The relevance of the study of the prospects for preserving the biosystems of the regions through the development of ecological tourism in the Republic of Tajikistan is explained by the importance of preserving the main resource of ecological tourism - the natural environment or its individual components, harmonization of the ecological and economic objectives of tourism development. The purpose of this study is to determine the prospects for the preservation of regional biosystems through the development of ecological tourism in the Republic of Tajikistan. As the results of the study showed, the development of ecological tourism in Tajikistan is promoted by the formation of regional ecological zones covering a large area that have unique natural and recreational resources of interest to foreign tourists. But, despite the availability of opportunities and development prerequisites, ecological tourism in the Republic of Tajikistan is in its infancy. According to expert estimates, the main base for the formation and development of ecological tourism in the republic is the Tajik National Park, which is formed to protect the landscape, rare and endangered species of flora and fauna, nature, culture and history, as well as the development and rationalization of tourism. The study emphasized that along with the positive aspects of the preservation of the region's biosystem in the Tajik National Park, there are a number of problems that hinder the development of eco-tourism. As a result of the analysis of existing scientific research conducted by the polls, the article suggests ways to solve these problems. The article will be useful for regional and federal authorities, educational institutions that prepare students in the direction of "tourism", as well as for all those interested in the conservation of biosystems and the development of ecological tourism.


Climate services are becoming the backbone to translate climate knowledge, data & information into climate-informed decision-making at all levels, from public administrations to business operators. It is essential to assess the technical and scientific quality of the provided climate data and information products, including their value to users, to establish the relation of trust between providers of climate data and information and various downstream users. The climate data and information products (i.e., from satellite, in-situ and reanalysis) shall be fully traceable, adequately documented and uncertainty quantified and can provide sufficient guidance for users to address their specific needs and feedbacks. This paper discusses details on how to apply the quality assurance framework to deliver timely assessments of the quality and usability of Essential Climate Variable (ECV) products. It identifies an overarching structure for the quality assessment of single product ECVs (i.e., consists of only one single variable), multi-product ECVs (i.e., more than one single parameter), thematic products (i.e., water, energy and carbon cycles), as well as the usability assessment. To support a traceable climate service, other than rigorously evaluating the technical and scientific quality of ECV products, which represent the upstream of climate services, how the uncertainty propagates into the resulting benefit (utility) for the users of the climate service needs to be detailed.


Estrogens generated within endocrine organs and the reproductive system act as ligands for at least three types of estrogen receptors. Estrogen receptors α (ERα) and β (ERβ) belong to the so-called classical family of estrogen receptors, whereas the G protein-coupled receptor GPR30, also known as GPER-1, has been described as a novel estrogen receptor sited in the cell membrane of target cells. Furthermore, these receptors are under stimulation of a family of exogenous estrogens, known as phytoestrogens, which are a diverse group of non-steroidal plant compounds derived from plant food consumed by humans and animals. Because phytoestrogens are omnipresent in our daily diet, they are becoming increasingly important in both human health and disease. Recent evidence indicates that in addition to classical estrogen receptors, phytoestrogens also activate GPER-1 a relevant observation since GPER-1 is involved in several physiopathological disorders and especially in estrogen-dependent diseases such as breast cancer.The first estrogen receptors discovered were the classical ERα and ERβ, but from an evolutionary point of view G protein-coupled receptors trace their origins in history to over a billion years ago suggesting that estrogen receptors like GPER-1 may have been the targets of choice for ancient phytoestrogens and/or estrogens.This review provides a comprehensive and systematic literature search on phytoestrogens and its relationship with classical estrogen receptors and GPER-1 including its role in breast cancer, an issue still under discussion.


Microcontaminations of copper and silver on n-type silicon wafer surfaces were investigated by performing a series of electrochemical polarization measurements in 5% hydrofluoric acids and ethanol solutions in the absence and presence of various concentrations of copper and/or silver. The metallically contaminated wafer surfaces were characterized by scanning electron microscopy. It was revealed that the open-circuit potentials shifted to a more anodic direction and the corrosion current densities increased significantly when either copper or silver was present in solutions, and these became more pronounced when hoth copper and silver were introduced simultaneously into solutions. The polarization resistance showed a sensitive linear decrease with an increase of copper or silver concentrations, a strong indication of an accelerated electrochemical reaction. The contaminated wafer surfaces were covered by metallic nanocrystallites due to copper and silver deposition from solutions. When both copper and silver were present, the nanocrystallites coagulated with each other and various clusters were formed by combination with metallic atoms. As the concentration of copper and/or silver increased, the amounts of metallic nanocrystallites also increased, this, in turn. further promoted metallic microcontaminations and ultimately led to rougher water surfaces.


Background Adequate sleep during adolescence is important for healthy development and proper daytime functioning. Sleep problems are commonly reported in adolescents, with an estimated prevalence between 17 and 45%. Besides, adolescence period is usually associated with various behavioral problems such as aggression and self-harm. Aims The aim of this study was to evaluate sleep habits and the presence of sleep problems in an Egyptian adolescent sample. Moreover, this study aimed to examine the presence of a relationship between sleep problems and the development of aggression and self-harm among those adolescents. Patients and methods A total of 117 adolescents in the preparatory stage participated in this study. Three self-report questionnaires were used, Child and Adolescent Sleep Checklist, the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory, and the Aggression Scale, for students for assessment of sleep problems, deliberate self-harm (DSH), and aggression, respectively, among those adolescents. Results A total of 117 adolescents, 51 (43.6%) male and 66 (56.4%) female, participated in this study; their mean age was 13.85±0.81 years. Bedtime problems and daytime problems are more common among adolescents, with higher scores (8.10±3.99 and 6.56±3.61, respectively). Of those, 36 (30.8%) adolescents had a score of 18 or more, and so they were considered to have sleep problems. The participated adolescents had score ranging from 3 to 38 in the Aggression Scale, with a mean±SD of 12.36±8.32. A total of 24 (20.5%) adolescents had engaged in self-harm according to the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory. Moreover, a significant positive correlation (P<0.001) was found between sleep problems and both DSH and aggressive behaviors among those adolescents. Conclusion Bedtime problems and daytime problems were common among the participated adolescents. Moreover, DSH and aggressive behaviors were reported. This study provides evidence that there is a strong relationship between sleep problems and both DSH and aggressive behaviors among those adolescents. Early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of sleep problems and promoting sleep hygiene will, undoubtedly, improve adolescents' daily functioning and will have good impact on controlling these annoying behavioral problems.


RATIONALE
Quadrupole mass spectrometers equipped with an Electron Ionization (EI) sources have been widely used in space exploration to investigate the composition of planetary surfaces and atmospheres. However, the complexity of the samples and the minimal calibration for the fragmentation of molecules in the ionization chambers have prevented the deconvolution of the majority of the mass spectra obtained at different targets, thus limiting determination of the exact composition of the samples analyzed. We propose a Monte-Carlo approach to solve this issue mathematically.

METHODS
We have decomposed simulated mass spectra of mixtures acquired with unit resolving power mass spectrometers and EI sources into the sum of the single components fragmentation patterns weighted by their relative concentration using interior-point least-square fitting. To fit compounds with poorly known fragmentation patterns, we use a Monte-Carlo method to vary the intensity of individual fragment ions. We then decompose the spectrum thousands of times to obtain a statistical distribution.

RESULTS
By performing the deconvolution on a mixture of seven different molecules with interfering fragmentation patterns (H2 O, O2 , CH4 , Ar, N2 , C2 H4 and C2 H6 ) we show that this approach retrieves the mixing ratio of the individual components more accurately than regular mass spectra decomposition methods that rely on fragmentation patterns from general databases. It also provides the probability density function for each species's mixing ratio.

CONCLUSIONS
By removing the solution degeneracy in the decomposition of mass spectra, the method described herein could significantly increase the scientific retrieval from archived space flight mass spectrometry data, where calibration of the ionization source is no longer an option.


A single-bit fifth-order complex continuous-time IF-to-baseband SigmaDelta modulator for AM/FM/IBOC receivers is presented. The input IF is 10.7 MHz and the sampling frequency is 41.7 MHz. The modulator achieves a dynamic range of 118dB in AM mode (3 kHz BW), 98dB in FM mode (200 kHz BW), and 86dB in IBOC mode (500 kHz BW). The modulator's high dynamic range enables the realization of an AM radio receiver without a VGA and without an AM channel-selection filter, thereby reducing system complexity and cost. The elimination of the VGA also improves the sensitivity and the overall noise figure of the receiver. The modulator's spurious free dynamic range is 88 dB in the bandwidth from 25 to 525 kHz. The IM2 distance is 92 dB, and the IM3 distance is 91 dB. The ADC was fabricated in a one-poly five-metal 0.18-mum CMOS process with an active area of 6.0mm2. It consumes 210 mW from a 1.8-V supply


Abstract. Drought caused the most widespread damage in China, making up over 50 % of the total affected area nationwide in recent decades. In the paper, a Standardized Precipitation Index-based (SPI-based) drought risk study is conducted using historical rainfall data of 19 weather stations in Shandong province, China. Kernel density based method is adopted to carry out the risk analysis. Comparison between the bivariate Gaussian kernel density estimation (GKDE) and diffusion kernel density estimation (DKDE) are carried out to analyze the effect of drought intensity and drought duration. The results show that DKDE is relatively more accurate without boundary-leakage. Combined with the GIS technique, the drought risk is presented which reveals the spatial and temporal variation of agricultural droughts for corn in Shandong. The estimation provides a different way to study the occurrence frequency and severity of drought risk from multiple perspectives.


