The aim of the study was to analyse the effect of the housing system (tie-stall vs free-stall) on cow cleanliness, and the effect of the degree of cow dirtiness on the milk somatic cell count. Over 33% of the cows were found to be clean, with more of them in the free-stall barn. Analysis of the cleanliness of body parts showed that the highest hygiene level was characteristic of the udders and underbelly (scores of 1 for 47% and 56% of the cows, respectively). In the free-stall barn, there were over twice as many cows with clean udders (58%) and almost twice as few cows with very dirty udders. Regardless of the housing system, the degree of udder dirtiness created differences (P ≤ 0.01) in the natural log somatic cell count. The natural log somatic cell count increased from 11.54 to 12.37 on average with increased dirtiness of the udder. Greater differences in the cytological quality of milk were found in cows housed in the free-stall system. When analysing the effect of overall dirtiness of the cows and the body parts on the percentage of SCC classes, it was found that highest quality milk (< 200 000 somatic cells/ml) was produced by clean cows (71.52%). The proportion of cows with subclinical and clinical mastitis was found to increase with decreasing cleanliness of the udder, especially in the free-stall system. Overall, the proportion of cows with clinical mastitis increased from 2.51% (clean cows) to 14.29% (dirty cows). Bovines, body cleanliness, milk quality


The effectiveness of small doses of the selective immunosuppressive agent Cyclosporine HEXAL (2-2.5 mg/kg) was studied in 112 patients with early inflammatory reactions developing after various surgical reinterventions (cataract phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation after antiglaucoma surgery, repeated antiglaucoma, reconstructive operations, etc.). The drug was given as a short course for 5-10 days. As compared to the conventional treatment with corticosteroids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), Cyclosporine HEXAL exerted a rapider therapeutic effect, reducing the duration of exudate resolution and corneal edema and the length of hospital stay and improving functional outcomes. The drug was found to be well tolerated and induced adverse reactions in sporadic cases. Cyclosporine HEXAL may be recommended as the drug of choice in the treatment of the severest postoperative uveitis, particularly if there are contraindications to systemic and long-term use of corticosteroids and NSAID.


Decision-makers in the healthcare market, be they a healthcare consumer, provider, insurer or regulator, constantly interact and exchange information with each other. However, one party often holds a greater knowledge than the other. Hospitals expect that physicians will choose the most efficient treatment, whereas patients have to rely on medical decisions made by their physician. To equalise the information in the healthcare industry has long been seen as a way to improve market efficiency and performance. The aim of this collection of empirical studies is to study the decision-making behaviour of each agent and its consequences in the healthcare market.


PERSONAL AND COSMIC DIMENSIONS OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION IN JESUS CHRIST: DIALOGUE BETWEEN CHRISTOLOGY AND BUDDHA BODY THEORY IN SHIN BUDDHISM Yuichi Tsunoda, S.J. This work conducts a comparative study of the hypostatic union of Christ and the theory of the Buddha body in Shin Buddhism, focusing on the personal and cosmic dimensions of salvation in the two traditions. The goal of this approach is ultimately to gain new insights into Christ's hypostatic union and thereby elucidate the salvific dimensions of the union for the entire cosmos. Founded by Shinran (1173-1263) in Japan, Shin Buddhism is a branch of the Pure Land School of Mahayana Buddhism. Christianity and Shin Buddhism share certain core elements in terms of their faith in a personal divinity (God or Buddha), their soteriologies, and their theologies of grace. This study is located within the broader context of the dialogue between Shin Buddhism and Christianity in Japan. The dissertation is the first comparative research on the points of contact between the hypostatic union of Christ and the fulfilled Buddha body. Thus, it breaks new ground on the horizon of comparative research on these core elements of both religious traditions. Regarding methodology, the study employs the "fulfillment" model of interreligious dialogue proposed by Paul Knitter. This model recognizes the soteriological value of other religions and their capacity to enhance the Christian revelation itself through dialogue, while understanding Christ as the summit of God's saving revelation in history. Regarding structure and content, the study first elucidates the personal dimensions of the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ. Secondly, it considers the cosmic dimensions of the hypostatic union through an investigation of the cosmic dimensions of salvation. Thirdly, it explores the structure of the cosmic Buddha body of Amitabha Buddha and the Pure Land, which is realized by Dharmakara bodhisattva's fulfillment of his vow to save all sentient beings. Fourthly, it examines the structure of Dharmakara ~· individual subjectivity. Finally, the study elucidates new perspectives on the hypostatic union of Christ that emerge in the dialogue with the Buddha body theory in Shin Buddhism. In my conclusions, I will point to some concrete implications of this cosmic vision of interdependence for social and environmental praxis and pedagogy, as well as solidarity with those who suffer. These insights will bring a new appreciation of the hypostatic union not only for the individual, but for the entire cosmos, affirming the interdependence of all things within the cosmic web of life. Thomas Cattoi , Ph .D., Director


ABSTRACT High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is widely used as sweetener, and its overconsumption is become a major health problem. In the present study, we used adult female rats and applied a 28 days HFCS feeding model to monitor the estrous cycle and changes in tissue weights and histology. Adult female rats were divided into three groups. Animals were fed with ad libitum normal chow and (1) 24 hours tap water (Control group), (2) 12 hours HFCS access during dark period and 12 hours tap water (12H group), and (3) 24 hours HFCS only access (24H group). Total exposure period was 28 days. There is no significant change in body weight between control and HFCS-fed animals. Both absolute and relative weights of ovary in 24H animals were significantly heavier than those in control or 12H animals. The absolute and relative weights of the kidney and liver in 24H groups were significantly heavier than those in control or 12H animals. The estrous cycles of the 24H animals were significantly longer. Histological analyses revealed that 24H ovaries were relatively bigger and possessed more corpus lutea than control ovaries. Uterine sections of 12H and 24H animals showed a well-developed stratum vasculare between inner and outer myometrial layers. The number of endometrial glands were decreased in 12H uteri, and recovered in 24H uteri compared to control. Numbers of convoluted tubule in distal region increased in 12H and 24H kidney samples. Liver specimens of 12H and 24H showed the increased number of fat containing vacuoles. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that HFCS treatment for 28 days could induce (1) changes in length of estrous cycle with extended estrous and diestrous stages, (2) altered ovarian and uterine histology, and (3) liver and renal lipid accumulation. These findings reveal the adverse effects of HFCS drinking on the reproductive function and lipid metabolism of female rats.


BACKGROUND
Calprotection is a major cytosolic protein of monocytes, granulocytes, and epithelial cells. It is known that calprotectin is released in inflammatory tissues and detected in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) of periodontitis patients at high levels. The origin of calprotectin in GCF and its regulation in periodontal disease are unknown. In this study, we investigated the distribution of calprotectin in gingiva tissues with inflammation and the induction of calprotectin release from human monocytes by lipopolysaccharide of Porphyromonas gingivalis (P-LPS), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), or interleukin -1β(IL-1β) Methods: Gingival tissues were obtained from a healthy donor and a periodontitis patient and calprotectin in gingival tissues was examined by immunohistochemical staining. Monocytes were isolated from the peripheral blood of healthy donors and cultured with P-LPS, TNF-α for 30 minutes to 4 hours. The content of calprotectin in the cell and medium fractions was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) Results: Calprotectin was markedly detected at the epithelial and adjacent connective tissue with many inflammatory cells in the gingival tissue from the periodontitis patient. P-LPS increased calprotectin release from monocytes to the maximum level after 30 minutes of treatment and its level was elevated to about 2- to 3-fold of the control level in a dose-dependent manner (1 to 1,000 ng/ml). When the effect of TNF-α and IL-Iβ on calprotectin release was investigated, calprotectin release significantly increased to about 2.2- and 1.5-fold that of the control level, respectively.

CONCLUSION
These results demonstrate that calprotectin release from monocytes is induced by P-LPS, TNF-α, and IL-lβ, which in turn, cause and aggravate periodontal disease. J Periodontol 2003;74:1719-1724.


Study Design. Simulated discectomy was performed using 1) headlamp/loupes, 2) the operative microscope, or 3) neither; and bacterial shedding was assessed using air sampler/settle plate techniques. Objectives. To determine the potential contribution of these 2 commonly used systems of magnification/illumination to postoperative infection by using a controlled, experimental setting to limit confounding factors. Summary of Background Data. Postoperative infections following surgery on the degenerative lumbar spine generally range from 0.6% to 6%. Headlamp/loupes and the operative microscope may contribute to potential infection, but, to date, the contribution to shedding rates while using these tools has not been assessed. Methods. Seventy samples from simulated discectomies within the usual sterile operative setting were collected using a 2-stage air sampler/settle plate technique. Group 1 (30 samples) used the operative microscope, Group 2 (30 samples) used headlamp/loupes, and Group 3 (10 samples) used neither as a control. Collected samples were examined for bacterial growth using blood agar plates and were assessed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results. Greater than half of the collected samples in Groups 1 and 2 demonstrated bacterial growth with coagulase negative Staphylococcus being found in nearly all positive samples and secondary species being common. No statistical differences between the 2 groups were noted for number of samples with growth, species of bacterial growth, number with growth of secondary species, or colony counts. Both groups demonstrated significantly greater number of samples with growth relative to the control Group 3. Conclusions. The use of headlamp/loupes or the operative microscope is associated with bacterial shedding. Proper techniques of cleaning, storage, and draping should be used to minimize their contribution to potential postoperative infection. No significant difference was noted between the 2 test groups, suggesting that infection risk should not come into play when choosing techniques of illumination/magnification.


