SIR,-Further to the case report by Dr Felix H Sennhauser and colleagues' we have screened 15 partners of people heterozygous for cystic fibrosis from Aberdeen. We found one couple in which the partner also carried a cystic fibrosis mutation (AF508). Prenatal diagnosis was not undertaken for this couple because the mutation in the known carrier (the mother, who had had an affected child by her previous partner) could not be identified and because gestation was too far advanced at presentation. The mother's cystic fibrosis-bearing chromosome was subsequently identified by using a linked marker (pJ3. 11), permitting future prenatal diagnosis. In six other couples we originally screened the partner for only AF508, and in the other eight nine mutations were excluded. The residual risk of having an affected child despite a negative test result in the partner with no family history should be calculated by using Bayes's theorem, and not by the simple method used by Dr Sennhauser and colleagues. They calculated the risk that the man is a carrier and that the woman is A508 negative, given that she is a carrier (the joint probability), whereas we wish to know the risk that the woman is a carrier, given that she is AF508 negative (the posterior probability). The Bayes's risk (with Sennhauser and colleagues' notation) is 1/4X ((I -a) x q)/((l -a) x q)+ p) or 1 in 257-a small but important increase over their result (1 in 267). It should also be noted that the probability of AF508 not occurring in an unrelated partner is 1-aq, or 96-5%, and not 98 4% as stated by Sennhauser and colleagues. The mutation AF508 accounts for 73% of cystic fibrosis mutations in Scotland, and a further 16% are accounted for by the less common mutations G551D, G542X, R117H, R553X, 1717G--A, R560T, 621+1G--*T, and A1507. For couples screened only for AF508 the residual risk calculated with a population carrier frequency of 1 in 25 is 1 in 360. If all the above mutations are excluded then the risk falls to 1 in 877, an extremely low value. Couples at increased risk commonly request screening when they know that it is available, although pregnancy is often the stimulus to presentation. If the obligate carrier does not carry an identifiable mutation (expected in about 11% of cases) a family study with linked markers is required. This takes much longer to organise than direct mutation screening of the presenting couple. There is a need for increased awareness among the public (and medical profession) of the possibilities and limitations of cystic fibrosis genetic testing.


ABSTRACT Although marine picophytoplankton are at the base of the global food chain, accounting for half of the planetary primary production, they are outnumbered 10 to 1 and are largely controlled by hugely diverse populations of viruses. Eukaryotic microalgae form a ubiquitous and particularly dynamic fraction of such plankton, with environmental clone libraries from coastal regions sometimes being dominated by one or more of the three genera Bathycoccus, Micromonas, and Ostreococcus (class Prasinophyceae). The complete sequences of two double-stranded (dsDNA) Bathycoccus, one dsDNA Micromonas, and one new dsDNA Ostreococcus virus genomes are described. Genome comparison of these giant viruses revealed a high degree of conservation, both for orthologous genes and for synteny, except for one 36-kb inversion in the Ostreococcus lucimarinus virus and two very large predicted proteins in Bathycoccus prasinos viruses. These viruses encode a gene repertoire of certain amino acid biosynthesis pathways never previously observed in viruses that are likely to have been acquired from lateral gene transfer from their host or from bacteria. Pairwise comparisons of whole genomes using all coding sequences with homologous counterparts, either between viruses or between their corresponding hosts, revealed that the evolutionary divergences between viruses are lower than those between their hosts, suggesting either multiple recent host transfers or lower viral evolution rates.


The sixteenth-century Acts and Monuments by John Foxe was more than a martyrology,
which memorialised the persecutions of Mary I's reign. It was also an ecclesiastical
history which saw the Christian past as a battle between the church of Christ and the
church of Antichrist. This thesis identifies the sources that Foxe and his collaborators
used to compile the pre-reformation account in the first two editions of the Acts and
Monuments (1563 and 1570 respectively). Foxe was producing a revisionist history that
saw the past as revelation of prophecy and Scripture. So many of his sources -
chronicles and annals written by monks and clergy - were suspected witnesses, no
longer considered truthful or accurate. Foxe needed to sift through these texts to find
`God's truth' as he understood it, and to rehabilitate certain authorities over others.
Central to this thesis is the contention that Foxe did not do this alone. He worked as
part of an extended network of scholars, printers, and reformers. His predecessor and
mentor, John Bale was a vital foundation for his research; the German ecclesiastical
history usually entitled the Magdeburg Centuries was an enormous influence; and the
`circle' of scholars focused around Archbishop Matthew Parker, proved to be an
invaluable source for rare or hard to find chronicles and annals. This study of Foxe's
pre-reformation sources helps us to understand this collaborative context and to explore
how he came to conceptualise the past and to redefine the interpretation of events and
historical characters. It will, in particular, focus upon the significance of Foxe's
pioneering role in the survival and transmission of manuscript materials relating
especially to the English medieval and Anglo-Saxon past:


patients had severely restricted elbow movements and, therefore, had repeat radiographs taken. One patient had an undisplaced fracture of the radial head and the other an undisplaced fracture of the. radial neck. Treatment was unaltered by these findings, but full recovery was delayed to 28 and 35 days, respectively. We therefore agree that the recognition and review of elbow effusions is important but believe that the decision to obtain repeat radiographs should be made on clinical grounds. K R WELSH C A J MCLAUCHLAN Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH


This paper describes a correlation based image registration method which is able to register images related by a single global affine transformation or by a transformation field which is approximately piecewise affine. The method has two key elements: an affine estimator, which derives estimates of the six affine parameters relating two image regions by aligning their Fourier spectra prior to correlating; and a multiresolution search process, which determines the global transformation field in terms of a set of local affine estimates at appropriate spatial resolutions. The method is computationally efficient and performs well for a range of different images and transformations.


Clinical and epidemiological surveillance of influenza and other Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) are currently a major objective of Public Health. The aim was to describe the epidemiology of influenza using the Italian surveillance system. Vaccination Coverage (VC) rates were calculated during 1999-2009 influenza seasons. Molecular studies of influenza virus isolated, from patients with ILI, living in Apulia, are described. 1269 nasal-pharyngeal swabs were taken from patients with ILI and ARI in order to isolate and identify viruses using PCR. Influenza isolates are typed as being types A and B and influenza A isolates are A/H1 and A/H3. The progression of the ILI cases registered in Apulia was similar to the data recorded on a national level. The VC data recorded in Apulia showed a progressive increase in the vaccine doses administered to subjects over 65 years old. The virological surveillance showed a major circulation of the type A/H3N2 influenza virus during the peak incidence of the illness in seasons 1999-2000, 2002-2003, 2004-2005 and 2008-2009. During the same period, the lowest incidence was registered when the type A/H1N1 and B viruses were in circulation. In contrast, during the other seasons the lowest incidence was reported with A/H3N2 and B viruses.


The current social context brings arround the subject of the relationship between teenagers and the Law. At the beginning of the last century, Piaget already sought to understand it through the study of the moral judgment of the child. Since then, work on the subject did not cease evolving. For this study we connected Law and Psychology and we studied the social representation of Law on three different populations: secondary school pupils, high school teachers and lawyers. We put forward the assumption that, depending on their context and social experience, sample's social representations of Law shall contribute to distinguishing between them as well as between different levels of contents or structure. The sample of this study is composed of 338 subjects distributed as follows: 196 high school students of 3rd year, 78 high school teachers, 64 lawyers. From the methodological point of view, we chose to use the Aixoise School's theory of central core, adapted for our research. A word association method, containing the phrase "the Law" was used in order to collect our data. Subse- quently, the row/frequency method (Rods, 1972; Abric, 2003) imposed itself for the implementation. Fi- nally, using the Jaccard index, we attempted to understand the structure of the social representations.


Are the places that superhuman beings purportedly act and dwell randomly or arbitrarily distributed? Inspired by theoretical work in cognitive science of religion, descriptions of superhuman beings (e.g., ancestors, demons, ghosts, gods, spirits) were solicited from informants in 20 countries on five continents, resulting in 108 usable descriptions, including information about these beings' properties, their dwelling location, and whether they were the target of rituals. Whether superhuman beings are the subject of religious and ritual practices appeared to co-vary in relation to both features of physical geography and cognitive factors. Good gods were more likely the focus of religious practices than evil gods, and where the gods are thought to dwell mattered. If either the being was thought to dwell in a dangerous place or a resource rich place, it was more likely to have practices directed at it.


C4 photosynthesis is a physiological syndrome resulting from multiple anatomical and biochemical components, which function together to increase the CO2 concentration around Rubisco and reduce photorespiration. It evolved independently multiple times and C4 plants now dominate many biomes, especially in the tropics and subtropics. The C4 syndrome comes in many flavours, with numerous phenotypic realizations of C4 physiology and diverse ecological strategies. In this work, we analyse the events that happened in a C3 context and enabled C4 physiology in the descendants, those that generated the C4 physiology, and those that happened in a C4 background and opened novel ecological niches. Throughout the manuscript, we evaluate the biochemical and physiological evidence in a phylogenetic context, which demonstrates the importance of contingency in evolutionary trajectories and shows how these constrained the realized phenotype. We then discuss the physiological innovations that allowed C4 plants to escape these constraints for two important dimensions of the ecological niche--growth rates and distribution along climatic gradients. This review shows that a comprehensive understanding of C4 plant ecology can be achieved by accounting for evolutionary processes spread over millions of years, including the ancestral condition, functional convergence via independent evolutionary trajectories, and physiological diversification.