State guaranty funds are quasi-governmental agencies that provide insurance to policyholders against the risk of insurance company failure. But insurance provided by guaranty funds, like all insurance, creates moral hazard problems, especially for companies that are insolvent or near-insolvent. The key insight of this paper is that because of the time lag between premium payments and losses (which is especially lengthy in long-tail lines), writing policies is one way for insurance companies to borrow money (i.e., from policyholders). Moreover, the existence of guaranty fund insurance enables insurance companies, even very risky ones, to borrow from policyholders at rates that do not reflect the insurer's default risk. Thus, one way for insurance companies to game the guaranty fund system is to engage in excessive premium writing. Consistent with this idea, we find that insolvent P&C insurance companies tended to have very high premium growth before they failed. More than one-third of the failed insurance companies had premium growth of more than 50 percent in the two years before failure. Moreover, this excessive premium growth was more pronounced in long-tail lines than in short-tail lines. We also find evidence that greater regulatory resources are associated with less gaming of the system.


One of the principle criticisms of urban sprawl is that it undermines the cost-effective provision of public services. In this paper the authors examine whether or not this is true through an exploratory analysis of the influence that alternative development patterns have on twelve measures of public expenditure: total direct, capital facilities, roadways, other transportation, sewerage, trash collection, housing and community development, police protection, fire protection, parks, education, and libraries. The objectives of the analysis are threefold. First, the authors, through a background discussion, provide a brief overview of previous research on the relationship between urban development patterns and the cost of public services. Second, through empirical analysis, they examine how the character of urban development affects per capita public outlays in a cross-section of 283 metropolitan counties during the 1982–92 time period. A separate equation is estimated for each measure of expenditure, providing substantive evidence on how density, the spatial extent of urbanized land area, property value, and political fragmentation affect the cost of services. Finally, the authors use the results of the empirical analysis to develop a set of policy recommendations and directions for future research.


Abstract It was not only in his infamous speeches as NSDAP-approved Führer- Rektor of Freiburg University that Heidegger advocated what can be seen as an 'activist' understanding of human existence. To exist, according to this approach, means to be called upon to take charge of one's life - actively, responsibly, authentically - whether mandated by Volk and Führer or not. Heideggerian resoluteness amounts to being active in a deep sense, a view articulated during the Rektoratszeit in the form of an outright equation of dasein and work. I will revisit Heidegger's phenomenology of boredom in Basic Concepts of Metaphysics, and contrast it with passages from Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet. Pessoa presents a radical counterpoint to Heidegger, utterly at odds with his intellectual and political persona. Insofar as the early Heidegger still represents the sinister forces ruling on the death star of western metaphysics, Pessoa carries the light that can set us on a path toward very different horizons for thinking being.


TThe General Growth Balance (GGB) and Synthetic Extinct Generations (SEG) methods have been widely used to evaluate the coverage of registered deaths in developing countries. However, relatively little is known about how the methods behave in the presence of different data errors. This paper applies the methods (both singly and in combination) using non-stable populations of known mortality to which various data distortions in a variety of combinations have been applied. Results show that the methods work very well when the only errors in the data are those for which the methods were developed. For other types of error, performance is more variable, but on average, adjusted mortality estimates using the methods are closer to the true values than the unadjusted. The methods do surprisingly well in the presence of typical patterns of age misreporting, though GGB is more sensitive to coverage errors that change with age; the Basic SEG method (e.g. not adjusting for any slope with age of completeness estimates) is very sensitive to changes in census coverage; but once slope is adjusted for changing census, coverage has little effect. Fitting to the age range 5+ to 65+ is clearly preferable to fitting to 15+ to 55+. Both GGB and SEG are very sensitive to net migration, which is an Achilles heel for all of the methodologies in this paper. In populations not greatly affected by migration, our results suggest that an optimal strategy would be to apply GGB to estimate census coverage change, adjust for it and then apply SEG; in populations affected by migration, applying both GGB and SEG, fitting both to the age range 30+ to 65+, and averaging the results appears best.


Expansion-treated rice husk (ERH) had been used as adsorbent for removing copper(II) ions, and showed strong adsorption ability and removal efficiency for copper(II) ions. In this paper, the surface and bulk structures of ERH adsorbent were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), ERH was treated by water solution with different pH value, and the adsorption performance of ERH for copper(II) ions was investigated through adsorption static experiments in order to study the adsorption mechanism. The result showed that ERH treated by alkaline solution had high removal efficiency for copper(II) ions, the reason ascribed to the large surface area of ERH. ERH had competitive adsorption for H+ and Cu2+, and a monolayer adsorption process played an important role in the whole process.


Background:
 Spot sign on computed tomography angiography (CTA) is a marker of on-going bleeding and poor outcome in ICH patients. CTA is not as widely available as non-contrast CT (NCCT). The swirl sign is a less well described marker of on-going bleeding on NCCT. We investigated, if the swirl sign can predict spot sign on CTA and as well as its ability to predict poor outcome in ultra-early ICH patients.

 Method:
 We included 137 patients with spontaneous ICH admitted within 4.5 hours from symptom onset from April 2009 to January 2013. Standard work up included NCCT and CTA. The swirl sign on NCCT was defined as regions of hypo- or isodensity located within the hyperdens haematoma with brain parenchyma as reference. Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) was assessed at 3 months (out-patient clinic or by telephone).

 Results:
 Of the 35 (25.5%) patients with a swirl sign on NCCT, 27 (77%) also had spot sign on CTA. This yields a high specificity and negative predictive value (0.92 and 0.86 respectably) and a slightly lower sensitivity and positive predictive value (0.66 and 0.77 respectably). The swirl sign emerged as a highly significant predictor of the spot sign (OR 15.5 CI: 5.6-42.8), adjusted for admission haematoma volume and time to scan.

 Swirl sign was associated with poorer median [IQR] outcome after 3 months (5 [4-6] vs. 3 [2-5], p < 0.0001). Swirl sign was an independent predictor of poor outcome (mRS 5-6) (OR 3.28 CI: 1.15-9.34) adjusted for age, admission NIHSS, and admission haematoma volume. The presence of both spot and swirl sign did not add to the prediction of poor outcome.

 Conclusion:
 Swirl sign is a valid marker for the presence of spot sign. The swirl sign entails poor outcome irrespective of other independent predictors. Further studies are needed to evaluate the value of the swirl sign in clinical decision-making and trials.


Ovarian cancer has the lowest survival rate among all gynecologic cancers due to predominantly late diagnosis. Early detection of ovarian cancer can increase 5-year survival rates from 40% up to 92%, yet no reliable early detection techniques exist. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emerging technique that provides depthresolved, high-resolution images of biological tissue in real time and demonstrates great potential for imaging of ovarian tissue. Mouse models are crucial to quantitatively assess the diagnostic potential of OCT for ovarian cancer imaging; however, due to small organ size, the ovaries must rst be separated from the image background using the process of segmentation. Manual segmentation is time-intensive, as OCT yields three-dimensional data. Furthermore, speckle noise complicates OCT images, frustrating many processing techniques. While much work has investigated noise-reduction and automated segmentation for retinal OCT imaging, little has considered the application to the ovaries, which exhibit higher variance and inhomogeneity than the retina. To address these challenges, we evaluated a set of algorithms to segment OCT images of mouse ovaries. We examined ve preprocessing techniques and six segmentation algorithms. While all pre-processing methods improve segmentation, Gaussian filtering is most effective, showing an improvement of 32% +/- 1.2%. Of the segmentation algorithms, active contours performs best, segmenting with an accuracy of 0.948 +/- 0.012 compared with manual segmentation (1.0 being identical). Nonetheless, further optimization could lead to maximizing the performance for segmenting OCT images of the ovaries.


This paper describes a practical implementation of a single-phase Si microchannel cooler designed for cooling very high power chips such as microprocessors. Through the use of multiple heat exchanger zones and optimized cooler fin designs, a unit thermal resistance 10.5 C-mm2 /W from the cooler surface to the inlet water was demonstrated with a fluid pressure drop of <35kPa. Further, cooling of a thermal test chip with a microchannel cooler bonded to it packaged in a single chip module was also demonstrated for a chip power density greater than 300W/cm2. Coolers of this design should be able to cool chips with average power densities of 400W/cm2 or more


A fundamental starting point for post-Keynesian theory concerning growth in open economies is succinctly expressed in the following statement by Kaldor: '[T]he main autonomous factor governing both the level and the rate of growth of effective demand of an industrial country…is the external demand for its exports: and the main factor governing the latter is international competitiveness, which in turn depends on the level of its industrial cost relatively to other industrial exporters' (Kaldor, 1971, p. 7; italics added). Moreover, thanks to increasing returns in manufacturing, export expansion and international competitiveness would interact so as to create vicious or virtuous circles of cumulative causation. A few years later Kaldor, having found a positive correlation between the time changes of the main industrial countries' relative manufacturing export shares and that of their relative unit costs—a correlation that became known as the 'Kaldor paradox'—dismissed his original cumulative causation theory and adopted a version close to Harrod's 'foreign trade multiplier'. The purpose of this paper is to reaffirm the Kaldorian cumulative causation theory in its original version, by providing a firmer analytical basis and showing that, contrary to the 'Kaldor paradox', time changes in export performance must be 'explained' by levels rather than by changes in unit costs.


