For earlier potato yield formation we used pre-sprouting and thermal treatment which both add to the physiological age of potato. At the same time, pre-sprouting is a very timeand energy-consuming procedure. We investigated if thermal treatment could replace pre-sprouting and how it affects the growth and development of potato haulms and tubers. For that purpose an experiment was conducted in 2000�2002 to examine the opportunities for growing potatoes by using different methods of pre-planting treatment of seed tubers. Early, middle and late maturing potato varieties (two Estonian varieties and one Latvian) were used, each being subdivided into three variant categories: untreated, thermal shock and pre-sprouting. The experiment indicated that one or the other of thermal shock or pre-sprouting shortened the time to emergence by up to 10 days. With pre-sprouting, the formation of tubers started as soon as 45 days after planting and with thermal shock 50 days after planting, i.e., 5�10 days earlier than in the untreated variant. Thermal shock of seed tubers had the greatest effect on the number of tubers per plant, while pre-sprouting increased the average weight of tubers. Both pre-sprouting and thermal shock had a strong effect on the weight of the haulms in varieties with a longer growth period.


Incidence of Dilobopterus costalimai Young and Acrogonia citrina Marucci & Cavichioli, in citrus orchards in Northwestern Parana. The sharpshooters of the families Cicadellidae and Cercopidae are vectors of Xylella fastidiosa (Wells), which causes citrus variegated chlorosis. This disease causes severe damage to the Parana citrus industry, and it has been studied in Brazil since 1987, when it was discovered for the first time in the area of Colina, SP. The vectors transmit X. fastidiosa when they feed on the xylem sap, where the bacteria settles, obstructing the passage of the sap. This work had the objective of evaluating the occurrence of the vector sharpshooter Dilobopterus costalimai and Acrogonia citrina in a commercial citrus orchard during the period between July 2004 and August 2006. The experiment was accomplished in the Laranjeiras I farm, in the city of Nova Esperanca, northwestern Parana. The collections were undertaken monthly, and yellow stick traps (Biocontrole®) was used as a sampling method in Folha murcha, Valencia, Pera and Natal oranges trees ( Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck). In Pera and Valencia trees, the most often captured sharpshooter was Dilobopterus costalimai. The months of higher occurrence of these species were between December and May of each year.


Snow over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is an important water source of major Asian rivers and greatly influences water availability in the downstream areas. In this study, snow cover dynamics of the four characteristic lake basins, Cedo Caka, Selin Co, Nam Co, and Yamzhog Yumco during hydrological years 2001–2010 (September through August) are examined at the basin scale using the flexible multiday combined MODIS snow cover products. The time series of multiday, seasonal, and annual snow covered area (SCA), onset/disappearance dates of snow, snow covered days (SCD), peaks of maximum SCA, and snow cover index (SCI) for each hydrological year (HY) are examined. Results show there is no obvious trend of snow cover change in the examined period, although Nam Co basin has the greatest SCA in all four basins and in all years, and Cedo Caka and Selin Co basins show the smallest SCA in most of the years. Overall, the HY2007 shows a greater snow extent and HY2010 a smaller for the region, with exceptions for the Nam Co basin where the HY2003 is the greatest and for Cedo Caka basin where the HY2004 is the smallest. Statistical analysis between lake level changes and lake basin's SCA, precipitation and pan evaporation (ETpan) changes shows that (1) Cedo Caka's water level rise was highly correlated with the basin's SCA changes (r = 0.94, p = 0.063); (2) Selin Co's water level rise was significantly correlated with the basin's SCA, precipitation and ETpan changes (r = 0.99, p = 0.029); and (3) lake level changes of Nam Co and Yamzhog Yumco were correlated with their corresponding lake basin's SCA, precipitation and ETpan changes (r = 0.87 and r = 0.86, respectively), although insignificant at the 95% level. This could have been due to precipitation and ETpan data of a distant meteorological station for Nam Co lake basin and the complex hydrological processes in the Yamzhog Yumco basin. This study suggests that the examination of time series snow cover dynamics is important to evaluate the water budget of lake basins with snow as a major component of water balance.


Forests are among the most important N pools of all terrestrial ecosystems. Elevated atmospheric N deposition in recent decades has led to increased interest in the influences of N application on forest N cycles. However, accurate assessments of N storage in forest ecosystems remain elusive. We used a 14-year experiment of a Chinese fir [Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook] plantation to explore how long-term N fertilization affected N storage and recovery rates. Our study plots were located in a field that had been continuously fertilized over 14 years (2004–2017) with urea at rates of 0 (N0, control), 60 (N60, low-N), 120 (N120, medium-N), and 240 (N240, high-N) kg N hm−2a−1. Data were collected that included N content and biomass in the understory, litter, and various plant organs (i.e., leaves, branches, stems, roots, and bark), as well as soil N content and density at different depths. Results showed that the total ecosystem N storage in the N-fertilized plots was 1.1–1.4 times higher than that in the control plots. About 12.36% of the total ecosystem N was stored in vegetation (plant organs, litter, and understory) and 87.64% was stored in soil (0–60 cm). Plant organs, litter, and soil had higher N storage than the understory layer. Significantly higher plant N uptake was found in the medium-N (1.2 times) and high-N (1.4 times) treatments relative to the control. The N recovery rate of the understory layer in the N-fertilized treatments was negative and less than that in the control. Application of long-term N fertilizer to this stand led to a low N recovery rate (average 11.39%) and high loss of N (average 91.86%), which indicate low N use efficiency in the Chinese fir plantation ecosystem. Our findings further clarify the distribution of N in an important terrestrial ecosystem and improve our understanding of regional N cycles.


A new method for pest risk assessment and the identification and evaluation of risk-reducing options is currently under development by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Plant Health Panel. The draft method has been tested on pests of concern to the European Union (EU). The method is adaptable and can focus either on all the steps and sub-steps of the assessment process or on specific parts if necessary. It is based on assessing changes in pest population abundance as the major driver of the impact on cultivated plants and on the environment. Like other pest risk assessment systems the method asks questions about the likelihood and magnitude of factors that contribute to risk. Responses can be based on data or expert judgment. Crucially, the approach is quantitative, and it captures uncertainty through the provision by risk assessors of quantile estimates of the probability distributions for the assessed variables and parameters. The assessment is based on comparisons between different scenarios, and the method integrates risk-reducing options where they apply to a scenario, for example current regulation against a scenario where risk-reducing options are not applied. A strategy has been developed to communicate the results of the risk assessment in a clear, comparable and transparent way, with the aim of providing the requestor of the risk assessment with a useful answer to the question(s) posed to the EFSA Plant Health Panel. The method has been applied to four case studies, two fungi, Ceratocystis platani and Cryphonectria parasitica, the nematode Ditylenchus destructor and the Grapevine flavescence doree phytoplasma. Selected results from these case studies illustrate the types of output that the method can deliver.


