesarean sections. We hypothesize that 1) the combination of both self-directed mHealth and provider-directed mHealth ensures the highest mHealth effectiveness; 2) the husband, as one of the most significant social supports for expectant women, can be an important moderator of mHealth effectiveness. Our analyses show that the combined mHealth design achieves significant reduction in cesarean section use. In addition, a husband's healthy behavior is pivotal in enabling mHealth interventions to be effective we find that the cesarean section reduction rate of women whose husbands engage in healthy behavior is four times higher than it is for those whose husbands do not fully engage in healthy behavior. Further analyses reveal that the husband's healthy behavior has a stronger influence on mHealth effectiveness when the wife has higher status in the marriage. Our findings represent the first study to examine the effectiveness of these two mHealth designs (self-directed and provider-directed) and the critical role of social support in determining mHealth effectiveness. The study has important implications for both academic research and the practice of mHealth.


Fifth-scale phantom models were exposed to 2450-MHz electromagnetic fields to obtain the average specific absorption rate (SAR) and SAR distribution in man exposed to 1 mW/cm/sup 2/ 450-MHz radiofrequency radiation for various polarizations and body positions. The average SAR was measured calorimetrically and SAR distribution was determined thermographically using an interactive computer system, The mean SAR, as averaged over the body, remained relatively constant at 0.050 W/kg, with a standard deviation of +-0.007 W/kg for all polarizations and body postures considered in the study. Peak SAR values were as high as 0.650 W/kg, occuring typicaly in the wrist.


Background: 25% to 30% of Veterans deployed to the 1990 to 1991 Persian Gulf War exhibit an idiopathic syndrome of chronic fatigue, exertional exhaustion, pain, hyperalgesia, cognitive and affective dysfunction known as Gulf War Illness (GWI). Methods: Gulf War veterans (n=15) and sedentary veteran and civilian controls (n=11) completed a 2-back working memory test in an fMRI before and after two bicycle exercise stress test. We performed single voxel 1 H MRS to evaluate brain metabolic differences in the left anterior cingulate cortex and the changes associated with exercise. Results: Eight GWI subjects increased their 2-back scores after exercise (labelled increas- ers) and seven GWI subjects decreased their 2-back scores after exercise (labelled decreasers). These phenotypic responses were absent for controls. Decreasers had significantly elevated prefrontal lactate levels compared to In - creasers prior to completion of the exercise stress tests. Evaluation of prefrontal lactate levels prior to exercise dem- onstrated predictability (ROC analysis) of the two diametrically opposed subgroups. Conclusion: Prefrontal lactate levels may be a potential biomarker for exercise-induced subgroups in GWI. The alterations in brain energetics may be in part responsible for a subgroup of GWI and underlie some of the symptoms present in the patient population.


Son of a scientifically-minded Scottish aristocrat, Basil Hall joined the Royal Navy at the age of 13 in 1802. His first naval engagements in America and Spain during the Peninsular War are described, as are his travels in India and the Far East. His renowned interview with Napoleon, while still a prisoner on St. Helena is featured. He was a confidante of Sir Walter Scott, Dickens and many other distinguished authors of his day. Renowned for his curiosity and energy, he became a popular writer himself based on his world-wide travels and adventures, including his involvement in the liberation of Peru and friendship with General San Martin. He embarked on an epic, 10,000-mile journey with his family in North America and twice journeyed across the sub-continent of India under the patronage of the Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, providing delightful vignettes of Indian life of the time. Subsequent travels in Europe introduce personalities such as Lord Byron and the eccentric Countess Purgstall. Although the narrative of his journey in the United States earned him great opprobrium from Americans for his conservative attitudes, his support in Edinburgh to the great American bird painter, John James Audubon, was greatly appreciated by the artist. As an amateur scientist, Hall made important contributions to nautical astronomy, geology and naval technology, being a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Among his scientific friends were Sir John Herschel, Mary Somerville, and Sir Humphrey Davy, among many others. He was in the unusually privileged position of moving among the upper echelons of British society's distinguished writers, scientists and politicians thus providing a fascinating insight into the mores and manners of high society in Edinburgh and London. The inclusion of previously unpublished and often revealing correspondence has contributed to the first full biography of a very colourful individual and his times.


Physical and mechanical properties of Russian olive fruits were measured at moisture content of 14.43% w.b. The results revealed that the mean length, width and thickness of Russian olive fruits were 20.72, 15.73 and 14.69mm, respectively. Mean mass and volume of Russian olive fruits were measured as 1.45 g and 2.55 cm, respectively. The sphericity, aspect ratio and surface area were calculated as 0.81, 0.72 and 8.96 cm, respectively, while arithmetic mean diameter, geometric mean diameter and equivalent diameter of Russian olive fruits were 17.05, 16.83 and 16.84 mm, respectively. Whole fruit density, bulk density and porosity of jujube fruits were measured and found to be 1.01 g/cm, 0.29 g/cm and 69.5%, respectively. The values of static coefficient of friction on three surfaces of glass, galvanized iron and plywood were 0.35, 0.36 and 0.43, respectively. The skin color (L*, a*, b*) varied from 9.92 to 16.08; 2.04 to 3.91 and 1.12 to 3.83, respectively. The values of rupture force, deformation, energy absorbed and hardness were found to be between 12.14-16.85 N, 2.16-4.25 mm, 3.42-6.99 N mm and 17.1-23.85 N/mm. Keywords—Mechanical and Physical properties, Russian olive fruits, friction coefficient


We study the axial force acting on dielectric spherical particles smaller than the trapping wavelength that are placed in the Gaussian standing wave. We derive analytical formulas for immersed particles with relative refractive indices close to unity and compare them with the numerical results obtained by generalized Lorenz-Mie theory (GLMT). We show that the axial optical force depends periodically on the particle size and that the equilibrium position of the particle alternates between the standing-wave antinodes and nodes. For certain particle sizes, gradient forces from the neighboring antinodes cancel each other and disable particle confinement. Using the GLMT we compare maximum axial trapping forces provided by the Gaussian standing-wave trap (SWT) and single-beam trap (SBT) as a function of particle size, refractive index, and beam waist size. We show that the SWT produces axial forces at least ten times stronger and permits particle confinement in a wider range of refractive indices and beam waists compared with those of the SBT.


Determination of sub-100 kilodalton (kDa) structures by cryo-electron microscopy (EM) is a longstanding but not straightforward goal. Here, we present a 2.9-Å cryo-EM structure of a 723-amino acid apo-form malate synthase G (MSG) from Escherichia coli. The cryo-EM structure of the 82-kDa MSG exhibits the same global folding as structures resolved by crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and the crystal and cryo-EM structures are indistinguishable. Analyses of MSG dynamics reveal consistent conformational flexibilities among the three structural approaches, most notably that the α/β domain exhibits heterogeneity. We observed that sidechains of F453, L454, M629, and E630 residues involved in hosting the cofactor acetyl-CoA and substrate rotate differently between the cryo-EM apo-form and complex crystal structures. Our work demonstrates that the cryo-EM technique can be used to determine structures and conformational heterogeneity of sub-100 kDa biomolecules to a quality as high as that obtained from crystallography and NMR spectroscopy.


