This thesis focuses on the effects of surface roughness on the turbulent structure in a two-dimensional channel flow. Various turbulence quantities have been investigated for a rough surface generated by either spanwise mounted rods or a perforated plate, covering both the ceiling and the floor of the channel. Results from a smooth wall channel flow have been used as a reference. Conclusions from investigations in rough wall boundary layers have so far been ambiguous. This is, inter alia, connected to the difficulty of obtaining reliable estimates of the friction velocity, uτ , which is believed to be the main scaling parameter. However, in a channel flow, uτ may be obtained directly from the streamwise pressure gradient, which is relatively easy to measure. The present study was therefore initiated with the aim to reduce the uncertainties in the results and enable firmer conclusions to be drawn.Hot-wire anemometry has been used as the primary measurement technique. For the calibration of the yaw-response of X-wires at low velocities a velocity dependent effective angle method has been developed. This method has been verified to give similar results as a full velocity vs. yaw-angle calibration method, which is considerably more laborious to use. Compared to the more common fixed effective angle method this new method has been shown to improve the estimates of the Reynolds stresses considerably.The mean velocity profile in the rough wall cases display the expected shift in the logarithmic law, ∆U+, which for both roughnesses is shown to follow the behaviour of a k-type roughness. The velocity defect profiles indicate similarity between the smooth and rough surfaces in the outer region. The measured distributions of the Reynolds stresses are similar for all surfaces outside y ≈5 k. Estimates of stress ratios and the anisotropy tensor indicate that the rough wall turbulence structure differs from the smooth wall flow only in the roughness sublayer, where it is more isotropic. This is believed to be connected to a break-up of the highly organized streamwise vortices. Support for this may be found in profiles of the streamwise integral scale, which is shown to be attenuated for the rough surfaces.A quadrant analysis indicate that differences in the turbulent structure extend somewhat further out than what is suggested by the stresses. The rough surfaces inhibit ejection events near the wall, presumably because low momentum fluid is trapped between the roughness elements. The most apparent feature of the rough surfaces is, however, the enhancement of sweeps, caused by a reduction in the damping of the wall normal motion because of the open nature of the surfaces.As is observed for some of the structural features over the rough surfaces, the transport properties are also affected to a certain degree outside the roughness sublayer. This is documented through the third order moments.An analysis of the Reynolds number dependency in both the physical and wavenumber domain support the concept of a universal 'active' motion and an 'inactive' motion which varies with Reynolds number. However, this conjecture seems to be valid only for relatively high Reynolds numbers.Estimates of the streamwise small scale intermittency exponent indicates that the large scale forcing penetrates through to the small scales at the low Reynolds numbers that are presently investigated. This means that the small scales over the rough surfaces are more isotropic than over a smooth surface. However, in the central region of the channel flow the small scale behaviour for all the surfaces is very similar to that measured in homogenous and isotropic turbulence.The present results indicate collectively that there are only minor differences in the statistical and structural quantities outside the roughness sublayer between the smooth and rough channel flows. This is in support of the classical 'wall similarity hypothesis'.


Population balance
model is a valuable modelling tool which facilitates the optimization and
understanding of crystallization processes. However, in order to use this tool,
it is necessary to have previous knowledge of the crystallization kinetics,
specifically crystal growth and nucleation. The majority of approaches to
achieve proper estimations of kinetic parameters required experimental data.
Across time, a vast literature about the estimation of kinetic parameters and
population balances have been published. Considering the availability of data,
this work built a database with information on solute, solvent, kinetic
expression, parameters, crystallization method and seeding. Correlations were
assessed and clusters structures identified by hierarchical clustering
analysis. The final database contains 336 data of kinetic parameters from 185
different sources. The data were analysed using kinetic parameters of the most
common expressions. Subsequently, clusters were identified for each kinetic
model. With these clusters, classification random forest models were made using
solute descriptors, seeding, solvent, and crystallization methods as
classifiers. Random forest models had an overall classification accuracy higher
than 70% whereby they were useful to provide rough estimates of kinetic
parameters, although these methods have some limitations.


Although cycloheximide is extremely inhibitory to protein synthesis in vivo in higher plants, the reported insensitivity of some plant ribosomes suggests that it may not invariably act at the ribosomal level. This suggestion is reinforced by results obtained with red beet storage tissue disks, the respiration of which is stimulated by cycloheximide at 1 microgram per milliliter. Inorganic ion uptake by these disks is inhibited by cycloheximide at 1 microgram per milliliter while the uptake of organic compounds, by comparison, is unaffected. Ion uptake by all nongreen tissues tested is inhibited by cycloheximide, but leaf tissue is unaffected, indicating that the ion absorption mechanism in the leaf may differ fundamentally from that in the root. It is concluded that cycloheximide can affect cellular metabolism other than by inhibiting protein synthesis and that the inhibition of ion uptake may be due to disruption of the energy supply.


The Trouble Between Us looks at the question why a radical interracial women's movement did not develop in the 1960s and 1970s. It consideres white and black women's experiences in the civil rights movement, the Black Arts and Black Power movements, including the Black Panther Party, Boston socialist feminism - particularly Bread and Roses, an early white socialist feminist organization, and the Combahee River Collective, a black socialist feminist organization, and Boston feminists' efforts to develop cross- racial political projects in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The accepted interpretation of this period's feminism has been that African American wmen did not join the women's movement because it was racist. But while radical white women were often unconciously or abstractly racist, they were passionately anti-racist in their political objectives and worked hard to develop an interracial movement. At the same time, most radical black women were influenced by the Black Power movement and as a result many were not interested in joining the early white women's liberation movement. Young activists had begun with ideals of togetherness and found themselves divided and estranged, struggling to retain a hopeful image of interracial community. Race came between young white and black radical feminists. Movement women, particularly whites, were forced to relinquish idealistic and universalist images in order to recognise their own social benefits. In their different ways, whether because white women were priviledged and unable to understand subtle versions of racism, white and black men were sexist, or because white women's feminism did not clearly include a place for balck women, they all had to let go of preconceived images and hopes. Only then were they able to construct relationships based on who they were and not on who they wanted to be or wanted others to be. This book argues that white feminists and feminists of colour were pioneers in America's understanding of white racism and in anti-racism practices and consciousness.


ADAM13 is a member of the disintegrinand metalloprotease protein family that is expressed on cranial neural crest cells surface and is essential for their migration. ADAM13 is an active protease that can cleave fibronectin in vitro and remodel a fibronectin substratein vivo. Using a recombinant secreted protein containing both disintegrin and cysteine-rich domains of ADAM13, we show that this "adhesive" region of the protein binds directly to fibronectin. Fibronectin fusion proteins corresponding to the various functional domains were used to define the second heparin-binding domain as the ADAM13 binding site. Mutation of the syndecan-binding site (PPRR → PPTM) within this domain abolishes binding of the recombinant disintegrin and cysteine-rich domains of ADAM13. We further show that the adhesive disintegrin and cysteine-rich domain of ADAM13 can promote cell adhesion via β1 integrins. This adhesion requires integrin activation and can be prevented by antibodies to the cysteine-rich domain of ADAM13 and β1 integrin. Finally, wild type, but not the E/A mutant of ADAM13 metalloprotease domain, can be shed from the cell surface, releasing the metalloprotease domain associated with the disintegrin and cysteine-rich domains. This suggests that ADAM13 shedding may involve its own metalloprotease activity and that the released protease may interact with both integrins and extracellular matrix proteins.


Vulnerability of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals to strong radio frequency (RF) signals has resulted in new research needs. Based on the type of interference various mitigation schemes have been proposed. Antenna array processing is one of the powerful methods for interference mitigation. However, data collection using real antenna arrays to develop and test array processing methods is considerably complex. Therefore, it is very useful to develop a simpler way of obtaining array data using a simulation platform.

This paper introduces a new approach to simulate GNSS signals for an antenna array. Employing the user trajectory information recorded using a single antenna hardware simulator and the known physical configuration of the antenna array, GNSS signals are simulated for each antenna element. Additionally, directional interference signals can be generated and added to the GNSS signals. Fidelity of single antenna simulations is evaluated by comparing the tracking parameters from this simulator with two commercially available GNSS simulators, namely the Spirent's GSS-7700 and Rohde & Schwarz's SMBV-100. Simulations are verified by evaluating C/N0 values, carrier Doppler and code phase. Two approaches of array signal generation i.e. one based on a reference antenna and another based on independent antenna's signal parameters, are compared. Capability of the simulator to generate interference scenarios is demonstrated with several examples and comparisons in acquisition metrics, position errors and beam patterns.


This article considers savings, investment and economic growth for India using annual time series data for the period 1950/51 to 2003/04. The analysis uses Perron's innovational outlier model to conduct unit root tests which endogenously determines structural break. The empirical results show that the null hypothesis of unit root cannot be rejected for gross domestic product. Moreover, the results show that the most significant structural breaks over the last five decades correspond to the wars, regime change and the nationalization of the banks. The study also utilizes the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to test for cointegration. Whilst the results support the existing evidence for the Carroll-Weil hypothesis, the study also finds that saving unambiguously determines investment in both the short and long runs. No evidence is found to support the commonly accepted growth models in India, that investment is the engine of economic growth.


What it means to be vulnerable to climate change and how early examples of climate change adaptation may affect vulnerable groups in society. Climate change will, among other impacts, bring increased risks to health and well-being from more frequent and intense heatwaves, as well as increased droughts threatening the security of affordable water supplies in the UK. This report: ■introduces the concept of vulnerability to climate change within the context of social justice; ■examines two early case studies of adaptation in the south-west of England: the implementation of the national Heatwave Plan; and the trend towards differential water pricing based on usage (including the trial of a rising block tariff for water); and ■highlights the need for a more systematic consideration of current and future vulnerabilities in local, sectoral and national adaptation planning.


