'Case management' in the health and social service sector is controversial, highly political and saturated with conflicting agendas among stakeholders. Research was conducted recently to explore the role of case managers in three evolving, Australian-based, long-term care, case management models. The findings have relevance to countries worldwide that contend with delivering quality care that is cost effective. The research captures the perspectives of 51 open-ended interviews with front-line case managers who have first-hand knowledge of the models' effect on their clients and on their own roles. Contrary to the rhetoric that case management is client-centred, case management is concluded to be 'system centred' based on a unilateral approach taken by each of the three models. Case managers had a limited ability to attain necessary services for clients. Success was dependent on the range of case managers' skills and experience, relationship with the client, degree of job satisfaction, level of influence in the health and social system and ability to collaborate with relevant professionals. The relationship between the three primary influences (system, model, client) affecting case managers' pursuit of achieving appropriate client services was also reviewed. A reconceptualized multidimensional approach, or 'neo-process-centred' case management, is proposed. The revised approach can be applied to existing and new models and has direct implications for policy makers, management and practitioners aspiring to improve client care within existing constraints.


This paper tackles the AutoML problem, aimed to automatically select an ML algorithm and its hyper-parameter configuration most appropriate to the dataset at hand. The proposed approach, MetaBu, learns new meta-features via an Optimal Transport procedure, aligning the manually designed meta-features with the space of distributions on the hyper-parameter configurations. MetaBu meta-features, learned once and for all, induce a topology on the set of datasets that is exploited to define a distribution of promising hyper-parameter configurations amenable to AutoML. Experiments on the OpenML CC-18 benchmark demonstrate that using MetaBu meta-features boosts the performance of state of the art AutoML systems, AutoSkLearn (Feurer et al. 2015) and Probabilistic Matrix Factorization (Fusi et al. 2018). Furthermore, the inspection of MetaBu meta-features gives some hints into when an ML algorithm does well. Finally, the topology based on MetaBu meta-features enables to estimate the intrinsic dimensionality of the OpenML benchmark w.r.t. a given ML algorithm or pipeline.


OBJECTIVE
To accurately determine mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) levels in human blastocysts.

DESIGN
Retrospective analysis.

SETTING
IVF clinic.

PATIENT(S)
A total of 1,396 embryos derived from 259 patients.

INTERVENTION(S)
Blastocyst-derived trophectoderm biopsies were tested by next-generation sequencing (NGS) and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)
For each sample the mtDNA value was divided by the nuclear DNA value, and the result was further subjected to mathematical analysis tailored to the genetic makeup of the source embryo.

RESULT(S)
On average the mathematical correction factor changed the conventionally determined mtDNA score of a given blastocyst via NGS by 1.43% ± 1.59% (n = 1,396), with maximal adjustments of 17.42%, and via qPCR by 1.33% ± 8.08% (n = 150), with maximal adjustments of 50.00%. Levels of mtDNA in euploid and aneuploid embryos showed a statistically insignificant difference by NGS (euploids n = 775, aneuploids n = 621) and by qPCR (euploids n = 100, aneuploids n = 50). Blastocysts derived from younger or older patients had comparable mtDNA levels by NGS ("young" age group n = 874, "advanced" age group n = 514) and by qPCR ("young" age group n = 92, "advanced" age group n = 58). Viable blastocysts did not contain significantly different mtDNA levels compared with unviable blastocysts when analyzed by NGS (implanted n = 101, nonimplanted n = 140) and by qPCR (implanted n = 49, nonimplanted n = 51).

CONCLUSION(S)
We recommend implementation of the correction factor calculation to laboratories evaluating mtDNA levels in embryos by NGS or qPCR. When applied to our in-house data, the calculation reveals that overall levels of mtDNA are largely equal between blastocysts stratified by ploidy, age, or implantation potential.


The effect of magnesium addition on the phase formation, microstructure and electric and ferroelectric properties of LiNbO 3 thin films prepared through polymeric precursors was analyzed. By X ray diffraction no secondary phase was observed with the increase of magnesium concentration. Comparing to pure LiNbO 3 , the addition of 0.5 and 1.0 mol% of Mg +2 increased of the dielectric constant, while 2.0 mol% decreased it. It was noticed that the increase in additive concentration decreases the ferroelectric remanent polarization and increases the coercive field.


Primary cilia are microtubule-based, antenna-like organelles, which are formed in G0 phase and resorbed as cells re-enter the cell cycle. It has been reported that primary cilia can influence the timing of cell cycle progression. However, the molecular links between ciliogenesis and cell cycle progression are not well understood. The Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 1 Oncogene Partner (FOP) has been implicated in ciliogenesis, but its function in ciliogenesis is not clear. Here, we show that FOP plays a negative role in ciliogenesis. Knockdown of FOP promotes cilia elongation and suppresses cilia disassembly. In contrast, ectopic expression of FOP induces defects in primary cilia formation, which can be rescued by either pharmacological or genetic inhibition of Aurora kinase A which promotes cilia disassembly. Moreover, knockdown of FOP delays cell cycle re-entry of quiescent cells following serum re-stimulation, and this can be reversed by silencing Intraflagellar Transport 20 (IFT20), an intraflagellar transport member essential for ciliogenesis. Collectively, these results suggest that FOP negatively regulates ciliogenesis and can promote cell cycle re-entry by facilitating cilia disassembly.


As we leave the "Decade of the Brain" neuropsychiatry has emerged as one of the most exciting and challenging fields in which to work. The BNPA was founded in December 1987 at the suggestion of Dr Jonathan Bird. Professor W A Lishman, the founding Chairman, describes its formation as follows: "The Association was created to provide a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion of matters of common interest among psychiatrists, neurologists, neuropsychologists and workers in the related neurosciences. All suitably qualified persons with an interest in brain function in relation to behaviour would be welcome to join. For this reason, we did not seek formal affiliation with other bodies, such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, but decided to stand as an independent association. Young members bringing fresh ideas would be particularly encouraged to join, by keeping fees to a minimum and the establishment of appropriate prizes". At the 2015 AGM Dr Jonathan Bird was awarded an honorary fellowship of the BNPA. Jonathan's fellowship was proposed by Professor Alwyn Lishman (Honorary Life President) who hoped the BNPA would recognise Jonathan's "sustained work and service over many years in the promotion of present day neuropsychiatry". In his commendation, he revealed that it was in fact Jonathan who first to suggested, to a group of like-minded colleagues, including Alwyn himself, the formation of the BNPA. Jonathan went on to serve as the secretary throughout its early years. The ability to bring people together towards common goals has continued and Jonathan was instrumental in forming the Section of Neuropsychiatry at The Royal College of Psychiatrists, and then serving as its first chair. He helped, although ably assisted by Dr Rafey Faruqui who succeeded him as chair, in guiding the nascent section through to the establishment of the status of Faculty, which is a major step forward as a mechanism for improving services and the development of recognised training. Jonathan originally read medicine at the University of Bristol, where he achieved the Prize for Physiology and did his junior training in the region. He went on to the Maudsley Hospital for his higher training, winning the prestigious Gaskell medal of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He then worked as Clinical fellow at McMaster and was exposed to many of their revolutionary teaching approaches before returning to the Maudsley and then completing the circle with a return to Bristol to take up a consultant post at Burden Centre for Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology and Epileptology, Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. He has been active throughout his consultant career in Epilepsy Action and served as Chairman of their Professional Advisory Panel.


We use spectral invariants in Lagrangian Floer theory in order to show that there exist isometric embeddings of normed linear spaces (finite or infinite-dimensional, depending on the case) into the space of Hamiltonian deformations of certain weakly exact Lagrangian submanifolds in tame symplectic manifolds. In addition to providing a new class of examples in which the Lagrangian Hofer metric can be computed explicitly, we refine and generalize some known results about it.


Based on the homotopy mapping, a globally convergent method of parameter inversion for non-equilibrium convection-dispersion equations (CDEs) is developed. Moreover, in order to further improve the computational efficiency of the algorithm, a properly smooth function, which is derived from the sigmoid function, is employed to update the homotopy parameter during iteration. Numerical results show the feature of global convergence and high performance of this method. In addition, even the measurement quantities are heavily contaminated by noises, and a good solution can be found.


It is demonstrated how femtosecond plasma X-ray sources can be used to record X-ray diffraction images with many simultaneous reflections. A convergent-beam geometry was implemented and tested with a crystal of a small molecule [Fe-py3(tren)] as well as with a crystal of the protein lysozyme. The results pave the way for femtosecond X-ray crystallography.


For purposes of social cost-benefit analysis, a project may be viewed as a disturbance to the economy, displacing it from some initial equilibrium to a new one. But the new configuration will depend on which particular variables adjust to restore equilibrium. This paper examines the shadow prices for project evaluation under alternative assumptions about how equilibrium is restored. When the government reacts by altering its foreign exchange reserves, the shadow prices coincide with those advocated in the manuals on social cost-benefit analysis. However, if the government adjusts its domestic expenditures or tariff rates, the shadow prices will differ from those of the manuals, except insofar as the relative shadow prices of tradeables remain their relative border prices. The paper first presents the model, followed by two cases in which domestic prices and wage rates do not vary because ad valorem tariffs are fixed and one case in which they are endogenous.


