Xylaria is a genus of Ascomycete fungi that is comprised of an estimated 400 species. These species are important to the ecosystems in which they inhabit because they contribute to the decomposition of wood, which recycles lignin and cellulose. Though the morphological traits of this genus have been widely studied over the years, their molecular phylogenetics have not been extensively explored due to the historical unavailability of species genomes. Now that complete genomes have become available, there have been an increasing number of ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) sequence studies in recent years. However, ITS is too variable to consistently construct accurate phylogenetic trees, so Xylaria phylogeny is still being researched. This study explores the use of single-copy genes as an alternative to ITS methods. Here we present three primer pairs for different single-copy genes for use during future phylogenetic evaluation of Xylaria. These primers, Splicing Factor PRP43 F1054/R1691, MCM5 F409/R1059 and 40S Ripro S3Ae F47/R605, are more reliable than ITS sequences for deeper levels of analysis due to less variability in their sequences. This study focuses on Xylaria, while utilizing related species within in the Xylariaceae and Sordariaceae families, providing a promising start to the complete reconstruction of the Xylaria phylogenetic tree.


Characterisation of the structure and dynamics of large biomolecules and biomolecular complexes by NMR spectroscopy is hampered by increasing overlap and severe broadening of NMR signals. As a consequence, the number of available NMR spectroscopy data is often sparse and new approaches to provide complementary NMR spectroscopy data are needed. Paramagnetic relaxation enhancements (PREs) obtained from inert and soluble paramagnetic probes (solvent PREs) provide detailed quantitative information about the solvent accessibility of NMR-active nuclei. Solvent PREs can be easily measured without modification of the biomolecule; are sensitive to molecular structure and dynamics; and are therefore becoming increasingly powerful for the study of biomolecules, such as proteins, nucleic acids, ligands and their complexes in solution. In this Minireview, we give an overview of the available solvent PRE probes and discuss their applications for structural and dynamic characterisation of biomolecules and biomolecular complexes.


Discusses the history of sale of goods legislation and the draft Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations to implement European Parliament and Council Directive 1999/44. Criticises the draft Regulations for widening the gap between provisions on consumer sales and provisions of general application. Calls for a separate consumer sales statute.


High-quality CdS and Cu(7)S(4) quantum dots (QDs) were synthesized with N,N-dibutylthiourea (DBTU) as an organic sulfur source. In this method, nucleation and growth reactions were controlled simply by the heating rate of the reaction. The mild oxidation conditions gave monodisperse CdS QDs exhibiting pure band-edge emission with relatively high photoluminescence quantum yield. During the synthesis of Cu(7)S(4) QDs, the addition of dodecanethiol to the reaction system controlled the reaction rate to give monodisperse spherical or disk-shaped QDs. A hundred-gram scale of copper precursor could be used to generate the high-quality Cu(7)S(4) QDs, indicating that an industrial-scale reaction is achievable with our method. As observed in anisotropic noble-metal nanocrystals, larger disk-shaped Cu(7)S(4) QDs showed lower localized-surface-plasmon resonance energy in the near-infrared region. The disk-shaped Cu(7)S(4) QDs could be used effectively as templates to form cation-exchanged monodisperse disk-shaped CdS QDs.


PURPOSE
To define the normative ranges of the Current Perception Threshold (CPT) of the palatal mucosa and to correlate it with the subjects' attributes.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A group of 129 informed healthy subjects consented to participate in the study. A Neurometer NS3000 device was used to evaluate the CPTs of the nasopalatine nerve (NPN) and the greater palatine nerve (GPN) by using 2000-, 250-, and 5-Hz stimulations. After confirming the relationships with regard to gender, age, weight, height, alcohol consumption, duration of sleep, weight percentage of water content, smoking, and CPT, the normative ranges of the CPT measurements were obtained.

RESULTS
Correlations were observed between age and CPTs obtained with the 2000- and 250-Hz stimulations of the GPN. The CPTs of the GPN were higher than those of the NPN. With the exception of the 5-Hz stimulation of the NPN, the CPTs in men were higher than those in women; however, the within- and between-site ratios exhibited no differences between the male and female subjects. No significant effects of smoking and alcohol consumption on CPT were observed. Range analysis revealed an increase in the CPTs as the frequency increased from 5 to 250 to 2,000 Hz. Within-site ratio analysis revealed increasing and spreading CPT ratios in the following order: 250/5 Hz, 2000/250 Hz, and 2,000/5 Hz. In the order of 5-, 250-, and 2000-Hz stimulations, decreasing ratios were observed for the between-site ratio analysis.

CONCLUSION
This study provides useful diagnostic criteria for CPTs in the palatal mucosa.


Summary. The goal of therapy in patients with von Willebrand disease (vWD) is to correct the dual defect of primary haemostasis and intrinsic coagulation reflected by low levels of von Willebrand factor (vWF) and factor VIII coagulant activity (FVIII:C). Factor VIII/von Willebrand factor (FVIII/vWF) concentrates are currently the treatment of choice in vWD patients unresponsive to desmopressin (DDAVP). However, only few studies on their clinical use are available so far. The main objective of this study was to retrospectively evaluate the clinical efficacy of a highly purified, doubly virus‐inactivated FVIII/vWF concentrate with a high content of FVIII/vWF (Fanhdi®). Twenty‐two patients with congenital vWD have been treated from 1999 to 2001 at eight specialized centres belonging to the Italian Association of Hemophilia Centers (AICE). Ten males and 12 females, median age 28.5 years, range 5–70 years) had type 3 vWD (six cases), DDAVP‐unresponsive type 1 (nine cases) and type 2B (seven cases). The study drug was given to stop or prevent 12 bleeding episodes or to prevent excessive bleeding during 14 surgical or invasive procedures. Overall, replacement therapy with the concentrate showed an excellent to good clinical efficacy in 92% of bleeding episodes and in 93% of surgical procedures. No adverse events occurred during 1601 infusions, accounting for a total of 304 500 IU of FVIII:C administered. These results confirm the efficacy and safety of this concentrate in the management of bleeding episodes and in the prevention of excessive bleeding during major and minor surgery.


Single zone heat release rate calculations with in cylinder heat transfer are done with the combustion pressure as an input and a comparative study is taken up with neat diesel and Mahuva methyl ester as a biodiesel with Diethyl Ether (DEE-Cetane improver). Combustion Delay period trend is assessed by the close scrutiny of the combustion pressure signatures and the combustion behavior is being assessed with the net heat release rate and cumulative heat release plots at various loads on the engine with different fuels. Present work deals with trials of Mahuva Methyl Ester (MME) and Diethyl Ether (DEE) additive blends. Various blends of MME with additive at different percentages (3%, 5%, 10%, and 15%) by volume were prepared and tested in full range of engine load. Results obtained from the study shows that 15% of additive with MME could be a better fuel in terms of combustion pressure changes and heat release. Further, the blend can be used in any existing CI engines without engine modification or fuel preheating. Mixing DEE additive with biodiesel improves the cold flow, combustion efficiency, and viscosity and reduces the engine detonation. Combustion analysis is also taken up with real vibration time waves recorded vertical on the cylinder head.


Deformable conductors are frequently encountered in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). For example, in electrostatic MEMS, microstructures undergo deformations because of electrostatic forces caused by applied potentials. Computational analysis of electrostatic MEMS requires an electrostatic analysis to compute the electrostatic forces acting on micromechanical structures and a mechanical analysis to compute the deformation of micromechanical structures. Typically, the mechanical analysis is performed by a Lagrangian approach using the undeformed position of the structures. However, the electrostatic analysis is performed by using the deformed position of the conductors. In this paper, we introduce a Lagrangian approach for electrostatic analysis. In this approach, when the conductors undergo deformation or shape changes, the surface charge densities on the deformed conductors can be computed without updating the geometry of the conductors. The Lagrangian approach is a simple, but critical, idea that radically simplifies the analysis of electrostatic MEMS.


For a mobile robot to travel as rapidly as possible through a large-scale environment, it must rely upon stored knowledge of that portion of the environment that is occluded or otherwise beyond sensor range. Yet low mechanical accuracy and consequent positioning errors characteristic of mobile robots make it difficult in practice for a mobile robot to acquire an accurate metrical description of large scale space or accurately track a trajectory expressed in a global coordinate frame. Hence, methods for generating optimal feedforward control are not practical for application to high speed control of an autonomous mobile robot. This paper addresses the problem of acquiring and applying approximate information about environment geometry for high speed control of a mobile robot in circumstances of limited positioning accuracy. The robot combines relatively accurate information about the layout of nearby obstacles from current sensor information with approximate knowledge of the relative position of learned safe trajectory targets to travel to a goal at high speed. This method enables the robot to anticipate obstacle geometry beyond sensor range, yet can cope with substantial position estimation errors, disturbances, and minor changes in the environment.


ABSTRACT Minoritized communities throughout the world engage in spaces of educational decision-making to advocate for equity-oriented policies. In this article, we explore such advocacy at the local level in school board meetings in the United States. Specifically, we examine school board meeting rules from meetings featuring the advocacy of mainly Black community members who aimed to address inequities in a suburban school district governed by a largely white school board. Informed by the theories of community cultural wealth and whiteness as property, we used qualitative case study methods to analyze board meeting videos to understand how rules facilitate opportunities for advancing or inhibiting equity-oriented policymaking at the district level. Illustrating the racialization of school board meeting rules, our findings emphasize how community advocates enacted resistance and navigational strategies to work around rules that board members used to maintain and reify whiteness as property. We conclude with implications for enhancing opportunities for equity-oriented policymaking via school board meetings and other local educational spaces of decision-making and for future research.