ABSTRACT Delivery of antituberculosis drugs by nanoparticles offers potential advantages over free drug, including the potential to target specifically the tissues and cells that are infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, thereby simultaneously increasing therapeutic efficacy and decreasing systemic toxicity, and the capacity for prolonged release of drug, thereby allowing less-frequent dosing. We have employed mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSNP) drug delivery systems either equipped with a polyethyleneimine (PEI) coating to release rifampin or equipped with cyclodextrin-based pH-operated valves that open only at acidic pH to release isoniazid (INH) into M. tuberculosis-infected macrophages. The MSNP are internalized efficiently by human macrophages, traffic to acidified endosomes, and release high concentrations of antituberculosis drugs intracellularly. PEI-coated MSNP show much greater loading of rifampin than uncoated MSNP and much greater efficacy against M. tuberculosis-infected macrophages. MSNP were devoid of cytotoxicity at the particle doses employed for drug delivery. Similarly, we have demonstrated that the isoniazid delivered by MSNP equipped with pH-operated nanovalves kill M. tuberculosis within macrophages significantly more effectively than an equivalent amount of free drug. These data demonstrate that MSNP provide a versatile platform that can be functionalized to optimize the loading and intracellular release of specific drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis.


Simulation software has made great advances in recent years along the dimensions of modeling capabilities, animated graphics, and ease of use. There have also been real improvements in terms of both generality to model a wide variety of systems, and in specialization for quick and accurate modeling in specific application domains. And, of course, the dramatic improvement in computing/cost ratios has rendered truly commonplace what were just a few years ago impossibly time- and memory-consuming simulations. However, the statistical design-and-analysis capabilities of simulation software have not kept pace with the modeling, graphics, and ease-of-use advances; nor have they kept pace with ongoing research on the underlying methods. This paper discusses a wide variety of design-and-analysis capabilities that the author feels should be as available and as easy-to-use as are current modeling and graphics functions. The list includes only methods that are in existence today, so is not just a "wish list" of perhaps impossible dreams. The paper concludes with speculation on why this imbalance exists and suggests how it might be effectively addressed.


The political socialization of today's generation lies on how they participate in political efficacy and political cynicism. People's involvement in state's activities will result to disparagement of others. This study tries to determine the levels of political socialization of the three generations, the Baby Boom, the Generation X and the Generation Y. It used descriptive method, with Mean and Analysis of Variance as statistical tools. Three hundred respondents were asked on their responses on the indicators using a researcher-made questionnaire. Findings showed that the Generation X observed high levels of political efficacy and political cynicism as regards to political and social issues, political interest, opinions of people including the government's thought on new laws passed. However, people tend to be discouraged in political activities because of politician's insincerity which resulted to decadence. Thus, the political socialization of the three generations somehow went beyond understanding politics but also can cause crucial and serious conflict.


Given that large-scale quantum computers can eventually compute discrete logarithm and integer factorization in polynomial time [44], all asymmetric cryptographic schemes will break down. Hence, replacing them becomes mandatory. For this purpose, the Na- tional Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a standardization process for post-quantum schemes. These schemes are supposed to substitute classical cryptography in different use-cases, such as client-server authentication during the TLS handshake. How- ever, their signatures, public key sizes, and signature verification time impose difficulty, especially for resource-constrained devices. In this paper, we improve the TLS hand- shake performance relying on post-quantum signatures by combining the XMSS and the Dilithium signature schemes along the chain of certificates. We provide proof-of-concept implementation of our solution by integrating the two signature schemes in the WolfSSL library. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of our solution and establish that it re- duces the signature verification time considerably and minimizes the size of the chain of trust. We provide a security proof of the proposed chain of trust which is relies on the security of the XMSS scheme.


Nutrition plays a significant role in the course, treatment, and effects of cancer. By using numerous strategies to improve the nutritional state of cancer patients, outcomes and quality of life can be enhanced.


: This study examines the importance of globalisation – defined by international production networks – in determining foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into Indonesian manufacturing since 2000. It is motivated by the fact that the extent of connection between the Indonesian and the global economy had increased after the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis. Models of FDI are estimated by utilising plant-level data and various trade and tariff data. Production networks or agglomeration are found to play an important role in driving FDI in Indonesia's manufacturing sector, at least for the period 2000–2015. This study provides the insight that agglomeration could be utilised to increase FDI in Indonesia. This not only improves the productivity of the sector targeted by the investment but also promotes productivity growth. Creating more agglomeration areas could therefore be a policy direction taken by Indonesia to help increase FDI.


The effectiveness of using a sub-surface lime-fly ash barrier to reduce the oxidation of a pyritic soil layer and to improve groundwater and surface water quality was investigated for land affected by acid sulphate soils near Berry in southeastern NSW, Australia. Prior to the installation of the lime-fly ash barrier, groundwater and surface water analyses indicated a highly acidic environment. High concentrations of dissolved aluminium, total iron and sulphate in the groundwater were a result of falling groundwater tables and biotic oxidation. Traditional management techniques of ground water manipulation, via floodgates or weirs, would be rendered ineffective in arresting biotic oxidation where the pyrite layer is submerged. The study combined field and laboratory analysis in order to determine the feasibility of the lime-fly ash barrier at the study site. A comprehensive field study incorporated the installation of piezometers and observation wells to determine the level of the phreatic surface along with the monitoring of water quality parameters at the site of the lime-fly ash barrier, and also floodgate sites and the site of the self-regulating tilting weir. The installation of the lime-fly ash barrier was undertaken by the pumping of a slurry through boreholes via pressure pumping. The subsurface lime-fly ash barrier, as an acid sulphate soil remediation technique, was shown to significantly improve groundwater quality. Groundwater pH increased to values between 4.5 and 5.5. The concentration of the pyritic oxidation products, acidic cations Al and Fe, basic cations Ca and Mg and anions Cl and SO4, also, on average decreased in the groundwater after the installation of the lime-fly ash barrier. A comparison between the average groundwater table elevations before and after the installation of the barrier also indicated a perched water table, which would reduce the exposure of pyritic soil to oxygen, and in turn reduce pyritic oxidation and the generation of acidic products. The Lime-fly ash barrier is effective in remediating acid sulphate soils in areas in which floodgates and weirs cannot be installed. A comparison of the result shows that the lime-fly ash barrier had greater success in increasing the groundwater pH than the self-regulating tilting weir. The lime-fly ash barrier treats acid sulphate soils and the related environmental problems before they occur, whereas, the floodgates treat the pyrite oxidation products generated after they have been discharged into the flood mitigation drains. Significantly greater concentrations of Al, Fe and SO4 were found in the groundwater at the floodgate sites.


Hydrated excess protons under hydrophobic confinement are a critical component of charge transport behavior and reactivity in nanoporous materials and biomolecular systems. Herein excess proton confinement effects are computationally investigated for sub-2 nm hydrophobic nanopores by varying the diameters (d = 0.81, 0.95, 1.09, 1.22, 1.36, 1.63, and 1.90 nm), lengths (l ~3 and ~5 nm), curvature, and chirality of cylindrical carbon nanotube (CNT) nanopores. CNTs with a combination of different diameter segments are also explored. The spatial distribution of water molecules under confinement are diameter-dependent; however, proton solvation and transport is consistently found to occur in the water layer adjacent to the pore wall, showing an "amphiphilic" character of the hydrated excess proton hydronium-like structure. The proton transport free energy barrier also decreases significantly as the nanopore diameter increases and proton transport becomes almost barrierless in the d > 1 nm nanopores. Among the nanopores studied, the Zundel cation (${H_{5}O_{2}}^{+}$) is populated only in the d = 0.95 nm CNT (7,7) nanopore. The presence of the hydrated excess proton and $K^{+}$ inside the CNT (7,7) nanopore induces a water density increase by 40 and 20%, respectively. The $K^{+}$ transport through CNT nanopores is also consistently higher in free energy barrier than proton transport. Interestingly, the evolution of excess protonic charge defect distribution reveals a "frozen" single water wire configuration in the d = 0.81 nm CNT (6,6) nanopore (or segment), through which hydrated excess protons can only shuttle via the Grotthuss mechanism. Vehicular diffusion becomes relevant to proton transport in the "flat" free energy regions and in the wider nanopores, where protons do not primarily shuttle in the axial direction.


Executive summary This paper provides an overview of the issues and outcomes for the January 2015 election for the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Where appropriate, it draws on the Library's earlier publication on the 2012 Queensland state election. The 2015 Queensland state election result surprised many observers with the dramatic shift in the fortunes of the two major parties. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), having lost government at the 2012 election and retaining just seven seats, emerged with 44 of the 89 seats with a swing of 10.8 per cent. The Liberal National Party (LNP), which had won a record majority of 78 of the 89 seats at the 2012 state election, experienced a swing of 8.3 per cent against it with its seats reduced to 42. Of the remaining seats, two were won by Katter's Australian Party and one by Independent Peter Wellington. The election outcome was initially unclear when it was revealed that a Palmer United Party candidate was ineligible as a result of being an undischarged bankrupt. Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ) indicated that it would refer the Ferny Grove election result to the Court of Disputed Returns but subsequently decided not to proceed based on legal advice, paving the way for the ALP to form minority government with the support of an Independent. Several key issues emerged during the election campaign including political financing, privatisation and asset sales, the impact of mining on the Great Barrier Reef and anti-association laws. Other events also overshadowed the election, including two defamation cases involving Premier Campbell Newman, a Senate Select Committee into the Queensland Government's administration of Commonwealth funds, and leadership issues in the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments. The incoming ALP minority government led by Annastacia Palaszczuk features several milestones in Australian and Queensland political history, including: the first Australian ministry with a majority of women the first female state opposition leader to lead her party to victory the second all-female elected leadership team in Australia Queensland's first female Attorney-General and the first Indigenous woman MP in the Queensland Parliament and Queensland's first Indigenous minister.