Abstract The degradation of diclofenac (DCF), trimethoprim (TMP), carbamazepine (CBZ), and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) by laccase from Trametes versicolor was investigated. Experiments were conducted using the pharmaceuticals individually, or as a mixture at different initial concentrations (1.25 and 5 mg/L each). The initial enzymatic activity of all the treated samples was around 430–460 U(DMP)/L. The removal of the four selected pharmaceuticals tested individually was more effective than when tested in mixtures under the same conditions. For example, 5 mg DCF/L was completely removed to below its detection limit (1 µg/L) within 8 h in the individual experiment vs. after 24 h when dosed as a mixture with the other pharmaceuticals. A similar trend was visible with other three pharmaceuticals, with 95 vs. 39%, 82 vs. 34% and 56 vs. 49% removal after 48 h with 5 mg/L of TMP, CBZ, and SMX tested individually or as mixtures, respectively. In addition, at the lower initial concentration (1.25 mg/L each), the removal efficiency of TMP, CBZ, and SMX in mixtures was lower than that obtained at the higher initial concentrations (5 mg/L each) during both the individual and combined treatments. Four enzymatic transformation products (TPs) were identified during the individual treatments of DCF and CBZ by T. versicolor. For TMP and SMX, no major TPs were observed under the experimental conditions used. The toxicity of the solution before and after enzymatic treatment of each pharmaceutical was also assessed and all treated effluent samples were verified to be non-toxic.


Abstract. Many time series observations in hydrology and climate show large seasonal variations and it has long been common practice to separate the original data into trend, seasonal and random components. We were interested in using that decomposition approach as a basis for understanding variability in hydro-climatic time series. For that purpose, it is desirable that the trend, seasonal and random components are independent so that the variance of the original time series equals the sum of the variances of the three components. We show that the resulting decomposition with the trend component traditionally estimated either as a linear trend or a moving average does not produce components that are independent. Instead we introduce the rarely adopted two-way ANOVA model into studies of hydro-climatic variability and define the trend as equal to the annual anomaly. This traditional approach produces a decomposition with three independent components. We then use global land precipitation data to demonstrate a simple application showing how this decomposition method can be used as a basis for comparing hydro-climatic variability. We anticipate that the three-part decomposition based on the two-way ANOVA approach will prove useful for future applications that seek to understand the space-time dimensions of hydro-climatic variability.


This pocket data book contains main S&T and innovation indicators for the Russian Federation. The publication includes the most recent statistical data on R&D input and output, as well as international comparisons. The data book includes information of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Statistical Office (Eurostat), UNESCO, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), national statistical offices of other countries, and results of own methodological and analytical studies of the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge. In some cases, 2019 data are preliminary.


This article presents an overview of the design and results of the NESTOR survey 'Living Arrangements and Social Networks of Older Adults', an empirical study, started in 1992, among a representative sample of 4495 people, aged 55-89, selected from the population registers of 11 municipalities in the Netherlands. Questions were asked about living arrangements, the composition and functions of social networks, and important transitions in the marital, parental and occupational careers. The results indicated a wide diversity in living arrangements and social networks, a diversity which is particularly visible among the young old. They not only have larger networks, but are also more likely to live alone, to be divorced and to participate in shared housing arrangements. The networks vary considerably in size, from 0 to more than 40 important relationships. The decrease in network size with age appears to be directly related to specific life events such as widowhood, physical handicaps, residential moves etc. About 2/3 of the relationships are family relationships: parents, children (in law), grandchildren (in law), brothers and sisters (in law), uncles and aunts. Older people tend to be in touch at least once a month with the majority of close family members. The intensity of supportive exchanges (giving and receiving instrumental and emotional support in the twelve relationships with the highest levels of contact) is moderate, however mostly in balance. Only the very old receive somewhat more instrumental support and give considerably less than the 'young-old'. We studied the shift in balance between giving and receiving over a period of 12 months among a small proportion of the sample, checking a central hypothesis of exchange theory. In some cases a new balance evolves. In others the relationship continues to exist for a number of reasons, despite the imbalance. Early life experiences appear to be important for later life outcomes. Those who experienced the divorce of their parents before the age of 15 or those whose parents lived apart permanently (e.g. unmarried mothers) have a smaller social network and feel more lonely. Marital history has an impact on patterns of informal and formal care. E.g., those respondents without a partner who have children are less likely to use formal care than those who are childless. Among divorced elderly the use of formal care not only varies between men and women but also differs according to the marriage in which the children are born, first or second marriage. Occupational history is strongly related to the income level of older women living alone.


The cause of asthma, which has been linked to a chronic, T-cell-mediated bronchial inflammation, remains unclear. A number of other T-lymphocyte-mediated, chronic inflammatory disorders have been associated with autoimmunity and there are data indicating that autoimmune phenomena might also be present in asthma. Expression of perforin, a cytotoxic molecule produced by lymphocytes, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. We therefore tested the hypothesis that allergic and intrinsic asthma might be associated with an increase in lymphocytes producing perforin by comparing the expression of intracellular perforin in peripheral blood lymphocytes of patients with extrinsic asthma (n = 13), intrinsic asthma (n = 7), and healthy control subjects (n = 18). Lymphocytes were identified using flow cytometry and subdivided into CD3(+), CD4(+), CD8(+), CD16(+), and CD56(+) subpopulations after staining with appropriate monoclonal antibodies. The percentage of perforin-positive total lymphocytes was significantly elevated in patients with allergic as well as intrinsic asthma when compared with normal control subjects. Analysis of lymphocyte subpopulations also revealed a significant increase in the percentage of CD3(+), CD4(+), CD8(+), and CD56(+) cells expressing perforin in allergic asthma and a significant increase in the percentage of CD4(+) and CD56(+) cells in intrinsic asthma when compared with healthy control subjects. Perforin expression in CD4(+) cells in intrinsic asthma was also significantly elevated compared with allergic asthma. We conclude that allergic and intrinsic asthma is associated with increased expression of perforin in T-lymphocyte subsets.


This study was carried out to investigate relationships between some morphological and reproductive traits of the Turkish crayfish, A. leptodactylus, collected from a controlled irrigation lake in the Yenice province (Çanakkale, Turkey), between July 2007 and June 2008. For this objective, two multivariate analysis techniques, namely canonical correlation analysis and multivariate multiple linear regression analysis, were used. The results of the canonical correlation analysis have shown that the morphological traits may be used to predict the changes in the reproductive traits. For instance, canonical correlation analysis results suggested that the egg weight and the number of eggs are related to the total length, carapace length, and carapace width. The results of multivariate multiple linear regression analysis, on the other hand, show a slightly different picture. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that both canonical correlation and multivariate regression results can be taken into consideration together when investigating the relations between two variable sets.


The phenolic composition of Cabernet Sauvignon grape berries was monitored throughout the growing season from anthesis to maturity in clusters exposed to sunlight and clusters growing in natural canopy shade. Analyses included total soluble phenols, anthocyanins, and polymerized phenols. Significant differences were found between sun-exposed and shaded fruit in soluble phenol content per berry and in both anthocyanin concentration and total content per berry preharvest. There were no significant differences at harvest, however. Total soluble phenols increased until veraison, then decreased from veraison to harvest. The percentage of polymerized phenols decreased during early berry growth, then increased from veraison to harvest.


Large language models (LLMs) have been increasingly used to interact with external environments (e.g., games, compilers, APIs) as goal-driven agents. However, it remains challenging for these language agents to quickly and efficiently learn from trial-and-error as traditional reinforcement learning methods require extensive training samples and expensive model fine-tuning. We propose Reflexion, a novel framework to reinforce language agents not by updating weights, but instead through linguistic feedback. Concretely, Reflexion agents verbally reflect on task feedback signals, then maintain their own reflective text in an episodic memory buffer to induce better decision-making in subsequent trials. Reflexion is flexible enough to incorporate various types (scalar values or free-form language) and sources (external or internally simulated) of feedback signals, and obtains significant improvements over a baseline agent across diverse tasks (sequential decision-making, coding, language reasoning). For example, Reflexion achieves a 91% pass@1 accuracy on the HumanEval coding benchmark, surpassing the previous state-of-the-art GPT-4 that achieves 80%. We also conduct ablation and analysis studies using different feedback signals, feedback incorporation methods, and agent types, and provide insights into how they affect performance.


Genomic studies have been revolutionized by the use of next generation sequencing (NGS) that delivers huge amounts of sequence information in a short span of time. The number of applications for NGS is rapidly expanding and significantly transforming many areas of life sciences. The field of antibody research and discovery is no exception. Several recent studies have harnessed the power of NGS for analyzing natural or synthetic immunoglobulin repertoires with unprecedented resolution and exploring alternative paths for antibody discovery. Thus, appreciating, and then exploiting, these advances is essential for staying at the edge of antibody innovation.


In the article the ways of improving the technology of liquidation of consequences of petroleum products losses during transportation are discussed.


A prospective randomized trial by CALGB examined the relative value of four chemotherapy regimens in 537 patients with stage I11 B and IV Hodgkin's disease. A new combination BOPP, derived by substitution of BCNU for nitrogen mustard in the MOPP regimen, was compared to MOPP and to two 3-drug regimens, derived by removing the procarbazine in BOPP (BOP) or removing the alkylating agent (OPP). The 4-drug programs gave significantly higher frequency of complete remissions (BOPP 6776, MOPP 63%) than the 3-drug regimens (BOP 40%, OPP 42%), and significantly longer duration of remission and survival. BOPP had a therapeutic activity equal to MOPP, and was accompanied by less toxicity. After 6 cycles of induction chemotherapy, responding patients, both CR and PR, were continued on maintenance chemotherapy for 3 years. No significant difference in relapse rate was demonstrated following maintenance treatment with either vinblastine, chlorambucil, or chlor-ambucil plus monthly vincristine + prednisone doses. Nor could a reinforcement phase late in the maintenance program be shown to influence the relapse rate. The median survival for all patients entered on the 4-drug programs was 5 years, while the median has not yet been reached at 6 years for those patients, who obtained CR.