SIR,-Originally Professor A. L. Cochrane was courteous enough to communicate his criticisms of our paper "The Burden of Cerebrovascular Disease in the Oxford Area" (13 June, p. 621) to us privately. It was only when we persuaded him that we believed the issues merited public discussion that he wrote to you (18 July, p. 165). We believe that the basis of Professor Cochrane's concern is summarized at the end of his letter as follows: "[When] record linkage. .covers general practice as well as hospitals it will be possible to use it for community epidemiology." In our opinion the truth of this statement depends upon both the natural history of the disease under consideration and the organization of, and attitude towards, medical services in the community concerned. Clearly one could learn nothing of the burden of osteoarthrosis on the general population from the Oxford data as they presently stand because the majority of patients will neither be admitted to hospital for its treatment nor will it appear on their death certificates. In contrast, there are diseases from which the vast majority of cases will either die within a month, or spend at least one night in hospital, or both. Many cancers, and, we believe in the Oxford area at any rate, cerebrovascular disease of sufficient severity to give rise to symptoms lasting two days or more (Eisenberg's' criterion) come into this category. If we are correct, then the proportion of such stroke cases treated at home is so small that it can be safely ignored. Table I compares our estimates of


In a paper of 1974, Brian Day employed a notion of factorization system in the context of enriched category theory, replacing the usual diagonal lifting property with a corresponding criterion phrased in terms of hom-objects. We set forth the basic theory of such enriched factorization systems. In particular, we establish stability properties for enriched prefactorization systems, we examine the relation of enriched to ordinary factorization systems, and we provide general results for obtaining enriched factorizations by means of wide (co)intersections. As a special case, we prove results on the existence of enriched factorization systems involving enriched strong monomorphisms or strong epimorphisms.


This paper examines if perceptions of test legitimacy increase when racial differences on test performance match the racial status quo or when a perceiver's in-group performs better than expected, relative to other groups. Study 1 assesses expected performance difference for various racial groups on a GRE-like test. Study 2 assesses White and Asian participants' perceptions of legitimacy of a test that either favors the in-group or an out-group. Study 3 replicates Study 2 using individuals from high- and low-status groups (Asians and Latinos, respectively). The findings suggest that the desire to benefit the in-group trumps the desire to justify the status quo in accounting for the impact of race-based performance differences on perceptions of test legitimacy.


A Method for Exploring Optimization Formulation Space in Conceptual Design Shane K. Curtis Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science Formulation space exploration is a new strategy for multiobjective optimization that facilitates both divergent searching and convergent optimization during the early stages of design. The formulation space is the union of all variable and design objective spaces identified by the designer as being valid and pragmatic problem formulations. By extending a computational search into the formulation space, the solution to an optimization problem is no longer predefined by any single problem formulation, as it is with traditional optimization methods. Instead, a designer is free to change, modify, and update design objectives, variables, and constraints and explore design alternatives without requiring a concrete understanding of the design problem a priori. To facilitate this process, a new vector/matrix-based definition for multiobjective optimization problems is introduced, which is dynamic in nature and easily modified. Additionally, a set of exploration metrics is developed to help guide designers while exploring the formulation space. Finally, several examples are presented to illustrate the use of this new, dynamic approach to multiobjective optimization.


As soon as international financial markets felt reassured in 2003 by the surprisingly neoliberal orientation of President Lula's government, the 'spot-the-new-Latin-tiger' financial brigade became dazzled by Brazil — they just couldn't have enough of it. So much so, that they had little difficulty in turning a blind eye to the obvious fact that (except for several commodities, finance, and a small number of other activities) Brazil's economic performance since the beginning of neo-liberal reforms (c.1990) had been remarkably poor. This not only contrasted with its own performance pre-1980, but also with what was happening in Asia. I shall argue that the weakness of the new neo-liberal paradigm is rooted as much in its intrinsic flaws as in the particular way it was implemented. As in the rest of Latin America, Brazil's economic reforms were undertaken primarily as a result of its perceived economic weaknesses — i.e., there was an attitude of 'throwing in the towel' vis-a-vis the previous state-led import substituting industrialisation strategy, because most politicians and economists interpreted the 1982 debt crisis as conclusive evidence that it had led the region into a cul-de-sac. As Hirschman has argued, policy-making has a strong component of 'path-dependency'; as a result, people often stick with policies after they have achieved their aims, and those policies have become counterproductive. This leads to such frustration and disappointment with existing policies and institutions that is not uncommon to lead to a 'rebound effect'. An extreme example of this phenomenon is post-1982 Latin America, where the core of the discourse that followed ended up simply emphasising the need to reverse as many aspects of the previous development strategy as possible. This helps to explain the peculiar set of priorities, the rigidity and the messianic attitude with which the reforms were implemented in Brazil, as well as their poor outcome. As the then President of Brazil's Central Bank explained at the time, their main task was "...to undo forty years of stupidity." With this 'reverse-gear' attitude, this experiment in economic reform almost inevitably ended up as an exercise in 'not-very-creative-destruction' — especially vis-a-vis its manufacturing industry. Something very different happened in Asia, where economic reforms were often intended (rightly or wrongly) as a more targeted and pragmatic mechanism to overcome specific economic and financial constraints. Instead of implementing reforms as a mechanism to reverse existing industrialisation strategies, in Asia they were put into practice in order to continue and strengthen ambitious processes of industrialisation. Although the Brazilian economy has been unable to deliver sustainable productivity-growth since the beginning of economic reforms (just a few short growth-dashes), Brazilian-style neo-liberal capitalism became unrivalled when it came to offering world-class commodities, an abundance of precarious (mostly service) jobs, stylish retail, extremely lucrative finance, and the 'purity of beliefs.'


In order to improve the cycling stability of a new rare-earth Mg-based hydrogen storage alloys, La0.7Mg0.3Ni2.65-xMn0.1Co0.75Alx (x=0.0-0.4) alloys were prepared to investigate the structure and electrochemical properties of these alloys. XRD and Rietveld analyses reveal that the alloys consist of a (La,Mg)Ni3 phase with rhombohedral PuNi3-type structure and a LaNi5 phase with hexagonal CaCu5-type structure. Electrochemical studies on these alloys indicate that their maximum discharge capacities were decreased from 400.7 mAh/g (x=0.0) to 335.6 mAh/g (x=0.4). However, the cycling stability of the alloy electrodes was significantly improved after Ni was partially replaced by Al. After 100 charge/discharge cycles, the discharge capacity retention was increased from 32.0% (x=0.0) to 73.8 % (x=0.3), which can be attributed to the formation of a dense oxide film on the alloy surface. Moreover, the high rate dischargeability measurements indicate that the electrochemical kinetic properties were deteriorated with increasing Al content owing to the presence of a dense oxide film of Al.


We enrolled 114 patients, aged 65–83 years, undergoing elective surgery (duration > 2h) into a randomised, controlled study to evaluate the performance of bispectral index and spectral entropy for monitoring depth of xenon versus propofol anaesthesia. In the propofol group, bispectral index and state entropy values were comparable. In the xenon group, bispectral index values resembled those in the propofol group, but spectral entropy levels were significantly lower. Mean arterial blood pressure was higher and heart rate was lower in the xenon group than in the propofol group. Bispectral index and spectral entropy considerably diverged during xenon but not during propofol anaesthesia. We therefore conclude that these measures are not interchangeable for the assessment of depth of hypnosis and that bispectral index is likely to reflect actual depth of anaesthesia more precisely compared with spectral entropy.


