This research investigated the contribution of transformational leadership to the turnover intention of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. Trust in the leader was proposed as the mediator to explain the association between transformational leadership to turnover intention. Data was collected from 736 Myanmar employees from two manufacturing plants. The results from the partial least squares regression revealed that the Myanmar migrant workers who perceived that the top management of their company possessed the characteristics of transformational leadership tended to have lower turnover intention. This association was significantly mediated by trust in the leader. Moreover, the moderating effect analysis showed that the contribution of transformational leadership and trust in the leader to turnover intention were significantly moderated by the level of salary and the length of job tenure of the Myanmar migrant workers. The findings from this study also suggested that the leadership style of top management is an essential factor in reducing the risk associated with high turnover.


Mineralogical and chemical studies have been made of the weathering profile developed from serpentinized dunite containing disseminated Ni-Fe sulfides. Sulfide oxidation proceeds with the replacement of pyrrhotite by marcasite, followed by the replacement of pentlandite by violarite, then the replacement of violarite by millerite, and finally by the decomposition of the sulfides. This sequence is interpreted in terms of local electrochemical reactions and is contrasted with supergene sulfide alteration of massive or matrix sulfides. Nickel, Mn, Co, Zn, and Cu are enriched in this part of the profile, termed the supergene zone. The serpentine host rock is bleached and some Mg is lost.With increased weathering, the serpentine becomes progressively replaced by clay minerals, and substantial amounts of quartz and dolomite are deposited. Geochemically, this zone, termed the quartz-dolomite zone, is marked by sharp decreases in S and Mg and by generally increasing Si, Fe, Ni, Cu, Mn, Co, Zn, Al, Ti, V, As, and Ba. Overlying this zone is the ferruginous zone, characterized by the dominance of goethite, the common presence of clay minerals, and the absence of serpentine. Manganese oxide minerals containing Ni, Co, and Cu are precipitated in the lower part of this zone, creating a local enrichment of these elements; in the upper part of the ferruginous zone these elements are depleted. Aluminum, Cr, Ti, V, Zr, and As increase toward the top of this zone, apparently owing to the introduction of these components from outside the serpentinite body. Toward the top of this same zone, original rock textures are destroyed and concretionary pisolites develop. The overlying hardpan-clay zone is developed from transported detritus.The Mt. Keith weathering profile is broadly similar to profiles developed on other serpentinized dunites in Western Australia, and particular differences can be explained by differences in their primary mineralogy and geomorphological setting. There does not appear to be a simple relationship between the Ni contents of the primary zones and those of derived surficial materials.


Central neurocytoma is a benign neuronal tumor of young adults in the lateral cerebral ventricles with characteristic X ray and light microscopic findings. In many respects typical central neurocytoma is reported below, with recurrence in the third month requiring reoperation. Death ensued in the fifth postoperative month. Subsequent histology proved progressive vascular proliferation and increasing, unusual glial differentiation of the neuronal tumor. At autopsy tumorous seeding blocked the liquor circulation. A thin tumorous layer covered the surface of all ventricles, the cerebellum and medulla oblongata. The GFAP positive cells out-numbered the synaptophysin positive ones. Increase of GFAP positivity and vascular proliferation of the central neurocytoma may be alarming signs suggesting a malignant course in addition to the other atypical features.


There seems to be a growing social consensus that the U.S. imprisons far too many people for far too long. But reform efforts have slowed in the face of a challenging question: how can we reduce reliance on prisons while still discouraging crime, particularly violent crime? Through the 1970's, social scientists believed the answer was an array of what I will call preventive benefits: drug and mental health treatment, housing, and even unconditional cash payments. But early evaluations of these programs failed to find much evidence they were successful, confirming a then-developing economic theory that predicted they would fail.

This Article calls for a return to prevention. It first surveys evidence showing that a large fraction of prison spending has no incremental effect on crime reduction. And it offers the first detailed summary of the modern evidence on prevention. Preventive benefits have now been proven effective in a variety of settings. Along the way, I argue that a famous federal study of cash benefits was fundamentally misinterpreted as failure by its own authors.

Next, I lay out the theoretical economic case for preventive benefits. Standard theory rejects benefits because they are said to cost too much, and to potentially encourage some individuals to engage in risky behavior in order to be paid to stop. I suggest both these arguments rely on evidentiary claims that have now been found to be largely false.

In addition, I collect and synthesize a series of theoretical reasons why benefits would out-perform imprisonment. Among others, benefits enrich crime-stricken communities instead of further impoverishing them, as prison does. This simple fact has several important theoretical dimensions. I also show the ways in which the potential to deliver rewards ex ante, or before a crime has been committed, help to overcome a basic failing of prison: they do not require that humans be highly attentive to future consequences.


Montenegro and Serbia are stuck in the EU accession negotiations, while, with Albania and North Macedonia, the perspective of their future course is very unclear. Between still relatively fl uid elements of the new enlargement methodology presented in February 2020 and quite a weak political impulse given by the Zagreb Declaration adopted in May 2020, the potential accession to the EU of the four Western Balkans candidate countries remains not only uncertain, but seems even less realistic than it was after the Thessaloniki Summit in 2003. The paper shows how, just in the fi rst fi ve months of 2020, the path of the Western Balkans towards EU accession has managed to go one timid step forward and two solid steps back. First, some elements of a novel approach to accession are encouraging, but remain imprecise, often inapplicable and subject to potential divergent interpretation. Second, maintained top-down conditionality, combined with internal diffi culties of all Western Balkans countries and their high adjustment costs to meet membership criteria could lead to the crumbling of pro-European consensus and a decline of democracy. Finally, the Conclusions of the Zagreb Summit mentioned neither accession nor membership in the EU, confi rming the wavering political support for enlargement among Member States. The main methods used in the paper are content analysis and the comparative legal method, while the analysis of the Montenegrin and Serbian case provides evidence for the correlation between the weaknesses of the Zagreb Declaration and the hypothesised second step back in the accession process.


The thesis addresses the problem of analyzing prostate cancer biopsy image data. It describes an unsupervised semi-automated method for segmentation of Epithelial Nuclei in Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained Prostate Biopsy images and investigates its use in modeling the data and its effectiveness predicting cell alterations. Existing methods have largely focused on the use of Feulgen-stained prostate cancer biopsies in the analysis of Nuclear Morphometry due to its DNA staining capability. In this thesis the potential for the use of the more easily available H&E staining is investigated since H&E stains are widely used in medical diagnosis due to the simplicity in the staining procedure. Our results provide evidence that the H&E can yield a performance comparable to a reference method that uses Feulgen-stained biopsies. In this study, a set of over 180 features are extracted from each image in a database of 42 Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained negative prostate biopsies. Grouped as Cases (subjects with no cancer on their initial biopsy and subsequently received a cancer diagnosis) and Controls (followed for an equivalent period of time without cancer being detected). Prostate biopsies stained with H&E are studied as test and training samples in comparison with the Feulgen stained slide results. A robust algorithm, implemented in Matlab, has been developed for semi-automated segmentation of glandular structures in histopathology imagery using an Aperio ScanScope. K-Means clustering algorithm and other morphological operations are used to pre-process the images to filter out irrelevant structures. The nuclei centers obtained with Radial Symmetry Transform act as regional minima for Marker Controlled Watershed Segmentation. The approach detects multiple nuclei from a closely spaced/merged cluster of nuclei. Architectural and texture features were measured for each cell image. The method provides good performance in terms of segmentation accuracy. In this preliminary study, the good agreement between the morphometric results and general histomorphologic data demonstrates the importance of nuclear morphometric analysis using H&E stains in benign prostate biopsies, which could be extended to other cancer types. The person-level Multi-Feature Score (pMFS) is produced by applying Logistic Regression to the reduced feature set. Its result is verified by an Area-Under-receiver-operating-Curve (AUC) value of 0.77.


We have previously shown that the retinoid-related orphan receptor alpha (RORα) phosphorylation plays a pivotal role in sulfotransferase 1E1 gene regulation within mouse liver. Here, we found serine 100–phosphorylated RORα orchestrates constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) and hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha (HNF4α) to induce CYP2B6 by phenobarbital (PB) in human primary hepatocytes (HPHs). RORα knockdown using small interfering RNAs suppressed CYP2B6 mRNAs in HPH, whereas transient expression of RORα in COS-1 cells activated CYP2B6 promoter activity in reporter assays. Through chromatin immunoprecipitation (IP) and gel shift assays, we found that RORα in the form of phosphorylated (p-) S100 directly bound to a newly identified RORα response element (RORα response element on CYP2B6 promoter, −660/−649) within the CYP2B6 promoter in untreated or treated HPH. In PB-treated HPH, p-Ser100 RORα was both enriched in the distal phenobarbital response element module (PBREM) and the proximal okadaic acid response element (OARE), a known HNF4α binding site. Chromatin conformation capture assay revealed direct contact between the PBREM and OARE only in PB-treated HPH. Moreover, CAR preferably interacted with phosphomimetically mutated RORα at Ser100 residue in co-IP assay. A gel shift assay with a radiolabeled OARE module and nuclear extracts prepared from PB-treated mouse liver confirmed that HNF4α formed a complex with Ser 100–phosphorylated RORα, as shown by supershifted complexes with anti–p-Ser100 RORα and anti-HNF4α antibodies. Altogether, the results established that p-Ser100 RORα bridging the PBREM and OARE orchestrates CAR and HNF4α to form active chromatin complex during PB-induced CYP2B6 expression in human primary hepatocytes. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT CYP2B6 is a vital enzyme for the metabolic elimination of xenobiotics, and it is prone to induction by xenobiotics, including phenobarbital via constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) and hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha (HNF4α). Here, we show that retinoid-related orphan receptor alpha (RORα), through phosphorylated S100 residue, orchestrated CAR-HNF4α interaction on the CYP2B6 promoter in human primary hepatocyte cultures. These results signify not only the role of RORα in the molecular process of CYP2B6 induction, but it also reveals the importance of conserved phosphorylation sites within the DNA-binding domain of the receptor.


