We make a quantitative comparison between the pure-nonsoliton part of the inverse scattering method of Belinskii and Zakharov (BZ) and the homogeneous Hilbert problem of Hauser and Ernst (HE), these being two independent representations of an infinite-dimensional subgroup [script K] of the Geroch group K of invariance transformations for spacetimes with two commuting Killing vectors. An explicit formula for the BZ representing matrix function G0(lambda) in terms of the HE representing matrix function u(t) is derived. It is shown how certain solution generating techniques (e.g., Harrison's Backlund transformation, HKX transformation, generation of Weyl solution from flat space, generation of n-Kerr–NUT solution from n-Schwarzschild) can be derived directly from the BZ formalism, including the soliton part in some cases, thereby bringing our understanding of the BZ formalism up to the level of the more fully developed HE formalism. A technical point which needed to be resolved along the way was how to analytically continue the complex matrix potential F(t) across a quadratic branch cut and onto the second Riemann sheet. Finally, we consider how the subgroup [script K][subset, equals]K represented by the BZ and HE formalisms can be enlarged either by simple limiting transitions or by relaxing boundary conditions.


Climate warming has initiated changes to vegetation across subarctic North America with potential to dramatically alter the distribution of biodiversity of vascular plants, mosses, and macrolichens. However, landscape-scale studies of the patterns and drivers of species richness in this region are scarce, raising the possibility that dramatic changes to biodiversity could occur undetected over a wide area with serious consequences for ecosystem integrity and conservation. We used a hierarchical, systematic design to compile a uniquely large and comprehensive diversity dataset for our study area in subarctic North America. We utilized a unified sampling frame at the landscape scale to record diversity of vascular plants, mosses, and macrolichens as the three primary components of vegetation species richness. We applied Bayesian hierarchical modeling techniques to identify site attributes associated with richness of the three functional groups. We also examined whether richness of groups was positively or negatively inter-correlated across multiple spatial scales. Our goal was to quantify the fundamental relationships of species richness with site attributes across this landscape to better understand the possible responses of species richness to habitat changes forecast to occur in the subarctic as a result of a warming climate and other stressors. Moss, vascular plant, and terricolous macrolichen species richness were strongly inter-correlated, due to an underlying marked positive association of each with increasing elevation into the alpine zone across multiple spatial scales. Our results further reveal varying influences of factors such as soil pH, disturbance, and plant canopy cover on diversity in these physiologically different functional groups. Taken together, the patterns revealed by our work provide a new framework to consider how predicted habitat changes wrought by warming climates in interior Alaska may affect fundamental diversity patterns of primary producers in the future, with important implications for ecosystem function and conservation.


The largest lignite mining area in Europe is located 150 km southeast of Berlin. Acidic lakes exist in this area, known to be caused by marcasite oxidation. Thirty-two samples from the open-pit brown coal-mine Jaenschwalde were analyzed for microorganisms. Cell numbers determined after separation from sand particles revealed concentrations of 102 to 107 microorganisms per g sample. In samples exposed to the air within an hour, up to 4x107 cells were counted. Measurement of metabolic activity by microcalorimetry showed for such samples up to 50 µW per g sand, whereas in heap samples (with low moisture) low or even no activity was measurable. DNA extraction was successful for 28 samples. In 26 samples microbial 16S rRNA genes were amplified by PCR. Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and At. thiooxidans specific amplificates were detected by nested PCR in 23 and 10 cases, respectively. A specific signal indicating Leptospirillum ferrooxidans was obtained with nine samples. Random samples were sequenced and showed 96 to 99 % identity with published data of all three species. Surprisingly, in four samples archaeal 16S rRNA genes were amplified by PCR. Sequencing of two samples showed 99 % identity with unidentified or uncultured archaea found in NCBI-databases. Molecular biology results for At. ferrooxidans as well as for At. thiooxidans were supported by successful isolations of pure cultures in 23 cases. Cultivation of the archaea failed so far. These data indicate that iron- and sulfur-oxidizing microorganisms occur at these sites in large numbers. If in addition the evidence for archaea can become verified, a screening for hot spots as the sites of their occurrence would become interesting.


The way in which information is linguistically presented can impact audience attention, emotion, and cognitive responses, even if the content remains unchanged. The present study aims to examine the effects of rhetorical devices on audience responses by introducing a new theoretical framework, the augmented elaboration likelihood model (A-ELM), which integrates elements of the Elaboration Likelihood Model and narrative theory. The results show that the mediation effects of attention on the relationships between rhetorical devices and affective and cognitive elaborations are moderated by involvement. Nonnarrative evidence, combined narrative and numerical evidence, source credibility, and tropes versus the lack of figures of speech, elicit better audience responses in low-involvement situations, whereas numerical evidence outperforms narratives in high-involvement situations. This study not only offers a novel theoretical framework in the form of A-ELM, but also has important implications for advancing methodologies and practical applications.


The radiologic evolution of Leigh disease is documented with sequential brain MR in the acute phase of the illness, at 3 weeks, and at 3 months. High-signal-intensity lesions seen on T2-weighted images in the first week resolved by 3 months, whereas new lesions appear during the chronic stage. Putamenal involvement is not a pathognomonic radiologic finding. Brain stem tegmentum, particularly the mesencephalon, is characteristically involved on MR in the early and late phases of the illness.


DNA molecules can be transported through microchannels with help of electrophoresis and flow. Confinement of DNA molecules leads to elongation of their unconstrained equilibrium configuration when passing the microchannel. Application of electrical fields reduces the mobility and entails DNA trapping because of high gradients of the field due to a decrease in the channels' magnitude. Microfluidic channels in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) were formed by soft replica molding technology combining micro- and nanofluidic features. The applicability of the hybrid micro- and nanofluidic PDMS structures for single molecule observation and manipulation was demonstrated by introducing single molecules of λ-DNA into the channels using optimized conditions for the applied potential and flow.


In this review, immune response and possible causes of depletion of CD4 + T-cell counts in patients with human immunodeficiency (HIV)-1 infection, have been documented. HIV has been recognized as a global problem; however, the developing countries are the most affected by epidemic diseases. Countries in the sub-Saharan Africa seem to bear the bulk of the HIV burden among the developing countries with about 24.7 million ( 63%) of all people living with HIV globally in 2006. The major factor obstructing progress towards an effective vaccine to prevent or modulate HIV 1 infection is that the critical features needed for a protective immune response are not fully understood. Although, it has been found that potent neutralizing antibodies can protect against experimentally acquired HIV infection in animal models, they are scarcely generated in vivo in the infected person and neutralization resistant viral variants have been monitored to develop rapidly in chronic infection. It is generally believed that cellular immune responses, particularly specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), are significant in the host response to HIV 1 infection. Scientists have observed that CTL develop very early in acute HIV 1 infection, coincident with a rapid fall in plasma vireamia, whereas in chronic infection their levels are inversely related to viral load. However the potent HIV-specific CTL response ultimately fails to control HIV replication. This could be as a consequence of the emergence of viral variants that escape CTL recognition or impairment


Case citation: Shojibur Rahman v Barclays Bank PLC (on appeal from the judgment of Her Honour District Judge Millard dated 24 October 2012), Clerkenwell & Shoreditch County Court. Case number: 1YE00364. Commentary by Stephen Mason and Nicholas Bohm. (Bank card; PIN; electronic signature; verification of customer; negligence of the bank; negligence of the customer; fraud; burden of proof)


The morphological adaptations of carnivorous plants and taxonomic distributions of those adaptations are reviewed, as are the conflicting classifications of the plants based on the adaptations, reproductive morphology, and DNA sequences.  To begin developing a creationist understanding of the origin of plant carnivory, we here focus specifically on pitcher plants of Nepenthaceae and Sarraceniaceae because their popularity as cultivated curiosities has generated a literature resource amenable to baraminological analysis.  Hybridization records were augmented by total nucleotide differences to assess species similarities.  Nonhybridizing species falling within the molecular range of hybridizing species were included in the monobaramin of the hybridizing species.  The combined data support each of the three genera of the Sarraceniaceae as a monobaramin, but the three could not be combined into a larger monobaramin.  With the Nepenthaceae, the data unequivocally place 73% of the species in a single monobaramin, strongly suggesting the whole genus (and, thus, family) is a monobaramin.  The lack of variation in the carnivorous habit provides no evidence for the intrabaraminic origin of carnivory from non-carnivorous plants. An array of fascinating symbiotic relationships of pitchers in some species with unusual bacteria, insects, and vertebrates are known and suggest the origin of carnivory from benign functions of the adaptive structures.  However, these symbioses still do not account for the apparent complex design for carnivory characteristic of all species in the two families.


The inauguration of the Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP) early in 2003 coincided with the introduction of new and extensively revised legislation in the form of Regulation (EC) No 1831/2003 controlling the use of feed additives in the European Union (EU). Inevitably this legislation has had a defining effect on the range and extent of the work undertaken by the Panel. For the first time this Regulation included groups of feed additives not previously assessed, such as those designed to improve ensiling or to reduce the uptake of mycotoxins. Many hundreds of flavouring substances never assessed before are also foreseen for "re-evaluation". The scope of the work undertaken by the FEEDAP Panel is extremely broad and derives both from the range of materials used as additives and the scope of the assessment required by the legislation. Thus additives may range from mineral clays to micro-organisms and from colourants to coccidiostats. For each, the legislation requires an assessment of safety for the target animal, for consumers of products derived from treated animals, for the environment and for those handling the additive during feed processing or on-farm and is also required the assessment of efficacy . During these nine years, the Panel has made considerable efforts to provide applicants with guidance documents to help them in the preparation of the dossier and with the aim of increasing transparency to set the basis for the assessment to be made by the Panel.