Most people think that LCD monitors are low or zero in radiation. That is not true. The backlighting uses thousand volts for fluorescence and carries an electromagnetic field. Zero radiation LCD monitors use e.g. clear metallic grating in front of the display viewing area. The main goal of this contribution is optical properties analyze of radiation protected and no protected LCD displays. The analyze evaluates the display viewing angle which is one of the most important indicators for graphic information quality in the Human Computer Interface system.


In order to search for the future technological strategy about the high-temperature materials including the coating systems with superior environmental performance, historical archives have been made on the research reports of the JSPS 123rd Committee; about Heat-Resisting Materials and Alloys, for more than 50 years. According to the historical and economic backgrounds associated with a variety of the fuel utilization, the environment-resistant materials have been developed to apply skillfully against different kinds of aggressive environments. Furthermore, future prospects of the corrosion-resistant materials and coating systems were attempted from the viewpoints of both the global environment protection and the energy saving and/or new energy development which must contribute for a prevention of the global warming.


The present study aims at exploring the effects of flavonoids from corn silk (FCS) on oxidative stress induced by exhaustive exercise in mice. Sixty mice were randomized into 3 groups: Low-dose FCS treatment group (LFG), high-dose FCS treatment group (HFG) and control group (CG). The mice were treated with FCS (100 and 400 mg/kg) or placebo (distilled water) by daily oral gavage for 28 days. After the last treatment, animals were submitted to treadmill for exhaustion and running time, malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) levels were measured. The results suggested that FCS could elevate the exercise tolerance of mice, and provide protection against oxidative stress induced by exhaustive exercise in mice, by inhibiting lipid per-oxidation and increasing anti-oxidant enzymes levels.


In most developing countries, households in lagging areas earn much lower returns to their attributes compared with similar households in leading areas. This paper compare returns differences between an integrated region that houses main growth centers and a less integrated region which remains cutoff from these centers by large rivers. We find that higher mobility costs resulting from lack of connectivity to growth centers reduces returns for all households in less integrated regions. The magnitude of reduction is larger for the poorer households. Within a region, migration between geographically contiguous rural and urban areas equalizes returns for the poorer households.


Stem cell factor (SCF) mediated KIT receptor activation plays a pivotal role in mast cell growth, maturation and survival. However, the signaling events downstream from KIT are poorly understood. Mast cells express multiple regulatory subunits of class 1A PI3Kinase (PI3K) including p85α, p85β, p50α, and p55α. While it is known that PI3K plays an essential role in mast cells; the precise mechanism by which these regulatory subunits impact specific mast cell functions including growth, survival and cycling are not known. We show that loss of p85α impairs the growth, survival and cycling of mast cell progenitors (MCp). To delineate the molecular mechanism (s) by which p85α regulates mast cell growth, survival and cycling, we performed microarray analyses to compare the gene expression profile of MCps derived from WT and p85α-deficient mice in response to SCF stimulation. We identified 151 unique genes exhibiting altered expression in p85α-deficient cells in response to SCF stimulation compared to WT cells. Functional categorization based on DAVID bioinformatics tool and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) software relates the altered genes due to lack of p85α to transcription, cell cycle, cell survival, cell adhesion, cell differentiation, and signal transduction. Our results suggest that p85α is involved in mast cell development through regulation of expression of growth, survival and cell cycle related genes.


The influence of landscape on nutrient dynamics in rivers constitutes an important research issue because of its significance with regard to water and land management. In the current study spatial and temporal variability of N-NO3 and P-PO4 concentrations and their landscape dependence was documented in the Świder River catchment in central Poland. From April 2019 to March 2020, water samples were collected from fourteen streams in the monthly timescale and the concentrations of N-NO3 and P-PO4 were correlated with land cover metrics based on the Corine Land Cover 2018 and Sentinel 2 Global Land Cover datasets. It was documented that agricultural lands and forests have a clear seasonal impact on N-NO3 concentrations, whereas the effect of meadows was weak and its direction was dependent on the dataset. The application of buffer zones metrics increased the correlation performance, whereas Euclidean distance scaling improved correlation mainly for forest datasets. The concentration of P-PO4 was not significantly related with land cover metrics, as their dynamics were driven mainly by hydrological conditions. The obtained results provided a new insight into landscape–water quality relationships in lowland agricultural landscape, with a special focus on evaluating the predictive performance of different land cover metrics and datasets.


Biochemical mechanisms underlying impaired myocardial glucose utilization in diabetes mellitus have not been elucidated. We studied sarcolemmal vesicles (SL) in control, streptozotocin-induced diabetic (D), and insulin-treated diabetic (Tx) rats and found that 3-O-methylglucose transport rates were decreased 53% in D rats and were normalized by insulin therapy. Immunoblot analyses of SL revealed that GLUT4 glucose transporters were decreased 56% in D and were normal in Tx rats. Thus diminished transport rates could be fully explained by reduced numbers of SL GLUT4 with normal functional activity. To determine whether SL GLUT4 were decreased due to tissue depletion or abnormal subcellular distribution, we measured GLUT4 in total membranes (SL plus intracellular fractions). Total GLUT4 (per mg membrane protein or per DNA) was decreased 45-51% in D [half time = 3.5 days after streptozotocin], and these values were restored to normal in Tx rats. Also, diabetes decreased GLUT4 mRNA levels by 43%, and this effect was reversed by insulin therapy. We conclude that, in diabetes, 1) impaired myocardial glucose utilization is the result of a decrease in glucose transport activity, and 2) transport rates are reduced due to pretranslational suppression of GLUT4 gene expression and can be corrected by insulin therapy. GLUT4 depletion could limit glucose availability under conditions of increased workload and anoxia and could cause myocardial dysfunction.


The objective of this paper is to introduce self-similarity as a fundamental property exhibited by the bursty traffic behavior between different on-chip modules in typical MPEG-2 video applications. Statistical tests performed on relevant traces extracted from common video clips establish unequivocally the existence of self-similarity in on-chip video traffic. Using a generic on-chip communication architecture, we discuss the implications of our findings on on-chip buffer space allocation. We also describe a synthetic trace generation procedure for speeding up the buffer simulation process.


Ahstract-Traditional SVM classification model constructs linear discriminant function by maximizing the margin between two classes, and the weight vector of the discriminant function is only related to a small number of support vectors near the decision boundary. The small amount of support vectors is hard to describe the global distributive information when the distributions of the samples are nonlinear manifolds structure. To solve this problem, the graph regularization term with discrimination information is introduced into the objective function of SVM model. Experimental results on public data sets show that the classification accuracy of this method has improved significantly compared to traditional SVM models.


Background Although amiodarone has been referred to as a class III antiarrhythmic agent, it also possesses electrophysiologic characteristics of the three other classes (classes I and IV and minor class II effects). Previous studies have demonstrated that amiodarone inhibits Ca2+ channel current in intact cardiac myocytes. However, it is not clear whether this response reflects a pure class IV effect (direct Ca2+ channel inhibition) or a class II effect (β-adrenergic receptor blockade) of amiodarone. Methods In the current study, the effects of amiodarone on Ca2+ current were studied in the absence of sympathetic regulation using a Xenopus oocyte expression system. The L-type Ca2+ channel α1C subunit was coexpressed with the α2Δ and β2a subunits in enzymatically digested Xenopus oocytes. Ca2+ currents were recorded using the cut-open oocyte preparation. Results We found that perfusion of 10 μM isoproterenol produced no significant change in peak Ca2+ current (from 223±33 to 210±29 nA, mean±SEM, n=5, P=not significant), indicating the absence of a functional stimulatory sympathetic signal pathway in these oocytes. After 10 minutes of exposure to 10 μM amiodarone, Ca2+ current amplitude was significantly decreased from 174±33 to 100±26 nA (n=8, P<0.01; control group: 220±33 to 212±29 nA, n=5, P=not significant). These effects were similar to those of 10 μM nifedipine (201±48 to 108±48 nA, n=6, P<0.05), a typical Ca2+ channel blocker. On the other hand, neither amiodarone nor nifedipine significantly altered the Ca2+ current activation or inactivation kinetics. Conclusions These results demonstrate that amiodarone inhibits Ca2+ current in the absence of a functional intrinsic β-adrenergic stimulatory system and, therefore, represents a true class IV effect.


We report on the photo-thermal activation of dielectric loaded plasmonic switches comprised of gold nanoparticle-doped polymer deposited onto a gold film. The plasmonic switches rely on a multi-mode interferometer design and are fabricated by electron beam lithography applied to a positive resin doped with gold nanoparticles at a volume ratio of 0.52%. A cross-bar switching is obtained at telecom wavelengths by pumping the devices with a visible beam having a frequency within the localized surface plasmon resonance band of the embedded nanoparticles. By comparing the switching performances of doped and undoped devices, we show that for the modest doping level we consider, the power needed to activate the doped switches is reduced by a factor 2.5 compared to undoped devices. The minimization of activation power is attributed to enhanced light-heat conversion and optimized spatial heat generation for doped devices and not to a change of the thermo-optic coefficient of the doped polymer.


Spin-torque oscillator (STO) is a promising new technology for the future RF oscillators, which is based on the spin-transfer torque (STT) effect in magnetic multilayered nanostructure. It is expected to provide a larger tunability, smaller size, lower power consumption, and higher level of integration than the semiconductor-based oscillators. In our previous work, a circuit-level model of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) STO was proposed. In this paper, we present a physics-based circuit-level model of the magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ)-based STO. MTJ-STO model includes the effect of perpendicular torque that has been ignored in the GMR-STO model. The variations of three major characteristics, generation frequency, mean oscillation power, and generation linewidth of an MTJ-STO with respect to the amount of perpendicular torque, are investigated, and the results are applied to our model. The operation of the model was verified by HSPICE simulation, and the results show an excellent agreement with the experimental data. The results also prove that a full circuit-level simulation with MJT-STO devices can be made with our proposed model.