There is a tendency among pre-hospital and emergency medicine practitioners to be "early adopters". We have a love of gadgetry, perhaps because of our drive to "do" something to the patient at the time of their greatest need, to save them from the worst possible illnesses and injuries, and our occasional but still worryingly frequent frustration at our inability to do so.

This makes us a gift to industry representatives seeking opportunities to have highly motivated clinicians to "trial" new equipment and to share their enthusiasm with others. This enthusiasm is often initiated by the unassailable logic presented by the salesman about why the equipment should work, perhaps supported by carefully selected "evidence". This, however, is more likely to be based on small studies of poor quality, often using animal models or proxy outcomes rather than reliable clinical end points such as objectively measurable changes in morbidity and mortality, particularly when a piece of equipment is new to the market.

Most clinicians are well aware that, before any drug can be used for patient care, it must be evaluated for safety and efficacy in well designed, adequately powered, ethically approved double-blind placebo-controlled randomised phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials. The results of these …


IT governance is one of these concepts that suddenly emerged and became an important issue in the information technology area. Many organisations started with the implementation of IT governance to achieve a better alignment between business and IT. This paper carries interpretations regarding important existing theories, models, and practices in the IT governance domain and presents research questions derived from it. Next, multiple research strategies are triangulated in order to explore how organisations are implementing IT governance and to analyse the relationship between these implementations and business/IT alignment. The major finding is that business/IT alignment maturity is higher when organisations are applying a mix of mature IT governance practices.


We present a series of learning algorithms and theoretical guarantees for designing accurate ensembles of structured prediction tasks. This includes several randomized and deterministic algorithms devised by converting on-line learning algorithms to batch ones, and a boosting-style algorithm applicable in the context of structured prediction with a large number of labels. We give a detailed study of all these algorithms, including the description of new on-line-to-batch conversions and learning guarantees. We also report the results of extensive experiments with these algorithms in several structured prediction tasks.


Lipoid proteinosis (LP) is an uncommon, recessively inherited disorder. The disease usually has its onset in the newborn period and is manifested by hoarseness. The skin and mucous membrane involvement arises between the first and second year of age. A 14‐year‐old male presented with the complaint of blistering on various sites of his skin, from the age of 12 months, resulting in scarring. Ophthalmological and psychiatric findings also appeared during the clinical course. The histological findings of skin biopsy included extensive deposits of amorphous eosinophilic material in the papillary dermis. No known therapy exists for LP.


This investigation documents the key anatomical features in embryo development of Cypripedium formosanum Hayata, in association with the ability of embryos to germinate in vitro, and examines the effects of culture media and seed pretreatments on seed germination. A better understanding of zygotic embryogenesis for the Cypripedium L. spe- cies would provide insights into subsequent germination events and aid in the in vitro propagation of these endangered species. In seeds collected at 60 days after pollination (DAP), soon after fertilization, no germination was recorded. The best overall germination was found at 90 DAP (≈70%), at which time early globular to globular embryos with a single-celled suspensors can be observed. After 135 DAP, the seeds germinated poorly. At this time the inner integument shrinks and forms a tight layer, which encloses the embryo, the so-called "carapace." Using Nile red stain, a cuticular substance was detected in the carapace, which may play a role in the impermeability of the mature seed and may help the seeds survive in the stringent environment. At maturity (after 210 DAP), the embryo proper has an average size of eight cells along its length and six cells across the width. Lipids and proteins are the main storage products within the embryo. To improve seed germination, experiments were conducted to test the suitability of various media and pretreatments of seeds. When different media were used, except for the Harvais medium at 120 DAP, there was no signifi cant difference in seed germination at three different developmental stages tested. Soaking mature seeds in 1% NaOCl or treating them with ultrasound may slightly increase the germination percentage. For seed germination, our results indicate that the timing of seed collection outweighs the composition of medium and the seed pretreatments.


Human cortical activities in regard to flickering lights with different regularities of luminance fluctuations were investigated. The regularities of luminance fluctuations were changed by utilizing a sinusoidal wave of 1-Hz frequency and band noises with different bandwidths centered on 1 Hz. A pair of the most- and less-preferred stimuli, which were selected according to the results of subjective preference tests, was presented to the subject via a single, green light-emitting diode (LED). Whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals in the theta, alpha, and beta ranges were analyzed by autocorrelation function (ACF). Significant results were found regarding the alpha activity over the left occipital region: the values of effective duration (τ e ) of the MEG signals in the alpha range were significantly larger for the most-preferred stimuli than those for the less-preferred stimuli. Given that the value of τ e represents a repetitive feature contained within the signal, the results indicate that the stable rhythm of the alpha activity over the left occipital region persists longer for more-preferred regularity of a fluctuating light.


Pattern formation in plants has to cope with ambient variability and therefore must integrate environmental cues such as light. Synchrony of cell divisions was previously observed in cell files of tobacco suspension cultures, which represents a simple case of pattern formation. To develop cellular approaches for light-dependent patterning, light-responsive tobacco cell lines were screened from the cell line Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. Virginia Bright Italia 0 (VBI-0). The light responsive and auxin-autonomous cell line VBI-3 was isolated. As in the progenitor line VBI-0, cell divisions are synchronized in VBI-3 during exponential growth phase. This synchrony can be inhibited by 1-N-naphthylphthalamic acid, an auxin transport inhibitor, and this process was accompanied by the disassembly of actin filaments. However, the synchrony could be rescued when the cells were cultured under white light or with exogenous indolyl-3-acetic acid. The rescue was most efficient for continuous far-red light followed by continuous blue light, whereas continuous red light was least effective. These findings are discussed in the context of phytochrome-induced auxin biosynthesis and auxin-dependent synchrony of cell division.


We use a comprehensive longitudinal dataset on criminal acts over five years in a European country to study specialization in criminal careers. We cluster crime categories by their relative co-occurrence within criminal careers, deriving a natural, data-based taxonomy of criminal specialization. Defining specialists as active criminals who stay within one category of offending behavior, we study their socio-demographic attributes, geographic range, and positions in their collaboration networks, relative to their generalist counterparts. In comparison to generalists, specialists tend to be older, more likely to be female, operate within a smaller geographic range, and collaborate in smaller, more tightly-knit local networks. We observe that specialists are more intensely embedded in criminal networks and find evidence that specialization indeed reflects division of labor and organization.


In the article "Interleukin-1beta Augments Release of Norepinephrine, Dopamine, and Serotonin in the Rat Anterior Hypothalamus," Futoshi Shintani et al., pp. 3574–3581 in the August 1993 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, there is an error in Figure 5. The symbols in the upper half of the figure are incorrectly labeled. The open circle should be labeled DXM + IL-1beta, and the solid circle should be labeled DXM + VEHICLE. The authors regret the error.


This study explores the experiences of Indo-Trinidadian youth and their self-identity. It seeks to generate an understanding of how Indo-Trinidadian youth have to negotiate their identity after migration from Trinidad to Canada. This negotiation comes as a result of their hybrid identity - racially South Asian but culturally Caribbean. Because school is the first space of socialization that immigrant youth encounter after family, this study focuses on issues faced in school. Using a qualitative research design, this study examines the personal narratives of eight (four males and four females) Indo-Trinidadian youth. The in-depth interviews with these youth bring forth the notion that Indo-Trinidadian youth are constantly reconstructing their identities as they negotiate between their Indian and Caribbean cultures. This paper highlights the challenges, that Indo-Trinidadian youth encounter as well as the ways in which they address them, essentially leading to a sense of agency for their self identity.


Practical solutions are needed to ensure that communication centers remain viable resources for the 21st century student (Nair, 2011). In order to preserve the communication center's status as a necessary campus space, and to increase its influen ce beyond a single physical location, technology must be employed as a means to enhance student communication skills. This paper proposes utilizing virtual reality, augmented reality, and wearable technology as solutions to common concerns facing communica tion centers as they seek to increase the public speaking and general multimodal communication skills of students. To guide the potential usage of the aforementioned technologies, and as a lens through which their effects can be better understood, cognitiv e theory of multimedia learning and digital literacy are applied here.


Abstract. 40 percent of the world's population are presently living in coastal areas or along the main rivers. Taking into account that the vulnerability of these areas is increasing due to sea-level rise and coastal hazards such as storm surges or extreme rainfall events accompanied with floods, the importance of safety structures such as dykes is increasing as well. Hence, a spatial distributed dyke monitoring should be part of a sustainable adaptation strategy. Due to increasing amount of SAR-data from various satellites with high spatial and temporal coverage, the means of SAR-interferometry could be an essential tool to ensure this kind of required monitoring. Given this prospect, Persistent Scattering Interferometry (PSI) will be a very suitable monitoring technique for dyke structures to identify dyke movement with the accuracy of few millimetres. This procedure focuses on pixels that show a stable scattering behaviour in a sequence of multiple SAR-scenes. In opposition to ground-measurements, the spatial coverage of this technique provides comparable results for different parts of the dyke; furthermore weak segments with particular high movements could be identified in advance. This could prevent future dyke crevasses and help to reduce risks in high-populated areas. This paper attempts to describe the potential of the PSI technique for a spatial distributed dyke monitoring at the coast in northern Germany. 21 ERS-2 scenes and 16 Envisat ASAR scenes were analysed. Those Scenes cover an area of a sea shore dyke including a flood regulation barrage and results point out the potential for this technique to monitor dyke structures. Even though the observed dyke doesn't show any significant deformation rates, the two datasets show the same signal for the whole dyke.