The main challenge in a compute cloud system is to design a scheduling strategy for heterogeneous computing resources with shared data banks. The cloud user's job arrives at the Web role, which distributes the load to the worker rules for concurrent processing. The worker role retrieves the respective data from the shared data banks. According to divisible load theory, the scheduling problem is formulated as relevant recursive equations and constraints that are derived from the continuity of processing time due to retrieval from multiple data banks. The scheduling problem in a compute cloud is formulated as a linear programming problem. Finally, we present a satellite image classification problem in a compute cloud as an example to show the adequacy of the proposed solution.


To acquire a knowledge of radio propagation characteristics in the microcellular environments for personal communications services (PCS), a comprehensive measurement program was conducted by Telesis Technologies Laboratory (TTL) in the San Francisco Bay area using three base station antenna heights of 3.2 m, 8.7 m, and 13.4 m and two frequencies at 900 MHz and 1900 MHz. Five test settings were chosen in urban, suburban, and rural areas in order to study propagation in a variety of environments. This paper reports the LOS measurements in different environments, all of which show variations of signal strength with distance that have distinct near and far regions separated by a break point. It was also found that the location of the break point for different frequencies and antenna heights can be calculated based on first Fresnel zone clearance. The regression analysis reveals a slope that is less than two before the break point, while it is greater than two after the break point. This break distance can be used to define the size of microcell and to design for fast hand-off. Beyond the first Fresnel zone break distance the base station antenna height gain was observed to approximately follow the square power law of antenna height. >


S of the PAPERS printed in the PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS of the ROYAL SOCIETY of LONDON. Vols. 1 to 6 (1800-1854), 8vo, at 10s. each. (Vols. 3, 4 and 6 out of Print.) PROCEEDINGS of the ROYAL SOCIETY of LONDON, being a continuation of the foregoing Series. Vols. 8 to 14, and 16 to 74, 21s. each, cloth. Vol. 75 is composed of Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased, 1898-1904. Price 15s. With Vol. 76 the "Proceedings" appear in enlarged form and in two series, viz.-A, Mathematical and Physical, and B, Biological ; bound cloth, gilt lettered, price 25s. per Vol. Commencing with Series A, Volume 129, and Series B, Volume 107, the price of the Cloth-bound Volumes is increased to 35s. each. Subscription price, payable in advance of publication, of the numbers comprising the Volumes of Series A and Series B, 30s. per Volume. A GENERAL INDEX TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. Vols. 1-75. Covering the Period 1800-1905 (under authors' names). Price 5s. Half-price to Fellows of the Society. THE YEAR-BOOK OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, 1931. Principal


The new regulatory tools introduced in the EU banking recovery and resolution regime that aim to reduce the intervention of supervisory authorities constitute a challenge for legislators and market actors. This article examines the controversial aspects of Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) rescue plans, taking into consideration the adopted restructuring options. Although MPS is not global systemically important its collapse determined a serious impact in the EU banking sector. This article argues that to benefit from financial aid MPS had to be bailed-in, measure that policymakers and regulators are not always ready to implement. MPS represented a real concern to the Italian Central Bank and the European Central Bank, and it demonstrated that banks rely on government bailout, something that it is difficult to change in the regulatory approach to failing credit institutions.


I t was a bolt from the blue. In the early hours of the morning of 3 December 1984 toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked out of the storage tanks of Union Carbide's plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Residents awoke to clouds of suffocating gas and began a desperate flight through the dark streets. No warning alarm was given, and no evacuation plan had been prepared. It was an industrial disaster without parallel in history. Victims arrived at hospitals blind and with breathing problems. Doctors did their best to manage them, but it was an exercise in futility. The causative agent had not been identified, and so treatment was empirical. Only the next morning was the magnitude of the devastation seen. Dead bodies of humans and animals blocked the streets. Leaves had turned black, and an acrid smell lingered in the air. The sheer enormity of loss was heartbreaking. Destruction, under the guise of development, had smoked life out of the town.

Twenty years down the line the nightmare continues. A 40 year old woman breathes with difficulty in her …


The asset value of electrical plant owned by the electricity supply generation and distribution industry in the UK equates to billions of pounds sterling. The replacement value of the power transformers alone on the National Grid is about one billion pounds sterling. To be able to buy, fit and forget such valuable assets is not an option in today's financial environment. Unless a power transformer is operating or is operational, it is worth only the value of its recyclable components. An asset can very quickly lose its value if it is not correctly managed to give optimum life performance. Here, the author describes how management of an asset such as a power transformer will almost certainly involve condition monitoring in some form or other.


Background: Snakebite is a serious public health problem in the world. The annual incidence of snakebites ranges from 4.5-9.1 in 100,000 population in Iran. With regard to diversity of envenomation profiles in different geographical parts of Iran, the aim of this study was to determine the demographical data, clinical and laboratory findings, and the outcome of the snakebite victims referred to a tertiary referral hospital. Methods: In this retrospective, cross-sectional study in Loghman Hakim Hospital Poisoning Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, during a four-year period from March 2007 to March 2011. The demographic data, clinical manifestations, paraclinical findings, treatments performed before hospital admission, time elapsed between the bite and hospital admission, total dose of antivenom and the patients' outcomes were investigated. Results: Seventy cases (58 males, 12 females) were evaluated. Most of the cases (79%) were older than 20 year old. The most common bite site was upper extremity (67%). Most of the patients were admitted within 5 h after the snakebite. The most common local and systemic manifestations were swelling (90%), pain (81.4%), nausea and vomiting (24.3%). Leukocytosis (35.7%) and thrombocytopenia (25.7%) were the most common laboratory abnormalities. Most of the patients (97.1%) were treated with antivenom. Fifty percent of the patients only received 3-5 vials of antivenom. The mortality rate was 1.4%. Necrosis of the toes and compartment syndrome were the only serious complications. Conclusion: The findings emphasize the importance of early admission to the hospital and


ABSTRACT The aim of this cross-sectional study is to determine the mobile phone use, risk perception and related factors among the medical students. The study population was 1465 medical students. The dependent variable was the risk perception on mobile phones. The risk perception was assessed in three dimensions: decreased attention, physical risks and social risks. The exploratory factor analysis was used for the success of the scale, and the factor loadings were calculated using the varimax rotation method. Logistic Regression Analysis was applied to determine the factors associated with risk perception. The presented results are based on 1079 students (Access rate = 73.7%). In all dimensions of risk perception, more than half of the medical students had high risk perceptions. Female students and lower social classes had high risk perceptions. An understanding of the determinants and mobile phone utilization characteristics might help in developing effective risk communication to these subgroups.


In June 2005, United States District Court Judge Janis Graham Jack of the Southern District of Texas issued a landmark opinion declaring that all but one of ten thousand cases aggregated for pretrial purposes under Multidistrict Litigation ("MDL") 1553 were based on "fatally unreliable" diagnoses. (1) Judge Jack found that the claims "were driven by neither health nor justice: they were manufactured for money." (2) The broad media reporting of Judge Jack's findings sparked criminal and congressional inquiries in which the suspect doctors "took the Fifth." (3) The RAND Institute for Civil Justice recently issued a report that carefully examines the MDL 1553 litigation to identify lessons that can be learned about the civil justice system's ability to detect and address abusive medical diagnostic practices in mass personal injury litigation. (4) I. SILICA LITIGATION: BACKGROUND AND MDL 1553 A. Knowledge and Regulation Silica--quartz in its most common form--is a ubiquitous mineral that covers beaches and fills children's sandboxes. (5) In its natural form, silica is not especially harmful. When fragmented into tiny particles, however, silica can be dangerous if inhaled in excess of certain levels for a prolonged period. Plaintiffs in silica cases assert that they suffer from a disease--primarily silicosis, or scarring of the lungs--as a result of exposure to silica dust through their occupations in various industries. RAND notes: "Workers in many industries, including mining, quarrying, construction, glass, cement, abrasives, ceramics, and iron and steel mills, can be exposed to silica." (6) The risks of silica exposure have been well-known for a long time. For instance, as far back as 1949, the United States Supreme Court noted: "It is a matter of common knowledge that it is injurious to the lungs and dangerous to the health to work in silica dust." (7) The Federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration ("OSHA") has regulated workplace silica exposure since the early 1970s. (8) Today, OSHA provides detailed regulations requiring employers to protect employees from overexposure to silica through the enforcement of permissible exposure limits ("PELs") for occupational exposure to airborne silica (9) and the OSHA Hazard Communications Standard. (10) States also have acted to protect workers from overexposure. For instance, many states set threshold levels for silica dust in the workplace, (11) prohibit minors from working with silica refractory products, (12) and offer other worker protections. (13) The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention ("CDC") and the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health ("NIOSH") have reported that nationwide silicosis deaths declined sharply, from 1,157 in 1968, to 448 in 1980, to 308 in 1990, to 187 in 1999, to 148 in 2002--a 93% decline in overall mortality. (14) Similarly, a 2005 study by OSHA staff found "a downward trend in the airborne silica exposure levels" from 1988-2003. (15) RAND found that "[b]etween 1995 and 2004, silicosis-related deaths were generally stable or decreasing in all states." (16) For years, silica litigation generally reflected this public health success. The litigation was stable with only a low number of people pursuing silica claims in any given year. (17) B. A Spike in Silica Claims "[P]laintiffs' lawyers filed an unprecedented number of silica cases from 2002 to 2004--a total of 20,479 cases in Mississippi alone--an amount 'five times greater than one would expect over the same period in the entire United States." (18) The drastic rise in claims against U.S. Silica, a leading supplier, exemplified this surge. In 1998, U.S. Silica was named in 198 silicosis claims; the number of claims jumped to 1,356 in 2001 before soaring to 5,277 in 2002 and skyrocketing to 19,865 in 2003. (19) Nearly two-thirds of the claims filed against U.S. Silica between 2001 and 2003 were filed in Mississippi state courts; most of the other cases were filed in Texas state courts. …