Background: Hearing loss is a sensorineural disorder occuring in 1 out of 500 births. It happens due to some genetic/environmental causes or both. More than 60% of cases are noninherited and 80% non syndromic with autosomal recessive inheritance. In the present study we investigated the frequency of mtDNA A1555G, A3243 and A7445G mutations among the patients in Fars province.

Materials and Methods: Seventy two non syndromic hearing loss subjects were studied. DNA was extracted using standard phenol-chloroform method. The screening of the mitochondrial gene mutations were performed using PCR-RFLP procedure. Finally, the possible mutations were confirmed by direct sequencing.

Results: None of the A1555G, A3243G and A7445G mutations was detected in this study. However, destroying a MTTL1 restriction site for the investigation of A3243G mutation, revealed a G3316A with allelic variant of 1.4% in the deaf subjects.

Conclusion: Our data indicated that the mitochondrial A1555G, A3243 and A7445G mutations have no role in auditory deficits in patients studied.
Keywords: Mitocondrial DNA, Mutation, A3243G, A7445G, Syndrom-free hearing loss, PCR-RFLP,


IMPORTANCE
This study proposes an alternative tumor staging system for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) that more precisely defines the small subset of tumors with a high risk of metastasis and death.

OBJECTIVE
To identify risk factors for poor outcomes in CSCC and evaluate the 2010 American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) tumor (T) staging system's ability to stratify occurrence of these outcomes.

DESIGN
Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING
A single academic hospital.

PARTICIPANTS
Study participants were identified via a pathology and dermatopathology database search for patients diagnosed as having high-risk CSCC.

RESULTS
Two hundred fifty-six primary high-risk CSCCs were included. Outcomes for AJCC tumor stages T2 to T4 were statistically indistinguishable because only 4 cases (<2% of the cohort) were AJCC stages T3 or T4, which require bone invasion. Subsequently, the bulk of poor outcomes (83% of nodal metastases, 92% of deaths from CSCC) occurred in AJCC stage T2 cases. An alternative tumor staging system was developed with the aim of better stratifying this stage T2 group. Four risk factors were found to be statistically independent prognostic factors for at least 2 outcomes of interest in multivariate modeling. These factors (poor differentiation, perineural invasion, tumor diameter ≥2 cm, invasion beyond subcutaneous fat) were incorporated in the alternative staging with 0 factors indicating T1, 1 factor indicating T2a; 2 to 3 factors, T2b; and 4 factors or bone invasion, T3. Stages T2a and T2b significantly differed in incidences of all 4 end points. Stage T2b tumors comprised only 19% of the cohort but accounted for 72% of nodal metastases and 83% of deaths from CSCC.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
The proposed alternative tumor staging system offers improved prognostic discrimination via stratification of stage T2 tumors. Validation in other cohorts is needed. Meanwhile, stage T2b tumors are responsible for most poor outcomes and may be a focus of high-risk CSCC study.


This paper quantifies the uncertainty of prediction risk for the min-norm least squares estimator in high-dimensional linear regression models. We establish the asymptotic normality of prediction risk when both the sample size and the number of features tend to infinity. Based on the newly established central limit theorems (CLTs), we derive the confidence intervals of the prediction risk under various scenarios. Our results demonstrate the sample-wise non-monotonicity of the prediction risk and confirm "more data hurt" phenomenon. Furthermore, the width of confidence intervals indicates that over-parameterization would enlarge the randomness of prediction performance.


Abstract Objectives: Executive network deficits are putative neurocognitive endophenotypes for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Yet, unlike alterations in fronto-striatal and limbic connectivity, connectivity in the fronto-parietal (FPN) and cingulo-opercular (CON) networks involved in cognitive control has received little attention. Methods: The coherence of FPN, CON and fronto-limbic networks was investigated in 39 unmedicated OCD patients, 16 of their unaffected siblings and 36 healthy controls using resting-state functional-connectivity MRI and a seed-based analysis approach. Results: FPN and CON connectivity was similar for patients and controls. Siblings showed higher connectivity than patients within the CON, and between the CON and FPN compared to patients and controls (trend level). In OCD patients, but not in siblings, fronto-limbic hyperconnectivity was present compared to controls. In contrast to our expectations, no group differences in resting-state connectivity of the cognitive control networks were observed between OCD patients and controls. Conclusions: The increased within- and between-network connectivity in siblings, but not in patients, could indicate a mechanism of increased cognitive control that may act as a protective mechanism. None of the observed network alterations can be considered an endophenotype for OCD since differences were present in either patients or siblings, but not in both groups.


One of the fundamental roles of a professional society in any policy debate is to talk about the facts and present the implications of those facts for policy in such a way that policymakers and opinion-leaders understand what their decisions will mean. That's not lobbying; that's education. That's what a professional society is all about, and that's what role the Soil and Water Conservation Society will assume in the upcoming farm bill debate.

So what are the facts surrounding the next farm bill debate as we now understand them? Today, we are still working with the policy framework established in the 1985 farm bill. The policy innovations in that bill focused almost entirely on soil erosion on highly erodible land and on wetland conservation. Evidence from the National Resources Inventory and elsewhere suggest that those measures resulted in significant, perhaps historic, progress in reducing erosion rates on highly erodible land and in slowing wetland conversion. Regardless of what we think of the means, the ends clearly were achieved, if our national inventories are to be believed.

But a lot of policy changes have taken place within the context of that …


Background: Humans are exposed to thousands of man-made chemicals in the environment. Some chemicals mimic natural endocrine hormones and, thus, have the potential to be endocrine disruptors. Most of these chemicals have never been tested for their ability to interact with the estrogen receptor (ER). Risk assessors need tools to prioritize chemicals for evaluation in costly in vivo tests, for instance, within the U.S. EPA Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program. Objectives: We describe a large-scale modeling project called CERAPP (Collaborative Estrogen Receptor Activity Prediction Project) and demonstrate the efficacy of using predictive computational models trained on high-throughput screening data to evaluate thousands of chemicals for ER-related activity and prioritize them for further testing. Methods: CERAPP combined multiple models developed in collaboration with 17 groups in the United States and Europe to predict ER activity of a common set of 32,464 chemical structures. Quantitative structure–activity relationship models and docking approaches were employed, mostly using a common training set of 1,677 chemical structures provided by the U.S. EPA, to build a total of 40 categorical and 8 continuous models for binding, agonist, and antagonist ER activity. All predictions were evaluated on a set of 7,522 chemicals curated from the literature. To overcome the limitations of single models, a consensus was built by weighting models on scores based on their evaluated accuracies. Results: Individual model scores ranged from 0.69 to 0.85, showing high prediction reliabilities. Out of the 32,464 chemicals, the consensus model predicted 4,001 chemicals (12.3%) as high priority actives and 6,742 potential actives (20.8%) to be considered for further testing. Conclusion: This project demonstrated the possibility to screen large libraries of chemicals using a consensus of different in silico approaches. This concept will be applied in future projects related to other end points. Citation: Mansouri K, Abdelaziz A, Rybacka A, Roncaglioni A, Tropsha A, Varnek A, Zakharov A, Worth A, Richard AM, Grulke CM, Trisciuzzi D, Fourches D, Horvath D, Benfenati E, Muratov E, Wedebye EB, Grisoni F, Mangiatordi GF, Incisivo GM, Hong H, Ng HW, Tetko IV, Balabin I, Kancherla J, Shen J, Burton J, Nicklaus M, Cassotti M, Nikolov NG, Nicolotti O, Andersson PL, Zang Q, Politi R, Beger RD, Todeschini R, Huang R, Farag S, Rosenberg SA, Slavov S, Hu X, Judson RS. 2016. CERAPP: Collaborative Estrogen Receptor Activity Prediction Project. Environ Health Perspect 124:1023–1033; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1510267


The effect of grit particle size on frictional characteristics was investigated using a vertically oriented brake test rig. Silica sand of grit sizes 50-180 µm, 180-355 µm and 355-500 µm were used in drag mode application. Results showed that the presence of hard particles from environment can influence the friction response significantly. Basically, once the hard particles enter the gap, the value and amplitude of friction coefficient tend to decrease. However, slight increase in friction with smaller particles was recorded due to more hard particles involved in mixing and changing the effective contact area. Better friction stability was related to the presence of smaller grit particles and compacted wear debris to form frictional film on the braking interface.


Handayani T. 2017. Flower morphology, floral development and insect visitors to flowers of Nepenthes mirabilis. Biodiversitas 18: 1624-1631. Nepenthes mirabilis Druce is a commercial ornamental pitcher plant belonging to the Nepenthaceae. This species is often used as a parent plant in artificial crossbreeding. The plant is also used in traditional medicine, rope-making, handicraft, and bouquets. Flower development and pollen maturity are important factors in pitcher plant crossbreeding. However, information about its flowering is still lacking. This study aimed to record the flower morphology, flower development, and faunal visitors to male inflorescences of N. mirabilis planted in Bogor Botanic Gardens, West Java, Indonesia. Twelve racemes of flowers were taken as a sample for observing the process of inflorescence development, while ten flowers on each raceme were observed for investigating the flowering pattern of individual flowers. The morphology of flowers, the process of inflorescence development, the flowering pattern for individual flowers, the number of open flowers, the longevity of anthesis, and the appearance of insect (and/or other faunal) visitors to flowers were observed and recorded, using naked eyes, a hand lens, and a camera. Six phases of inflorescence development were identified: inflorescence bud phase, raceme phase, the opening of the raceme-protecting sheath phase, inflorescence-stalk and flowerstalk growth phase, open flower phase and pollen maturity phase. Four phases of flower development were observed: growth of flower bud, the opening of tepals, pollen maturation, and flower senescence. The pattern of anthesis within an inflorescence was acropetal. The number of flowers per raceme was 56 to 163. The peak duration of anthesis of a flower was 11 days (30.7% of flowers). The length of the raceme-stalks was 17-31 cm. The length of the racemes was 23-38 cm. The most common visitors to the flowers were stingless bees, Trigona apicalis.