Characterization of adrenergic stimuli on luteinizing hormone (LH) release induced by ovarian steroids in short-term ovariectomized (OVX) rats was studied. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were OVX about 1000 h on the diestrous day 1. After ovariectomy, rats were immediately inserted estradiol-containing Silastic capsules s.c. and implanted atrial Silastic tubing for frequent blood samplings. All the rats received 2 mg of progesterone s.c. at 0930 h the next morning. At 1200 h, the rats received additional treatments: a saline vehicle, prazosin HC1 (an alpha 1-adrenergic antagonist), yohimbine HC1 (an alpha 2-adrenergic antagonist), or propranolol HC1 (a beta-adrenergic antagonist) s.c., respectively. Two different doses of individual adrenergic antagonists were used on an equimolar basis in order to show their effectiveness on steroids-induced LH secretion. Blood samples were collected before and 1, 3, and 5 hours after the treatments through indwelt tubings. LH surge induced by ovarian steroids was suppressed/delayed by prazosin and yohimbine, but potentiated by propranolol in a dose-dependent manner. Results suggested that the hypothalamic alpha 1-, alpha 2-, and beta-adrenoreceptors were involved in the control of LH surge in the short-term OVX-steroids-primed rats. Principally, the alpha 1- and alpha 2-adrenoreceptors played a facilitatory role, and the beta-adrenoreceptors played an inhibitory role in the regulation of LH surge induced by ovarian steroids.


Ion channels have recently attracted attention as potential mediators of skin disease. Here, we explored the consequences of genetically encoded induction of the cell volume-regulating Ca2+-activated KCa3.1 channel (Kcnn4) for murine epidermal homeostasis. Doxycycline-treated mice harboring the KCa3.1+-transgene under the control of the reverse tetracycline-sensitive transactivator (rtTA) showed 800-fold channel overexpression above basal levels in the skin and solid KCa3.1-currents in keratinocytes. This overexpression resulted in epidermal spongiosis, progressive epidermal hyperplasia and hyperkeratosis, itch and ulcers. The condition was accompanied by production of the pro-proliferative and pro-inflammatory cytokines, IL-β1 (60-fold), IL-23 (34-fold), IL-6 (33-fold), and TNFα (26-fold) in the skin. Treatment of mice with the KCa3.1-selective blocker, Senicapoc, significantly suppressed spongiosis and hyperplasia, as well as induction of IL-β1 (−88%), IL-23 (−77%), and IL-6 (−90%). In conclusion, KCa3.1-induction in the epidermis caused expression of pro-proliferative cytokines leading to spongiosis, hyperplasia and hyperkeratosis. This skin condition resembles pathological features of eczematous dermatitis and identifies KCa3.1 as a regulator of epidermal homeostasis and spongiosis, and as a potential therapeutic target.


Pure cyclotron spectra of polars produced during their low accretion states are deduced. We used the working hypothesis that the cyclotron emission is produced by electrons spiraling down the dipole magnetic field lines and forming an accretion plasma column on top of the magnetic pole of a white dwarf. The velocity distribution function of electrons emitting cyclotron radiation is assumed to be a bi-Maxwellian. Since the radiating electrons in a million-Gauss magnetic field seek their respective magnetic mirrors, the perpendicular components of their velocity vectors are assumed to be greater than the parallel ones in the radiation region. This assumption implies that the cyclotron radiation is emitted more or less in the perpendicular direction (to the local magnetic field). Then we investigated the contribution of the ordinary and the extraordinary wave modes to the luminosity. The model predictions seem to be consistent with observations. We present the model cyclotron spectra of a randomly chosen polar, UZ For, as a case study.


Purpose: to estimate efficiency of treatment of analogues of insulin Glargin and insulin Detemir in patients with diabetes type 2. Material and methods. 147 patients with diabetes type 2 which have been initially receiving combined therapy by oral antihyperglycemic agent and NPH-insulin have been under the study. Level of glycated hemoglobin has been defined in 3 and 6 months for the general assessment of control of aglycemia. Results. According to the study the use of insulin analogues (Detemir, Glargin) versus NPH insulin for 6 months allowed to reach individual target values of glycemia in 70% of patients with diabetes type 2 with a low risk of hypoglycemia. Conclusion. The use in clinical practice of modern insulin analogues and simple algorithm for dose titration, allows simulating as closely as possible the physiological insulin secretion, helping to achieve compensation of carbohydrate metabolism in larger numbers of patients in comparison with NPH insulin.


We investigate the determinants of capital structure choice by analyzing the financing decisions of public firms in the major industrialized countries. At an aggregate level, firm leverage is fairly similar across the G-7 countries. We find that factors identified by previous studies as correlated in the cross-section with firm leverage in the United States, are similarly correlated in other countries as well. However, a deeper examination of the U.S. and foreign evidence suggests that the theoretical underpinnings of the observed correlations are still largely unresolved.


A family of new integral equations (NIE) is proposed in this paper, which are transformed from the original Lippmann-Schwinger integral equation. It can be shown that the NIE can effectively reduce the nonlinearity of inverse scattering problems by reducing the global nonlinear effects, introduced by the multiple scattering behaviors, in estimating the contrast. Equipping the previously proposed twofold subspace-based optimization method with such NIE, the new inversion method is able to solve inverse scattering problems with strong scatterers, like with high contrast and/or large dimensions (in terms of wavelength) ones. Furthermore, such a family of NIE could provide a convenient tool to appraise reconstructed results. Several representative numerical tests are carried out, using both synthetic and experimental data, to verify the efficacy of the new inversion method.


Obesity
The sense of smell (olfaction) can affect the appreciation and anticipation of food. Riera et al. found that the activity of olfactory sensory neurons also influences energy regulation. Inhibition of olfactory perception in lean mice and mice with diet-induced obesity showed that losing the sense of smell resulted in leaner mice, but not because they ate less. Mice that could not smell had higher levels of energy expenditure and fat-burning capacity because sympathetic nerve activity became elevated in adipose tissue. Conversely, mice with hypersensitive olfaction had greater adiposity and exhibited signs of diabetes. It appears that being able to smell has a direct systemic effect on regulating body energy homeostasis.

Cell Metab. 26 , 198 (2017).


A new microwave tomography prototype for the inspection of wood materials is described and experimentally tested in this paper. The system prototype is composed by a set of microwave antennas, used for both illuminating the sample and collecting field measurements, a custom RF hardware, and a hybrid tomographic inversion scheme. The antennas are placed in contact with the outer structure of the sample, e.g., a tree trunk, and are optimized to radiate inside the inspected region. A switching matrix connects the set of antennas with a custom vector network analyzer, which is used for acquiring multistatic and multiview field measurements at multiple frequencies. The measured data are processed by means of a combined qualitative/quantitative inversion method. In particular, in a first step, the field scattered by the inner inhomogeneities or inclusions is estimated, producing also a qualitative image of the sample. Then, these data are utilized by a deterministic inversion algorithm in order to obtain a quantitative reconstruction of the dielectric properties of the structure under test.


Data is inaccurate because it does not have a relevant data repository, data can be lost or damaged, inefficient data search and technicians cannot know for sure the amount of stock available. Based on some of the research above, the inventory information system for Laboratory goods in the Information Technology Study Program will be designed and built based on a website using the Laravel framework. The system development method used is the Incremental model. Incremental models are the result of a combination of elements from the waterfall model that are applied repeatedly, or it can be called a combination of the waterfall model and the Prototype Model. During testing, many errors were found in the system. Testing was carried out 4 times with a total of 164 test cases. In the first test, 98 bugs were found which were then reported to the programmer to be fixed. In the second test, 40 errors were found, in the third test, 19 errors were found, and in the last test conducted by the examiner, 0 bugs were found. The design of the Laboratory Goods Inventory Information System (SIMBA) begins with analyzing the weaknesses of the old system using the PIECES method. Then proceed with conducting a system requirements analysis and system feasibility analysis. After the analysis phase, it is continued with the design stage which begins with the UML design method.


In this paper the author does not try to develop a complete theory of labor migration from the agricultural to the non-agricultural sector of an economy; rather, he tries to express some ideas and to investigate some ad hoc hypotheses which have been taken by some theorists. Therefore, in the first two sections of this paper he summarizes, in some way, the existing theoretical and empirical work in this area of research, and in the following five sections, he tries to extend it by investigating in a more analytical way the determinants and the mechanics of labor migration between the two sectors of an economy, i.e. the agricultural and nonagricultural.


When rain falls on the city, it creates urban runoff that cause flooding, erosion, and water pollution. Municipal engineers manage a complex network of technical and natural systems to treat and remove these temporary water flows from cities as quickly as possible. Urban runoff is frequently discussed in terms of technical expertise and environmental management, but it encompasses a multitude of such nontechnical issues as land use, quality of life, governance, aesthetics, and community identity, and is central to the larger debates on creating more sustainable and livable cities. In this book, Andrew Karvonen uses urban runoff as a lens to view the relationships among nature, technology, and society. Offering theoretical insights from urban environmental history, human geography, landscape and ecological planning, and science and technology studies as well as empirical evidence from case studies, Karvonen proposes a new relational politics of urban nature. After describing the evolution of urban runoff practices, Karvonen analyzes the urban runoff activities in Austin and Seattle -- two cities known for their highly contested public debates over runoff issues and exemplary storm water management practices. The Austin case study highlights the tensions among urban development, property rights, land use planning, and citizen activism; the Seattle case study explores the city's long-standing reputation for being in harmony with nature. Drawing on these accounts, Karvonen suggests a new relational politics of urban nature that is situated, inclusive, and action-oriented to address the tensions among nature, technology, and society.


The aim of this paper is to first and foremost review various literatures on agricultural financing in Nigeria and study the various streams and impact of financing that are available to the smallholder farmers, and secondly, to propose a direction for future research in enhancing the utilization of these funds for sustainable development of smallholder farming in Nigeria.

This paper is based on review of articles identified using the following search algorithm: ldquoagriculturalrdquo, (ldquofinancerdquo or ldquofundingrdquo or ldquocreditrdquo), ldquoAfricardquo, and ldquoNigeriardquo published between 2015 to 2017. The author identified 146 articles from the Emerald Insight database and 722 articles from the ScienceDirect database After removing duplicates and carrying out a thorough analysis based on the problem studied, 59 papers were included in this study. The framework for evaluating the need for smallholder farming financing in Nigeria was studied based on the use of modern farming technology, the level of farm productivity and the livelihood of the farmers.