In recent years, thermoplastic composites have found their place in large business sectors and are in direct rivalry to thermoset matrix composites. In order to ensure efficient and lean processes, process modeling gains ever-growing attention. This work shows the computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-modeling of a typical heating step in a thermoforming process of a thermoplastic composite sheet. When heating thermoplastic composites, the heat conduction proceeds anisotropic, and the sheets are subject to thermal deconsolidation when heated above the melting temperature of the polymer matrix adding to the anisotropic effect. These effects are neglected in known process models and this study shows the first successful attempt at introducing them into CFD-modeling of the heating of thermoplastic composite sheets. Thus, the simulation requires temperature dependent values for the anisotropic thermal conductivity and the coefficient of linear thermal expansion, which are calculated with novel physical models which were developed solely for this cause. This alters the behavior of an isotropic CFD-model and allows the successful validation via laboratory experiments using glass fiber reinforced polypropylene (PP/GF) sheets with embedded thermocouples to check the internal temperature distribution when the sheet is heated to the designated forming temperature in a composite thermoforming press. The incorporation of this newly developed process model reduces the error in the core temperature prediction from close to 70 °C to 3 °C at the forming temperature.


Fivemethodswere developed for simultaneous determination of pamabrom and paracetamol without previous separation. In the first and second methods pamabrom and paracetamol were determined using second and third derivative UV spectrophotometry with zero crossing measurement at 301 and 265 nm for second derivative method and at 290 and 257 nm for third derivative method, for pamabromand paracetamol, respectively. The third method depends on first derivative of the ratios spectra by measurements of the amplitudes at 271 nmfor pamabromand at 258 nm for paracetamol. The fourth one depends on two wavelength measurement for the total content of the two drugs at 222 and 265 nm, while the content of paracetamol was determined by measuring the absolute value of the first derivative curve at 243 nm. The fifth method describes the use of multivariate spectrophotometric calibration for the simultaneous determination of the analyzed binarymixture where the resolution is accomplished by using classical least squares regression analysis. All the proposed methods were extensively validated and the results obtained were statistically analyzed and compared with those obtained by official methods. The results obtained were statistically analyzed and proved to be precise and accurate.


Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is the cause of certain cancers, such as Burkitt lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, NK/T cell lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and a subset of gastric carcinomas. The genome-wide characteristics of EBV are essential to understand the diversity of strains isolated from EBV-related malignancies, provide the first opportunity to test the general validity of the EBV genetic map and explore recombination, geographic variation, and the major features of variation in this virus. Moreover, understanding more about EBV sequence variations isolated from EBV-related malignancies might give important implications for the development of effective prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine approaches targeting the personalized or geographic-specific EBV antigens in these aggressive diseases. In this chapter, we will mainly focus on the EBV genome-wide profiling in three common EBV-related cancers in Asia, including nasopharyngeal carcinoma, EBV-associated gastric carcinoma, and NK/T-cell lymphoma.


Drying is one of the most important steps of the post-harvest of pepper seeds and must be performed carefully so as not to impair the quality of seeds. The study of thermodynamic properties provides information about the behavior of water in agriculture products and the energy requirement for removal thereof during the drying process. Based on the above, this study aimed to determine and evaluate the thermodynamic properties for different equilibrium moisture contents in pepper seeds of the variety 'Cabacinha'. Seeds with an initial moisture content of 22.7% on dry basis (d.b.) were subjected to drying at 40 °C, until reaching moisture content of 3.9% (d.b.). Based on the obtained results, it is concluded that the integral isosteric heat of desorption, the Gibbs free energy, the differential enthalpy and entropy increase with the reduction of the moisture content of pepper seeds. The Gibbs free energy showed positive values, indicating that the process of desorption is not spontaneous. The theory of the enthalpy-entropy compensation can be applied to the desorption process, since this is controlled by enthalpy. Additional keywords: Capsicum chinense L.; isokinetic temperature; isosteric heat; moisture content. Resumo


G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) regulate diverse biological processes in all eukaryotes, including yeast, insects, plants and humans. This evolutionary conservation allows an almost unrestricted interchange of signaling components between different cell types. A large number of model systems have been developed for the study of GPCRs, and yeasts provide one of the more attractive hosts since they are amenable to both genetic and biochemical manipulation, while their robustness, low cost and lack of endogenous GPCRs are ideal starting points for the development of assays suitable for high-throughput screening. The purpose of this review is to introduce readers to the possibilities of using the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe for analysis of GPCRs. We describe the endogenous signaling pathways, the development of assays for heterologous GPCRs, and some of the technology available to elucidate GPCR structure and activity.


Summary In social work practice, the role of substance use is often encountered in the context of other social problems such as child abuse and domestic violence. This article compares descriptions of important factors for initiating and maintaining positive changes among male and female clients treated for alcohol and/or drug problems. The results have a bearing both on substance use treatment and on other areas in social work practice where these problems are encountered. Studies highlighting gender perspective indicate differences regarding experience of alcohol and drug problems and treatment. An advantage of the study is the qualitative analysis of a rather comprehensive material (n = 90) enabling more general conclusions than in previous research with a limited number of clients. Findings Women more often than men stress poor mental health and their children as important for initiating change. When referring to partners, women report abusive rather than supportive partners while the opposite applies to men. For maintaining change, male clients more often stress changes in ways of thinking and feeling as important. Men also report becoming more sensitive while women get more active. This can be understood as transcending of gender with possibilities of a broader repertoire of how to act. Applications A challenge for practical treatment work is to create possibilities for clients to broaden their repertoire of ways of living and thinking about themselves, expressed by women as the importance of taking space and speaking up and by the men of showing emotion and listening more.


This paper deals with finding an $n$-dimensional solution $x$ to a system of quadratic equations of the form $y_i=|\langle{a}_i,x\rangle|^2$ for $1\le i \le m$, which is also known as phase retrieval and is NP-hard in general. We put forth a novel procedure for minimizing the amplitude-based least-squares empirical loss, that starts with a weighted maximal correlation initialization obtainable with a few power or Lanczos iterations, followed by successive refinements based upon a sequence of iteratively reweighted (generalized) gradient iterations. The two (both the initialization and gradient flow) stages distinguish themselves from prior contributions by the inclusion of a fresh (re)weighting regularization technique. The overall algorithm is conceptually simple, numerically scalable, and easy-to-implement. For certain random measurement models, the novel procedure is shown capable of finding the true solution $x$ in time proportional to reading the data $\{(a_i;y_i)\}_{1\le i \le m}$. This holds with high probability and without extra assumption on the signal $x$ to be recovered, provided that the number $m$ of equations is some constant $c>0$ times the number $n$ of unknowns in the signal vector, namely, $m>cn$. Empirically, the upshots of this contribution are: i) (almost) $100\%$ perfect signal recovery in the high-dimensional (say e.g., $n\ge 2,000$) regime given only an information-theoretic limit number of noiseless equations, namely, $m=2n-1$ in the real-valued Gaussian case; and, ii) (nearly) optimal statistical accuracy in the presence of additive noise of bounded support. Finally, substantial numerical tests using both synthetic data and real images corroborate markedly improved signal recovery performance and computational efficiency of our novel procedure relative to state-of-the-art approaches.