Video analytics is key to intelligent surveillance systems ranging from simple algorithms of target detection to complex methodology for video semantics analysis. This paper presents a novel video analytics approach to generate a full view mosaic for a surveillance sequence to help detect moving objects in the presence of camera panning motion. Unlike the current panoramic transformation methods, in which pure horizontal panning motion is required to construct the mosaic, our method can deal with uncontrolled panning motion with slight camera tilt motion. This method provides a generic solution for real world surveillance camera issues such as undesired tilt motion because of the nonlinearity of camera moving mechanism, strong wind etc. Also this method can deal with both global and object motion. The sprite generated helps to detect moving objects, constructing motion trajectories and also provides a clean background reference even for a panning camera. The algorithm has been evaluated for several test sequences.


A new series of 2-[(1-substituted)-2,6-dioxo-2,3,6,7–tetrahydro-1H-purin-8-ylsulfanyl]-N-substituted acetamide 16- 29, and 1-substituted-8-[2-(4-substituted phenyl)-2-oxoethylsulfanyl]-3,7-dihydro-1H-purine-2,6-diones 37-50 were designed and synthesized. The target compounds 16-29 and 37-50 were prepared by reaction of 1-substituted-8- thioxo-3,7-dihydropurine-2,6-dione with equimolar amount of the appropriate substituted anilide or p- (un)substituted phenacyl bromide respectively. Structures of the new compounds were verified on the basis of their IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, MS, and elemental analyses. The newly synthesized compounds were tested for their antiinflammatory effects and most of them showed good to excellent anti-inflammatory activity compared to indomethacin as a reference drug


Strength of continuous fiber type CFRTP is large, however formability is restricted. On the contrary, discontinuous fiber type CFRTP is vice versa. Authors tried to obtain better balance between strength and formability by following process. (1) To induce fine cut group to CFRTP woven fabric prepreg sheet. (2) Sheets of prepreg were layered and consolidated to panel. Fine cut group was induced by fiber laser. Cutting condition was selected so as not to as much as possible to cause heat affected zone. Then GFRTP prepreg sheet was added on both surface to improve strength. Tested materials were TPS and PA66 matrix CFRTP. Formability test and strength test was conducted. Hemispherical shape forming test was conducted as formability test. Results were as follows. 1) Formability was improved by inducing fine cut group, especially panel in which both 0/90 °layer and ±45°layer were mixed could be formed. Strength of panel with fine cut group was about half of the panel without fine cut group. This value was sufficiently strong compared with the CFRTP panel of discontinuous fiber. 2) Adding GFRTP prepreg sheet to CFRTP panel with fine cut group on both surface did not restrict formability, but showed better effect to forming products. 3) Fracture load of panel by adding GFRTP prepreg sheet showed large increase. The amount of increase was much larger than the added strength of GFRTP.


In this paper, an exact analytical solution for forced convective heat transfer of nonlinear viscoelastic fluid in isothermal circular micro-channel is presented. The nonlinear Giesekus constitutive equation is used to model the Giesekus fluid heat transfer in micro-channel with constant wall temperature, which is the main innovative aspect of the current study. This constitutive equation is a powerful tool and able to model the fractional viscometric functions, extensional viscosity, and elastic property. The solution of temperature profile and Nusselt number is obtained based on the Frobenius method. The effects of Weissenberg number, mobility factor, slip coefficient, and Navier index on temperature distribution, velocity profile, and Nusselt number are investigated in detail. The results show that the increases in both slip coefficient and Navier index cause the increases in slip velocity and maximum dimensionless temperature at the wall and the micro-channel center, respectively. Moreover, the Nusselt number has an upward trend with increases in slip coefficient and Navier index parameters. The results are indicated that the flow and temperature fields have a complex relation with mobility factor which controls the level of the nonlinearity of the Giesekus model. Additionally, three correlations for Nusselt number of Giesekus flow in micro-channel are presented.


Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV) infection in sheep results in contagious ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma (OPA). The aim of this study was to detect the presence of JSRV in Iraqi Awassi sheep of Al-Qadisiyah Province using reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR). Lung secretion samples from 50 adult sheep (1.5 to 2-year-old) during 2016-2018 that were suffering from chronic respiratory distress with suspected clinical OPA were collected. RT-PCR assay for detection of JSRV was conducted using primers specific for its 382 bp envelope protein gene. The results showed that 22 of the 50 (44%) lung secretion samples were positive for JSRV. Phylogenetic tree analysis revealed the JSRV sequence detected in the local Iraqi sheep population was closely related to NCBI BLAST locus isolates KT279066.1 and KT279065.1. The study found that the JSRV disease is prevalent in the Iraqi Awassi sheep flocks and that the local JSRV isolate is genetically divergent from most other global isolates.


In the production of printed electronic devices, a reliable, high resolution, and cost-effective patterning method is highly required. Here, we report a facile self-aligned patterning process compatible with directional coating processes for manufacturing printed electronic devices. For the self-aligned and high resolution patterning, a hydrophobic self-assembled monolayer (SAM) is formed on a substrate surface and defined at a specific area by irradiation of 172 nm UV light (9–10 mW cm−2) for 3 min through a photomask. A functional hydrophilic ink is coated on the pre-patterned SAM surface by a wire bar-coating process. Using this process, the ink is automatically patterned down to theoretically 2 μm resolution on the bare surface without a hydrophobic SAM by completely dewetting the ink from the SAM surface. We demonstrate high performance metal oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs) with a patterned sol–gel processed indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) film by a single bar coating process. The IGZO TFTs show a reasonably high electron mobility of 12.78 cm2 V−1 s−1 with silicon dioxide gate dielectrics and a standard deviation of 21.84% in a 4-inch substrate scale device array.


Abstract International environmental cooperation can impose significant costs on private firms. Yet, in recent years some companies have been supportive of international climate agreements. This suggests that under certain conditions environmental accords can be profitable. In this paper, I seek to explain this puzzle by focusing on the interaction between domestic regulation and decisions at international climate negotiations. I argue that global climate cooperation hurts the profits of polluting firms if domestic governments do not shield them from international compliance costs. Vice versa, if firms are subject to protective (i.e., insufficiently severe) policy instruments at home, firms can materially gain from international climate agreements that sustain expectations about their profitability. I test the argument with an event study of the effect of decisions at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on major European firms that received free carbon permits in the early stages of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The analysis suggests that financial markets carefully follow the international climate negotiations, and reward the regulated firms based on the outcome of UNFCCC decisions. The evidence also indicates the advantageous interplay between certain types of domestic regulations and international regimes for business. More generally, the results show the perils of privately supported policy for the effectiveness of international public good provision.


Emergence as a general concept has had an interesting and varied history. In this paper, I critically analyze various emergentist concepts within the context of philosophy of mind. In this portion of the project, I first analyze the history of emergentism, paying great debt to the contributions of a group of philosophers known as the British Emergentists. Building upon their foundation, I then highlight a few concepts of great interest for emergentism as a mind-body theory, and, from there, build a definition of an emergent property. I highlight irreducibility as the main concept for the emergentist. The irreducibility claim for the emergentist is made up of four separate claims: 1) emergent properties supervene on base properties with nomological necessity, but not logical necessity, 2) emergent properties are not reductively explainable in terms of their basal constituents, 3) the laws relating emergent properties with their basal properties are fundamental, irreducible laws, and 4) emergent properties have causal powers of their own and these properties are not reducible to the causal powers of their constituents. Given this definition, I argue that emergentism is something much closer to property dualism as opposed to physicalism. This is a significant result, because it is generally thought that emergentism is one of the paradigmatic examples of a nonreductive physicalist theory. Thus, the emergentist must deal with the same problems as the property dualist, most importantly the problem of mental causation. To highlight this problem, I present Jaegwon Kim's exclusion argument. From there, I offer a possible solution on behalf of the emergentist, but argue that this solution does not solve the problem. Thus, the emergentist still faces the issue of explaining how an irreducible mental cause can fit into a physical world.


In order to receive payments under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, an aged, blind, or disabled person's countable resources must fall below specified limits. The current limits are +2,000 for an individual and +3,000 for a couple. In 1987, when the data were collected for this study, these limits were +1,800 for an individual and +2,700 for a couple. This study found that the resource levels of most SSI recipients were well below the 1987 limits. A majority of SSI recipients had less than +100 in countable resources, and only about 12 percent of SSI recipients had more than +1,000 of resources. These low levels of resources ensure that relatively few recipients become ineligible for SSI payments because of resource accumulation. The most common forms of countable resources held by SSI recipients were cash, checking accounts, and savings accounts.