We revisit the fundamental problem of learning Axis-Aligned-Rectangles over a finite grid $X^d\subseteq{\mathbb{R}}^d$ with differential privacy. Existing results show that the sample complexity of this problem is at most $\min\left\{ d{\cdot}\log|X| \;,\; d^{1.5}{\cdot}\left(\log^*|X| \right)^{1.5}\right\}$. That is, existing constructions either require sample complexity that grows linearly with $\log|X|$, or else it grows super linearly with the dimension $d$. We present a novel algorithm that reduces the sample complexity to only $\tilde{O}\left\{d{\cdot}\left(\log^*|X|\right)^{1.5}\right\}$, attaining a dimensionality optimal dependency without requiring the sample complexity to grow with $\log|X|$.The technique used in order to attain this improvement involves the deletion of"exposed"data-points on the go, in a fashion designed to avoid the cost of the adaptive composition theorems. The core of this technique may be of individual interest, introducing a new method for constructing statistically-efficient private algorithms.


In this paper, we investigate cloud platform support that provides distributed applications with automatic service placement across different cloud computing systems (hybrid clouds), and that enables application developers to investigate the impact of using different cloud-based data consistency models with their applications. By pursuing its implementation at the cloud runtime layer (platform), we are able to provide hybrid cloud support without requiring application modification or significant developer expertise. We investigate the efficacy of such portabililty for different application domains (web services and computationally-intensive HPC applications, via Monte Carlo simulations). We examine different hybrid cloud placement strategies based on cost, performance, and common use cases. We evaluate the performance of such placement strategies as well as different data consistency policies.


said he had written to Dr. Jones, of Los Angeles, whom he saw two years ago and who was much interested in this subject, asking for a wiring chart of the amplifier set which Dr. Jones brought forward chiefly as a test, but also to a large extent as the most advanced form of electrical aid to hearing.' The diagram had arrived by air mail, only five minutes before he (the speaker) had left Glasgow to come to this meeting. He would be glad to supply Members with a copy in due course.


The recognition that the development of cancer is associated with acquired immunodeficiency, mostly against cancer cells themselves, and understanding pathways inducing this immunosuppression, has led to a tremendous development of new immunological approaches, both vaccines and drugs, which overcome this inhibition. Both "passive" (e.g. strategies relying on the administration of specific T cells) and "active" vaccines (e.g. peptide-directed or whole-cell vaccines) have become attractive immunological approaches, inducing cell death by targeting tumor-associated antigens. Whereas peptide-targeted vaccines are usually directed against a single antigen, whole-cell vaccines (e.g. dendritic cell vaccines) are aimed to induce robust responsiveness by targeting several tumor-related antigens simultaneously. The combination of vaccines with new immuno-stimulating agents which target "immunosuppressive checkpoints" (anti-CTLA-4, PD-1, etc.) is likely to improve and maintain immune response induced by vaccination.


A general Friedmann big-bang cosmology can be speci(cid:12)ed by (cid:12)xing a half-dozen cosmological parameters such as the photon-to-baryon ratio η γ , the cosmological constant (cid:3), the curvature scale R , and the amplitude Q of (assumed scale-invariant) primordial density fluctuations. There is currently no established theory as to why these parameters take the particular values we deduce from observations. This has led to proposed 'anthropic' explanations for the observed value of each parameter, as the only value capable of generating a universe that can host intelligent life. In this paper, I explicitly show that the requirement that the universe generates sun-like stars with planets does not (cid:12)x these parameters, by developing a class of cosmologies (based on the classical 'cold big-bang' model) in which some or all of the cosmological parameters di(cid:11)er by orders of magnitude from the values they assume in the standard hot big-bang cosmology, without precluding in any obvious way the existence of intelligent life. I also give a careful discussion of the structure and context of anthropic arguments in cosmology, and point out some implications of the cold big-bang model's existence for anthropic arguments concerning speci(cid:12)c parameters.


Osteosarcoma (OS) is a highly aggressive primary bone tumour. The mainstay for its treatment is multi-agent chemotherapy and surgical resection, with a 50-70% 5-year survival rate. Despite the huge effort made by clinicians and researchers in the last 30 years, limited progress has been made to improve patient outcomes. As novel therapeutic approaches for OS become available, such as monoclonal antibodies, small molecules, and immunotherapies, the need for OS preclinical model development becomes equally pressing. Three-dimensional OS models represent an alternative system to study this tumour: in contrast to two-dimensional monolayers, three-dimensional matrices can recapitulate key elements of the tumour microenvironment, such as the cellular interaction with the bone mineralized matrix. The advancement of tissue engineering and biofabrication techniques enables the incorporation of specific tumour microenvironmental aspects into three-dimensional models, to investigate the contribution of individual components to tumour progression and enhance understanding of basic OS biology. The use of biomaterials that mimic the extracellular matrix could also facilitate the testing of drugs targeting the tumour microenvironment itself, allowing a larger range of therapeutics to be tested, while averting the ethical implications and high cost associated with in vivo preclinical models. This review aims to serve as a practical guide by delineating the OS tumour microenvironment ("what it is like"), and in turn propose various biofabrication strategies to create a three-dimensional model ("how to recreate it"), to improve the in vitro representation of the OS tumour and ultimately generate more accurate drug response profiles.


Language is processed on a more or less word-by-word basis, and the processing difficulty induced by each word is affected by our prior linguistic experience as well as our general knowledge about the world. Surprisal and entropy reduction have been independently proposed as linking theories between word processing difficulty and probabilistic language models. Extant models, however, are typically limited to capturing linguistic experience and hence cannot account for the influence of world knowledge. A recent comprehension model by Venhuizen, Crocker, and Brouwer (2019, Discourse Processes) improves upon this situation by instantiating a comprehension-centric metric of surprisal that integrates linguistic experience and world knowledge at the level of interpretation and combines them in determining online expectations. Here, we extend this work by deriving a comprehension-centric metric of entropy reduction from this model. In contrast to previous work, which has found that surprisal and entropy reduction are not easily dissociated, we do find a clear dissociation in our model. While both surprisal and entropy reduction derive from the same cognitive process—the word-by-word updating of the unfolding interpretation—they reflect different aspects of this process: state-by-state expectation (surprisal) versus end-state confirmation (entropy reduction).


Fibrillar amyloid aggregates are the pathological hallmarks of multiple neurodegenerative diseases. The amyloid-β (1–42) protein, in particular, is a major component of senile plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease and a primary target for disease treatment. Determining the essential domains of amyloid-β (1–42) that facilitate its oligomerization is critical for the development of aggregation inhibitors as potential therapeutic agents. In this study, we identified three key hydrophobic sites (17LVF19, 32IGL34, and 41IA42) on amyloid-β (1–42) and investigated their involvement in the self-assembly process of the protein. Based on these findings, we designed candidate inhibitor peptides of amyloid-β (1–42) aggregation. Using the designed peptides, we characterized the roles of the three hydrophobic regions during amyloid-β (1–42) fibrillar aggregation and monitored the consequent effects on its aggregation property and structural conversion. Furthermore, we used an amyloid-β (1–42) double point mutant (I41N/A42N) to examine the interactions between the two C-terminal end residues with the two hydrophobic regions and their roles in amyloid self-assembly. Our results indicate that interchain interactions in the central hydrophobic region (17LVF19) of amyloid-β (1–42) are important for fibrillar aggregation, and its interaction with other domains is associated with the accessibility of the central hydrophobic region for initiating the oligomerization process. Our study provides mechanistic insights into the self-assembly of amyloid-β (1–42) and highlights key structural domains that facilitate this process. Our results can be further applied toward improving the rational design of candidate amyloid-β (1–42) aggregation inhibitors.


Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the moderating role of coping strategies in the relationship between illness perception, quality of life and HbA1c in patients with type I diabetes. Materials and Methods: Three hundred patients (172 females and 128 males, 18-30 years) aged with type I diabetes from the Iranian Diabetes Society completed the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ), Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS), and Quality of Life scale for Diabetics (D-39). HbA1c level was obtained from patient`s laboratory examination. Results: Results of stepwise regression analysis revealed that the influence of illness perception on HbA1c was moderated by task-oriented coping strategy. The relationship between illness perception and quality of life was influenced by three coping strategies, task oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidant. Conclusion: Coping strategies affect the relationship between illness perception, quality of life and HbA1c in patients with type I diabetes. Results can be helpful in devising preventive policies, determining high risk patients and designing of psychological interventions.


BACKGROUND
Obesity has increased > 20% in the past decade in the United States, and more than one-half of US adults are overweight or obese.

OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to further elucidate the nutritional etiology of changes in body mass index (BMI; in kg/m(2)) and waist circumference by dietary intake pattern. We hypothesized that a healthy dietary pattern would lead to smaller changes in BMI and waist circumference than would other dietary patterns.

DESIGN
Subjects were 459 healthy men and women participating in the ongoing Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Diet was assessed with the use of 7-d dietary records, from which 41 food groups were created and entered into a cluster analysis.