In the literature, several vulnerability/resilience indicators and indexes are based and assessed by taking into account and combining different dimensions. Housing vulnerability is one of these dimensions and is strictly related to the buildings' physical features and to the socio-economic condition of their occupants. This research aims to study housing vulnerability in relation to the real estate market by identifying possible indicators and spatially analyzing their influence on property prices. Assuming the city of Turin and its territorial segmentation as a case study, spatial analyses were performed to take into account the presence of spatial dependence and to identify the variables that significantly influence the process of property price determination. The results of this study highlighted the fact that two housing vulnerability indicators, representative of fragile buildings' physical features, were spatially correlated with property prices and had a significant and negative influence on them. In addition, their comparison with two social vulnerability indicators demonstrated that the presence of economical buildings and council houses was spatially correlated with the presence of people with a low education level. The results of the spatial regression model also confirmed that one of the social vulnerability indicators had the highest and most negative explanatory power in the property price determination process.


ABSTRACT Objectives: Day care is assumed to promote independence in home-dwelling people with dementia, increase well-being and enhance social stimulation. Few studies have directly engaged people with dementia to better understand the benefits and impacts of such services. The aim of this study was to explore attendees' experiences with day care designed for people with dementia. Method: This study had a qualitative descriptive design and included individual interviews with 17 users attending day care. The analysis was undertaken using content analyses. Results: The participants reported that day care had a positive influence on their physical functioning, cognition, well-being, and situation at home because they were provided with social stimulation, meals, and activities. Day care contributed to the maintenance of a rhythm and structure in everyday life. Furthermore, the staff contributed to making the day care a safe place to be and enhanced a sense of belonging. Conclusion: This study reveals the positive impact of day care on the daily lives of people with dementia because this service contributes to the enhancement of activities and social support, prevents isolation, and enhances practical and cognitive functioning as experienced by the users. The staff has a major impact on the experience of the participants in the day care.


Continuous growth in the use of multimedia applications on portable devices makes the mobile computer systems have an increasing complexity. The functionalities of the used SOC chips and silicon intelligent properties in these portable devices are become complicated and hard to design. Traditional digital circuit designs adopt register transfer level with timing control methodologies, which focus on the datapath composition, timing control of registers, and the functions of combinational circuits. However, the huge amount of control and synchronous signals of the above components are difficult to design and debug. The timing costs of design and verification are increased dramatically. This paper proposed a new design methodology of digital system, called data-oriented methodology, to deal with the above problems, by using Bluespec SystemVerilog HDL and the corresponding tools. Instead of conventional timingcontrol mechanism, the data-oriented methodology adopts simple handshaking protocol, blocking transferring, and explicitly register/FIFO declaration for communicating between adjacent modules. The designs of FDCT/IDCT and pipelined MIPS-like CPU are adopted to compare the design costs of conventional timing-control and data-oriented methodologies. The chip performance and FPGA proven of these two designs are discussed


Based on the AFFT algorithm, the 2-D spectrum of the VCG signal method was applied in analyzing ECG signals for different extents of myocardial ischemia. Figures and parameters of the 2-D spectrum clearly reflect the vector-changing characteristics of the VCG signals in the 2-D plane and also in the frequency domain. This method remedies defects of the DFT spectrum, which cannot describe vector characteristics of the VCG signal on the 2-D plane. Through analysis of animal experiments, the authors find that the AFFT method is sensitive to change in myocardial blood flow. This method shows promise in the application of detecting early myocardial ischemia and measuring its extent. As a result, it is hoped that this method will significantly reduce patient mortality and morbidity.


As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows, malicious software, malware, will increasingly threaten Internet security and stability. Malware can compromise users' privacy, destroy their data, or suborn their computers into a "botnet" for malicious activity. Many actors, from individuals installing antivirus suites on their personal computers to law enforcement officers conducting botnet takedown campaigns, have some capability to prevent or remediate malware, but these strategies face technical and economic challenges. These challenges worsen as the IoT expands, due to the high number of IoT devices and other characteristics of the IoT. To address individual actors' difficulties in confronting IoT malware, I propose a system of coordination between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their customers. ISPs are positioned to efficiently detect malicious traffic and face positive incentives for doing so, but they are unable to determine the exact infected device for reasons of privacy; customers, through home routers, can identify an individual device without compromising their own privacy, given notice of compromise from their ISP.


OBJECTIVE
To characterize and purify covalent complexes of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and haptoglobin released by bovine granulocytes in vitro.

SAMPLE POPULATION
Blood samples obtained from healthy cows and cows with acute and chronic inflammation to obtain WBCs and sera.

PROCEDURES
WBCs were isolated by differential centrifugation, hypotonic lysis of RBCs, and degranulated by stimulation with phorbol ester (20 ng/mL). Cell-conditioned medium was subjected to affinity and gel chromatography and purified proteins subjected to SDS- PAGE gelatin zymography, western blot analysis, Coomassie blue staining, and peptide mass spectrometry for protein identification. Sera of cows hospitalized for acute and chronic septic conditions and of clinically normal cows were analyzed with similar methods.

RESULTS
Matrix metalloproteinase-9 was released from neutrophils in vitro and migrated to a molecular mass of approximately 220 kd (prodimer), approximately 105 kd (promonomer), and > 220 kd (high-molecular mass complexes). These high-molecular mass complexes were composed of alpha- and beta-haptoglobin and MMP-9 (ratio13:13:1). Complexes of MMP-9 and haptoglobin had biochemical properties of both its protein constituents (i.e., enzymatic activity toward gelatin and hemoglobin binding). Complexes of MMP-9 and haptoglobin were also detected in sera of cows with acute inflammation, but not in clinically normal cows or cows with chronic disease.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
A fraction of neutrophil MMP-9 is released in complex with haptoglobin. The complex is present in granules and retains biological activity of its components. Detection of the complex in serum may provide an indicator of acute inflammation.


We described an extensive network of cortical pyramidal neurons in the human brain with abundant acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity. Emergence of these neurons during childhood/adolescence, attainment of highest density in early adulthood, and virtual absence in other species led us to hypothesize involvement of AChE within these neurons in higher cortical functions. The current study quantified the density and staining intensity of these neurons using histochemical procedures. Few faintly stained AChE-positive cortical pyramidal neurons were observed in children/adolescents. These neurons attained their highest density and staining intensity in young adulthood. Compared with the young adult group, brains of cognitively normal elderly displayed no significant change in numerical density but a significant decrease in staining intensity of AChE-positive cortical pyramidal neurons. Brains of elderly above age 80 with unusually preserved memory performance (SuperAgers) showed significantly lower staining intensity and density of these neurons when compared with same-age peers. Conceivably, low levels of AChE activity could enhance the impact of acetylcholine on pyramidal neurons to counterbalance other involutional factors that mediate the decline of memory capacity during average aging. We cannot yet tell if elderly with superior memory capacity have constitutively low neuronal AChE levels or if this feature reflects adaptive neuroplasticity.


The missing values, appear in most of multivariate time series, prevent advanced analysis of multivariate time series data. Existing imputation approaches try to deal with missing values by deletion, statistical imputation, machine learning based imputation and generative imputation. However, these methods are either incapable of dealing with temporal information or multi-stage. This paper proposes an end-to-end generative model E²GAN to impute missing values in multivariate time series. With the help of the discriminative loss and the squared error loss, E²GAN can impute the incomplete time series by the nearest generated complete time series at one stage. Experiments on multiple real-world datasets show that our model outperforms the baselines on the imputation accuracy and achieves state-of-the-art classification/regression results on the downstream applications. Additionally, our method also gains better time efficiency than multi-stage method on the training of neural networks.


Chromium coatings have been used for the protection of gas turbine blades in power plants during the last years due to their very good resistance against steam corrosion. Microhardness, scratch, adhesion and pin-on-disk sliding tests are commonly used for rapid evaluation of the mechanical properties of these coatings [1,2]. However, very limited information exists on their fatigue resistance. In this paper we present the experimental results of the impact testing examination of the above coatings. This experimental method is capable to assess the fatigue and the impact wear resistance of coatings working under cyclic impact loading conditions. From the experimental results it was concluded that the slurry Cr, Zr coatings deposited on P91 steel showed adequate fatigue strength for the above-mentioned kind of use.


Infertility is a social onus for women in Iran, who are expected to produce children early within marriage. With its estimated 1.5 million infertile couples, Iran is the only Muslim country in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) using donor gametes and embryos have been legitimized by religious authorities and passed into law. Th is has placed Iran, a Shia-dominant country, in a unique position vis-a-vis the Sunni Islamic world, where all forms of gamete donation are strictly prohibited. In this article, we fi rst examine the "Iranian ART revolution" that has allowed donor technologies to be admitted as a form of assisted reproduction. Th en we examine the response of Iranian women to their infertility and the profound social pressures they face. We argue that the experience of infertility and its treatment are mediated by women's socioeconomic position within Iranian society. Many women lack economic access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) technologies and fear the moral consequences of gamete donation. Th us, the benefi ts of the Iranian ART revolution are mixed: although many Iranian women have been able to overcome


We develop a new method of quantifying the impact of policy announcements on investment rates that makes use of stock market data. By estimating the effect of U.S.-China tariff announcements on aggregate returns and the differential returns of firms exposed to China, we identify their effect on treated and untreated firms. We show theoretically and empirically that estimates of policy-induced stock-market declines imply lower returns to capital, which lowers investment rates. We estimate that the tariff actions through 2018 and 2019 will lower the investment growth rate of listed U.S. companies by 1.9 percentage points by the end of 2020.