The solar cycle length for cycles 23 to 29 are forecasted. Two methods are analysed. In the first one, the solar cycle length is separated into its two phases i the rise time and the fall off time i and a multiple regression method is applied to each phase using lagged values as independent variables. In the second method, the multiple regression is fitted directly to the solar cycle length. The minimum and maximum solar activity dates are listed for the cycles predicted with the latter method which proves to be more accurate. Two lagged values appear in the multiple regression adjusted to the solar cycle length. One is associated with the Gleissberg period, also observed in the maximum sunspot number, and the other is coincident with one of the periodicities in the C14 time record, which is associated with solar activity variation


The cystatins are a super family of cysteine
protease inhibitors which are ubiquitous in their biologic occurrence. Cystatin C, a
type II cystatin, is primarily a secreted protein found in most biological
fluids. Besides acting as inhibitors of cathepsin, the cystatins have been
found to have some non-inhibitor related functions and multiple physiological
roles. Much interest has been generated for the cystatins as metastasis "suppressor-like" proteins,
as they have been shown to inhibit metastasis for multiple cancer types. The
sites and actions of the cystatins related to tumor suppressor actions are
still unclear, however. In this work, we have examined the uptake of cystatin by
metastatic melanoma cells in culture. Our results indicate cystatin uptake is
mediated by a non-canonical endocytotic pathway in B16 murine melanoma
cells.


A conceptual approach is proposed to define 3D geo-information requirement for different types of disasters. This approach includes components such as Disaster Type-Sector-Actor-Process-Activity-Task-Data. According to disaster types processes, activities, tasks, sectors, and responsible and operational actors are derived. Based on the tasks, the needed level of detail for 3D geo-information model is determined. The levels of detail are compliant with the 3D international standard CityGML. After a brief introduction on the disaster phases and geo-information requirement for actors to perform the tasks, the paper discusses the current situation of disaster and emergency management in Turkey and elaborates on components of conceptual approach. This paper discusses the 3D geo-information requirements for the tasks to be used in the framework of 3D geo-information model for Disaster and Emergency Management System in Turkey. The framework is demonstrated for an industrial fire case in Turkey.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
To test the hypothesis that total sleep deprivation (TSD) slows stimulus detection and evaluation processes. Towards that end we manipulate degradation of the imperative stimulus, a manipulation well established to affect the processes of interest, in a delayed letter recognition (DLR) task and the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT), and predicted that after TSD the ordinary reaction time (RT) slowing effect of stimulus degradation would be increased. These hypotheses were only partially confirmed (see below).

DESIGN
Participants were exposed to 48 h of total sleep loss. The PVT and DLR were administered to the same participants. The PVT was administered 8 times -every 6 h from 12:00 on Day 1. The DLR was administered twice, at 09:00 of Day 1 and 48 h later.

SETTING
Participants were continuously monitored in a sleep laboratory.

SUBJECTS
26 healthy young adults enrolled. Due to dropouts and technical failures, the final n's were 20 for the DLR and 21 for the PVT.

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS
General linear mixed models were employed. In the DLR task there was no interaction between TSD and degradation on any variable. There was, however, a significant interaction between TSD and degradation on mean reaction time in the PVT (P = 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS
As in our previous reports, we observe the specificity with which total sleep deprivation affects cognitive processes. One aspect of visual processing, stimulus detection, was affected by total sleep deprivation and made a significant contribution to the performance impairments observed. Another aspect of visual processing, stimulus evaluation, remained unaffected after 2 days and nights of total sleep loss.


We have presented the architecture, simulation, packaging, and over-temperature and radiation testing of a complex, 16-channel, extreme environment capable, SiGe Remote Electronics Unit containing the Remote Sensor Interface ASIC that can serve a wide variety of space-relevant needs as designed. These include future missions to the Moon and Mars, with the additional potential to operate in other hostile environments, including lunar craters and around the Jovian moon, Europa. We have expanded on the previous introduction of the RSI to show the validity of the chip design and performance over an almost 250 K temperature range, down to 100 K, under 100 krad TID radiation exposure, with SEL immunity and operability in a high-flux SET environment.


Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa employs a varied number o f virulence determinants, predominantly porins, type III secretion system (T3SS), alkaline protease and pigments to manipulate
the host to establish infections. These factors contribute significantly to virulence in P. aeruginosa
and are worrisome. This study is aimed at identifying the virulence genes in P. aeruginosa isolates from wound swabs of patients at two tertiary hospitals in Osun State, Nigeria.
Methods: Altogether , 237 participants consisting of 133 fr o m State Hospital, Osogbo and 104 from General Hospital, Iwo with different types of wounds were enrolled. Swabs from the various wound types were collected, grown on cetrimide agar, and recovered isolates identified using conventional biochemical tests. Chromosomal DNA was extracted by thermal lysis and subjected to polymerase chain reaction using specific primers to affirm biochemical identification and detect the presence of ExoT, ExoS, ExoU, ExoY, oprI, aprA, and pvdA genes.
Results: Sixty-one (25.7%) P. aeruginosa isolates were recovered in the study. Based on the different
wound types, the highest recovery was from surgical sites of caesarian sections (CS) (37.7%; 23/61) followed by trauma sustained from motorcycle and automobile accidents (36.1%; 22/61) and others wound types (26.2%; 16/71). Fifty-nine of the 61 recovered isolates were successfully amplified by PCR primers that targets P. aeruginosa parugin gene. Of these 59 PCR confirmed P. aeruginosa, the oprI gene was detected in 74.6% (n = 44/59) of isolates ; 18 from Osogbo and 26 from Iwo. No bands were detected for the other genes in all 59 isolates analysed.
Conclusion: The prevalence of P. aeruginosa w as highest from surgical sites of caesarian sections, with the rates from Iwo higher than that from Osogbo. Detection of oprL gene in 74.6% of strains is significant as it's interaction with the peptidoglycan plays a part in the maintenance of the structural integrity of the cell, and may cause infections that impair wound healing.


Received: Aug. 2008 Accepted: Mar. 2009 Corresponding author: Akhlaghi F e-mail: email@example.com Background & Aim: Dysmenorrhea is a common problem in young women. Although dysmenorrhea is not life threatening, it can have adverse effects on quality of life. Various treatments are offered for dysmenorrhea including vitamin E supplements. This study investigated the effect of vitamin E on primary dysmenorrhea. Methods & Materials: In this before-after clinical trial, 200 female students who suffered from primary dysmenorrhea were recruited to the study at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. First, they filled a questionnaire including demographic characteristics and the pain measurement chart (duration and severity). Then, they were divided into three groups: low, moderate and severe dysmenorrhea groups. Vitamin E (200 mg) tablets were administered to them and they were requested to have them once/day for five days (two days before and three days after the beginning of the menstruation). They filled the pain measurement chart (duration and severity) after two treatment periods. Data were analyzed using t-student, chi-square, and variance analysis tests in SPSS software. Results: The age of the students ranged 19-26 years old. The severity of dysmenorrhea was mild, moderate, and severe respectively in 28%, 60%, and 14% of the students. The mean of painful menstrual days was 2.05 in the first month, and 2.08 in the second month before using vitamin E. After using vitamin E, painful menstrual days were 1.63 in the first month and 1.64 in the second month. Regarding duration of painful days, all of the participants felt pain in the first day of menstruation. After using vitamin E, about one sixth of the participants in the first month and one fifth of them in the second month had no pain at first day. The severity of pain was 5.18 before using vitamin E that decreased to 3.40 after the intervention. Conclusion: Vitamin E administration in women, who suffer from primary dysmenorrhea, significantly reduces the severity and duration of pain. It can be used as an alternative treatment method in affected women.