The definition of the term agricultural financing in this article was defined from the perspective of the provision of credit for agricultural activities by the smallholder farmers. While, several literatures that were reviewed indicated that there has been funding provisioned to the smallholder farming industry in Nigeria, but the impact of these funds in terms of level of farm productivity, use of modern farming technology and the livelihood of the farmers is yet to be experienced. To the best of my knowledge, limited study on the evaluation of institutional sector financing has so far been conducted.


The sole objective of this paper was to investigate the poverty implications of COVID-19 on Nigerians, relative to the effectiveness of the government's social protection programs in mitigating the socioeconomic strain caused by the pandemic. The paper used documentary analysis to assess the impact of COVID-19 on Nigerians' socioeconomic lives and the government's policy response to the situation. The review found that COVID-19 exacerbated the existing poverty in Nigeria, and most of the government policy programs were not effective in mitigating the effects. We concluded that government policy responses to the socioeconomic strain caused by the pandemic were ineffective due to the pre-existing poor performance of social protection programs in Nigeria before the onset of COVID-19. As the world prepares for future pandemics, we recommend that the Nigerian government overhaul the existing social protection programs on poverty alleviation in Nigeria by addressing all gaps and looking for effective and strategic ways such programs can achieve desirable results.


In order to evaluate the distribution of occasional oil spills produced by floating system for transferring crude oil, the number of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria was counted in superficial sediments from Bahia Blanca Estuary, using the Most Probable Number method. Sediment were collected from ten stations located between buoys 21 and 16. Heterotrophic aerobic marine bacteria were counted on Marine Agar 2216. Determination of organic carbon was also carried out. On the base of the number of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, statistical analysis differentiated two zones with different degree of pollution, one including the stations of the Principal Channel, with average values, expressed as log10, which ranged from 2.98 to 3.65 bacteria/g of dry sediment, and the other from 4.16 to 4.37, located in small channels on the Southern coast. These results suggest a drift of the oil perpendicular to the Principal Channel, probably caused by the action of predominant winds with direction N, NNW. A linear regression analysis determined highly significant relationship between organic carbon and both bacterial groups. This study shows that the spilled oil is affecting productive zones of the estuary.


Hysteretic aftereffects in the elbow joint movements were studied on unanaesthetized cats. Flexor and extensor movements were evoked by microstimulation of the motor cortex. The cortically evoked movements were tested mechanically by applying the servo-controlled torque changes to the joint. Stiffness of the joint depended on the direction of previous movement and was significantly larger after changes in direction of movement. That led to uncertainty in the equilibrium value of the joint angle, which was demonstrated under cyclic changes of torque.


Introduction: The relationship between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and drug abuse has been indicated in earlier studies. This study was aimed to compare the prevalence of ADHD between Methamphetamine (Glass) abusing and dependent adults, referring to addiction treatment centers in Tehran, with a Control group.Methods: In this cohort study, the case group included the over-18-year individuals with only glass abuse background and an at least 1-month interval from their last abuse, referring to the specialist addiction treatment clinic of Iran Psychiatry Hospital and two outpatient addiction treatment centers on West and East Tehran, September 2014 to August 2015. The control Group included some 18-year and above staff at that hospital. The cases were given a combination of three questionnaires and provided with the necessary explanations to answer them. The obtained information was analyzed statistically using SPSS (chi square Test and the t-test).Results: Both the case and the control groups included 60 individuals with a mean of 30.8 years (SD = 8.92) and 32.29 years (SD = 6.85) respectively. The females in the case and control were 10 16.7%) and 37 (62.5%), respectively. The mean scores for the Wender Utah Rating Scale were also 20.21 ± 62.16 and 10.31 ± 14.37. Based on the test analysis, there were some evidence for childhood ADHD for 71.7% of the case group and only 1.6% of the control group. The results of the CAARS questionnaire represent a possible diagnosis of adulthood ADHD for 63.3% of the case group and 1.6% of the control Group.Conclusions: ADHD is much more prevalent over Methamphetamine abusers than the normal population. This dramatic difference indicates the necessity of ADHD examinations to plan an appropriate treatment plan and implementing a more effective treatment for them.


ABSTRACT Starts with excerpt from Jenny Cheshire, A question of masculine bias? (ET1, 1985). The author says; My 1985 article ended on an upbeat note, confidently predicting that as more people take care to remove masculine bias from their own English, so the language will gradually stop distorting our perceptions of women. The twenty-two years that have passed represent pretty much a generation of speakers, making this a good time to consider whether or not my confidence was misplaced. How successful have language reforms been?


We are grateful to Francis Nolan and to the Cambridge intonation group for their interest and comments. We are also grateful to our reviewers, Abstract A comparison of the contour alignment of nuclear and initial prenuclear accents was carried out for the Irish dialects of Gaoth Dobhair in Ulster (GD-U) and Cois Fharraige in Connaught (CF-C). This was done across conditions where the number of unstressed syllables following the nuclear and preceding the initial prenuclear accents was varied from 2-0. This tests a variable peak hypothesis prompted by findings for other languages, that peak timing drifts as a function of the number of syllables preceding (the prenuclear) and following (the nuclear) accent. These data also test a second hypothesis that the L*+H dominant accent of GD-U might be viewed as being underlyingly the same as the dominant H* or H*+L accent of the CF-C dialect. According to this realignment hypothesis, the difference between these Ulster and Connaught dialects lies in the way that the melodic tier is aligned to the segmental tier: GD-U would be viewed as having a delayed realisation of the peak relative to the Connaught dialect. Results do not support the variable peak hypothesis for Irish, as in either dialect, the peak appeared to be rather fixed across the three conditions examined (though not necessarily identical for prenuclear and nuclear positions). The results also militate against the realignment hypothesis, which rather than providing a more simple unifying account, would greatly complicate it. One reason is that there is a peak timing difference between the nuclear and prenuclear accents of CF-C, not mirrored in GD-U. Furthermore, even if one were to limit consideration to a single (e.g., prenuclear) context, a simple realignment of the accents in one dialect does not generate the appropriate contour in the other.


The impact of the external shocks on Pakistan's development
 and on the accumulation balances of institutional sectors during the
 past two decades is quite well known. The shifts in the accumulation
 balances of institutions are invariably accompanied by changes in the
 nature and the magnitude of the claims placed with the fmancial system
 and with the rest of the world. At present, little is known about the
 nature of these changes, during this period, nor about the financial
 interdependence and the interaction among the private, the public and
 the external sectors of the economy. The growing financial problems of
 the country require a proper appreciation of the changing importance of
 different instruments in the debt portfolio of the government and other
 institutions and of the way capital formation is financed. A number of
 studies have used the flow-of-funds accounts framework to analyse the
 financial problems of developing countries, for example, [Jansen (1989);
 Roe (1985) and Bhatt (1972)]. In Pakistan, however, this subject has not
 received much attention. This paper is an attempt to fill this vacuum.
 It describes sectoral interactions within a flow-of-funds accounts
 framework, and distinguishes various channels through which sectoral
 accumulation balances come to an equilibrium by financial flows:
 intermediation through the formal banking system, direct capital
 transfers between institutions, government deficit fmancing from
 borrowing etc. Within this framework the impact of the changes in
 investment or in the federal deficit are traced to changes in the
 fmancial behaviour of the other sectors. The paper gives a presentation
 of the flow-of-funds accounts designed to understand the mechanics of
 financing investment and the government deficit. And helps to answer
 questions like what are the components of the federal
 deficit


Objective:Venous thromboembolic events (VTE) are potentially preventable causes of morbidity and mortality after injury. We hypothesized that the current clinical incidence of VTE is relatively low and that VTE risk factors could be identified. Methods:We queried the ACS National Trauma Data Bank for episodes of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and/or pulmonary embolism (PE). We examined demographic data, VTE risk factors, outcomes, and VTE prophylaxis measures in patients admitted to the 131 contributing trauma centers. Results:From a total of 450,375 patients, 1602 (0.36%) had a VTE (998 DVT, 522 PE, 82 both), for an incidence of 0.36%. Ninety percent of patients with VTE had 1 of the 9 risk factors commonly associated with VTE. Six risk factors found to be independently significant in multivariate logistic regression for VTE were age ≥40 years (odds ratio [OR] 2.01; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.74 to 2.32), lower extremity fracture with AIS ≥3 (OR 1.92; 95% CI 1.64 to 2.26), head injury with AIS ≥3 (OR 1.24; 95% CI 1.05 to 1.46), ventilator days >3 (OR 8.08; 95% CI 6.86 to 9.52), venous injury (OR 3.56; 95% CI 2.22 to 5.72), and a major operative procedure (OR 1.53; 95% CI 1.30 to 1.80). Vena cava filters were placed in 3,883 patients, 86% as PE prophylaxis, including in 410 patients without an identifiable risk factor for VTE. Conclusions:Patients who need VTE prophylaxis after trauma can be identified based on risk factors. The use of prophylactic vena cava filters should be re-examined.