Natural flight has always been the source of imagination for  the  Human being, but reproducing the propulsive systems used by animals is indeed complex. New challenges in today's society have made biomimetics gain a lot of momentum because of the high performance and versatility these systems possess when subjected to  the low Reynolds numbers effects. The main objective of the present work is the computational study of the influence of the Reynolds number, frequency and amplitude of the oscillatory movement of a NACA0012 airfoil in the aerodynamic performance for a constant angle of attack over time. The thrust and power coefficients are obtained which together are used to calculate the propulsive efficiency. The simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent with a RANS approach for Reynolds numbers between 8,500 and 34,000, reduced frequencies between 1 and 5, and Strouhal numbers from 0.1 to 0.4. The aerodynamic parameters were widely explored as well as their interaction, obtaining optimal operational condition zones for the different Reynolds numbers studied.
Keywords: Plunging, Airfoil, CFD, Aerodynamic coefficients, Biomimicry


The present paper is concerned with the existence2 of the eigenvalue ir of the Hilbert matrix A =((i+k —1)_1) or A = ((i+k)'1), i, k = l, 2, 3, • • • . It is well known that,3 considered as a linear operator in the Hilbert space I2 of vectors with finite square sum of components, A is symmetric, positive-definite and bounded, the upper bound being equal to ir. It is further known that4 ir is not an eigenvalue of A thus defined. However, the question has remained open whether there exists any eigenvector (not belonging to the Hilbert space) with the eigenvalue ir of the matrix A. In what follows we shall show that there exists such an eigenvector x and that x may be chosen positive. Further we shall show that x is logarithmically convex in the sense that [x(i-\-l)]2^x(i) ■x(i+2). Actually we shall establish these results for a rather wide class of matrices containing the Hilbert matrix as a special case. Our method is quite simple and elementary: we consider the dominant eigenvectors6 of the nXn segments A" of A and show that the ith components of these eigenvectors form (when properly normalized), for each fixed i, a monotone converging sequence; the limiting vector thus obtained being shown to be the required eigenvector of A. These results may be of some interest in view of various numerical work6 done recently on the segments An of the Hilbert matrix. Actually the present investigation was suggested by a table7 of the dominant eigenvectors of An.


Moore's Law scaling is continuing to yield even higher transistor density with each succeeding process generation, leading to today's multi-core Chip Multi-Processors (CMPs) with tens or even hundreds of interconnected cores or tiles. Unfortunately, deep sub-micron CMOS process technology is marred by increasing susceptibility to wearout. Prolonged operational stress gives rise to accelerated wearout and failure, due to several physical failure mechanisms, including Hot Carrier Injection (HCI) and Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI). Each failure mechanism correlates with different usage-based stresses, all of which can eventually generate permanent faults. While the wearout of an individual core in many-core CMPs may not necessarily be catastrophic for the system, a single fault in the inter-processor Network-on-Chip (NoC) fabric could render the entire chip useless, as it could lead to protocol-level deadlocks, or even partition away vital components such as the memory controller or other critical I/O. In this paper, we develop critical path models for HCI- and NBTI-induced wear due to the actual stresses caused by real workloads, applied onto the interconnect micro-architecture. A key finding from this modeling being that, counter to prevailing wisdom, wearout in the CMP on-chip interconnect is correlated with lack of load observed in the NoC routers, rather than high load. We then develop a novel wearout-decelerating scheme in which routers under low load have their wearout-sensitive components exercised, without significantly impacting cycle time, pipeline depth, area or power consumption of the overall router. We subsequently show that the proposed design yields a 13.8×-65× increase in CMP lifetime.


In this work, hybrid composite materials were made from the combination of waste silk fibers (WSFs) and poplar wood flour (PWF) as reinforcement, recycled polycarbonate (RPC) as polymer matrix, and silane as coupling agent. RPC was obtained from waste compact discs. The effects of fiber type and loading on the mechanical and physical properties of the composites were studied. Experimentally, it was found that the weight content of PWF is a key parameter that would substantially influence the mechanical properties of the samples. The obtained results showed that tensile and flexural strengths and moduli of the composites were significantly enhanced with the addition of biofibers in both types (fiber and flour), as compared with neat RPC. However, the increase in WSFs and PWF contents substantially improved the notched Izod impact strength, but reduced the thermal stability. The significant improvements in mechanical properties of the composites with the incorporation of WSF and PWF were further supported by scanning electron microscopy micrographs. Composites containing more fraction of WSF exhibited higher water absorption (WA) compared with PWF-filled composites. In addition, composite with higher WSF and PWF (30 wt%) loading showed maximum WA during the whole duration of immersion. POLYM. COMPOS., 2014. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers


This paper develops estimates of TFP growth adjusted for movements in unobserved factor utilization for a panel of 29 countries and up to 37 years. When factor utilization changes are unobserved, the commonly used Solow residual mismeasures actual changes in TFP. We use a general equilibrium dynamic multi-country multi-sector model featuring variable factor utilization to derive a production function estimating equation that corrects for unobserved factor usage. We compare the properties of utilization-adjusted TFP series to the standard Solow residual, and discuss the implications for international business cycle comovement generated by technology shocks. Unlike the Solow residual, utilization-adjusted TFP is virtually uncorrelated across countries, and as a result its direct contribution to GDP comovement is negligible. A general equilibrium model calibrated to the observed levels of international trade cannot generate much comovement through propagation of these TFP shocks.


Butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) was purified from monkey serum and the catalytic activities were examined. The enzyme has a molecular mass of approximately equal to 74 kDa as seen by SDS-gel electrophoresis. Monkey serum BChE also exhibits an amine sensitive aryl acylamidase (AAA) and a metallocarboxypeptidase activity. The tyramine activation of the aryl acylamidase activity and the metal chelator inhibition of the peptidase activity were characteristics similar to those of the human enzyme. Studies on 65Zn2+ binding and zinc chelate Sepharose chromatography showed that monkey serum BChE and human serum BChE have similar characteristics. Limited alpha chymotrypsin digestion of monkey serum BChE followed by Sephadex gel chromatography cleaved the enzyme into a 36 kDa fragment exhibiting peptidase activity. However the 20 kDa fragment corresponding to cholinesterase and aryl acylamidase activity was not detectable possibly due to the unstable nature of the fragment. Immunological studies showed that a polyclonal antibody against human serum BChE cross reacted with monkey serum BChE. The identical nature of the catalytic activities of human serum BChE and monkey serum BChE supports the postulate that all three catalytic activities co-exist in the same enzyme. This is the first time that purification and characterisation of the monkey serum BChE which has the highest sequence identity and immunological identity with that of human serum BChE, is being reported.


Three acha varieties were malted and their enzyme activities were compared with that of barley malt. During the malting, the maximum amylase activity was achieved on day 3 for white and black acha but in the case of brown acha, the maximum activity was obtained on day 4. Under the optima malting conditions, all the three acha varieties gave higher amylase activity than barley malt. Of the three varieties of acha, white acha gave the highest glucoamylase activity (50 U/ml) and the least was exhibited by barley malt (26 U/ml). Application of malted acha as a source of enzyme for simultaneous hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation of two substrates (cassava and corn flour) was investigated under various conditions. Cassava flour yielded higher ethanol than corn flour under all the conditions investigated. Comparison of acha malt with koji enzymes for simultaneous hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation under various conditions showed that acha malt enzymes are superior to koji enzymes (microbial enzymes) under the three conditions investigated. Furthermore, regardless of the substrate used, gelatinization of starch improved ethanol productivity and yields. Incubating a mixture of raw starch and acha malt at 50oC for 30 minutes before inoculation of yeast cells improved the ethanol production but the final ethanol concentration was not as high as the value obtained with gelatinized starch. These results have demonstrated that acha malt has great potential application in brewery and ethanol production industries.