This article presents an area efficient fully autonomous piezoelectric energy harvesting system to scavenge energy from periodic vibrations. Extraction rectifier utilized in the system is based on synchronized switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI) technique which enables system to outperform standard passive rectifiers. Compared to conventional SSHI circuits, enhanced SSHI (E-SSHI) system proposed in this paper uses a single low-profile external inductor in the range of $\mu \text{H}$ 's to reduce overall system cost and volume, hence broadening application areas of such harvesting systems. Furthermore, E-SSHI does not include any negative voltage converter circuit and therefore, it offers area efficient AC/DC rectification. Detection of optimal voltage flipping times in E-SSHI technique is conducted autonomously without any external calibration. Energy transfer circuit provides control over how much energy is delivered from E-SSHI output to electronic load. The proposed system is fabricated in 180 nm CMOS process with 0.28 mm2 active area. It is tested using a commercial piezoelectric transducer MIDE V22BL with periodic excitation. Measured results reveal that E-SSHI circuit is capable of extracting up to 5.23 and 4.02 times more power compared with an ideal full-bridge rectifier at 0.87 V and 2.6 V piezoelectric open circuit voltage amplitudes (VOC, P), respectively. A maximum voltage flipping efficiency of 93% is observed at VOC,P = 3.6 V, owing to minimized losses on charge flipping path. Measured results are compared with state-of-the-art interface circuits. Comparison shows that E-SSHI design offers a huge step towards miniaturized harvesting systems thanks to its low-profile and fully autonomous design.


Since 1972, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has maintained a large collection of sorghum in India. The collection size has continuously increased, and the total number of accessions at present conserved in the gene bank has reached about 36 000 accessions. The need to help management was considered, and this study was conducted to establish core collections. This sorghum collection was earlier stratified into four clusters according to the photoperiod sensitivity. Then, considering the core collection strategy, we used three random sampling procedures to determine the specific accessions to be included in the core, i.e. a constant portion (Core C), a proportional (Core P), and a proportional to the logarithm (Core L), of the photoperiod group size sampling strategy. Both the Core C and L were significantly different from the landrace collection with better representation of the smallest groups, such as landraces insensitive to photoperiod. Despite differences between the three core collections, estimates of global diversity through the Shannon-Weaver Diversity Indices were of the same magnitude as the landrace collection. When compared, the Core C and L were significantly different. Core L sampled better for the characters, the race, and the latitudinal classes that were related to the photoperiod-sensitive landraces. Thus, for establishing a core collection with the widest range of adaptation to photoperiod, we propose the use of a logarithmic sampling strategy, which identifies a broadly adapted set of genotypes.


To obtain some knowledge to predict the tool life caused by breakage, a series of slotting experiments was performed at various feed rates for high carbon steel by using coated carbide square end mills of 0.5mm in diameter. The main results obtained are as follows, (1) There found a possibility to obtain an optimum feed rate for the maximum slotting distance. (2) Lower feed rate caused chatter but higher feed rate rarely caused chatter. (3) A newly defined cumulative damage seems to be useful in some extent to predict tool life by monitoring cutting force.


The main source of information on future climate conditions are global circulation models (GCMs). While the various GCMs agree on an increase of surface temperature, the predictions for precipitation exhibit high spread among the models, especially in shorter-than-daily temporal resolu- tion. This paper presents a method to predict regional distri- butions of the hourly rainfall depth based on daily mean sea level pressure and temperature data. It is an indirect down- scaling method avoiding uncertain precipitation data from the GCM. It is based on a fuzzy logic classification of atmo- spheric circulation patterns (CPs) that is further subdivided by means of the average daily temperature. The observed em- pirical distributions at 30 rain gauges to each CP-temperature class are assumed as constant and used for projections of the hourly precipitation sums in the future. The method was ap- plied to the CP-temperature sequence derived from the 20th- century run and the scenario A1B run of ECHAM5. For the study region in southwestern Germany ECHAM5 predicts that the summers will become progressively drier. Neverthe- less, the frequency of the highest hourly precipitation sums will increase. According to the predictions, estival water stress and the risk of extreme hourly precipitation will both increase simultaneously during the next decades. However, the results are yet to be confirmed by further investigation based on other GCMs.


This study examines Finnish higher education students' perceptions of whether students are customers based on qualitative interview data. The paper contributes to the discussion on students as customers by giving attention to students' own voices from a country where tuition fees are not generally collected. The data are presented and analyzed using a matrix of preference and perception of seeing students as customers. While the data contained student voices insisting that it is not appropriate to talk about customers because money is not involved, different orientations showing either a preference or perception of students as customers were also described. It is concluded that seeing a student as a customer might be a solution that could be attached to various current higher education challenges which are not all related to tuition fees.


We formulate regression as maximizing the minimum probability (Ω) that the true regression function is within ±2 of the regression model. Our framework starts by posing regression as a binary classification problem, such that a solution to this single classification problem directly solves the original regression problem. Minimax probability machine classification (Lanckriet et al., 2002a) is used to solve the binary classification problem, resulting in a direct bound on the minimum probability Ω that the true regression function is within ±2 of the regression model. This minimax probability machine regression (MPMR) model assumes only that the mean and covariance matrix of the distribution that generated the regression data are known; no further assumptions on conditional distributions are required. Theory is formulated for determining when estimates of mean and covariance are accurate, thus implying robust estimates of the probability bound Ω. Conditions under which the MPMR regression surface is identical to a standard least squares regression surface are given, allowing direct generalization bounds to be easily calculated for any least squares regression model (which was previously possible only under very specific, often unrealistic, distributional assumptions). We further generalize these theoretical bounds to any superposition of basis functions regression model. Experimental evidence is given supporting these theoretical results.


ABSTRACT The diversity of political spaces, availability of cheap labor, ease of access to powerful figures, and safety net of a foreign passport attract researchers to the developing world. However, environments of extreme state weakness and ongoing conflict permit research behavior that would be frowned on in the global north. We suggest that weak regulatory authority in conflict-affected states offers foreign academics opportunities that are not available when states have greater reach or capacity. Qualitative researchers may find requests to interview victims or perpetrators of wartime violence granted with ease. Experimenters can coerce under-resourced NGOs to pursue interventions at odds with their organizational mandates. We posit that conflict contexts can constitute permissive environments in which researchers can engage in conduct that would be considered deeply problematic at home. Because studying political violence can require firsthand research on aspects of political life not easily observed elsewhere, this article offers a set of guidelines to foster more ethical and responsible research practices.


Spray forming is a near-net shape fabrication process in which a spray of finely divided molten particles of metallic material is deposited onto a suitably shaped substrate to form a coherent solid. This technology offers unique opportunity for simplifying material processing by elimination of a number of unit operations and can be an alternative to conventional metal working technology for the production of certain type of components. The components thus formed may have some properties viz. hardness and wear resistance, surpassing those of their cast and wrought counter parts.

Cemented carbide belongs to a class of hard wear resistant refractory materials which are very difficult to process. This material can be used to make thin-walled inserts which can be utilised to improve the surface property of the engineering components.

A high velocity oxy-fuel thermal spraying system has been installed. This coating process has been employed to spray form thin walled near net shaped components. Materials used to fabricate components were tungsten carbide/cobalt, nickel chromium alloy and stainless steel. Special attention was given to determine the processing parameters of tungsten carbide/cobalt components.

Forming cores of different sizes, shapes were made from different materials. Materials in the form of powder were deposited by spraying with the HVOF thermal spray gun on the forming core surface after applying a releasing layer on the forming core. The releasing layer was so chosen that it facilitated deposition without fracture and after deposition it can be debonded easily from the forming core such that the deposited layer can be separated without fracture. Heating and cooling of the forming core-deposit assembly at different stages of spray forming process have profound effect on the success in obtaining the component without fracturing. Optimum ranges of values of the processing variables for different types of material were determined.

The effects of the processing parameters on the properties of the components were also investigated. The density of the spray formed components vary between 96- 99.5% of the theoretical values. The other properties of the components such as hardness, roughness and composition were also measured and compared with the standard values.

The components thus formed were found to be brittle. To improve the toughness of tungsten carbide/cobalt components, multi-layer components were fabricated. The toughness of the multi-layer component was found to be higher than the single layer tungsten carbide/cobalt, component. Components of materials with gradual change in composition were also fabricated to improve the toughness of tungsten carbide/cobalt components.

Depending upon the processing variables, the spray formed components contain residual stress. For tungsten carbide/cobalt component the amount of residual stress was measured and the effect of processing variables on the level of residual stress was investigated. An optimum condition was established to obtain stress free tungsten carbide/cobalt component.

These spray formed components were found to be suitable as replaceable insert in a nozzle or cylinder for low stress application. These replaceable inserts can be fitted with adhesives or can be shrink fit with then* counter parts. The cost analysis of fabricating tungsten carbide/cobalt component shows that spray forming might be a viable alternative route for the production of carbide components.


The 1988 amendment to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA-88) has decreased the number of pesticide registrations in the United States. Subsequent implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and quality assurance (QA) standards has increased costs of maintaining these registrations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) maintains approximately 30 Section 3 (federal) or Section 24c (state) vertebrate pesticide registrations for the Wildlife Services (WS) program to control wild mammals and birds that damage crops, impact endangered species, or pose human health risks. Under FIFRA-88, APHIS summarized, performed, and submitted or gained waivers for > 500 studies requested by the U.S. EPA to assess potential hazards/effects of these pesticides. A summary of FIFRA-88 milestones for registration of 3-chloro-p-toluidine hydrochloride (CPTH), the active ingredient (AI) in a "low-volume, minor-use" avicide (DRC-1339, Starlicide), is used to illustrate GLP/QA/animal welfare issues involved in this process. Trends in the development of new pesticides and veterinary drugs are compared to provide some perspectives on future career paths for QA professionals.