Small molecules that can organise themselves through reversible bonds to form new molecular structures have great potential to form self-assembling systems. In this study, C60 has been functionalized with components capable of self-assembling via hydrogen bonds in order to form supramolecular structures. Functionalizing the cage not only enhances the solubility of C60 but also alters its electronic properties. In order to analyse the changes in electronic properties of C60 and those of the new derivatives and self-assembled structures, an integrated computational and experimental approach has been used.
DNA bases were among the components chosen for functionalizing C60 since these structures are the best example for self-assembly in nature. Experimental routes for novel C60 derivatives functionalised with thymine, adenine, cytosine and guanine have been explored using the Prato reaction. A number of challenges in synthesizing the aldehyde analogues of the DNA bases have been identified, and a number of different solutions have been tested. Samples of N-methyl-2-thymin-N-ylfulleropyrrolidine have been isolated and N-methyl-2-adenin-N-ylfulleropyrrolidine has also been characterised.
Zeolites, because of their ordered cages and channels, were selected as a template for the self-assembly of the fullerene derivatives to enable the formation of ordered arrays. The adsorption of the thymine-fullerene derivative (N-methyl-2-thymin-N-ylfulleropyrrolidine) into the openings of zeolite channels has been confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis.
Two additional hydrogen-bonding fullerene derivatives have been modelled: N-propylthymine and diaminopyridine. Furthermore, methanofullerene derivatives functionalised with DNA bases have also been modelled. Monomer and dimer structures have been optimised using semi-empirical methods and density functional theory (DFT) using B3LYP/6-31G**. The HOMO, LUMO and HOMO-LUMO gap energies as well as the frontier HOMO and LUMO electron density distribution of the structures have been calculated to get an insight into the reactivity of the C60 derivatives. Results for the HOMO, LUMO and band gap energies in the gas phase are comparable with previous studies. Solvent effects on the electronic properties of the monomers have been calculated. It is shown that the electronic properties are altered in the solvent environments, which may be important when choosing solvents to prepare devices. The dimers have been modelled in seesaw and dumb-bell conformations and the formation energies have been calculated to predict the preferred growth pattern of the molecular architectures.
In summary, it can be seen that the computational calculations can help experimentalists identify molecules with interesting properties and the challenges encountered developing effective synthesis pathways emphasise the need for even more integration of approaches to designing novel fullerene derivatives with tailored properties.


This chapter outlines our development of an in vitro soft agar assay for detection of human myeloma colony-forming cells. Growth was induced with either 0.02 ml of human type O erythrocytes or 0.25 ml of medium conditioned by the adherent spleen cells of mineral-oil-primed BALB/c mice. A maximum plating efficiency of 0.1% was obtained. The number of myeloma colonies was proportional to the number of cells plated between concentrations of 105--106/ml. Morphological, histochemical, and functional criteria showed the colonies to consist of immature plasmablasts and mature plasma cells. 60%--80% of cells picked from colonies contained intracytoplasmic monoclonal immunoglobulin. Tritiated thymidine suicide studies provided evidence that for most myeloma patients, a very high proportion of myeloma colony-forming cells were actively in transit through the cell cycle. Using biophysical and immunologic studies, we were able to further characterize myeloma stem cells and obtain partial enrichment of the colony-forming cells. Increased numbers of myeloma colonies were seen when the marrow was depleted of CSF, elaborating adherent cells before plating. Antibody to granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, which did inhibit granulocyte colony formation, did not reduce the number or size of the myeloma colonies. This bioassay has subsequently served as the basis for studies of in vitro biological behavior of multiple myeloma, and for measurement of drug sensitivity. The general methodology which we first developed for myeloma appears to have general applicability not only to monoclonal plasma cell disorders, but also to many other tumor types as well. Detailed biological studies and analysis of culture conditions (similar to those we have carried out in myeloma) will no doubt prove important in understanding the biology and drug sensitivity of various forms of human cancer.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the context of open innovation offered by accelerators can affect the successful growth of start-ups. The authors explore accelerators practices and tools in sustaining start-ups and increasing survival probability in their innovation process, with the aim of addressing the following research question: how can start-ups benefit from participation in an accelerator programme from an open innovation perspective?

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the literature on start-up successes and failures and on major practices in the open innovation paradigm was carried out, delineating them in the context of accelerators. Given the absence of literature on accelerator practices for supporting start-ups, and aiming at a comprehensive understanding of how the open environment within the accelerator influences a start-up's survival (or even success) by mitigating the probability of failure, the authors conducted an exploratory case study in an English accelerator.

Findings

The open innovation practices mediated by an accelerator and the ones that are not covered, but that can benefit a start-up's survival, are shown. On the one hand, main effective practices, such as dyadic co-creation with accelerator network partners and crowdsourcing, are revealed to address mostly the lack of, or wrong direction in, product, marketing and relative managerial abilities, which are not usually owned by a start-up due to its "newness". On the other hand, some causes of failures, such as the intrinsic characteristics of founder teams, do not seem to be addressed by an open approach and neither does participation in an accelerator programme.

Originality/value

This paper is the first to study and link the literature on accelerators, start-ups and open innovation.


Mass transfer by molecular diffusion is the basic physical mechanism underlying many important areas of chemical engineering and petroleum engineering. In recent years, the problem of mass transfer by the mechanism of molecular diffusion in oil reservoirs, when a non-equilibrium gas is injected into the reservoir, has become increasingly important. In oil recovery projects, gas is injected into oil reservoirs for different reasons such as maintenance of reservoir pressure and enhanced recovery of oil. In these two cases the rate of dissolution of a gas such as methane in a quiescent body of hydrocarbon oil is controlled primarily by the rate of diffusion of the dissolved gas from the gas-oil interface into the body of the liquid phase. In all the above situations, molecular diffusion of gas into liquid or transfer of dissolved gas between enriched and heavier liquid phase due to differences in compositional gradients between gas and liquid phases is important. The most important property required to determine the rate of mass transfer between the two phases in all these cases is the molecular diffusion coefficient at high pressure and temperature. The present investigation is aimed at a systematic study of the mechanism of molecular diffusion of gases in liquids by measuring the diffusion coefficients of methane in dodecane and in a typical Iranian crude oil up to a pressure of 35 MPa and at several temperatures. All tests are conducted in an accurate high-pressure diffusion cell with "finite-domain" moving boundary behavior. The data acquired is used to assess the predictions of various available correlations for diffusion coefficients. Several liquid hydrocarbon swelling tests comprising dodecane and a typical Iranian crude oil as liquids and methane as gas are performed and swelling heights of liquid as a result of gas molecular diffusion are measured at various temperatures (T=25°C to82°C ) and pressures (P=3.2 to 35 MPa), characterized by a sharp increase in volume followed by gradual increase toward the saturation concentration of methane in the liquid phase. A mathematical model is developed to calculate diffusivities using semi-infinite boundary conditions, hi this model, a variable power profile with time is introduced to allow for the moving interface boundary. The current solutions offer significant improvement over those in previous literature that assume a steady-state interface boundary condition with a parabolic concentration profile. The proposed model offers excellent predictions of experimental data for diffusion coefficients of methane-dodecane and crude oil systems. A computer program using a neural network model is set-up to predict the dimensionless diffusivity for special use with more complex systems such as crude oil reservoir flows in fractures and matrix conditions. The results obtained by this software show about +/- 2% deviation in comparison with the experimental data from the diffusion cell experiments.