Purpose Pharmacovigilance Research Network built a spontaneous reporting system and collected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) by electronic submission (e-sub) in Korea. We analyzed ADRs spontaneously reported through e-sub from regional health professionals. Materials and Methods Nine hundred and thirty three ADR cases were collected and analyzed from January to December in 2008. "A matter" was defined as one symptom matched to one culprit drug included in an ADR case. We collected and analyzed e-sub ADR cases and matters to determine common culprits and organ specified ADR matters. Results There were 3,049 matters in 933 ADR cases for 1 year, and 3.3 matters per case were reported. In organ specific ADR classification, skin reactions which took the first place in 866 matters (28%) included urticaria and rash. The next cases were neurologic symptom (624 matters, 21%) and gastrointestinal symptom (581 matters, 19%). Doctor (53%) and pharmacist (31%) were the most important participants in e-sub spontaneous reporting system, and 3% of ADR cases were reported by patients or their guardians. WHO-Uppsala Monitoring Center causality assessment results showed certain 10.6%, probable 37.7%, possible 41.7% and below unlikely 10.0%. Culprit drugs were antibiotics (23.4%), neurologic agents (14.7%) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (9.4%). Conclusion In our study, antibiotic was most common culprit drug, and skin manifestation was most common symptom in e-sub ADRs collected from regional healthcare practitioners in Korea.


An elusive biological cycle in the eye the daily disposal and regeneration of the end tips of photoreceptor cells has been captured in images for the first time in a living human eye. Photoreceptors are light-sensitive cells responsible for initiating vision. This glimpse into the inner workings of the eye will help scientists better understand, prevent and manage major eye diseases that affect photoreceptors like age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. [18]


We investigate local three-body correlations for bosonic particles in three dimensions and one dimension as a function of the interaction strength. The three-body correlation function g(3) is determined by measuring the three-body recombination rate in an ultracold gas of Cs atoms. In three dimensions, we measure the dependence of g(3) on the gas parameter in a BEC, finding good agreement with the theoretical prediction accounting for beyond-mean-field effects. In one dimension, we observe a reduction of g(3) by several orders of magnitude upon increasing interactions from the weakly interacting BEC to the strongly interacting Tonks-Girardeau regime, in good agreement with predictions from the Lieb-Liniger model for all strengths of interaction.


The self-evidence of legal pluralism during the colonization, especially of the 18th and the 19th century, that had as its axis the unfettered application of the colonial rule – different rules of different groups of people, conceded power of interpretation and application of these rules, co-existence of multiple jurisdictions, often in conflict between them – was probably the reason for which governors, theoreticians of law, politically oriented explorers, to mention only a few, had not considered important to conceptualize what was happening (Burbank and Cooper). Legal pluralism was a habitus (P. Bourdieu) then.
There are various appearances of legal pluralism, none of which is absolutely similar to another. The fact that in some countries (as for example in African countries) this coexistence of a central legal governance and multiple indigenous laws is (commendably) officially recognized, while in other countries it is not, is a challenge worth facing and studying. "Law beyond the law" cannot really disappear, even when the implicit and informal is subordinated to the explicit and authorized (R. MacDonald). Legal transplants of the past but also of present times may (should) not suppress the right of the indigenous peoples to use and apply their own chthonic (P. Glenn), mostly oral, laws. When no one can really doubt the (usually latent) power of the cryptotypes in Western laws (R. Sacco), how can one deny to the indigenous peoples the right to apply their chthonic laws in which the cryptotypes seem to be more apparent.


Studies were conducted on the influence of Kitazin analogues on the incorporation of 14C-glucosamine into the mycelial cell wall fraction of Pyricularia oryzae. Compounds of thiolates and phosphates, both having in vitro inhibitory activities toward the mycelial growth, inhibited the incorporation, whereas those of thionates and dithioates, either having no fungitoxicity, did not inhibit the incorporation. Mycelia of P. oryzae treated with Kitazin-P (S-benzyl O,O′-diisopropyl phosphrothioate; IBP) accumulated about twice as much an amino sugar derivative as untreated ones. Mycelia treated with thiono or dithio analogues, which have no fungitoxicity, showed no accumulation. The accumulated substance gave a identical spot with authentic UDP-N-acetyl glucosamine on paper chromatograms developed with four solvent systems.


Abstract Within 4 hr after administration of butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) by p.o. intubation, marked changes in the microsomal metabolism of benzo( a )pyrene (BP) occur. Liver microsomes isolated from female A/HeJ mice under these conditions show a depression of BP metabolism by more than 16%. The effects on individual metabolites as determined by high-pressure liquid chromatography differ. Relative increases in 3-hydroxybenzo( a )pyrene and in the dione regions were observed. In contrast, benzo( a )pyrene 4,5-oxide formation was decreased greater than 30%. trans -4,5-Dihydroxy-4,5-dihydrobenzo( a )pyrene underwent a similar decrease while the other two diols, trans -7,8-dihydroxy-7,8-dihydrobenzo( a )pyrene and trans -9,10-dihydroxy-9,10-dihydrobenzo( a )pyrene showed no significant alteration. The most profound decrease was in the concentration of metabolites in the very polar region of the chromatogram. The retention times of some of these peaks coincide with those of the hydrolysis products of BP diolepoxides, i.e. , tetrols and triols. A reduction in these highly polar metabolites is a good indication that the formation of diolepoxides was inhibited by BHA. Thus, BHA alters microsomal metabolism by diminishing activation reactions leading to the formation of ultimate carcinogenic metabolites and also enhances formation of metabolites of detoxification. Along with the change in BP metabolite pattern, BHA given in vivo induces a different response of microsomes to subsequent in vitro addition of BHA. The capacity of microsomes to undergo rapid changes that overall diminish formation of carcinogenic metabolites could constitute an important protective mechanism.


Respiratory infections, like the current COVID‐19 pandemic, target epithelial cells in the respiratory tract. Alveolar macrophages (AMs) are tissue‐resident macrophages located within the lung. They play a key role in the early phases of an immune response to respiratory viruses. AMs are likely the first immune cells to encounter SARS‐CoV‐2 during an infection, and their reaction to the virus will have a profound impact on the outcome of the infection. Interferons (IFNs) are antiviral cytokines and among the first cytokines produced upon viral infection. In this study, AMs from non‐infectious donors are challenged with SARS‐CoV‐2. We demonstrate that challenged AMs are incapable of sensing SARS‐CoV‐2 and of producing an IFN response in contrast to other respiratory viruses, like influenza A virus and Sendai virus, which trigger a robust IFN response. The absence of IFN production in AMs upon challenge with SARS‐CoV‐2 could explain the initial asymptotic phase observed during COVID‐19 and argues against AMs being the sources of pro‐inflammatory cytokines later during infection.


This study examined the impact of the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 on resident-and-facility-level risk factors for physical restraint use in nursing homes. Data on the 1990 and 1993 cohorts were obtained from 268 facilities in 10 states, and data on a 1996 cohort were obtained from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which sampled more than 800 nursing homes nationwide. Multivariate logistic regression models were generated for each cohort to identify the impact of resident- and facility-level risk factors for restraint use. The results indicate that the use of physical restraints continues to decline. Thirty-six percent of the 1990 cohort, 26 percent of the 1993 cohort, and 17 percent of the 1996 cohort were physically restrained. Although there was a reduced rate of restraint use from 1990 to 1996, similar resident-level factors but different facility-level factors were associated with restraint use at different points in time.


A general method that represents the state space symbolically instead of explicitly is described. The generality of the method comes from using a dialect of the mu-calculus as the primary specification language. A model-checking algorithm for mu-calculus formulas which uses R.E. Bryant's (1986) binary decision diagrams to represent relations and formulas symbolically is described. It is then shown how the novel mu-calculus model checking algorithm can be used to derive efficient decision procedures for CTL model checking, satisfiability of linear-time temporal logic formulas, strong and weak observational equivalence of finite transition systems, and language containment of finite omega -automata. This eliminates the need to describe complicated graph-traversal or nested fixed-point computations for each decision procedure. The authors illustrate the practicality of their approach to symbolic model checking by discussing how it can be used to verify a simple synchronous pipeline.<<ETX>>


Background. Both counselling and group therapy have been recommended for supporting patients with chronic tinnitus. It is unclear which of these treatments is superior. Scientific question. This retrospective study aimed at comparing relief from tinnitus distress following counselling with that following cognitive group therapy.Distress relief was also compared to the distress level of the waiting group patients. Method. Tinnitus distress was assessed through theTinnitus Questionnaire (TQ, Goebel and Hiller) at three different times: before treatment (in waiting list patients: at initial contact) and at 3 and 6 months after initial assessment. Data from 21 patients per group were included in the analysis. Results. The initial tinnitus distress scores were similar in all groups (about 48TQ points out of a maximum of 84). After 3 months, both counselling subjects and group therapy participants exhibited a significant distress reduction of 13 TO points, which remained stable after 6 months. Patients on the waiting list experienced no distress relief over time. Conclusion. Results from our data demonstrate the need for a future prospective study on the comparison of efficacy of counselling vs cognitive group therapy.