The authors prospectively studied the overall effect of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on hip fracture risk and the effect modification by behavioral habits and body mass index. A total of 6,159 postmenopausal women from the Copenhagen Center for Prospective Population Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark, with initial examination in 1976-1978 were followed until 1993. During follow-up 363 hip fractures were identified. Women who reported current use of HRT had a lower risk of hip fracture as compared with women who were nonusers (relative risk (RR) = 0.71; 95 percent confidence interval (CI): 0.50, 1.01). Use of HRT was associated with a lower risk of hip fracture in former (RR = 0.55; 95 percent CI: 0.22, 1.37) and current (RR = 0.61; 95 percent CI: 0.38, 0.99) smokers but not in never smokers (RR = 1.10; 95 percent CI: 0.60, 2.03). HRT was also associated with lower risk of hip fracture among alcohol drinkers (RR = 0.36; 95 percent CI: 0.14, 0.90) and among sedentary women (RR = 0.42; 95 percent CI: 0.18, 0.98) but not among nondrinkers (RR = 0.99; 95 percent CI: 0.61, 1.61) and physically active women (RR = 0.92; 95 percent CI: 0.42, 2.04). There was no evidence of interaction between use of HRT and body mass index. In conclusion, the protective effect of HRT on hip fracture appears to be strongest in women who ever smoked, in women who drink alcohol, and in women who are sedentary. The results suggest that history of behavioral habits offers important information concerning the probable degree of protection against hip fracture afforded by HRT.


Cod larvae from laboratory rearing experiments aged from 1 to 12 d after hatching, both fed and deprived of food, were analysed. The number of increments on the otolith and the width of these increments were determined together with the RNA/DNA ratios on the same individual larva. Alizarin marking of the otoliths was performed to confirm the formation of daily increments. Cod larvae reared at 6*C formed the first ring right after hatching and deposited increments on a daily basis. A comparison of the measurements between the right and the left lapillus showed that these can differ, if the radius is taken. The lapillae core showed especially high individual variability, whereas the sum of the increments did not differ between both lapilli. Until Day 10 after hatching, while the larvae were still feeding on their yolk, the external food situation did not affect the increment width of the lapilli or the RNA/DNA ratios. In larvae older than 10 d the width of the daily increments was dependent on the nutritional situation and RNA/DNA ratios decreased in starving larvae in comparison to feeding larvae. RNA/DNA ratios and increment widths were correlated.


The Surface Ocean CO2 NETwork (SOCONET) and atmospheric Marine Boundary Layer (MBL) CO2 measurements from ships and buoys focus on the operational aspects of measurements of CO2 in both the ocean surface and atmospheric MBLs. The goal is to provide accurate pCO2 data to within 2 micro atmosphere (μatm) for surface ocean and 0.2 parts per million (ppm) for MBL measurements following rigorous best practices, calibration and intercomparison procedures. Platforms and data will be tracked in near real-time and final quality-controlled data will be provided to the community within a year. The network, involving partners worldwide, will aid in production of important products such as maps of monthly resolved surface ocean CO2 and air-sea CO2 flux measurements. These products and other derivatives using surface ocean and MBL CO2 data, such as surface ocean pH maps and MBL CO2 maps, will be of high value for policy assessments and socio-economic decisions regarding the role of the ocean in sequestering anthropogenic CO2 and how this uptake is impacting ocean health by ocean acidification. SOCONET has an open ocean emphasis but will work with regional (coastal) networks. It will liaise with intergovernmental science organizations such as Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW), and the joint committee for and ocean and marine meteorology (JCOMM). Here we describe the details of this emerging network and its proposed operations and practices.


SUMMARY: Conditions for haemolysis by Bacterium coli have been investigated. The haemolytic factor is specific to haemolytic strains only, has not at present been separated from living bacterial cells, is associated with the logarithmic phase of growth, and requires for its action the presence of calcium ions.


This communication describes an area of research into coordination of the collective activity in the building construction stage. The theoretical approach tries to identify coordination mechanisms existing during building construction. We suggest hypotheses on assistance methods to develop taking into account the cooperative specificities of AEC projects. The methodology of tool development is centered on a modeldriven approach (MDE). In this perspective we describe the theoretical framework of MDE and similar works of collective activity modeling. Then we present two coordination assistance tools under development. This description follows the scheme: 1) position regarding coordination-specific activities, 2) design and modeluse for software development, 3) functionalities of the tool and 4) validation perspectives.


Poison frogs have the ability to sequester and store alkaloids in their skin as a mechanism of defense against predation. Alkaloids in poison frogs are obtained exclusively from the consumption of alkaloid-containing arthropods. As a result, changes in the environment can potentially harm Oophaga pumilio by altering their source of chemical defense. To date, only two conflicting studies have examined the effects of habitat disturbance on poison frogs chemical defenses. In the present study the effects of habitat disturbance on populations of O. pumilio from Colon and Solarte Islands, Bocas del Toro archipelago in Panama is examined. In addition, an indirect evaluation of the effects of habitat disturbance on arthropod diversity is done. The results of this study suggest that frogs from undisturbed habitats have a higher number and amount of alkaloids than frogs from a disturbed habitats. A comparison between O. pumilio alkaloid profiles from Colon Island and Solarte Island, revealed that frogs from Solarte Island are less toxic than frogs from Colon Island. Overall, Solarte Island had a lower amount and number of alkaloids than Colon Island. This study is another example of the tremendous alkaloid variability within frogs from the same population and between frogs from different populations. Herein, it is shown that the number of mite derived alkaloids increased, while the number of ant derived alkaloids decreased in disturbed sites; suggesting that habitat disturbance changes the composition of alkaloid-containing arthropods and therefore alters O. pumilio chemical defense.


Fe2O3 nano-particles coated with SiO2 are synthesized using H2/O2 co-axial diffusion flame with the state-of-the-art electro-spraying (e-spray) technique at atmospheric condition. Fe(CO)5 and TEOS (tetra-ethyl-ortho-silicate) mixture in liquid phase is injected directly into the center of the flame using the electro-spraying method. The synthesized particle characteristics are analyzed with HRTEM, XRD, SQUID. The core (iron oxide)-shell(silica) structured spherical particles are obtained. Most of the particles synthesized are magemite() regardless of the particles sampling positions inside the flame.


This paper captures our co-learning, two science teacher educators, about indigenizing a science methods course in Canada. A self-study was conducted in the context of a pilot bachelor of education program (IBED) for a group of Indigenous students, to engage ourselves in reflective conversations about transforming the curriculum of a science methods course and making it culturally relevant for pre-service science teachers. The purpose was to determine our tacit and personal knowledge, as it contributes to our understanding of inclusive science education practices. In particular, we focused our conversations on written reflection about the perceived effectiveness of pedagogies used by Saiqa, the first author, who was the course instructor. Karen, the second author and critical friend, carefully examined these reflective narratives and provided comments, which were then considered in the context of other course materials, to initiate an ongoing dialogue about culturally relevant teaching (CRT) as it relates to science teacher education. The findings are framed using an art- based concept, a circle, to present our co-learning journey. This allowed us to connect our personal histories to our role as inclusive science teacher educators in the present, and to consider our future aspirations to indigenize our science methods courses.


Effect of stage of the estrous cycle at the time of prostaglandin F(2alpha) (PGF(2alpha)) injection on subsequent reproductive events in beef females was studied in four trials involving 194 animals. Cycling animals were given two injections of 25 mg PGF(2alpha) 11 days apart or, in some cases, the interval was altered to allow the second injection to fall on a specific day of the cycle. Day of estrous cycle at time of the second injection was determined by estrous detection. Interval from the second PGF(2alpha) injection to the onset of estrus (interval to estrus) was shorter (P<.01) in heifers than in cows. Both cows and heifers injected on days 5 to 9 (early cycle) had a shorter (P<.01) interval to estrus (estrus = day 0) than did those injected on days 10 to 15 (late cycle). Conception rate was lower (P<.05) for early-cycle heifers than for late-cycle heifers inseminated by appointment at 80 hours. There was no significant difference in conception rate of early-or late-cycle heifers or cows inseminated according to estrous detection or early- or late-cycle cows inseminated at 80 hours. Progesterone concentrations in blood samples collected in heifers at 4-hour intervals after the second PGF(2alpha) injection on either day 7 or day 14 declined linearly (P<.05) through 36 hours. Day of the estrous cycle at PGF(2alpha) injection had no effect on rate of progesterone decline, even though heifers injected on day 7 had a shorter (P<.05) interval to estrus. All animals whose cycle length was not affected by the second PGF(2alpha) injection were treated on days 5 through 8 of the cycle, indicating that PGF(2alpha) was less effective in regressing the corpus luteum between days 4 and 9 of the cycle than later in the cycle.


BACKGROUND
New diagnostic tools have been developed to improve the diagnosis of infectious encephalitis. Using a prospective cohort of encephalitis patients, our objective was to identify possible clusters of patients with similar patterns among encephalitis of unknown cause, and to describe to what extent the patient's initial presentation may be predictive of encephalitis etiology, particularly Herpes simplex virus (HSV) and Varicella-zona virus (VZV).

METHODS
The national cohort of infectious encephalitis in France (ENCEIF) is an ongoing prospective cohort study implemented in France in 2016. Patients presenting with a documented or suspected acute infectious encephalitis were included. Focusing on the variables describing the initial presentation, we performed a factor analysis of mixed data (FAMD) to investigate a pattern of association between the initial presentation of the patient and the etiologic pathogen.

RESULTS
As of 1st August 2018, data from 349 patients were analysed. The most frequent pathogens were HSV (25%), VZV (11%), Tick-borne encephalitis virus (6%), Listeria (5%), Influenza virus (3%), and encephalitis of unknown cause (EUC) (34%). Using the FAMD, it was not possible to identify a specific pattern related to the group of EUC. Age, temporal or haemorrhagic lesions, and cerebral spinal fluid lymphocytosis were significantly associated with HSV/VZV encephalitis.