Systemic meningococcal infection requires prompt and adequate medical care. It is considered as an unpredictable disease due to extreme severity of patients' condition and high risk of fatal outcome. The study was aimed to investigation of factors influencing outcomes in children with meningococcemia. Cox regression analysis was applied to estimate effects of age, septic shock, neutropenia, and use of glucocorticoids at the pre-admission stage on the risk of a fatal outcome. The retrospective cohort included all cases of meningococcemia in children that arose in the Arkhangelsk region in 1991-2013. Altogether, 90 children (35 girls and 55 boys) with meningococcemia were included in the study. All death cases occurred during the first three days of illness. The average age was 1 year 2 months. The age younger than 1 year was not associated with fatal outcomes, HR 1.0, 95 % CI 0.5-2.1. The factors influencing outcomes were septic shock, HR 11.9, 95 % CI 1.6-89.2, and neutropenia, HR 1.6, 95 % CI 1.2-2.1. Rapid diagnosis and management of septic shock is critical for successful treatment. Use of intramuscular or intravenous injections of glucocorticoids at the pre-admission stage according to the common recommendations did not improve the outcomes, HR 1.2, 95 % CI 0.6-2.4.


This chapter argues that the dominance of discourses around climate change-induced migration in Southeast Asia overlooks the multifarious linkages between migration and the environment in a region which has long been characterised by mobility, local and transnational migration, and where livelihoods are frequently conducted on a multi-local basisis. Indeed, Southeast Asia's development is built on the conjuncture of capital, nature and mobile labour, indicating that environments themselves have been produced through migration of various forms. Drawing on a series of conceptual lenses that emphasize socially-produced natures and socio-natural assemblages, the chapter explores the multiple links between migration and the environment in Southeast Asia, in part to complicate and contextualise otherwise simplistic framings of environmental crisis and migration in the region. This argument is made through reference to empirical studies that (i) demonstrate nature's agency in shaping migration patterns in the region, (ii) show how socially-produced environments are forged through assemblages of displacement and migration, (iii) identify the ways migration and migrant livelihood practices have produced the region's environments, and (iv) that reveal the mobile spatialities of injustice around hazardous 'socionatures' in different Southeast Asian settings.


We investigate photoblinking and photobleaching of perylene diimide (PDI) and its higher homologue terrylene diimide (TDI). Single molecule fluorescence trajectories of the dye molecules embedded in PMMA under ambient conditions exhibit "on"-"off" blinking in the time range from ms to s. Due to the limited statistics of individual trajectories we construct ensemble distributions of "on" and "off" times which follow power laws with similar power law coefficients (m(on) ≈ 1.18, m(off) ≈ 1.31). The blinking is attributed to reversible formation of radical cations which are presumably created by electron transfer from higher excited triplet states T(n) of the molecules to acceptor levels in the PMMA host. This view is corroborated by the properties of TDI, which blinks at an excitation wavelength of 520 nm but does not at lower energy excitation (647 nm). In line with this observation, T(1)-T(n) absorption data of TDI (and PDI) indicate that above a certain illumination wavelength population of higher excited triplet states T(n) does not occur, preventing blinking. It is furthermore argued that the long-lived dark ("off") states, i.e. the radical cations, are precursors for the photobleaching process of the dye molecules. Consequently, the photobleaching quantum yield Y(bl) for TDI is very small at an excitation wavelength of 647 nm (Y(bl) = 2 × 10(-10)) but increases by two orders of magnitude at 520 nm (Y(bl) = 2 × 10(-8)), which lies in the range observed for PDI investigated with an excitation wavelength of 488 nm. Additional studies of a PDI-TDI donor-acceptor dyad give further insights into the blinking and bleaching processes. Important findings include the observation of power law blinking of TDI and PDI (after bleaching of TDI) with similar coefficients as found for the isolated chromophores. Furthermore, in the dyad the photostability of TDI decreases due to efficient population of the states T(n) by singlet-triplet annihilation, while that of PDI (after bleaching of TDI) is the same as for the isolated dye. These findings support the conclusions drawn for the isolated chromophores, in particular the involvement of the triplet manifold in the blinking (and bleaching) behavior.


Rapid technology development and the widespread use of visual sensors have led to a number of new problems related to protecting intellectual property rights, handling patent infringements, authenticating acquisition sources, and identifying content manipulations. This paper introduces nonintrusive component forensics as a new methodology for the forensic analysis of visual sensing information, aiming to identify the algorithms and parameters employed inside various processing modules of a digital device by only using the device output data without breaking the device apart. We propose techniques to estimate the algorithms and parameters employed by important camera components, such as color filter array and color interpolation modules. The estimated interpolation coefficients provide useful features to construct an efficient camera identifier to determine the brand and model from which an image was captured. The results obtained from such component analysis are also useful to examine the similarities between the technologies employed by different camera models to identify potential infringement/licensing and to facilitate studies on technology evolution


: Religious place attachment is an affective bond that develops between people and their religious settings. The published literature shows that although religion has a significant impact on the public 'place attachment', the architectural features and attributes of the places could still play an influencing role in strengthening this attachment. However, the role of architectural characteristics and features of the religious places, as the components that give them meaning(s), has not been adequately explored. This paper reports the impacts of factors influencing the physical and ambience quality of different styles of Malaysian mosques from the Muslim public perspective. Thereby, a survey was conducted to investigate Malaysian public attachment to selected five Malaysian state mosques with respect to their architectural characteristics and features. The survey employed the results of series of interviews as its theoretical basis. The finding proved that Malaysian 'Muslim' society has equally strong attachment to all selected mosques in spite of their different architectural styles. The findings also confirmed that the emotional attachment to the impressive aspects of architectural features (e.g. dome, minaret etc.) and the unique identity of the studied mosques is irrespective of the architectural styles, e.g. Modern vs. Postmodern. The paper also argued that religious activities and pleasant architectural characteristic of the studied places including the functional facilities are equally important factors in forming place attachment. This is a new approach to the study of physical and ambience quality of mosques, hence providing sufficient theoretical basis for further investigations and improvements.


Production of a raw starch-digesting glucoamylase O (GA O) by protease-negative, glycosidase-negative mutant strain HF-15 of Aspergillus awamori var. kawachi was undertaken under submerged culture conditions. The purified GA O was electrophoretically homogeneous and similar to the parent glucoamylase I (GA I) in the hydrolysis curves toward gelatinized potato starch, raw starch, and glycogen and in its thermostability and pH stability, but it was different in molecular weight and carbohydrate content (250,000 and 24.3% for GA O, 90,000 and ca. 7% for GA I, respectively). The chitin-bound GA O hydrolyzed raw starch but the chitin-bound GA I failed to digest raw starch because chitin was adsorbed at the raw starch affinity site of the GA I molecule. The removal of the raw starch affinity site of GA O with subtilisin led to the formation of a modified GA O (molecular weight, 170,000), which hydrolyzed glycogen 100%, similar to GA O and GA I, and was adsorbed onto chitin and fungal cell wall but not onto raw starch, Avicel, or chitosan. The modified GA I (molecular weight, 83,000) derived by treatment with substilisin hydrolyzed glycogen up to only 80% and failed to be adsorbed onto any of the above polysaccharides. The N-bromosuccinimide-oxidized GA O lost its activity toward gelatinized and raw starches, but the abilities to be adsorbed onto raw starch and chitin were preserved. It was thus suggested that both the raw starch affinity site essential for raw starch digestion and the chitin-binding site specific for the binding with chitin in the cell wall could be different from the active site, located in the three respective positions in the GA O molecule.


th , 2012, accepted April 22 th , 2013, fi nal version July, 12 th , 2013 ABSTRACT: In this paper we show the optimization process of urban public transportation routes based on operations research techniques. This is shown in the outline of the development and importance of public transportation planning, its stages, its design and models. We present the design of networks of bus routes showing the overview and background of suitable optimization models for the public transportation system. We developed an optimization model minimizing transfers and we discuss the results according to the proposed theory. The article ends with the main conclusions and recommendations found in the study to improve the route optimization of urban public transportation.