Teacher research activity is an important complex part of their work. Therefore, alongside with the other, their important professional competences, teacher research activity competence becomes a significant one. Teacher's activity space has widened a lot. Carrying out various research, the teacher uses the obtained information firstly for their activity improvement. It is obvious that there is a lack of reliable research on this question. A deep gap exists between educational research and educational practice. This research aimed to ascertain primary school teachers' position on educational research question. The research was carried out in 2019, in which 106 primary school teachers from various Lithuanian schools took part. A two-part research instrument was applied, which consisted of open-ended and closed-ended questions. A descriptive qualitative and quantitative content analysis was carried out. Though most of the teachers thought that educational research was important for their practical activity, however, the biggest gap between educational research and educational practice is most frequently determined by the lack of teacher competence in this sphere. There exists an obvious teacher support need as well as teacher professional development needs in the aspect of research availability/accessibility and its use in educational practice.


Gender differences in competitiveness have been suggested as an explanation for the observed dearth of women in highly-ranked positions within firms. In this paper we ask: could a price mechanism be used to achieve gender balance? Our results show that if the rewards to competition are sufficiently large, women are willing to compete as much as men and will win as many competitions as men. Nonetheless, while entry increases, it is not enough to reduce average wage cost. Given the proportion of men and women willing to enter the competition at various prizes, firms whose objective is to minimize their costs would not voluntarily chose prizes which allow them to attract a balanced workforce. Hence markets forces would not be sufficient to achieve gender parity. Our experimental design also allows us to propose a new measure for competitiveness that incorporates the fact that incentives change participants' willingness to compete, namely the minimum prize at which participants chose to enter a tournament. We find that women choose to enter at significantly higher minimum prizes and that only a small fraction of the initial gender gap can be attributed to performance, beliefs, and general factors such as risk and feedback aversion. Thus, even though for some prizes women behave as competitively as men, women nevertheless are less competitive than men.


Seasonality is a distinguishing characteristic of tourism, and it has economic importance thus attracting attention from the academic area as well as from the business and policy making domains. The aim of this thesis is to explore the seasonality phenomenon in Asian tourism, with a particular emphasis on residents' and managers' views of China's Golden Week system. The discussion on this topic
starts with a review of key aspects of seasonality in the tourism context, including its definition, causes and impacts. Previous studies on seasonality conducted in the
context of Western countries are initially considered. This work is followed by an introduction to seasonality in Asian studies, with a brief discussion of Japan's Golden
Week and a focus on China's Golden Week system which is the centre of this study. Based on the literature review, an opportunity exists to better understand seasonality
in Asian tourism, particularly the residents' and managers' views of China's Golden Week system. Three studies are implemented to address these research opportunities.

The first study was based on secondary data analysis and it was designed to characterise the seasonality phenomenon in Asian tourism. Secondary data of monthly tourist arrivals to five key Asian countries and four Chinese areas over a time period were selected to identify the seasonality patterns. By comparing the variances between monthly tourist arrivals and the average monthly tourist arrivals, six seasonality patterns were identified and named after six basic landforms – the rolling hills, the plain, the single-peak mountain, the multi-peak mountain, the basin and the plateau. Applying this coding system to over 270 cases, it was found that extreme seasonality patterns do not dominant Asian tourism, but multiple seasonality patterns exist and vary across Asian countries, even within one country (China).

The second study was a quantitative study where a questionnaire survey was applied. The questionnaires were conducted in China over five locations to collect Chinese
respondents' (N=450) views of seasonality and Golden Week travelling. By assessing 20 seasonality concerns identified from the literature, this study found that the crowding issue was the most powerful factor influencing tourists' decisions on when to travel. The amount of rain and very high temperatures were also important influences. The Chinese respondents were least influenced by religious and cultural factors, special events and the amount of sunshine. According to their appraisal of their Golden Week travelling experiences, the Golden Week system was very popular for the Chinese residents as it provided them with seven days in which to undertake long-distance and more relaxed trips. This length of time also gave them the
opportunity to enjoy nice weather, more activities, and chances to go travelling with families and friends. Nevertheless, some problems resulting from Golden Week
system were identified, such as the crowding issue, higher prices and lower level of service. Most of the respondents noted these factors as likely issues reducing their
satisfaction with Golden Weeks travel.

The final study was approached by in-depth interviews. A form of discourse analysis was applied to present the interview results. This study sought specific views of
seasonality and the Golden Week system from the Chinese tourism managers' perspective. The interviewees were presented with the six seasonality patterns identified in the first study and asked about their perceptions. There was not a single commonly accepted pattern as an ideal model for tourism businesses. The single-peak mountain pattern and the multi-peak mountain pattern were perceived as the most likely to occur in the hotel and catering area. The other patterns were identified as relatively infrequent in all business areas. Managers' reactions to the Golden Week system revealed that this holiday system was very welcome by most of the tourism businesses although some management and environment problems were noted. All the
managers were looking forward to a brighter future from Golden Week business.

This thesis has attempted to provide a different format to identify tourism seasonality (the six-pattern coding system in the first study). Besides the findings mentioned
above, this thesis has also addressed two literature gaps, one is the combination of 20 seasonality concerns and the exploration of their influence on tourists' travelling time
period (discussed in the second study). A second contribution is a multi-regional view from tourist business managers establishing how these industry personnel view the
Golden Weeks. A further contribution lies in converting perspectives gathered in Mandarin into the English academic tourism literature (discussed in the second and third study). This thesis also highlighted future areas for tourism seasonality study in other parts of the world where the seasonality phenomenon is not well researched. It has also pointed out the significance of research on the Chinese Golden Week market for tourism worldwide.


Late Pleistocene and Holocene activity on major faults of western and central Asia are inferred from offsets of young topography. Large active strike-slip faults bound the northward-moving Arabian and Indian plates. The Indian plate moves more rapidly with respect to Eurasia than does the Arabian plate, with the highest rate of young lateral motion (1.2 to 1.4 cm/yr) along the Darvaz fault on its northwestern side. Convergence of these plates on the Eurasian plate produces the north-trending compression of the latter. It results in the creation of northwest-trending dextral wrench faults, smaller northeast-trending sinistral faults, east-west–trending thrust faults, and rare north-trending normal and extension faults. The rates of relative motion are slower here than on the borders of the southern plates, being higher to the north of the Indian plate than to the north of the Arabian. Not all relative motion of the southern plates is accommodated by their boundary deformation and by the compression of the Eurasian plate. This motion and resistance of the Eurasian plate produce squeezing of the rock masses on both sides of the southern plates that results in dextral west-trending wrench faulting on the western side and sinistral on the eastern side of each plate. This pattern can be recognized throughout the Neogene-Quaternary tectonic evolution of the Asian segment of the Alpine–central Asian orogenic belt. This paper is an attempt to correlate synchronous tectonic movements over huge areas of the continent. The author believes it is appropriate to recognize in such correlation mobile and stable zones of different scales. The depth and character of motion in the mobile zones define important features of the structure and evolution of the Earth9s crust.


ABSTRACT Negative-pressure pulmonary edema (NPPE)-related diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (DAH) is an underdiagnosed clinical entity seen with alveolar capillary damage. The pathophysiology of type I NPPE is generation of a negative pleural pressure against an upper airway obstruction. We suspect this process was facilitated by preexisting alveolar damage with smoking and administration of the irritating and coagulopathic inhaled anesthetic sevoflurane. We present a case of a healthy 31-year-old man who developed postoperative hemoptysis, diffuse ground-glass opacity and infiltrates on computed tomography (CT) of the chest, anemia, and hypoxic respiratory failure. A diagnosis of DAH was made and a serologic workup for systemic disorders including vasculitis and connective tissue diseases was negative. The patient rapidly improved with supportive care and had complete resolution of his bilateral infiltrates on repeat chest x-ray two weeks later. Our literature review identified three cases of DAH in the setting of sevoflurane administration. Our case illustrates the importance of including NPPE-related DAH on the differential of post-operative hemoptysis, especially in association with sevoflurane administration and a history of cigarette smoking.


TiO(2) anatase thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition are investigated by high resolution transmission electron microscopy and high angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscopy. The analyses provide evidence of a peculiar growth mode of anatase on LaAlO(3) and SrTiO(3) characterized by the formation of an epitaxial layer at the film/substrate interface, due to cationic diffusion from the substrate into the film region. Pure TiO(2) anatase growth occurs in both specimens above a critical thickness of about 20 nm. The microstructural and chemical characterization of the samples is presented and discussed in the framework of oxide interface engineering.


Spin-torque oscillators (STO) hold promise for multi-octave frequency operation at very high frequencies and modulation speeds. STO operation is typically demonstrated using large electromagnets and probe stations, and has so far not been packaged with a portable form factor. For STOs to be utilized in real applications, a smaller packaging solution is needed. We integrate STOs with packages originally developed for YIG oscillators, modified to incorporate permanent magnets and to achieve a compact portable oscillator based on the STO.


Overall survival rates for pediatric patients with high‐risk or relapsed rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) have not improved significantly since the 1980s. Recent studies have identified a number of targetable vulnerabilities in RMS, but these discoveries have infrequently translated into clinical trials. We propose streamlining the process by which agents are selected for clinical evaluation in RMS. We believe that strong consideration should be given to the development of combination therapies that add biologically targeted agents to conventional cytotoxic drugs. One example of this type of combination is the addition of the WEE1 inhibitor AZD1775 to the conventional cytotoxic chemotherapeutics, vincristine and irinotecan.


OBJECTIVE
To update the knowledge about anorexia and insomnia in childhood.

SOURCES
Search of Medline database, including articles from 1997 to 2002. The key words anorexia, feeding disorders, insomnia, sleep disorders and childhood were used. Some textbooks were also included.

SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS
Definition, main types and causes, diagnosis and treatment of anorexia and insomnia are presented.