Oligothymidylates modified with stereodefined 2-pyridyl-, 3-pyridyl- and 4-pyridylphosphonate moieties at one or two juxtaposed internucleotide positions were prepared, and their avidity towards complementary single stranded DNA and RNA, as well as toward double stranded DNA were evaluated by UV melting temperature and CD studies. It was found that the sense of chirality at the phosphorus centre and the position of the nitrogen atom in the pyridyl ring of a pyridylphosphonate moiety are important factors governing stability of double- and triple-stranded complexes formed by these oligonucleotides. DNA/DNA and DNA/RNA duplexes containing oligothymidylate strands with RP-pyridylphosphonate units differed only slightly from unmodified reference complexes. In contrast to this, the SP-pyridylphosphonate derivatives exhibited lower binding affinity than both their RP-counterparts and the unmodified reference oligonucleotide T20. Triplexes of oligo(thymidyl pyridylphosphonate)s with hairpin oligomer d(A21C4T21) were found mostly to be thermodynamically slightly more stable in pH 7.4 and less stable in pH 5.0 than non-modified complexes. As expected, oligonucleotides with pyridylphosphonate internucleotide bonds were recognised by 3′- and 5′-exonucleases but the chimeric oligonucleotide chains were not cleaved at the modification sites.


Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a public health problem in the world. The SCI usually triggers an excessive inflammatory response that brings about a secondary tissue wreck leading to further cellular and organ dysfunction. Hence, there is great potential of reducing inflammation for therapeutic strategies of SCI. In this study, we aim to investigate if Salidroside (SAD) exerts an anti‐inflammatory effect and promotes recovery of motor function on SCI through suppressing nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) and the mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. In vitro, real‐time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to examine the inhibitory effect of SAD on the expression and release of interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β), interleukin‐6 (IL‐6) and tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) activated by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in astrocytes. In addition, SAD was found to inhibit NF‐κB, p38 and extracellular‐regulated protein kinases (ERK) signaling pathways by western blot analysis. Further, in vivo study showed that SAD was able to improve hind limb motor function and reduce tissue damage accompanied by the suppressed expression of inflammatory cytokines IL‐1β, IL‐6, and TNF‐α. Overall, SAD could reduce the inflammatory response and promote motor function recovery in rats after SCI by inhibiting NF‐κB, p38, and ERK signaling pathways.


Long term environmental variation often drives local adaptation and leads to trait differentiation across populations. Additionally, when traits can change in an environment-dependent way through phenotypic plasticity, the underlying genetic variation will also be under selection, but only in the inducing environment. Both of these processes will create a landscape of differentiation across populations in trait means as well as their plasticity. However, studies uncovering environmental drivers of this variation are scarce. With this work, we studied drought responses in seedlings of a shrub species from the Cape Floristic Region, the common sugarbush (Protea repens). We measured morphological and physiological traits as well as whole transcriptomes in 8 populations that represent both the climatic and the geographic distribution of this species. We found that there is substantial variation in how populations respond to drought, but we also observe common patterns such as reduced leaf size and thickness and upregulation of stress- and down-regulation of growth-related gene groups. Both environmental heterogeneity and milder source site climates were associated with higher plasticity in various traits and co-expression gene networks. By uncovering associations between traits, trait plasticity, co-expression gene networks with source site climate, we showed that temperature plays a bigger role in shaping these patterns when compared to precipitation, in line with recent changes in the region due to climate change. We also found that traits respond to climatic variation in a context dependent manner: some associations between traits and climate were apparent only under certain growing conditions.


We have developed a liquid phase immunoassay system utilizing a magnetic marker and a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). In this system, the magnetic marker was used to detect the biological material called antigen. The magnetic marker was designed so as to generate a remanence, and the remanence field of the markers that bound to the antigens was measured with the SQUID. The measurement was performed in a solution that contained both the bound and free (or unbound) markers, i.e., without using the so-called bound/free (BF) separation process. The Brownian rotation of the free markers in the solution was used to distinguish the bound markers from the free ones. Using the system, we conducted the detection of biological material called IgE without BF separation. At present, we could detect the IgE down to 7pg (or 39amol).


We examine a specific security problem in wireless body area networks (WBANs), what we call the one body authentication problem. That is, how can we ensure that the wireless sensors in a WBAN are collecting data about one individual and not several individuals. We explore existing solutions to this problem and provide some analysis why these solutions are inadequate. Finally, we provide some direction towards a promising solution to the problem and how it can be used to create a usably secure WBAN.


In this paper we examine the representation of crafts in video games, particularly in "crafting systems" – collections of mechanics that are described as crafting within a game's narrative. Real world crafting practitioners value creativity, expression, and mastery of material, but the act of crafting itself is often viewed by society as reproductive, feminized labor and therefore devalued. Because of this, crafting systems in games have been designed to more closely resemble masculinized, productive labor in the form of repetitive, manufacturing-like mechanics. These representational choices persist even across games lauded for their crafting systems, as our analysis demonstrates. Through an examination of both user-generated tutorials and game mechanics for three games that frequently appear on "best crafting games" lists, we show that games persist in devaluing the reproductive labor of crafting, reducing creative expression and material mastery to marginal and repetitive tasks while catering to the palates of masculine gamers by emphasizing stats-driven progression rather than creative making.


Permafrost-underlain tundra soils in Northern Hemisphere are one of the largest reservoirs of terrestrial carbon, which are highly sensitive to microbial decomposition due to climate warming. However, knowledge about the taxonomy and functions of microbiome residing in different horizons of permafrost-underlain tundra soils is still limited. Here we compared the taxonomic and functional composition of microbiome between different horizons of soil cores from a moist tussock tundra ecosystem in Council, Alaska, using 16S rRNA gene and shotgun metagenomic sequencing. The composition, diversity, and functions of microbiome varied significantly between soil horizons, with top soil horizon harboring more diverse communities than sub-soil horizons. The vertical gradient in soil physico-chemical parameters were strongly associated with composition of microbial communities across permafrost soil horizons; however, a large fraction of the variation in microbial communities remained unexplained. The genes associated with carbon mineralization were more abundant in top soil horizon, while genes involved in acetogenesis, fermentation, methane metabolism (methanogenesis and methanotrophy), and N cycling were dominant in sub-soil horizons. The results of phylogenetic null modeling analysis showed that stochastic processes strongly influenced the composition of the microbiome in different soil horizons, except the bacterial community composition in top soil horizon, which was largely governed by homogeneous selection. Our study expands the knowledge on the structure and functional potential of microbiome associated with different horizons of permafrost soil, which could be useful in understanding the effects of environmental change on microbial responses in tundra ecosystems.


It is often argued that a rapid rise in educational attainment of women, an increase in the age at marriage and an increase in the age at first birth are key features of demographic transition in any country. Education is the prime catalyst in this process because increases in educational attainment are likely to significantly affect both age at marriage and the duration to first conception - in particular increasing both the age at marriage and the time to first child. This paper uses individual level unit record data from Pakistan to examine the effect of education on the age at marriage and on the duration between marriage and first conception. We estimate a structural model, which accounts for the interaction between the three main variables of interest. Our estimation results show that women who have more education delay marriage but increased educational attainment does not have a significant effect on the duration to first conception. Women who marry late have a child faster. Education of the husband significantly affects the time to first conception.


Krabbe disease is one of the metabolic leukodystrophies caused by dysfunction of the hydrophobic lysosomal enzyme, galactocerebrosidase (EC 126.96.36.199) which is encoded by the GALC gene. Krabbe disease was first reported as a clinical entity 100 years ago, in 1916, by Knud Krabbe (1). The disease frequency is about 1/100,000–1/200,000 (2). It is recognized as one of the predominant genetic diseases, showing leukodystrophy from infancy to adulthood.


The economic return of cluster policies has been recently called into question. Essentially based on a "one size fits all" approach consisting in boosting R&D collaborations and reinforcing network density in regions, cluster policies are suspected to have failed in reaching their objectives. The paper proposes to go back to the micro foundations of clusters in order to disentangle the links between the long run performance of clusters and their structural properties. We use a simple agent-based model to shed light on how individual motives to shape knowledge relationships can give rise to emerging structures with different properties, which imply different innovation and renewal capabilities. The simulation results are discussed in a micro-macro perspective, and the findings suggest reorienting cluster policy guidelines towards more targeted public-funded incentives for R&D collaboration.


What is the relationship between environment and democracy? The framework of cultural evolution suggests that societal development is an adaptation to ecological threats. Pertinent theories assume that democracy emerges as societies adapt to ecological factors such as higher economic wealth, lower pathogen threats, less demanding climates, and fewer natural disasters. However, previous research confused within-country processes with between-country processes and erroneously interpreted between-country findings as if they generalize to within-country mechanisms. Here we analyze a time-series cross-sectional dataset to study the dynamic relationship between environment and democracy (1949-2016), accounting for previous misconceptions in levels of analysis. By separating within-country processes from between-country processes, we find that the relationship between environment and democracy not only differs by country but also depends on the level of analysis. Economic wealth predicts increasing levels of democracy in between-country comparisons, but within-country comparisons show that democracy declines in years when countries become wealthier. This relationship is only prevalent among historically wealthy countries but not among historically poor countries, whose wealth also increased over time. In contrast, pathogen prevalence predicts lower levels of democracy in both between-country and within-country comparisons. Multilevel modeling also confirms that the within-country effect of pathogen prevalence remains robust even after considering a region-level analysis. Longitudinal analyses identifying temporal precedence reveal that not only reductions in pathogen prevalence drive future democracy, but also democracy reduces future pathogen prevalence and increases future wealth. These nuanced results contrast with previous analyses using narrow, cross-sectional data. Overall, our findings illuminate the dynamic process by which environment and democracy shape each other.