This study of climate change education dissemination takes place in the context of a larger project where institutions in four cities worked together to develop a linked set of informal learning experiences about climate change. Each city developed an organizational network to explore new ways to connect urban audiences with climate change education. The four city-specific networks shared tools, resources, and knowledge with each other. The networks were related in mission and goals, but were structured and functioned differently depending on the city context. This study illustrates how the tools, resources, and knowledge developed in one network were shared with networks in two additional cities. Boundary crossing theory frames the study to describe the role of objects and processes in sharing between networks. Findings suggest that the goals, capacity and composition of networks resulted in a different emphasis in dissemination efforts, in one case to push the approach out to partners for their own work and in the other to pull partners into a more collaborative stance. Learning experiences developed in each city as a result of the dissemination reflected these differences in the city-specific emphasis with the push city diving into messy examples of the approach to make their own examples, and the pull city offering polished experiences to partners in order to build confidence in the climate change messaging. The networks themselves underwent different kinds of growth and change as a result of dissemination. The emphasis on push and use of messy examples resulted in active use of the principles of the approach and the pull emphasis with polished examples resulted in the cultivation of partnerships with the hub and the potential to engage in the educational approach. These findings have implications for boundary object theory as a useful grounding for dissemination designs in the context of networks of informal learning organizations to support a shift in communication approach, particularly when developing interventions for wicked socio-scientific issues such as climate change.


Numbers of internet users are increasing incredibly fast. Ideally, this increasing numbers of users are also supported by capacity uplift, in this case an increase in bandwidth to maintain the standard services that received by the users. However, increasing the bandwidth not always becomes the first option since it is quite expensive. Implementing proxy server as content/cache engine is the other option available. It will cache the content that user requested and keep it for a while for servicing the other users that will request the same content in the future. WCCP protocol is used to redirect user's traffic to the proxy server. The standard proxy server configurations are using single router with one or more proxy servers. This thesis is aims to design and implement proxy server system with multi routers configuration. Multi routers configuration is used as a failover mechanism to provide network high availability. It will use HSRP protocol to provide the high availability services. Tests that conducted after implementation shows the increase in transaction and successful transaction by 296% and 284% also a decrease in response time as well as failed transaction by 18% and 99% consecutively. Failover test shows the percentage of packet loss amounted to 31,3% and 26,3% for clients in VLAN 10 and VLAN 20 consecutively. The average time required for clients to reconnect to the internet after router failure is 7 seconds for clients in VLAN 10 and 6 seconds for client in VLAN 20.


Rock and soil aggregate (RSA) is a special geo-material and composed of hard matrix like gravel, cobble, pebble and soft matrix of soil. Discontinuity and heterogeneity are the main characteristics of RSA and its mechanical response is mainly controlled by its complex internal structure. The rock fragments play very important role in the mechanical performances under the condition of uniaxial compression and the rock content (the volume percent of rock fragments in RSA) of RSA is the focus of this study. RSA models with different rock content based on the structural characteristics were built for the numerical uniaxial test. The strength of RSA decreases instead with the increment of rock contents, stress-strain curves attained in the test reflect five different phases according to the deformation and failure process of samples.


This paper introduces our study of GUI for TV set based on a web browser. It will show how to get great efficiency when developing web related applications which uses web service APIs by taking advantage of web browser features. However, because current HTML standards do not grant access to TV functions, we have tried using WebSocket server. Used as a web service on TV, it allows not only to develop Web Browser based GUI, but even mobile devices to connect to the server and to use the TV functions provided through it. It also grants great benefit by allowing to share the HTML5 applications with both TV and mobile devices, thanks to the platform independency.


To date the analysis of fatigue crack growth from an open hole subjected to contained cyclic plastic deformation is problematic due to considerable computational effort involved. This paper presents the integration of a new efficient method for calculating the elastic-plastic notch stress field under cyclic loading into a crack growth analysis tool. The anticipated crack path is defined along a line emanating from an open hole, and the line is discretized into a series of elements on which the elastic-plastic stress distribution is solved for the uncracked body. This solution is then used in conjunction with a weight function approach to determine the stress intensity factors used in the crack growth analysis. This technique has been incorporated into a Defence Science and Technology Organisation proprietary crack growth analysis tool based on plasticity-induced crack closure. Results are presented for cases involving service load spectra from F/A-18 and F-111 aircraft and are compared to those obtained from a commonly used crack growth code that does not account for the effect of contained notch plasticity. It is hoped that this generic approach will lead to improved predictions for crack growth in plasticity-affected zones.


Cell division in bacteria is mediated by the tubulin-like protein FtsZ, which assembles into a structure known as the Z ring at the future site of cytokinesis. We report the discovery of a Z-ring-associated protein in Bacillus subtilis called ZapA. ZapA was found to colocalize with the Z ring in vivo and was capable of binding to FtsZ and stimulating the formation of higher-order assemblies of the cytokinetic protein in vitro. The absence of ZapA alone did not impair cell viability, but the absence of ZapA in combination with the absence of a second, dispensable division protein EzrA caused a severe block in cytokinesis. The absence of ZapA also caused lethality in cells producing lower than normal levels of FtsZ or lacking the division-site-selection protein DivIVA. Conversely, overproduction of ZapA reversed the toxicity of excess levels of the division inhibitor MinD. In toto, the evidence indicates that ZapA is part of the cytokinetic machinery of the cell and acts by promoting Z-ring formation. Finally, ZapA is widely conserved among bacteria with apparent orthologs in many species, including Escherichia coli, in which the orthologous protein exhibited a strikingly similar pattern of subcellular localization to that of ZapA. Members of the ZapA family of proteins are likely to be a common feature of the cytokinetic machinery in bacteria.


In covariance structure modelling, the non-centrality parameter of the asymptotic chi-squared distribution is typically used as an indicator of asymptotic power for hypothesis tests. When a latent linear regression is of interest, the contribution to power by the maximal reliability coefficient, which is associated with used latent variable indicators, is examined and this relationship is further explicated in the case of congeneric measures. It is also shown that item parcelling may reduce power of tests of latent regression parameters. Recommendations on weights for parcelling to avoid power loss are provided, which are found to be those of optimal linear composites with maximal reliability.


This thesis is an exploration of listening behaviours in the context of sound installation art. A concept of self-listening is developed by the author to describe behaviours that direct the listener's attention towards himor herself. The concept is derived from an investigation of a common thread found in diverse areas including: acousmatic music, acoustic ecology, cinema studies, phenomenology, the visual arts, psychoanalysis, literature and myth. Self-listening is used to analyse and evaluate seven works of sound installation which form the corpus of creative work by the author. The concept is also presented to contribute more generally towards an aesthetic understanding of other sound installations and other compositional forms beyond the documented projects. The author's sound installations include both gallery and outdoor projects and use diverse technologies. Spanning a period of a decade and a half, they include: The Talking Chair, Squeezebox, Sound Mapping, Close, Summoned Voices, Zhong Shuo and a work in progress entitled O Espelho. The various self-listening behaviours are shown to have ontological significance through their expression in the author's individual installation projects.


Brunner gland adenoma (Brunerroma or hamartoma) is a rare, benign lesion of the Brunner's glands, accounting for 10.6% of benign duodenal tumors10. It is predominantly seen in the 5th to 6th decades and with no gender predilection13. It is often an incidental finding during esophagogastroduodenoscopy or imaging studies. In symptomatic patients, clinical manifestations include gastrointestinal bleeding, duodenal obstruction, abdominal pain, ampullary obstruction, or intussusception8,9. Given their potential to be mistaken as cancer, it is important to consider it in the differential diagnosis of duodenal masses14. As there have been reports of focal cellular atypia and adenocarcinoma within the lesion, resection, whether endoscopic or surgical is recommended for suspected Brunneromas3. We report here a case of Brunneroma, which presented as gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) with intussusception on radiological and endoscopic studies and brief review of literature.


Mutually supporting methodologies are necessary for building a convincing case establishing a particular effect. Strengths and weaknesses of four empirical methods are discussed. Econometric methods quantify the relative importance of different factors and may assess the time frame over which constitutions matter, but have difficulties in dealing with nonlinear interactions among constitutional and cultural details. Cluster analysis can be a pre-requisite to other methods, and an analytic method in itself, useful for identifying the details that really matter and discovering surprising patterns in the data. I discuss the application of cluster analysis on the Comparative Constitutions Project database. Qualitative comparative analysis can reveal the hidden structure of interactions among different variables, but robustness checks are difficult to perform. Case studies are useful for distinguishing between rules-in-use and rules-in-form and for discovering important informal aspects. They can deal with complex nonlinearities well, but they are often hard to generalize.


Depth estimation provides essential information to perform autonomous driving and driver assistance. In particluar, monocular depth estimation is interesting from a practical point of view, since using a single camera is cheaper than many other options and avoids the need for continuous calibration strategies as required by stereo-vision approaches. State-of-the-art methods for monocular depth estimation are based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). A promising line of work consists of introducing additional semantic information about the traffic scene when training CNNs for depth estimation. In practice, this means that the depth data used for CNN training is complemented with images having pixelwise semantic labels, which usually are difficult to annotate (e.g. crowded urban images). Moreover, so far it is common practice to assume that the same raw training data is associated with both types of ground truth, i.e., depth and semantic labels. The main contribution of this paper is to show that this hard constraint can be circumvented, i.e., that we can train CNNs for depth estimation by leveraging the depth and semantic information coming from heterogeneous datasets. In order to illustrate the benefits of our approach, we combine KITTI depth and Cityscapes semantic segmentation datasets, outperforming stateof-the-art results on monocular depth estimation.