Graphite, a key structural and moderator material in the proposed Generation IV roadmap, is expected to experience irradiation at temperatures up to 1800 K. In this study, a molecular dynamics (MD) code is developed for the purpose of performing atomistic simulations of high-temperature graphite. The MD computations are benchmarked against thermal expansion and mean-squared displacement data, and modifications to the potential energy function are devised as needed to fit experimental measurements. Graphite-specific alterations include a plane-by-plane center-of-mass velocity correction, anisotropy in the potential energy cutoff function, and temperature-dependent parameterization of the interatomic potential. The refined MD model is then employed to investigate the threshold displacement energy at temperatures of 300 and 1800 K. It was found that the threshold displacement energy depends strongly on the knock-on direction, yet the angle-averaged threshold energy exhibits relatively little variation with temperature.


A single-cycle 64-bit binary comparator utilizing a radix-2 tree structure is proposed in this brief. This novel comparator architecture is specifically designed for static logic to achieve both low-power and high-performance operation, particularly at low-input data activity environments. This brief presents a detailed performance and power analysis of various state-of-the-art comparator designs across three CMOS technologies. At 65-nm technology, with 25% (10%) data activity, the proposed design demonstrates 2.3 × (3.5 x) and 3.7 × (5.8 x) power and energy-delay product efficiency, respectively. In addition, the proposed work is 2.7 × faster at iso-energy(80 fJ) or 3.3 × more energy efficient at iso-delay(200 ps) than existing designs.


Playing casual games is a wildly popular activity on smartphones. However, designing casual games is done by a smaller group of people, usually on desktop com-puters, using professional development tools. Our goal is to bring these activities closer together, in terms of who does them and how they do them. Our Gamika Technology platform is a 2D physics-based mobile game design environment. It comprises a 284- dimensional parametric design space, and poses mobile game design as the problem of navigating this space. We have built three mobile apps thus far to experiment with on-device, mixed-initiative navigation of the Gamika design space and some of its subspaces. We describe these apps here in terms of the initiatives that go into making a game with them, and how these are split between people and underlying AI software. Our overall goal is to democratise game design, so that an- yone and everyone can make casual games directly on their mobile phones or tablets.


Elemental fingerprints could provide an analytical approach to product differentiation and authentication, and have been used in the past for various distilled spirits, including brandy, gin, bourbon and tequila. However, a comparison of elemental differences between different whisk(e)y types, such as Bourbon and Scotch, is still missing. In this study we compare the elemental fingerprints of 68 commercial whiskies for differentiation by type (Bourbon, Tennessee, Scotch, Irish, Japanese) and region. Concentrations from sub-μg/L to mid-mg/L of 53 different elements were determined with inductively-coupled plasma—mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and microwave plasma—atomic emission spectroscopy (MP-AES), and used in subsequent statistical analyses. Significant differences in several elements were found for type, and allowed a classification according to whisk(e)y type. Elemental differences were also found for different production areas within Scotland, thus, providing further evidence that Scotch whiskies could be differentiated by elemental analysis. Major sources of elemental differences seem to be processing equipment (Cu, Fe, Ni, Cd, Sn, Mo, V) and raw materials, such as water (Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Sr).


Irrigation with wastewater alleviated the shortage of agricultural water resources at the same time, also caused series of environmental security issues. The groundwater was polluted, farmland was polluted by some heavy metals and toxic substances), the quality and yield of agricultural products reduced in some irrigation zones. All of those will affect human health severely. The effective ways to improve the safety of sewage irrigation is to push forward the pretreatment technology of sewage, to promotion of irrigations with reclaimed water and to combine sewage treatment technology with suitable irrigation ways. Through these measures, the safe use of sewage recycle treatment will be realized, the ecological environment will be improved, and the food security will be ensured.


The purpose of the study was to investigate the presence of mascara deposits on polymeric siloxane-hydrogel contact lenses (CLs) after in vivo 8 h of wear and to compare the affinity to mascara of two siloxane-hydrogels through in vitro contamination tests. The siloxane-hydrogel CLs were the Filcon V monthly replacement OPEN30 and the Delefilcon A daily disposable DAILIES TOTAL1 showing a water gradient from the core to the outermost hydrophilic surface layer. The investigated cosmetic was a blue mascara. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) were carried out on new CLs, CLs exposed in vitro to mascara, and CLs worn for 8 h by mascara wearers (after rinsing the CLs in sodium chloride solution). Images by an optical microscope were acquired and processed on new CLs and CLs treated in vitro. EDX analyses on mascara allowed to characterize its elemental composition including aluminum (Al), which is neither a tear nor a CL component, thus being a marker of the presence of mascara deposits on polymeric siloxane-hydrogels. Adsorbed deposits containing Al were observed by SEM/EDX on all worn CLs of both materials, which showed a special affinity for the mascara components, more marked than for the tear components. By processing the images taken by optical microscopy after in vitro tests, the presence of mascara deposits was found to be more than two times higher in Delefilcon A compared to Filcon V CLs.


This paper describes a new integration algorithm for hyperbolic sine constitutive equation (HSCE) used in semi-solid forming. An intermediate variable Lambda ranged from zero to one is introduced to replace the inelastic strain rate in HSCE so that the inelastic strain rate can be solved indirectly from the Lambda. The proposed integration algorithm is based on the stress update concept and the effect of normal stress updating on the material compression is also discussed thoroughly in this paper. The investigation results show that the new algorithm can integrate the HSCE efficiently and the normal stress should keep constant as the deviatoric stress updating. An example of semi-solid extruding was given in the paper at last to illustrate the implementation of new algorithm and effect of normal stress updating on the compression of material.


The evolution of the New Public Management movement has increased pressure on state bureaucracies to become more responsive to citizens as clients. Without a doubt, this is an important advance in contemporary public administration, which finds itself struggling in an ultradynamic marketplace. However, together with such a welcome change in theory building and in practical culture reconstruction, modern societies still confront a growth in citizens' passivism; they tend to favor the easy chair of the customer over the sweat and turmoil of participatory involvement. This article has two primary goals: First to establish a theoretically and empirically grounded criticism of the current state of new managerialism, which obscures the significance of citizen action and participation through overstressing the (important) idea of responsiveness. Second, the article proposes some guidelines for the future development of the discipline. This progress is toward enhanced collaboration and partnership among governance and public administration agencies, citizens, and other social players such as the media, academia, and the private and third sectors. The article concludes that, despite the fact that citizens are formal "owners" of the state, ownership will remain a symbolic banner for the governance and public administration–citizen relationship in a representative democracy. The alternative interaction of movement between responsiveness and collaboration is more realistic for the years ahead.