The study was conducted to determine the differences between commonly used nozzles TeeJet XR110-03 (new and used) during the testing of field boom sprayers on an electronic table (spray scanner) as they were affected by spraying pressure. The tests were carried out at three working pressures (2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 bar) and the uniformity of spraying, the liquid flow rate of the spray nozzles mounted on the field boom and the number of nozzles beyond the tolerance were determined. The spraying angle was also measured which could influence the coefficient of variation (CV) of the spray distribution. The results showed a poor CV value (more than 10%) as the operating pressure decreased for the new nozzles while they were (CV values) under 10% for the used nozzles at all the range of test pressure values. This suggests that the spray distribution uniformity test depends on the sprayer boom setting and operating factors more than on the work life of the nozzles.


Magma transfer between lower and upper continental crust is a fundamental process linking the dominantly mafic composition of the lower crust with the more felsic composition of the upper crust. We explore the mechanisms of mafic magma ascent and emplacement in the middle crust by studying a mid-crustal gabbroic to dioritic magmatic system (Sondalo complex, Eastern Central Alps, N Italy). We characterize the structure and Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS) fabric of concentric gabbroic to dioritic intrusions. The significance of AMS fabrics is discussed using Anisotropy of Anhysteretic Remanent Magnetization (AARM) and Crystallographic Preferred Orientation (CPO) data acquired on different test sites. The magmatic and magnetic fabrics of the pluton were acquired during its emplacement in the Permian and were not subsequently tilted: the fabrics are essentially vertical, indicating vertical magma transfer through the crust with a two-phase intrusion history. (1) The concordant orientation between the magmatic foliation and the host-rock xenoliths in the center of the pluton suggest that the first magma ascent phase occurred along pathways subparallel to the vertical fabric of the host metasedimentary rocks. (2) The second magma ascent phase was controlled by a change in the rheology of the host-rock and the mafic magma. Heat dissipation to the contact aureole induced partial melting, thereby lowering the mechanical strength of the host-rocks, whereas the viscosity of the mafic magma increased due to cooling and associated fractional crystallization. This caused an en-masse rise of the pluton resulting in the formation of a structural aureole, i.e. a vertical foliation in the contact aureole and a weaker but concordant magmatic foliation at the rim of the pluton. This ascent phase accounts for the P−T evolution recorded by metasedimentary rocks in the contact aureole of the pluton.


The theory for modeling non-linear acoustic propagation is addressed in the dissertation. The solutions to both the linear and non-linear wave equations have been found by an angular spectrum approach (ASA), in which an analytical expression can be derived. This makes the calculation complete without iteration steps. The ASA is implemented in combination with Field II and extended to simulate the pulsed ultrasound fields. The simulated results from a linear array transducer are made by the ASA based on Field II, and by a released non-linear simulation program Abersim, respectively. The calculation speed of the ASA is increased approximately by a factor of 140. For the second harmonic point spread function the error of the full width is 1.5% at -6 dB and 6.4% at -12 dB compared to Abersim. To further investigate the linear and non-linear ultrasound fields, hydrophone measurements are performed under water by two geometrical focused piston transducers. It can be seen that the time pulses measured from a 0.5 inch diameter transducer and linearly simulated using the ASA are fairly comparable. The root mean square (RMS) error for the second harmonic field simulated by the ASA is 10.3% relative to the measurement from a 1 inch diameter transducer. A preliminary study for harmonic imaging using synthetic aperture sequential beamforming (SASB) has been demonstrated. A wire phantom underwater measurement is made by an experimental synthetic aperture real-time ultrasound scanner (SARUS) with a linear array transducer. The second harmonic imaging is obtained by a pulse inversion technique. The received data is beamformed by the SASB using a Beamformation Toolbox. In the measurements the lateral resolution at -6 dB is improved by 66% compared to the conventional imaging algorithm. There is also a 35% improvement for the lateral resolution at -6 dB compared with the sole harmonic imaging and a 46% improvement compared with merely using the SASB. vii


Research has shown that after school programs can provide children with opportunities that help foster positive development and adaptation. Current research meets the need for identifying short term outcomes, program standards, and short term evaluation techniques, however less understood is the lasting meaning of participation for previous participants after their participation. The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning and perceived impacts of participation in a preventative, skill-building after school program for former participants. Using an exploratory case study approach, interviews were conducted with six previous participants of the Virtual YMCA and a former school principal. Reconstructed narratives and analyzed transcripts show that participants do still derive meaning and significance from their participation in the program, although highly individualized. Significant aspects of the program are identified, as well as the participant's perceived impacts which are still present today. Discussion for practitioners, researchers, and funders is provided.


Two-dimensional (2D) magnetic van der Waals materials provide a powerful platform for studying the fundamental physics of low-dimensional magnetism, engineering novel magnetic phases, and enabling thin and highly tunable spintronic devices. To realize high-quality and practical devices for such applications, there is a critical need for robust 2D magnets with ordering temperatures above room temperature that can be created via exfoliation. Here, the study of exfoliated flakes of cobalt-substituted Fe5GeTe2 (CFGT) exhibiting magnetism above room temperature is reported. Via quantum magnetic imaging with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, ferromagnetism at room temperature was observed in CFGT flakes as thin as 16 nm corresponding to 16 layers. This result expands the portfolio of thin room-temperature 2D magnet flakes exfoliated from robust single crystals that reach a thickness regime relevant to practical spintronic applications. The Curie temperature Tc of CFGT ranges from 310 K in the thinnest flake studied to 328 K in the bulk. To investigate the prospect of high-temperature monolayer ferromagnetism, Monte Carlo calculations were performed, which predicted a high value of Tc of ∼270 K in CFGT monolayers. Pathways toward further enhancing monolayer Tc are discussed. These results support CFGT as a promising platform for realizing high-quality room-temperature 2D magnet devices.


Global decarbonization requires the increased use of zero-carbon fuels. Compared to hydrogen, ammonia is easier to store, transport, and produce. In addition, products of complete combustion of ammonia are water and nitrogen. Therefore, ammonia is an ideal green fuel for internal combustion engines. Drawbacks relate to the high ignition energy and low laminar flame speed of ammonia. This 3D numerical study investigated the potential of converting existing diesel engines to ammonia spark ignition operation. Results indicated a slower kernel inception process, but the speed of the fully developed turbulent flame was enough to complete the bulk combustion process despite the lower laminar flame speed. The problem with pure ammonia operation was the reduced combustion efficiency and the high level of unburned ammonia emissions, since the slow spark inception process can be compensated by a larger compression ratio. The results also suggested that emissions formation and subsequent oxidation were a more complex phenomena. For example, lean ammonia combustion produced higher nitrogen oxides (NOX) concentrations due to the nitrogen in the fuel, despite the lower combustion temperature. Moreover, advancing spark timing reduced the NOX emissions, which was opposite to the traditional spark ignition engines. Additionally, the ammonia in engine crevices that escaped the late oxidation process was the main source of nitrous oxide (N2O) species in the exhaust gas that usually do not appear in traditional engines. Overall, all these results suggested that more fundamental research on ammonia combustion is needed to understand its use in efficient, decarbonized engines.


The Latinx population within the United States of America is growing and their academic gap is expanding which impacts the school system. Although various support systems in public schools assist Latinx students' academic performance, many of them continue to underperform in comparison to other non-Latinx students. The literature also revealed that identity has a significant impact on academic performance. There is a direct relationship between Latinx students' perceptions and values influencing their academic performance. By analyzing a focused range of Latinx student perspectives, this study examines whether and to what magnitude Latinx student's identity is influences their academic performance. This phenomenological study was informed by a constructivist worldview and followed a qualitative design by asking open-ended interview questions of 3 Latinx males who did not complete high school and two experienced teachers from Northern California Findings suggest Latinx students developed the identity of being "the other" that has led them to believe that school is not meant for them, which was reinforced by the I lack of transitional support for Latinx students leaving an E.S.L programs. The purpose of this work is to lead to better academic outcomes for Latinx student and in order to improve the academic performance of Latinx students, school systems must cultivate and create better communities and systems of support within their district.


This dissertation research is targeted toward developing effective and accurate methods for identifying gene structures in the genomes of high eukaryotes, such as vertebrate organisms. Several effective hidden Markov models (HMMs) are developed to represent the consensus and degeneracy features of the functional sites including protein-translation start sites, mRNA splicing junction donor and acceptor sites in vertebrate genes. The HMM system based on the developed models is fully trained using an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm and the system performance is evaluated using a 10-way cross-validation method. Experimental results show that the proposed HMM system achieves high sensitivity and specificity in detecting the functional sites.
This HMM system is then incorporated into a new gene detection system, called GeneScout. The main hypothesis is that, given a vertebrate genomic DNA sequence S, it is always possible to construct a directed acyclic graph G such that the path for the actual coding region of S is in the set of all paths on G. Thus, the gene detection problem is reduced to the analysis of paths in the graph G. A dynamic programming algorithm is employed by GeneScout to find the optimal path in G. Experimental results on the standard test dataset collected by Burset and Guigo indicate that GeneScout is comparable to existing gene discovery tools and complements the widely used GenScan system.


Design for Sustainability is not the panacea we hoped it would be when it was first introduced in the latter part of the 20th century. Today, the health of both our environment and our societies is at a critical state, a breaking point, with piecemeal solutions offered as social-media-friendly rallying points, such as the European Parliament approved ban on single-use plastics, whilst fundamental, and arguably less 'exciting', issues such as loss of biodiversity, overpopulation, and climate change are shuffled to the back. It can be argued, however, that the awareness of the concept of sustainability and the need to reduce the negative human impact upon the environment and society has grown significantly and, consequently, has moved up the global agenda; this is evidenced by the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. However, it is also clear that the role of Design for Sustainability within this agenda is not providing the solutions necessary to manifest the level of change required. Traditional approaches are not working. This Special Issue of Sustainability seeks to readdress this with eight papers that push the frontier of what Design for Sustainability could be—and possibly must be—across the broad spectrum of design disciplines.