Wireless sensor networks are highly vulnerable to the failure of base stations. An adversary can render a wireless sensor network useless by launching remote, softwarebased attacks or physical attacks on the base stations. This paper addresses the problem of defending a base station against physical attacks by concealing the geographic location of a base station. Typical packet traffic in a sensor network reveals pronounced patterns that allow an adversary analyzing packet traffic to deduce the location of a base station. The paper investigates several countermeasures against traffic analysis techniques aimed at disguising the location of a base station. First, a degree of randomness is introduced in the multi-hop path a packet takes from a sensor node to a base station. Second, random fake paths are introduced to confuse an adversary from tracking a packet as it moves towards a base station. Finally, multiple, random areas of high communication activity are created to deceive an adversary as to the true location of the base station. The paper evaluates these techniques analytically and via simulation using three evaluation criteria: total entropy of the network, total energy consumed, and the ability to guard against heuristic-based techniques to locate a base station.


We investigate institutional and policy drivers of telecommunications deregulation in Europe. In particular, we focus on those determinants which received so-far a comparatively little attention: policy speed and timing, path-dependency, institutional complementarity. We find that: first, crosseffects from privatizations to liberalizations reveal to affect the liberalization process; second, the telecommunications industry is shown to play a 'pivotal role' in the liberalization patterns of European countries; third, 'path dependency' turns out to be a crucial driver for telecommunications' liberalizations; fourth, liberalizations in telecommunications result to be linked across European countries; fifth, 'institutional complementarities' between liberalization initiatives and regulatory authorities are shown to significantly shape the telecommunications market structure. Finally, we interpret our findings in light of the evolution of the European regulatory framework and suggest that these results may represent important lessons for policy design in other network industries.


The competition between the companies in the dynamic market conditions has made the Supply Chain Management (SCM) a more important issue. The companies which have organized their supply chain effectively have obtained more flexibility in their manufacturing processes in addition to delivery of the customer demands. In this study, two different multicriteria decision making algorithms composed of the FAHP and a holistic hybrid method using FTOPSIS were utilized for an electronic company in wholly fuzzy processes. The FAHP is used for determination of the global weights of the factors and the performances of alternative suppliers are evaluated by using both FAHP-based and FAHP-FTOPSIS hybrid methods for synthetic extent values of pairwise comparisons. The sequences of the suppliers differed for the algorithms. The performances of the proposed approaches are quite successful and flexible in a narrow interval. The managerial advantages obtained from the proposed fuzzy algorithms are also analyzed and interpreted.


Importance
The financial consequences of high-expenditure innovative drugs and the association of these consequences with access to cancer treatment are substantial. With oncology being one of the major spending blocks of care and research, innovative policies are needed to secure the sustainability and accessibility of health care systems. Despite this strong interest, structured approaches are missing to date, and proposals are often based on opinion rather than fact.

Objectives
To evaluate an inventory of policies to reduce drug prices at market launch and analyze the quantitative evidence on which these policies are based.

Evidence Review
For this systematic review, a literature search of the Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Business Source Premier, ABI/Inform, World Health Organization, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development databases was conducted for articles published between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2017. Publications that described proposed policies with a direct or obvious indirect association with pharmaceutical prices at market launch and with relevance to oncology and high-income countries were included. Evidence basis was assessed per article, and quantitative articles were categorized according to time and data use. Main price mechanisms and scored system disruptiveness per proposal were identified. Data were analyzed from January 1, 2018, to January 1, 2019.

Findings
Of the 4775 articles screened, 80 were selected, and an inventory of 23 policies to reduce medicine prices was created. Proposals were diverse but mainly applied the strengthening of competition as an underlying mechanism to reduce drug prices. Of the 80 studies, 23 used quantitative models, but existing evidence was insufficient to deduce price effects, especially considering system disruptiveness. The available evidence was used to identify promising proposals for which testing may be beneficial: transparency, delinkage, 2-part pricing, public research, orphan drug reform, and public clinical trials.

Conclusions and Relevance
The findings suggest that despite the urgency of the search for proposals that lead to sustainable drug prices, careful and structured testing of proposals is needed because the implications for access to drug treatment can be substantial.


The novel design and fabrication of monolithically integrated passive waveguide mode converters (WMCs), realized through the utilization of the reactive ion-etch lag (RIE Lag) phenomenon, is reported. The low-loss GaAs-AlGaAs WMCs have been characterized over a wavelength range of 900-940 nm, resulting in TE-TM (TM-TE) mode conversion with efficiencies of greater than 96% and low-loss devices with conversion lengths as short as 150 /spl mu/m. The properties and characteristics of the fully integrated WMCs, fabricated with a single masking and etch process, are in agreement with theoretical predictions.


An attractive alternative to generate tunable dualwavelength pulses by external injection seeding of a gain-switched Fabry–Pérot laser diode (FP-LD) is demonstrated. The externalinjection-seeding branch consists of only a FP-LD, a 3-dB coupler and two fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). The two wavelengths can be selected and their spacing can be tuned by adjusting two FBGs. The output sidemode-suppression-ratio is better than 17 dB over a 10-nm wavelength tuning range. The whole system is simple and of low cost.


Service-Oriented Computing promotes building applications by consuming reusable services. However, facing the selection of adequate services for a specific application still is a major challenge. Even with a reduced set of candidate services, the assessment effort could be overwhelming. On previous works we have presented a novel approach to assist developers on discovery, selection and integration of services, specially focusing in the selection method, which is based on a comprehensive scheme for services' interfaces compatibility. The scheme is also complemented by a framework based on black-box testing to verify compatibility on the expected behavior of a candidate service. This paper analyzes the selection method through a series of case studies, which are designed to show the scheme's potential on determining the best choice of a service among a set of candidates.


Objective: To clarify the role of ATP binding cassette subfamily C member 3 (ABCC3) on prognosis and pathological response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancer, and further explore the potential molecular mechanism. Design: Retrospective analysis of clinicopathologic factors and detection of ABCC3 expression in pretreatment biopsy specimens from 144 cases of stage II–III rectal cancer who received neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and radical surgery. Pathological response according to tumor regression grade and long-term survival curve were further determined. ABCC3 expression was down-regulated using short interfering RNA in colorectal carcinoma cells HT-29 and SW-480. Cell proliferation and apoptosis in response to 5-fluorouracil or irradiation were examined using colony formation assay, single-hit multi-target model, flow cytometry and Hoechst 33342 staining, respectively. Tumor growth following fractional irradiation was measured in xenograft mouse model. Change of intracellular reactive oxygen species contents and activation of cleaved caspase-3 expression were further explored. Results: Aberrant expression of ABCC3 was an independent factor significantly predicting poor pathological response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (P=0.002) and prognosis (3-year Overall Survival: P=0.011; 3-year Disease-free Survival: P=0.003). Down-regulation of ABCC3 expression significantly increased 5-fluorouracil or irradiation induced cell apoptosis in vitro, and tumor growth was significantly suppressed following irradiations in vivo. Furthermore, inhibition of ABCC3 expression obviously activated caspase-3 dependent apoptotic pathway and decreased intracellular reactive oxygen species exporting from cells after being exposed to irradiations. Conclusion: ABCC3 is an attractive target for improving sensitivity to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and of potential value for a clinical breakthrough in the comprehensive treatment of rectal cancer patients. Note:This abstract was not presented at the conference. Citation Format: Zhiqi Yu, Chang Zhang, Xianhua Gao, Junjie Xing, Hao Wang, Enda Yu, Wei Zhang, Xiaoqing Zhang, Guangwen Cao, Chuangang Fu. Aberrant expression of ABCC3 in rectal cancer predicts poor prognosis and pathological response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy via activating the caspase-3 dependent apoptotic pathway. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2013 Oct 27-30; National Harbor, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2013;6(11 Suppl): Abstract nr B35.