Numerous control techniques have been developed to improve the efficiency of single phase motor drive systems. Majority of the systems use the pulse width modulated control strategy which is the fundamental and widely prevalent. This paper describes the comparison of sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) and random frequency pulse width modulation (RFPWM) control techniques for a single phase inverter. The control of the fundamental voltage fed to the R and RLE load is studied. The THD component in the alternating output is compared for gating signals produced using sinusoidal PWM and similarly with RFPWM are implemented in field programmable gate array (FPGA). In addition the noise generated in the motor load is determined. FPGA provides fast speed of operation and reprogramming capability. Verilog hardware description language (VHDL) is used for programming. Keywords— Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), Sinusoidal-PWM (SPWM), Random Frequency PWM (RFPWM), Inverter, Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), Harmonic Spread Factor (HSF).


This report describes the construction of a portland cement concrete pavement built with three finishing methods; carpet drag, longitudinal tining, and transverse tining. The three finishing methods are compared for their ability to resist the wear from studded tires. Ride and friction resistance are also monitored and reported over the five year evaluation period.


Background: Due to the widespread and unprecedented popularity of mobile phones, the use of digital medicine and mobile health apps has seen significant growth. Mobile health apps have tremendous potential for monitoring and treating diseases, improving patient care, and promoting health. Objective: This paper aims to explore research trends, coauthorship networks, and the research hot spots of mobile health app research. Methods: Publications related to mobile health apps were retrieved and extracted from the Web of Science database with no language restrictions. Bibliographic Item Co-Occurrence Matrix Builder was employed to extract bibliographic information (publication year and journal source) and perform a descriptive analysis. We then used the VOSviewer (Leiden University) tool to construct and visualize the co-occurrence networks of researchers, research institutions, countries/regions, citations, and keywords. Results: We retrieved 2802 research papers on mobile health apps published from 2000 to 2019. The number of annual publications increased over the past 19 years. JMIR mHealth and uHealth (323/2802, 11.53%), Journal of Medical Internet Research (106/2802, 3.78%), and JMIR Research Protocols (82/2802, 2.93%) were the most common journals for these publications. The United States (1186/2802, 42.33%), England (235/2802, 8.39%), Australia (215/2802, 7.67%), and Canada (112/2802, 4.00%) were the most productive countries of origin. The University of California San Francisco, the University of Washington, and the University of Toronto were the most productive institutions. As for the authors'contributions, Schnall R, Kuhn E, Lopez-Coronado M, and Kim J were the most active researchers. The co-occurrence cluster analysis of the top 100 keywords forms 5 clusters: (1) the technology and system development of mobile health apps; (2) mobile health apps for mental health; (3) mobile health apps in telemedicine, chronic disease, and medication adherence management; (4) mobile health apps in health behavior and health promotion; and (5) mobile health apps in disease prevention via the internet. Conclusions: We summarize the recent advances in mobile health app research and shed light on their research frontier, trends, and hot topics through bibliometric analysis and network visualization. These findings may provide valuable guidance on future research directions and perspectives in this rapidly developing field.


We analyze the performance of a new routing strategy for all-optical packet networks. This strategy improves the Eulerian routing technique, a convergence routing based on a an Eulerian directed cycle. This new technique allows to use shortcuts along the Eulerian cycle. Usual Eulerian routing provides deterministic transport delays but has a very low network utilization. With this new strategy the average transport time is much smaller and we can prove a deterministic upper bound of the transport delay, unlike deflection routing which suffers from livelocks. We study the performance guarantees provided by this new algorithm using graph arguments for the ending property and simulations to give some insights for the performance of the algorithm.


This article summarizes a series of interconnected researches exploring the potential of applying topological interlocking methodologies to the field of architectural design and fabrication. Specifically, it describes two concurrent approaches to design with interlocking units: the first relying on parametric design logics and mass-customized fabrication processes and the second implementing discrete combinatorial processes for both design and fabrication using modular units. We first outline the historical background of combinatorial thinking in architectural computing and describe the emergence of computational design and digital fabrication. We further present the recent evolution of a combinatorial design paradigm, which challenges the acquired parametric design methodologies in computational architecture research. We then present our research in the field of topological interlocking, focusing on a parametric design approach. We further describe implications of a shift from parametric to combinatorial design logics in architecture. Finally, we present the transition of the topological interlocking research from parametric to combinational logics. In these three sections, we describe design and fabrication methodologies for both approaches and evaluate the potentials and limitations of both. We present recent work in the development of software for combinatorial design within caad software, and its first application is to design topological interlocking systems. We conclude by outlining the future research directions and possibilities of integration between parametric and combinatorial processes in design, fabrication, and assembly of interlocking systems.


Politics has always gotten much attention throughout history, and video advertisement has become one of the most essential tools for political communication. Analysis of such political advertising videos can provide more insight into the political campaign by evaluating the message in it, such as a candidate's attitude toward a certain political issue. In this paper, we propose to classify the tone in political advertising videos into promotive, contrastive, and their mixture using a deep neural network to benefit automatic analysis of such videos. We especially explore how different modalities of videos, i.e., visuals, audio, and text, contribute to improving the classification accuracy.


Abstract The European Commission asked EFSA for a scientific opinion on the risks for animal and human health related to the presence of chlorinated paraffins in feed and food. The data for experimental animals were reviewed and the CONTAM Panel identified the liver, kidney and thyroid as the target organs for the SCCP and MCCP mixtures tested in repeated dose toxicity studies. Decreased pup survival and subcutaneous haematoma/haemorrhage were also identified as critical effects for an MCCP mixture. For the LCCP mixtures tested, the liver was identified as the target organ. The Panel selected as reference points a BMDL 10 of 2.3 mg/kg bw per day for increased incidence of nephritis in male rats, and of 36 mg/kg bw per day for increased relative kidney weights in male and female rats for SCCPs and MCCPs, respectively. For LCCPs, a reference point relevant for humans could not be identified. Due to the limitations in the toxicokinetic and toxicological database, the Panel concluded that derivation of a health‐based guidance value was not appropriate. Only limited data on the occurrence of SCCPs and MCCPs in some fish species were submitted to EFSA. No data were submitted for LCCPs. Thus, a robust exposure assessment and consequently a complete risk characterisation could not be performed. A preliminary risk characterisation based only on the consumption of fish was performed, and the calculated margins of exposure suggested no health concern for this limited scenario. The Panel noted that dietary exposure will be higher due to the contribution of CPs from other foods. The Panel was not able to identify reference points for farm animals, horses and companion animals. No occurrence data for feed were submitted to EFSA. Therefore, no risk characterisation could be performed for any of these animal species.


Deep Learning is one of the newest trends in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence research. It is also one of the most popular scientific research trends now-a-days. Deep learning methods have brought revolutionary advances in computer vision and machine learning. Every now and then, new and new deep learning techniques are being born, outperforming state-of-the-art machine learning and even existing deep learning techniques. In recent years, the world has seen many major breakthroughs in this field. Since deep learning is evolving at a huge speed, its kind of hard to keep track of the regular advances especially for new researchers. In this paper, we are going to briefly discuss about recent advances in Deep Learning for past few years.