RESULTS
Five dietary patterns were derived (healthy, white bread, alcohol, sweets, and meat and potatoes). The mean annual change in BMI was 0.30 +/- 0.06 for subjects in the meat-and-potatoes cluster and 0.05 +/- 0.06 for those in the healthy cluster (P < 0.01). The mean annual change in waist circumference was more than 3 times as great for subjects in the white-bread cluster (1.32 +/- 0.29 cm) as for those in the healthy cluster (0.43 +/- 0.27 cm) (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Consuming a diet high in fruit, vegetables, reduced-fat dairy, and whole grains and low in red and processed meat, fast food, and soda was associated with smaller gains in BMI and waist circumference. Because foods are not consumed in isolation, dietary pattern research based on natural eating behavior may be useful in understanding dietary causes of obesity and in helping individuals trying to control their weight.


This contribution reports the first X-ray standing wave structural characterization of self-assembled NLO-active chromophoric multilayers (SAMs). These siloxane-based self-assembled stilbazolium multilayers are intrinsically acentric and exhibit very large second-order nonlinear optical responses. The locations of bromide ions within the SAMs were precisely determined using X-ray standing waves generated by total external reflection form mirror surfaces as well as by Bragg diffraction from layered synthetic microstructures. The large coherent fraction (i.e., small Gaussian distribution width) of the Br{sup -} ions provides direct evidence for the high structural regularity of these self-assembled multilayers along the surface normal direction. These results are supported by atomic force microscopic (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) studies which probe the structural regularity and chemical composition of SAMs, respectively. The anion surface coverage has also been measured in this study (2.5(5) x 10{sup 14} Br{sup -}/cm{sup 2}) and is in excellent agreement with the cation surface coverage measured by second harmonic generation (2(1) x 10{sup 14} molecules/cm{sup 2}). These results clearly demonstrate the utility of X-ray standing wave analyses as a quantitative microstructural probe for self-assembled mono- and multilayers, especially for SAMs with incommensurate structures. 17 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab.


The importance of viewing tests in their policy contexts is now widely recognized in our field. The Language Testing Research Centre (LTRC), as a self-funding Centre, responds by necessity to policy shifts and the language testing initiatives it has undertaken over the years offer insights into broader societal and more local institutional imperatives. The Centre's language testing activities also have the potential to influence policy, whether directly or indirectly. This paper offers a historical overview of the Centre's various projects in the languages (other than English) arena over a 30-year period, describing the diverse orientations adopted (i.e. to inform, enact or evaluate policy) with particular reference to three cases illustrative of different policy trends. I speculate about the policy impact of each case, highlighting the complexities encountered and some of the factors favouring and inhibiting policy uptake. Insights from these particular cases are then linked to the research literature on policy impact to propose recommendations for 'policy responsible' language testing.


Picosecond dynamics of the photoexcited charge-ordered perovskite-type cobalt oxides La1.5Ca0.5CoO4 and La1.5Sr0.5CoO4 were investigated based on time-resolved Raman and reflection spectroscopy. These cobalt oxides show strong Raman scattering at around 700 cm−1, originating from the breathing vibration mode of the CoO6 octahedron coupled with the checkerboard-type charge ordering of Co2+ and Co3+. We performed time-resolved Raman and reflection spectroscopy by photoirradiating with picosecond pulses at 400 nm, exciting the charge transfer (CT) transition from the O 2p site to the Co 3d site. As a result of the excitation, the Raman intensity of the breathing mode was suppressed by 10% on a similar time scale in the reflectance change without changing the frequency of the mode, directly indicating ultrafast suppression of the order parameter of the charge-ordered state by CT transition.


Abstract--- Criminal Justice System in Indonesia has not been able to overcome criminal case backlog in courts. Besides the report from the Supreme Court about the large backlog of criminal cases in judicial institution, there was also a research which showed that judges in Indonesia tend to arrive at guilty verdicts on criminal acts with minor criminal charges (sanction under 5 years). The concept of Plea Bargaining which has been known and applied in several countries will also be included in Article 198 paragraph (5) and 199 of the Draft of Criminal Procedure Code (RKUHAP) in Indonesia which will be made as law. Although non explicit verbis named as Plea Bargaining, the spirit of these articles are similar to the plea bargaining system which has been practiced in many countries and is considered successful in overcoming the criminal case backlog in courts, therefore the study uses comparative study of plea bargaining system in several countries and also uses normative research method and carried out by using the statutory approach through a review of laws and regulations as well as regulations relating to the issue discussed. Legal materials are obtained from the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP) and the Draft of Criminal Procedure Code (RKUHAP) which has been in the final discussion at the House of Representatives and Government, and in addition, the secondary legal materials are obtained from books, journals and other literature. Meanwhile, the data collection technique used is a library research by examining legal materials relevant to the research discussion. Keywords--- plea bargaining, criminal case backlog, court


The fascias of the male external genitalia and perineum serve as surgical landmarks and are considered to act as initial barriers to urinary extravasation; thus they are of fundamental importance to the urologist and anatomist. There is little agreement, however, about the naming and function of these fascias because they have been defined inconsistently. The extensive use of eponyms for the fascias adds even further confusion to the proper nomenclature. Our findings, based upon dissection and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), show that except for the single layer of dartos (smooth muscle) in the scrotum, there are two distinct layers of fascia in the penis and perineum that are continuous with each other and the anterior wall fascias. To minimize confusion, we conclude that the fascial layrs around the penis be termed the superficial and deep penile fascias, and those to which they are continuous in the perineum be termed the membranous layer of the superficial perineal fascia (the fibrous stratum that traverses the superficial fascia) and the deep perineal fascia. Their presumed role in limiting urinary extravasation is based upon relatively few well‐detailed report and currently remains poorly understood. However, this may be improved upon in the future through combined application of clinical findings and MRI to individual cases of urinary extravasation. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Over the past two decades, there have been a variety of efforts to shift the primary purpose of US higher education institutions to the production of learning rather than the delivery of instruction (Barr and Tagg, 1995). In 1983, A Nation at Risk (U.S. Department of Education, 1983) raised concerns about elementary, secondary and postsecondary educational outcomes. Other reports such as Access to Quality Undergraduate Education (Southern Regional Education Board, 1985), Integrity in the College Curriculum (Association of American Colleges, 1985), and To Reclaim a Legacy (Bennett, 1984) called for assessment of student learning (Ewell, 2002; Huba & Freed, 2000). Recently, a commission convened by US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings released A Test of Leadership: Charting the future of U.S. higher education (2006). The Spellings Commission noted "...a remarkable absence of accountability mechanisms to ensure that colleges succeed in educating students" (US Department of Education, p. xii).


A consumption event is memorable if the memory of it affects well-being at times after the material consumption. We develop an axiomatic model of memorable consumption in a dynamic setting. Preferences are represented by the present value of the sum of utilities derived at each date from the current consumption and from recollecting the past.

Our model accommodates well-known phenomena in psychology, such as the peak-end rule, duration neglect, and adaptation trends. We provide foundations for a prominent special case of memory that has the Markovian property. The model is illustrated in application to life-cycle consumption-savings decisions and asset pricing.


[1] This paper presents petrographic, chemical, and isotopic (Sr, S) analyses of whole rock samples from a 1.8 km section of upper ocean crust (DSDP/ODP Hole 504B). The samples were selected to cover all lithologies (pillows, flows, breccias, dikes) and alteration/mineralization styles. The chemical and petrographic data were used to calculate weighted averages for upper crustal composition, based on which seawater-ocean crust exchange fluxes were calculated. These results confirm earlier estimates that identify the upper crust as a significant sink for K and Mg and a source of Ca and Si to the oceans. Changes in trace element geochemistry implies that the upper ocean crust in 504B is a sink for CO2, Rb, Cs, and U, although the flux rates are an order of magnitude smaller than suggests by previous estimates for DSDP Sites 417 and 418 in 118 Ma Atlantic crust. Fluxes of these components are similar, within a factor of four, to flux rates estimated for the Juan de Fuca Ridge flank, which may relate to similarities in the thermal and hydrogeological evolution at both sites that is controlled by rapid termination of fluid circulation and conductive reheating of the upper crust. The contrast between the fluxes of trace elements derived for those settings and the open-ocean sites 417/418 likely reflects prolonged fluid-rock interaction at the latter location. If the Mg uptake and Sr exchange reconstructed from 504B core is representative, ridge flank hydrothermal alteration cannot account for the imbalance in the Mg and Sr budgets of the oceans. Up to 10% of the crustal Pb resides in the mineralized parts of the transition zone between the volcanic section and the sheeted dike complex. Combined, the Pb mobilized in the deepest parts of the hydrothermal systems (probably not penetrated in 504B) and hosted in metalliferous sediments and mineralized stockwork may account for the Pb surplus of the continental crust and the evolution of Ce/Pb of the mantle. Hydrothermal alteration results in net increases of Rb/Sr and U/Pb, in particular in the uppermost 600 m of crust, but the increases are not large enough to make altered upper ocean crust a plausible precursor for the HIMU mantle component. Moreover, the fractionation between Th and Pb, if any, is insufficient to account for the development of highly radiogenic 208Pb/204Pb in a HIMU mantle source. Potential HIMU precursors can be derived from altered ocean crust after 1–2 Ga, if on the order of 80–90% Pb, 40–55% Rb, 40% Sr, and 35–40%U are removed during partial dehydration in subduction zones.


The utility of including loops in plans has been long recognized by the planning community. Loops in a plan help increase both its applicability and the compactness of representation. However, progress in finding such plans has been limited largely due to lack of methods for reasoning about the correctness and safety properties of loops of actions. We present novel algorithms for determining the applicability and progress made by a general class of loops of actions. These methods can be used for directing the search for plans with loops towards greater applicability while guaranteeing termination, as well as in post-processing of computed plans to precisely characterize their applicability. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of these algorithms.