Multiple mechanisms underlie the human ageing process but interest continues in the role that free radicals and antioxidants may play. Tissue levels of lipofuscin (a mixture of proteins, peroxidised lipids, pigments and metal ions) increase with age as do plasma levels of lipid peroxides. There does not appear to be a progressive increase in free radical-induced DNA damage with age. The evidence that there is a reproducible alteration in intra- or extra-cellular antioxidant mechanisms with age is far from conclusive. Differences in geographical location, the populations studied, methodology and inadequate attention to confounding factors such as gender, alcohol consumption, smoking and disease all contribute to this lack of consensus amongst workers. It is clear, however, that elderly people suffering from chronic and acute illness have reduced protective antioxidant mechanisms. Although this may not initiate an increase in free radical-mediated cell damage it may contribute to this group being less able to deal with increased free radical activity and consequent increased lipid peroxidation. The beneficial role of antioxidant supplementation to healthy individuals remains controversial, but needs to be evaluated in the sick elderly.


Depending on politeness considerations, the quantifier 'some' can receive a broad interpretation (some and possibly all) or a narrow interpretation (some but not all). Face-threatening statements such as 'some people hated your speech' encourage the broad interpretation that everyone hated the speech. Because previous research showed that broad interpretations are normally faster and easier, politeness should be easy to process, since it would encourage what is normally the easier interpretation of the statement. Using response time measures and a cognitive load manipulation, this research shows that just the opposite is true: Face threatening contexts encourage the broad interpretation of 'some' while making it longer and more difficult to reach. This result raises difficulties for current cognitive theories of pragmatic inferences.


Prices of index-linked financial instruments can be used to obtain market-based measures of inflation expectations and real interest rates. These measures are regularly used by the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee to inform its assessment of economic conditions. In the United Kingdom, the index-linked gilt market is long established and has been used to infer such measures for many years. More recently, international index-linked markets have developed further, with increased issuance of index-linked bonds and greater use of index-linked derivatives. This article outlines how new market data provide useful additional information. We show that inflation swap rates can be used to estimate market expectations of inflation, and how the larger range of information from index-linked markets facilitates analysis of market-based expectations for inflation and real interest rates across countries.


ABSTRACT The gut microbiota enhances the host's metabolic capacity for processing nutrients and drugs and modulate the activities of multiple pathways in a variety of organ systems. We have probed the systemic metabolic adaptation to gut colonization for 20 days following exposure of axenic mice (n = 35) to a typical environmental microbial background using high-resolution 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to analyze urine, plasma, liver, kidney, and colon (5 time points) metabolic profiles. Acquisition of the gut microbiota was associated with rapid increase in body weight (4%) over the first 5 days of colonization with parallel changes in multiple pathways in all compartments analyzed. The colonization process stimulated glycogenesis in the liver prior to triggering increases in hepatic triglyceride synthesis. These changes were associated with modifications of hepatic Cyp8b1 expression and the subsequent alteration of bile acid metabolites, including taurocholate and tauromuricholate, which are essential regulators of lipid absorption. Expression and activity of major drug-metabolizing enzymes (Cyp3a11 and Cyp2c29) were also significantly stimulated. Remarkably, statistical modeling of the interactions between hepatic metabolic profiles and microbial composition analyzed by 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing revealed strong associations of the Coriobacteriaceae family with both the hepatic triglyceride, glucose, and glycogen levels and the metabolism of xenobiotics. These data demonstrate the importance of microbial activity in metabolic phenotype development, indicating that microbiota manipulation is a useful tool for beneficially modulating xenobiotic metabolism and pharmacokinetics in personalized health care. IMPORTANCE Gut bacteria have been associated with various essential biological functions in humans such as energy harvest and regulation of blood pressure. Furthermore, gut microbial colonization occurs after birth in parallel with other critical processes such as immune and cognitive development. Thus, it is essential to understand the bidirectional interaction between the host metabolism and its symbionts. Here, we describe the first evidence of an in vivo association between a family of bacteria and hepatic lipid metabolism. These results provide new insights into the fundamental mechanisms that regulate host-gut microbiota interactions and are thus of wide interest to microbiological, nutrition, metabolic, systems biology, and pharmaceutical research communities. This work will also contribute to developing novel strategies in the alteration of host-gut microbiota relationships which can in turn beneficially modulate the host metabolism. Gut bacteria have been associated with various essential biological functions in humans such as energy harvest and regulation of blood pressure. Furthermore, gut microbial colonization occurs after birth in parallel with other critical processes such as immune and cognitive development. Thus, it is essential to understand the bidirectional interaction between the host metabolism and its symbionts. Here, we describe the first evidence of an in vivo association between a family of bacteria and hepatic lipid metabolism. These results provide new insights into the fundamental mechanisms that regulate host-gut microbiota interactions and are thus of wide interest to microbiological, nutrition, metabolic, systems biology, and pharmaceutical research communities. This work will also contribute to developing novel strategies in the alteration of host-gut microbiota relationships which can in turn beneficially modulate the host metabolism.


Educational games and simulations can engage students in higher-level cognitive thinking, such as interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating, acting, and problem solving. Recent technical advances in multiplayer, usercreated virtual worlds have significantly expanded the capabilities of user interaction and development within these simulated worlds. This ability to develop and interact with your own simulated world offers many new and exciting educational possibilities. This article explores the technical capabilities and educational potential of these new worlds. Additionally, it presents and illustrates a model, which uses interaction combinations, to identify course content and topics having educational applications in virtual worlds.


This article analyzes the evolution of the Spanish venture capital and private equity markets during the last 16 years, making at the same time a comparison with that experienced by the European markets. The aim of the article is to identify some key ideas that could explain the shift in the investment focus from the original concept of venture capital to the wider approach of private equity. Evidence of a shift towards mature companies is found, the difficulties in the exit processes of early-stage investments being the main constraint on real venture capital activity.


Damage identification is one of the main contents of structural health condition assessment. Curvature mode is an ideal method to identify structural damage location, with advantages of easy to be operated and sensitive to local damage, while the frequency is easy to test with high precision. An improved structural damage identification method is presented, which combines curvature and frequency. Finally, the improved method presented herein is verified by a simple support steel beam tested in laboratory. The results show that the improved method can effectively identify structural damage location.


Tourism is one of the fast moving businesses in the world. Due to different reasons, people plan for tour for getting some different exposure in the environment. This study focus on how tour operators and tourists build relation for development of tourism industry. Tour operators and tour guides are major stakeholders during production and operation of organized package tours. However, the relationship between them received little attention in tourism literature. This study intends to identify the dimensions of the relationship between the two parties and importance attained to different guiding roles both by tour operators and guides. It also explores the attitude gaps between tour operators and guides on various guiding attributes. Numerous differences in perceptions were identified regarding importance attained to foreign language skills, group cohesion, holiday experience creation, entertainment, representation skills, contract compliance, image creation, itinerary compliance and identification with tour operators.