BACKGROUND
Postweaning social isolation in rats produces profound and long-lasting cognitive and behavioral deficits in adult animals. Importantly, this housing manipulation alters sensitivity to a number of drugs of abuse including ethanol. However, most studies with ethanol have utilized continuous or limited home-cage access to examine interactions between juvenile social experience and drinking. More recently, social isolation was shown to increased ethanol responding in a "dipper" model of self-administration (Deehan et al., 2007). In the current study, we utilize a "sipper" operant self-administration model to distinguish the effects of isolation rearing on ethanol seeking- and drinking-related behaviors.

METHODS
Postweaning juvenile male Long-Evans rats were placed into 2 housing groups for 6 weeks: one group consisted of individually housed animals; the second group was housed 4 animals per cage. Following the isolation period, anxiety-like behavior was assessed to confirm the efficacy of the isolation procedure. In some animals, ethanol drinking in the home cage was assessed using a continuous access, 2-bottle choice paradigm. All animals were then individually housed and trained to lever-press for a sipper tube containing either an ethanol solution or a sucrose solution.

RESULTS
Postweaning social isolation increased the expression of anxiety-like behavior in the elevated plus maze but not the light-dark box. Ethanol consumption was also increased during continuous home-cage access with the 2-bottle choice paradigm. During operant self-administration, isolation housing increased the response rate and increased ethanol consumption but did not alter responding for or consumption of sucrose. The housing manipulation did not change the total number of lever responses during extinction sessions. Paired-pulse inhibition deficits that are characteristic of juvenile isolation remained intact after prolonged experience with sucrose self-administration.

DISCUSSION
The effects of postweaning social isolation on ethanol drinking in the home cage are also manifest during operant self-administration. Importantly, these alterations in adult operant self-administration are ethanol-specific.


A low voltage (LV) distribution level unified power flow controller (UPFC) is shown capable of regulating the positive sequence voltage with a network while simultaneously correcting phase unbalance voltages that can be produced by high levels of distributed photovoltaic (PV) generation. Instantaneous reactive power theory shows that DC-bus capacitor power will fluctuate at twice mains frequency during any unbalanced operation. Instantaneous power balance can be maintained by allowing the input converter to draw a small negative sequence current. This allows a hundred-fold reduction in the value of the DC bus capacitance allowing long life ceramic or polypropylene capacitors to replace electrolytic capacitors in this application.


Subsurface Mass Transport and Environmental Assessment Convener:*Yasushi Mori(Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science, Okayama University), Hirotaka Saito(Department of Ecoregion Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology), Ken Kawamoto(Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University), Shoichiro Hamamoto(Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, The University of Tokyo), Ming Zhang(Institute for Geo-Resources and Environment, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology), Chair:Yasushi Mori(Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science, Okayama University), Ming Zhang(Institute for Geo-Resources and Environment, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) Wed. Apr 30, 2014 11:00 AM 12:44 PM 213 (2F) This session covers the topics on mass transport, waterand energy cycles in geoenvironment. Subjects related to laboratoryand field measurements, theoretical analysis, and numerical modelingwill be discussed. Presentations on geo-pollution, remediation,geological disposal of hazardous wastes, ground source heatutilization, mass transport in vadose zone, soil-water monitoring, andenvironmental assessment are encouraged.


The thesis at hand will investigate communication and its changing conditions with respect to the thinking of the political community in the United States. The central aim is to deliberate upon the relationship between communication and specific telecommunication systems during the period ranging from the telegraph to computer networks. Together with related discourses and practices, systems of communication have formed an environment wherein "communication" as such has become thought about. That is, taken as both the object and the means of administrative practices, communication has come to be regarded as communication. It is in these practices that the inherent relationship between communication and control can be found, which makes them the main focus for an administrative history of communication and a history of the administration of communication. Thus, we will analyze the relationship between historical forms of communication and the ontology of communication to the extent that this relationship is built up through socially institutionalized communication systems and related discourses.


The current work focuses on the development of a model to determine a feasible scholarship recipient on the basis of the naiv¨e Bayes' method using very simple and limited attributes. Those attributes are the applicants academic year, represented by their semester, academic performance, represented by their GPa, socioeconomic ability, which represented the economic capability to attend a higher education institution, and their level of social involvement. To establish and evaluate the model performance, empirical data are collected, and the data of 100 students are divided into 80 student data for the model training and the remaining of 20 student data are for the model testing. The results suggest that the model is capable to provide recommendations for the potential scholarship recipient at the level of accuracy of 95%.


BACKGROUND
Whether soy food consumption may protect against coronary heart disease (CHD) remains controversial. No previous study has used biomarkers of soy intake in assessing the relationship between soy consumption and CHD. Biomarkers that reflect both intake and metabolism may be more informative than self-reports of dietary intake.

METHODS
We examined associations of urinary isoflavonoids, a biomarker of soy or soy isoflavone intake, with risk of CHD in a case-control study nested within two prospective cohort studies of Chinese adults in Shanghai. Cases were defined as subjects with no history of CHD at baseline who developed incident CHD during follow-up. Control subjects were randomly selected from those who remained free of CHD and matched to cases by sex, age, date and time of sample collection and antibiotic use. Baseline urinary isoflavonoids (daidzein, genistein, glycitein, equol, O-desmethylangolensin, dihydrodaidzein and dihydrogenistein) were compared between cases (n = 377) and control subjects (n = 753). Conditional logistic regression was used to evaluate the associations.

RESULTS
Total urinary isoflavonoids were not associated with CHD in either women or men. However, urinary equol excretion showed a significant inverse association with CHD in women. The adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for CHD across increasing quartiles of equol levels in women were 1 (reference), 0.61 (0.32, 1.15), 0.51 (0.26, 0.98) and 0.46 (0.24, 0.89) (P = 0.02 for trend).

CONCLUSIONS
Our study suggests for the first time that equol, a bioactive metabolite of soy isoflavone daidzein, may be inversely associated with risk of CHD in women.


We give a scheme of approximation of the MK problem based on the symmetries of the underlying spaces. We take a Haar type MRA constructed according to the geometry of our spaces. Thus, applying the Haar type MRA based on symmetries to the MK problem, we obtain a sequence of transportation problem that approximates the original MK problem for each of MRA. Moreover, the optimal solutions of each level solution converge in the weak sense to the optimal solution of original problem.


As glucocorticoid use increased in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, osteonecrosis became an increasingly frequent complication. Besides increased age, host risk factors are poorly defined. We tested whether 12 polymorphisms were associated with osteonecrosis among patients 10 years and older treated on the CCG1882 protocol. Candidate genes (TYMS, MTHFR, ABCB1, BGLAP, ACP5, LRP5, ESR1, PAI-1, VDR, PTH, and PTHR) were chosen based on putative mechanisms underlying osteonecrosis risk. All children received dexamethasone, with doses varying by treatment arm. A PAI-1 polymorphism (rs6092) was associated with risk of osteonecrosis in univariate (P = .002; odds ratio = 2.79) and multivariate (P = .002; odds ratio = 2.89) analyses (adjusting for gender, age, and treatment arm). Overall, 21 of 78 (26.9%) children with PAI-1 GA/AA genotypes, versus 25 of 214 (11.7%) children with GG genotype, developed osteonecrosis. PAI-1 polymorphisms and PAI-1 serum levels have previously been associated with thrombosis. We conclude that PAI-1 genetic variation may contribute to risk of osteonecrosis.


Virological, histological, and electron microscopic methods were used to study the early manifestations of infection in brains and spleens of mice experimentally infected with the scrapie agent. A statistically significant increase in the spleen weight was demonstrated during the incubation period; this occurred only after intracerebral (i.c.) inoculation of the scrapie-containing brain suspensions and subcutaneous (s.c.) inoculation of the scrapie-containing spleen suspensions. No differences were observed between the scrapie agents replicating in the brain or spleen. In the brain at early stages of the incubation period, ultrastructural changes were observed in pre- and post-synaptic areas. The importance of these findings for understanding of the pathogenesis of subacute transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (STSE) is discussed.