The LEDIF (LED-induced fluorescence) is an in situ optical instrument that utilizes fluorescence, absorbance, and scattering to identify and quantify substances in water bodies. In this study, matrix effects on fluorescence signals caused by inner filtering, temperature, intramolecular deactivation, turbidity, and pH were investigated, and compensation equations developed to correct measured values and improve accuracy. Multiple simultaneous matrix effect corrections were demonstrated with a laboratory sample subjected to known interferences and physical conditions. In general, compensation was found to be important to improve the accuracy of fluorescence measurements.


Many research state that digitalization is mainly an opportunity, now more
 than ever. Digital firms are more productive, employ more skilled workers,
 and foresee more employment growth opportunities ahead. In 2020, the
 combined health and economic shocks have, however, accelerated the
 technology driven displacement of jobs, which can exacerbate existing
 inequalities in the coming years. The goal of this paper is to analyze
 changes in the scale of income inequalities over the last five years, ending
 in 2021 with respect to the pre-existing inequalities in access to ICTs
 (connectivity), differences in digital skills (human capital), integration
 of digital technology in enterprises and digital public services in EU
 countries. Our research indicates that in the short-term, the degree of
 inequality in EU27 nations grew more in countries with greater connectivity,
 as measured by access to broadband Internet. However, only the integration
 of digital technology in businesses and fundamental access to the Internet
 were linked to a greater reduction in the Gini index from 2017-2021.


For the preparation of the self-healing phase BxC with BCl3-CH4-H2 precursors, the production has been examined as a function of the initial gas ratios of BCl3/(BCl3+CH4) and H2/(BCl3+CH4) at given temperature and pressure. The results show that the composition of the condensed phase is quite sensitive to the molar ratio of BCl3/(BCl3+CH4) and H2/(BCl3+CH4). The ideal condition for the deposition of BxC is that the ratio of BCl3/(BCl3+CH4) is 0.8 and the H2/(BCl3+CH4) ratio ranges from 10 to 105.2. The carbon or boron-rich material is mainly controlled by the ratios of BCl3/(BCl3+CH4) and H2/(BCl3+CH4). The deposition condition of carbon-rich phase should be in low BCl3/(BCl3+CH4) (0.0~0.8) and H2/(BCl3+CH4) (10-2<102) ratios, whereas that of the boron-rich phase needs high BCl3/(BCl3+CH4) (0.8~1.0) and H2/(BCl3+CH4) (104~105) ratios.


Generative text‐to‐image models (as exemplified by DALL‐E, MidJourney, and Stable Diffusion) have recently made enormous technological leaps, demonstrating impressive results in many graphical domains—from logo design to digital painting to photographic composition. However, the quality of these results has led to existential crises in some fields of art, leading to questions about the role of human agency in the production of meaning in a graphical context. Such issues are central to visualization, and while these generative models have yet to be widely applied in visualization, it seems only a matter of time until their integration is manifest. Seeking to circumvent similar ponderous dilemmas, we attempt to understand the roles that generative models might play across visualization. We do so by constructing a framework that characterizes what these technologies offer at various stages of the visualization workflow, augmented and analyzed through semi‐structured interviews with 21 experts from related domains. Through this work, we map the space of opportunities and risks that might arise in this intersection, identifying doomsday prophecies and delicious low‐hanging fruits that are ripe for research.


The theory of electron transfer reactions establishes the conceptual foundation for redox solution chemistry, electrochemistry, and bioenergetics. Electron and proton transfer across the cellular membrane provide all energy of life gained through natural photosynthesis and mitochondrial respiration. Rates of biological charge transfer set kinetic bottlenecks for biological energy storage. The main system-specific parameter determining the activation barrier for a single electron-transfer hop is the reorganization energy of the medium. Both harvesting of light energy in natural and artificial photosynthesis and efficient electron transport in biological energy chains require reduction of the reorganization energy to allow fast transitions. This review article discusses mechanisms by which small values of the reorganization energy are achieved in protein electron transfer and how similar mechanisms can operate in other media, such as nonpolar and ionic liquids. One of the major mechanisms of reorganization energy reduction is through non-Gibbsian (nonergodic) sampling of the medium configurations on the reaction time. A number of alternative mechanisms, such as electrowetting of active sites of proteins, give rise to non-parabolic free energy surfaces of electron transfer. These mechanisms, and nonequilibrium population of donor-acceptor vibrations, lead to a universal phenomenology of separation between the Stokes shift and variance reorganization energies of electron transfer.


BACKGROUND
Generic health status measures are commonly used in the evaluation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. The reliability, validity, and sensitivity of the instruments in the assessment of quality of life (QOL) in RA, and how they correlate to other clinical measurements, have longbeen questioned.

OBJECTIVE
Analyze the performance of a commonly used generic health status measure, the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form (SF-36), against the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology(OMERACT) criteria.

METHODS
Data were analyzed from 7 double-blind, randomized controlled trials that examined the effectiveness of 1 or more interventions in RA. The primary outcome measures evaluated were the Mental and Physical Component Scores of the SF-36. Comparators were 1 or more of the following: the Health Assessment Questionnaire scores, tender joint count (TJC), the Disease Activity Score, and the American College of Rheumatology Responder Index (ACR20,ACR50, ACR70). The ability to detect a treatment effect in the study outcomes was evaluated using 3 measures: treatment difference,standardized response mean, and relative efficiency in relation to the TJC.

RESULTS
As a generic QOL measure, the SF-36 is better suited to capture the holistic health of the patient, as reflected in the World Health Organization definition of health as being not only the avoidance of disease but the physical,emotional, and social well-being of the patient. Furthermore, use of the SF-36 permits comparisons of physical and mental aspects of QOL in the RA patient population, as well as comparisons of QOL parameters between patients with RA, other patient groups, and the general population.

CONCLUSION
The SF-36 deserves serious consideration for inclusion in the core set of outcomes in RA trials.


Vaccination is important in containing the 2022 mpox (formerly monkeypox) epidemic. We describe five Belgian patients with localised severe symptoms of proctitis and penile oedema, occurring between 4 and 35 days after post-exposure preventive vaccination or after one- or two-dose off-label pre-exposure preventive vaccination with MVA-BN vaccine. Genome sequencing did not reveal evidence for immune escape variants. Healthcare workers and those at risk should be aware of possible infections occurring shortly after vaccination and the need for other preventive measures.


OF DMA PROJECT A MUSICAL ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM GRANT STILL'S SONGS OF SEPARATION: THE CHAMBER ARRANGEMENT William Grant Still was given the title "The Dean of African American Music" because of the many firsts he accomplished as an African American musician in the early twentieth century. He is known for fusing his African American musical tradition of Jazz and blues with the classical European musical tradition. This study explores one of Still's most famous song cycles, "Songs of Separation," in the arrangement for string quartet, voice, and piano. This document considers the instrumentation of the string quartet arrangement and how Still uses the instrumentation to enhance the character OF the poetry. This document also provides a performance guide that will facilitate a discussion of technical concepts applicable to singing, of vocal relationships between text and poetry, as well as historical information concerning William Grant Still and his relationship to the poets of the cycle. These poets include Arna Bontemps, Phillipe Thoby Marcelin, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes.


To possess something is an unpredictable combination of the following: to have, to own, to know, or to control. Land, stories, resources, equanimity, and loyalty are all examples of materially incommensurate things a person might possess. Even without material wealth, for example, one might be said to be in possession of a wicked sense of humor or a good memory or despite all else, one's own life story. Possessing one's own life story, however, is not a given. Thinking of one's life as a story, as something that can be narrated, involves social processes and conventions operative well beyond individual processes of reflection or experience. Narrating one's life, then, is to situate oneself and to be situated in dialogue with society.1 As such, whether one's narrative is consensual with or contradictory to social norms, such narration signals possession of shared structures of possibility, including normative understandings of history, memory, knowledge, and truth. To narrate one's life is not just an issue of how, but also a matter of if.


: The activity of aspartate and alanine aminotransferases in mycobacteria of different specific affinity and the degree of resistance to antituberculous drugs were studied. Differences in alanine and aspartic acid transamination processes taking place in mycobacteria with different biological properties were demonstrated.


OBJECTIVE
Early management of patients with acute ischemic stroke is crucial regardless of the time of presentation. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of off-hours management of patients with ischemic stroke that underwent thrombolytic therapy in the emergency department.

METHODS
This is a single-center retrospective study included ischemic stroke patients who received thrombolysis in the emergency department from January 2009 to April 2017. Patients who presented between 08:00 and 17:00 Monday to Friday were in the 'work-hour group (group 1)' versus others who were considered 'off-hours (group 2)'. Primary endpoint was 3-month mortality. Secondary endpoints included the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale and dramatic recovery rate at 24 h, intracranial hemorrhage, systemic hemorrhage and modified Rankin Scale at the 3 months. Symptom-to-needle time, door-to-computed tomography time, and door-to-needle time were also compared between groups.

RESULTS
A total of 399 ischemic stroke patients were included in the analysis, 137 (34%) during work-hours and 262 (66%) during off-hours. The mortality rate was not different at 3 months between groups: 24 (17.5%) in the work-hours group versus 38 (14.5%) in the off-hours group [odds ratio 1.25; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0. 72-2.19]. There were no differences between groups on secondary endpoints. The mean time of symptom-to-needle was significantly higher during off-hours (mean difference: 18.4 min; 95% CI, 7.81-29.0).