An integrated approach to the study of the structural patterns and seismic attributes was carried out on the Z-field using a 3D seismic data covering approximately 56 Km2 of western belt of the Niger Delta, check shot data for well to seismic tie and log information for six wells from the field. This study aimed at investigating the available prospects, the responses of the basic seismic attributes to structural and stratigraphic elements within the study area. In all, six
hydrocarbon
bearing levels were delineated from well logs and correlated across the field. These horizons were analysed and petro physical parameters estimated. An integration of well and seismic data was done by applying a time-depth relationship to identify where the hydrocarbon bearing sands from well posts on the seismic lines. These studies revealed two major regional growth faults (F1 and F5) dipping in the NE-SW directions and crestal faults (F4) dipping in the northern direction. The north dipping crestal fault F4 is responsible for holding the hydrocarbon in the proven closure A. The northernmost regional growth fault F1 is responsible for trapping the hydrocarbon in the prospect closure B in the north eastern part of the field. The closure C prospect is a four way dip closure to the spill point but becomes fault assisted on regional growth faults F1 and F5 at deeper levels. The trapping mechanism identified from our interpretation indicates that the field is characterized mostly by fault assisted closures and a few four way closures. The fault zones are identified by distinct displacement of walls and amplitude distortions towards the fault zones identified on the seismic sections and the extracted amplitude maps. At the south-western part of the field, using only seismic
Stratigraphic approach
, a part of fault F5 was too subtle to be identified, and this may lead to missing out on the potentials of the identified closure C prospect. Thus, where conventional seismic interpretation has failed, seismic attribute analysis complements.


Finding optimal parameters for force fields used in molecular simulation is a challenging and time-consuming task, partly due to the difficulty of tuning multiple parameters at once. Automatic differentiation presents a general solution: run a simulation, obtain gradients of a loss function with respect to all the parameters, and use these to improve the force field. This approach takes advantage of the deep learning revolution whilst retaining the interpretability and efficiency of existing force fields. We demonstrate that this is possible by parameterising a simple coarse-grained force field for proteins, based on training simulations of up to 2,000 steps learning to keep the native structure stable. The learned potential matches chemical knowledge and PDB data, can fold and reproduce the dynamics of small proteins, and shows ability in protein design and model scoring applications. Problems in applying differentiable molecular simulation to all-atom models of proteins are discussed along with possible solutions. The learned potential, simulation scripts and training code are made available at https://github.com/psipred/cgdms.


Brexit leads to uncertainties about how policies will be 'rescaled' from the European Union back to the United Kingdom and its devolved governments. Interviews with key Scottish Government officials show how the UK's withdrawal from the Common Fisheries Policy presents mixed challenges for the Scottish policy system to absorb policy change at analytical, administrative, political, and communicative levels. Our analysis finds that absorbable areas concern fisheries management, operations, and analysis. Yet there are capacity areas that will require greater investment at political, communicative, and relational levels. This article makes an important contribution to research on the multi-level governance capacities for accommodating Brexit in UK policy-making. In doing so, our contribution applies the governance capacities literature to a new field of scholarship in relation to Brexit studies.


The selection of proper tissues from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tumors before diagnostic molecular testing is responsibility of the pathologist and represents a crucial step to produce reliable test results. The international guidelines suggest two cut-offs, one for the percentage and one for the number of tumor cells, in order to enrich the tumor content before DNA extraction. The aim of the present work was two-fold: to evaluate to what extent a low percentage or absolute number of tumor cells can be qualified for somatic mutation testing; and to determine how assay sensitivities can guide pathologists towards a better definition of morphology-based adequacy cut-offs. We tested 1797 tumor specimens from melanomas, colorectal and lung adenocarcinomas. Respectively, their BRAF, K-RAS and EGFR genes were analyzed at specific exons by mutation-enriched PCR, pyrosequencing, direct sequencing and real-time PCR methods. We demonstrate that poorly cellular specimens do not modify the frequency distribution of either mutated or wild-type DNA samples nor that of specific mutations. This observation suggests that currently recommended cut-offs for adequacy of specimens to be processed for molecular assays seem to be too much stringent in a laboratory context that performs highly sensitive routine analytical methods. In conclusion, new cut-offs are needed based on test sensitivities and documented tumor heterogeneity.


endometrial sampling has not provided an adequate specimen. Uncommonly, these measures are inconclusive or, in the instance of virginal girls and women, not feasible outside of an anesthetized environment. In these instances, magnetic resonance imaging may be of value, if available. Abbreviations: AUB, abnormal uterine bleeding; AUB-P, polyp; AUB-A, adenomyosis; AUB-L leiomyoma submucosal; AUB- M, malignancy and hyperplasia; AUB-O, ovulatory dysfunction; AUB-E, endometrial; carcinoma; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; SIS, sonohysterography; TVUS, transvaginal ultrasonography. Reprinted from Munro MG. Abnormal Uterine Bleeding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2010.


During 39th session of UNESCO General Conference which held on 7 November 2017 the date May 16th was proclaimed as International Day of Light (IDL). This decision was made after the success of the International Year of Light (IYL) celebrated in 2015. It confirmed that raising awareness of the social role of photonics is crucial for further development. Based on the rich experience of IYL 2015 ("more than 13,000 activities took place in 147 countries to reach an estimated 100 million people"), the most important goals are to be followed by the IDL, including: raising social awareness, education, showing the influence of photonics on culture and art, promoting foreign cooperation and the important role of conducting basic research. As a result, it will lead to the creation of new solutions based on photonic technology, which has resulted in increased energy efficiency and improved quality of our life.


Background and aims Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is characterised by exaggerated synovial proliferation in which interleukin-17A (IL-17A) plays a key role. Recently several evidences support the implication of autophagy in the pathogenesis of RA. The aims of this study are (1) to evaluate whether IL-17A influences on autophagic flux in RA synovium and (2) to investigate whether the modulation of autophagy can regulate migration and proliferation of fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) from the patients with RA (RA-FLS) under inflammatory milieu. Methods FLS from the patients with RA or osteoarthritis (OA) were cultured with IL-17A and/or autophagy regulators. The expression of marker proteins for autophagic flux or the formation of autophagolysosome was analysed by western blot or immunofluorescence study. A migration scratch assay was used to assess FLS migration. Proliferation of FLS was determined by the viable cell count using trypan blue. Results LC3 conversion from LC3-I to LC3-II was increased in RA-FLS than in OA-FLS. IL-17A upregulated the expression of LC3B, Atg5, Beclin1, LAMP1 in RA-FLS. The accumulation of p62 was also prominent in RA-FLS. Migration and proliferation of FLS stimulated by IL-17A was suppressed by Bafilomycin A1 which prevented the formation of autophagolysosomes. P62-silencing enhanced IL-17A-induced autophagy activation in RA-FLS. Conclusions This study reveals that IL-17A stimulates autophagy and that intervention of autophagy can control IL-17A-induced migration and proliferation of FLS. Our results also provide additional evidence for a significant role of autophagy in the pathogenesis of RA. Thus, we suggest that autophagy might be a potential therapeutic target for the management of RA.


BACnet is a standard data communication protocol designed specifically for building automation and control systems. In BACnet network, each device is modeled as a collection of network-accessible, data structure called "objects". LabVIEW is a graphical development environment for creating flexible data acquisition, device control and industrial automation applications at minimal cost. In this study, a remote monitoring system based on LabVIEW and BACnet was proposed, in which electromechanical equipment is described by a series of BACnet objects and LabVIEW provides a friendly unified human-computer interface for users. In order to evaluate the feasibility of this system, an experimental model was developed. Due to the characteristic of device-independent, not only can extend the scope of BACnet application, but also make different equipments monitored under the same platform becomes possible.


The world has been facing a global threat from the past few months from Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) There has been a significant increase in morbidity and mortality due to this ongoing pandemic which is creating a global challenge This pandemic is having a profound effect on all aspects of society especially the physical and mental health of the people There has been a rising concern about the mental health of normal population, COVID-19 patients, Healthcare Workers (HCW) or doctors, children and the elderly population Recent research has reported symptoms of anxiety, depression and other symptoms of psychological distress among these populations The main purpose of this review was to focus on various mental health issues and the coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic period


Emergent in the field of head mounted display design is a desire to leverage the limitations of the human visual system to reduce the computation, communication, and display workload in power and form-factor constrained systems. Fundamental to this reduced workload is the ability to match display resolution to the acuity of the human visual system, along with a resulting need to follow the gaze of the eye as it moves, a process referred to as foveation. A display that moves its content along with the eye may be called a Foveated Display, though this term is also commonly used to describe displays with non-uniform resolution that attempt to mimic human visual acuity. We therefore recommend a definition for the term Foveated Display that accepts both of these interpretations. Furthermore, we include a simplified model for human visual Acuity Distribution Functions (ADFs) at various levels of visual acuity, across wide fields of view and propose comparison of this ADF with the Resolution Distribution Function of a foveated display for evaluation of its resolution at a particular gaze direction. We also provide a taxonomy to allow the field to meaningfully compare and contrast various aspects of foveated displays in a display and optical technology-agnostic manner.