1. Human fibrin(ogen), the clottable protein of plasma, is the final substrate in both the coagulation and the fibrinolytic enzyme systems. The subunit structure of this protein consists of three pairs of polypeptide chains, Aalpha, Bbeta and gamma chains, which are joined together by disulphide bonds. Using antisera to the individual polypeptide chains of fibrinogen, immunological investigation should provide more information about the degradation products of fibrinogen than if anti-fibrinogen antiserum alone was used. 2. The immunological behaviour of fibrinogen and its derivatives has been investigated largely by means of an antiserum to one of the individual polypeptide chains of fibrinogen - the Aalpha chain. Using the relatively simple and qualitatively informative, analytical techniques of immunoprecipitation in agarose gel and gel electrophoresis, significant observations have been made on the immunological reactions of anti-Aalpha antiserum. 3. For the preparation of immunogen, fibrinogen was precipitated from human plasma and purified to fraction 1-4. Fibrinogen was reduced by dithiothreitol and alkylated with iodoacetic acid. Separation of the individual carboxymethylated Aalpha, Bbeta and gamma polypeptide chains was achieved by ion-exchange chromatography. Studies on the solubility properties of the carboxymethylated Aalpha polypeptide chains of fibrinogen in various buffers suggested alkaline barbitone (pH 8.6) as the buffer of choice for immunodiffusion experiments, 4. After further purification of the Aalpha chain by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, antiserum to the Aalpha chain was raised in rabbits. Anti-Aalpha. antisera, was heat-decompleraented and absorbed with Bbeta polypeptide chains. On immunodiffusion, absorbed anti-Aalpha. antiserum reacted with Aalpha, but not with Bbeta or gamma chains. In addition, the antiserum reacted with purified fibrinogen and plasma fibrinogen, showing a reaction of identity with the Aalpha chain. 5. The progress of plasmin degradation of fibrinogen was examined by immunoelectrophoresis. When anti-Aalpha antiserum was used, the appearance of two intersecting precipitin arcs confirmed that early cleavage of the Aalpha chain of fibrinogen had occurred. These two precipitin arcs persisted throughout the digestion, A 26,000 molecular weight polypeptide, isolated by gel filtration from a late digest, corresponded in electro- phoretic mobility to the more cathodal arc of the late digest of fibrinogen. This polypeptide was named Aalpha-related antigen (molecular weight 26,000), Aalpha-RA(26,000). 6. Examination of the various stages of plasmin degradation of fibrinogen by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulphate revealed the progressive appearance of six low molecular weight polypeptides as the digestion proceeded. One of these, Aalpha RA(26,000), was isolated and its immunological behaviour confirmed its Aalpha chain origin. Two other polypeptides of slightly higher molecular weight were isolated in semi-purified form; it appeared likely that they also had an Aalpha chain origin and were precursors of Aalpha RA(26,000). None of these polypeptides reacted with commercial anti-fibrinogen antiserum, and reacted only weakly with unabsorbed antifibrinogen antiserum, Anti-Aalpha antiserum did not react with purified fibrinogen fragments Y, B or E, but a faint reaction was obtained with fragment X. 7. Urolcinase activation of the plasma fibrinolytic system in vitro resulted in a limited degree of fibrinogenolysis. The extent of such plasma fibirinogen degradrastion may not be readily detect, by assays employing anti-fibrinogen anti-serum, but qualitative examination of the serum from such motivated plasma revealed an increase in alpha-related antigen(s). The serum Aalpha related antigen(s) were not immunologically identical to Aalpha-RA(26,000). 8. Activation of the plasma fibrinolytic system in vivo by venous occlusion of the arm also resulted in a limited degree of fibrinogenolysis. In the limited number of cases studied, an increase in the level of Aalpha-related antigen(s) was demonstrated in the post-occlusion serum samples by the techniques of single radial immunodiffusion and Laurell electrophoresis. Further refinement of these techniques may constitute the basis for an assay of in vivo fibrinogenolysis. 9. The site of origin of the fragment Aalpha -HA(26,000) was located in a central region of the Aalpha polypeptide chain of fibrinogen; the antigenic determinant sites of the fragment were contained in the Aalpha, remnant of the high solubility fibrinogen, fraction I-9 but not in the COOH-terminal polypeptides released from the Aalpha chain of fibrinogen by ancrod cleavage. 10. From the results of immunodiffusion with anti-Bbeta and anti-gamma antisera, some cross-contamination of the Bbeta and gamma chain preparations was likely. Neither antisera reacted with the Aalpha chains, and only anti-3beta anti-serum reacted weakly with whole fibrinogen. A method for the immunological examination of the Aalpha, Bbeta and gamma chains of plasma fibrinogen, using small volumes of plasma, has been suggested.


It is difficult to find a figure for the exact percentage of robotics research that is currently funded by the military. However, it is clear that military organizations and budgets fund a significant amount of and perhaps even most robotics research today. Recent technological progress, which has greatly increased the number of roles that it is plausible for robots to undertake; the potential for robots to help keep soldiers out of harm's way, and the perceived success of the U.S.'s Predator and Reaper drones in Afghanistan, have led to a massive influx of funding from governments all around the world for research on military robots. Consequently, large numbers of engineers at universities, in industry, and in military research laboratories are working to develop and perfect the technologies for the next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles, and unmanned submersibles. In many ways, this military funding is like a drug for roboticists: constantly available, tempting to try, habit-forming, and hard to kick. Like drugs, funding from the military becomes more attractive still when times are hard and other sources of meaningful employment become scarce. Most importantly, like (some) drugs, military funding is bad for the moral and psychological health of those who grow to rely upon it.


When faced with the problem of comparing positively skewed outcome values, data transformations such as log and square root etc, are often used. However, this approach suffers with the difficulty in interpretability, lack of accuracy etc. That is, while the back transformation of mean is possible, but not for the standard deviation. This paper presents the analysis of comparing positively skewed outcome data by using generalized pivotal and log transformation approach for lognormally distributed data. Simulation experiment was conducted to examine the characteristics of generalized pivotal approach for small sample sizes and for large standard deviations. For the analysis of positively skewed biological data between two groups generalized p value and confidence interval approach for lognormal distribution is considered to be efficient as this provides direct statistical inference such as estimates, 95% CI and its p values.


The Business Performance Management (BPM) framework helps an organization continuously adjust and successfully execute its strategies. BPM helps increase flexibility by providing managers with a sense of uncertain changes earlier and allows faster response to such changes. It thus helps organizations address market opportunities. The purpose of this study is to develop a common general framework for the business performance management model by integrating the practitioner literature. Examination of the practitioner BPM models suggests that they have common constructs. All BPM models use integrated data and data analysis to (1) develop strategies, (2) devise action plans (e.g., definition of targets, models, projects, and initiatives) in terms of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs)) to deploy these strategies, (3) define, measure, and manage performance against metrics and KPIs, and (4) adjust strategy and/or performance. Based on the literature review, a BPM model was proposed and presented at the 2007 Monfort Summit. The 2007 Monfort Summit was a gathering of Baldrige Award Recipient (BAR) members and a small group of selected researchers from across the United States. We present the revised BPM model based on the feedback provided by the 2007 Monfort Summit participants.


A field experiment was conducted under irrigated conditions in the highlands of Madagascar to assess the potential of intercropping Italian ryegrass with common vetch for improving yield and quality of forage. Seed proportions studied were ryegrass-vetch 100:0; 0:100; 50:33; 50:50; 50:66; 75:33 and 75:66. Mixtures were sown in alternate rows and the sowing rates of pure stands of ryegrass and vetch were 20 and 60 kg per hectare, respectively. The results showed that all mixtures achieved yield advantage over pure stands with the highest land equivalent ratio value for dry matter yield obtained from the mixture of 75:66 (1.47) followed by 50:50 (1.35). Slight increase of crude protein content and protein digested in the small intestine when rumen-fermentable nitrogen is limiting (PDIN) content were obtained from mixtures compared with pure stand of ryegrass. Vetch rate in dry matter yield of mixtures increased with the increase of vetch seed proportion and ranged from 31 to 44%. Agressivity and competitive ratio indices showed that ryegrass was slightly competitive than vetch. Intercropping Italian ryegrass with common vetch at the seed proportions of 75:66 or 50:50 could be a more sustainable alternative cropping to alleviate dry season feed shortages of dairy livestock in the highlands of Madagascar.


Although bestsellers in their time, works of Raj fiction produced by women such as Maud Diver, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Alice Perrin, and Bithia May Croker have since fallen into obscurity with the general reading public and as a source of academic inquiry. This thesis readdresses this oversight through a reading of women-authored works of Raj fiction, a field of colonial literature that this thesis identifies as being fiction produced between 1857-1949 that in some way is related to the British Raj. The thesis suggests that in their depiction of the spaces of Anglo-Indian life these works shaped impressions of the Raj, but also contributed towards the maintenance of the Empire. Analysis of the imaginative organisation of space reveals both the limitations and nuances of Anglo-Indian women's lives and the ideological expectations of Anglo-Indian femininity which is encoded through these spaces. Through an acknowledgement that these texts are part of the conservative middlebrow genre, the thesis argues that Raj fiction functioned as a form of anxiety management, containing and resolving anxieties around about the place of European women in the Raj and of a broader imperial decline. Each chapter of the thesis focuses on key spatial locations in this fiction. The Anglo-Indian home of the bungalow was considered as to be the responsibility for Anglo-Indian women and a space where fears of transgression may be depicted and then assuaged by the narrative. The traditionally masculine club space is decentralised from its emblematic position in Anglo-Indian life and is instead read as one that must be carefully navigated by female characters. The summer capital of Simla has similar connotations to the club social scene, but the feminine reputation of that city allows a more stable imagined space to be constructed. The picnic emerges as a space from which anxieties of decline emerge; the temporary nature of the space allows for more permanent spaces to function as sites of resolution. The imperial centre of England is read as a space that can accommodate and possibly resolve anxieties that are disruptive in the less stable space of the Raj. An analysis of these specific, reoccurring spaces allows for both an alternate conception of the Raj to emerge as well as offering a method for analysing the anxiety-management function of the Raj fiction genre.


This paper analyzes the sources of the differential beliefs of market participants in the foreign exchange market and their relative role in forming exchange rate expectations. We find that there are distinct periods of high and low dispersion and document that dispersion arises because of a combined effect of market participants holding individual information and attach different weights to some elements of the common information set. In addition to these two effect, we also document evidence of the existence of different types of agents and find that chartist rules are predominantly used at the shorter spectrum of the forecast horizon and fundamentalist rules are predominantly used at the longer spectrum of the forecast horizon. Finally, our evidence suggests that the relationship between market volatility and trader dispersion tends to be significant and positive for different measures of both trader heterogeneity and market volatility.