Abstract. Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) has recently emerged as a tracer for terrestrial
carbon uptake. While physiological studies relating OCS fluxes to leaf
stomatal dynamics have been established at leaf and branch scales and
incorporated into global carbon cycle models, the quantity of data from
ecosystem-scale field studies remains limited. In this study, we employ
established theoretical relationships to infer ecosystem-scale plant OCS
uptake from mixing ratio measurements. OCS fluxes showed a pronounced diurnal
cycle, with maximum uptake at midday. OCS uptake was found to scale with
independent measurements of CO2 fluxes over a 60 m tall old-growth
forest in the Pacific Northwest of the US (45∘49′13.76′′ N,
121∘57′06.88′′ W) at daily and
monthly timescales under mid–high light conditions across the growing season
in 2015. OCS fluxes were strongly influenced by the fraction of downwelling
diffuse light. Finally, we examine the effect of sequential heat waves on
fluxes of OCS, CO2, and H2O. Our results bolster previous
evidence that ecosystem OCS uptake is strongly related to stomatal dynamics,
and measuring this gas improves constraints on estimating photosynthetic
rates at the ecosystem scale.


The Escherichia coli maltose system consists of a number of genes whose products are involved in the uptake and metabolism of maltose and maltodextrins. MalT is the central positive gene activator of the regulon and is, together with the cyclic AMP-catabolite gene activator protein system, necessary for the expression of the maltose genes. Expression of malY, a MalT-independent gene, leads to the repression of all MalT-dependent genes. We have purified MalY to homogeneity and found it to be a pyridoxal-5-phosphate-containing enzyme with the enzymatic activity of a beta C-S lyase (cystathionase). MalY is a monomeric protein of 42,000 to 44,000 Da. Strains expressing MalY constitutively abolish the methionine requirement of metC mutants. The enzymatic activity of MetC, the cleavage of cystathionine to homocysteine, ammonia, and pyruvate, can be catalyzed by MalY. However, the cystathionase activity is not required for the function of MalY in repressing the maltose system. By site-directed mutagenesis, we changed the conserved lysine residue at the pyridoxal phosphate binding site (position 233) of MalY to isoleucine. This abolished beta C-S lyase activity but not the ability of the protein to repress the maltose system. Also, the overexpression of plasmid-encoded metC did not affect mal gene expression, nor did the deduced amino acid sequence of MetC show homology to that of MalY.


Abstract. This research focuses on the inversion of geomagnetic variation field measurement to obtain source currents in the ionosphere. During a geomagnetic disturbance, the ionospheric currents create magnetic field variations that induce geoelectric fields, which drive geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) in power systems. These GIC may disturb the operation of power systems and cause damage to grounded power transformers. The geoelectric fields at any location of interest can be determined from the source currents in the ionosphere through a solution of the forward problem. Line currents running east–west along given surface position are postulated to exist at a certain height above the Earth's surface. This physical arrangement results in the fields on the ground having the magnetic north and down components, and the electric east component. Ionospheric currents are modelled by inverting Fourier integrals (over the wavenumber) of elementary geomagnetic fields using the Levenberg–Marquardt technique. The output parameters of the inversion model are the current strength, height and surface position of the ionospheric current system. A ground conductivity structure with five layers from Quebec, Canada, based on the Layered-Earth model is used to obtain the complex skin depth at a given angular frequency. This paper presents preliminary and inversion results based on these structures and simulated geomagnetic fields. The results show some interesting features in the frequency domain. Model parameters obtained through inversion are within 2% of simulated values. This technique has applications for modelling the currents of electrojets at the equator and auroral regions, as well as currents in the magnetosphere.


This study investigates the human health impact of gold jewelry during its entire life cycle. Gold has many negative impacts on human health during its life cycle, such as emissions and accidents during different stages in the life cycle. There are also indications that mining of different minerals leads to conflicts and that minerals, such as gold, are used for financing military activities resulting in people getting killed, injured or displaced. Especially the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is associated with conflict gold. Consequently, gold produced in the DRC is the main focus of this study, while gold produced in Sweden and South Africa
are included for comparison.The main method of this thesis is an attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) with an
expanded social perspective. The disability-adjusted life years (DALY) is the indicator, and the results are quantified for the amount of gold in one typical wedding
ring and per kg of gold. The indicator DALY is chosen since it allows for considering different types of causes of death and impairment, including conflicts, occupational
hazards and environmental hazards. The aim is not to reach an exact figure of how many years of life that are lost, but rather to evaluate the magnitude of different
processes. The three types of human health impacts that are quantified in this study are: impacts from environmental emissions, impacts from work environment accidents, and impacts from conflict. About 0.4 years of life were lost per wedding ring for gold produced in the DRC, which is several orders of magnitude larger than the impact of gold produced in South Africa and Sweden. The calculated number for life years lost is very high for such a small amount of gold, creating credibility for the title of this tudy: "the blood wedding ring". The impact from the conflict is several orders of magnitude larger than the impact in any other process. If the impact assessment result from the conflict is excluded from the results, the emissions occurring at the extraction and processing of gold instead had the greatest impact, several orders of magnitude larger than any other process. In particular, mercury emissions to air had a high impact on human health during the processing of gold in artisanal mining in the DRC. The other processes
have more minor impacts on human health.
Sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate data gaps and uncertainties. These analyses in general showed that the results of the impact assessment are reasonable.
The overall conclusion is that even though the results are uncertain, the conflict's impact on human health is still several magnitudes larger than those of all other processes evaluated in the study.


Objective: To determine whether elderly normal APOE E2 (APOE2) carriers exhibit slower rates of hippocampal atrophy and memory decline compared to APOE3/3 carriers. We also determined whether APOE2 carriers have less Alzheimer pathology as reflected by CSF biomarkers. Methods: We included longitudinal data from 134 cognitively normal individuals (27 APOE2/2 or E2/3, 107 APOE3/3) from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a prospective cohort study. A linear mixed-effects model was used to determine how APOE2 affected rates of hippocampal atrophy and cognitive change over time. In a subsample of 72 individuals who also underwent CSF analysis, an ordinary least-squares regression was used to determine whether CSF β-amyloid (Aβ), total tau, and phosphorylated tau-181 (p-tau) differed by APOE2 status. Results: APOE2 carriers demonstrated slower rates of hippocampal atrophy (p = 0.004). The mean rate of hippocampal atrophy among APOE2 carriers was −33 mm3/year (95% confidence interval −65 to +0.4), or −0.5%/year, compared to −86 mm3/year (95% confidence interval −102 to −71), or −1.3%/year, in the APOE3/3 group. No differences in the rates of episodic memory (p = 0.23) or overall cognitive change (p = 0.90) were detected. In the CSF subsample, APOE2 carriers had higher levels of CSF Aβ (p = 0.01), lower p-tau (p = 0.02), and marginally lower tau (p = 0.12). Conclusion: A slower rate of hippocampal atrophy in normal APOE2 carriers is consistent with the lower risk of Alzheimer disease in these individuals. We hypothesize that the slower atrophy rate is related to decreased preclinical Alzheimer pathology.


In this thesis we propose novel methods for accurate markerless 3D pose tracking. Training data are used to represent specific activities, using dimensionality reduction methods. The proposed methods attempt to keep the computational cost low, without sacrificing the accuracy of the final result. Also, we deal with the problem of stylistic variation between the motions seen in the training and the testing dataset. Solutions to address both single and multiple action scenarios are presented. Specifically, appropriate temporal non-linear dimensionality reduction methods are applied to learn compact manifolds that are suitable for fast exploration. Such manifolds are efficiently searched by a deterministic gradient-based method. In order to deal with stylistic differences of human actions, we represent human poses using multiple levels. Searching through multiple levels reduces the effect of being trapped in a local optimal and therefore leads to higher accuracy. An observation function controls the process to minimise the computational cost of the method. Finally, we propose a multi-activity pose tracking methods, which combines action recognition with single-action pose tracking. To achieve reliable online action recognition, the system is equipped with short memory. All methods are tested in publicly available datasets. Results demonstrate their high accuracy and relative low computational cost, in comparison to state-of-the-art methods.


Rare events arising in nonlinear atmospheric dynamics remain hard to predict and attribute. We address the problem of forecasting rare events in a prototypical example, Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSWs). Approximately once every other winter, the boreal stratospheric polar vortex rapidly breaks down, shifting midlatitude surface weather patterns for months. We focus on two key quantities of interest: the probability of an SSW occurring, and the expected lead time if it does occur, as functions of initial condition. These optimal forecasts concretely measure the event's progress. Direct numerical simulation can estimate them in principle, but is prohibitively expensive in practice: each rare event requires a long integration to observe, and the cost of each integration grows with model complexity. We describe an alternative approach using integrations that are short compared to the timescale of the warming event. We compute the probability and lead time efficiently by solving equations involving the transition operator, which encodes all information about the dynamics. We relate these optimal forecasts to a small number of interpretable physical variables, suggesting optimal measurements for forecasting. We illustrate the methodology on a prototype SSW model developed by Holton and Mass (1976) and modified by stochastic forcing. While highly idealized, this model captures the essential nonlinear dynamics of SSWs and exhibits the key forecasting challenge: the dramatic separation in timescales between a single event and the return time between successive events. Our methodology is designed to fully exploit high-dimensional data from models and observations, and has the potential to identify detailed predictors of many complex rare events in meteorology.