CONCLUSIONS
In this study, there were no significant differences in mortality and functional outcomes at 3 months between patients who underwent off-hour or work-hour thrombolysis in the emergency department.


Board accountability for quality and patient safety is widely accepted but the science for how to measure it is immature, and differences between measuring performance, identifying hazards, and monitoring progress are often misunderstood. Hospital leaders often provide scorecards to assist boards with their oversight role yet, in the absence of national standards, little evidence exists regarding which measures are valid and useful to boards to assess quality improvement. The authors describe results of a cross-sectional board study, identifying the measures used to monitor quality. The measures varied widely and many were of uncertain validity, generally identifying hazards rather than measuring rates. This article identifies some important policy implications regarding boards' oversight of quality and acknowledges existing limits to how we can measure quality and safety progress on the national or hospital level. If boards and their hospitals are to monitor progress in improving quality, they need more valid outcome measures.


Since the influential paper of [1], the issue relating to the conditions in recipient countries has become central in the foreign aid debate. Scholars and policymakers alike are interested in identifying the conditions which make foreign aid more effective. To contribute to this growing debate, this paper investigates the role of macroeconomic policy environment, institutional policy and a combination of these two previous variables in aid-growth relationship. The empirical analysis is based on a panel data set including 13 ECOWAS1 countries during the period from 1984 to 2010. Using a modified panel threshold model, the evidence strongly supports the view that the relationship between aid and economic growth is nonlinear with a unique threshold. The paper finds that a stable macroeconomic environment and better institutional quality are sine qua non for the effective contribution of aid to sustainable growth in ECOWAS countries. Furthermore, we find that institutional quality is an important determinant condition which allows aid affects economic growth. One of main contributions of this paper is to successfully identify the conditions under which the aid has a positive impact on economic growth. It is desirable to keep the combination condition in States II and IV (the macroeconomic policy environment is below or above and institutional quality above their threshold respectively) because it may be helpful for the achievement of sustainable economic growth. The results seem to indicate that bad institutional quality may have detrimental effects on economic growth. This will be an important result for the policymakers and international financial institutions, which increasingly favour conditionality and selectivity in the allocation of aid resources. The major policy implication of our results is not a call for a reduction of foreign aid but rather a call for rethinking strategies for international assistance and redesigning existing aid programs.


SUMMARY The distributions of proteins and protein-bound sulphur have been studied by X-ray emission microanalysis in the plantar epidermis of six albino rats. Plantar skin was fixed in 10% formaldehyde for 24 h and 5-/4 paraffin sections obtained. Discrete and continuous measurements of the relative concentrations (mass/unit area) of proteins and sulphur were made along lines of scan perpendicular to the skin surface. The concentrations of proteins and sulphur almost double from the stratum basale across the stratum spinosum. There is a sharp twofold increase in their concentrations across the stratum granulosum to the stratum corneum where they become constant. The sulphur: protein ratio is constant across all layers of the epidermis. Rough estimates of cell volumes give a ratio of 1:9:7-5 for the cells of the strata basale, granulosum and corneum respectively. Cell volume changes cannot be responsible for the changes in concentration so it is concluded that epidermal cells synthesize and accumulate proteins throughout their migration to the stratum corneum. The observations are regarded as circumstantial evidence for the incorporation of keratohyalin granules into cornified cells.


: The rate of respiratory viral infection in the history affects the pattern of manifestations of pulmonary tuberculosis. With the manifestation of tuberculous infection, there is a reduction in the level of mature T lymphocytes and an increase in the values of monocytic oxygen-dependent metabolism (spontaneous and stimulated HCT test). Reductions in the level of activated proliferative cell markers of the lymphocytic link (CD38+ cells, expression of receptors for IL-2, Class II HLA antigens, and receptors for transferrin), in the absolute count of B lymphocytes, in the level of EA-POM and EA-phagocytosis of monocytes and an increase in the concentration of IgM occur more than 3 times a year in patients with respiratory viral infections.


Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia (1968–69) remains one of Kaldor Public Art Projects' (KPAP) most significant projects, both artistically and in its impact on the local and international art scene. A private not-for-profit foundation, Kaldor Public Art Projects has presented site-specific temporary art projects by leading international contemporary artists in Australia for over forty years. Some of these projects, such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude's, were important milestones in the development of contemporary art in Australia. Not-for-profit foundations now play an increasingly important and visible role in the contemporary art world. This essay considers the circumstances that surrounded the inception of one of the earliest of these foundations, Kaldor Public Art Projects. It considers the factors that led to its creation. These include John Kaldor's upbringing and experience as an émigré in Australia; his mentors, Sir Nicholas Sekers and Claudio Alcorso; and the influences on and of his collecting interests. The essay argues that gallerists such as Ileana Sonnabend played a pivotal role in the development of Kaldor's collection and artistic interests. Kaldor's collecting interests also played a key role in the development of the Art Projects. The role of the collector and patron are inextricably linked.


This guide for district and school leaders shows how to recognize opportunities to embed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) into planned policies or programs. Opportunistic RCTs can generate strong evidence for informing education decisions—with minimal added cost and disruption. The guide also outlines the key steps to conduct RCTs and responds to common questions and concerns about RCTs. Readers will find a real life example of how one district took advantage of an opportunity to learn whether a summer reading program worked.


Structural analysis is the way to have a better understanding of structural geology in oil and gas fields. By using the image log technology, we can do this analysis very well, but this process is complicated and it is still unknown to many researchers. Therefore, we decided to explain this process by using a unique case study and a number of valuableimage log interpretation examples. This jobwill be done in Gachsaran field, one of the most important Iranian fields, and the main reservoir that will be studied is Asmari reservoir, one of the most important Iranian oil and gas reservoirs. We aim to offer a unique educational paper that will be very useful for the other researchers who are interested in structural geology and image log technology. This job showed that the direction of bedding strike is almost NW-SE direction for theAsmari reservoir in the section of Gachsaran field.


Granular cell ameloblastoma (GCA) is a well recognized variant of follicular ameloblastoma with extensive granular cell change. In contrast, plexiform granular cell odontogenic tumor (PGCOT) is a rare and recently described lesion characterized histologically by a monophasic plexiform pattern of granular cells. In this paper, two cases of an unusual granular cell odontogenic tumor exhibiting combined features of these two entities are described along with their immunohistochemical characteristics. The granular cells of both the GCA and PGCOT areas showed similar patterns of expression for keratin and S-100, which differed from those of typical ameloblastoma. No reactivity for desmin or vimentin was noted. The histomorphologic and immunohistochemical features of these hybrid tumors suggest that the granular cells present have a common origin, most probably the odontogenic epithelium.


We have carried out an optical and infrared study of 24 ultraluminous infrared galaxies in the southern hemisphere (SULIRGs). This flux limited, complete sample, has been extracted from the redshift survey of IRAS galaxies compiled by Strauss et al. (1992). It includes systems with a 60   IRAS flux greater than 3 Jy and a far-infrared luminosity greater than $6.5~ 10^{11}~\mbox{$L_{\odot}$}$ (). With the ESO New Technology Telescope, we have obtained high resolution optical images in the R band of all SULIRGs, and with the ESO/MPI 2.2-meter telescope, near infrared J , H and K images for most of them. Low and high resolution spectra have been taken with the 4-meter telescope of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The nature and morphology of all objects are consistent with the wide-spread idea that most, if not all, galaxies with an extreme far-infrared luminosity are close interacting or merging systems. The galaxies that appear as isolated and devoid of tidal features exhibit several isophotal distortions in their main body. However three cases are more ambiguous. They are indeed interacting systems, but their companions are at a distance greater than 40 kpc. We find in the SULIRG sample a significant proportion of objects having AGN like spectra: $55 \pm 6\%$, including one Seyfert 1 galaxy.


Bacterial cell walls contain peptidoglycan, an essential polymer made by enzymes in the Mur pathway. These proteins are specific to bacteria, which make them targets for drug discovery. MurC, MurD, MurE and MurF catalyze the synthesis of the peptidoglycan precursor UDP-N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanyl-γ-D-glutamyl-meso-diaminopimelyl-D-alanyl-D-alanine by the sequential addition of amino acids onto UDP-N-acetylmuramic acid (UDP-MurNAc). MurC-F enzymes have been extensively studied by biochemistry and X-ray crystallography. In Gram-negative bacteria, ∼30–60% of the bacterial cell wall is recycled during each generation. Part of this recycling process involves the murein peptide ligase (Mpl), which attaches the breakdown product, the tripeptide L-alanyl-γ-D-glutamyl-meso-diaminopimelate, to UDP-MurNAc. We present the crystal structure at 1.65 Å resolution of a full-length Mpl from the permafrost bacterium Psychrobacter arcticus 273-4 (PaMpl). Although the Mpl structure has similarities to Mur enzymes, it has unique sequence and structure features that are likely related to its role in cell wall recycling, a function that differentiates it from the MurC-F enzymes. We have analyzed the sequence-structure relationships that are unique to Mpl proteins and compared them to MurC-F ligases. We have also characterized the biochemical properties of this enzyme (optimal temperature, pH and magnesium binding profiles and kinetic parameters). Although the structure does not contain any bound substrates, we have identified ∼30 residues that are likely to be important for recognition of the tripeptide and UDP-MurNAc substrates, as well as features that are unique to Psychrobacter Mpl proteins. These results provide the basis for future mutational studies for more extensive function characterization of the Mpl sequence-structure relationships.