OBJECTIVE
We sought to determine the safety and feasibility of percutaneous MRI-guided cryotherapy in the care of patients with refractory or painful metastatic lesions of soft tissue and bone adjacent to critical structures.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Twenty-seven biopsy-proven metastatic lesions of soft tissue (n = 17) and bone (n = 10) in 22 patients (15 men, seven women; age range, 24-85 years) were managed with MRI-guided percutaneous cryotherapy. The mean lesion diameter was 5.2 cm. Each lesion was adjacent to or encasing one or more critical structures, including bowel, bladder, and major blood vessels. A 0.5-T open interventional MRI system was used for cryoprobe placement and ice-ball monitoring. Complications were assessed for all treatments. CT or MRI was used to determine local control of 21 tumors. Pain palliation was assessed clinically in 19 cases. The mean follow-up period was 19.5 weeks.

RESULTS
Twenty-two (81%) of 27 tumors were managed without injury to adjacent critical structures. Two patients had transient lower extremity numbness, and two had both urinary retention and transient lower extremity paresthesia. One patient had chronic serous vaginal discharge, and one sustained a femoral neck fracture at the ablation site 6 weeks after treatment. Thirteen (62%) of the 21 tumors for which follow-up information was available either remained the same size as before treatment or regressed. Eight tumors progressed (mean local progression-free interval, 5.6 months; range, 3-18 months). Pain was palliated in 17 of 19 patients; six of the 17 experienced complete relief, and 11 had partial relief.

CONCLUSION
MRI-guided percutaneous cryotherapy for metastatic lesions of soft tissue and bone adjacent to critical structures is safe and can provide local tumor control and pain relief in most patients.


Information Systems Security (ISS) has become increasingly an integral part of our lives. Accordingly, there is the need of increasing awareness of this issue in the society, increasing the workforce capable of meeting the corresponding challenges, and increasing the diversity of such workforce. Academic institutions are in the forefront of this challenge and are best equipped to fulfill the aforementioned goals. Understanding this need, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico (PUPR) has taken various steps to address this problem. In this paper, we share the advances of ISS education at PUPR and the steps taken to be recognized as a national center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE).


Summary Winner and loser effects, in which the probability of future success depends on individual's interaction history, help shape the structure of social hierarchies in animal groups. While reports have documented that both magnitude and symmetry of these effects vary widely across different systems, questions remain whether these effects serve to reduce the associated costs during hierarchy formation. In a series of models, cost–benefit properties of an emerging hierarchy were assessed in relation to variation in winner and loser effects. Coupling high winner effects with low loser effects resulted in an overall increase in aggressiveness in the group, increasing the costs of hierarchy formation for the participants and disrupting its maintenance. In contrast, low winner and high loser effects resulted in an efficient cost reduction while also encouraging stability in social status.


Maxwell's 1861 paper 'On Physical Lines of Force' is interpreted. An improvement is proposed that involves replacing his molecular vortices with rotating electron-positron dipoles. These dipoles will each comprise of an electron and a positron undergoing a mutual orbit. Electromagnetism is then explained in terms of an electric sea in which magnetic lines of force are physically comprised of helical springs created out of rotating electron-positron dipoles. The electron- positron dipoles are bonded together in a double helix pattern and the resulting helical springs form elliptical or circular solenoidal hoops around an electric current circuit or a bar magnet.


Background. Cadaver donor bone marrow cells (DBMC) are capable of a low-grade response to allogeneic stimulation in vitro, indicating their potential ability to cause graft versus host disease (GvHD). However, at this center, we have observed a lack of GvHD in kidney transplant recipients who received DBMC perioperatively. Therefore, we questioned whether an intrinsic immunoregulatory function of (subpopulations of) DBMC might play a role in this observation. Methods. In in vitro assays, DBMC was added to autologous splenic responder cells taking part in allogeneic mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) and cell-mediated lympholysis (CML) reactions. Results. When compared with autologous donor irradiated spleen cells as control modulators, DBMC significantly inhibited the CML, but to a much lesser extent than MLR, of autologous responding cells stimulated with allogeneic irradiated cells in a dose dependent manner. The down-regulation of CML responses was observed even in the presence of pharmacological concentrations FK506, mycophenolic acid, or cyclosporine-A. The inhibition could not be overcome by the addition of exogenous helper factors. Moreover, in contrast with findings previously reported from this laboratory of the in vitro inhibitory effect of DBMC on allogeneic responding cells in MLR and CML reactions to stimulating cells of the DBMC donor (allogeneic host versus graft inhibition), the following unique observations were made using DBMC inhibiting autologous reactions (GvH): (1) optimal restimulation of autologous responder cells in secondary cultures could not abrogate this inhibition; even activated responder cells could be inhibited by autologous DBMC, and (2) soluble factors were at least partially operative in this autologous (GvH) inhibition as indicated by experiments in transwells and by the CML inhibition caused by 50% supernatants from DBMC cultures. Conclusion. These in vitro results indicate that DBMC treatment brings about a marked down-regulation of autologous immunocompetent cells in cytotoxicity reactions, partially at least through secreted soluble factor(s), (and in presence of immunosuppressive drugs in vivo) thereby preventing overt clinical GvHD.


MHRA clarifies spironolactone advice ● Statin dosing: morning or evening? ● PPI use and risk of community-acquired pneumonia ● Non-inferiority trials: caution needed ● CV safety of celecoxib? ● ADRs and emergency department visits ● Study questions use of duloxetine in stress incontinence ● New oral anticoagulants: more on GI bleeding risk


Passive localization based on time of arrival (TOA) measurements is investigated, where the transmitted signal is reflected by a passive target and then received at several distributed receivers. After collecting all measurements at receivers, we can determine the target location. The aim of this paper is to provide a unified factor graph-based framework for passive localization in wireless sensor networks based on TOA measurements. Relying on the linearization of range measurements, we construct a Forney-style factor graph model and conceive the corresponding Gaussian message passing algorithm to obtain the target location. It is shown that the factor graph can be readily modified for handling challenging scenarios such as uncertain receiver positions and link failures. Moreover, a distributed localization method based on consensus-aided operation is proposed for a large-scale resource constrained network operating without a fusion center. Furthermore, we derive the Cramér–Rao bound (CRB) to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Our simulation results verify the efficiency of the proposed unified approach and of its distributed implementation.


The proliferation of mobile devices with increased capabilities and the widespread penetration of wireless networks have spurred a convergence of mobile and commodity computing systems. In this respect, botnets have also found their way to the mobile ecosystem, where they exploit characteristics of phones (e.g. linked to user accounts, repositories of private and sensitive information) to have a profound impact on operations and user privacy. We report here on an in-depth taxonomy of mobile botnet features, architectures and use cases in order to highlight their particularities and accordingly instigate systematic research efforts to alleviate related security concerns.


The benzodiazepines are among the most widely used drugs in the world. When first introduced, little was known about their mechanism of action. However, in the last 20 years, our understanding of the chemistry and function of the central nervous system (CNS) has increased substantially. This knowledge has shed some light on the mechanism of action of the benzodiazepines and other centrally acting drugs. It is well established that the benzodiazepines act by combining with specific receptors in the central nervous system. These receptors are anatomically in close association with gamma amino butyric acid (GABA) receptors and appear to reside on the neuronal membrane in the same supramolecular protein complex. GABA is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter of the CNS. The benzodiazepines act by increasing the affinity of the GABA receptor for its ligand, thereby augmenting the inhibitory effect of a given concentration of GABA. Two hypotheses of benzodiazepine ligand-receptor interactions in this supramolecular protein complex have been proposed: (1) multiple receptor subtypes analogous to the opioid receptors; (2) single receptor with multiple conformations. The multiple receptor hypothesis suggests that each pharmacologic effect of the benzodiazepines (i.e., anxiolysis) is mediated by interaction with a specific receptor subtype. On the other hand, the alternative hypothesis suggests that only one receptor exists which has a dynamic conformation. Experimental evidence in support of each hypothesis is presented and critically evaluated.


ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to investigate whether the characteristics of the structure of primary health units and the work process of primary care teams are associated with the number of hospitalizations for primary care sensitive conditions. METHODS In this ecological study, we have analyzed data of Brazilian municipalities related to sociodemographic characteristics, coverage of care programs, structure of primary health units, and work process of primary care teams. We have obtained the data from the first cycle of the Brazilian Program for Improving Access and Quality of the Primary Care, of the Department of Information Technology of the Brazilian Unified Health System, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and the United Nations Development Programme. The associations have been estimated using negative binomial regression coefficients (β) and respective 95% confidence intervals, with a hierarchical approach in three levels (alpha = 5%). RESULTS In the adjusted analysis for the outcome in 2013, in the distal level, the coverage of the Bolsa Família Program (β = -0.001) and private insurance (β = -0.01) had a negative association, and the human development index (β = 1.13), the proportion of older adults (β = 0.05) and children under the age of five (β = 0.05), and the coverage of the Community Health Agent Strategy (β = 0.002) showed positive association with hospitalizations for primary care sensitive conditions. In the intermediate level, minimum hours (β = -0.14) and availability of vaccines (β = -0.16) showed a negative association, and availability of medications showed a positive association (β = 0.16). In the proximal level, only the variable of matrix support (β = 0.10) showed a positive association. The variables in the adjusted analysis of the number of hospitalizations for primary care sensitive conditions in 2014 presented the same association as in 2013. CONCLUSIONS The characteristics of the structure of primary health units and the work process of the primary care teams impact the number of hospitalizations for primary care sensitive conditions in Brazilian municipalities.


Nanoparticles are of increasing interest and concern as they become more widely used in consumer products, industry and medicine. Nanoparticles differ from their 'bulk' materials in physiochemical properties, creating interest and further applications. In addition to being engineered, humans are constantly exposed to nanoparticles (NPs) through ambient air pollution. There is a need for toxicological assessment of these particles as humans come into contact with them every day. The toxicological mechanism and biological fate of these particles are not well known. Findings in the fields of genotoxicity and epigenetics shed light on potential mechanisms for adverse human health effects when exposed to these particles. There is still much work to be done in order to properly assess the risk of NP exposure.

Key Concepts:

Nanoparticles have different inherent physiochemical properties from bulk materials of the same composition.

Studies show that nanoparticles at smaller dimensions induce stronger toxic effects than the same particles at larger dimensions

Oxidative stress is increased when exposed to nanoparticles, more free radicals will cause more cellular and DNA damage.

Nanoparticles are being investigated for use in clinical settings, specifically diagnostic procedures and drug delivery.

Epigenetic modifications are those in which there is no genetic mutation or DNA damage present.

Nanoparticles will be constituents of ambient particulate matter, therefore, all life is exposed to varying amounts of nanoparticles daily.

Government organisations are working to increase research and development involving nanoparticles in order to better understand their mechanisms of action.

Keywords:

particulate matter;
nanoparticles;
epigenetics;
DNA methylation;
histone modifications;
genotoxicity;
oxidative stress;
in vitro;
in vivo


In this lesson-packed book, Mark Nichter, one of the world's leading medical anthropologists, summarizes what more than a quarter-century of health social science research has contributed to international health and elucidates what social science research can contribute to global health and the study of biopolitics in the future. Nichter focuses on our cultural understanding of infectious and vector-borne diseases, how they are understood locally, and how various populations respond to public health interventions. The book examines the perceptions of three groups whose points of view on illness, health care, and the politics of responsibility often differ and frequently conflict: local populations living in developing countries, public health practitioners working in international health, and health planners/policy makers. The book is written for both health social scientists working in the fields of international health and development and public health practitioners interested in learning practical lessons they can put to good use when engaging communities in participatory problem solving. Global Health critically examines representations that frame international health discourse. It also addresses the politics of what is possible in a world compelled to work together to face emerging and re-emerging diseases, the control of health threats associated with political ecology and defective modernization, and the rise of new assemblages of people who share a sense of biosociality. The book proposes research priorities for a new program of health social science research. Nichter calls for greater involvement by social scientists in studies of global health and emphasizes how medical anthropologists in particular can better involve themselves as scholar activists.


In recent years, scientists have noted a decline in the health of bee populations. Whereas a whole host of possible causes have been identified, it is the use of pesticides in agriculture—specifically the use of neonicotinoids—that has warranted some investigation. The scientific evidence of their impact on the health of bees remains debated. This article examines how the UK Government has responded to the decline in bee populations and the apparent link to neonicotinoids. While notionally committed to deploying the Precautionary Principle in such instances, the government has tended to err more on 'sound science' as a policymaking tool. Early evidence indicates that the government used the latter initially but has become more amenable to utilising a precautionary approach recently. Whether this can be attributed to an embrace of the Precautionary Principle, or simply a change caused by the installation of a new Secretary of State for the Environment, is open to interpretation.


By applying a double cold rolling and annealing treatment, the evolution of the α and γ fiber components differed from the ones observed in conventional processing. This is attributed to the difference of the initial texture. An increased reduction of stored energy of the {111}<112> component was found by monitoring the change of the stored energy during annealing, indicating that the onset of the nucleation stage of recrystallization by relaxation and annihilation of dislocations occurred mainly on the {111}<112> component with its higher stored energy. The detailed texture evolution of the double cold rolled specimen during 2nd annealing is described by coupling the theory of oriented nucleation and orientation pinning, which is experimentally confirmed by OIM scan.


Background A number of neuroimaging studies on human addicts have revealed that abuse of Methamphetamine (METH) can induce neurodegenerative changes in various brain regions like the cerebral cortex and cerebellum. Although the underlying mechanisms of METH-induced neurotoxicity have been studied, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of METH-induced neurotoxicity remain to be clarified. Previous studies implicated that cannabinoid type 1 receptors (CB1Rs) exert neuroprotective effects on several models of cerebral toxicity, but their role in METH-induced neurotoxicity has been rarely investigated. Moreover, the cerebellum was considered as a potential target to evaluate the effects of cannabinoids on locomotion activity as the CB1Rs are most widely distributed in the molecular layer of cerebellum. Therefore, the present study was carried out to evaluate whether neurodegeneration induced in the cerebellum tissue implicated in locomotion deficit induced by METH. Methods In the current study, open field test was used to examine locomotor activity. Using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, morphology of the cerebellar vermis was investigated after repeated exposure to METH. Then, the effects of CB1Rs antagonist [SR17141A, 10 mg/kg, intraperitoneally (IP)] and CB1Rs agonist [WIN55, 212-2 (WIN), 3 mg/kg] against METH-induced neurodegeneration and locomotor deficit were assessed. Findings The results of the present study demonstrated that repeated exposure to METH increased cerebellar degeneration level as compared to the saline and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) groups. In addition, METH-treated rats showed hyperactivity as compared to the saline and DMSO groups. Pretreatment with WIN significantly attenuated neurodegeneration and hyperactivity induced by METH. Conclusion The findings of this study provided evidence that CB1Rs may serve as a therapeutic strategy for attenuation of METH-induced locomotor deficits.


In policy debates about the appropriate regulation of next generation fibre access networks, a good deal of attention has been paid to various forms of 'separation' between network, wholesale and retail operations. This discussion is no longer theoretical, because 'open access' next generation networks are now operating or being constructed. This paper investigates four different models around the world, each at different stages of deployment: - Alberta, Canada, where a commercial company Axia has been operating the province-wide 'SuperNet' since 2005. This is an optic fibre network connecting 4700 sites (provincial government and municipality offices, health and education sites, libraries) in 27 urban and 402 rural communities. Axia is the government's service provider across the whole network and the wholesaler of capacity to retail providers in the rural communities. - Singapore, where a network is under construction taking fibre to 1.12 million residential premises and 152,000 other premises. Separate companies are building the physical infrastructure ('Net Co') and installing the electronics and network termination devices in customer premises and operating the network ('Op Co'). - Australia, where a national FTTP network is being built to reach 93% of households and businesses. Wireless will be used to deliver download speeds of at least 12 Mbps to the other 7%. Around 200,000 households will get FTTP in Tasmania, where services commenced in mid-2010. - New Zealand, where the national government has promised 'superfast broadband' within six years to all businesses, schools and health services, greenfields developments and some residential users, and to 75% of the population within ten years. Drawing on interviews conducted in the four territories in 2009 and 2010, the paper will investigate the common, contrasting and unique features of these four models.


Development of morphs within European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus), might be considered as a beginning of a sympatric speciation process. Unpublished data suggests that presence of the keystone piscivore northern pike (Esox lucius) is the main driver of sympatric divergence in European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus). Using introduced whitefish populations as controlled experiments, it is possible to determine when different characters diverge in the speciation process. In this study, I analysed age and growth within European whitefish populations of different age to assess if these characters change over time in absence of pike. With using otoliths from whitefish populations of different age, I was possible to determine individual age, and by measuring the length of the fish, growth was calculated. Whitefish populations in lakes without northern pike had rapid growth to maturity and decreased growth afterward, furthermore regression analysis showed no correlations between age and growth measurements, and time since introduction. This suggests that there are no divergences in monomorphic whitefish populations. Compared with outcome from studies of polymorphic populations of whitefish, characters have been observed to differ between morphs, but age and growth of whitefish did not change with the age of populations in lakes with pike, as in lakes without pike. This suggests that other factors influences the changes in whitefish or that it may occur outside the investigated time span.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is a "Q&A interview" conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD-turned-entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market.

Design/methodology/approach

The interviewee is Dr Cory Kidd, an inventor, entrepreneur and leading practitioner in the field of human–robot interaction. Dr Kidd shares his 20-year journey of working at the intersection of healthcare and technology and how he applied innovative technologies toward solving large-scale consumer healthcare challenges.