The Great Gossan Lead is a northeast-trending belt of massive to near-massive sulfide pods and lenses extending over 28 km through Carroll and Grayson Counties of southwestern Virginia. The closely spaced en echelon pods and lenses constitute ore zones which are essentially conformable to foliation in the quartz-muscovite and chlorite schist of the late Precambrian Ashe Formation and which range from less than one to more than 50 m in thickness and up to 7.5 km in length.Ore mineralogy is dominated by hexagonal pyrrhotite (>90% by volume) with lesser amounts of sphalerite, chalcopyrite, and galena; other phases--arsenopyrite, cubanite, mackinawite, tetrahedrite, stannite, and native bismuth--are minor but disseminated throughout the ores. Pyrite, except at the northeastern end of the district where it is present as euhedral porphyroblasts, occurs only very locally as highly corroded crystals.A strongly developed metamorphic fabric, the absence of mineral zoning, and the presence of a zone of iron depletion in the silicates surrounding the ores indicate that the ores and host rocks have been subject to the same metamorphism. At a proposed thermal maximum of 415 degrees to 455 degrees C, the ore assemblage would have developed a sulfur activity of approximately 10 (super -9) to 10 (super -7) and would have been subject to an oxygen activity below about 10 (super -25) .Sphalerite occurs as disseminated anhedral aggregates which commonly contain oriented lamellae and blebs of chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite. Sphalerite coexisting with pyrite and pyrrhotite contains as much as 14 mole percent FeS and thus indicates a metamorphic pressure of about 5.5 kb.The Great Gossan Lead is interpreted to have formed as massive, synsedimentary pyritic deposits possibly related to submarine volcanism. Metamorphism to the lower amphibolite facies, intense deformation, and subsequent retrograde effects resulted in the present mineral assemblage and produced the observed tectonic fabric.


Background: Patients are treated with statins for the control of cholesterol; but statins control only low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and not non-high-density lipoprotein (non-HDL). Also, LDL is not a good coronary risk predictor. That creates the necessity to find a better biomarker for future coronary risk prediction. Hence, biomarkers under this territory such as total cholesterol (TC)/HDL, LDL/HDL, triglyceride (TG)/HDL ratios, non-HDL, apolipoprotein-B (apo-B), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) were to be assessed and correlated with LDL to find the better biomarker in Indian patients. Objective: The objective was to study non-HDL, apo-B, TC/HDL, TG/HDL, LDL/HDL ratios, and hs-CRP in patients under statin therapy; and to correlate them with their LDL; to predict the risk of future coronary events; and to identify which biomarker among them is better at detecting the same. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional observational study performed by systematic random sampling among 87 patients under statin therapy, and the levels of LDL, TC/HDL, LDL/HDL, TG/HDL ratios, non-HDL, apo-B, and hs-CRP were measured in such patients, and their correlation with optimized and unoptimized LDL groups were done. Continuous data were represented as mean and standard deviation, andP value was calculated using independent t-test or z-test. Results: Non-HDL, TC/HDL, and LDL/HDL ratios were found to be statistically significant – all three parameters withP < 0.0001 in predicting the coronary artery disease attacks in the future. Conclusion: Even though all patients in our study were under statin therapy, they are still under the risk of developing coronary events. This can be solved by targeting the control of non-HDL or TC/HDL or LDL/HDL ratios, as they are found be better biomarkers for future coronary risk prediction.


The stability range of power transfer in high impedance, weak, grids with Voltage Source Converters (VSC) can be extended a simple modification of the conventional Synchronous Reference Frame Phase Locked Loop (PLL) used for grid synchronization. By introducing an impedance-conditioning term in the voltage used by the PLL, the VSC control system is virtually synchronized to the voltage at a stronger point in the grid. By synchronization to the voltage behind the corresponding virtual impedance, the proposed approach can be utilized to influence the reactive power flow of the VSC in a way that will inherently enhance the power transfer capability of the high-impedance grid. To verify the impact of the proposed approach, an analytical model of a VSC HVDC terminal is used to calculate the achievable steady-state power transfer capability, as well as the range where small-signal stability is ensured, in a grid with low SCR when applying different levels of virtual impedance in the grid synchronization. The validity of the stability assessment based on the analytical model, and the increased stability range achieved with the proposed impedance-conditioned PLL, are also verified by time-domain simulations in the Matlab/Simulink environment.


Representative democracy gives voters the right to influence who governs but its influence on policy making is only indirect. Free and fair referendums give voters the right to decide a policy directly. Elected representatives usually oppose referendums as redundant at best and as undermining their authority at worst. Democratic theorists tend to take electing representatives as normal and as normatively superior. The nominal association of popular decision making and populism has strengthened this negative view. Public opinion surveys show substantial support for holding referendums on important issues. Two major theories offer contrasting explanations for popular support for referendums; they reflect populist values or a commitment to the civic value of participation. This innovative paper tests an integrated model of both theories by the empirical analysis of a 17-country European survey. There is substantial support for all three civic hypotheses: referendum endorsement is positively influenced by attitudes towards participation, democratic ideals and whether elected representatives are perceived as responsive. By contrast, there is no support for populist hypotheses that the socioeconomically weak and excluded favour referendums and minimal support for the effect of extreme ideologies. The conclusion shows that most criticisms of referendums also apply to policy making by elected representatives. While referendums have limits on their use, there is a democratic argument for holding such ballots on major issues to see whether or not a majority of voters endorse the choice of their nominal representatives.


Research summary
This paper emphasises the social and political dimensions of subsidiary influence in strategically
repositioning the subsidiary's mandate. The specific skills subsidiary actors deploy in attempting
to influence corporate headquarters have largely been neglected in existing literature. Drawing
from a micro-political perspective, we provide a more nuanced, fine-grained understanding of
subsidiary influence by illuminating how influence is augmented and enriched through the
concomitant effects of subsidiary actors' social and political skills. Using a multiple case study
analysis, drawing on qualitative interviews, we illustrate how subsidiary actors' social skills are used
to continuously create, maintain and develop spaces of social engagement with corporate decision
makers, whereas political skill involves the ability to leverage social spaces by developing specific
influence tactics such as targeting, showcasing and framing.
Managerial summary
Subsidiaries of multinational companies play an increasingly dominant role in the global business
environment. The role of the individual subsidiary actor in influencing corporate management is
crucial to the development of the subsidiary mandate. Despite this, very little is known about the
micro-level skills that individual subsidiary actors draw upon to influence the development of their
mandates. This paper explores how subsidiary actors channel key social and political skills in
strategically repositioning their mandates within the multinational enterprise. We find that
subsidiary actors may use their social skill to establish increased interaction and communication
with key corporate decision makers, whereas political skill is used to develop a variety of influence
tactics.


In this paper we describe the design and development of interconnected devices which allow monitoring in situ the performance of solar boilers. This mobile remote lab system comprises two huge blocks of hardware: a mobile station located by the boiler, which is monitored and controlled in a remote way, and a fixed station, located in the Laboratory of Energy for the Sustained Development of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario. The communication between the fixed and mobile devices is controlled by microcontrollers included in both stations and programmed in C language. The project is being developed through three parallel lines of work: 1) Design and development of fixed and mobile hardware; 2) Development of firmware and software necessary to register and communicate data; 3) Design and development of learning activities. This mobile remote lab will be useful to test the behavior of solar boilers in the place and environmental conditions where they are placed so as to evaluate their performance and efficiency anywhere. This is also in order to contribute for the implementation of norms for the certification of solar boilers. On the other hand, the data and results obtained from the development will be used as supplies for the design of learning activities.