CONCLUSION
No initial clinical/imaging/biology pattern was identified at admission among EUC, despite the improvement of diagnostic tools. In this context, the recommendation for a universal, early probabilistic initial treatment against HSV and VZV is still relevant, regardless of the initial clinical presentation of the encephalitis.


Five intense 12 GHz methanol masers with structured profile have been monitored during the period 90 Nov.-92 Apr., in order to study the variability on time scales ranging from one week to about 2 years. The integrated flux density of W3(OH), G188.94 +0.89, NGC 7538 remains constant (within the measurement uncertainties) during our period of observation. By amplitude normalization and removal of instrumental velocity shifts, we could investigate variations of flux density as small as a few per cent. For W3(OH) and G188.94+0.89, we find that the flux density varies up to a maximum of 8% over 1.5 years; for NGC 7538, we obtain an upper limit of 10% over 1.5 years. The integrated flux density of the remaining two sources, Cep A and W48, varies up to a factor of 2-3 and both show an intensity increase which varies with velocity. We could study the dependence of the intensity variation on the velocity with a precision limited only by the noise. We interpret the small time variability presented by the first three sources as due to proper motions of the maser spots. To explain the velocity dependence of the intensity variation of the two more variable sources, we suggest, for Cep A, the presence of still unsaturated emission components and, for W48, an edge-on disk configuration.


: In order to determine the risk of bacteraemia from ERCP, we cultured blood specimens from 83 patients before, during and 15 min, 1, 6, 12 and 24 hours after the examination as well as in the subsequent week whenever fever occurred. No bacteraemia was found in the 20 patients who had duodenoscopy only, i.e. in whom ERCP failed. Of the 20 patients with normal biliary and/or pancreatic ducts positive culture was obtained in one patient in whom inadvertent multiple injections of contrast material into the pancreatic duct had resulted in the occurrence of a pyelogram. Four positive cultures were found amongst the 43 patients in whom an obstructive pathology in the biliary or pancreatic system was present. These data support the need of on antibiotic prophylaxis for patients with valvular heart defects.


Guidelines regarding non-resuscitation decisions sometimes raise conceptual and ethical questions. Establishing blood circulation and gas exchange is no useful criterium to determine the efficacy of resuscitation. A professional assessment of efficacy or medical futility of resuscitation may involve value judgements. These value judgements should not concern the life of the individual patient, but rather the objective of resuscitation in general. Furthermore, these judgements ought to be grounded on professional consensus. A patient should be informed of a non-resuscitation decision that has been taken, since in the normal course of events resuscitation is the correct treatment. Furthermore, a conversation serves not only to obtain informed consent but also to align the views and expectations of the patient and his treating physician. Suspension of a non-resuscitation policy during operations should be discussed with the patient. A physician is allowed to define the limits to the risks to which he wants to expose the patient.


The voltage at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC) in a weak network is very sensitive to load changes.A sudden change in active load will cause both a phase jump and a magnitude fluctuation in the bus voltage,whereas reactive load changes mainly affect the voltage magnitude.With the addition of energy storage to a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM), it is possible to compensate for the active power change as well as providing reactive power support. A STATCOM can be employed to maintain the bus voltage level with the integration of energy storage to the STATCOM. This paper studies the control strategy for a STATCOM with energy storage for compensation of a cyclic load. Simulation studies are carried out inthe Matlab/Simulink environment to examine the performance ofthe load with and without the STATCOM.


What significance, if any, should state courts assign to the Supreme Court's unanimous 2014 decision in Burrage v. United States? In Burrage, the Supreme Court relied on "ordinary meaning" and "traditional understanding" in concluding that causation elements in federal criminal statutes nearly always require so-called "but-for" causation. State courts, by contrast, traditionally have applied two important modifications to the but-for test: (1) an acceleration rule, which assigns liability to defendants who hasten "even by a moment" the coming-to-fruition of the proscribed harm; and (2) a contribution rule, which assigns liability to defendants who "contribute" incrementally to the underlying causal mechanism. This paper defends the state courts' approach. It argues that the acceleration rule and the contribution rule both are necessary to address cases where the but-for test fails to capture ordinary usage. Specifically, these supplementary rules are necessary to address cases of spurious, or preempted, causal sufficiency and cases of causal overdetermination.


We report on the experimental and numerical studies of the chaotic dynamics of a soliton fiber ring laser passively mode-locked by using the nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) technique. Period-doubling route to chaos on the soliton repetition rate of either the single pulse soliton or the bound solitons of the laser was experimentally observed. Based on a coupled complex Ginzburg-Landau equation model and also taking into account the laser cavity effect, we further show numerically that the period-doubling bifurcations and route to chaos are intrinsic properties of the laser, whose appearance is independent of the details of the laser cavity design and the laser soliton operation. Property of the solitons under the dynamical bifurcations is also numerically investigated.


Uterine remodeling during pregnancy and repair postpartum are fundamental to the successful propagation of eutherian species. The most drastic remodeling occurs in species with invasively implanting embryos, including humans and mice. During embryo implantation, embryonic trophoblasts breach the epithelium, penetrating into the stroma. Stromal cell decidualization, which is critical for the establishment and maintenance of early pregnancy, occurs throughout the implantation site. Trophoblasts further invade into and remodel uterine spiral arteries, which is necessary for placental formation. The uterus increases in size up to 24-fold, which is largely attributed to myometrial expansion. Uterine changes that occur during pregnancy must then be resolved postpartum. Following parturition, the uterus repairs the remodeled tissue in the process of uterine involution. During involution, the majority of the endometrium is regenerated to replace the tissue that is shed postpartum. The myometrium contracts to the pre-gravid state which is thought to occur through apoptosis and autophagy of smooth muscle cells. Although we understand the general process of postpartum uterine involution, the detailed mechanisms, particularly the role of putative stem cells, are poorly understood. This review discusses the evidence for the existence of epithelial, stromal and myometrial stem cells and their role in uterine involution. Gaps in knowledge and areas for future research are also considered. Studies of both postpartum and menstrual uterine repair, which likely involve similar mechanisms, are described under the broad definition of uterine involution. Although the primary focus of this review is human, mouse models are discussed to provide additional information.


With the enhancement of environmental protection consciousness, people pay increasingly attention to sustainable design all over the world recent years. Sustainable design is still in the early stage in China. Applying it in commercial operation is more helpful to promote sustainability in society. According to the survey, young people have strong environmental awareness relatively. There're already many corporations have used sustainable idea in design for youth products successfully. This paper presents that sustainable design need to consider fully about the relationship among people, environment and economic. In accordance with the demands of youth to take different methods of sustainable design flexibly will benefit both to environment and human being.


Generally security problems deals with the hard AI problems related to security as emerging paradigm which has been unexplored. Captcha is a technology which presents security primitives for mathematical problems. Carp addresses the security problems which are based on the online attacks, attacks made as relay and surfing attacks. In CaRP password is only searched by best online guessing attacks which can be available in password sets. Captcha technology, which we can describe as Captcha which can be represented as graphical passwords. CaRP is defined as both Captcha and a password as a graphical scheme. CaRP also delivers the idea such as Pass Point, which often describes the weak passwords. CaRP is not a method but it offers reasonable security and usability thus appears to fit well with some practical applications for improving the problems related to online security.


One of the external fields that influences the population of globular clusters is that resulting from galactic bulges. In extreme situations, at perigalactic distances rp≤ 100 pc, globular clusters could suffer total disruption in a single passage. A more common scenario is that for cluster orbits with rp≥ 200 pc. We investigate the effects of tidal forces from a bulge on the shape of globular clusters for this type of encounter. We find distortions characterized by `twisting isophotes' and consider the potential for observability of this effect. In the Milky Way, a typical globular cluster must pass within several hundred pc of the centre to experience substantial distortion, and it is possible that this has happened recently to one or two present-day clusters. We estimate that this distortion could be observed even for globulars in dense fields towards the bulge. In more extreme environments such as giant ellipticals or merger products with newly formed globulars, this effect could be more common, extending out to orbits that pass within 1 kpc of the bulge centre. This would lead to a substantial shift in the eccentricity distribution of globulars in those galaxies.


The direct method was applied to characterize the fracture behavior of a structural adhesive obtaining the cohesive law for Mode I. Additionally, the effect of the substrate material in the results was analyzed. The Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) tests were applied to achieve the fracture toughness in Mode I and the J-integral approach was used to measure the critical energy release rate, JIc . The results were then compared and validated using the Compliance Based Beam Method (CBBM). By differentiation of the J-integral values with respect to the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD), the cohesive law was obtained. Moreover, a numerical validation was performed, by comparing the load-displacement experimental results with the numerical data obtained with the Abaqus software.
Furthermore, Digital Image Correlation (DIC) analysis was applied resorting to a Python script aiming to optimize the process.
The obtained results indicate that the material substrate does not influence the value of the fracture toughness but could positively influence the precision of the obtained cohesive law. Moreover, it was observed that the direct method could predict the fracture behavior of the epoxy adhesive.


Myocarditis and pericarditis are rare adverse reactions, more commonly seen in young males after receiving the second dose of an mRNA vaccine. However, the benefits of vaccination heavily outweigh the risk of these side effects. In addition, vaccination boosters are effective against the newest, more infective variants. Therefore we expect more vaccines to be administered in the following years. The objective of this study is to review the current understanding of the mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment of myocarditis and pericarditis. Proposed mechanisms include molecular mimicry against the S protein and hypersensitivity reactions with mRNA vaccines and platelet aggregation and thrombus formation in cardiac blood vessels with adenoviral vaccines. Diagnosis of myocarditis is based on clinical findings, cardiac enzymes, ECG, MRI, and echocardiographic findings. Management includes NSAIDs and cardiovascular support in selected cases with ventricular dysfunction. Most patients have a mild presentation with preservation of cardiac function and recover entirely within seven days; the average hospital stay is three days. Long-term complications are infrequent.