In a distributed environment where users and resources are dispersed, security policies often require a more complex control mechanism, for access authorization. Authorization for a subject accessing objects depends not only on its normal access rights but also on its access history and interaction with other subjects. In this paper, frequently desirable multilevel exceptions are systematically categorized and it is shown that many state-dependent security policies are actually examples of these multilevel exceptions. An effective access control model based on Boolean expressions of classified categories is proposed to enforce all the multilevel exceptions in a uniform and elegant way.


In this paper, apply option game theory methods compensate for the inherent limitations of traditional NPV, derived the optimal preempt invest cycle economic projects critical value and the expression of the value function in under incomplete information oligopoly competition, give investors the preempt investment strategy rules, and analyze the relationship between critical value of investment and risks rate. Research shows that the larger face risk of being the first to competitors, the more investors will invest earlier. CLC:F424.7 Document code:A


This study demonstrates that type I IFNs are an early and critical regulator of NK cell numbers, activation, and antitumor activity. Using both IFNAR1- and IFNAR2-deficient mice, as well as an IFNAR1-blocking Ab, we demonstrate that endogenous type I IFN is critical for controlling NK cell-mediated antitumor responses in many experimental tumor models, including protection from methylcholanthrene-induced sarcomas, resistance to the NK cell-sensitive RMA-S tumor and cytokine immunotherapy of lung metastases. Protection from RMA-S afforded by endogenous type I IFN is more potent than that of other effector molecules such as IFN- (cid:1) , IL-12, IL-18, and perforin. Furthermore, cytokine immunotherapy using IL-12, IL-18, or IL-21 was effective in the absence of endogenous type I IFN, however the antimetastatic activity of IL-2 was abrogated in IFNAR-deficient mice, primarily due to a defect in IL-2-induced cytotoxic activity. This study demonstrates that endogenous type I IFN is a central mediator of NK cell antitumor responses. The Journal of Immunology, 2007, 178: 7540–7549.


Wireless sensor-based technologies are becoming increasingly accessible and widely explored in interactive musical performance due to their ubiquity and low-cost, which brings the necessity of understanding the capabilities and limitations of these sensors. This is usually approached by using a reference system, such as an optical motion capture system, to assess the signals' properties. However, this process raises the issue of synchronizing the signal and the reference data streams, as each sensor is subject to different latency, time drift, reference clocks and initialization timings. This paper presents an empirical quantification of the latency communication stages in a setup consisting of a Qualisys optical motion capture (mocap) system and a wireless microcontroller-based sensor device. We performed event-to-end tests on the critical components of the hybrid setup to determine the synchronization suitability. Overall, further synchronization is viable because of the near individual average latencies of around 25ms for both the mocap system and the wireless sensor interface.


This paper presents a low-cost pre- and post-bond self-testing and calibration methodology for the successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) array in a three-dimensional (3-D) CMOS imager. The basic idea is to test and calibrate the SAR ADC by measuring the major carrier transitions (MCTs) of the internal digital-to-analog converter (DAC) capacitor array. During the pre-bond stage, when access to the die is very limited, we propose a calibration-oriented testing technique that only determines whether the ADC array can achieve the desired performance after calibration. This substantially reduces the required design-for-test (DfT) circuitry complexity and test time. Then, during the post-bond stage, more thorough characterization on the ADC array is performed, we utilize digital resources from the image signal processor (ISP) die to analyze the measurement results, compute the calibration parameters, and perform the digital calibration. Simulation results are presented to validate the proposed techniques.


There are still very few systems performing a Similarity Based Learning and using a First Order Logic (FOL) representation. This limitation comes from the intrinsic complexity of the learning processes in FOL and from the difficulty to deal with numerical knowledge in this representation. In this paper, we show that major learning processes, namely generalization and clustering, can be solved in a homogeneous way by using a similarity measure. As this measure is defined, the similarity computation comes down to a problem of solving a set of equations in several unknowns. The representation language used to express our examples is a subset of FOL allowing to express both quantitative knowledge and a relevance scale on the predicates.


Monitoring global states of an application deployed over distributed nodes becomes prevalent in today's datacenters. State monitoring requires not only correct monitoring results but also minimum communication cost for efficiency and scalability. Most existing work adopts an instantaneous state monitoring approach, which triggers state alerts whenever a constraint is violated. Such an approach, however, may cause frequent and unnecessary state alerts due to unpredictable monitored value bursts and momentary outliers that are common in large-scale Internet applications. These false alerts may further lead to expensive and problematic counter-measures. To address this issue, we introduce window-based state monitoring in this paper. Window-based state monitoring evaluates whether state violation is continuous within a time window, and thus, gains immunity to short-term value bursts and outliers. Furthermore, we find that exploring the monitoring time window at distributed nodes achieves significant communication savings over instantaneous monitoring. Based on this finding, we develop WISE, a system that efficiently performs WIndow-based StatE monitoring at datacenter-scale. WISE is highlighted with three sets of techniques. First, WISE uses distributed filtering time windows and intelligently avoids global information collecting to achieve communication efficiency, while guaranteeing monitoring correctness at the same time. Second, WISE provides a suite of performance tuning techniques to minimize communication cost based on a sophisticated cost model. Third, WISE also employs a set of novel performance optimization techniques. Extensive experiments over both real world and synthetic traces show that WISE achieves a 50%–90% reduction in communication cost compared with existing instantaneous monitoring approaches and simple alternative schemes.


Cooperative and corporate farms have retained an important role for agricultural production in many transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Despite this importance, their ownership structure and particularly the ownership's effect on their investment activity vital for efficient restructuring and the sector's future development are still not well understood. This paper aims to analyze the ownership-investment relationship using data on Czech farms from 1997 to 2008. We allow for ownership-specific variability in farm investment behavior analyzed by means of error-correction accelerator model. Empirical results suggest significant differences in the level of investment activity, responsiveness to market signals, investment lumpiness of investment as well as sensitivity to financial variables among farms with different ownership characteristics. Resulting increase in farm performance differences among farms can be expected to lead to farm restructuring in direction of lowering number of owners and increasing ownership concentration.


This study documents the emergence of the societal right to freedom of the press in the international human rights law of Latin America. Relying on legal research and analysis methodology, this article examines cases from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that address press freedom vis-a-vis prior restraints, desacato laws, violent attacks on journalists and mandatory colegio membership for journalists. The study concludes that the societal right to a free press, like the individual right, is a guarantee against governmental intrusion in the free flow of information and ideas necessary in a democracy.


BACKGROUND
The retention of youth living with HIV (YLHIV) in adult care after transfer from pediatric care in the United States is a challenge. A targeted comprehensive retention strategy (CRS) may improve retention among YLHIV.

METHODS
A retrospective cohort study of YLHIV after transfer from pediatric to adult care for patients with at least 1 adult visit at 2 urban HIV care programs in the United States employing CRSs with internal medicine/pediatrics-trained providers, peer navigators, social workers and mental health resources. Primary outcomes were successful retention in care after transfer (≥2 provider visits in the adult clinic ≥90 days apart within 1 year of transfer) and successful transition (successful retention plus a stable HIV viral load (VL) defined as VL 1 year after transfer that was less than or equal to the VL obtained at or immediately before transfer). Logistic regression assessed factors associated with successful transition. A subgroup analysis was performed to examine rates of successful transfer and linkage from pediatric to adult clinics (attending at least 1 adult visit after transition).

RESULTS
Of the 89 patients included in the study, 79 (89%) patients had successful retention and 53 (60%) had successful transition to the adult program. Factors associated with successful transition included non-African American race [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 11.26, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.32-95.51], perinatal HIV (aOR = 8.00, 95% CI: 1.39-46.02) and CD4 count > 500 cells/mm (aOR = 5.22, 95% CI: 1.54-17.70). Of those who were retained, 53/79 (67%) had stable or improved virologic control at 1 year after transition. In a subgroup analysis, 54/56 (96%) patients who were targeted to transition successfully linked to adult care.

CONCLUSIONS
Overall, YLHIV in the United States engaged in a CRS program appear to have high retention rates but suboptimal virologic control after transfer from pediatric HIV care.


Transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β has been shown to promote tissue repair and have immunosuppressivc actions, and has been proposed to have a role in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Using immunohistochemical techniques with rabbit F(ab′)2 antibodies raised against recombinant human TGF‐β1, we have detected TGF‐β1 in the synovial tissue and cartilagc/pannus junction (CPJ) from 18/18 patients with RA. TGF‐β1 was found predominantly in the thickened synovial lining layer in RA. but also detected in a peri vascular pattern in the synovial interstitium as well as in occasional cells in the lymphoid aggregates. At the CPJ it was found both in cells at the distinct junction as well as in the transitional region of the diffuse fibroblastic zone. The cells staining for TGF‐β1 were identified by double immunofluorcsccnce staining as being from the monocy te/macrophage scries as well as the type B synovial lining cells. TGF‐β1 was also detected in the synovial membrane sections from 4/4 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus/mixed connective tissue disease and 5/8 patients with osteoarthri‐tis, in a similar distribution to that seen in RA, and in the lining layer of 1/7 normal synovial membranes. These results add to histological evidence confirming that TGF‐/β1 is present in RA synovial cells and those from otherarthritides. The distributions of TGF‐/β1 in RA synovial membrane reflects its known actions, as it can be detected at the CPJ, where it could induce repair, and close to activated cells upon which it may exert an immunosuppressivc action.