This study was done to investigate the enzyme-histochemical localization and characteristics of alkaline and acid phosphatase related with metabolism in sparganum and adult of Spirometra erinacei. By the enzyme-histochemical assay, the alkaline and acid phosphatases were localized in the tegument and subtegumental musculature of sparganum and adult, but not in the parenchyma. The activities of alkaline phosphatase were stronger in the tegument than in the subtegumental musculature, and activities of acid phosphatase were stronger in the tegument of adults than those of sparganum. The 2 isozymes of alkaline and acid phosphatases were separated from s-sparganum (from snake) and r-sparganum (from experimentally infected rats) respectively, but 4 isozymes of Alp and 3 isozymes of Acp were separated from adult worms by electrophoresis. In isozyme Alp, the 66 kDa was the common isozyme, but 130 kDa isozyme of Acp was the common isozyme in spargana and adult worms. By isoelectrofocusing, 4 isozymes (PI 7.9, 7.7, 6.5 and 6.3) and 2 isozymes (PI 7.9 and 7.7) of alkaline phosphatase were separated from adults and spargana, respectively. In the stability against heat, activity of alkaline phosphatase was denatured perfectly after heating at 90 degrees C for 40 seconds. The optimum pH and temperature for activity of alkaline phosphatase were about pH 10 and 50 degrees C, respectively. The maximum activity (unit) of alkaline phosphatase was 22.0 in s-sparganum, 25.0 in r-sparganum and 215.0 in adult worms, so that the maximum activity was revealed higher in adults than spargana. As the result from above, we observed that alkaline and acid phosphatases were functioned mainly in the tegument and subtegumental musculature, and the isozymes of phosphatase were activated differently according to habitat of the parasites. The spargana and adult worms carry out the parasitism by adapting themselves to parasitic circumstance with these enzymes.


This study investigated the relationship between expert prosthodontic opinion of the suitability of long-term soft lining materials and compliance, as measured by depth of penetration measurements. It showed that there was very good agreement between subjective assessment and objective measurement. Opinion on satisfaction ranged from 82.4% for a heat-cured silicone to 10.8% for a heat-cured soft acrylic which had been stored in water for four weeks. The findings make it possible to set realistic values for a standard test of compliance. The results for depth of penetration allow valuable information to be given to the clinician as to the varying compliance of long-term soft lining materials.


Banking systems are fragile not only within one country but also within and across regions. We study the role of regional banking system characteristics for regional banking system fragility. We find that regional banking system fragility reduces when banks in the region jointly hold more liquid assets, are better capitalized, and when regional banking systems are more competitive. For Asia and Latin-America, a greater presence of foreign banks also reduces regional banking fragility. We further investigate the possibility of contagion within and across regions. Within region banking contagion is important in all regions but it is substantially lower in the developed regions compared to emerging market regions. For cross-regional contagion, we find that the contagion effects of Europe and the US on Asia and Latin America are significantly higher compared to the effect of Asia and Latin America among themselves. Finally, the impact of cross-regional contagion is attenuated when the host region has a more liquid and more capitalized banking sector.


Chronic wounds affect approximately 2 % of the worldwide population and incur healthcare costs in the billions. Key to their persistence is the formation of microbial biofilms, which are accounted for in nearly 80 % of all non-healing wounds. The smart dressing presented herein aims to detect a range of volatile infection protagonists, with a striking colour change that can be visualised with the naked eye, providing 24/7, non-invasive monitoring of infection development and antimicrobial treatment efficacy. A range of coloured indicator films housing dyes responsive to volatile analytes in the wound headspace were developed and tested against porcine skin inoculated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Digital images of the indicator film were captured at regular time intervals and the resulting images were aligned and split into red, green and blue (RGB) colour channels to yield semi-quantitative data. vAPCI-MS was exploited to identify additional volatiles for incorporation into the smart dressing design. A CO2-sensing film comprising xylenol blue dye underwent a marked colour change from blue to yellow within 12 h of inoculation with PAO1, whilst indicators monitoring uninoculated control skin remained blue (no colour change). In addition, vAPCI-MS identified putrescine as an additional volatile of interest, and responsive indicator films were developed for its detection. The marked colour change exhibited by each indicator film is easily visualised by eye and can be digitally analysed to provide semi-quantitative data. This early warning, point-of-care technology is a promising candidate in combatting biofilm development in wounds.


The study in the following pages explores Sir Arthur Somervell's fascination with the song cycle. Its appeal drew together two of his favourite passions, that is, songwriting and storytelling. All the cycles are settings of nineteenth-century poets with narratives drawn from single works or contrived from a collection of poems. Although Somervell was looked upon as old-fashioned in his art, in the matter of the song cycle he is seen trying to keep abreast of the times by following trends that were being manifest by his contemporaries and sometimes being innovative from his own inspiration. The theme of experimentation is the line of enquiry that the thesis explores. The six song cycles fall into three groups (of two each) in that process, though not strictly chronologically. Maud, the first (1898), from Tennyson's epic drama of obsessive love and tragedy, is placed with A Shropshire Lad (1904), Housman's bittersweet chronicle of a young military recruit, although two subsequent cycles intervened, but in style both betray Schumannesque influence. The cycles of 1901 (Love in Springtime) and 1903 (Wind Flowers), the two least-known in his output of song cycles, show Somervell experimenting with anthology. The last two cycles, James Lee's Wife, 1907 and A Broken Arc, 1923, though separated by nearly two decades, fail together naturally, united by their lyric source, Robert Browning, and by their more expansive style.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the efficacy and safety of intraarticular glucocorticoid injection to its systemic use for treatment of knee synovitis in rheumatoid patients.

METHODS
A randomized double-blind controlled study was conducted including 60 patients with RA. Patients were randomized to receive either a single intraarticular knee injection with triamcinolone hexacetonide 60 mg (3 ml) and xylocaine chloride 2% (1 ml) associated to a single intramuscular injection of 1 ml of xylocaine chloride 2% (IAI group) or 1 ml of xylocaine chloride 2% by intraarticular injection and a intramuscular injection of triamcinolone acetonide 60 mg (3 ml) and xylocaine chloride 2% (1 ml) (IM group). All patients were blindfolded for the procedure. Evaluations were performed at baseline and 1, 4, 8 and 12 weeks post-intervention. The following instruments were used: VAS for knee pain, as primary outcome, VAS for knee morning stiffness and edema; the ACR 20, 50 and 70% improvement criteria; knee circumference and goniometry; Likert's scale of improvement; daily use of oral glucocorticoid and NSAIDs, blood pressure and adverse effects.

RESULTS
Patients in the IAI group had significantly better results for VAS for knee pain, edema and morning stiffness as well as for improvement evaluation after intervention according to the patient (p<0.001) and physician (p=0.02).

CONCLUSION
Our results demonstrate that intraarticular injection with glucocorticoids is superior to its systemic use for the management of monoarticular synovitis in rheumatoid patients. The intraarticular approach showed better results in terms of local inflammatory variables and improvement evaluation by the patient and physician.


It has been proved that Benzo(a)pyrene (B[a]P) is mutagenic in somatic cells, whereas the adverse effect of BaP on male reproduction remains unclear. To investigate whether it can pass through the blood-testis barrier (BTB) and its potential reproductive toxicology and molecular mechanisms, mice were exposed to B[a]P (there are two doses, that is 13mg/kg body weight and 26 mg/kg body weight; three times per week) during 6 weeks and sacrificed 6 weeks after the final exposure to obtain B[a]P-exposed testis, blood and others. Electron microscopy analysis was performed to confirm whether the integrity of BTB and the ultra-structure changes in testes of B[a]P treated mice, which showed that the integrity of the BTB was disrupted, accompanied with the structure of sertoli cells seriously damaged, including the integrity of the nuclear membrane of the sertoli cells impaired and the basement membrane of the seminiferous tubules disrupted. X-ray imaging in vitro told us that BaP can overgo the BTB and gathered in the testis of mice. We found the significantly decreased expression of ZO-1, occludin, N-cadherin, vimentin and claudin-1 in the testes of B[a]P treated group by immunofluorescence detection. B[a]P induced BTB component protein decreased were also found in TM4 cells exposed to 5μmol/L B[a]P for 24h. We found a significantly decrease of testosterone level and a significantly increase of estrogen level in the serum of treated groups comparing with the control one by radioimmunoassay. TM4 cells, MLTC-1 cells and GC-2 cells was cultured with medium contains B[a]P. MTT Cell Proliferation and Cytotoxicity Assay, cell apoptosis analysis, FACScan analyzer, We observed apparent increase of TM4 and GC-2 cells apoptosis after expose to B[a]P for 24h. B[a]P induced TM4 cell, GC-2 cell and MLTC-1 cell G2/M phase cell arrest. In conclusion, these results suggested that BaP has an adverse impact on male reproduction, it can cross the blood-testis barrier and damage it, the component proteins of the BTB significantly decreased, it can also produce adverse impact on male germ cells.


Combinatorial auctions allow bidders to bid on bundles of items rather than just on single items. The winner determination problem in combinatorial auctions is the problem of determining the allocation of items to bidders such that the sum of the accepted bid prices is maximized. This problem is equivalent to the well-known maximum-weight set packing problem. Even though these problems are NP-hard in general, they can be solved in polynomial time on instances whose associated item graphs have bounded treewidth (called structured item graphs). However, the tractability of determining whether for a given problem instance a structured item graph of fixed treewidth exists (and if so, computing one efficiently) was an open problem. In this article, we solve this problem by proving that deciding the existence of structured item graphs is computationally intractable, even for treewidth 3. Motivated by this unfavorable complexity result, we investigate other structural restrictions, and we show that the notion of hypertree decomposition, a well-studied measure of hypergraph cyclicity, turns out to be most useful here. Indeed, we show that the winner determination problem is solvable in polynomial time on instances whose dual auction hypergraphs have bounded hypertree width. Our solution method is based on encoding winner determination via a constraint satisfaction optimization problem and on exhibiting an algorithm to solve this latter problem efficiently for such structurally restricted instances. The class of tractable instances identified by our approach, while being efficiently recognizable, properly contains the class of instances having a structured item graph. Moreover, on the larger class, our method solves winner determination with the same asymptotic complexity as the best algorithm proposed in the literature for the subclass of structured item graphs. Hypertree decompositions can equally profitably be applied to the maximum-weight independent set problem, which is the dual problem of maximum-weight set packing.