Findings

Dr Kidd received his BS degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and earned a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in Computer and Information Science & Engineering. Dr Kidd received his MS and PhD degrees at the MIT Media Lab in human–robot interaction. While there, he conducted studies that showed the psychological and clinical advantages of using a physical robot over screen-based interactions. While finishing his PhD in 2007, he founded his first company, Intuitive Automata, which created interactive coaches for weight loss. Though Intuitive Automata ceased operations in 2013, Dr Kidd harnessed his extensive knowledge of the healthcare business and the experiences from patient engagement and launched Catalia Health in 2014 with a new platform centered specifically around patient behavior change programs for chronic disease management.

Originality/value

Dr Kidd is a pioneer of social robotics and has developed groundbreaking technology for healthcare applications that combines artificial intelligence, psychology and medical best practices to deliver everyday care to patients who are managing chronic conditions. He holds patents, including one entitled Apparatus and Method for Assisting in Achieving Desired Behavior Patterns and in an Interactive Personal Health Promoting Robot. Dr Kidd was awarded the inaugural Wall Street Journal and Credit Suisse Technopreneur of the Year in 2010, which is meant to "honor the entry that best applies technology with the greatest potential for commercial success". He is also the Director of Business Development for the nonprofit Silicon Valley Robotics and is an impact partner for Fresco Capital. He consults, mentors and serves as a Board Member and Advisor to several high-tech startups.


For millennia, religions have provided rituals bringing comfort in the face of death. Modern science, however, is developing new means for dealing with this phenomenon. Controversial issues include: how to ascertain "death," particularly in light of "premature burials"; religious questions regarding the morality of embalming; religious questions regarding the desirability of burial versus cremation; and extending life in attempts to achieve immortality—versus the contention that mortality is the result of human sinfulness. This article explores these issues and seeks to answer the question of whether science has contributed positively or negatively to the experience of dying.


This study provides a qualitative systematic review of social marketing tobacco cessation programs identify the extent to which seven major components of social marketing are used in social marketing programs targeting tobacco cessation and to classify them according to social marketing stream: downstream midstream or upstream. Sixteen databases were examined to identify studies reporting the use of social marketing to address cigarette smoking cessation. Fourteen empirical studies were classified. Only one of 14 interventions used all seven of the major components of social marketing. The review identified that downstream (n = 11) interventions remain the dominant focus in social marketing interventions targeting tobacco, despite calls for social marketers to move upstream during this time. The current review was restricted to studies that self-identified as social marketing and studies published in peer-reviewed journals in the English language which is limiting. This study included all empirical studies published from 2002 to January, 2016; however only using published studies may bias results. The results indicate that social marketing interventions targeting tobacco cessation can be successful even when some of seven distinguishing and mutually exclusive features of social marketing are applied. This article presents the first attempt to review the extent that social marketing principles are used in interventions targeting tobacco intake cessation and to classify social marketing interventions into social marketing streams.


Abstract The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of reduced levels of Cu, Zn, Mn in combination from organic mineral source on eggshell quality and mineral retention in hens. After feeding the basal diet (8.82 mg/kg Cu, 24.94 mg/kg Zn, and 16.38 mg/kg Mn) without Cu, Zn, and Mn addition for 4 weeks, hens (39-week-old) were assigned to 5 treatments according to the equal body weight and egg production for 12-week experimental trial. The 5 treatments included the basal diet without Cu, Zn, and Mn (NCON), and NCON added with 16-80-60 mg/kg Cu-Zn-Mn from sulfates (ITM100%), or 4-20-15, 8-40-30 or 16-80-60 mg/kg Cu-Zn-Mn from 2-hydroxy-4-(methylthio)butanoic acid (HMTBA) mineral chelates (OTM25%, OTM50% or OTM100%). Supplementation of Cu, Zn, and Mn had no significant influences on the performance of hens. After 12 weeks feeding, eggshell breaking strength (EBS) decreased in the following order: OTM25% and ITM100% > OTM50% > NCON and OTM100%. The eggshell weight and thickness in OTM25% were greater than that in NCON, while not differing from that in ITM100%. The EBS and eggshell weight linearly decreased with increasing level of OTM. After 12 weeks feeding, supplementation of Cu, Zn, and Mn increased the concentrations of liver Zn, tibia Zn and Mn, and Zn and Mn retention in eggs as compared with NCON. No significant difference was observed in the concentrations of Cu, Zn, and Mn in liver and plasma, and Zn and Mn in eggs between any OTM treatment and ITM100% groups. Addition of OTM at increasing level had quadratic effect on tibia Cu, Zn, Mn concentrations, with the greater retention of Cu, Zn, and Mn in OTM50%. In conclusion, the OTM25% from HMT BA mineral chelates can substitute for ITM100% evaluated by the eggshell quality in the diet of laying hens.


The decline in agricultural output has led to an unprecedented increase in poverty and malnutrition, illhealth and other social vices in sub-Saharan Africa. Consideration of cassava as a "woman Crop" constraints a societies productivity and ultimately slow its rate of economic growth. The economy pays for this in reduced labour productivity today and diminished national output tomorrow. Motivated by this, the study aim is to assess the possibility of alleviating poverty in the rural set-up through efficient and effective use of resources by rural poor cassava farmers in Imo State. It adopts a multistage sampling technique, and a total of 120 cassava farmers were used for the study. The data was analyzed using double log regression equation which later yields efficiency measures that were not distorted by statistical noise to estimate the efficiency level of resource/allocation by rural poor cassava producers. The result indicate that F-ratio was statistically significant at 5% level suggesting that the estimated variables exert a very significant influence on cassava output and hence the model is good for policy recommendation. The result also indicate that the sum of elasticity is 1.75 which implies increasing returns to scale; an indication of maximum technical efficiency (an irrational stage of production). Labour was the most limiting factor in cassava production suggestion that the technologies that enhance productivity of labour are likely to achieve significant positive effects on cassava production. This paper is of the view that raising agricultural productivity holds the key to encouraging a stable rate of transition to an industrialized economy which invariably would reduce the escalating poverty in the rural economies of Nigeria.


Seven genotypes of sorghum (Sorghum bicolour (L.) Moench) were studied in both drought and normal conditions. In each condition, the genotypes were evaluated using a split plot based randomized complete block design with three replications. Drought tolerance indices including stability tolerance index (STI), mean productivity (MP), geometric mean productivity (GMP), stress susceptibility index (SSI), tolerance index (TOL) were calculated for each genotype. The maximum value of STI (0.687), MP (658.95) and GMP (624.94) were recorded for genotype KGS 3. Correlation coefficients revealed that MP index had the highest value in two conditions with grain yield. Thus, tolerance index including MP is suitable for screening of tolerant genotypes in drought stress condition. Cluster analysis by method Ward classified seven genotypes in two groups in drought stress condition.


Indonesian archipilago had 70% sea area of its total area. Due to safety factor in sea transportation fishery and tourism, sea wave height in all area in Indonesia must be known. Lack of the information on the height of sea wave caused lot of accident in sea transportation or fishery especially in East Indonesia. This research proposed an introduction to calibration system of the height of sea wave using the feature texture of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)image. The feature texture were extracted by using grey level cooccurence matrix (GLCM) with zero degree obsevation. The research object was the Sinthetyc Apperture Radar (SAR) image P band of Kalimantan's coastal. The image had full polarization such as horizontal horizontal, horizontal vertical, vertical horizontal and vertical vertical. The result showed four features were extracted, contrast, correlation, energy and homogeneity. The homogeneity had highest accuracy compare to test image and it could be used as a calibrator of sea wave height. Keywords— GLCM, sea wave, SAR, texture


This memo describes X.509 key identifiers and signature encoding for
version 2 of the KeyNote trust-management system (RFC 2704). X.509
certificates (RFC 5280) can be directly used in the Authorizer or
Licensees field (or in both fields) in a KeyNote assertion, allowing
for easy integration with protocols that already use X.509
certificates for authentication. In addition, the document defines
additional signature types that use other hash functions (beyond the
MD5 and SHA1 hash functions that are defined in RFC 2792). This
document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.


Pinter in Play provides a survey of diverse readings of the Harold Pinter canon organized around and presented in terms of the major critical schools of the past twenty-five years, from New Criticism to deconstruction to poststructuralism. Reflecting on the cultural, personal, sociological, and philosophical contexts of these diverse critical perspectives and the critics who express them, this book is equally about the act and the art of literary criticism and is itself an important work of literary criticism. Drawing on interviews with Pinter scholars, Susan Hollis Merritt shows how critics "play" with Pinter and thereby seriously enforce personal, professional, and political affiliations. Cutting across traditional academic and nonacademic boundaries, Merritt argues that greater cooperation and collaboration among critics can resolve conflicts, promote greater social equity, and foster ameliorative critical and cultural change.


For the past 2 decades, high-frequency oscillations (HFOs) have been enthusiastically studied by the epilepsy community. Emerging evidence shows that HFOs harbor great promise to delineate epileptogenic brain areas and possibly predict the likelihood of seizures. Investigations into HFOs in clinical epilepsy have advanced from small retrospective studies relying on visual identification and correlation analysis to larger prospective assessments using automatic detection and prediction strategies. Although most studies have yielded promising results, some have revealed significant obstacles to clinical application of HFOs, thus raising debate about the reliability and practicality of HFOs as clinical biomarkers. In this review, we give an overview of the current state of HFO research and pinpoint the conceptual and methodological issues that have hampered HFO translation. We highlight recent insights gained from long-term data, high-density recordings, and multicenter collaborations and discuss the open questions that need to be addressed in future research.