Model-based visual recognition systems often match groups of image features to groups of model features to form initial hypotheses, which are then verified. In order to accelerate recognition considerably, the model groups can be arranged in an index space (hashed) offline such that feasible matches are found by indexing into this space. For the case of 2D images and 3D models consisting of point features, bounds on the space required for indexing and on the speedup that such indexing can achieve are demonstrated. It is proved that, even in the absence of image error, each model must be represented by a 2D surface in the index space. This places an unexpected lower bound on the space required to implement indexing and proves that no quantity is invariant for all projections of a model into the image. Theoretical bounds on the speedup achieved by indexing in the presence of image error are also determined, and an implementation of indexing for measuring this speedup empirically is presented. It is found that indexing can produce only a minimal speedup on its own. However, when accompanied by a grouping operation, indexing can provide significant speedups that grow exponentially with the number of features in the groups. >


As well known, Hebb's learning traces its origin in Pavlov's Classical Conditioning, however, while the former has been extensively modelled in the past decades (e.g., by Hopfield model and countless variations on theme), as for the latter modelling has remained largely unaddressed so far; further, a bridge between these two pillars is totally lacking. The main difficulty towards this goal lays in the intrinsically different scales of the information involved: Pavlov's theory is about correlations among \emph{concepts} that are (dynamically) stored in the synaptic matrix as exemplified by the celebrated experiment starring a dog and a ring bell; conversely, Hebb's theory is about correlations among pairs of adjacent neurons as summarized by the famous statement {\em neurons that fire together wire together}. In this paper we rely on stochastic-process theory and model neural and synaptic dynamics via Langevin equations, to prove that -- as long as we keep neurons' and synapses' timescales largely split -- Pavlov mechanism spontaneously takes place and ultimately gives rise to synaptic weights that recover the Hebbian kernel.


Background Hypertensive disorders, including preeclampsia, complicate 10% of all pregnancies, causing maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. In Bangladesh, 24% of all maternal deaths are directly attributed to hypertensive disorders. Conventional antenatal care practices often delay or miss detecting hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, which may allow some women to become vulnerable to the adverse consequences of the hypertensive disorders. Regular self-monitoring of blood pressure and weight gain may improve maternal and fetal outcomes among pregnant women at risk of developing hypertensive disorders during pregnancy through early diagnosis, prompt referral, and timely clinical management; however, to undertake a randomized controlled trial of an intervention to reduce adverse consequences of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, its feasibility must first be determined. Objective The objectives of this study are to evaluate the accuracy of a wearable blood pressure monitoring device (Health Gauge) in order to test the design and methods of a future definitive randomized controlled trial, and to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and fidelity of an intervention focusing on regular monitoring of weight gain and self-monitoring of blood pressure for pregnant women at risk of developing hypertensive disorders and their associated complications. Methods The study is located in Matlab, Bangladesh will be conducted in two phases. First, a wearable blood pressure device (Health Gauge) will be validated in accordance with the European Society of Hypertension International Protocol (revision 2010). Second, a prospective, two-arm, parallel, and nonblinded randomized controlled external pilot trial will be conducted. In the pilot trial, 70 eligible participants will be individually randomized to the intervention arm, in which pregnant women will self-monitor their blood pressure daily using a wearable device (Health Gauge) and be evaluated monthly by trained health workers for weight gain from 20 weeks of gestation until delivery, or the control arm, in which pregnant women will be assessed for weight gain every two months from 20 weeks of gestation until delivery (1:1 intervention to control allocation ratio using a permuted block randomization method with concealment). All women will receive standard antenatal care. Results A validation study of the wearable blood pressure device has successfully been conducted among the general adult population in Matlab, Bangladesh. As of September 2019, the pilot trial has completed enrollment of women who are pregnant (N=70; intervention: n=35; control: n=35) and follow-up of the participants is ongoing. Data analysis is expected to be completed by June 2020, and results are expected to be submitted for publication in August 2020. Conclusions The findings of this study will help us to design a comprehensive, full-scale randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of regular self-monitoring of blood pressure and weight gain during pregnancy, a simple and inexpensive intervention to help to achieve optimal maternal and fetal outcomes in pregnant women at risk of developing hypertensive disorders and their associated complications during pregnancy. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03858595; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03858595 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/16676


Conservative Christians are often accused, justifiably, of trying to impose their moral views on the rest of the population: of trying to equate God's law with man's law. In this essay, we try to answer the question whether that equation is consistent with Christianity.It isn't. Christian doctrines of creation and the fall imply the basic protections associated with the rule of law. But the moral law as defined in the Sermon on the Mount is flatly inconsistent with those protections. The most plausible inference to draw from those two conclusions is that the moral law - God's law - is meant to play a different role than the law of code books and case reports. Good morals inspire and teach; good law governs. When the roles are confused, law ceases to rule and discretion rules in its place. That is a lesson that many of our fellow religious believers would do well to learn: Christians on the right and on the left are too quick to seek to use law to advance their particular moral visions, without taking proper account of the limits of law's capacity to shape the culture it governs. But the lesson is not only for religious believers. America's legal system purports to honor the rule of law, but in practice it is honored mostly in the breach. One reason why is the gap between law's capacity and the ambitions lawmakers and legal theorists have for it. Properly defining the bounds of law's empire is the key to ensuring that law, not discretion, rules.


The very rapid growth in user-generated social spoken content on online platforms is creating new challenges for Spoken Content Retrieval (SCR) technologies. There are many potential choices for how to design a robust SCR framework for UGS content, but the current lack of detailed investigation means that there is a lack of understanding of the specifc challenges, and little or no guidance available to inform these choices. This thesis investigates the challenges of effective SCR for UGS content, and proposes novel SCR methods that are designed to cope with the
challenges of UGS content. The work presented in this thesis can be divided into three areas of contribution as follows.

The first contribution of this work is critiquing the issues and challenges that in influence the effectiveness of searching UGS content in both mono-lingual and cross-lingual settings.

The second contribution is to develop an effective Query Expansion (QE) method for UGS. This research reports that, encountered in UGS content, the variation in the length, quality and structure of the relevant documents can harm the effectiveness of QE techniques across different queries. Seeking to address this issue, this work examines the utilisation of Query Performance Prediction (QPP) techniques for improving QE in UGS, and presents a novel framework specifically designed for predicting of the effectiveness of QE.

Thirdly, this work extends the utilisation of QPP in UGS search to improve cross-lingual search for UGS by predicting the translation effectiveness. The thesis proposes novel methods to estimate the quality of translation for cross-lingual UGS search. An empirical evaluation that demonstrates the quality of the proposed method on alternative translation outputs extracted from several Machine Translation (MT) systems developed for this task. The research then shows how this framework can be integrated in cross-lingual UGS search to find relevant translations for improved retrieval performance.


OBJECTIVE: To conduct a chronic dietary risk assessment of the pesticides registered in Brazil up until 1999. METHODS: The Theoretical Maximum Daily Intake (TMDI) for each pesticide was calculated using the Brazilian maximum residue limits and food consumption data from IBGE, the Brazilian Statistical Institute. The risk characterization was done comparing the TMDI with the acceptable daily intakes (ADI) from other countries and from the Codex Alimentarius. RESULTS: The TMDI was higher than the ADI (%ADI>100) at least in one Brazilian metropolitan region for 23 pesticides. Sixteen compounds are organophosphate insecticides, with methyl parathion having the TMDI exceeding the most toxicological parameter (%ADIN=9,300). Rice, beans, citrus and tomato were the commodities which most contributed to the ingestion. From the compounds under higher risk, only 6 were registered according to the Law 98.816/90, which concerns the use of pesticides in the country. CONCLUSIONS: The compounds identified in the study as presenting a potential health concern to the Brazilian consumers, and the commodities which most contributed to the ingestion, should be prioritized by the government in pesticide residue monitoring programs and in the re-registration process. In addition, residue data in food as consumed, processing factors and appropriate consumption data should be generated to allow further studies.


For snakes, prey size and sex are two possible determinants of head and body size. In garter snakes Thamnophis sirtalis , females are generally longer and have greater body weights than males, and also have larger relative head sizes, which may facilitate foraging success. The selective pressures that account for sexual size dimorphism in garter snakes have not been unequivocally demonstrated. In this study, the body (length and mass) and head (head length, head width, jaw length, inter-ocular distance) sizes of garter snakes inhabiting two nearby but ecologically dissimilar sites with different types of available prey were compared. Overall, the adult female snakes were larger and had greater relative head sizes than males. Males from the two sites did not differ significantly in body or head sizes. However, the mean body length and mass of females from a site where vertebrates are included in the diet were greater than that of females feeding almost exclusively on earthworms. There were also significant site differences in all four head measurements in females, although the direction of the difference varied by site. Diet-induced morphological plasticity is well documented and was evident in this study, although the relative roles of genotype, ontogeny, and competing selective forces in the expression of such plasticity can only be ascertained through future experimental studies.