The existing literature has started to analyse why the policy co-ordination ambitions that permeated the 2001 White Paper on governance have not been realized. However, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to exploring the administrative demands that these ambitions impose on different policy actors. This article opens up this research area by focusing on more ambitious policy objectives and their associated network-based modes of governance. The empirical part examines three public administration systems in the EU to assess how well they have responded to these demands. Although often downplayed by those advocating network-based modes of governance, this paper reveals that the administrative demands they pose are much greater than is commonly supposed. Some actors (e.g. the Commission and the UK) have upgraded their administrative co-ordinating capacities, whereas others (e.g. the Netherlands) have moved in a perverse direction. It is concluded that the EU needs to take administrative capacity building much more seriously in order to govern in a less hierarchical manner.


Information-theoretic measures for quantifying multivariate statistical dependence have proven useful for the study of the unity and diversity of the human brain. Two such measures–integration, I(X), and interaction complexity, CI(X)–have been previously applied to electroencephalographic (EEG) signals recorded during ongoing wakeful brain states. Here, I(X) and CI(X) were computed for empirical and simulated visually-elicited alpha-range (8–13 Hz) EEG signals. Integration and complexity of evoked (stimulus-locked) and induced (non-stimulus-locked) EEG responses were assessed using nonparametric k-th nearest neighbor (KNN) entropy estimation, which is robust to the nonstationarity of stimulus-elicited EEG signals. KNN-based I(X) and CI(X) were also computed for the alpha-range EEG of ongoing wakeful brain states. I(X) and CI(X) patterns differentiated between induced and evoked EEG signals and replicated previous wakeful EEG findings obtained using Gaussian-based entropy estimators. Absolute levels of I(X) and CI(X) were related to absolute levels of alpha-range EEG power and phase synchronization, but stimulus-related changes in the information-theoretic and other EEG properties were independent. These findings support the hypothesis that visual perception and ongoing wakeful mental states emerge from complex, dynamical interaction among segregated and integrated brain networks operating near an optimal balance between order and disorder.


Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox are always trying to outwit each other. But when Fox catches Rabbit in a trap, Fox soon discovers that he's not quite as cunning as he thinks...This key series was developed in conjunction with reading expert Allison Kelly from the University of Surrey. Every title has clear and compelling text that allows children to build their burgeoning reading skills and is accompanied by charming and highly appealing illustrations. It is a new title in the fantastic "First Reading" series, aimed at children who are beginning to read.


This thesis studies various measures of noncompactness and some geometrical coefficients in metric or Bauach spaces. These geometrical numbers are useful in the study of measures of noncompactness, some of which are interesting quantities in fixed point theory, In Chapter 1, we give some definitions and km.= au results for convenience and later use. Some of these results have been obtained very recently. In Chapter 2, we study a very useful geometrical coefficient in fixed point theory - the Lifschitz characteristic, which is also useful in the study of measures of noncompactness. We will compare this number with other interesting geometrical numbers, and estimate its values in certain spaces. Also some fixed point theorems which employ this quantity are given. This chapter contains the work of [WebZ-1] and part of the work of [WebZ-2]. In Chapter 3, the notion of normal structure and several normal structure coefficients in Banach space are studied. The notion of normal structure has proved to be a very useful one and various types of normal structure coefficients, such as N(X), WCS(X) and D(X), have been well studied in recent years. We will give several equivalent definitions of normal structure. Via these new characterizations of normal structure, some other normal structure coefficients are defined. We connect these geometrical numbers with N(X), WCS(X) and D(X), and use them to relate various measures of noncompactness. This chapter contains part of the work of [Z-2]. In Chapter 4, we give various connections between the set measure of noncompactness alpha(O), the ball measure of noncompactness beta(O) and the separation measure of noncompactness delta(O). In Chapter 5, we study alpha(T) and beta(T) when T is a linear operator. We relate beta(T) and beta(T*) by using a geometrical number.


Purpose
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is an umbrella term for a range of conditions that may occur in an individual whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. There has been little research into the experience of birth mothers of children with FASD and no published work of this kind in the UK. This is in contrast to a number of studies that have been conducted on foster/adoptive parents. In light of the recent publication in the UK of a mixed methods study on adoptive carers, it is timely to conduct research on birth mothers in the UK. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of birth mothers following a diagnosis of FASD in their children.

Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive phenomenological analytical approach was used to generate themes from individual semi-structured interviews of five women who are birth mothers of children with FASD.

Findings
Four superordinate main themes and various subthemes were identified. To blame or not to blame captures the tension the mothers experience when considering the cause of their child's condition. Life is a series of battles which describes the struggles the women experience on a crusade with a renewed sense of purpose that captures the process of transformation that occurs, which helps describe the internal and external factors that help the mothers cope.

Originality/value
FASD is often described in the literature as being completely preventable with the implication that it is the mother's fault because they drank alcohol during pregnancy. However, a statement like this fails to portray the complexities of the phenomenon of women drinking during pregnancy. Life is difficult for the women for a number of different reasons, yet a sense of hope is present. The mothers have a renewed sense of purpose to do the best they can for their child and to raise awareness of FASD. Understanding their experiences can help service providers better meet the needs of parents and children affected by FASD.


ASELSAN Inc. has been working on electromagnetic launch technologies since 2014. The first prototype, EMFY-1, has a 25 mm × 25 mm square bore and 3-m-length rails. The second prototype, EMFY-2, has a 50 × 50 mm square bore and 3-m-length. In this paper, a recently developed prototype, EMFY-3, is presented, which has a 50 × 75 mm rectangular bore and 6-m-length. The input energy of the PPS is doubled to 8 MJ, and the 2.91 MJ muzzle energy is obtained up to now. Rail currents, breech, and muzzle voltages are measured to investigate electromagnetic calculations. Velocity curves are captured with Doppler radar, which enables us to establish propulsive inductance gradient L0pr transients empirically. The results confirm that L0 pr is constant throughout the launch, as no significant breaking mechanism occurs with the non-magnetic containment. However, a slight variation (%2 at maximum) happens from one launch to another with different rails' current magnitudes. The transition phenomenon is a candidate for the drop in the L0 pr, as it occurs more likely at launches with higher linear current densities.


Since the advent of human beings, they have probably suffered from food scarcity at various times or other as a result of a number of factors, including seasonal non-availability of food, failure of crops, and lack of game or domesticated animals. During those times, it appears to be the universal practice for humans to resort to consuming non-conventional foods, most of which are plant derived. This is more so in modern times, when the human race as a whole has become dependent on a few species of plants to serve as their staple diet. Any crop failure due to adverse weather or soil conditions lead to large-scale non-availability of food, which in its severest form is known as famine. In addition, a huge segment of the world population suffers from poverty and thus is unable to procure enough food to satisfy their hunger and nutritional requirements. This is the case also for Bangladesh where even at present, surveys indicates that around 32% of the population have incomes below the poverty level of US$ 1 per day. Additionally, the northern districts of Bangladesh suffer from a seasonal famine known as Monga during two periods every year. During these periods, the population, particularly the poorest sections of the population rely on various edible non-conventional plants to serve as their nutritional sources. We hypothesize that this choice of plants to be consumed during times of food scarcity has been a result of trial and error not only on the nutritional values of the plants, but also on their medicinal values. Diseases in a multitude of forms are present in the human population, and most of these diseases are exacerbated during malnutrition, which is a consequence of eating a less nutritional, or low amounts of diet, a phenomenon particularly present during times of food scarcity. Thus, the best choice of non-conventional plants consumed during times of food scarcity would be plants that not only serve to mitigate hunger and provide nutritional requirements, but also provide preventive as well as curative means to avoid various diseases arising out from malnutrition. To check this hypothesis, a survey was conducted among two village populations of Kurigram district in northern Bangladesh - an area prone to Monga. The non-edible conventional plant items consumed during Monga has been presented in an accompanying paper. The present study indicates that of the various plants consumed during Monga, 80% of the plants are considered to have medicinal values by the folk medicinal practitioners of Bangladesh. Moreover, the medicinal properties of most of the plants included curative properties against gastrointestinal disorders, physical weaknesses, energy deficiencies, anemia, and other disorders, which are most likely to arise from malnutrition. The results obtained in the present study validate our hypothesis that non-conventional plants eaten during times of food scarcity possess both nutritive as well as medicinal values, the latter being particularly effective against disorders arising from malnutrition.


At least 12 foreign ships are being held hostage in the waters off Eyl in the Nugal region, 300 nautical miles south of Africa's Horn, including a Ukrainian vessel, the MV Faina, loaded with 33 tanks and ammunition that was hijacked in September. The captured ships are being closely watched by hundreds of pirates aboard boats equipped with satellite phones and GPS devices. Hundreds mo re gunmen provide back-up on shore, where they incessantly chew the narcotic leaf 'qat' and dream of sharing in the huge ransoms that can run into millions of dollars. (Source: The Age) The above article is but one of many in the press in recent times reflecting how present day pirates operate. Pirates are still ruling the high seas, but historically what triggered their choice of lifestyle and why are they still active in the 21st century? Could actions in the past have eradicated the pirate industry a long time ago or is it just part of natural evolution?