CONCLUSIONS
anorexia and insomnia are prevalent in childhood. The former is a much more frequent complaint in pediatric visits. The diagnosis is almost always based solely on a good history. Both conditions are generally behavioral and reflect the family dynamics. They are preventable and treated at the primary care level, based upon simple strategies, although sometimes not easily accepted by the patients.


Compared with single channel speech processing, multi- microphone based speech processing methods are capable of high interference suppression in noisy environments because of their spatial filtering capability. This dissertation develops novel microphone array speech processing methods in a variety of configurations and also analyzes and provides insights into existing popular techniques. First we develop a two microphone based source localization technique for multiple speech sources utilizing speech specific properties and the generalized mixture decomposition clustering algorithm. Voiced speech is sparse in the frequency domain and can be represented by sinusoidal tracks via sinusoidal modeling which provides high local SNR. By utilizing the inter-channel phase differences (IPD) between the dual channels on the sinusoidal tracks, the source localization of the mixed multiple speech sources is turned into a clustering problem on the IPD vs. frequency plot. The generalized mixture decomposition algorithm (GMDA) is used to cluster the groups of points corresponding to multiple sources and thus estimate the DOA of the sources. Our next work considers data dependent adaptive beamformers, which are known to have high resolution and interference rejection capability when the array steering vector is accurately known. However, these methods degrade severely if steering vector error exists and so robust variants are needy to remedy this sensitivity. We compare and analyze recent developments in adaptive beamforming. We then develop a robust broadband adaptive beamforming algorithm which combined the robustness of the delay-and-sum beamforming in the look direction with the high interference rejection capability of adaptive beamforming algorithm. Based on J. Li and P. Stoica's work on robust Capon beamforming, we develop variants of the constrained robust Capon beamformer that attempt to limit the search in the underlying optimization problem to a feasible set of steering vectors thereby achieving improved performance. Another class of promising multi-channel signal separation algorithms that complement beamforming methods are blind source separation methods. We analyze and provide insight into one such class of blind source separation methods, independent component analysis (ICA) methods. For separating convolutively mixed source signals, the frequency domain ICA approach is often used because it simplifies the time domain convolutive mixing problem into the instantaneous mixing problem in each frequency bin. We examine and provide insights into the frequency domain ICA methods for source separation in reverberant environments. Concentrating on the bin-wise ICA methods, a significant contribution of this work is to show that signals modeled using Gaussian scale mixtures (GSM) density can be separated using ICA even though they might be dependent on each other as long as the the frame dynamics of the source signals are different almost surely. We also analyze the stability conditions of the complex maximum likelihood ICA /IVA. Lastly, in an attempt to make the best of ICA and beamforming methods, we propose two approaches for combining geometric information with ICA algorithms to solve the permutation problem in a scenario where approximate information about the direction of the desired source is known


As a promising option to address the memory wall problem, 3D processor-DRAM integration has recently received many attentions. Since DRAM tiers must be stacked between the processor tier and package substrate, we must fabricate a large number of through-DRAM through-silicon vias (TSVs) to connect the processor tier and package for power and I/O signal delivery. Although such through-DRAM TSVs will inevitably interfere with DRAM design and induce non-negligible power consumption overhead, little research has been done to study how to allocate these TSVs on the DRAM tiers and analyze their impacts. To address this open issue, this paper first presents a through-DRAM TSV allocation strategy that fits well to the regular DRAM architecture. To demonstrate this design strategy and evaluate trade-offs involved, we develop a CACTI-based modeling tool to carry out extensive simulations over a wide range of design parameters.


This study aims to describe the qualitative factors that influence domestic tourists visiting tourist destinations. This research uses a qualitative approach. The tourist destinations that became the location of the study were the spiritual tourism destination of Maria Lounders Cave, PohSarang Village, Kacamatan Semen, Kediri Regency, East Java and the Tomb of WaliSongoSunanAmpel in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. Primary data was collected using participatory observation techniques, in-depth interviews, and documentation. Data were analyzed using four steps of qualitative research, including data collection, data filtering, data classification, and drawing conclusions. Based on the results of the study it can be concluded that, the factors that affect the interest of tourists visiting tourist destinations are: the completeness of facilities and infrastructure, tourist image, service, attraction, comfort, promotion, and tourist preferences. Based on interview results, those qualitative variables are always sought after by tourists. They want to visit a destination because of its promotion, attractiveness, and good image. Service, comfort, and tourist preferences are also reasons why these tourists visit tourist destinations.


Identifying factors that influence customers' e-loyalty is paramount for practitioners and academics to develop successful marketing strategies and behavioral models. Online bookselling is a rapid growing industry in the UK, where e-loyalty models have yet to reach a conclusive argument. This paper aims to explore factors influencing customers' e-loyalty to five online bookselling websites in the UK by testing a theoretical model, based on expectation-confirmation theory. A quantitative approach was employed using questionnaires; the sample consisted of 290 respondents (50% males, age range: 18 to over 54). The questionnaire was pretested and confirmatory factor analysis was performed to assess the measurement model. Structural equation modeling and MANOVA were employed to examine the association between latent constructs. Eleven hypotheses were formulated examining different independent variables in the theoretical model; results showed a significant direct and positive association between satisfaction and e-loyalty. Web design affected e-loyalty significantly on all bookselling websites, perceived value was a significant predictor of satisfaction while price notably influenced e-trust development. E-trust was not associated with e-loyalty. This study introduces new variables that affect e-loyalty as well as illuminates new associations between existing factors – perceived value, price, and trust are new aspects which practitioners and academics should take into account for marketing strategies and behavioral models, respectively. Hence, managers will likely increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by improving web design and balancing quality with price, predisposing positively customer's attitudes towards the website.


The problem of deconvolution in fluorescence microscopy deals at the same time with the diffraction limit that cuts off some of the frequencies, blurring the image, and photon noise, that corrupts the image by inserting elements that are not present in the real object and also distorting the contrast. This distortions hampers the possibility of using the 3D images for recognition and analysis applications. In addition, the algorithms developed, in general, assume absence of noise or a white additive noise. This work presents an approach to deconvolve the images and deal with the noise present in real images. The Gerchberg-Papoulis algorithm and a smoothing operator were combined with the Richardson-Lucy iterative algorithm. The results of the method for simulated data are compared with the ones obtained by the original algorithm. The method improved the results by obtaining higher signal-to-noise ratio and quality index values, performing a better band extrapolation.


Background: Recent technology development, miniaturisation and simplification of electronic equipment have made health psychology research more feasible. The aim of this study was to assess usability, practicality and user-friendliness of novel technology aided research using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM3) as a framework. Methods: We undertook in depth interviews with 12 study participants (Mean age 50.58, SD=9.92; 3M,9F) who had all taken part in research which used mobile-phone/touch-pad aided ecologic momentary assessment, on-line supported activity monitoring and real time on-line administered weight assessment. Qualitative data was analysed using the Framework method. Results: Employing technology in research was seen as useful, practical and accessible. TAM3 variables were often referred to, particularly 'perceived usefulness' and 'perceived ease of use'. Technology was reported as easy to become accustomed to, including among older participants. Discussion: Technology-aided research is seen as valuable and easily embedded in everyday life. TAM3 provides a starting point for conceptualising technology acceptance in health-related behaviour research.


The expression and activity of Fatty Acid Synthase (FASN; the sole enzyme capable of the reductive de novo synthesis of long-chain fatty acids from acetyl-CoA, malonyl-CoA, and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate -NADPH-) is extremely low in nearly all nonmalignant adult tissues, whereas it is significantly up-regulated or activated in many cancer types, thus creating the potential for a large therapeutic index. Since the pioneering observation that inhibition of FASN activity by the mycotoxin cerulenin preferentially kills cancer cells and retards the growth of tumors in xenografts models, numerous in vitro and in vivo studies have confirmed the potential of FASN as a target for antineoplastic intervention. Other FASN inhibitors such as the cerulenin derivative C75, the beta-lactone orlistat, the green tea polyphenol epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) and other naturally occurring flavonoids (i.e., luteolin, quercetin, and kaempferol), as well as the antibiotic triclosan, have been identified and have been shown to limit cancer cell growth by inducing apoptotic cell death. Though the exact mode of action of these FASN inhibitors is under discussion, it has been revealed that depletion of end-product fatty acids, toxic intracellular accumulation of supra-physiological concentrations of the FASN substrate malonyl-CoA and/or limited membrane synthesis and/or functioning by altered production of phospholipids partitioning into detergent-resistant membrane microdomains (lipid raft-aggregates), can explain, at least in part, the cytostatic, cytotoxic as well as the apoptotic effects occurring upon pharmacological inhibition of FASN activity in cancer cells. Moreover, several cancer-associated molecular features including nonfunctioning p53, overexpression of the Her-2/neu (erbB-2) oncogene, and hyperactivation of the PI-3'K down-stream effector protein kinase B (AKT), appear to determine an exacerbated sensitivity to FASN inhibition-induced cancer cell death. Although few of these inhibitors are expected to be "exclusively" selective for FASN, the potential of FASN as a target for antineoplastic intervention has eventually been confirmed by RNA interference (RNAi)-knockdown of FASN. Certainly, future studies should definitely elucidate the ultimate biochemical link between FASN inhibition and cancer cell death. Although the combination of FASN structural complexity and until recently the lack of X-ray crystallography data of mammalian FASN created a significant challenge in the exploitation of FASN as a valuable target for drug development, it is hoped that the improvement in the selectivity and potency of forthcoming novel FASN-targeted small molecule inhibitors by taking advantage, for instance, of the recent 4.5 A resolution X-ray crystallographic map of mammalian FASN, will direct the foundation of a new family of chemotherapeutic agents in cancer history.