This paper briefly describes the general poverty situation in Myanmar, factors that partly constitute poverty in Myanmar, and social work and poverty in Myanmar. Myanmar with a population of over 60 million and at 676,578 km2 (Burma) is the largest country of mainland Southeast Asian Region, and second largest overall in size after Indonesia. It is a country that is rich in natural resources including precious stones, oil, and natural gas, however, Myanmar is still one of the poorest countries and majority of its citizens are still living in poverty and do not enjoy the benefit of their rich natural resources even under the newly introduced political reforms. There are differences in urban and rural poverty. The urban people have more money than the rural people but rural people on subsistence agriculture have more food but no hard cash. It is argued in this paper that poverty in Myanmar is mainly caused by the mismanagement of resources and inefficiency of governance, corruption and dishonesty in resource allocations, insecurities of social and economic conditions to the people. The 2008 Myanmar Constitution describes the protection and rights of the citizens for property ownership, education and health. The newly adopted pro-market reforms have led to cases of land seizures from farmers for mining and industrial development, decline in wages in real terms for factory workers with resultant social problems in many areas in the country. The challenge for the future leaders and policy makers is whether it is the constitution that needs to be changed or improved or improve the enforcement of the current one to improve the poverty situation for the people of Myanmar.


Summary

1. The Pleistocene glaciations during the Quaternary appear to have resulted in an impoverished groundwater fauna in northern Europe. Re-colonisation may have occurred either through long-distance dispersal from unglaciated southern areas or from local refugia.

2. The Belgian groundwater fauna was sampled at multiple sites, and its habitats characterised, to assess whether the composition of present-day stygobiotic assemblages can be attributed to either of these mechanisms.

3. A total of 202 sampling sites were selected in four hydrogeographic units of the Meuse River catchment. Sites were equally divided among the saturated and unsaturated zones of fractured aquifers (karst) and within the hyporheic and phreatic zones of porous aquifers. Seventeen environmental parameters were determined in parallel.

4. More than 140 species were recorded, including representatives of the Amphipoda, Cladocera, Copepoda, Hydrachnidia, Isopoda, Oligochaeta, Ostracoda, Mollusca, Syncarida and Nematoda. Thirty stygobiont species were identified, of which 10 species were new to the Belgian fauna, raising the total number of stygobiotic species in Belgium to 41.

5. The frequency of occurrences of stygobiotic species was always low, with 37% of the sampled sites lacking stygobionts. A few species were exclusive to one hydrological zone, although no statistically significant differences were detected in species richness at any of the four hierarchial levels considered (Meuse catchment = region, hydrogeographic units, aquifer type and hydrological zone).

6. Overall, results suggest that the stygobiotic fauna of Belgium is species-poor and mostly comprises widely distributed species with broad ecological tolerances. This supports the view that eurytopic species re-colonised the area by long-distance dispersal from refugia in southern Europe. The virtual absence of endemic species further suggests that the scenario of an ancient fauna that survived in local refugia is of minor importance.


In this work, chemically treated microcrystalline cellulose (MCC-C) was extracted from coconut husk fiber. In order to extract hemicellulose, the sieved coconut husk fiber was treated with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for dewaxing and acidified using sodium chlorite (NaClO2) to extract the residual lignin (bleaching process). The obtained lignin-free cellulose was then treated with potassium hydroxide (KOH). The characterizations used to equate the MCC-C with commercial grade microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) are solubility test, X-ray diffractogram (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The XRD showed that the crystallinity of MCC and MCC-C increased significantly by 80.15% and 71.8% by chemical treatments. TGA found that the active removal of lignin-hemicelluloses and the thermal stability of the material were about 350–500°C and 300–500°C. The morphology of the fiber confirmed that there is an irregular cross-section, non-uniform surface, a large amount of short microfibrils and some impurities on the surface of the coconut husk fiber. The findings showed that microcrystalline cellulose has been successfully extracted from coconut husk fiber and that it can be used further.


Parity games are a much researched class of games in NP intersect CoNP that are not known to be in P. Consequently, researchers have considered specialised algorithms for the case where certain graph parameters are small. In this paper, we study parity games on graphs with bounded treewidth, and graphs with bounded DAG width. We show that parity games with bounded DAG width can be solved in O(n^(k+3) k^(k + 2) (d + 1)^(3k + 2)) time, where n, k, and d are the size, treewidth, and number of priorities in the parity game. This is an improvement over the previous best algorithm, given by Berwanger et al., which runs in n^O(k^2) time. We also show that, if a tree decomposition is provided, then parity games with bounded treewidth can be solved in O(n k^(k + 5) (d + 1)^(3k + 5)) time. This improves over previous best algorithm, given by Obdrzalek, which runs in O(n d^(2(k+1)^2)) time. Our techniques can also be adapted to show that the problem of solving parity games with bounded treewidth lies in the complexity class NC^2, which is the class of problems that can be efficiently parallelized. This is in stark contrast to the general parity game problem, which is known to be P-hard, and thus unlikely to be contained in NC.


PURPOSE By using localized 1H-MR spectroscopy in the brain of patients with anorexia nervosa we wanted to verify our preliminary results and to look for a reversibility of the metabolic changes under therapy. METHODS In 22 patients and 17 healthy volunteers (11 follow-up examinations) single voxel 1H-MR spectroscopy (TE = 50 ms, TM = 30 ms, TR = 1500 ms, voxel (2 cm)3, acq.: 256) was used in two different localizations (thalamus and parieto-occipital region). The first examination of the patients was performed before therapy, the follow-up examination at the end of therapy. RESULTS In both regions of the brain we found a statistically significant elevation of the Cho/Cr-ratio in comparison to normal controls. The follow-up examinations revealed reversibility of the metabolic changes under successful therapy. CONCLUSIONS 1H-MR spectroscopy reveals metabolic changes in the brain of patients with anorexia nervosa, which are reversible under successful therapy. These metabolic changes can be conclusively explained using a biochemical model.


Background and aims: Rapid response nursing team evaluates the patients in the early stages of clinical exacerbation and prevents unexpected cardiopulmonary arrest. The present study aimed to determine the effect of rapid response nursing team in outcome of patients care in the emergency ward. Methods: This clinical trial was conducted on 714 patients in the emergency ward in selected hospitals affiliated to Alborz University of Medical Sciences in 2013. The patients were randomly divided into a control and an intervention group. Rapid response nursing team comprised an intensive care nurse and an anesthesia technician who were in the emergency on a 24/7 basis. If the patient's clinical conditions exacerbated, they immediately attended him, evaluated his clinical condition precisely, and took necessary nursing measures for the patients in the case group, but those in the control group received the conventional treatment in the emergency ward. Patients' conditions and the measures taken for them were precisely recorded for both groups and the data were analyzed in SPSS 16. Results: The results of the study showed that there is a significant relationship between establishing rapid response nursing team and outcome of patient care (p=0.028), reduced transfer to special care units (p=0.014) and reduced level of care in the first 24 hours of admission (p=0.001). Conclusion: Given the results, rapid response nursing team was effective in preventing unexpected cardiovascular arrests, increased successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and reduced transfer of patients to special care units and higher levels of care.


'English style' immediately produces images of sartorial elegance; cool, calm areas of contemplation; eminent designers such as David Hicks and Colefax and Fowler; breakfast on a tray; a kettle boiling on a country range; a roaring fire in a gentleman's study, party invitations ranged orderly on the mantel. It is an unmistakable look, emulated throughout the world. Chippy Irvine (British-born but living and designing in the US with her husband Keith Irvine, of eminent designers, Irvine Fleming) takes a detailed look back through history to reveal the individual designers, the styles and influences that have shaped the English home. Exploring the subtle variations between Town and Country living and the privileges of the rich alongside households of more modest means, she also examines how rooms for pleasure and work have changed and adjusted as successive generations imposed their own experiences and expectations. History, local customs and the structure of society past and present combine to bring to life the wealth of influences that create the English house. Beautiful photographs by Christopher Simon-Sykes illustrate The English Room. Following a room-by-room approach terrace town houses and country cottages, high-ceilinged sitting rooms and stone-flagged farmhouse kitchens all represent the quintessential elements - sometimes solidly conservative, sometimes powerfully eccentric - that sum up The English Room.


It is argued that for organizational learning to occur maladaptive social defenses within the organization have to be altered. The origins of the concept of social defenses are traced through the work of Jaques and Menzies. A new concept of "system domain," and related concepts of "system domain fabric," and "system domain defenses," are proposed in order to account for the difficulties in sustaining organizational change in organizations that share a similar primary task. "Organizational learning" is defined as occurring when there is co-evolution of "organizational container" and "contained." The article distills variables from three successful consultancy/action research projects which are characteristic of organizations that are learning, and it is hypothesized that the creation of "organizational awareness" is necessary for organizational learning to occur.


Nazi medicine is commonly considered to be an aberration that began and ended with the horrors of the Hitler regime. But its beginnings were more gradual and its legacy more pernicious. Data derived from research conducted on unknowing and unwitting subjects in death camps continue to be cited in authoritative contemporary medical literature. Nazi medicine has become a part of the professional genotype of modern medicine. This continuing influence of Nazi medicine raises profound questions for the epistemology and morality of medicine.


Abstract : The software engineering industry is producing a vast array of new tools, operating systems, and workstations. Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE), graphical user interfaces, high power workstations, and software interface standards are developing at a rapid rate. Unfortunately, these new developments do not fully support the unique requirements of the Department of Defense (DoD). Reuseability, interoperability, large system development, open architectures, and reliable development processes place an additional burden on the software engineering environment. In order to be effective productivity enhancers, commercial capabilities must be adapted to unique DoD demands. The STARS project can play a crucial role in linking commercial developments and DoD needs. This document, IBM Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL) Sequence Number 03032, SEE Technical Report, describes the results of the work performed under STARS subtasks IS20.1 (SEE Integration) and IS20.4 (SEE Alpha Test) from the IBM STARS S-Increment Statement of Work. This includes a description of the initial instantiation of an IBM SEE, solution, experiences in the use of the capabilities of the initial SEE solution in real projects, and discussions of new and emerging technologies being developed and evaluated by the IBM STARS team for inclusion into the SEE.