Recent agronomic and soil science research draws attention to the importance of continuous conservation tillage (CCT), as many environmental benefits of this conservation tillage are realized only when it is used continuously over a period of years. However, little is known about the dynamics of farmers' tillage choices. To address the need for quantitative estimates of time patterns of tillage practices and the factors that affect the use of CCT, the paper to be presented develops and estimates a dynamic model of bundled tillage-crop choices for the state of Iowa. We develop a first-order, four-state Markov chain model of tillage-crop dynamics for corn and soybean production systems. We assume that matrixes of transition from one tillage-crop state to another could vary by county but remain stationary from 1992 to 1997, and use quadratic programming to estimate the transition matrix for each of the 99 counties in the state using county-average, year–and crop–specific tillage data from Conservation Technology Information Center for 1992-1997. Analysis of Variance of the estimated county-specific transition matrixes shows that CCT occurs more often on Highly Erodible Land (HEL) when compared to other cropland. Also, the county-average probabilities of rotational conservation tillage (RCT), i.e., the farming systems in which CT is rotated with conventional tillage systems, are higher in the counties that have higher proportion of HEL. In addition, we identified a significant effect of crop rotations on tillage dynamics: the cropland under corn monoculture is less likely to be in RCT when compared to land in corn-soybean rotation. The results of the study indicate that both natural conditions (soil erodibility) and other economic choices (crop rotations) affect farmers' choices of CCT and RCT in Iowa.


BACKGROUND
In Norway over the last decade, we have seen an increase in disability claims based on occupational injury. Though much is known about the injury events, so far there have been few Norwegian studies of the relationship between work-related injuries and their somatic and functional consequences.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Over the period 1994 - 2002, 503 individuals who had filed claims for work-related musculoskeletal injuries were examined with special emphasis on the clinical consequences of the injury. The median interval between accident and examination was three years. Injury severity was scored using the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS).

RESULTS
Falls were the most frequent type of accident; contusions, sprains and strains the most frequent injuries sustained. Many accidents were poorly documented. 16 % of the injuries were found to exceed an AIS score of 1. 30 % were working full time, while around two thirds were receiving incapacity benefits. There was no association between disability and AIS score.

INTERPRETATION
In spite of the low overall level of injury severity, there was a high rate of disability subsequent to the accidents. Our results seem to indicate that injury severity is only one of several factors related to outcome after work-related injuries.


Cancer is an extremely complicated disease and still presents enormous challenges in the medical world. In
recent decades, doctors and researchers were able to find some potential compounds that may be able to treat
cancer, but due to the difficulties commercialization poses like mass production, high cost of clinical trials
and expensive formulation, not many of these compounds have reached the market. Currently, the search for
anticancer compounds has garner a lot of interest, especially in finding them from the natural sources. In this
study, compounds, supposedly peptides, extracted from cheap, easily maintained Supermeal worm (Zophobas
morio) using two types of acidified organic solvent, ethanol and isopropanol, were shown to inhibit the growth
of MCF-7, a breast cancer cell line. A comparative study of the effects were carried out on Vero cell, a normal
cell line. Results showed that, the two type of extracts inhibits growth of MCF-7 cell at varying degrees, but
on the other hands, have much less effect on Vero cell. Extracts, identified using Raman Spectroscopy shows
peaks at 1349 cm-1
, 944 cm-1
and 841 cm-1
indicating the presence of Tyr, Try and Gly. In addition, UV-vis
analysis showed peaks in the range of 260 to 280 nm, inferring the presence of Tyr and Try, whereas the
highest peak, 3.608 at 230 nm indicates the presence of peptide bond. All the results of analyses implied that
the anticancer compounds contain peptides


In this study, the authors address a mobile web agent framework based on stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) to overcome the deficiencies, which the typical mobile web agent framework based on transmission control protocol (TCP) suffers from, such as performance degradation, head-of-line blocking and unsupported mobility in mobile wireless environment. The proposed SCTP-based mobile web agent framework supports seamless transport layer mobility in a ubiquitous environment. It consists of an application engine and a transport engine, to use the hypertext transfer protocol and to deploy SCTP with dynamic address reconfiguration, respectively. The authors explore and describe the components necessary to implement the proposed mobile web agent framework in an ubiquitous environment. The performance of the proposed SCTP-based mobile web agent is compared with that of a typical TCP-based mobile web agent using ns-2 simulator. The simulation results show that the proposed web agent based on SCTP has a remarkably lower mean response time than a typical web agent based on TCP.


Between August 2004 and January 2006 Oxford
Archaeology undertook a programme of archaeolo-
gical excavation and watching brief in advance of
construction of sheltered apartments on a site
formerly occupied by a disused service station at
120–122 London Road, Gloucester (NGR SO 843
189). These investigations, commissioned by CgMs
Consulting on behalf of McCarthy and Stone
(Developments) Ltd, recorded burials forming part
of the Wotton Roman cemetery, including a rare
mass grave, along with an assemblage of Pleistocene
vertebrate remains (detailed in Appendix 6).
The part of the Roman cemetery within the area of
the excavation comprised the remains of at least ten
individuals recovered from nine cremation burials
and 64 inhumation graves. The cemetery was estab-
lished during the Neronian period as the burial
ground for the fortress at nearby Kingsholm, and
subsequently became one of the main cemeteries of
the colonia that was established at Gloucester follow-
ing the departure of the military. Four crouched
burials dating from the late 1st–early 2nd century are
interpreted as being the remains of members of the
native population who had integrated into the com-
munity at the colonia. Inhumation superseded crema-
tion as the dominant funerary rite during the 2nd
century, after which no further cremation burials
were made. The cemetery continued to be used until
some time in the 4th century. The evidence for funerary rites is described and
the possible beliefs informing them considered. The
demographic make-up of the population and evi-
dence for status based on age and sex have also been
examined. Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis
demonstrated that the population had a range of
origins, deriving both from the local area and also
from elsewhere in the province of Britannia, as well
as a small group probably from the Mediterranean
area and two individuals from another, unidentified
non-UK source.
The mass grave contained the remains of at least
91 individuals, thrown haphazardly into a pit during
the second half of the 2nd century AD. The bodies
showed no evidence of violence and are believed to
have been the victims of an epidemic. It is tentatively
suggested that this may have been the Antonine
Plague, an outbreak of smallpox that swept across
the Roman Empire between AD 165 and 189.
After the disuse of the cemetery at the end of the
Roman period the site appears to have been
abandoned, with no further activity being recorded
until the area was cultivated during the 11th–15th
centuries. Boundary ditches were dug across the site
during the 16th–17th centuries, most likely asso-
ciated with the rebuilding of the adjacent hospital
of St Mary Magdalen at this time. These features
remained open until they were levelled when the
area was developed during the 19th century.


The statins have emerged as the dominant class of drug for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia. These medications are generally well tolerated. However, myalgias, the most frequent side-effect, occur in up to 7% of patients. Transaminitis and skeletal myotoxicity, with elevated serum creatine kinase (CK) levels (i.e., >10 times the upper limit of normal), occur with reported frequencies of 1% and 0.1%, respectively. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain the relationship between statin therapy and the spectrum of muscle dysfunction manifested by myalgia, myopathy, and rhabdomyolysis. Statin-mediatd inhibition of mevalonate metabolism impairs the synthesis of isoprenylated products–the most notable of which is ubiquinone. However, isoprenylation is responsible for the post-translational modification of up to 2% of cellular proteins. Therefore, numerous metabolic pathways are potentially modified by statin-mediated hypoprenylation. Subclinical defects in one or more energy-deriving pathways may be unmasked upon exposure to the pleotropic effects of statins. Such pharmacogenomic synergism may underlie the development of "statin myopathy" in a subset of patients. In this regard, we describe four patients with mutations in the myophosphorylase (PYGM; MIM 232600), myoadenylate deaminase (AMPD1; MIM 102770), and carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT2; MIM 600650) genes whose diagnoses became apparent during the course of investigations for statin-induced myalgias and hyperCKemia.


An oxygen injector system (Harwill Medical, South Africa) was tested for ventilating intubated patients. There were 21 adults and 25 children. The system incorporates a variable pressure reducing value and a right-angled end connection with a 14 gauge oxygen exit nozzle and a 12 mm side port to atmosphere. Intravenous propofol was used to maintain anaesthesia, while the patients underwent alternate 10-minute periods of ventilation with the oxygen injector or an Ohmedia 7000 ventilator. Tidal volumes (ml/kg) achieved by mechanical ventilation were 8.06 +/- 1.89 in adults and 7.28 +/- 2.01 in children, compared with 5.79 +/- 2.13 and 4.57 +/- 1.58 respectively, with the oxygen injector (P > 0.05). Peak airway pressures (cmH2O) on mechanical ventilation were 18.61 +/- 3.06 and 20.21 +/- 2.89 in adults and children. The corresponding pressures with the oxygen injector were 19.42 +/- 3.97 and 18.49 +/- 3.27 (P > 0.05). Cardiovascular parameters were unchanged. A side port adaptation provided a suction capability for water at a rate of 9.16 ml/s. We conclude that this system is an effective universal ventilator suitable for short-term ventilation and suction of patients.


In Vietnam, the Kitchen God is the subject of a special ritual that occurs in most households a week or so before Tết, the lunar new year, that is designed to facilitate this deity's annual return to heaven. This ritual and its associated beliefs are the subject of the first part of this paper. We then turn to another Tết event, the annual TV comedy show based on the Kitchen God, called "Meeting Each Other at Year's End." This show satirises a wide variety of controversial everyday problems faced by ordinary people. We use an analytical framework derived from the anthropology of performance in combination with the sociology of humour to analyse the nature of this show and the ways in which it fulfils its aims of both entertaining a large audience and reflecting critically on the life of the nation.