Soil infertility undermines the agriculture-based livelihoods in Malawi, where it is blamed for poor crop yields and the creation of cycles of poverty. Although technologies and management strategies have been developed to reverse the decline in soil fertility, they are under-used by smallholder farmers. This study was conducted to assess with farmers the performance of a range of maize-legume technologies and their benefits on soil fertility management in central Malawi. Farmer participatory experimentation was a focus of the study. The aim was to facilitate learning and the interpretation of experiences, improve the communication of information about the concepts and technologies to farmers, and provide insights for researchers.  Using a combination of survey and participatory methods, 136 smallholder farmers from Chisepo were grouped into four resource groups, comprising of better-resourced (RG 1 with 6 farmers), medium resourced (RG 2, 14 farmers), less well-resourced (RG 3, 64 farmers) and least-resourced groups (RG 4, 52 farmers). Analysing their livelihoods for their effects on soil fertility revealed that soil fertility management is a complex activity which is influenced by ownership of assets. Farmers from RG 1 and RG 2 owned more resources including cattle, had larger fields, hired-in labour for timely farm operations, earned more income and invested far more in soil fertility improvement. Farmers from RG 3 and 4 (who are in the large majority) were resource constrained and did not invest adequately in improving soil fertility. They had large food deficits due to poor crop yields. Ganyu labour (casual work done for other farmers for food or cash) was their main strategy to reduce food deficits. Farmers from all the four RGs were interested in working with research to explore strategies to improve soil fertility. They tested various grain- and green-manure-legumes, and mineral N and P fertiliser on maize and the legumes for effects on crop productivity and soil fertility. Associated production risk and interest in technology adoption were assessed.  On-farm evaluation was done on maize (cv. MH18) in rotation with pigeonpea cv. ICP 9145,intercropped with groundnut (cv. CG 7), (Mz/Pp+Gn); intercropped with tephrosia (Mz+Tv); intercropped with pigeonpea (Mz+Pp) and in rotation with mucuna (Mz/Mp). These technologies were compared with sole crop maize without fertiliser (Mz−Ft) or with 35 kg N ha-1(Mz+Ft) in experiments with 32 farmers from the four RGs over four years. Economic and risk assessments were made. Maize grain yields (accumulated over the four years) were greater for farmers from RG 1 and 2 than RGs 3 and 4. Mz+Pp and Mz+Tv gave greater cumulative yields than Mz/Pp+Gn and Mz/Mp. The legumes improved maize grain yields by between 0.2 and 4 t ha-1(P < 0.001) over Mz-Ft and additionally they gave legume grain to the household.Mz+Pp was less risky to all RGs, and applying 35 kg N ha-1to the legumes resulted in Mz+Tv, Mz/Pp+Gn and Mz/Mp being least risky to RG 1, RG2 and RG 3. Farmers in RG 1 had the highest returns to labour (USconv2.info.8 day-1with Mz-Ft and US.1 day-1with Mz+Pp) and these increased to 1.9 and 1.7 respectively with 35 kg N ha-1. Mz+Pp intercrop gave consistent positive returns across the RGs and was the only technology to provide positive returns to labour in RG 4. Use of pigeonpea was overall the least risky option, and was especially suited to least-resourced farmers.  Application of phosphorus fertiliser (0, 20 kg P ha-1) to legumes significantly (P = 0.05) increased grain and biomass yields for mucuna, groundnut, soyabean, Bambara groundnut and cowpea by 1.0, 0.8, 0.5, 1.0 and 0.3 t ha-1compared with unfertilised plots. Cowpea and fertilised groundnut had larger yields in the home fields than middle fields, but other legumes performed better (P = 0.05) in the middle fields.  Maize responses to small amounts of fertiliser (0, 15, and 30 kg N ha-1and 0, 20 kg P ha-1) in two weeding regimes showed that weeding twice significantly (P < 0.001) raised maize yields by 0.4 t ha-1over weeding once (0.9 t ha-1). Stover yields (significant at P < 0.001) were 2.3 and 1.6 t ha-1respectively. Mean grain N kg ha-1was 17.1 and 9.8 for plots weeded twice and once respectively while that of stover were 10.1 and 5.6 kg N ha-1. Applying N at 15 kg N ha-1increased maize yields, but the 30 kg N ha-1increased yield only on more clay soils due to the effects of mid-season dry spells on sandy soils. Except for the physiological efficiency of N (PEN), all agronomic indices of N use showed significant differences due to weeding (agronomic efficiency of applied fertiliser N (AEN) at P < 0.001, recovery efficiency of applied N (REN) and partial factor productivity for N (PFPN) at P < 0.01). The average PENof 40.7and PFPNof 78.8 in plots weeded twice were within the ranges of 40–60 kg grain kg-1N and 40–80 kg grain kg-1N applied respectively. AENand REN values of 38.7 and 0.9 respectively were above the common range of 10-30 kg grain kg-1 N applied and 0.3-0.5 or 0.5–0.8 kg N kg-1. Mean indices from plots weeded just once were all within the ranges stated above but lower than indices from plots weeded twice; suggesting the unsustainability of the use of fertiliser without means to raise its efficiency through better management or combination with organic resources. Weeding twice gave higher returns to labour (USconv2.info.30 day-1) than weeding once (USconv2.info.05 day-1) and gross margins of US5.00 and US.00 with labour taken into account respectively.Farmers need to ensure timely weeding to get decent efficiencies and returns from the fertiliser, especially in drier cropping seasons.  Using surveys, focus group discussions and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), adoption of the ten legumes introduced to farmers in Chisepo was assessed among 136 farmers in 2004 and 84 farmers in 2007. Thirty-five percent of the farmers in 2004 and 22% in 2007 had adopted at least one of the legumes, with food grain legumes predominantly soyabean, groundnut, pigeonpea and to a lesser extent Bambara groundnut and cowpea being most adopted. Mucuna and tephrosia were adopted by few farmers while sunnhemp and grahamiana were not adopted at all. Farmers from RGs 1 and 2 adopted more of the legumes than those from RG 3 and 4. Lack of consistent markets, a lack of seed for planting, as well as land and labour shortages were cited for weak adoption.  Soil fertility management by smallholder farmers is influenced by ownership of assets and the majority poorer farmers fail to invest adequately in improving soil fertility. In the absence of such resources, grain legumes will play an important role as a source of both food and organic matter to improve soil fertility. The participatory methods used in the study helped farmers better understand some of the soil fertility concepts and options, including the legumes. There is need to focus on how to assist farmers with practical knowledge to help them best combine organic and mineral fertiliser resources for improving soil fertility, and to develop and promote new dual-purpose legume options that feed humans and the soil.  Key words: Adoption, analytical hierarchy process, crop yield, financial returns, food security, household assets, legume integration, livelihoods, NP fertiliser, nitrogen use efficiency, production risk, resource groups, smallholder, soil fertility, weeding.


Background: Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) is a component of many combinations of antiretroviral treatment (ART) regimens. Although potent and generally well tolerated, TDF may cause renal and bone toxicity. The magnitude of off-target side effects is proposed to be related to tenofovir plasma concentrations, which are affected by food and drug–drug interactions with concomitant antiretrovirals. Objective: To perform a systematic literature review and qualitatively report on renal and bone safety outcomes associated with efavirenz (EFV), emtricitabine (FTC), and TDF (EFV+FTC+TDF) ART. Methods: Embase and PubMed databases were searched for randomized clinical trials and observational cohort studies reporting on HIV treatment with EFV+FTC+TDF. Relevant articles were hand-searched for renal (Grade 3–4 serum creatinine/estimated glomerular filtration rate elevations, renal adverse events [AEs], discontinuation due to renal AEs, and urinary biomarkers) and bone outcomes (bone mineral density [BMD] reductions, bone turnover markers, and fracture), and results compiled qualitatively. Results: Of 337 retrieved articles, 29 reporting renal and 11 reporting bone outcomes met the review criteria. EFV+FTC+TDF was associated with a low frequency of renal AEs and treatment discontinuations due to renal AEs. Renal AEs were more frequent when TDF was taken with protease inhibitor (PI)- or cobicistat-containing ART. EFV+FTC+TDF was associated with reduced BMD and increased bone turnover markers, but BMD reductions were less than with PI-containing ART. No treatment-related bone fractures were identified. Conclusions: EFV+FTC+TDF appeared to have a more favorable renal safety profile than TDF administered with a PI or cobicistat. BMD decreased with EFV+FTC+TDF, but no treatment-related fractures were identified.


Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have recently transformed the landscape for patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The addition of consolidation durvalumab after definitive chemo-radiotherapy improved progression-free and overall survival in unresectable stage III NSCLC patients. Experimental evidence of the potential of radiotherapy to enhance anticancer immunity has increased interest in combining radiotherapy and immunotherapy, particularly in the concurrent treatment modality. Being a complex setting, stage III NSCLC treatment cannot be separated from the involvement of a multidisciplinary team for the adequate identification and management of patients. Trials on the efficacy and safety of therapeutic strategies combined with radiotherapy, immunotherapy and chemotherapy for stage III disease are ongoing. Future studies should answer current questions about radiotherapy (timing, sequencing, dose and fractionation) and biomarkers in order to achieve better patient selection and more favorable survival outcomes.


Usher syndrome (USH) is a neurosensory disorder affecting both hearing and vision in humans. Linkage studies of families of USH patients, studies in animals, and characterization of purified proteins have provided insight into the molecular mechanisms of hearing. To date, 11 USH proteins have been identified, and evidence suggests that all of them are crucial for the function of the mechanosensory cells of the inner ear, the hair cells. Most USH proteins are localized to the stereocilia of the hair cells, where mechano-electrical transduction (MET) of sound-induced vibrations occurs. Therefore, elucidation of the functions of USH proteins in the stereocilia is a prerequisite to understanding the exact mechanisms of MET.


This article provides evidence that in Marvell's Upon the Hill and Grove at Bill-Borrow, the lines "Upon its crest this Mountain grave / A Plum of aged Trees does wave" in the Miscellaneous Poems of 1681 should read "Plume of aged Trees," as Marvell's 1726 editor Thomas Cooke proposed, not "Plump of aged Trees," as H. M. Margoliouth conjectured in his 1927 edition. The evidence relates to the meaning of the passage; "mechanical" and contextual considerations: Marvell's use elsewhere of significant terms in the stanza; and resonances of the passage with likely the single most important—but previously unidentified—source of stanzas V to X of the poem, Edward Fairfax's translation of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata. The article also notes other Marvell poems that draw on Fairfax's Tasso and some implications of the intertextual links.


This thesis argues that the globalisation of finance is rooted in the post-war processes of monetary transformation that gave rise to the US dollar as world money. It thereby contributes to the field of International Political Economy (IPE) which, to date, understands financial globalisation to be grounded in either the efficiency of financial markets, the interest of dominant states, or new private institutional developments. To give money a central place in the analysis of financial globalisation processes, this thesis develops a heterodox perspective that identifies three essential features of modern moneyness: money of account, the transferability of credit and debt relations, and the constitutive role of the state (especially central banks). During the early Bretton Woods era, the US dollar distinctively emerged as international money of account to settle claims and debts of European states through the operation of the EPU. It was not until the emergence of the Eurodollar market in the 1960s, however, that the US dollar developed its capacity to transfer dollar-denominated credit and debt relations across borders, largely as a result of European central banks placing their US dollar reserves with commercial banks operating in the offshore money market. The breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 deepened and widened both the role of the US dollar as world money of account and the dynamic transferability of dollar-denominated credit and debt relations, as the end of the link between gold and the dollar led US government debts to be regarded as the most sought-after debt. US government debts were foundational for the rise of the US dollar as world money and the process of financial globalisation. Finally, when managing inflationary pressures through the Volcker Shock, the Federal Reserve began to develop its capacity to deal directly with both the US money market and the Eurodollar market, thereby emerging as a world monetary authority able to manage the recurrent crises of globalising finance. Through the historical processes of monetary transformation, the US dollar was established as world money


Experiments have been carried out to measure the film thickness between a sapphire disc and a polished steel ball when slippage is permitted between the two surfaces. The velocity sum of the two surfaces was kept constant during the measurements. The method used to determine the oil film thickness in the contact zone is optical interferometry.

It was observed that the change in minimum film thickness was slight. When the sliding velocity was increased, the decrease in central film thickness was considerably larger than that of the minimum film thickness. In addition, the two side lobes, in which the minimum film thickness area occurs, were observed to become flatter as the sliding velocity was increased.


Morphometric differences in the optical morphology of symbiotic palaemonid shrimps can be observed among species symbiotic with different host organisms. Discriminant functional analysis revealed three distinct groups within the species examined. Of these, bivalve symbionts appear to have an eye design that is solely unique to this host-symbiont grouping, a design that spans across multiple genera of phylogenetically unrelated animals. Although some taxonomic effects may be evident, this does not explain the difference and similarities in eye morphology that are seen within these shrimps. Therefore evolutionary pressures from their host environments are having an impact on the optical morphology of their eyes however, as indicated by host-hopping events there ecological adaptations occur post host invasion.