The lack of detailed and high-quality experimental data on the fate of solutes in soil puts a severe constraint on the development and testing of transport models. This study illustrates how detailed measured solute concentration data, collected by means of time domain reflectometry (TDR), are used to identify the governing transport processes in a vertical heterogeneous soil. A lysimeter was constructed, consisting of an undisturbed three-layered soil monolith placed on an artificial sandy soil column. Tensiometer cups and solution samplers, together with TDR probes, were inserted horizontally at regular depth intervals to monitor pressure head, solution concentrations, soil water content, and bulk electrical conductivity. In the lysimeter, quasi-steady-state unsaturated water flow conditions were established and TDR-estimated transport of solute was monitored during leaching. Solute fluxes at different depths were calculated, resulting in probability density functions of solute travel time to different depths. The first moment of the solute travel time revealed that approximately all soil water was used to transport solute in the top of the lysimeter. The boundary between the top soil and the sandy substratum probably induced instabilities, and hence, preferential flow. The dispersivity increased with depth in the topsoil but approached almost a constant value deeper in the lysimeter


The article aims to present the size and pace of development of organic production and organic food market in the world. The biggest areas of agricultural land cultivated with the use of organic methods are in Australia, Europe and South America while the biggest organic food market is in the rich countries of North America and Western Europe, and Japan and is constantly developing. It creates opportunities for development of agricultural production with the use of organic methods. Organic food production is developing in both highly developed and developing countries, which see that this kind of production gives chances for export and utilisation of labour force surplus, increase in income and development of poor farms.


An aluminium AD-3 has been anodized under four different conditions, namely at low temperature (?5℃), room temperature (25℃), with and without sealing the anodized coating in boiling distilled water. The solution used for formation of alumina layer in all cases was an electrolyte containing 180 g/l sulphuric acid at a constant forming voltage (voltastatic anodizing). In order to assess the mechanical properties of the obtained anodic alumina layers a series of nanoindentation tests was performed employing different indentation procedures. The two mechanical characteristics of the alumina films, the indentation hardness (HIT) and the indentation modulus (EIT), were determined by means of the instrumented indentation and the Oliver & Pharr approximation method. All measurements were done on Agilent G200 Nanoindenter fitted with a diamond Berkovich type tip. Time dependent effects were investigated by tests with different peak hold time and different loading rate. The change of the mechanical properties with indentation depth was also examined. The effect of the working temperature during the growth of the alumina layers and the influence of the pore sealing on the mechanical properties are evaluated via comparison of the average load-displacement curves. The role of the temperature of the electrolyte and the sealing process during the formation of the alumina films, with respect to possible changes of their chemical composition and structure, are discussed in order to explain the observed differences in the measured load-displacement curves and the determined HIT and EIT.


Canada is one of the only member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) without a national school food program. Good nutrition impacts children's health, wellbeing, and learning; and school food environments offer an important setting to promote health and other food system sustainability behaviours that can last a lifetime. We present an overview of national and international evidence, with a focus on promising practices that support the establishment of a national school food program in Canada. School food programs have been shown to benefit health and dietary behaviour and critical food literacy skills (learning, culture, and social norms) that support local agriculture and promote sustainable food systems. Finally, we make recommendations for key elements that should be included in a national school food program for Canada.


A study using the prematurely weaned rat as a model for the pig was undertaken to determine the effect of dietary cholesterol and carbohydrate source on small intestinal structure and function. Duodenal and jejunal samples were obtained at 18, 24, and 30 d of age from rats weaned at 15 d of age and from unweaned rats at 15, 18, 24, and 30 d of age. Four 20% CP diets were formulated: two diets used lactose and glucose as the carbohydrate source and two used sucrose and starch as the carbohydrate source; 1% cholesterol was substituted for either glucose or starch in one of each diet type. The unweaned rats consistently gained weight at a faster rate (P less than .01), had greater concentrations of Alcian blue (AB+) and periodic acid-Schiff (PAS+) goblet cells (P less than .03), and had more favorable villus height than did the weaned rats. The animals fed cholesterol tended to gain more weight, had more AB+ and PAS+ goblet cells (P less than .03), and had longer villi than did those not fed cholesterol. Lactase activities tended to be greater in the unweaned rats. Sucrase activities were greater in the weaned rats at 18 d (P less than .02). The data indicate that the addition of cholesterol to weaning diets is beneficial in maintaining small intestinal integrity.


Mobile technology is an essential for everyone's daily use, especially in distance education. Learning with mobile technology is a solution to distance learning problems for students to be able to study anywhere and at any time. This paper presents an implementation of a distance education model with mobile technology, designed to include input, process, output, and feedback to help teachers support distance learning of undergraduate students who are studying one of the three majors within Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University's School of Liberal Arts. Input consists of learners' analysis; determining learning objectives; teachers, learners and supportive staff; organizing learning environment and technologies to support learning; and media of distance education lessons through mobile technology. Process consists of conducting teaching and learning activities with step one: preparation of teachers and learners, step 2: conducting learning activities, and step 3: measurement and evaluation. Output consists of learning achievement and the efficiency of a distance education model. Feedback consists of information reaction from students. In addition, distance education lessons were developed for students to learn through the MOODLE learning management system, which includes mobile technology. Students can select their learning options with infographics pages or video clips. Social networks were provided as available channels for students asking questions or giving feedback at any time. Moreover, pre-tests and post-tests were included for assessment by themselves. Finally, students had made significant progress in their studies and were satisfied with the teaching and learning via mobile technology at a high level. Another important consideration is that some students dropped out because of their family and work responsibilities. That is why this paper intends to propose the use of mobile technology to support and stimulate the teaching and learning of students to successfully graduate as intended. In further research, this distance education model could possibly be applied to other schools of undergraduate and graduate students who study in a distance learning environment.


The study was conducted in North Unguja, Zanzibar focussing on informal rural groups, formed by the community members to reduce poverty at the household level. The study used a sample of 204 respondents, and used a cross sectional research design. The specific objectives of the study were to determine the uses of financial services provided by the groups, the impact of shares on total household income and challenges faced by the group members in the fight against poverty. Using two regression models, multiple linear and logistic regressions, the research found out that Saving and Credits Groups (SACGs) benefit the community in terms of increase in the levels of income. A larger number of households who got loans from informal institutions were able to competently manage their businesses. For instance, SACGs funds used for paying children fees, solving household expenses and replenishing other loans among other uses. Challenges faced by the households were types of investment to operate shortage of funds experienced by SACGs, poor infrastructure (road, network, and commercial activities) affecting communication. Others were the increased formal micro credit institutions, posing competitions to informal institutions. Taken into one, this proves that informal financial institutions play an important role in poverty reduction in the rural areas. Developing and improving, these groups can be an effective alternative to formal commercial banks. All in all, if run properly with structured coordination and seriousness these groups can act as good mechanisms for poverty reduction in the rural communities in Zanzibar.


Group A beta haemolytic Streptococcus (GAS) is a bacteria that causes a range of invasive and autoimmune complications in humans. It is also the commonest single cause of tonsillitis in children. Occasionally, in predisposed individuals, GAS can induce an immune mediated brain syndrome with particular vulnerability of the basal ganglia. This results in extrapyramidal movement disorders (classically chorea) and psychiatric disease. Recently the clinical spectrum of disease associated with GAS has been expanded to include motor tics. The clinical aim of this thesis was to define the clinical spectrum of CNS disease associated with GAS in a tertiary referral sample. I found that a broader range of extrapyramidal movements (chorea, tics, dystonia and Parkinsonism) and psychiatric disease (obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) occurred in patients with post streptococcal autoimmune neuropsychiatric disease. The proposed mechanism of brain injury is cross-reactivity of the immune response between GAS and brain antigens (molecular mimicry). A number of investigators have previously demonstrated auto-antibodies that bind to brain auto-antigens in the serum of post-streptococcal neuropsychiatric patients. Using protein purification strategies (2-dimensional electrophoresis, ion exchange and hydrophobic interaction chromatography followed by mass spectrometry), I identified the brain antigens as neuronal isoforms of the glycolytic enzymes enolase, pyruvate kinase and aldolase. These findings were confirmed with commercial antigens, recombinant human antigens and commercial antibodies. These enzymes arc present in the neuronal cytoplasm, but also on the membrane surface where they have a number of functions. Collaborative investigation into the effects of anti-neuronal glycolytic enzyme antibodies on neurones in vitro demonstrated increased neuronal apoptosis compared to controls. In addition, the enzymes are present on the membrane surface of GAS, therefore representing a potential example of molecular mimicry.