This paper compares the methodology proposed by the Colombian Institute for Science at Technology Development named Colciencias to measure the efficiency in the scientific research groups with the Data Envelopment Analysis approach. As a study case, both approaches are applied to the officially accepted by Colciencias research groups of the Pereira Technological University, in the period 2006 through 2007. The ranking of the groups is obtained by both approaches and the results are compared and analyzed.


Abstract Objective: We explored associations between psychiatric history and cognitive functioning, and differences by sex and race/ethnicity (SRE) in 20,155 Health and Retirement Study (1995–2014) participants aged 65 or older. Methods: Multi-level growth curve models examined cognition scores and their trajectories over time by SRE. Results: A history of psychiatric, emotional, or nervous problems was significantly related to cognition scores and rates of decline. Hispanic and Black participants had significantly lower cognition scores at age 75 and steeper rates of decline than White females, and Black race and the Hispanic race/ethnicity-sex interaction erased the protective effects of being female. Conclusions: Future research should include specific psychiatric diagnoses. Population level findings as reported here, along with aggregate findings from similar studies, can inform interventions and policies regarding support for populations that are vulnerable to mental illness and to subsequent cognitive decline.


Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic used for the treatment of serious infections caused by Gram-positive organism. Rapid infusion-related adverse drug reaction (ADR) of vancomycin is known as red man syndrome (RMS) or red neck syndrome. The manifestations of RMS are erythema, flushing, pruritis of the face, upper torso, and in severe cases dyspnea, chest pain, and hypotension. RMS occurs due to the release of histamine from degranulated mast cells and basophils. This histamine release is also associated with ciprofloxacin, amphotericin B, rifampicin, and teicoplanin. It can be prevented by slowing the infusion rate or pre-treatment with an H1- or H2-receptor antagonist.


Introduction: Abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB) is the most common problem among patients coming to gynaecology outpatient department. There are various pathologies which can lead to AUB. History, blood investigations, ultrasonography, hysteroscopy and endometrial aspiration are the methods to rule out different causes. Later on, they are classified as per PALM-COEIN classification. It helps in better and successful management of AUB patients. Material and Methods: This prospective interventional study was carried out in the Department of obstetrics and gynaecology, in our institute enrolling 300 consenting subjects having AUB coming to outpatient department and in doored to gynaecology ward of our tertiary care hospital. Subjects with confirmed diagnosis of abnormal uterine bleeding as per "PALMCOEIN" classification and on ultrasonography, fulfilling the criteria and ready to follow up were enrolled in the study. The final medical treatment assigned to the patients depending upon aetiology (PALM-COEIN classification) ,age of the patient ,desire of fertility and options available. Different medical treatment options like LNG-IUS (MIRENA), ormeloxifene (SERM), progesterone only pills, OC pills, tranexamic acid were given to the patients in this study for treatment of AUB. Results: In our study, out of 300 , total 121 (40.3 %) study participants were given ormeloxifene, 65 (21.7%) were offered OC pills, 60 patients (20.0%) given LNGIUS(MIRENA), 44 patients (14.7%) were treated with Progesterone and 10 (3.3%) study participants were medically treated with tranexamic acid. Subjects were followed every monthly for initial 3 months of treatment, followed by 6 monthly up to 1 1⁄2 year of treatment. In every follow up PBAC score, Haemoglobin level, endometrial thickness and quality of life (QoL) score was done to assess effectiveness of medical treatment assigned to patients. In our study out of 284 subjects who completed medical treatment for AUB, 72% subjects achieve normal menses, 14.3% subjects had scanty menses & 25(8.3%) subjects developed amenorrhoea. 2.7% subject loss follow up and 2.7% subjects underwent hysterectomy out of which 8 subjects removed LNG-IUS and opted for hysterectomy within 6 months of treatment. European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine (EJMCM) ISSN: 2515-8260 Volume 08, Issue 04, 2021 194 Conclusion: Classification of AUB as per PALM-COEIN helps in better understanding of disease and successful management of patients. Medical management is found very effective in treatment of AUB so that unnecessary hysterectomies and morbidity associated to it can be avoided.


Deer velvet is a novel agricultural product and has presented the New Zealand (NZ) agricultural and food sectors with a number of opportunities. When the velvet industry emerged in the early 1970s, almost the entire product was exported to the traditional oriental medicine markets, which remain the basis of the deer velvet industry in NZ. This market did not require scientific validation of efficacy as the health promoting effects of velvet were accepted. However, as this is a mature market there is interest in growing new business, notably the Western dietary supplement market. This requires new knowledge on health benefits as potential purchasers have no initial product knowledge. We have conducted research to investigate whether or not deer velvet will help promote health. We chose to look for a verifiable benefit to athletes as the athletic market would be less likely to be price sensitive than other sectors. We also investigated the application of specific velvet extracts as topical agents to promote healing of open wounds, based on their ability to promote the growth of blood vessels (angiogenesis). This paper discusses the research that set out to demonstrate velvet efficacy and quality and describes research on nutrition and breeding designed to increase velvet quality and quantity.


This essay discusses how insurance companies inform policyholders regarding home insurance. What level of support do insurance companies offer policyholders in order to supply them with enough knowledge to make an informed decision? Is information regarding insurance communicated in simple terms, or is it riddled with industry specific terminology?The essays focus is important to examine from a social context; Swedish social process does not select an insurer for an individual who neglects to choose one for their home insurance. Sweden's welfare system does otherwise provide a helping hand for a lack of decision with regard to preschool and school choice.


The Conceptual Framework identifies comparability as a qualitative characteristic of useful financial reporting information. This paper explains what comparability is, why comparability is desirable, how comparability is achieved, and when we might achieve it. In particular, comparability is the qualitative characteristic that enables users to identify and understand similarities in, and differences among, items; comparability aides investors, lenders and other creditors in making informed capital allocation decisions; and achieving comparability depends on firms applying a common set of financial reporting standards and on requirements in the standards, especially measurement requirements. The paper discusses research showing that greater comparability can lower costs of comparing investment opportunities and improving financial reporting information quality. When comparability might be achieved is uncertain, although much progress has been made recently.


Abstract Cable yarding systems are often used to reduce hazardous fuels in dense overstocked forest stands on steep terrain (>35%) in the western United States. However, treatment costs tend to be high. The aim of this study was to broaden our knowledge by evaluating two different harvesting methods (whole-tree (WT) and tree-length (TL)) used for fuel reduction thinning treatment on mixed-conifer forest stand. Different harvesting methods greatly affected the productivity and cost of fuel reduction thinning, especially in felling and yarding operations. Total sawlog removal costs (stump-to-truck) were US$26.13/m3 in the WT-harvested unit and US$24.01/m3 in TL harvested unit. TL thinning resulted in higher felling time and lower production rate due to increased amounts of time for processing trees at the stump. In yarding operation, however, TL method had a higher production rate than WT method because TL method had higher number of pieces per yarding cycle. Processing production rates at a landing were relatively similar throughout treatments although trees in a TL thinning unit were already limbed and bucked at the stump. Loading productivity was consistent throughout treatments because loading occurred independently from other activities. For fuel reduction thinning treatments using a cable yarding system, TL thinning was more cost-effective than WT thinning if leaving tree tops and branches on site is acceptable from a fuels management perspective.


Reaumuria soongorica is the main dominant and constructive species of the desert shrub vegetation in the northwestern of China. The informations about changes in soil quality and vegetation structure togethor are available, which can provide valuable insights into the development of sustainable ecological systems that optimize production and maintain high environmental quality, but the variety of the plant community structure associate with dynamics of soil nutrient and microbial biomass are little known. In this study, five coverage levels of R. soongorica community were determined, while soil nutrients and microbial biomass were investigated. The results showed that the trends of plant species diversity (species richness) are 'humped-back model', soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), soil microbial biomass C (MBC) and N (MBN) slightly increased with plant cover but not with plant species richness. MBC and MBN were positively correlated with SOC and TN (P<0.05), and plant cover showed positively correlated with soil nutrients and soil microbial biomass. It was concluded that vegetation restoration improved soil nutrient status and indirectly affected soil microbial biomass. However, the unilateral increase of vegetation cover will have less effect to soil quality.


A hybrid generative-discriminative diagnostic system based on a symbolic learner (FGAL) retrofitted with Gaussian kernel densities for generating instantaneous class probabilities which are further used by a hidden Markov model to estimate the most likely state (fault) given the past evidence is introduced for real time process fault diagnosis. The system allows symbolic knowledge extraction, it is modular and robust. The diagnostic performance of the developed system is shown on a nonisothermal cascade controlled continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR).


Efficient arithmetic regularity and removal lemmas for induced bipartite patterns, Discrete Analysis 2019:3, 14 pp.

This paper provides a common extension of two recent lines of work: the study of arithmetic regularity lemmas under the model-theoretic assumption of stability initiated by Terry and Wolf, and that of graph regularity lemmas for graphs of bounded VC-dimension provided by Lovasz and Szegedy (following prior work of Alon, Fischer and Newman) and extended to hypergraphs by Fox, Pach and Suk.