In their respective development, medical ethics, as well as public health, reached a crossing point. This process provokes a tension amongst the principles of medical ethics, due to the contradictions aroused between the individual and the social. Nevertheless, the search of new values can help to highlight this apparent opposition. In this manner, medical ethics brings its valuable method of open and contradictory debate, while public health shows a tradition of organization of health activities based on social concepts (solidarity, responsibility, intercultural focus). In addition, in this way, it is also possible to explore the actual conditions for the exercise of medical ethics in the field of health services.


Excised petiolar vascular bundles and excised phloem tissues have been shown to take up phosphate, sulfate and sucrose by a true accumulation process and against high concentration ratios. Phosphate was accumulated principally as inorganic phosphate, and sucrose principally as sucrose. The rates of accumulation of the 3 solutes into the phloem-containing tissues were from 4 to 35 times higher than into comparable parenchyma tissue. It is suggested that this active accumulation mechanism plays an important role in the phenomenon of phloem transport.THE EXCISED VASCULAR, PHLOEM AND PARENCHYMA TISSUES SHOW AN AGING PHENOMENON: aerating the excised tissues for 18 hours prior to their use causes marked changes in the accumulatory behavior of the tissue. The data suggest that 1 phosphate accumulation system of low affinity but high capacity exists in fresh tissue, and that aging allows the development of a second, additional phosphate accumulation mechanism of high affinity and low capacity. A possible role in the control of phosphate movement is suggested.


Porous calcium phosphate ceramics have been widely investigated in orthopaedic surgery as bone extensor. Attention has been given to manufacturing of a porous bioceramic that mimics the trabecular bone structure for proper bone regeneration and integration. Although different methods have been applied to manufacture the porous structure, it was unable to visualize the pores and their interconnections within the ceramic and had objective measurement of the calcium phosphate ceramics. With the advance of biomedical imaging through micro-computed tomography (microCT), the study attempted to quantify the pore structure of different calcium phosphate ceramics. Three kinds of bioceramic blocks, namely BSC, ChronOS, and THA, were synthesized by three methods and tested in the study. Six blocks of each bioceramic were evaluated by conventional water immersion method and microCT. The pore size and connectivity of the pores were evaluated with standardized protocols. The three-dimensional analysis of the pores and their distribution by microCT was presented. The ChronOS had more functional pores (200-400μm in diameter) than the BSC and THA did (p<0.05). Providing objective information on the functional pores, the microCT evaluation serves as a good standard for specification of the bioceramic-related implants.


As technology rapidly progresses, more devices will combine both communication and mobility capabilities. With mobility in devices, we envision a new class of proactive networks that are able to adapt themselves, via physical movement, to meet the needs of applications. To fully realize these opportunities, effective control of device mobility and the interaction between devices is needed. In this paper, we consider the message ferrying (MF) scheme which exploits controlled mobility to transport data in delay-tolerant networks, where end-to-end paths may not exist between nodes. In the MF scheme, a set of special mobile nodes called message ferries are responsible for carrying data for nodes in the network. We study the use of multiple ferries in such networks, which may be necessary to address performance and robustness concerns. We focus on the design of ferry routes. With the possibilities of interaction between ferries, the route design problem is challenging. We present algorithms to calculate routes such that the traffic demand is met and the data delivery delay is minimized. We evaluate these algorithms under a variety of network conditions via simulations. Our goal is to guide the design of MF systems and understand the tradeoff between the incurred cost of multiple ferries and the improved performance. We show that the performance scales well with the number of ferries in terms of throughput, delay and resource requirements in both ferries and nodes.


The pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin and sparfloxacin were simulated in vitro and the effects of pharmacodynamic parameters on bactericidal activity and the emergence of quinolone resistance were examined for Streptococcus pneumoniae. Simulated serum concentrations of ciprofloxacin 500 mg bd were more rapidly bactericidal than sparfloxacin 200 mg bd, despite lower values for the key pharmacodynamic parameters (AUC/MIC and C(max)/MIC). This was possibly related to the slower oral absorption of sparfloxacin, which delayed achievement of the MIC compared with ciprofloxacin. In addition, sparfloxacin was shown to have similar bactericidal activity to ciprofloxacin when tested at the same concentrations, despite its four-fold better potency in MIC terms. The emergence of resistance following exposure to ciprofloxacin appeared to be dependent on the C(max)/MIC ratio and the AUC above the MIC, but not the AUC/MIC ratio. Resistance (at least four-fold increase in MIC) developed when the C(max)/MIC ratio was less than four or the AUC above the MIC was less than 10, and the resulting cultures regrew fully. In contrast, pneumococci with a two- to four-fold increase in sparfloxacin MIC were selected in the presence of serum concentrations of sparfloxacin despite a C(max)/MIC ratio higher than 12, but these isolates remained clinically susceptible by breakpoint MIC and their growth was inhibited by repeated dosage of sparfloxacin. Nevertheless, the selection of pneumococci with reduced susceptibility, and the possibility of further mutation to highly resistant strains supports the use of quinolones that rapidly eradicate pneumococci at conventional doses and achieve concentrations, in both serum and tissues, which exceed at least 4 x MIC


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Measurements of flux density are described for five planets, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, across the six Planck High Frequency Instrument frequency bands (100–857 GHz) and these are then compared with models and existing data. In our analysis, we have also included estimates of the brightness of Jupiter and Saturn at the three frequencies of the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (30, 44, and 70 GHz). The results provide constraints on the intrinsic brightness and the brightness time-variability of these planets. The majority of the planet flux density estimates are limited by systematic errors, but still yield better than 1% measurements in many cases. Applying data from Planck HFI, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) to a model that incorporates contributions from Saturn's rings to the planet's total flux density suggests a best fit value for the spectral index of Saturn's ring system of βring = 2.30± 0.03 over the 30–1000 GHz frequency range. Estimates of the polarization amplitude of the planets have also been made in the four bands that have polarizationsensitive detectors (100–353 GHz); this analysis provides a 95% confidence level upper limit on Mars's polarization of 1.8, 1.7, 1.2, and 1.7% at 100, 143, 217, and 353 GHz, respectively. The average ratio between the Planck-HFI measurements and the adopted model predictions for all five planets (excluding Jupiter observations for 353 GHz) is 1.004, 1.002, 1.021, and 1.033 for 100, 143, 217, and 353 GHz, respectively. Model predictions for planet thermodynamic temperatures are therefore consistent with the absolute calibration of Planck-HFI detectors at about the three-percent level. We compare our measurements with published results from recent cosmic microwave background experiments. In particular, we observe that the flux densities measured by Planck HFI and WMAP agree to within 2%. These results allow experiments operating in the mm-wavelength range to cross-calibrate against Planck and improve models of radiative transport used in planetary science.


1. The part played by the Malpighian tubules in the salt and water balance of Aedes aegypti larvae has been studied; the intestinal fluid and haemolymph have been compared in respect of freezing-point depression and sodium concentration. 2. It appears highly probable that the fluid passing down the intestine is derived from the Malpighian tubules with little or no contribution from the midgut. 3. When the larvae are kept in fresh water the intestinal fluid is very slightly hypotonic to the haemolymph (not isotonic as previously reported), but its sodium concentration is only about one-half that of the haemolymph. 4. When the larvae are kept in solutions of NaCl the difference in sodium concentration between intestinal fluid and haemolymph decreases. In an external medium of 1% NaCl the difference is abolished. 5. There is thus evidence that when the external medium is poor in salts the Malpighian tubules can contribute to the work of salt retention by excreting a fluid containing less sodium than the haemolymph; but there is no evidence that under any conditions they can excrete a fluid containing more sodium than the haemolymph. 6. Evidence of a decrease in the sodium concentration of the tubule fluid from distal region to proximal region is not statistically significant.


The ram-press technology for oil expression has received a lot of attention in many African
countries during the last two decades. The technology is based on manually operated mechanical
presses, which employ a slider-crank mechanism in two different configurations. The original
machine was invented by Karl Bielenberg in 1985 and since then continuous design
improvements have been made to improve their performance and ease of operation. This paper
deals with the performance of some commonly used ram press machines such as BP-35, BP-30
and FI-32, in order to establish their suitability for small rural oil expression technology. The
available oil-seed processing techniques were discussed, including their suitability for locally
grown sunflower varieties, and the characteristics of the ram press machines. The machines
were tested by using three varieties of sunflower seeds, namely PNR 7225, PNR 7369, and
Peredovik. The machines were compared by their outputs obtained when conducting a high
production and high expression tests. Based on the above analysis the Camartec design (BP-30)
was found to have the best performance. The machine had the highest efficiency and also the
highest expression rate in comparison to CAPU design (BP-35) and RAM design (FI-32)
machines. The FI-32 machine was found to be ineffective, having in the high expression test an
expression rate below 20% irrespective of the type of seeds used. In terms of the speed of oil
production the CAPU (BP-35) design performed better then the other machines. However in the
high production test its performance was similar to that of Camartec machine.


This paper introduces some issues related to the development of robotics for endoluminal surgery from control point of view. Endoluminal surgery are incisionless procedures performed through natural orifices within the natural pathways. New devices are then required to achieve these new surgical procedures. Besides the development of new devices, control issues arise in both technological and theoretical aspects. The paper presents some of them and we propose a teleoperation architecture that has already been tested for needle insertion that could be used for teleoperated endoluminal surgery especially for instance for biopsies or anastomoses.