The discovery and recognition of the pronounced renal effects of dopamine (now more than 30 years ago) by Goldberg and colleagues, contributed to the current extensive use of dopamine in the ICU. The properties ascribed to the infusion of low-dose dopamine (i.e. enhancement or preservation of renal blood flow and increase in urine output), have made it an attractive agent for internists, anaesthesiologists, cardiologists and intensivists to support renal function. Dopamine is given to reverse the decrease in cardiac output, renal blood flow and diuresis following positive pressure ventilation with positive and expiratory pressures, to oppose the negative inotropic effects of anaesthetics, and to prevent renal failure in haemodynamically unstable patients. Dopamine is also recommended during noradrenaline infusion to protect the kidney from excessive renal vasoconstriction by noradrenaline. No controlled clinical trial, however, demonstrated an increase of survival or a decrease of renal failure from dopamine infusion therapy in the ICU, and an increasing number of reports criticise its routine use or even advocate the abandoning of dopamine from the ICU. According to a recent audit of 93 ICUs in the UK, 50% of all patients considered at risk for developing renal failure were on low-dose dopamine. Forty-three ICUs had a protocol to use dopamine in patients considered at risk of renal failure. The still widely distributed use of dopamine indicates that clinicians are not bothered by the lack of evidence of a long-lasting clinical benefit. Probably ICU physicians are focussed too much on hourly diuresis, as a marker for tissue perfusion - which is certainly provided by the strong diuretic properties of dopamine.


The Strategy for Higher Education System Development in Serbia up to 2020 presupposes a certain level of digital literacy of all participants in education. Knowledge and skills in the area of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) are basic requirements. University teachers (UT) are also expected to develop skills to use ICT for both teaching and scientific research because they are both lecturers and researchers. This research is based on the primary assumption that UT would apply ICT to a greater extent if they were provided with actual possibilities to do so. The aims of this paper are to enable preliminary insight into (1) how UT understand the role of ICT in their research and which aspects of the scope of ICT they are familiar with; and (2) what UT believe could facilitate their scientific research. A survey was conducted with 166 UT in Serbia based on a mixed questionnaire. The data analysis confirmed that UT are familiar with both the role and scope of ICT but they lack the objective possibilities for a broader application of ICT. The respondents clearly stated that access to data bases, referenced journals and other sources, and the application of available programs and solutions, as well as training to use them in a proper way, should be enabled. The general conclusion is that solutions are needed at all levels of the entire education system to provide UT in Serbia with a better environment for both teaching and research based on ICT.


This thesis presents work carried out over a number of years within the field of railway vehicle instrumentation. The railway industry is currently moving to be more heavily "data driven". This means that railway organisations are putting policies into place whereby decisions have to be justified based on recorded and citable data. To achieve this, the railway industry is increasingly turning to greater and greater levels of instrumentation to deliver the data on which to base these decisions. This thesis considers not only this increased requirement for data, but the frameworks and systems that must be put into place in order first to obtain it, and then to extract useful information from it. In particular the author considers the issue of contextualisation of data, where multiple datastreams may be used to provide context for, or allow more accurate and beneficial interpretation of each other in order to support better decision making. In order to obtain this data, the thesis explores, through a series of case studies, a number of options for different instrumentation system architectures. This culminates in the development of a distributed system of embedded processors arranged in an extensible modular framework to provide a rich, coherent and integrated dataset which can then be processed contextually to yield a better understanding of the railway system.


Using CTAB as the mesostructure directing agent, a novel micro/mesoporous composite material of Beta-MCM-48 was synthesized and self-assembled from nanocrystal Beta solutions by two-step hydrothermal method in this study. The typical physico-chemical properties of material were characterized by the techniques and measurements of BET surface area, pore volume, pore size, XRD and TEM. Based on the characterization results, it could be found that BM48 composite simultaneously possessed BEA microporous structure and cubic Ia3d mesoporous structure, and the degree of mesoporous order was comparably uniform, which construct a suitable gradient of micro/mesopore structures and facilitated the diffusion of large size reactant molecules. The HDS performance in a microreactor indicated that NiMo/ABM48 series catalysts with different BM48 contents and various Mo loadings showed better hydrodesulfurization performances compared with the conventional NiMo/Al2O3 catalyst, and the optimal content of BM48 in the supports was 20 m%, and the suitable loading of Mo in the catalyst was 15 m%. The best HDS efficiency reached 98.3% and the corresponding sulfur content in product was 23.02 µg•g-1, which met the sulfur regulation of Euro IV ultra clean diesel specification.


High-temperature piezoelectric wafer active sensors (HT-PWAS) have been developed for structure health monitoring at hazard environments for decades. Different candidates have previously been tested under 270 °C and a new piezoelectric material langasite (LGS) was chosen here for a pilot study up to 700 °C. A preliminary study was performed to develop a high temperature sensor that utilizes langasite material. The Electromechanical impedance (E/M) method was chosen to detect the piezoelectric property. Experiments that verify the basic piezoelectric property of LGS at high temperature environments were carried out. Further validations were conducted by testing structures with attached LGS sensors at elevated temperature. Additionally, a detection system simulating the working process of LGS monitoring system was developed with PZT material at room temperature. This thesis, for the first time, (to the best of author's knowledge) presents that langasite is ideal for making piezoelectric wafer active sensors for high temperature structure health monitoring applications.


Culture change programs that attempt to identify, challenge, and change inequities and discrimination represent major challenges for evaluators: these are shifting sands, subject to many external factors that cannot be accounted for or measured using 'objective' measures. Yet, effective, methodologically coherent evaluation of such projects is essential for both ethical and pragmatic reasons. This article reports on the evaluation of two programs from Victoria, Australia, that use sport as a vehicle for building cultures of respect. The methodology that underpinned both evaluations is described and the authors discuss the challenges (and benefits) experienced during the evaluation process. These challenges and benefits can be summarized under two main headings: relationships and expectations. Effective relationships based on trust led to open and frank communication, and this was essential to manage the multiple and often contradictory expectations that often accompany large, complex evaluation projects.


Excavations of Hellenistic necropolises in ancient Issa located on the island of Vis in coastal Croatia revealed significant amounts of pottery, mostly tableware, dated from the second half of the 4 th to the 1 st c. BCE. Recovered pottery contained different stylistic forms thought to have been produced locally or imported. The goal of this study was to report on technological and compositional aspects of pottery economics embedded in the frame of social development of Issaean society. For this purpose, a set of 42 samples was analysed by X-ray diffractometry, polarization and electron microscopy, X-ray fluorescence, and automated electron microscopy. The results of archeometric inquiry combined with stylistic traits showed most of the vessels were produced locally whereby the procurement of raw material was dependent on the local occurrences of Terra Rossa. This required a high level of manufacture organisation, defining Issa as a presumably wellestablished Hellenistic city already in the second half of the 4th c. BCE. At the time the city maintained a strong exchange with the Italian South as suggested by excavated red figure and Gnathia pottery characterized by the superior production technologically compared to local imitations. A rare example of recovered amphoriskoi and their distinct material characteristics provided a strong indication of the presence of Levantine pottery in Issaean graves which, until now, has not been attested in the Eastern Adriatic. Such a finding speaks of the involvement of Issa in the Late Hellenistic networks of economic and cultural seaborne connectivity between the Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean and introduces Issa as a far-flung market of, at the time popular Levantine luxury products.


Topological defects — monopoles, vortices, and strings — are discussed. It is shown that these objects form clusters with a nonintegral dimension, i.e., they are fractals. The fractal dimension reflects the physical properties of a system. In particular, studies of monopole current clusters in U(1) and SU(2) lattice gauge theories make it possible to identify the confinement mechanism. In the confinement phase the current lines of a magnetic monopole form a percolating cluster and these lines are so dense that their dimension exceeds unity, whereas in the deconfinement phase their dimension is trivial: it is equal to unity. It is also shown that the string tension is proportional to the dimension of extended monopole currents. This is in agreement with a confinement model based on the condensation of magnetic monopoles into a superconducting phase. A string between a quark and an antiquark is then analogous to an Abrikosov vortex in a superconductor. An account is given of the application of the theory of fractals in the problem of gauge fixing in lattice gauge theories. It is also demonstrated that, in SU(2) gluodynamics, domains of the deconfinement phase have a nonintegral dimension near a phase transition point. Apart from monopoles, the review deals also with the properties of vortex and string clusters in three-dimensional and four-dimensional XY models. The corresponding physical objects are vortices in liquid helium and 'global cosmic strings'.


In long-term activity recognition, large sets of inertial sensor data need to be analyzed in which physical actions of the sensor's wearer are captured non-stop for weeks to months. These massive time sequences often burden the processing, and especially any post-analysis of the data. We propose a method that approximates and matches accelerometer time series, that is fast on large data sets, well-suited to human acceleration data, and efficient to log on the sensors. Experiments show that approximation and matching are faster than traditional methods, while remaining competitive in recognition of motion patterns.


: After cortisone injection, the content of the specific chromatin acid-soluble non-histone protein alpha is markedly increased in rat liver cells. The alpha-protein has been isolated in preparative amounts, its amino acid composition and some properties have been studied. It has been shown that the amino acid composition of protein alpha differs markedly from that of the HMG proteins, semi-histone A24, and of other non-histone proteins studied so far. Cortisone has been shown to induce the de novo synthesis of protein alpha. The alpha-protein is observed in transcriptionally active chromatin. The 3H-labeled hydrocortisone and dexamethasone bind mainly to this protein. The suggestion, that this protein participates in the regulation of transcriptional activity of liver cells in response to the hormonal stimulus is put forward.


OBJECTIVE
To establish a liquid chromatography-tandem mass chromatography (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous screening for 22 poisonous alkaloids in blood.

METHODS
This method involves a liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry with multi-ple-reaction monitoring (MRM). After blood was extracted with buprenorphine as the internal standard, the target compounds were analyzed with LC-MS/MS-ESI in the positive ionization mode.

RESULTS
Identification was based on the compound's retention time and two precursor-to-product ion transitions. The limits of detection ranged from 0.1 ng/mL to 20 ng/mL in blood.

CONCLUSION
The method was sufficiently selective and sensitive to detect poisonous alkaloids and can be applied in forensic and clinical toxicology.