Potato (Solanum tuberosum subsp. tuberosum) is an important crop grown worldwide. Propagated vegetatively, a sustainable potato industry relies on pathogen free, tissue culture-produced plantlets to maintain low disease incidence in seed potato stock. Potato virus Y (PVY) infection is the most significant threat to seed potato production. Therefore, determining the influence of cultivar and seed type on PVY incidence could lead to improved management practices. Data from seed potato certification inspection in Montana indicated that plants grown from seed produced in sterile conditions (plantlets and minitubers) had a greater incidence of PVY than plants grown from fieldproduced tubers. We hypothesized that differences in cultivar, seed type and growth conditions (i.e., sterile vs. field grown) impacted PVY incidence. Systemic acquired resistance (SAR) is a plant immune response that is induced by pathogens and resistance-inducing agents. Resistance-inducing agents are effectively used to limit fungal pathogens, and we hypothesized that they may also limit PVY infection. To test these factors, potato plants (cultivars Russet Burbank and Norkotah Colorado 3) were grown from multiple seed types (i.e., plantlet, minituber, and Generation 3 tuber (G3)) and mechanically inoculated with PVY strain Wilga in the presence and absence of Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) inducing agents. Percent infection (incidence) was measured with double-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DASELISA) at three time points post-inoculation. These studies resulted in the following conclusions: (1) incidence of PVY infection varies by cultivar, specifically, the Russet Burbank cultivar had a lower incidence of PVY than the Norkotah Colorado 3 cultivar, (2) Russet Burbank plants grown from tissue culture plantlets had a higher incidence of PVY infection than Russet Burbank plants grown from field-produced G3) tubers, and (3) phosphorous acid (Phostrol ®), an inducer of Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) may reduce PVY infection, particularly in Russet Burbank plantlets. These findings advance our understanding of the differences in PVY incidence by cultivar and seed type, and in turn provide valuable information for maintaining pathogen free potato seed.


Although drug delivery systems (DDS) are efficient in brain delivery, they face failure in clinical settings due to their potential toxicity to the central nervous system. Little is known about where the DDS will go after brain delivery, and no specific elimination route that shares a passage with DDS has been verified. Hence, identifying harmless DDS for brain delivery and determining their fate there would strongly contribute to their clinical translation. In this study, we investigated nonreactive gold nanoclusters, which can deliver into the brain, to determine the elimination route of DDS. Subsequently, nanoclusters in the brain were systemically tracked and were found to be critically drained by the glymphatic system from the blood vessel basement membrane to periphery circulations (77.8± 23.2% and 43.7± 23.4% contribution). Furthermore, the nanoclusters could be actively transported across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) by exosomes (30.5± 27.3% and 29.2± 7.1% contribution). In addition, microglia promoted glymphatic drainage and passage across the BBB. The simultaneous work of the glymphatic system, BBB, and microglia revealed the fate of gold nanoclusters for brain delivery and provided a basis for further braindelivery DDS.


Input/output delays in a control system can pose significant impediments to the stabilization problem and potentially degrade the performance of the closed-loop system. In this paper, we study the classical set-point control problem for rigid robots with input-output communication delays in the closed-loop system. We demonstrate that if there are transmission delays between the robotic system and the controller, then the use of the scattering variables can stabilize an otherwise unstable system for arbitrary unknown constant delays. It is also demonstrated that the proposed algorithm results in guaranteed set-point tracking. In the case of time-varying delays, scattering variables together with additional gains can be utilized to stabilize the closed-loop system that is composed of the robotic manipulator and the controller. Furthermore, a scattering representation-based design with position feedback is proposed to improve closed-loop performance under time-varying delays. The proposed algorithms are validated via experiments in this paper.


Whipple disease is a rare multisystemic disorder of infectious aetiology caused by Tropheryma whipplei. Pulmonary hypertension is a rare association for which the underlying pathophysiological mechanism is unclear. Our patient was a 54-year-old man with a 1-year history of progressive polyarticular arthritis, and worsening respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms. Pulmonary artery catheterisation demonstrated moderate-to-severe pulmonary hypertension. Duodenal biopsies, with electron microscopy, were diagnostic of Whipple disease. Involvement by Whipple disease was also evident in the stomach, bone marrow and pulmonary pleura. A 2-week course of intravenous ceftriaxone was initiated and this was followed by a 1-year course of trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (160/800), once daily. Nine months into antibiotic treatment, a repeat echocardiogram showed normalisation of the size and function of the cardiac chambers, including the right atrium and right ventricle. There was complete resolution of the severe tricuspid insufficiency and pulmonary hypertension. Whipple disease is not generally considered as a possible cause of pulmonary hypertension but such awareness is important given that it may be potentially reversible with antibiotic therapy.


Stochastic dynamics are ubiquitous in many fields of science, from the evolution of quantum systems in physics to diffusion-based models in machine learning. Existing methods such as score matching can be used to simulate these physical processes by assuming that the dynamics is a diffusion, which is not always the case. In this work, we propose a method called "Action Matching" that enables us to learn a much broader family of stochastic dynamics. Our method requires access only to samples from different time-steps, makes no explicit assumptions about the underlying dynamics, and can be applied even when samples are uncorrelated (i.e., are not part of a trajectory). Action Matching directly learns an underlying mechanism to move samples in time without modeling the distributions at each time-step. In this work, we showcase how Action Matching can be used for several computer vision tasks such as generative modeling, super-resolution, colorization, and inpainting; and further discuss potential applications in other areas of science.


Coalescent processes, including mutation, are derived from Moran type population models admitting large offspring numbers. Including mutation in the coalescent process allows for quantifying the turnover of alleles by computing the distribution of the number of original alleles still segregating in the population at a given time in the past. The turnover of alleles is considered for specific classes of the Moran model admitting large offspring numbers. Versions of the Kingman coalescent are also derived whose rates are functions of the mean and variance of the offspring distribution. High variance in the offspring distribution results in higher turnover and younger age of alleles than predicted by the usual Kingman coalescent.


We consider the problem of explaining the robustness of neural networks used to compute time-frequency masks for speech enhancement to mismatched noise conditions. We employ the Deep SHapley Additive exPlanations (DeepSHAP) feature attribution method to quantify the contribution of every time-frequency bin in the input noisy speech signal to every time-frequency bin in the output time-frequency mask. We define an objective metric — referred to as the speech relevance score — that summarizes the obtained SHAP values and show that it cor-relates with the enhancement performance, as measured by the word error rate on the CHiME-4 real evaluation dataset. We use the speech relevance score to explain the generalization ability of three speech enhancement models trained using synthetically generated speech-shaped noise, noise from a professional sound effects library, or real CHiME-4 noise. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on neural network explainability in the context of speech enhancement.


BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES
Zooprophylaxis is a strategy that can control malaria by attracting mosquitoes to domestic animals that act as dead-end hosts. The objective of this study was to establish the effects of zooprophylaxis and long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) on malaria transmission in an agro-based ecosystem with seasonal transmission.

METHODS
The mosquito samples were collected indoors using the space spray catch method before and after intervention between October 2005 and March 2006 to determine the mosquito densities and the feeding patterns of Anopheles spp in Mwea, Kenya.

RESULTS
A total of 4148 mosquito samples were collected, out of which 11 (0.2%) were tested positive for sporozoites. Ten were Anopheles gambiae species and one was An. funestus species. Results on blood meal ELISA showed that in the household categories that used bednets and kept one cow there was a decrease in relative change ratio (post-/pre-intervention) of 87.5 and 19.6% (p <0.05) in human and cattle blood intake respectively. For households that kept 2-4 cattle and used bednets, there was a decrease in cattle blood index (CBI) by 61.9% and an increase in human blood index (HBI) by 2%, which was not significant (p <0.05). In households with <4 cattle and bednet, there was significant reduction (p >0.05) in CBI of 37.5% as compared to the reduction of 10.3% in HBI. The ratios of man biting rates (MBR) decreased significantly, as you move up from households with one cattle with or without LLINs to households with more than four cattle with or without LLINs with a regression coefficient of -0.96; SE = 0.834; p = 0.017. Similarly, the HBI decreased significantly with the regression coefficient of 0.239; SE = 0.039; p = 0.015 (p <0.05) especially in households with >4 cattle.

INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION
This study demonstrated that there were additive effects of zooprophylaxis and LLINs in the control of mosquito density and reduction of human risk to the mosquito bites. However, in Integrated Vector Management (IVM), the number of animals per household should not be more than four.


The electrochemical separation system may be modular and may include at least a first modular unit and a second modular unit. Each modular unit may comprise a frame and a cell stack. The frame may include a manifold system. Flow distribution system framework can improve the current efficiency. A spacer positioned between the modular units may increase the current efficiency of the system.