Networked telerobots transmit data from its sensors to the remote controller. To provide guarantees on the time requirements of these systems it is mandatory to keep the transmission time delays below a given threshold, and to that end we should predict them. In this paper we tackle the parallelization of a procedure that models these stochastic time delays. More precisely, we focus on fitting the time delay signal using a three-parametrical log-logistic distribution. Since, the robot and the controller are powered by multicore processors and, mainly on the robot, the energy consumption is a relevant issue, we study different alternatives to optimize both performance and energy usage of the aforesaid algorithm. Two quad-core processors are considered: a low power Intel Core i7 (45W TDP) and a ultra low power Samsung Exynos 5 (6W TDP). Results show that parallelism is beneficial, but that not all the cores should be exploited if the system is targeted at optimizing a performance-energy tradeoff.


An improved harmony search algorithm is presented for solving continuous optimization problems in this paper. In the proposed algorithm, an elimination principle is developed for choosing from the harmony memory, so that the harmonies with better fitness will have more opportunities to be selected in generating new harmonies. Two key control parameters, pitch adjustment rate (PAR) and bandwidth distance (bw), are dynamically adjusted to favor exploration in the early stages and exploitation during the final stages of the search process with the different search spaces of the optimization problems. Numerical results of 12 benchmark problems show that the proposed algorithm performs more effectively than the existing HS variants in finding better solutions.


In coastal Louisiana, large sediment diversions from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers have been planned to enhance marsh accretion and productivity and reverse an overall deterioration of coastal marshes. Located between these rivers, there are extensive buoyant marshes in the freshwater and oligohaline zones (about 70% of the vegetated area), and little information exists on how buoyant substrates respond to mineral sediment introduction. The purpose of this study was to understand the vertical movement (buoyancy) and substrate properties of oligohaline marshes with increasing distance from the Atchafalaya River-Fourleague Bay system, a significant mineral sediment source. To do this thirty-seven stations were established (within a study area of 125 km 2 ) where vertical marsh movement and marsh hydrology were monitored for a year, and soil cores were collected and analyzed for bulk properties. With increasing distance inland from the sediment source, there were significant increases in vertical movement of the marsh mat and decreasing mineral sediment content in the soil profile. In the interior marshes farthest from the sediment source, the average mat movement was greater than 15 cm, and some sites exceeded 25 cm. Non-buoyant marshes with high substrate bulk density were located closest to the sediment source. Mineral sediment deposition appeared to be a discontinuous process controlled by large events such as hurricanes and tropical storms, rather than average yearly flood events. A comparison of our data (from oligohaline marshes) with other studies (from freshwater marshes) suggests that increases of mineral matter within the upper peat matrix may decrease the vertical movement of marsh substrates.


3-[4-[(3-Chlorophenyl)methoxy]phenyl]-5-[(methylamino)methyl]- 2-oxazolidinone (1) is a secondary amine known to be a potent time-dependent irreversible inactivator of monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B). The primary amine analogues of derivatives of 1, as well as of the corresponding dihydrofuranone and pyrrolidinone, had been shown to be time-dependent, but reversible, inhibitors of MAO-B. Here it is shown that the primary amine analogue of 1 is a time-dependent reversible inhibitor of MAO-B and that the secondary and tertiary amine analogues of the corresponding oxazolidinone, dihydrofuranone, and pyrrolidinone are time-dependent irreversible inhibitors of MAO-B. The reaction leading to the irreversible enzyme adduct formation with 1 can be reversed by increasing the temperature. These results are consistent with a stabilizing stereoelectronic effect on the enzyme adduct caused by N-methylation which hinders free rotation and prevents the sp3-orbital containing the nitrogen nonbonded electrons from being trans to the active site amino acid leaving group.


A series of covalently cross-linked poly(ionic liquid) networks were prepared using thiol–ene "click" photopolymerization. In these networks, imidazolium groups are placed in the backbone and pendant to the main chain, creating a "hybrid"-type network architecture. The pendant imidazolium groups were incorporated into the networks from monofunctional "ene" monomers that contained either a terminal alkyl group at the imidazolium N-3 position of variable length (R = C1, C4, C8, C12, C16, or C20) or a variable alkyl tether spacer (n = 6 or 10) between the newly formed sulfide and the imidazolium ring. Thermal characterization of these networks indicated a general decrease in Tg as the length of the terminal alkyl chain length increased from C1 to C8, followed by an abrupt increase in Tg up to C20 due to increased van der Waals interactions between longer chains. X-ray scattering data confirmed the presence of chain-extended crystallites within the network cavities for the C16 and C20 systems, leading to the ...


Abstract In order to offer a typology of dialogue that captures the complex and multifaceted nature of dialogues, we should take into account two factors: (1) the basic kind of interaction between the two interlocutors; the wide variety of specific interactions can be grouped under three general headings: echo-dialogue, whereby one participant repeats what the other has said; dialogue-of-the-deaf, whereby the two participants neither listen to nor understand one another; and dialectical-dialogue, in which the two participants are able to listen to and understand one another, albeit representing different points of view or sentiments. (2) The second factor is the distinction between the outer and the inner level of dialogue. This distinction characterizes any semiotic phenomenon, and derives from the distinction between linguistic form and content. The article argues that there is no automatic correspondence between the kind of interaction that occurs on one level and that taking place on the other. By using only these two factors we gain a systematic and elegant typology of dialogues that enables us to offer nuanced descriptions of a wide range of dialogical interactions in literary texts, notably in drama – as illustrated in the article.


Purpose of review The purpose of this review is to describe the new DNA sequencing technologies referred to as next-generation sequencing (NGS). These new methods are becoming central to research in human disease and are starting to be used in routine clinical care. Recent findings Advances in instrumentation have dramatically reduced the cost of DNA sequencing. An individual's entire genome can now be sequenced for $7500. In addition, the software needed to analyze and help interpret this data is rapidly improving. This technology has been used by researchers to discover new genetic disorders and new disease associations. In the clinic, it can define the etiology in patients with undiagnosed genetic disorders and identify mutations in a cancer to help guide chemotherapy. Summary Here we discuss how whole-exome sequencing and whole-genome sequencing are used in basic research and clinical care. These new techniques promise to speed research and affect how healthcare is delivered.


Two main types of approaches exist for implementing cooperative communications at the MAC layer: virtual-hop relay and cooperative retransmission. While the virtual-hop relay schemes employ relay nodes to forward packets when higher end-to-end throughput can be achieved compared with the direct transmission, the cooperative retransmission schemes use relays to retransmit data only after the direct transmission fails. However, the performance of the these different approaches has not been compared in the literature, especially when energy efficiency is considered. In order to find out the best transmission scheme, this paper evaluates and compares the performance of the one-hop direct transmission, two-hop transmission, efficient multi-rate relaying, cooperative MAC and automatic cooperative retransmission schemes, in terms of throughput, packet delivery rate and energy efficiency in distributed wireless networks.


: The induction of tumours of the peripheral nerves in Macaca mulatta has been accomplished by injections of the carcinogen methylnitrosourea in combination with organospecific immunization with antigens from the homologous tissue (sciatic nerve). The histology and biological peculiarities of the tumours are similar to those seen in man.


Autogenous bone grafting is still the gold standard for use in bone defects in orthopedic, plastic, and craniofacial surgeries. However, some patients are unable to provide sufficient quantity of bone and the high postoperative morbidity limits its clinical use. Currently, various bone substitutes are available for clinical applications, including calcium phosphate and biodegradable polyester. But hydroxyapatite is considered nondegradable and the degradation rate of biodegradable polyester is too fast, therefore both these biomaterials are hardly used clinically. To resolve this problem, we fabricated a biodegradable porous bone substitute by merging poly(L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and β-tricalcium phosphate (TCP), such that the new bone substitute could provide the advantages of both the materials. The New Zealand white rabbit femur defect model was used to assess the biocompatibility and degree of osteoconduction of this new bone substitute. There was no inflammatory reaction at the PLGA/TCP grafting site based on our macroscopic observations. Three months after grafting, the cavity and central portion of the created defect within the rabbit femur was filled with newly formed bone. Furthermore, the new ingrown bone tissues readily matured to secondary bone with Haversian systems similar to the surrounding cancellous bone. We conclude that the newly fabricated PLGA/TCP shows both excellent biocompatibility and effective osteoconduction.


Female mate choice is thought to be responsible for the evolution of many extravagant male ornaments and displays, but the costs of being too selective may hinder the evolution of choosiness. Selection against choosiness should be strongest in socially monogamous mating systems, because females may end up without a partner and forego reproduction, especially when many females prefer the same few partners (frequency-dependent selection). Here we quantify the fitness costs of having mating preferences that are difficult to satisfy. We capitalise on the recent discovery that female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) prefer males of familiar song dialect. We measured female fitness in captive breeding colonies in which one third of females were given ample opportunity to choose a mate of their preferred dialect (two thirds of all males; 'relaxed competition'), while two thirds of the females had to compete over a limited pool of mates they preferred (one third of all males; 'high competition'). As expected, social pairings were strongly assortative with regard to song dialect. In the high-competition group, 26% of the females remained unpaired, yet they still obtained relatively high fitness by using brood parasitism as an alternative reproductive tactic. Another 31% of high-competition females paired disassortatively for song dialect. These females showed increased levels of extra-pair paternity, mostly with same-dialect males as sires, suggesting that preferences were not abolished after social pairing. However, females that paired disassortatively for song dialect did not have lower reproductive success. Overall, females in the high-competition group reached equal fitness as those that experienced relaxed competition. Our study suggests that alternative reproductive tactics such as egg dumping can help overcome the frequency-dependent costs of being highly selective in a monogamous mating system, thereby facilitating the evolution of female choosiness.