The use of the Samoan language in qualitative educational research in Samoa is on the rise. This is because regardless of a researcher's written or verbal Samoan language skills, it is the language preference of the Samoan participants that makes the Samoan language important in educational research today. This paper is the result of a request from some first time student researchers who wanted some advice on using the Samoan language in educational research. The paper briefly discuss the Samoan alphabet, differences between Gagana K and Gagana T as well as the language of chiefs before highlighting specific aspects of the Samoan language that seemed problematic during the research process and offers some practical tips for first time researchers in Samoa.


Background Anemia of chronic inflammation is found in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Studies have found that RA patients with anemia are more likely to have more severe joint damage.1 Hepcidin is a peptide hormone that regulates iron homeostasis, is elevated in anemic conditions, and is up-regulated by interleukin-6 (IL-6). IL-6 is also elevated in RA. Sirukumab (CNTO136), a human anti-IL-6 monoclonal antibody, was investigated for efficacy in a Phase 2b dose ranging study of patients with active RA despite concurrent methotrexate treatment. Objectives This analysis examines if sirukumab treatment had positive effects in RA patients anemic at baseline (week 0) by reducing hepcidin and increasing hemoglobin through week 12 of treatment. Methods Serum samples collected in the Ph2b study at week 0, day 5, week 2, and the pre-specified week 12 primary endpoint were analyzed for hepcidin, hemoglobin, and anemia-related markers (ferritin, iron, total iron biding capacity, unsaturated iron bind capacity). Patients were treated with SC placebo (PBO; n=30) or SC sirukumab 100 mg 2QW, 100 mg 4QW, 50 mg 4QW (n=30 for each arm), or 25 mg 4QW (n=31). Results The overall ACR 50 response at week 12 to sirukumab was 24.0% (PBO 3.3%). At week 0, 5/30 (16.7%) of PBO and 37/121 (30.6%) of sirukumab-treated patients were anemic. In the anemic patients, the mean week 0 hepcidin concentrations were 25.1 ng/mL in the PBO group, and 87.4 ng/mL in the sirukumab-treated patients. At week 12, the sirukumab-treated patients mean hepcidin concentration was significantly reduced to 38.1 ng/mL (p=0.0029), while the PBO mean hepcidin concentration was unchanged (31.4 ng/mL; p=0.6250). No dose-response of sirukumab on serum hepcidin concentration was seen. Hemoglobin levels in the anemic patients increased in the sirukumab-treated patients (10.6 g/dL at week 0; 11.8 g/dL at week 12; p<0.001) but were unchanged in the PBO group (10.2 g/dL at week 0; 9.8 g/dL at week 12; p=0.6250). By week 12, no patients in the PBO group normalized hemoglobin levels, while 19 patients in the sirukumab-group normalized hemoglobin (51.4% of the week 0 anemic patients). All of the measured anemia-related markers correlated significantly with post-treatment hepcidin concentrations. There was no relationship between ACR20 or ACR50 response at week 12 and normalization of hemoglobin. Conclusions Sirukumab was effective in reducing serum concentrations of hepcidin through week 12 of treatment. Serum hemoglobin levels in anemic patients increased significantly following sirukumab treatment, with half of the patients normalizing hemoglobin levels. This indicates that in addition to demonstrating efficacy, treatment of RA patients with sirukumab may be effective in reversing inflammation-related anemia. References Peeters HR, et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 1996;55:162-168 Disclosure of Interest G. Toedter Employee of: Janssen Research & Development, LLC, S. Sague Employee of: Janssen Research & Development, LLC, X. Wu Employee of: Janssen Research & Development, LLC, M. Curran Employee of: Janssen Research & Development, LLC, B. Hsu Employee of: Janssen Research & Development, LLC


Establishing an advanced European bioeconomy is an important step in achieving the transition towards sustainable development and away from fossil fuels. The bioeconomy can be defined as an economy based on the sustainable production and conversion of renewable biomass into a range of bio-based products, chemicals, and energy. Several strategies have been produced in Europe from different perspectives that outline visions, intentions, and recommendations for the transition to a bioeconomy. An analysis of twelve of these strategies was conducted using a meta-analytical framework. This paper outlines the results of this study covering national, regional, and industrial perspectives on the bio-based economy in Europe. The analysis shows that a common direction for the bioeconomy, based on research and technological innovation in the various applications of biotechnology, is developing in Europe. It highlights the important role that the regional level will play in facilitating collaborations between industries and research institutions needed to foster innovation and optimize the use of biomass. The analysis also identifies that the development of European bio-based product markets are needed for bioeconomy expansion. However, the transition needs to have a lifecycle perspective in order to ensure that an economy founded on biomass is sustainable and equitable.


Following the rapid growth of distributed energy resources (e.g. renewables, battery), localized peer-to-peer energy transactions are receiving more attention for multiple benefits, such as, reducing power loss, stabilizing the main power grid, etc. To promote distributed renewables locally, the local trading price is usually set to be within the external energy purchasing and selling price range. Consequently, building prosumers are motivated to trade energy through a local transaction center. This local energy transaction is modeled in bilevel optimization game. A selfish upper level agent is assumed with the privilege to set the internal energy transaction price with an objective of maximizing its arbitrage profit. Meanwhile, the building prosumers at the lower level will response to this transaction price and make decisions on electricity transaction amount. Therefore, this non-cooperative leader-follower trading game is seeking for equilibrium solutions on the energy transaction amount and prices. In addition, a uniform local transaction price structure (purchase price equals selling price) is considered here. Aiming at reducing the computational burden from classical Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) transformation and protecting the private information of each stakeholder (e.g., building), swarm intelligence based solution approach is employed for upper level agent to generate trading price and coordinate the transactive operations. On one hand, to decrease the chance of premature convergence in global-best topology, Rubiks Cube topology is proposed in this study based on further improvement of a two-dimensional square lattice model (i.e., one local-best topology-Von Neumann topology). Rotating operation of the cube is introduced to dynamically changing the neighborhood and enhancing information flow at the later searching state. Several groups of experiments are designed to evaluate the performance of proposed Rubiks Cube topology based particle swarm algorithm. The results have validated the effectiveness of proposed topology and operators comparing with global-best version PSO and Von Neumann topology based PSO and its scalability on larger scale applications.


Bohemamines (BHMs) are bacterial alkaloids containing a pyrrolizidine core with two unprecedented methyl groups. Herein we report the activation of BHMs biosynthesis in Streptomyces sp. CB02009 using a ribosome engineering approach. Identification and characterization of the bhm gene cluster reveals a coordinated action of nonribosomal peptide synthetase BhmJ, Baeyer-villiger monooxygenase BhmK and methyltransferase BhmG for BHMs biosynthesis. BhmG is responsible for the C-methylation on C-7, while the C-9 methyl group is from a non-proteinogenic amino acid (2S,5S)-5-methylproline, required for BHMs production in three model Streptomyces hosts. Our study shed light on the intricate interaction of BhmJ/BhmK/BhmG for the economical biosynthesis of BHMs in their native producer, and also unraveled that BhmJ and BhmK are competent biocatalysts in Streptomyce albus.