Since Szemeredi's seminal work in the 1970s, regularity lemmas have proved to be of fundamental importance in many areas of discrete mathematics. In the graph setting, a regularity lemma states that the vertex set of any sufficiently large graph can be partitioned into a bounded number of sets such that almost all pairs of parts from the partition induce a bipartite graph that looks a lot like a random graph (that is, it is a quasi-random graph, in a sense that can be made precise in several essentially equivalent ways).

An arithmetic analogue of Szemeredi's regularity lemma was formulated and proved by Green in 2005. An important special case of Green's lemma asserts that for any sufficiently large $n$ and any subset $A$ of the vector space $\mathbb{F}_p^n$, this space can be partitioned into cosets of a subspace $H$ of bounded codimension such that the set $A$ behaves quasi-randomly with respect to almost every coset in the partition. (Here the quasi-random behaviour is defined in terms of the absolute value of the Fourier transform of the indicator function of the set $A$ relative to the subspace $H$.)

In both settings, it was shown (by Gowers and Green, respectively) that the trade-off between the number of parts in the partition and the degree of quasi-randomness obtained was necessarily of tower-type. In the case of graphs, it had already been observed many years earlier that the existence of "irregular" pairs in the partition could not in general be excluded. That is, in general, the conclusions of the regularity lemma cannot be strengthened in either setting.

The folklore example ruling out the existence of a completely regular graph partition is the _half-graph_, which is a bipartite graph defined on two vertex classes $X=\{x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k\}$ and $Y=\{y_1, y_2,\dots, y_k\}$, with edges between $x_i$ and $y_j$ if and only if $i\leq j$. Malliaris and Shelah observed in 2014 that by forbidding induced copies of the half-graph (of constant size), one can indeed guarantee a completely regular partition of any sufficiently large graph. In fact, they proved an even stronger result: the number of parts of the partition depends polynomially on the regularity parameter, and the edge density between any two parts of the partition is guaranteed to be either close to 0 or close to 1.

The half-graph is known to model theorists as a particular instance of the so-called "order property" (in this case, it is a property of the formula defining the edge relation in the graph). In 2018 Terry and Wolf proved an analogue of the Malliaris-Shelah result in the arithmetic setting by considering an instance of the order property adapted to subsets of groups: a subset $A\subseteq G$ of an abelian group $G$ is said to have the $k$-order property if there exist $x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k$, $y_1, y_2,\dots, y_k$ in $G$ such that $x_i+y_j\in A$ if and only if $i\leq j$. Terry and Wolf proved that if a set $A\subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^n$ (for sufficiently large $n$) does not have the $k$-order property, then there exists a subspace $H$ of $\mathbb{F}_p^n$ such that $A$ has density at most $\epsilon$ or at least $1-\epsilon$ on each coset of $H$, and the codimension of $H$ has a power dependence on $\epsilon$ (with the power depending on $k$).

A structure that does not have the order property is called model-theoretically "stable". Stable structures have been studied since the 1970s, and have been shown to exhibit particularly "tame" behaviour. Such stability often manifests itself as a quantifiable global property of the structure in question. A natural relaxation of stability, from the model-theoretic point of view, is that of lacking the so-called "independence property", another model-theoretic concept that goes back to Shelah's work in the 1970s. Indeed, structures that lack the independence property are arguably better known across mathematics as having bounded VC-dimension, a notion that was defined independently around the same time by Vapnik and Chervonenkis in the context of statistical learning theory, and that has been widely used ever since.

A graph $G=(V,E)$ is said to have _VC-dimension $k$_ if the largest set of vertices shattered by the family of neighbourhoods $\{N_G(v):v\in V\}$ has size $k$. (Recall that a set $X$ is _shattered_ by a family $\mathcal{F}$ if for every $X'\subseteq X$, there exists $F\in \mathcal{F}$ such that $X'=X\cap F$.) A regularity lemma for graphs of bounded VC-dimension had been proved, independently of any model-theoretic considerations, by Lovasz and Szegedy in 2010, having already been obtained in the bipartite context by Alon, Fischer and Newman in 2007. This work was later extended to hypergraphs of bounded VC-dimension by Fox, Pach and Suk.

In the present paper the authors prove an arithmetic regularity lemma for finite abelian groups of bounded exponent under the additional assumption of bounded VC-dimension. More precisely, they show that if $G$ is a sufficiently large abelian group of bounded exponent and $A\subseteq G$ is a subset of VC-dimension at most $k$ (meaning that the maximum size of a set that is shattered by the set of translates $\{g+A:g\in G\}$ is at most $k$) then there exists a subgroup $H\leqslant G$ of index at most $\epsilon^{-k-o(1)}$ such that $|A\Delta S|<\epsilon|H|$, where $S$ is some union of cosets of $H$ and $o(1)$ tends to zero as $\epsilon$ tends to zero.

The bound on the index is stronger than that obtained by Terry and Wolf in the context of stable subsets of $\mathbb{F}_p^n$, and so is the error in the approximation of $A$ by cosets of $H$. However, the result does not imply that of Terry and Wolf because the existence of irregular cosets is not ruled out (as indeed it cannot be, as a natural arithmetic analogue of the half-graph shows that irregular cosets must exist in any partition).

In addition to Haussler's packing lemma, a by now standard tool in the setting of bounded VC-dimension, the proof uses the celebrated Bogolyubov-Ruzsa lemma from additive combinatorics, which, in the context of a finite abelian group $G$ of bounded exponent, states that the iterated sum set $2B-2B$ of a set $B$ with small doubling contains a subgroup of $G$ of size at least a constant times $|B|$. From their efficient arithmetic regularity lemma the authors deduce an efficient removal lemma for bi-induced patterns, with an application to property testing.

Shortly after this paper was made available as a preprint on the arXiv, a related result was proved using model-theoretic machinery by Conant, Pillay and Terry, who had previously given a model-theoretic proof of the stable arithmetic regularity lemma for general finite (not necessarily abelian) groups. While vastly more general in scope than the results obtained using combinatorial means in the present paper, Conant, Pillay and Terry's techniques yield no quantitative dependence of the parameters.


Abstract Large-scale functional networks, as identified through the coordinated activity of spatially distributed brain regions, have become central objects of study in neuroscience because of their contributions to many processing domains. Yet, it remains unclear how these domain-general networks interact with focal brain regions to coordinate thought and action. Here, we investigated how the default-mode network (DMN) and executive control network (ECN), two networks associated with goal-directed behavior, shape task performance through their coupling with other cortical regions several seconds in advance of behavior. We measured these networks' connectivity during an adaptation of the monetary incentive delay (MID) response-time task in which human participants viewed social and nonsocial images (i.e., pictures of faces and landscapes, respectively) while brain activity was measured using fMRI. We found that participants displayed slower reaction times (RTs) subsequent to social trials relative to nonsocial trials. To examine the neural mechanisms driving this subsequent-RT effect, we integrated independent components analysis (ICA) and a network-based psychophysiological interaction (nPPI) analysis; this allowed us to investigate task-related changes in network coupling that preceded the observed trial-to-trial variation in RT. Strikingly, when subjects viewed social rewards, an area of the fusiform gyrus (FG) consistent with the functionally-defined fusiform face area (FFA) exhibited increased coupling with the ECN (relative to the DMN), and the relative magnitude of coupling tracked the slowing of RT on the following trial. These results demonstrate how large-scale, domain-general networks can interact with focal, domain-specific cortical regions to orchestrate subsequent behavior.


Deadlocks are a rather undesirable situation in a highly automated flexible manufacturing system. Their occurrences often deteriorate the utilization of resources and may lead to catastrophic results in safety-critical systems. Graph theory, automata, and Petri nets are three important mathematical tools to handle deadlock problems in resource allocation systems. Particularly, Petri nets are considered as a popular formalism because of their inherent characteristics. They received much attention over the past decades to deal with deadlock problems, leading to a variety of deadlock-control policies. This study surveys the state-of-the-art deadlock-control strategies for automated manufacturing systems by reviewing the principles and techniques that are involved in preventing, avoiding, and detecting deadlocks. The focus is deadlock prevention due to its large and continuing stream of efforts. A control strategy is evaluated in terms of computational complexity, behavioral permissiveness, and structural complexity of its deadlock-free supervisor. This study provides readers with a conglomeration of the updated results in this area and facilitates engineers in finding a suitable approach for their industrial scenarios. Future research directions are finally discussed.


Piezoresponse force microscopy has been used to investigate the nanoscale mechanism of imprint behavior of ferroelectric PbTiO3 thin films by studying the photoinduced changes in the hysteresis loops of individual grains. Illumination of the film with UV light resulted in a voltage shift opposite to that observed in ferroelectric thin film capacitors. This effect is attributed to the generation of an electric field within the surface dielectric layer as a result of the interaction between photoinduced charges and polarization charges. Application of a small nonswitching bias to the film with simultaneous UV illumination resulted in domain pinning in the grains where the polarization direction coincided with the direction of the applied field, in agreement with the proposed model. Domain pinning was also observed in grains with polydomain structure suggesting that charge entrapment at the existing domain boundaries in the bulk of the film contributes to the suppression of switchable polarization. However, a symmetric character of hysteresis loops observed in such grains implies that charge entrapment in the bulk of the film does not cause the voltage shift. It has been suggested that a thin high-dielectric interfacial layer can improve the imprint behavior of ferroelectric capacitors. © 2002 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1497698#