Differences in the nature and quantity of sediment filling oxbow lakes have significant implications for the evolution of meandering rivers and the development of floodplains, influencing rates of meander migration and the valley width over which migration takes place. In an effort to identify the controls on the alluviation of oxbow lakes by coarse bed material, this study examined the sedimentary records stored within oxbow lakes of the Sacramento River of California, USA, and found that the volume of gravel in storage correlated negatively with the diversion angle separating flow between the river channel and the entrance into each lake. A method was devised for estimating the original channel bathymetry of the studied lakes and for modelling the hydraulic and sediment‐transport effects of the diversion angle within channels recently abandoned by meander cut‐off. The diversion angle determines the width of a flow separation within the abandoned‐channel entrance, reducing the discharge diverted from the river channel and thus limiting the ability of the abandoned channel to transport bed material. Aggradation rates are faster within entrances to abandoned channels with high diversion angles, resulting in the rapid isolation of lakes that store only a small volume of coarse‐grained sediment. Aggradation rates are slower within channel entrances where diversion angles are low, resulting in the slow transitioning of such channels into oxbow lakes with a larger and more extensive accumulation of coarse‐grained sediment. These findings compare well with observations in other natural settings and the mechanism which is described for the control of the diversion may explain why some oxbow lakes remain as open‐water environments for centuries, whereas others are filled completely within decades of cut‐off.


The Auk, Vol. 127, Number 4, pages 940−947. ISSN 0004-8038, electronic ISSN 1938-4254.  2010 by The American Ornithologists' Union. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals. com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/auk.2010.09260 Golo Maurer,1,3 DouGlas G. D. russell,2 anD PhilliP Cassey1


Neural networks and fuzzy logic are powerful tools for next-generation hearing prosthetics. A neural network, as a function fitter to map the hearing loss to desired gains requirements, provides many benefits over other approaches. The network is able to learn dynamically through experience. It is open and expandable - a physician can easily incorporate new knowledge into the system. Fuzzy logic, on the other hand, is an indispensable tool for the tuning process. It builds a direct and reasonable link between a user's subjective evaluation and the actual required modifications to the gain targets. Again, physicians are free to add new rules to the rule base in reflection of specific needs and patterns. The presented neurofuzzy approach helps hearing prosthetic devices not only in an offline fitting process, but also in online operations. Next-generation hearing prosthetics will be more intelligent than current devices. Hearing aids should be situation-dependent and capable of evolving or adapting. The neurofuzzy approach makes these features possible.


Nanoscale mechanical properties measurement of porous nanosheets presents many challenges. Herein we show atomic force microscope (AFM) nanoindentation to probe the nanoscale mechanical properties of a 2‑D metal‑organic framework (MOF) nanosheet material, termed CuBDC [copper 1,4‑benzenedicarboxylate]. The sample thickness was ranging from ~10 nm (tens of monolayers) up to ~400 nm (stack of multilayers). In terms of its elastic‑plastic properties, the Young's modulus (E ~ 22.9 GPa) and yield strength (𝜎Y ~ 448 MPa) have been determined in the through-thickness direction. Moreover, we have characterized the failure mechanisms of the CuBDC nanosheets, where three failure mechanisms have been identified: interfacial sliding, fracture of framework, and delamination of multilayered nanosheets. Threshold forces and corresponding indentation depths corresponding to the failure modes have been determined. To gain insights into the failure mechanisms, we employ finite-element models with cohesive elements to simulate the interfacial debonding of a stack of 2‑D nanosheets during the indentation process. The nanomechanical AFM methodology elucidated here will be pertinent to the study of other 2‑D hybrid nanosheets and van der Waals solids.


In the search for new demethylase inhibitors, we have developed a multistep protocol for in silico screening. Millions of poses generated by high-throughput docking or a 3D-pharmacophore search are first minimized by a classical force field and then filtered by semiempirical quantum mechanical calculations of the interaction energy with a selected set of functional groups in the binding site. The final ranking includes solvation effects which are evaluated in the continuum dielectric approximation (finite-difference Poisson equation). Application of the multistep protocol to JMJD3 jumonji demethylase has resulted in a dozen low-micromolar inhibitors belonging to five different chemical classes. We have solved the crystal structure of JMJD3 inhibitor 8 in the complex with UTX (a demethylase in the same subfamily as JMJD3) which validates the predicted binding mode. Compound 8 is a promising candidate for future optimization as it has a favorable ligand efficiency of 0.32 kcal/mol per nonhydrogen atom.


This study assessed the partial as well as the collaborative impact of age and gender on academic staff preparedness to adopt Internet tools for research sharing in African universities during Covid-19. Although evidence abounds in the literature on gender and age as they affect relatively, scholars' utilisation of digital tools for research communication, such studies did not examine scholars' preparedness to adopt from a broad perspective of Africa. This study was conducted based on the argument that the preparedness of scholars may affect their future interest to utilize digital tools for research sharing. A quantitative method, based on the descriptive survey research design, was adopted to provide answers to four prevailing research questions. The examination focused on a populace of 8,591 staff in African universities, nonetheless, information was gathered from 1,977 of them, who deliberately took part from 24 African nations. A validated electronic rating scale, which was mailed/posted to targeted participants, was used as the instrument for data collection. Gender and age significantly affected academic staff preparedness to adopt Internet tools for research sharing partially and interactively in African Universities during Covid-19. Female staff were more prepared than males to adopt internet tools for research sharing during the pandemic. Older lecturers reported a higher rate of preparedness than their younger colleagues to adopt Internet tools for research sharing during Covid-19. In light of these proofs, ramifications and proposals for future exploration are discussed.


Metastatic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is an aggressive malignancy with an extremely poor prognosis. Currently no effective conventional systemic therapies exist to treat pediatric MTC. We describe an adolescent female with newly diagnosed MEN2B syndrome who presented with advanced stage metastatic MTC and demonstrated a partial transient response to sorafenib monotherapy. This clinical result supports further research into the use of sorafenib in the treatment of pediatric MTC. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2012; 58: 98–100. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The stability of a continuous-time state variable filter is analyzed using the Routh-Hurwitz criterion. This criterion assesses stability by indicating the number of poles that lie in the right-half plane. The filter is examined separately with integrators implemented with an ORA-L and a current amplifier. Both amplifier types are characterized by a dominant-pole frequency response, and the stability of each implementation is compared. HSPICE simulations confirm the theoretical analyses, which indicate that the bandwidth of the ORAs and current amplifiers must be much larger than the desired frequency of operation to ensure stability. Since the analyses assume a dominant-pole response, all higher-order poles of the actual amplifier must also be much greater than the unity-gain frequency to minimize excess phase.


Flashover phenomena accompanying rapid (cid:28)re propagation in a room occur when the hot smoke from a (cid:28)re accumulates in the room's upper part. This phenomenon presents one of the most frightening and challenging situations for (cid:28)re(cid:28)ghters. A typical approach to mitigate and prevent the impact of (cid:29)ashover is to train (cid:28)re(cid:28)ghters to monitor a few common indicators of (cid:28)re in pre-(cid:29)ashover time, such as moving dark smoke, high heat, and (cid:28)re rollover. In actual compartment (cid:28)re events, these pre-(cid:29)ashover indicators are hard to recognize. Furthermore, determination of exact (cid:29)ashover time is di(cid:30)cult by just observing (cid:28)re activities while there are other vital rescue duties to do by (cid:28)re(cid:28)ghters. Hence, automatic detection and prediction of (cid:29)ashover in real time are of paramount importance to save lives and reduce the cost of damages. Flashover prediction is still an open area of research by (cid:28)re safety experts. Deep convolutional neural networks are currently dominating the area of computer vision, and these state-of-the-art deep learning models have been successfully used in various applications, including object detection, localization, and segmentation. Unlike previous studies that use RGB images, sensors, and gauges, we utilized the power of deep learning techniques to detect (cid:29)ashover from image sequences captured by thermal infrared (IR) cameras. Our experimental results indicate that not only our proposed approach can detect (cid:29)ashover in IR video data with high precision, but it can detect (cid:29)ashover a few frames before happening. Our technique is a promising approach that can be used in future for (cid:29)ashover prediction in real time.


The analysis of fire developmental process is given, which showed that there are seven stages of fire development, a set of phenomena (factors, signs) of fire risk condition, characterized by a set of defined parameters, corresponds to each stage. Observed that the registration of high staging factors (high ambient temperature, content of CO2, etc.) means the registration of actual low staging fire (thermal destruction of materials gases, fumes, etc.) - fire risk situation. It is shown that the decrease of registered factor staging leads to construction of fire preventive and diagnostic systems as the lower is registered stage, the more uncertain is connection between the fact of its detection and a fire. It is indicated that with development of electronic equipment the staging of fire situations factors used for detection is reducing in whole, and also it is noted that for each control object it is necessary to choose (identify) the optimal factor, in particular, in many ways the optimal factor for aircrafts are smokes and their TV image.


The Asian "tiger mosquito" Aedes albopictus has become established in the southern United States. The Centers for Disease Control has taken a number of steps to respond to the problem. Appropriate state and international agencies have been informed, and data on biology, public health importance and identification have been prepared and distributed to state and local agencies. Studies on insecticide susceptibility and vector competence are in progress, as is surveillance throughout the southeast, in cooperation with state and local agencies. The introduction of Ae. albopictus presents a major challenge to the mosquito control community.