To fabricate flexible electrodes, conventional silver (Ag) nanomaterials have been deposited onto flexible substrates, but the formed electrodes display limited electrical conductivity due to residual bulky organic ligands, and thus postsintering processes are required to improve the electrical conductivity. Herein, an entirely different approach is introduced to produce highly flexible electrodes with bulk metal–like electrical conductivity: the room‐temperature metallic fusion of multilayered silver nanoparticles (NPs). Synthesized tetraoctylammonium thiosulfate (TOAS)‐stabilized Ag NPs are deposited onto flexible substrates by layer‐by‐layer assembly involving a perfect ligand‐exchange reaction between bulky TOAS ligands and small tris(2‐aminoethyl)amine linkers. The introduced small linkers substantially reduce the separation distance between neighboring Ag NPs. This shortened interparticle distance, combined with the low cohesive energy of Ag NPs, strongly induces metallic fusion between the close‐packed Ag NPs at room temperature without additional treatments, resulting in a high electrical conductivity of ≈1.60 × 105 S cm−1 (bulk Ag: ≈6.30 × 105 S cm−1). Furthermore, depositing the TOAS–Ag NPs onto cellulose papers through this approach can convert the insulating substrates into highly flexible and conductive papers that can be used as 3D current collectors for energy‐storage devices.


Infrastructure capacity management is the process of ensuring optimal provision of infrastructure assets to support business operations. Effectiveness in this process will enable infrastructure asset owners and its stakeholders to receive full value on their investment. Management research has shown that an organisation can only achieve business value when it has the right capabilities. This paradigm can also be applied to infrastructure capacity management. With competing needs for limited organisation resources, the challenge for infrastructure organisations is to identify and invest their limited resources to develop the right capabilities in the management of their infrastructure capacity. Using a multiple case study approach, the challenges faced in the management of infrastructure asset capacity and the approaches that can be adopted to overcome these challenges were explored. Conceptualising the approaches adopted by the case participants, the findings suggest that infrastructure organisations must strengthen their stakeholder connectivity capability in order to effectively manage the capacity of their infrastructure assets.


The publicity attendant upon the "energy crisis" confronting the United States and increasing prices for oil and gas have induced growing percentages of landowners or mineral interest owners' and oil and gas operators negotiating oil and gas leasing transactions to seek legal counsel at some point in their negotiations. An oil and gas operator usually consults either staff legal counsel or a law firm which represents other oil and gas operators, so that as a general rule operators are served by legal counsel who are familiar with the problems involved in leasing transactions and with the particular characteristics of their client's business. In contrast, a landowner is likely to seek advice from his family attorney or from a lawyer whose office happens to be convenient to him. Frequently, those private practitioners are inexperienced in oil and gas law and in the practicalities of oil and gas operations, with the result that they may have difficulty in advising their clients as to what ought and ought not to be included in an oil and gas lease.This article is directed to the particular problems of counseling landowners or mineral interest owners in oil and gas leasing transactions. It is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of either oil and gas law or oil and gas leases, but rather it seeks to identify those matters likely to be of importance to landowners and to suggest measures which may protect those interests. Particular attention is given to those aspects of oil and gas law which may be troublesome to counsel for a landowner, either because his experience and instinct are likely to be misleading in handling them, or because they are unique to oil and gas law.


We present our ongoing work NEUROMAPPER, an in-browser visualization tool that helps machine learning (ML) developers interpret the evolution of a model during training, providing a new way to monitor the training process and visually discover reasons for suboptimal training. While most existing deep neural networks (DNNs) interpretation tools are designed for alreadytrained model, NEUROMAPPER scalably visualizes the evolution of the embeddings of a model's blocks across training epochs, enabling real-time visualization of 40,000 embedded points.To promote the embedding visualizations' spatial coherence across epochs, NEUROMAPPER adapts AlignedUMAP, a recent nonlinear dimensionality reduction technique to align the embeddings. With NEUROMAPPER, users can explore the training dynamics of a Resnet-50 model, and adjust the embedding visualizations' parameters in real time. NEUROMAPPER is open-sourced at https://github.com/poloclub/NeuroMapper and runs in all modern web browsers. A demo of the tool in action is available at: https://poloclub.github.io/NeuroMapper/.


This study integrates economic and physical models to estimate the social costs of several commonly suggested policies (chemical-use tax and three types of conservation payments) for reducing nitrogen loads to the Mississippi River and for controlling hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. The economic models predict farmer's crop rotations, tillage practices, and participation in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) at more than 44,000 Natural Resource Inventory sites in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The estimated land use changes under the four policies are incorporated into a physical model to assess their impact on nitrate-N concentrations in the Mississippi River. Results suggest that the fertilizer-use tax is much more cost-effective than the three conservation easement policies. Incentive payments for conservation tillage are most cost-effective among the three conservation easement policies, but can reduce nitrate-N concentrations only to a limited level. The potential for incentive payments for corn-soybean rotations is even more limited as an instrument for reducing nitrate-N concentrations in the Mississippi River. These payments also impose a higher cost to society than payments for conservation tillage. Payments for cropland retirement can be used to achieve the largest reduction in nitrate-N concentrations, but also impose the largest cost to society among the four policies considered in this paper. Results also suggest that, in contrast to previous studies, the targeted fertilizer-use tax reduces the aggregate farm profit loss under the uniform fertilizer-use tax by up to 30 percent.


The period between 2000 and 2007 was a period in which Spain was growing in a bubble around the construction sector driven by the boom in real estate and the high growth rate of public infrastructures. The macroeconomic consequences of this unbalanced growth of the construction are well known but the consequences for urban planning have been less studied. Although Asturias is one of the Spanish regions with the lower real estate bubble is clear that this region has participated with the national trend. The characteristics of this region make it particularly interesting for analysis due to the development of a polycentric conurbation in the central area and to the coexistence of different types of urban development in a small space. This paper proposes a methodology based on the description and analysis of information contained in the referenced digital cartography. Through the classification and interpretation of the pixels of the ortho-photos for Asturias we can identify how is the urban expansion distinguishing between industrial and urban uses of the new urban land. Applying statistical analysis with models that include spatial dependence of the information we can identify the causes of urban growth and describe the different patterns that were followed. We identify the sources affected by processes of real estate bubbles and the urban morphology that is consolidated as a result, among other things, of a reduce coordination between the municipalities of the asturian central area.


Supramolecular chemistry exploits multiple weak intermolecular interactions to assemble nano-sized molecular architectures, providing new possibilities for (transition metal) catalyst development. In this Perspective we focus on the application of such weak (directional) interactions between a substrate molecule and a (bifunctional) catalyst for structural preorganization prior to the catalytic reaction. As we discuss, such effects together with the confinement properties of the nano-space of the 'active sites' play a crucial role for the exceptional selectivities and activities of natural enzymes. We will elaborate on the application of such supramolecular strategy to the more traditional transition-metal catalysis, and we will compare it with the traditional substrate preorganization methods. Subsequently, literature examples of such bifunctional catalyst systems will be described in which the function of weak interactions was carefully designed a priori, as well as, the serendipitously found catalysts in which the presence of supramolecular effects was recognized post factum. The discussed examples demonstrate the power of the strategy for the control of selectivity in various types of metal catalyzed reactions, and the observation of the serendipitous findings can help to generate new leads for more efficient catalyst design.


In this paper, we study a variant of graph domination known as $(t, r)$
broadcast domination, first defined in Blessing, Insko, Johnson, and Mauretour
in 2015. In this variant, each broadcast provides $t-d$ reception to each
vertex a distance $d < t$ from the broadcast. If $d \ge t$ then no reception is
provided. A vertex is considered dominated if it receives $r$ total reception
from all broadcasts. Our main results provide some upper and lower bounds on
the density of a $(t, r)$ dominating pattern of an infinite grid, as well as
methods of computing them. Also, when $r \ge 2$ we describe a family of
counterexamples to a generalization of Vizing's Conjecture to $(t,r)$ broadcast
domination.


Francis Sellers Collins helped lead the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, which helped describe the DNA sequence of the human genome [3] by 2001, and he helped develop technologies used in molecular genetics while working in the US in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He directed the US National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR), which became the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), of the US National Institutes of Health [4] (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1993 to 2008. Collins led teams of researchers to use data on human genomes to investigate the genetic aspects of diseases and treatments, the variations among people in terms of their DNA sequences, and the evolution [5] of humans [6]. Collins became director of the NIH in 2009. Some criticized him for his Christian faith and its possible impacts on science funding through the NIH, such as for stem cell research, cloning [7], and embryonic genetic testing. As a director of the NHGRI and the NIH, Collins helped shape the structures and aims of projects in biology that pursue what he called big science, and he helped relate those projects to federal governments and to private companies.


We report on the synthesis, characterization, stability and pharmacokinetics of novel iron based contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Statistical copolymers combining multiple phosphonic acid groups and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) were synthesized and used as coating agents for 10 nm iron oxide nanocrystals. In vitro, protein corona and stability assays show that phosphonic acid PEG copolymers outperform all other coating types examined, including low molecular weight anionic ligands and polymers. In vivo, the particle pharmacokinetics is investigated by monitoring the MRI signal intensity from mouse liver, spleen and arteries as a function of the time, between one minute and seven days after injection. Iron oxide particles coated with multi-phosphonic acid PEG polymers are shown to have a blood circulation lifetime of 250 minutes, i.e. 10 to 50 times greater than that of recently published PEGylated probes and benchmarks. The clearance from the liver takes in average 2 to 3 days and is independent of the core size, coating and particle stability. By comparing identical core particles with different coatings, we are able to determine the optimum conditions for stealth MRI probes.