ABSTRACT Oligonychus perseae Tuttle, Baker, & Abatiello is a foliar pest of 'Hass' avocados [Persea americana Miller (Lauraceae)]. The recommended action threshold is 50–100 motile mites per leaf, but this count range and other ecological factors associated with O. perseae infestations limit the application of enumerative sampling plans in the field. Consequently, a comprehensive modeling approach was implemented to compare the practical application of various binomial sampling models for decision-making of O. perseae in California. An initial set of sequential binomial sampling models were developed using three mean—proportion modeling techniques (i.e., Taylor's power law, maximum likelihood, and an empirical model) in combination with two-leaf infestation tally thresholds of either one or two mites. Model performance was evaluated using a robust mite count database consisting of >20,000 Hass avocado leaves infested with varying densities of O. perseae and collected from multiple locations. Operating characteristic and average sample number results for sequential binomial models were used as the basis to develop and validate a standardized fixed-size binomial sampling model with guidelines on sample tree and leaf selection within blocks of avocado trees. This final validated model requires a leaf sampling cost of 30 leaves and takes into account the spatial dynamics of O. perseae to make reliable mite density classifications for a 50-mite action threshold. Recommendations for implementing this fixed-size binomial sampling plan to assess densities of O. perseae in commercial California avocado orchards are discussed.


Surgical treatment alone was given to 88 patients with endometrial tumors while 182 patients underwent combined therapy. Three-year survival was 92.1%: 88.5% survived 5 years. With tumor invasion depth down to 10 mm, the method of choice was surgery: 5-year survival rate--89.1%. Postoperative irradiation of the small pelvis was indicated in cases of deep invasion of more than 10 mm. 5-year survival after surgery was 66.7 and combined therapy--76.7%. The end results appeared to depend on site: on sites in the upper two-thirds of the endometrium, 5-year survival after surgery was 90.4%; combined treatment of tumor sitting in the lower third or cervical canal--66.6 and 60.9%, respectively.


Background: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive method of brain stimulation, is an adjunctive research-therapy for aphasia. The concept supporting translational application of tDCS is that brain plasticity, facilitated by language intervention, can be enhanced by non-invasive brain stimulation. This study combined tDCS with an ecologically focused behavioral approach that involved training nouns and verbs in sentences. Method: Participant: A 43-year-old, right-handed male with fluent-anomic aphasia who sustained a single-left-hemisphere-temporal-parietal stroke was recruited. Treatment: Instrumentation included the Soterix Medical 1 × 1 Device. Anodal tDCS was applied over Broca's area. Behavioral materials included: sentence production, naming in the sentence context, and implementation of a social-conversational-discourse treatment. Design and Procedures: The independent variable of this crossover case-study was tDCS, and the dependent variables were language and quality-of-life measures. In each session the subject received language treatment with the first 20 minutes additionally including tDCS. Results: Performance in naming nouns and verbs in single words and sentences were obtained. Verb production in the sentence context increased after active anodal tDCS and speech-language treatment. Conclusion: Aphasia treatment that involves naming in the sentence context in conjunction with translational application of tDCS may be a promising approach for language-recovery post stroke.


"Enamel matrix proteins" has role in development of dentin, acellular cementum and alveolar bone during tooth formation. is produced from porcine Hertwig's epithelial root sheath at the time of development of tooth. EMD has BMP like molecules and BMP expressing cells. Among them, BMP like molecules induce differentiation of odntoblasts and form the reparative dentin. Reports state that EMD consists of TGF-β like molecules. Also, EMD is capable of suppressing inflammatory cytokine production by immunocytes. This provides a constructive environment which promote healing of the wounded pulp tissues.EMD comprise of proteins which belong to the family of amelogenin which takes part in final odontoblastic differentiation and simultaneous dentin production. A formulation of EMD has its availability in the market with the brand name of Emdogain®. It has shown success in induction of hard tissue bridge production. Teeth having undergone vital pulp therapy with EMD displayed signs of classical wound healing. Study conducted recently stated that the combination of MTA and EMD leads the human dental pulpal cells to differentiate faster in comparison to the situation where MTA is used alone. This suggests that a hybrid approach is beneficial in keeping EMD in a stable position over the pulpal exposure site by a hard-setting pulp-capping material. In spite of the


This article depicts changes in the public's perceptions in Hong Kong of the implementation of the "one country, two systems" policy following the handover in 1997 and discusses the role of the China factor in shaping such perceptions. It finds that the Hong Kong people's rating of "one country, two systems" was quite positive in the first two years after the handover, but the rating started to fall after April 1999 and reached its record low in April 2004. Although the rating has since risen somewhat, the Hong Kong public has not regained all the confidence it previously had in the policy. Beijing's Hong Kong policy is the most powerful variable shaping the public's perceptions of the "one country, two systems" policy, followed by trust in the Hong Kong government, the government's performance in mainland-Hong Kong relations, and the government's political performance. Since all four variables are largely politically related, it seems that the public's perceptions of "one country, two systems" have largely been shaped by political affairs related to maintaining Hong Kong as a highly autonomous system in the "one country, two systems" plan. Key words: Hong Kong, China, East Asian politics Introduction Nine years have passed since Hong Kong was handed over to China by Britain on July 1, 1997 and became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) under Chinese sovereignty. According to the Basic Law, Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the SAR is to be governed under the principle of "one country, two systems." Under this arrangement, the socialist system and policies of mainland China will not be practiced in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong's pre-handover capitalist system and way of life are to remain unchanged for fifty years.1 The Basic Law also promises a high degree of autonomy to the SAR and a gradual and orderly progress toward full democracy.2 However, despite these promises, the anti-communist mentality of Hong Kong people and their long-held mistrust of Beijing naturally meant that, initially, they lacked confidence in Beijing's policy of "one country, two systems."3 In addition, the last days of the run-up to the handover were clouded by a struggle between the Chinese and British governments over the future political arrangements for Hong Kong.4 Seeking to protect their interests, Hong Kong people were also drawn into the struggle.5 As a result, on the eve of the handover in 1997, there was a great deal of skepticism locally and in the international community over Beijing's commitment to the "one country, two systems" arrangement. Although the sociopolitical situation in Hong Kong in the first few months after the handover turned out to be unexpectedly stable,6 the SAR soon suffered the blows and challenges of a rapidly deteriorating economy triggered by the Asian financial crisis and the bursting of the local real estate bubble. In addition, during this period the new SAR government headed by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa continued to experience rising public discontent over its frequent policy and executive errors and over the political conservatism it shared with Beijing in responding to calls for a faster pace of local democratization and other political issues.7 The accumulation of public discontent eventually exploded in a massive demonstration on July 1, 2003 involving more than half a million people protesting against the SAR government and demanding greater democracy. The incident attracted much international attention and strained people's confidence in the "one country, two systems" arrangement.8 It also heightened Beijing's sense of political crisis with regard to Hong Kong, prompting it to employ both economic and political measures to stabilize the political situation in the SAR and to appease the people of Hong Kong.9 These measures included permitting a sharp increase in the number of mainland tourists allowed to visit Hong Kong (the Individual Travel Scheme); the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland (CEPA), which gives Hong Kong better access to the China market; and the eventual removal in March 2005 of the unpopular Tung Chee-hwa. …


In previous studies, the polycyclic cage amine 8-benzylamino-8,11-oxapentacyclo[188.8.131.52(2,6).0(3,10).0(5,9)]undecane (NGP1-01) and a number of its derivatives showed positive effects in neuroprotection studies with MPTP, in vivo. In view of these findings, we examined these compounds for their effects on [(3)H]dopamine ([(3)H]DA) release and uptake inhibition in murine striatal synaptosomes, as well as for inhibition of baboon liver monoamine oxidase (MAO) B. In order to assess specificity, initial experiments focused on compounds that blocked dopamine uptake without causing appreciable release (<40% at 100 microM) of the transmitter. NGP1-01 blocked the uptake of [(3)H]DA with an IC(50) of 57 microM, while another compound, 8-phenylethyl-8,11-oxapentacyclo[18.104.22.168(2,6).0(3,10).0(5,9)]undecane, blocked uptake at an IC(50) value of 23 microM. These values were comparable to that of another polycyclic cage amine, amantadine (IC(50); 82 micro), that is used in parkinsonian therapy. Structure-activity relationships of this series of compounds support the importance of geometric and steric, rather than electronic effects, in determining biological activity. MAO-B inhibition for this group was weak, with less than 50% inhibition at 300 microM for any of the compounds in the series. The present study suggests that blockage of the dopamine transporter may underlie, at least in part, their neuroprotective effects against MPTP-induced parkinsonism. These compounds may be considered as potential lead compounds for Parkinson's Disease therapy.