The seed phosphorus storage compound phytic add (myo-inositol-1,2,3,4,5,6-heakisphosphate) is poorly utilized by nonruminant animals. Low Phytate (LP) crops, in which reductions of phytate are accompanied by increases in nutritionally available P, are in development and their utility will be enhanced by competitive agronomic performance. To assess the performance of LP barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), sets of sib lines that are homozygous wild type (WT), or homozygous for one of four independent low phytic acid mutations (lpa1-1, lpa2-1, lpa3-1, and M955), were developed via backcrosses to Harrington. The WT sibsets performed similarly to the Harrington parent, suggesting that the major variable in these experiments was the presence or absence of the LP alleles. Under irrigation, M955, which has an extreme reduction in phytate, was associated with reduced yield and percentage plump kernels; all mutations except lpa2-1 were associated with reduced test weight. In rain-fed locations, all mutations were associated with reduced test weight and percentage plump kernels, and all except lpa1-1 were associated with reduced yield. These results suggest that one component of yield loss in LP types is reduced stress tolerance. The performance of the lpa1-1 mutation, which appears to be aleurone specific, suggests a potential strategy to avoid this source of yield loss: the use of genotypes where the desirable effect is limited to a target tissue, in this case the aleurone layer.


Hypertension is a silent killer and one-third of its sufferers are unaware of its presence. Tonometric devices, like SphygmoCor, Compilor etc., represent the gold standard in pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation index (AIx) measurements which are limited by their high cost and operational accuracy. Here, we present an alternative technology that is low cost and may be suitable for the 'wearable' setting. We undertook the comparisons of arterial waveforms obtained by photoplethysmogram (PPG) and finger ballistocardiogram (BPP) sensors which were then validated against a SphygmoCor tonometric device. Specifically, the agreement analysis of the augmentation, stiffness, reflection, elasticity, ejection elasticity and dicrotic reflection indexes showed that arterial distension waveform sensing using BPP sensor, has precision and accuracy similar to that of a SphygmoCor tonometric device whilst outperforming the volumetric arterial flow sensing using a PPG sensor, in every index. BPP indexes showed the r2 fit of up to 0.95 and Spearman's rank correlation up to 0.91 when validated against the SphygmoCor tonometer. The estimated individual transfer functions for the BPP sensor, with reference to SphygmoCor, have accuracies of above 85% and 98% for 2 and 4-element windkessel (WK) models, respectively. The findings reported in this work may also be useful for the development of systems that are beneficial in the early and/or routine detection of hypertension.


Search engine logs contain a large amount of click-through data that can be leveraged as soft indicators of relevance. In this paper we address the sponsored search retrieval problem which is to find and rank relevant ads to a search query. We propose a new technique to determine the relevance of an ad document for a search query using click-through data. The method builds on a collaborative filtering approach to discover new ads related to a query using a click graph. It is implemented on a graph with several million edges and scales to larger sizes easily. The proposed method is compared to three different baselines that are state-of-the-art for a commercial search engine. Evaluations on editorial data as well as online traffic data indicate that the model discovers many new ads not retrieved by the baseline methods. The ads from the new approach are on average of better quality than the baselines. In addition to the proposed approach our experimental methodology of evaluation on live traffic is a novel contribution to the academic literature.


Physicochemical properties of Swietenia humilis Zucc seed oils were determined along with its fatty acid composition, by using gas-liquid chromatography. The oil content found in the germ portion of the seeds was 45.38%. From physicochemical oil evaluations, an oil density of 0.9099 mg∙ml -1 at 28°C; a refraction index of 1.4740 at 20°C; a saponification index of 159.55 mg KOH∙g -1 ; a peroxide index of 0.739 meq O 2 ∙kg -1 , and 0.367% free fatty acid content were shown. From chromatographic oil evaluations, eight fatty acids were identified showing palmitic (C16:0), stearic (C18:0), oleic (C18:1 cis-9), linoleic (C18:2 cis-9,12), and linolenic (C18:3 cis-9,12,15) as the most predominant. The percentage of saturated, monounsatured and polyunsatured fatty acids were at 18.45, 29.27 and 47.50%, respectively. These results show that 'venadillo' oil has a high content of essential fatty acids, mainly linoleic and linolenic. Therefore, this oil shows promissory uses as nutritional component to reduce the cholesterol and triglyceride levels in blood, mostly from patients with higher cardiovascular disease risks. Key words: Oil, α-linolenic acid, linoleic acid, oilseeds, Swietenia humilis.


Upon its implantation in the uterus of the mother in mammals, the embryo is composed by three morphologically distinct tissues: the Epiblast (Epi), the Trophectoderm (TE) and the Primitive Endoderm (PrE). Both Epi and PrE are formed from the same cell homogeneous population called the Inner Cell Mass (ICM). Based on our studies, we discuss in this review what molecular interactions are necessary for the specification of these two lineages. For this, we have combined a biological approach with mathematical modeling. We have shown the central role of the gene regulation group composed by NANOG, FGF4, GATA6 and FGFR2 for Epi/PrE cell specification.


Although the importance of competencies for sustainable entrepreneurship is recognized both from practical and theoretical point of view, the field of competencies for sustainable entrepreneurship is relatively young. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to contribute to the understanding of what competencies constitute a competence framework for sustainable entrepreneurship and how these competencies are enacted in entrepreneurial decision making processes. The main research question: What role do competencies for sustainable entrepreneurship play in sustainable entrepreneurial processes? addresses the aim and research issues of this dissertation. In addition, five sub-research questions were formulated: 1. What is the empirical strength of the existing key competence frameworks for sustainable entrepreneurship? 2. How do key competencies for sustainable entrepreneurship relate to well-known antecedents for entrepreneurial behavior? 3. Which individual moral antecedents play a role in the entrepreneurial process of opportunity recognition for sustainable development? 4. How is moral competence enacted in the early stage of the sustainable entrepreneurial process? 5. How are competencies for sustainable entrepreneurship enacted within the decision making process of sustainable entrepreneurs? The competence framework is assessed on its validity in an educational context, reporting on the self-perceived scores of 402 respondents. Furthermore, a performance based assessment was developed to study the relation between the competence framework and opportunity recognition. Here, 96 respondents participated in an online platform that formed the foundation for the performance based assessment. Finally, 33 sustainable entrepreneurs were interviewed to assess the enactment of the competencies in actual decision making processes. The different studies and sub-questions have mounted up to some main conclusions. The results show that the competencies can be operationalised and measured in a reliable and valid way in a framework consisting of 6 distinct competencies (diversity competence, systems thinking competence, foresighted thinking competence, interpersonal competence, normative competence and strategic action competence). When it comes to the opportunity recognition process, it becomes clear that the competencies that tap into values (i.e. normative competence and strategic action competence) are very important and could be seen as distinctive for sustainable entrepreneurs. During the different critical moments in the decision making process, some competencies surface more than others, which show the dynamic and context dependent character of the competencies. This dissertation has, besides several theoretical implications, implications for higher education institutions and sustainable start-up companies.


Bekoff and Elzanowski (1997) (hereafter "BE") have criticized my paper on the continuing importance of collecting scientific specimens of birds, focusing primarily on a brief section concerning "moral objections" to scientific collecting. BE seem to state either that it is acceptable to kill birds as long as every effort is made to reduce suffering, or that it is never acceptable to kill birds because suffering is unavoidable, depending on which portion of their essay is regarded as paramount. If their message is the former, then I and other museum scientists concur completely, because we already do this (contrary to the implications of BE). If their message is the latter, then we have an impasse, with two different sets of personal moral standards. Although virtually every sentence by BE can be criticized, I restrict my rebuttal to the "top 10" most-revealing statements.


RNA is used in many laboratories for quantitative experiments. The quality of the RNA is crucial for these experiments and can be affected by DNA contaminants. Such contaminants can be eliminated through the use of RNase-free DNase, but RNase-free DNase produced by companies such as Qiagen can run up to hundreds of dollars. Studies looking at the effectiveness of RNase-free DNase are few even though many labs use it in RNA extraction. The goal of this experiment was to compare Qiagen to RNase-free DNase manufactured by other companies in the hope of finding a DNase that is more cost-efficient but also produces high-quality RNA similar to that of the DNase from Qiagen. The results of this study showed that the RNase-free DNase produced by Thermo Fisher and Promega can purify RNA samples, resulting in a similar quality to the samples treated with the DNase produced by Qiagen and can be used as a more cost-efficient alternative.


In this thesis, the focus is on addressing the gaps that exist between (a) utility companies' efforts to implement and diffuse Internet-based services and (b) their goal to achieve users' expectations in terms of managing their domestic utility services online. The research highlights the importance of shifting the focus towards a user-centric and integrated virtual enterprise service delivery platform that factors in user demands and functions as a medium for interaction between all utility parties to cooperate in achieving efficient resources usage, while promoting sustainability and environmental welfare.
The research involves a critical investigation of users' perspectives related to the success of the creation of the proposed platform in the utility domains, with particular emphasis on its potential influence on user perceptions in terms of benefits, technology-fit, acceptance, and service adoption; in addition to the potential role of such platform in promoting individual pro-environmental sustainability. The research methodology design involves the collection of information (n=1142) about individual opinions, views, beliefs and expectations towards the new conceptualised innovation platform. The methodology involves four main stages. The initial stage was devoted to defining the research problem, conceptual model, developing a theoretical validation framework and the research questions with a formulation of the related hypothesis. This stage of the research design is critical to identify the key underpinning aspects of the research topic and to determine the main variables that have an impact on the research problem. The second stage involves an empirical investigation of Internet-user's perceptions of task-technology fit, new technology innovation adoption, barriers, trends and difficulties for both existing and future technology innovation as well as an electronic service delivery approach, using a quantitative questionnaire survey. In the third stage, a mock-up prototype system is implemented to illustrate and validate the proposed research concepts. The last stage, aimed at analytically validate users' perspective towards the new technology innovation platform as formulated in the research model and to predict their willingness to adopt the platform and impact on their individual sustainable behaviour.
The resulting validated model and service platform provide a means for utility companies to deliver user accepted electronic utility management services, while promoting environmental friendly behaviour.