Periocular injection of corticosteroids frequently is used to reduce the intraocular inflammation that is associated with surgery and various forms of uveitis. Inadvertent globe perforation and intraocular corticosteroid injection are serious complications and may result in retinal detachment with proliferative vitreoretinopathy.1,2There is experimental evidence that ocular toxic effects are dependent on the particular vehicle of the commercially available corticosteroid preparation, with the vehicle of Celestone Soluspan (betamethasone acetate and betamethasone sodium phosphate preserved in benzalkonium chloride) demonstrating the most pronounced toxic effects.3We report a case involving inadvertent intraocular injection of Celestone Soluspan following sutureless cataract surgery that resulted in severe retinal toxic effects and the subsequent development of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. Report of a Case. A 59-year-old woman underwent phacoemulsification with implantation of a posterior chamber intraocular lens in the left eye. Anesthesia was achieved using peribulbar injections of 2% lidocaine hydrochloride followed by


ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed the lives of a majority of the world's population. People have been encouraged to implement social distancing behaviors enforced by governments, and have experienced loss of employment or changes to their usual working environment. In the mental health sector, psychologists and psychiatrists have been forced to alter the standard care of patients without compromising safety. This article documents the experiences of the authors – mental health professionals in four countries, Canada, Russia, Australia and Japan – at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers recommendations on how clinical, training, and research practices may need to be adjusted to deal with lockdown situations. Clinicians adapted their usual best practices by learning new skills and updating their knowledge base. Mental health clinicians noticed that the pandemic led to symptomatic changes in some of their patients. Most clinicians moved towards providing telemental health services, such as conducting assessments and treatments remotely. Those who continued seeing patients in person employed personal protective equipment with various impacts on the clinician–patient relationship. The dilemmas of mass quarantines need to be carefully examined, as their effects on numerous health and psychosocial variables appear to be far-reaching.


Background: Globally, 2.6 million neonates die every year, with more than one third of these deaths occurring within 24 hours of birth. Most neonatal deaths are preventable. The scaling up of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit services in developing countries have shown to improve survival rates. This study aimed to determine the mortality rate, and correlate the general and clinical characteristics with the outcomes of neonates admitted in the NICU at the Eastern Regional Referral Hospital, Mongar, Bhutan from the year 2015 to 2017. Methods: Demographic data, neonatal and maternal variables were extracted for all Neonatal Intensive Care Unit admissions from 2015 to 2017. Descriptive and analytical statistics were reported as frequencies, percentages, median, adjusted OR, 95% CI and p-values. Results: The mortality rate was 12.31%. Neonatal jaundice (49.55%), neonatal sepsis (41.74%), and prematurity (32.43%) were the three most common diagnoses. The mortality among neonates with low birth weight (<2500 grams) was 3.68 times (adjusted OR 3.68; 95% CI: 1.39-9.77) higher than the mortality among the normal birth weight neonates and mechanically ventilated neonates were 35.85 times (adjusted OR 35.85; 95% CI: 13.12-97.87) more at risk of dying than those without mechanical ventilation. The main causes of mortality were neonatal sepsis (34.15%), prematurity (29.27%) and birth asphyxia (21.95%). Conclusions: The mortality rate at the NICU, Eastern Regional Referral Hospital is 12.31%. The study recommends to establish intermediate phototherapy/Kangaroo Mother Care/special baby care unit in the hospital to improve the quality of new born care.


An instructor tried using connectivism to teach an online graduate Education course called Teaching in a Virtual World. As a way to embody the many connections inherent in the group, all members of the class created and taught modules of their own choosing to each other. The instructor and two former students reflected together online in depth about their experience and coded their joint understandings. Schwab's commonplaces of curriculum emerged in the data, demonstrating that it is still current. They found that the course, however, was not completely connectivist due to limitations emanating from its operation within a traditional university setting.


Significance Science is said to be suffering a reproducibility crisis caused by many biases. How common are these problems, across the wide diversity of research fields? We probed for multiple bias-related patterns in a large random sample of meta-analyses taken from all disciplines. The magnitude of these biases varied widely across fields and was on average relatively small. However, we consistently observed that small, early, highly cited studies published in peer-reviewed journals were likely to overestimate effects. We found little evidence that these biases were related to scientific productivity, and we found no difference between biases in male and female researchers. However, a scientist's early-career status, isolation, and lack of scientific integrity might be significant risk factors for producing unreliable results. Numerous biases are believed to affect the scientific literature, but their actual prevalence across disciplines is unknown. To gain a comprehensive picture of the potential imprint of bias in science, we probed for the most commonly postulated bias-related patterns and risk factors, in a large random sample of meta-analyses taken from all disciplines. The magnitude of these biases varied widely across fields and was overall relatively small. However, we consistently observed a significant risk of small, early, and highly cited studies to overestimate effects and of studies not published in peer-reviewed journals to underestimate them. We also found at least partial confirmation of previous evidence suggesting that US studies and early studies might report more extreme effects, although these effects were smaller and more heterogeneously distributed across meta-analyses and disciplines. Authors publishing at high rates and receiving many citations were, overall, not at greater risk of bias. However, effect sizes were likely to be overestimated by early-career researchers, those working in small or long-distance collaborations, and those responsible for scientific misconduct, supporting hypotheses that connect bias to situational factors, lack of mutual control, and individual integrity. Some of these patterns and risk factors might have modestly increased in intensity over time, particularly in the social sciences. Our findings suggest that, besides one being routinely cautious that published small, highly-cited, and earlier studies may yield inflated results, the feasibility and costs of interventions to attenuate biases in the literature might need to be discussed on a discipline-specific and topic-specific basis.


the article deals with the main types of social and military relations between the indigenous people and the new landlords that formed in the times of building and reinforcing the rule of the teutonic order in warmia, a part of Prussia. these included military action and the military obligations of the indigenous people and their descendants in the 13th and 14th centuries. the issue is discussed in the context of the family ties of the old Prussians. in the era of the conquest, and when building the territory of the teutonic order in Prussia, family rule over possessions was reinforced at the expense of other social relations. From the article, it is clear that the military potential of the diocese of warmia was supported mainly by the indigenous people, who were granted Kulm law and received other privileges. it also seems that old Prussians not only fought alongside the order (knights of the old Prussian origin, small freemen, equites Prutheni), but also led the army of the diocese as bishopric vogts.


The ultimate objective in devising animal analogs of physical dependence on ethanol is to obtain meaningful imitations that have behavioral and biological similarities to human subjects during the ethanol withdrawal syndrome. The natural history of alcoholic disease in human subject and in experimental animals involves three periods, each characterized on the basis of temporal relationships, pattern of ethanol intake, blood ethanol concentrations, and/or a typical sequence in the onset and decay of the characteristic spectrum and continuum of overt behavioral, neurological, and biological signs and responses. These characteristics are expressions of different functional states of the central nervous system (CNS): 1) the baseline period or predrinking period reflects normal function of the CNS; 2) the induction period or drinking period is characterized by overt signs and responses of nonspecific, long-term CNS depression; and 3) the withdrawal period is characterized by a relatively rapid transition in the CNS function from depression during the prodromal detoxication phase to hyperexcitability observed during the withdrawal syndrome (dependence phase). The rapid transition from overt depression to overt hyperexcitability is a consequence of rapid removal of the drug from the system, and constitutes the basis of the reversal in the CNS function in both humans and experimental animals.


The observations of the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) contain various small features of the solar coronal regions: EUV bright points, ephemeral regions, brightenings, loops segments, cosmic ray hits, etc. In this work we present an automated method extracting small objects. It is based on the continuous 2D Mexican Hat Wavelet transform. We study global and long-term statistical properties of the small features. Their distribution will be used for solar cycle studies and prediction of solar events (Space Weather applications).


The characteristic frequency and bandwidth of the random response to parametric excitation may be influenced by the excitation processes. It is demonstrated that the effective stiffness and damping properties can be expressed as conditional mean values for given displacement and energy levels, respectively. These properties are used to describe the response in terms of its probability density function and its spectral density function. An example demonstrates the accuracy in predicting change of frequency and damping of a parametrically excited oscillator, and another example extends the method to a self-excited oscillator with domains of negative damping. ©2002 ASME


TGFβ1 is an important cytokine acts as an antiinflammatory agent, and inhibits B cell proliferation. In patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), serum level of TGFβ1 are found elevated. Presence of G allele at position +915 in TGFβ1 gene results in arginine synthesis which is associated with higher expression of TGFβ1. We investigated the association of TGFβ1 +915G>C polymorphism with predisposition, clinical characteristics and laboratory findings of CLL. 50 CLL patients and 50 healthy controls were included in this study. Genotypes were determined by PCR-RFLP method. We couldn't find statistically significant differences between patient and control groups in terms of genotype distributions and allele frequencies. However, GC genotype frequency was slightly higher in CLL patients than healthy controls. Furthermore, TGFβ1 +915GC genotype was found associated with trisomy 12 (p= 0.007). Further studies are needed to clarify exact role of TGFβ1 +915G>C polymorphism in patients with CLL.