Fieldwork in different parts of Severnaya Zemlya in 1985, 1991, 1992 and 1993 and aerial surveys in 1994 revealed a limited bird fauna with a total of 17 breeding species. The most numerous breeding birds are cliff-nesting seabirds, comprising little auk ( Alle alle ), 10 000-80 000 pairs; kittiwake ( Rissa tridactyla ), 5000-10 000; black guillemot ( Cepphus grylle ), 1000-5000; ivory gull ( Pagophila eburnea ), 1000-2000; and glaucous gull ( Larus hyperboreus ), 500-1000. They breed all over the archipelago, usually in rather small mixed- or single-species colonies. Arctic tern ( Sterna paradisaea ) 100-500, and herring gull ( Larus argentatus ) 1-10, breed as solitary pairs or with a few pairs together. Of tundra birds, only brent goose ( Branta bernicla ), purple sandpiper ( Calidris maritima ) and snow bunting ( Plectrophenax nivalis ) are found breeding on most of the major islands. The other tundra species--red-throated diver ( Gavia stellata ), king eider ( Somateria spectabilis ), sanderling ( Calidris alba ), Arctic skua ( Stercorarius parasiticus ), long-tailed skua ( Stercorarius longicaudus ), snowy owl ( Nyctea scandiaca ) and Lapland bunting ( Calcarius lapponicus )--breed in small numbers and in limited areas, often not every year. Of the even fewer mammal species, reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus ) occurs occasionally, while Arctic fox ( Alopex lagopus ) and collared lemming ( Dicrostonyx torquatus ) are locally common in some years. Key words: Severnaya Zemlya, high Arctic birds, breeding distribution


In the wake of the bluff bodies rigid splitter plates are known to control vortex shedding. In this study, the problem of flexible splitter plate in the wake of circular cylinder was investigated using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) experimentally. In this case; the splitter plate which has a certain amount of modulus of elasticity freely deforms along its length because of the fluid forces on plate. The diameter of cylinder, D was 60 mm while the Reynolds number based on the cylinder diameter is kept constant as 2500, the characteristics length of the control element, L was tested for four different cases that the values of L/D were 0, 1.25, 2.25, 2.5 in the investigation. As a consequence, turbulent kinetic energy, TKE, velocity vector field , vortex<>, Reynolds stress , root mean square of streamwise and transverse velocities, /U, /U were analyzed. It is found that the variable parameter of L/D affects the flow structures and also noted that it decreased maximum level of all characteristic values.


"Happy verticality in mathematics"  stems from the need  to deploy  how much anticipated  in the vertical curriculum described in the National Indications for the curriculum of the school of the infancy and the 2012 education first cycle and pushing such verticality to the first two years of superior education and the relative Cultural Aces and Indications. We have thought about facing some particular conceptual knots that create difficulty in the students to all the scholastic levels, what the geometric transformations, isometric and not, the fractions and the theory of the probability.  Our principal purpose has been that to face such knots in different way and amusing, alternating to all the levels the mathematical rigorousness to the imagination and the game. We are looked for so to mostly make nice, but at the same time less loved by the greatest part of the students. For such motive, this experience has seen involved for before the school of the infancy, with the children of 4 and 5 years, and subsequently all the classes of the primary school, those of the secondary school of The degree and, finally, those of the first two years of the secondary one of II degree.


Aim: As the life expectancy maintains to rise, the number of centenarians applied for surgery is increasing. Functional and anatomical changes in elderly patients may cause postoperative morbidity and mortality. The aim of this retrospective cohort study is to analyze and compare general and regional anesthesia in centenarians underwent different surgeries. Material and Methods: Patients aged over 100 years (American Society of Anesthesiology scores of II–IV) were included in our study. The centenarians were divided into two study groups: general anesthesia (Group GA, n=20) and regional anesthesia (Group RA, n=18). The demographic characteristics, procedure, and hospital data were evaluated. Results: There were no significant differences betveen two groups with regards to gender, height, weight, body mass index, ASA scores, perioperative colloid and crystalloid fluid consumptions. Duration of anesthesia and procedure in Group RA was shorter than that in Group GA. The requirement for invasive arterial monitorization, central venous catheterisation, and nasogastric tube in Group GA was higher than that in Group RA. Postoperative delirium was similar in both groups. Heart rate, mean arterial pressure, and peripheral oxygen saturation were similar. In-hospitality mortality was 26.3% in the entire group of centenarians. Conclusions: This study examined the role of different anesthetic methods in extremely elderly patients over 100 years old during different surgeries. Anesthetic agent preferences, long duration of anesthesia and surgery, and hemodynamic instability can cause serious complications. We therefore conclude that careful considerations are required in extremely elderly patients.


Due to the advancement of technology and continuing emergence of international conflict situations, wars are now also conducted into the official new battlefield: cyberspace. Although several incidents have been characterized in terms of cyber operations, there is an important gap in the existing body of knowledge concerning the definition of this concept, and a formal mechanism of representing such operations is lacking. This can produce dissonance and disturbance in the decision making processes and communication in cyber operations, for instance, when planning or assessing their effects. In order to understand what cyber operations represent and to make communication more effective, this article proposes a multidisciplinary definition and a knowledge base for cyber operations implemented as a computational ontology. This article follows a design science approach and grounds its sources in extensive literature review, reports, military doctrine, case studies, evaluation interviews and direct participation and observation in joint military operations exercises and experience in writing cyber operations scenarios. The computational ontology has been designed to reflect the understanding of and the necessary communication in cyber operations based on the abovementioned sources. Its upper classes are: Context, Actor, Type, MilitaryObjective, Phase, Target, Cyber Weapon, Asset, Geolocation, Action and Effect. The ontology has been developed in Protege by using the Ontology Engineering Methodology, and contains 140 classes, 37 individuals and 94 properties. This ontology makes possible the classification of the essential entities of a cyber operation: military objective, target, cyber weapon/capability and effect. The proposed ontology has been exemplified and evaluated on two case studies conducted on Operation Olympic Games/Stuxnet and Georgia and with the help of two military experts with international experience. The validation results show that the proposed ontology is effective in representing cyber operations accurately, clearly and concisely. To increase its applicability, future research will focus on assessing the effects of Cyber Operations.


The use of marketing in state and municipal bodies of authorities becomes very actual in the conditions of market relations and is innovative marketing compared to traditional marketing. State and municipal authorities are constantly dealing with the needs of the population, for the satisfaction of which have the resources, but their resources are limited, so the use of marketing priorities and strategies is particularly effective, as it allows: first, increase the effectiveness of government programs and services; secondly, it creates the scientific basis for determining the strategy and tactics of management in accordance with the needs of the population; third, optimizes the whole management cycle from the definition of goals and objectives of the political leaders to assess their electoral programs in terms of priority of consumers; fourth, provides massive support structures, increase of trust in their policies and active participation of the population in state programs; fifth, to government officials formed stereotype of thinking, focused on the needs of the citizens.


For decades, hydrocarbon accumulations beneath the Gulf of Mexico allochthonous salt canopy were largely considered implausible. The paradigm shift that success could be achieved in deepwater subsalt settings began in 1990 with the Mica discovery. Today, besides an expanding exploration portfolio, industry has the fortunate task of facing the many and varied challenges of subsalt appraisal and development. With this transition comes the need for robust and accurate subsurface characterization. Beneath a salt canopy often many thousands of feet thick, this is a challenge from many viewpoints, from drilling and reservoir management to seismic imaging.


A broad range of II-VI materials has been investigated in order to produce light in the full visible range for optoelectronic applications. The present investigation was carried out for the spectroscopic analysis and synthesis of wide band gap cadmium sulfide nanoparticles. Large-band gap semiconductors have the added advantage in that; they can support higher electric field before breaking down, which means that they can be used for high-power electronic devices.Synthesis has been carried out using colloidal synthesis technique at low temperature. The size, stabilization and optical properties were studied using UV-vis Spectrophotometer and Spectroflourometer. Further, the structural studies of synthesized powder were carried out using X-ray diffraction technique; which also confirms the formation of desired product. The capping ligand and the impurities present in the sample were characterized by Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy. Synthesized CdS powder dispersed in aqueous media gave the value of 193 nm for the onset wavelength using UV-vis spectrophotometer, which is significantly blue-shifted compared to bulk CdS and shows the quantum confinement effect. From the onset wavelength the radius of CdS quantum dot calculated using the Brus equation was found to be ca. 0.7 nm.


Introduction: Mental health decline is one of the main responsible factors for augments in health care costs, and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Some studies stated physical exercise is useful for reduction in cognitive decline and AD. Moreover, a recent review argued that evidence are scarce due to few studies published and lack of configuration information of exercise protocol, such as intensity and duration of exercise, number of sessions and other relevant data, to allow appropriate assessment. Materials and Methods: Here, we discussed the possible confounders or factors responsible for these differences and possible neurophysiological mechanisms. Results: Most studies revealed a possible positive association between physical exercise and cognitive assessments. There are inconsistencies in studies design responsible for varying use of cognitive assessments and different assessments of fitness. However, these studies do not fail to provide evidence about the benefits of exercise, but fail to make it possible because of the lack of dose-response information in AD patients. Physical exercise of moderate intensity should be considered as standard recommendation to reduce cognitive decline, probably due to the improvement in neurodegenerative mechanisms, and the increase in neuroplastic and neuroprotective neurotrophic factors. Conclusion: Therefore, it is suggested that physical exercise is an important neuroprotective modulator, bringing significant control of the disease and amplifying brain functions.


Politicians use social media platforms to connect with the public. However, who constitutes the public sphere to whom politicians actually talk and listen remains largely unknown, especially because network characteristics determine individuals' visibility. Focusing on the Twitter network of all Swiss MPs, I identified 129,063 Twitter users with whom politicians connected (i.e., their follower–followee network) or to whom they talked and listened (e.g., [were] replied to or retweeted). I conducted a qualitative network analysis to describe the network and a semi-automated content analysis of the Twitter users to classify them (N = 70.589). The results show that the network is partially dominated by a power–law distribution of attention and is clustered by national languages but not ideology. Politicians talk primarily to citizens, who also react most often to the politicians' messages. However, politicians listen more often to actors close to politics and the media than to citizens.