Citreoviridin (CIT), a small food-borne mycotoxin produced by Penicillium citreonigrum, is generally distributed in various cereal grains and farm crop products around the world and has caused cytotoxicity as an uncompetitive inhibitor of ATP hydrolysis. A high affinity single chain variable fragment (scFv) antibody that can detect the citreoviridin in samples is still not available; therefore, it is very urgent to prepare an antibody for CIT detection and therapy. In this study, an amplified and assembled scFv from hybridoma was used to construct the mutant phage library by error-prone PCR, generating a 2 × 108 capacity mutated phage display library. After six rounds of biopanning, the selected scFv-5A10 displayed higher affinity and specificity to CIT antigen, with an increased affinity of 13.25-fold (Kaff = 5.7 × 109 L/mol) compared to that of the original wild-type scFv. Two critical amino acids (P100 and T151) distributed in H-CDR3 and L-FR regions that were responsible for scFv-5A10 to CIT were found and verified by oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis, and the resulting three mutants except for the mutant (P100K) lost binding activity significantly against CIT, as predicated. Indirect competitive ELISA (ic-ELISA) indicated that the linear range to detect CIT was 25-562 ng/mL with IC50 at 120 ng/mL. The limit of detection was 14.7 ng/mL, and the recovery average was (90.612 ± 3.889)%. Hence, the expressed and purified anti-CIT MBP-linker-scFv can be used to detect CIT in corn and related samples.


Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD) is a group of congenital conditions with atypical development of sex at chromosomal, gonadal or anatomic level. Genetic males with DSD (46 XY DSD) can present with female external genital phenotype, ambiguous, or a micropenis. It is caused by incomplete intrauterine masculinization with or without the presence of Müllerian structures. It results either from decreased synthesis of testosterone or DHT or from impairment of androgen action. Herein, we report a case of a 13-year child raised as female with hoarseness of voice and gradual enlargement of clitoris with hormonal assessment not suggestive of either 5 Alfa Reductase deficiency, Congenital Adrenal Insufficiency Syndrome or 17β-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase deficiency


Compact binary codes can in general improve the speed of searches in large-scale applications. Although fingerprint retrieval was studied extensively with real-valued features, only few strategies are available for search in Hamming space. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework for systematically learning compact binary hash codes and develop an integrative approach to hash-based fingerprint indexing. Specifically, we build on the popular minutiae cylinder code (MCC) and are inspired by observing that the MCC bit-based representation is bit-correlated. Accordingly, we apply the theory of Markov random field to model bit correlations in MCC. This enables us to learn hash bits from a generalized linear model whose maximum likelihood estimates can be conveniently obtained using established algorithms. We further design a hierarchical fingerprint indexing scheme for binary hash codes. Under the new framework, the code length can be significantly reduced from 384 to 24 bits for each minutiae representation. Statistical experiments on public fingerprint databases demonstrate that our proposed approach can significantly improve the search accuracy of the benchmark MCC-based indexing scheme. The binary hash codes can achieve a significant search speedup compared with the MCC bit-based representation.


Abstract Individuals bring beliefs and knowledge to group meetings. Group decisions arise out of the exchange of these beliefs and knowledge. Because group interactions are mainly verbal, group verbal behavior should play a central role in determining the quality of group decisions, and process interventions should change group verbal behavior. Subjects were 168 new employees in a Japanese drug company, who constituted 42 four-person groups. Treatment groups received the Consensual Conflict Resolution (CCR) intervention that emphasizes a knowledge-based logical discussion and consensual resolution of conflicts. The group task was the NASA Moon Survival problem. It was found that (1) the quality of group decisions increases to the extent that group members exchange facts and reasons (defined as a "reasoning" orientation of group verbal behavior) and decreases to the extent that group members stick to their positions (defined as a "positional" orientation), and (2) the CCR intervention increases the reasoning orientation and decreases the positional orientation, thereby improving the quality of group decisions.


Choosing of adequate shape technological parameters together with good chemical compound is very important to produce steel strip with required cross-section and material quality. The shaping rate, speed and time have an effect on strip mechanical and geometrical quality. The rate of shaping force needed for steel strip plastic deformation is determined by the strength of the steel forming. In rolling mills technology the plastic deformation of the strip is realized at high plastic strain speed so the dynamic change of shaping force might seriously affects the remaining stress of the rolled strip. The dynamic control of roll gap and force is realized with help of electrohydraulic servo actuator – so-called hydraulic capsules – which can adjust the roll gap at great rolling force dynamically. The quality of stand-mounted hydraulic capsule can greatly affect the dynamics of rolling, consequently the material quality of the rolling. The main contribution of the paper is to analyze the rolling dynamic behavior using the hydraulic capsule and rolling mill mathematical model together to show the changing of dynamic behavior of the system when internal sealing in hydraulic capsule is inefficient.


The topic of this thesis is the dynamics of black holes. In a close to equilibrium, or late time, approximation, these dynamics are given in terms of damped oscillations called quasinormal modes (QNMs). A given black hole allows only a discrete set of oscillation frequencies and corresponding decay rates. We developed a computer code to compute to compute these numerically in a quite general setting. This is then applied to various physical questions. First, within the theory of General Relativity (GR) there is the Strong Cosmic Censorship (SCC) conjecture, which conjectures that Cauchy horizons, beyond which GR cannot predict a unique evolution, do not exist within a generic black hole. For charged black holes in de Sitter spacetime, the validity of this conjecture relies crucially on the decay rate of fluctuations, the QNMs. By computing these we find indications that the conjecture is violated for black holes in de Sitter with near extremal charge. The other applications are all in the context of holography, which relates the physics of black holes in anti de Sitter spacetime to that of strongly coupled quantum field theories in one dimension less. We study the effect of perturbations on the size of the event horizon of a black hole, which is dual to the entropy of the fluid that is described by the dual quantum field theory. This area can never decrease, by a theorem in GR which is dual to the second law of thermodynamics. It is found however that this second law is saturated: the entropy oscillates as much as it can given the second law, meaning that while it never decreases, there are moments in time where it is constant. Going beyond the late time approximation one has to solve the full nonlinear Einstein equations, which allows one to study the thermalization of strongly coupled fluids. We adapt the standard formalism to do this in holography from the default relativistic fluids to nonrelativistic ones. Similar to the relativistic case we find that the evolution is surprisingly well described by a sum of quasinormal modes, even for initial conditions far from equilibrium. Thermalization occurs in the order of the inverse temperature. The order one coefficient depends on the dynamical scaling exponent z that controls the scaling of energy with momentum, in a way that is well predicted by the QNMs. Finally we study a different theory that is inspired by QCD, in particular it is non-conformal and confining at low energies. While the theory under consideration seems a priori perfectly well defined, we observe very peculiar behavior. There is a dynamical instability, in a phase which is thermodynamically stable. Furthermore, this dynamically unstable state can evolve to a dynamically stable state, but there is a different possibility. Instead it can keep increasing its horizon area, never reaching a new equilibrium but reaching the anti de Sitter boundary in finite time.


At present, with the continuous development of the Internet, influence on the city's economic and social development is increasing and the importance and urgency of optimizing urban space layout has become increasingly prominent. Like the beginning of the last century, the Industrial Revolution brought a major change to the world, the information revolution also profoundly changed the world. Information technologies such as internet of things and transducers become mature gradually and provide new opportunities of urban development, and also have a significant impact on urban spatial structure. This article is from the perspective of development of the Internet to research the development trend of urban space layout, emphasizing the need to optimize the layout of urban space, analyzing the current situation of urban space layout of the Yangtze River Delta, and make some suggestions for optimizing the layout of urban space of the Yangtze River Delta.


We would like first to stress that we have not "claimed" wide applicability for this method except for the results that we have given. Our motivation for carrying out this work was to find a method of locating and tracing negative cycles to use as a subroutine in Klein's [Klein, M. 1967. A primal method for minimal cost flows with applications to the assignment and transportation problems. Management Sci. 4 (3) 205-220.] algorithm.


The sonographic appearances of the pleura were studied in 20 normals and in eight patients with radiologically confirmed pneumothoraces. In all 20 normals it was possible to demonstrate the respiratory excursion of the visceral pleura. Moreover, the margin between pleura and aerated lung parenchyma was marked by artifacts resembling a comet's tail. In all eight patients with pneumothoraces pleural air could be inferred by the absence of pleural movement and of the comet-tail artifacts. In emergency situations, where it is not possible to obtain radiographs, or to obtain them with sufficient speed, sonography may make a crucial contribution to the diagnosis of a pneumothorax.


Business process management in service-oriented computing (SOC) environments poses special challenges. In particular, SOC environments are dynamic, thereby requiring frequent changes in business processes. Current business process modeling approaches handle such changes in an ad hoc manner, and lack a principled means of determining what needs to be changed and where. This paper addresses process adaptability through a novel application of business protocols, especially of protocol composition, introduced in our previous work. Through a real business scenario of auto-insurance claim processing, this paper demonstrates how a wide range of adaptations can be handled naturally and systematically via protocol composition. The illustrated adaptations have been evaluated via a prototype


The study focuses on the development of a predictive numerical tool for the behavior of a special kind of 3-D woven composite called 3-D interlock. The woven fabric shows high performances in delamination resistance and damage tolerance because of yarns woven in the thickness-direction. Consequently, this material could be an interesting alternative of conventional laminated composites, which only have in-plane oriented fibers, for aircraft components under impact loading. This paper presents an experimental characterization campaign to understand the behavior of this material in the in-plane directions as well as in the though-thickness direction. Then suitable constitutive laws were developed to reproduce this behavior in each direction. Damage modeling including the inelastic strains were the main challenges. Developments were implemented into the finite-element software ABAQUS/Explicit using a VUMAT subroutine. Static simulations were firstly performed to recover the suitable behavior in all directions. Finally, a dynamic simulation of impact behavior was performed on the woven composite using a rigid impactor. First results demonstrate the ability of the model to correctly capture the overall behavior of the composite plate under impact loading.