Purpose : The Through Focus Curve (TFC) is often used to characterise visual performance of multifocal contact lenses (MCL) and intra ocular lenses over a range of defocus. Typically negative lenses are used to produce vergences but this requires accurate lens centration and trial lenses may interfere with binocularity. The objective was to characterize a new MCL using a new clinical test paradigm, measuring visual acuity (VA) at the actual distances of interest, allowing normal convergence and both binocular and monocular measurements. Methods : Monocular, binocular (B) and binocular summation (BS) TFCs were obtained by measuring logMAR VA at 6 distances (40cm, 50cm, 67cm, 1m, 2m & 4m) for 3 luminances (250cd/m2 daytime and computer use, 50cd/m2 indoor evening & 2.5cd/m2 night driving). The measurements were made with OTG-i Vision using a 4K screen at distance, an iPad 2 Air (retina) for intermediate and an iPad mini (retina) for near, all driven by a dedicated App. The study MCL was 1-DAY ACUVUE® MOIST Brand MULTIFOCAL. The study population (age 51.7 ± 7.37) comprised 7 low, 10 medium and 13 high addition subjects. Results : (i) Mean BVA at 250cd/m2 was 20.20) at all distances. The best BVA was achieved at 2m (-0.19 logMAR 20/13) and the lowest at 40cm (-0.04 logMAR 20/18); (ii) Mean BVA at 50cd/m2 was lower than at 250cd/m2 by 1 line at distance (+0.1 logMAR), 1.2 lines at intermediate (+0.12 logMAR) and 1.4 lines at near (+0.14 logMAR) maintaining a balanced performance for all distances; (iii) Mean BVA at 2.5cd/m2 was biased for distance, with 2.5 lines (0.25 logMAR) loss compared with 250cd/m2 giving a mean VA of 20/25; (iv) Differences in VA between dominant and non-dominant eyes were small, at most 1/3 of a line (mean differences -0.025 to + 0.029 logMAR); with a trend to favour the dominant eye at distance and the non-dominant eye at near; (v) BS was most marked at distance (mean -0.01 to -0.04 logMAR), demonstrating that the MCL were not biased towards modified monovision maintaining binocularity. Conclusions : This novel "real world" clinical technique was able to fully characterise the TFC performance of the study MCL, demonstrating excellent performance at high luminance while maintaining balanced VA at all distances at medium luminance and a bias towards distance at low luminance (night driving). In addition monocular and binocular VA measurements have confirmed binocular summation with the MCL. This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.


Adaptive learning systems are developed rapidly in recent years and the "heart" of such systems is user model. User model is the representation of information about an individual that is essential for an adaptive system to provide the adaptation effect, i.e., to behave differently for different users. There are some main features in user model such as: knowledge, goals, learning styles, interests, background… but knowledge, learning styles and goals are features attracting researchers' attention in adaptive e-learning domain. Learning styles were surveyed in psychological theories but it is slightly difficult to model them in the domain of computer science because learning styles are too unobvious to represent them and there is no solid inference mechanism for discovering users' learning styles now. Moreover, researchers in domain of computer science will get confused by so many psychological theories about learning style when choosing which theory is appropriate to adaptive system.


Abstract A short-lived eruption of basaltic andesite to andesite on Deception Island in 1969 occurred from a series of fissures underneath a glacier. The glacier was thin (c. 100 m) and the eruption created a large and sudden discharge of meltwater that overflowed the glacier, severely damaging buildings on the island. The eruption was unusually well documented and it illustrates several features of subglacial eruptions that are only poorly known and not well understood. In particular, overflowing meltwater is contrary to predictions based on existing simple hydrological models for eruptions beneath thin glaciers. The eruption is analysed in this paper and used as a model for the fluid dynamics and thermodynamics of eruptions beneath a thin glacier mainly composed of impermeable ice. It is suggested that, in eruptions of relatively fluid magmas with a low magma rise rate, volatiles and magma are able to decouple and subglacial melting is strongly influenced by the superheated magmatic and hydrothermal gases (mainly steam). Thus, melting is much faster than that due solely to coupled conductive (magma) and convective (meltwater) heat transfer. The influence of gasdriven melting also has an important effect on the shape of the meltwater cavity and may be at least partly responsible for the cylindrical ice chimneys developed above vents on Deception Island. The results of the study are important for reconstructing the shapes of englacial cavities melted above a vent. They also highlight the importance of glacier structure and densification, rather than simply glacier thickness, in determining the hydraulic evolution of an eruption. Even eruptions beneath thin glaciers can generate significant meltwater floods.


The Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences (LiSN-S) test has been widely applied to diagnose spatial processing disorder in both normally hearing and hearing impaired listeners who are proficient in English. The overall goal of the present study is to develop a spatial listening test that assesses similar spatial auditory processes as the LiSN-S test but does not rely on speech input and thus, is language independent. Therefore a three-alternative forced choice (3AFC) stream segregation task was implemented using a series of continuously inor decreasing tone-complexes as targets and random tone-complexes as distractors and foils. Similar to the LiSN-S test the signals were either spatially colocated or separated using non-individualized HRTFs and the difference in thresholds defined the spatial release from masking (SRM). In order to achieve similar large SRM effects (of up to 14 dB) as observed with the LiSN-S test in normal hearing listeners, temporal jitter had to be introduced. The effect of the amount of temporal jitter was investigated on the SRM as a function of tone-complex duration. The results revealed that a jitter of about 30ms in combination with a tone-complex duration of about 30ms is sufficient to elicit the desired SRM.


ABSTRACT This paper develops a linear closed form equation as required for automatic plowing depth control of a mine clearing combat vehicle. The vehicle will be tasked with using its Mine Clearing Blade (MCB) to remove surface laid and buried land mines on undulating terrain so that other vehicles can follow its path without the threat of mines. Blade control must be automatic to ensure that the target depth of the cleared path is achieved and all mines on the path are removed. A closed form solution for real-time computing relating the MCB motion and hydraulic actuator movement is developed and implemented. The equations are provided in symbolic form so that the dimensions of the mechanism can be directly substituted and/or modified without re-derivation. Results were verified with field measured data and implemented in the controller of a real vehicle to successfully achieve objective goal of Automatic Mine Clearing.


OBJECTIVE The beneficial effects of the inactivation of endocannabinoid system (ECS) by administration of antagonists of the cannabinoid receptor (CB) 1 on several pathological features associated with obesity is well demonstrated, but the relative contribution of central versus peripheral mechanisms is unclear. We examined the impact of CB1 antagonism on liver and adipose tissue lipid metabolism in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Mice were fed either with a standard diet or a high-sucrose high-fat (HSHF) diet for 19 weeks and then treated with the CB1-specific antagonist SR141716 (10 mg · kg−1 · day−1) for 6 weeks. RESULTS Treatment with SR141716 reduced fat mass, insulin levels, and liver triglycerides primarily increased by HSHF feeding. Serum adiponectin levels were restored after being reduced in HSHF mice. Gene expression of scavenger receptor class B type I and hepatic lipase was induced by CB1 blockade and associated with an increase in HDL-cholesteryl ether uptake. Concomitantly, the expression of CB1, which was strongly increased in the liver and adipose tissue of HSHF mice, was totally normalized by the treatment. Interestingly, in visceral but not subcutaneous fat, genes involved in transport, synthesis, oxidation, and release of fatty acids were upregulated by HSHF feeding, while this effect was counteracted by CB1 antagonism. CONCLUSIONS A reduction in the CB1-mediated ECS activity in visceral fat is associated with a normalization of adipocyte metabolism, which may be a determining factor in the reversion of liver steatosis induced by treatment with SR141716.


The in-degree and out-degree distributions of a growing network model are determined. The in-degree is the number of incoming links to a given node (and vice versa for out-degree). The network is built by (i) creation of new nodes which each immediately attach to a preexisting node, and (ii) creation of new links between preexisting nodes. This process naturally generates correlated in-degree and out-degree distributions. When the node and link creation rates are linear functions of node degree, these distributions exhibit distinct power-law forms. By tuning the parameters in these rates to reasonable values, exponents which agree with those of the web graph are obtained.


Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a common condition that affects 90% of menstruating women on emotions, behaviours and physical health. Vitex agnus-castus L. also known as chasteberry or chaste tree is long being used for its health benefits on feminine problems like PMS and hyperprolactinemia. There are also some prescription medicines to ease the symptoms of PMS. While dietary supplements containing medicinal plants could be found everywhere with the lack of quality and standardisation, there are only a few registered traditional herbal medicinal products available on the market containing agnus-castus fruit extract. In this study we developed a stable film coated oral formulation and fully validated the analytical methods to quantify the extract in dosage forms to fulfil the requirements of CTD module 3 while registering the traditional herbal medicinal product according to European Union legislations.


High carbon content and addition of other elements, such as Mn in steel, causes some difficulties in the weldability of these materials. In this study, pre and post heating processes were applied for the multipass welded specimens. Tensile test, notch impact test and hardness measurements were carried out, and microstructural features were examined. The weldability of these steels can be improved with the pre and post heat treatments. Maximum hardness values were obtained for the non-heat treated specimens due to large grain structure and high volume percentage of the pearlite content. Although applied heat treatments caused decrease in hardness values, an increase in tensile properties and toughness values at all temperatures occurred. Changes in these properties were explained in the light of the microstructure of the AISI 4042 steel specimens.


Coordination programming is a paradigm for managing composition, communication, and synchronisation of concurrent components. AstraKahn is a new dataflow coordination language based on Gilles Kahn's model of process network with some significant refinements. AstraKahn provides a mechanism of implicit data parallelism that is expected to rely on self-tuning, i.e. adaptive optimisation of execution parameters in order to improve the performance of the program. This is achieved by providing a programmer with a number of special network primitives that allow an AstraKahn runtime system to extract optimisation parameters and adjust them while monitoring the performance of execution. In this thesis, we present the architecture of an AstraKahn prototype including a compiler and a runtime system. On the runtime system level the built-in compound network primitives are constructed from simple ones. This approach allows us to make the implementation clear and easily extensible. As a minor contribution we present a number of potential self-tuning heuristics for a simple network pattern. Also, for illustrative purposes, a practical application of the morphism pattern is presented. The particle-in-cell problem, whose parallelisation requires load-balancing, is formulated this way.