Over the past years, the appropriateness of Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques in modeling and optimization tasks pertaining to complex nonlinear dynamic systems has become indubitable, as attested by a large number of studies reporting on the successful application of CI models in nonlinear science (for example, adaptive control, signal processing, medical diagnostic, pattern formation, living systems, etc.). This volume summarizes the state-of-the-art of CI in the context of nonlinear dynamic systems and synchronization. Aiming at fostering new breakthroughs, the chapters in the book focus on theoretical, experimental and computational aspects of recent advances in nonlinear science intertwined with computational intelligence techniques. In addition, all the chapters have a tutorial-oriented structure.


Background: Individuals with multiple sclerosis experience a range of symptoms including blurred vision, poor coordination, tremors, numbness, fatigue, concentration and memory problems, and/or blindness. Given the range of symptoms and resulting limitations, individuals with MS will experience occupational challenges, which lead to referrals for occupational therapy. The goal of occupational therapy is to enable individuals to engage in activities that one wants to or needs to participate in. Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions that are currently being provided to individuals with multiple sclerosis. Methods: Researchers searched four scholarly databases, including CINAHL, PubMed, PsychINFO, and OT Search. The databases were searched using two key terms, "multiple sclerosis" and "occupational therapy," in order to promote a general search of related articles. After the database search, articles were assessed using the predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: A total of 18 articles met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed for content. The interventions were categorized into five themes by the researchers. The themes identified include: (a) energy conservation, (b) cognitive, (c) neuromuscular, (d) prevention, and (e) general symptom management. Conclusion: A variety of occupational therapy interventions are currently used with individuals who have MS and result in positive outcomes. However, within this systematic review, the effectiveness of these interventions was determined by level of evidence. Therefore, it was concluded that energy conservation is the most effective and cognitive intervention is moderately effective. The researchers concluded that this has implications on the field occupational therapy and further research is needed to promote evidence-based practice for individuals with MS.


This paper describes a pipelined analog-to-digital converter that resolves 4 b in its first stage and amplifies the residue by a factor of 2, thereby relaxing the opamp linearity, voltage swing, and gain requirements. Calibration in the digital domain removes the effect of capacitor mismatches and corrects for the gain error. Using a one-stage opamp with a gain of 10 and realized in 65-nm CMOS technology, the ADC digitizes a 490-MHz input with a signal-to-(noise+distortion) ratio of 52.4 dB, achieving a figure of merit of 97 fJ/conversion-step.


Congestive heart failure is the only major cardiovascular disease with an increasing incidence and prevalence in industrialized countries. Despite considerable progress in the clinical management of heart failure during the last 20 years, the prognosis is still worse than in many common types of cancer. The kidney is the main organ affected when cardiac function is compromised. In addition, the kidney significantly contributes to the development of the clinical syndrome of heart failure. Specific hemodynamic and neurohormonal abnormalities define the pathophysiology, clinical presentation, and prognosis of this disorder. In this setting, the kidney plays a dual role: the activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and the regulation of sodium and water excretion. The kidney is generally intact in heart failure, but extrarenal stimuli alter its function to a point where mechanisms that are initially homeostatic become maladaptive. In this review article, the mechanisms involved in renal adaptation to heart failure are presented.


We examine the relative pay of occupations involving care, such as teaching, counseling, providing health services, or supervising children. We use panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Care work pays less than other occupations, after controlling for the education and employment experience of the workers, many job characteristics, and (via individual fixed effects) unmeasured, stable characteristics of those who hold the jobs. Both men and women in care work pay this wage penalty. However, the penalty is paid disproportionately by women since more women than men do this kind of work. Ward Doran & Roberts 3 Welfare Reform and Families in the Child Welfare System Morgan B. Ward Doran & Dorothy E. Roberts


Laser-Assisted machining (LAM) is a new method for processing hard-to-cut materials. However, curved shapes are difficult to predict the preheating effect of by LAM because heat sources are changed by moving laser module. So, it is necessary to study the preheating effect of the laser heat source irradiated on a 3-dimensionally shaped workpiece, such as a NURBS shaped workpiece. In this study, thermal analysis and preheating experiment of the LAM for the NURBS shaped workpiece are performed. Also, two machining methods are proposed to avoid interference of laser module and cutting tool. The results of the analysis can be applied to various shaped workpieces by LAM.


Knowledge of the rate woody plant canopy cover increases is essential for understanding the ecology of rangeland plant communities, determining the economic feasibility of brush management practices, and for scheduling initial and maintenance control practices. We determined rates of change in redberry juniper (Juniperus pinchotii Sudw.) canopy cover from the mid 1950s through the late 1990s at 5 locations in western Texas on rangeland that had been chained or grubbed for juniper control and on adjacent untreated areas. Juniper cover was estimated from aerial photographs by the line intercept method using a 10-X monocular lens with a vernier. Juniper cover increased at 0.35 +/- 0.06 percentage units year(-1) on untreated sites and at 1.01 +/- 0.07 percentage units year(-1) following chaining or grubbing. Juniper cover returned to pre-treatment levels in an average of 20 years (range 11 to 25) following chaining or grubbing. Herbage production on untreated rangeland was predicted to decline slowly (2.4 to 5.0 kg ha(-1) year(-1)) as juniper cover increased from 6 to 14% and rapidly (> 8 kg ha(-1) year(-1)) as juniper cover increased from 30 to 38%. Herbage production was predicted to decline at a constantly increasing rate following mechanical control of juniper, from < 2 kg ha(-1) year(-1) in year 1 to 23 kg ha(-1) year(-1) in year 29. Potential additional livestock carrying capacity due to juniper control would be under estimated by more than 40%, assuming forage production without treatment remained constant during the entire planning horizon of an economic analysis. To avoid significant reductions in livestock carrying capacity, redberry juniper control should be implemented before its canopy cover exceeds about 20%. DOI:10.2458/azu_jrm_v54i5_ueckert


The "norm of normality" is a myth that organization design scholars should believe only at their peril. In contrast to the normal (bell-shaped) distribution with independent observations and linear relationships assumed by Gaussian statistics, research shows that nearly every input and outcome in organizational domains is power-law (Pareto) distributed. These highly skewed distributions exhibit unstable means, unlimited variance, underlying interdependence, and extreme outcomes that disproportionally influence the entire system, making Gaussian methods and assumptions largely invalid. By developing more focused research designs and using methods that assume interdependence and potentially nonlinear relationships, organization design scholars can develop theories that more closely depict empirical reality and provide more useful insights to practitioners and other stakeholders.