Parkinson's disease (PD) known as Kampavata in Ayurveda , is a degenerative neurological disorder of central nervous system, mainly affecting the motor system. It is the major cause of disability in the aging society, which usually affects after the age of 50 years. This disease is increasing in its frequency with the world population showing an incidence of 1-2 per 1000 population and has equal sex distribution. Symptoms like Kampa (Tremor), Stambha (Rigidity), Chestasanga (Bradykinesia and Akinesia), Vakvikriti (disturbance in speech) etc were described in different contexts of Charaka Samhita, Susruta Samhita and Basavarajeeyam . There is no cure for Parkinson's disease, but medications, surgery and multidisciplinary management can provide relief and improve the quality of life of the individual. In the treatment aspect, the drug L-Dopa has shown better results similarly Ayurvedic drugs having the similar compounds are useful in this disorder. Based on the symptoms manifested, the disease can be correlated to Kampavata mentioned in Ayurveda classics. Despite of so many advances in the field of medicine, treatment of PD remains highly symptomatic. This instills the need for Ayurvedic management of Kampavata. The present article is intended to focus on the Nidana, Lakshanas, Samprapthi and the management principles of Parkinson's disease ( Kampavata).


We report on two patients who sustained Salter-Harris II fractures of the distal femur with physeal widening after being tackled in football games. Preoperative MRI indicated entrapped periosteum at the physeal fracture site for both patients. Both patients underwent open reduction of the physeal fracture with removal of the entrapped periosteum and achieving an anatomic reduction. Follow-up MRI's revealed premature physeal arrest. Subsequent procedures were performed to address sequelae of premature physeal arrest. The presence of physeal widening and entrapped periosteum may reflect high-energy trauma to the physis. This can result in injury to both the epiphyseal blood supply and to the physeal cartilage (germinal zone) resulting in physeal arrest despite anatomic reduction after removal of the entrapped periosteum. Upon literature review, pre-operative MRI demonstrating entrapped periosteum has not been previously reported. We hypothesize that the presence of entrapped periosteum following distal femoral physeal fractures may be associated with an increased risk for premature physeal arrest.


BACKGROUND: Treatment of bronchiectasis includes drugs, oxygen therapy, and bronchial-clearance maneuvers. OBJECTIVE: To assess the safety and efficacy of intrapulmonary percussive ventilation (IPV) compared to traditional standard chest physical therapy in patients with bronchiectasis and productive cough. METHODS: In a randomized crossover study, 22 patients underwent, on consecutive days, IPV and chest physical therapy. Before each treatment session, immediately after the session, 30 min after the session, and 4 hours after the session we measured SpO2, heart rate, respiratory rate, and (with a visual analog scale) the patient's subjective sensation of phlegm encumbrance and dyspnea. Immediately after each treatment session we also measured (via visual analog scale) the patient's discomfort. We also measured the volume and wet and dry weight of collected sputum. RESULTS: No adverse effects were so severe as to require discontinuation of treatment, and the incidence of adverse effects was similar in the groups (27%). Heart rate (P = .002) and respiratory rate (P = .047) decreased during treatment, and sensation of phlegm encumbrance improved (P = .03) with both treatments. Only IPV improved (P = .004) the sensation of dyspnea. The patients found IPV more comfortable than our traditional standard chest physical therapy (P = .03). Both treatments caused important phlegm production, but there were no differences in sputum volume, wet weight, or dry weight. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with bronchiectasis and productive cough, short-term IPV was as safe and effective as traditional chest physical therapy, with less discomfort.


The surfaces of aerial plant provide a habitat for epiphitic microorganisms many of which are capable of influencing the growth of pathogens. In this study, fluctuation of bacterial population occurring in different growth stages of soybean leaves (Glycine max L Merrill) was examined using the dilution plate method. Three culture media were applied; invariably, the numbers of bacteria increased with increasing plant age. The total number of bacteria living on the detached leaves were ten times higher than leaves surfaces of soybean Asgrow 3127 (Group III). One hundred and seventy-five heterotrophic bacteria were obtained from both the phyllosphere and litter of the plant. Of these, fifty-one microorganisms (29%) were classified as members of the genus Bacillus; the remainder were mainly members of the irregular, nonsporing, Gram positive rods (coryneform bacteria). Approximately 52% of the total coryneform bacteria isolated was found to belong to the following two clusters: Arthrobacter and Corynebacterium. There were few Pseudomonas strains and 75% of the total isolated bacteria were able to grow in N-poor culture medium.


Aims. The capability of grid-based techniques to estimate the age together with the convective core overshooting efficiency of stars in detached eclipsing binary systems for main sequence stars has previously been investigated. We have extended this investigation to later evolutionary stages and have evaluated the bias and variability on the recovered age and convective core overshooting parameter accounting for both observational and internal uncertainties.
Methods. We considered synthetic binary systems, whose age and overshooting efficiency should be recovered by applying the SCEPtER pipeline to the same grid of models used to build the mock stars. We focus our attention on a binary system composed of a 2.50 M⊙ primary star coupled with a 2.38 M⊙ secondary. To explore different evolutionary scenarios, we performed the estimation at three different times: when the primary is at the end of the central helium burning, when it is at the bottom of the RGB, and when it is in the helium core burning phase. The Monte Carlo simulations have been carried out for two typical values of accuracy on the mass determination, that is, 1% and 0.1%.
Results. Adopting typical observational uncertainties, we found that the recovered age and overshooting efficiency are biased towards low values in all three scenarios. For an uncertainty on the masses of 1%, the underestimation is particularly relevant for a primary in the central helium burning stage, reaching − 8.5% in age and − 0.04 (− 25% relative error) in the overshooting parameter β. In the other scenarios, an undervaluation of the age by about 4% occurs. A large variability in the fitted values between Monte Carlo simulations was found: for an individual system calibration, the value of the overshooting parameter can vary from β = 0.0 to β = 0.26. When adopting a 0.1% error on the masses, the biases remain nearly unchanged but the global variability is suppressed by a factor of about two. We also explored the effect of a systematic discrepancy between the artificial systems and the model grid by accounting for an offset in the effective temperature of the stars by ± 150 K. For a mass error of 1% the overshooting parameter is largely biased towards the edges of the explored range, while for the lower mass uncertainty it is basically unconstrained from 0.0 to 0.2. We also evaluate the possibility of individually recovering the β value for both binary stars. We found that this is impossible for a primary near to central hydrogen exhaustion owing to huge biases for the primary star of + 0.14 (90% relative error), while in the other cases the fitted β are consistent, but always biased by about − 0.04 (− 25% relative error). Finally, the possibility to distinguish between models computed with mild overshooting from models with no overshooting was evaluated, resulting in a reassuring power of distinction greater than 80%. However, the scenario with a primary in the central helium burning was a notable exception, showing a power of distinction lower than 5%.


The Mental Health Industry: A Cultural Phenomenon. By PETER A. MAGARO, ROBERT Giu@@ and DAVID J. MCDOWELL. Chichester: John Wiley. 1978. Pp 272. £12.65. The bulk of this book is given over to a description ofthe link between aetiological theories and treatment regimens in psychiatric disorder and the general cultural milieu. The relationship between American society and the management of madness is argued (with little sophistication) and two treatment regimens, milieu therapy and behaviour modification, given as particular examples. Yet having recognized the close connection between social structure and cultural beliefs the


A major uncertainty in future energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions projections for China is the evolution of demand for personal transportation modes. This paper explores the implications of divergent personal transportation scenarios, either favoring private vehicles, or emphasizing a sector including all purchased transport (including local public transit, rail and aviation) as substitute for vehicle travel. Motivated by a wide range of forecasts for transport indicators in the literature, we construct plausible scenarios with low-, mediumand high-transport demand growth, and implement them in a technology-rich model which represents opportunities for fuel economy improvement and switching to plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs). The analysis compares primary energy use and GHG emissions in China in the absence and presence of climate policies. We find that a policy that extends the current Chinese emissions-intensity goals through 2050 mostly affects other sectors with lower abatement costs, and so only lightly engages household transport, permitting nearly the same large increases in refined oil demand (by more than five times) and private vehicle stocks (to 430–500 million) as in the reference case. A stringent climate stabilization policy affects household transport, limiting vehicle ownership and petroleum demand, but drives up the share of household spending on transport, and carries high economy-wide costs. The large projected scale of vehicle fleets, refined oil use and transport purchases all suggest that the rate and type of travel demand growth deserves attention by policymakers, as China seeks to address its energy, environmental, and economic goals.


We present new forensic tools that are capable of detecting traces of tampering in digital images without the use of watermarks or specialized hardware. These tools operate under the assumption that images contain natural properties from a variety of sources, including the world, the lens, and the sensor. These properties may be disturbed by digital tampering and by measuring them we can expose the forgery. In this context, we present the following forensic tools: (1) illuminant direction, (2) specularity, (3) lighting environment, and (4) chromatic aberration. The common theme of these tools is that they exploit lighting or optical properties of images. Although each tool is not applicable to every image, they add to a growing set of image forensic tools that together will complicate the process of making a convincing forgery.


Obesity is the most common nutritional disease in industrialized countries and constitutes an important public health issue. Strictly speaking, obesity is an excess of adipose tissue. In practice, body mass index (BMI)=weight (kg)/height (m)(2) is used to determine the degree of excess body weight in a patient. A BMI >=30 kg/m(2), which is associated with significantly higher morbidity and mortality, is generally used as a threshold value for obesity. Despite this measurement, obesity includes a very wide range of variable symptoms. Development of obesity is a multifactorial phenomenon implicating biological, genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors whose interaction and inter-association vary from individual to individual. There are many extra-respiratory complications of obesity which may be somatic (cardiovascular, mechanic, metabolic.), psychological, or social. Abdominal adipose tissue plays an important role in metabolic and vascular complications of obesity independently of the degree of corpulence. As an introduction, we discuss here the definitions concerned as well as the epidemiology, basic pathophysiological mechanisms, and extra-respiratory complications of adult obesity.