We investigate phase transitions associated with three control methods for epidemics on small world networks. Motivated by the behavior of SARS-CoV-2, we construct a theoretical SIR model of a virus that exhibits presymptomatic, asymptomatic, and symptomatic stages in two possible pathways. Using agent-based simulations on small world networks, we observe phase transitions for epidemic spread related to: 1) Global social distancing with a fixed probability of adherence. 2) Individually initiated social isolation when a threshold number of contacts are infected. 3) Viral shedding rate. The primary driver of total number of infections is the viral shedding rate, with probability of social distancing being the next critical factor. Individually initiated social isolation was effective when initiated in response to a single infected contact. For each of these control measures, the total number of infections exhibits a sharp phase transition as the strength of the measure is varied.


In this paper, instead of preventing human users from "biting the bait", we propose a new approach to protect against phishing attacks with "bogus bites". We develop Bogus Biter, a unique client-side ant phishing tool, which transparently feeds a relatively large number of bogus credentials into a suspected phishing site. Bogus Biter conceals a Victim's real credential among bogus credentials, and moreover, it enables a legitimate web site to identify stolen credentials in a timely manner. Leveraging the power of client-side automatic phishing detection techniques, Bogus Biter is complementary to existing preventive anti-phishing approaches. We implement Bogus Biter as an extension to Firefox 2 web browser, and evaluate its efficacy through real experiments on both phishing and legitimate web sites. Many anti-phishing mechanisms currently focus on helping users verify whether a web site is genuine. However, usability studies have demonstrated that prevention-based approaches alone fail to effectively suppress phishiug attacks and protect Internet users from revealing their credentials to phishing sites.


A new symmetric cryptosystem is proposed in this paper which will be used to carry out image encryption without compression. The proposed system has been developed to encrypt images in BMP format. A significant contribution of this investigation is the use of one solution point of a zero valued constant elliptic curve in order to generate a set of 15 encryption keys. On the other hand, using a differential equation that produce chaotic numbers a permutation and its inverse permutation are generated. Every encryption key and both permutations are the same size as the image. The proposed cryptosystem is tested for the purpose of verifying its resistance against several cryptographic attacks as well as the randomness and quality of its ciphering. Results are showed and compared with some recent scientific articles published between 2017 and 2019.


The acoustic impedance at the diaphragm of an electroacoustic transducer can be modified using a range of active control strategies, amongst which is "direct impedance control". This technique employs a combination of feedbacks, one on the acoustic pressure and the other on the diaphragm velocity, to the loudspeaker electric terminals, allowing significant modifications of the acoustic resonator properties of the diaphragm within a specified range. This concept has been specifically developed for a novel concept of active acoustic liners for aircraft engines within the European project OPENAIR. One of the objectives of active acoustic liners is the achievement of real‐time modifications of the acoustic impedance of a 1 degree of freedom resonator. These properties should then match variable target impedances, specified by phases of flight. The paper presents the development of a specific electrodynamic loudspeaker for use as active liners, with an emphasis on integration issues, as well as acoustic performances. The general concept of direct impedance control is first introduced, followed by design considerations on the loudspeakers side, and then experimental assessments of performances are presented.


Thermodynamic and kinetic control of a chemical process is the key to access desired products and states. Changes are made when desired product is not accessible; one may manipulate the reaction with additional reagents, catalysts and/or protecting groups. Here we report the use of carbon dioxide to direct reaction pathways in order to selectively afford desired products in high reaction rates while avoiding the formation of byproducts. The utility of CO2-mediated selective cyanohydrin synthesis was further showcased by broadening Kiliani-Fischer synthesis to offer an easy access to variety of polyols, cyanohydrins, linear alkylnitriles, by simply starting from alkyl- and arylaldehydes, KCN and atmospheric pressure of CO2.


Aberrant CpG methylation changes occurring during tumour progression include the loss (hypomethylation) and gain (hypermethylation) of methyl groups. Techniques currently available for examining such changes either require selection of a region, then examination of methylation changes, or utilise methylation-sensitive restriction enzymes to identify an alteration. We describe here a novel method that identifies genomic regions as a consequence of altered methylation during tumourigenesis. A methyl-CpG binding domain column isolates methylated GC-rich sequences from both tumours and surrounding normal tissue. Subsequent subtractive hybridisation removes sequences common to both, leaving only methylated sequences unique to the tumour. Libraries of sequences generated using DNA derived from a breast tumour (histological grade; poorly differentiated) as 'tester' and from matched normal tissue as 'driver' were examined; 26% of clones had the sequence criteria of a CpG island (CGI). Analysis using the bisulfite technique revealed that a number of these sequences were methylated in tumour DNA relative to the normal control. We have therefore demonstrated the ability of this technique, the identification of CGI exhibiting altered methylation patterns (ICEAMP), to isolate tumour-specific methylated GC-rich sequences. This will allow a comprehensive identification of methylation changes during tumourigenesis and will lead to a better understanding of the processes involved.


Genetic variation and population structure of the leaf-nosed bat Hipposideros speoris were estimated using 16S rRNA sequence and microsatellite analysis. Twenty seven distinct mitochondrial haplotypes were identified from 186 individuals, sampled from eleven populations. F ST test revealed significant variations between populations in the overall pairwise estimation (F ST = 0.710; p < 0.001). In addition, haplotype network and analysis of molecular variation analysis (AMOVA) consistently suggest the prevalence of genetic structure in the sampled populations. However, the mtDNA data was not significantly different in few closely located urban populations, but significant difference has been observed with the use of microsatellite data. The Bayesian clustering analysis identified eight clusters among the populations; the clustering pattern also corresponded to the haplotype networks. Overall, the present study suggests a "macrogeographic genetic isolation-by-distance" and possibility of gene flow among closely located populations. Key words : mtDNA, 16S rRNA, microsatellite, population structure, Hipposideros speoris.


OBJECTIVEHemispherotomy is currently the most frequently performed surgical option for refractory epilepsy associated with large perinatal or childhood ischemic events. Such an approach may lead to good seizure control, but it has inherent functional consequences linked to the disconnection of functional cortices. The authors report on 6 consecutive patients who presented with severe epilepsy associated with hemiplegia due to stroke and who benefitted from a new, stereoelectroencephalography-guided partial disconnection technique.METHODSThe authors developed a new disconnection technique termed "tailored suprainsular partial hemispherotomy" (TSIPH). Disconnection always included premotor and motor cortex with variable anterior and posterior extent.RESULTSAt a mean follow-up of 28 months, there were no deaths and no patient had hydrocephalus. Motor degradation was observed in all patients in the 2 weeks after surgery, but all patients completely recovered. The 6 patients were seizure free (Engel class IA) at the last follow-up. No neuropsychological aggravation was observed.CONCLUSIONSTSIPH appears to be a conservative alternative to classic hemispherotomy, leading to favorable outcome in this series.


In this paper, we have estimated the temperature dependent path predictability for an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The increment of path predictability can directly be associated with stronger decoherence process. We have also theoretically predicted that placing two detectors in both the paths, which are at the same equilibrium temperature with the system, erases all the memory of path information and hence acts like a quantum eraser.


Assessment of lymph node involvement is a key prognostic marker in early breast cancer. This paper demonstrates the ability of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to characterise the micro-architecture of healthy, non-cancerous lymph nodes. OCT is shown to differentiate stroma, cortex and adipose tissue. Characteristic patterns are also identified for germinal centres and blood vessels within the node. Results are correlated against a histopathological gold standard.


We present the second Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow catalog, greatly expanding on the first Swift UVOT GRB afterglow catalog. The second catalog is constructed from a database containing over 120,000 independent UVOT observations of 538 GRBs first detected by Swift, the High Energy Transient Explorer 2 (HETE2), the INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), the Interplanetary Network (IPN), Fermi, and Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini Leggero (AGILE). The catalog covers GRBs discovered from 2005 January 17 to 2010 December 25. Using photometric information in three UV bands, three optical bands, and a "white" or open filter, the data are optimally coadded to maximize the number of detections and normalized to one band to provide a detailed light curve. The catalog provides positional, temporal, and photometric information for each burst, as well as Swift Burst Alert Telescope and X-ray Telescope (XRT) GRB parameters. Temporal slopes are provided for each UVOT filter. The temporal slope per filter of almost half the GRBs are fit with a single power law, but one to three breaks are required in the remaining bursts. Morphological comparisons with the X-ray reveal that of the UVOT light curves are similar to one of the four morphologies identified by Evans et al. (2009). The remaining have a newly identified morphology. For many bursts, redshift- and extinction-corrected UV/optical spectral slopes are also provided at 2 × 103, 2 × 104, and 2 × 105 s.


The innate immune system of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes limits Plasmodium infection through multiple molecular mechanisms. For example, midgut invasion by the parasite triggers an epithelial nitration response that promotes activation of the complement-like system. We found that suppression of the JNK pathway, by silencing either Hep, JNK, Jun or Fos expression, greatly enhanced Plasmodium infection; while overactivating this cascade, by silencing the suppressor Puckered, had the opposite effect. The JNK pathway limits infection via two coordinated responses. It induces the expression of two enzymes (HPx2 and NOX5) that potentiate midgut epithelial nitration in response to Plasmodium infection and regulates expression of two key hemocyte-derived immune effectors (TEP1 and FBN9). Furthermore, the An. gambiae L3–5 strain that has been genetically selected to be refractory (R) to Plasmodium infection exhibits constitutive overexpression of genes from the JNK pathway, as well as midgut and hemocyte effector genes. Silencing experiments confirmed that this cascade mediates, to a large extent, the drastic parasite elimination phenotype characteristic of this mosquito strain. In sum, these studies revealed the JNK pathway as a key regulator of the ability of An. gambiae mosquitoes to limit Plasmodium infection and identified several effector genes mediating these responses.