U.S. Coast Guard helicopter pilots were questioned on the occurrence of the vection illusion while flying over water under different light and sea conditions. A total of 267 (79.9%) pilots completed the study questionnaire. The illusion of vection was experienced by 248 (92.5%) of these pilots. The majority of the pilots, 209 (84.6%), reported that dark rather than light visual conditions increased the likelihood of experiencing vection. Vection was considered likely to occur over rough seas by more pilots [114 (46.2%)] then over smooth seas [81 (37.8%)]. Several pilots commented that they had responded to the illusion with aircraft movement. The vection illusion is a common experience among helicopter pilots while flying over open water. Low light conditions and rough sea states are conducive to experiencing the vection illusion. Pilots may respond to the illusion with aircraft control movements, which raises flight safety concerns.


Robotics technology and the increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence are breakthrough innovations with significant growth prospects. They have the potential to disrupt existing socio-economic facets of everyday life. Yet few studies have analysed the development of robotics innovation. This paper closes this gap by analysing current developments in innovation in robotics; how it is diffused, and what role is played by intellectual property (IP). The paper argues that robotics clusters are mainly located in the US and Europe, despite a growing presence in South Korea and China. The robotics innovation ecosystem builds on cooperative networks of actors, including individuals, research institutions, and firms. Governments play a significant role in supporting robotics innovation through funding, military demand, and national robotics strategies. Robotics competitions and prizes provide for an important incentive to innovation. Patents are used to exclude third parties to secure freedom of operation, license technologies, and avoid litigation. The countries with the highest number of patent claims are Japan, China, South Korea, and the US. The growing stock of patents owned by universities and PROs, particularly in China, is noteworthy too. Automotive and electronics companies are still the largest patent filers, but medical technologies and the Internet are emerging as new actors in the field. Secrecy is often used as a tool to appropriate innovation. Copyright protection is relevant to robotics also, mainly for its role in protecting software. Finally, open-source robotics platforms are increasingly used in the early stages of the innovation process as they allow new actors in the robotics field to optimize their initial spending on innovation.


Upper lobe fibrotic lung disease is most often associated with sarcoidosis, Langerhans cell histiocytosis, silicosis, and other pneumoconioses but is usually not associated with drug-induced lung disease. Carmustine (BCNU) is a chemotherapeutic agent known to cause pulmonary toxicity. The radiographic pattern is usually diffuse bilateral lung disease predominantly in the lung bases. Upper lobe fibrotic disease associated with BCNU has been reported to occur in children treated for central nervous system gliomas. Often the lung disease occurs years after the exposure. Despite the widespread use of BCNU in the treatment of malignancy in adults, to our knowledge, the complication of upper lobe fibrotic disease has not been reported in adults. We describe a patient who presented with pneumothorax and bilateral upper lobe pulmonary fibrosis that we believe was due to BCNU given for bone marrow transplantation as part of therapy for breast cancer. Bilateral upper lobe pulmonary fibrosis can be associated with chemotherapeutic drugs.


This book is a rigorous text for students in physics and mathematics requiring an introduction to the implications and interpretation of general relativity in areas of cosmology. Readers of this text will be well prepared to follow the theoretical developments in the field and undertake research projects as part of an MSc or PhD programme. This ebook contains interactive Q&A technology, allowing the reader to interact with the text and reveal answers to selected exercises posed by the author within the book. This feature may not function in all formats and on reading devices.


Using a sample of 3814 quasars from the Early Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we confirm that high-ionization, broad emission lines, such as C IV, are significantly blueshifted with respect to low-ionization, broad emission lines, such as Mg II, which are thought to be close to the systemic redshift. We examine the velocity shifts of the Mg II and C IV emission lines with respect to [O III] and Mg II, respectively. C IV emission-line peaks have a range of shifts from a redshift of 500 km s-1 to blueshifts well in excess of 2000 km s-1 as compared with Mg II. We confirm previous results that suggest an anticorrelation between the shift of the C IV emission-line peak and the rest equivalent width of the C IV emission line. Furthermore, by creating composite quasar spectra as a function of C IV shift, we are able to study in detail the profiles of the line as a function of velocity shift. We find that the apparent shift of the C IV emission-line peak is not a shift so much as it is a lack of flux in the red wing for the composite with the largest apparent shift. This observation should strongly constrain models for the broad emission-line region in quasars. The emission-line blueshift and equivalent width of C IV are also discussed in light of the well-known anticorrelation between the equivalent width of C IV emission and continuum luminosity, otherwise known as the Baldwin effect. We further discuss the C IV emission-line shift as a function of other quasar properties, such as spectral index, radio and X-ray detection. We find a possible correlation between the C IV emission-line shifts and the radio properties of the quasars, which is suggestive of orientation as the cause of the C IV velocity shifts. Finally, we explore whether the C IV emission-line blueshifts correlate with the presence of broad absorption line absorption troughs or with narrow, "associated" absorption, and how these might be related to orientation.


We present a global Ziv-Zakai (1969) type lower bound on the mean square error for estimation of signal parameter vectors, where some components of the distortion function may be periodic. Periodic distortion functions arise naturally in the context of direction of arrival or phase estimation problems. The bound is applied to an image registration problem, and compared to the performance of the maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE).


Background and purpose: Restenosis after percutaneous transluminal angioplasty is a prevalent phenomenon that might lead to repetition of angioplasty, open heart surgery, myocardial infarction, and death. This study, drawing on extended Cox regression model, pursues examining effective factors on the time to incidence of restenosis. Materials and methods: In this historical cohort study, 421 patients attending Ayatollah Moosavi Hospital, Zanjan, Iran (from April 2009 to June 2011) for drug-eluting stent implementation were followed up until June 2015 for time of incidence of restenosis. In next stage, some demographic variables and clinical records were studied. The proportional hazards assumption did not hold, so, to model this survival data, extended Cox regression was applied. Results: Compared to other patients, the hazard ratio of restenosis in patients with drug abuse and hyperlipidemia was 2.09 times and 1.91 times more, respectively. Also, two years after angioplasty, the hazard ratio of restenosis in patients over 60 years old 2 times, diabetic patients 2.91 times, and in patients suffering from hypertension was 2.49 times more than those of other patients (P<0.05). Conclusion: In this study, drug abuse and a history of hyperlipidemia constitute effective factors on the incidence of restenosis. Compared to these, being over 60 years of age and suffering from diabetes and hypertension had lower effects. Accordingly, preventing the risk factors mentioned and periodic follow-ups are highly suggested in patients with such conditions.


modelling framework for studying the combined effects of climate and land-cover changes on the distribution of species is presented. The model integrates land-cover data into a correlative bioclimatic model in a scale-dependent hierarchical manner, whereby Artificial Neural Networks are used to characterise species' climatic requirements at the European scale and land-cover requirements at the British scale. The model has been tested against an alternative non-hierarchical approach and has been applied to four plant species in Britain: Rhynchospora alba, Erica tetralix, Salix herbacea and Geranium sylvaticum. Predictive performance has been evaluated using Cohen's Kappa statistic and the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve, and a novel approach to identifying thresholds of occurrence which utilises three levels of confidence has been applied. Results demonstrate reasonable to good predictive performance for each species, with the main patterns of distribution simulated at both 10 km and 1 km resolutions. The incorporation of land-cover data was found to significantly improve purely climate-driven predictions for R. alba and E. tetralix, enabling regions with suitable climate but unsuitable land-cover to be identified. The study thus provides an insight into the roles of climate and land-cover as determinants of species' distributions and it is demonstrated that the modelling approach presented can provide a useful framework for making predictions of distributions under scenarios of changing climate and land-cover type. The paper confirms the potential utility of multi-scale approaches for understanding environmental limitations to species' distributions, and demonstrates that the search for environmental correlates with species' distributions must be addressed at an appropriate spatial scale. Our study contributes to the mounting evidence that hierarchical schemes are characteristic of ecological systems.


The ceramic Pb(Zr/spl middot/Ti)O/sub 3/ (PZT) is well known as a highly efficient energy conversion device for electrical and mechanical energies and is widely used in microelectronics and information technology industries. In a previous paper, the authors suggested that PZT also acts as a compact discharge exciter. In this paper, images of discharge plasma produced by PZT in various gases are presented. Analysis of the images suggests that a piezoelectric transformer manufactured from PZT is capable of emitting the light from the gas atoms and molecules.


Introduction: There is a paucity in the literature regarding mid-term results of microfracture in hip arthroscopy. We aim to assess 5-year outcomes of patients who underwent acetabular microfracture for full-thickness chondral lesions as a part of hip arthroscopy. Methods: Between August 2008 and September 2011, data were prospectively gathered for patients undergoing acetabular microfracture during hip arthroscopy with minimum 5-year follow-up. All patients were assessed pre- and postoperatively, with modified Harris Hip Score (mHHS), Non-Arthritic Hip Score (NAHS), Hip Outcome Score – Sports Specific Subscale (HOS-SSS), and visual analog scale (VAS). International Hip Outcome Tool (iHOT-12) and satisfaction were collected postoperatively. Exclusion criteria included previous hip conditions, or preoperative Tönnis grade ≥2. Results: Fifty three hips were eligible for this study. Of these, 43 (81.1%) hips in 42 patients had follow-up. The study group had a male majority (65.1%) and an average age of 44.4 ± 9.5 years. There was statistically significant improvement in all patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and VAS at follow-up. Patient satisfaction was 7.6 ± 2.6. A comparison of 2-year to minimum 5-year follow-up results identified no statistically significant deterioration in PROs, VAS, and patient satisfaction. Survivorship was 72.1% with 12 patients converted to total hip arthroplasty (THA). 4 patients (10.8%) underwent secondary arthroscopy. Conclusions: In the mid-term, microfracture as a part of hip arthroscopy demonstrated favourable outcomes and 72% survivorship. Careful patient selection is warranted to limit the risk of conversion to THA.