Sirtuins are NAD+-dependent deacylases that regulate numerous biological processes in response to the environment. SirT1 is the mammalian ortholog of yeast Sir2, and is involved in many metabolic pathways in somatic tissues. Whole body deletion of SirT1 alters reproductive function in oocytes and the testes, in part caused by defects in central neuro-endocrine control. To study the function of SirT1 specifically in the male germ line, we deleted this sirtuin in male germ cells and found that mutant mice had smaller testes, a delay in differentiation of pre-meiotic germ cells, decreased spermatozoa number, an increased proportion of abnormal spermatozoa and reduced fertility. At the molecular level, mutants do not have the characteristic increase in acetylation of histone H4 at residues K5, K8 and K12 during spermiogenesis and demonstrate corresponding defects in the histone to protamine transition. Our findings thus reveal a germ cell-autonomous role of SirT1 in spermatogenesis.


Cryptococcus neoformans meningoencephalitis is the most common fungal central nervous system infection, in people affected by the human immunodeficiency virus. It is rare in inmunocompetent children and it is often fatal. It predominates in males at a ratio of 3 to 1. We describe the cases of two school children, one male and one female, with history of contact with pigeons (Columba livea), whose clinical symptoms were fever, headache, photophobia, diplopia, ataxia and meningeal signs, with unilateral involvement of cranial nerve VI. The diagnosis was established by the isolation of Cryptococcus neoformans in culture, staining with India ink and evidence of latex antigen agglutination in the cerebrospinal fluid. The determination of antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus and quantification of CD4, CD8 and T lymphocyte cells, were normal. In the first case, a chest X-ray showed a round mass, circumscribed in the bottom half of the left lung. A brain MRI revealed an image compatible with a nodular cryptococcoma in the parietal region. A pattern of intracranial hypertension was established, with papilledema and bilateral amaurosis, that evolved unsatisfactorily, with the subsequent death of the patient. Both were treated with amphotericin B (1 mg/Kg/day) or fluconazole (6 mg/Kg/day). The second case had a favorable evolution. The Crypotococcus neoformans is not a common fungus in inmunocompetent children. Early detection of the disease and appropriate treatment is essential to achieve a better prognosis ot the disease.


Sweden's most trusted news distributor, Sveriges Radio (Swedish Public Service radio broadcaster), has high ambitions with the journalism it broadcasts – especially when it comes to gender equality and diversity. This thesis examines how gender is constructed in Dagens Eko (Today's Echo) to find if and how power structures are expressed language-wise. Queer theory is used to look at how gender is constructed and how one can look at, and question, gender and gender hierarchies. Intersectionality is used to find how different power structures work together, combined with theories about how journalism constructs truth. At the same time the thesis is also evaluating different choices of theories and methods, to find strengths and weaknesses for future research purposes. The analysis is based on materials from domestic news segments from Dagens Eko, consisting of one week's broadcasts in January 2015. Critical linguistics is used as a method, with emphasis on Halliday's functional grammar, as a part of Fairclough's three-layer model. Through the eye of critical discourse analysis, this study shows that gender is constructed through language, more specifically via categorization and stereotyping. The thesis conducts that the use of so called cases, people who are in the news segments to give a more human perspective on the subject, is problematic because this is as also a way of efficiently constructing stereotypes. The thesis also concludes that while using statistics to present more equal representation in the news, this is not enough.


Aeolian dust transport from the Saharan/Sahel desert regions is considered the dominant external input of iron (Fe) to the surface waters of the eastern (sub‐) tropical North Atlantic Ocean. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the sources of dissolved Fe (DFe) and quantified DFe fluxes to the surface ocean in this region. In winter 2008, surface water DFe concentrations varied between <0.1 nM and 0.37 nM, with an average of 0.13 ± 0.07 nM DFe (n = 194). A strong correlation between mixed layer averaged concentrations of dissolved aluminum (DAl), a proxy for dust input, and DFe indicated dust as a source of DFe to the surface ocean. The importance of Aeolian nutrient input was further confirmed by an increase of 0.1 nM DFe and 0.05 μM phosphate during a repeat transect before and after a dust event. An exponential decrease of DFe with increasing distance from the African continent, suggested that continental shelf waters were a source of DFe to the northern part of our study area. Relatively high Fe:C ratios of up to 3 × 10−5 (C derived from apparent oxygen utilization (AOU)) indicated an external source of Fe to these African continental shelf waters. Below the wind mixed layer along 12°N, enhanced DFe concentrations (>1.5 nM) correlated positively with apparent oxygen utilization (AOU) and showed the importance of organic matter remineralization as an DFe source. As a consequence, vertical diffusive mixing formed an important Fe flux to the surface ocean in this region, even surpassing that of a major dust event.


Presents the hierarchical task graph (HTG) as an intermediate parallel program representation which encapsulates minimal data and control dependences, and which can be used for the extraction and exploitation of functional, or task-level parallelism. The hierarchical nature of the HTG facilitates efficient task-granularity control during code generation, and thus applicability to a variety of parallel architectures. The construction of the HTG at a given hierarchy level, the derivation of the execution conditions of tasks which maximizes task-level parallelism, and the optimization of these conditions which results in reducing synchronization overhead imposed by data and control dependences are emphasized. Algorithms for the formation of tasks and their execution conditions based on data and control dependence constraints are presented. The issue of optimization of such conditions is discussed, and optimization algorithms are proposed. The HTG is used as the intermediate representation of parallel Fortran and C programs for generating parallel source as well as parallel machine code. >


We present a detailed review of the electroweak radiative corrections to the Z-boson decay, in the framework of the Minimal Standard Model (MSM). After a short historical introduction we describe the optimal parametrization of the MSM, especially of the Born approximation, and derive expressions for the one-loop electroweak corrections. Finally a global fit of all relevant experimental data is performed, resulting in fitted values of the t-quark mass, mt, and strong coupling constant αs. Allowed range for the value of the Higgs boson mass, mH, is discussed. Various details of calculations are described in 16 appendices.


Although many of the problems that Cali is experiencing - social and human capital deterioration, a declining economy, and institutional crisis - are a reflection of Colombia's complicated socioeconomic situation, the city has been hit harder by the crisis than other large cities, as confirmed by the following indicators: GDP, unemployment, poverty rate, inequality, and number of homicides. According to recent estimates, the population in Cali reached the 2 million level in 1999, making the city the second largest in the country after Bogota. Internal migration increased significantly during the early 90s due to the economic boom generated by drug dealing activities, and continued in the last part of the decade, due to resettlement movements of large population groups, affected by social conflict in rural areas. However, migration flows have generated social tension in the city, as economic opportunities became scarce. The Bank engaged in a participatory process to produce a City Development Strategy (CDS), whose specific objectives are to help the city administration and stakeholders identify a strategy to overcome the current crisis, and, be a neutral facilitator in the reconstruction process. The CDS is being developed in four stages: 1) identification of the main problems; 2) development of the analytical framework; 3) dissemination of results; and, 4) development of a financial plan.


The electrical properties of semiconductor components can be greatly modified by proton implantation. Spreading resistance, C-V (capacitance voltage) and DLTS (deep levels transient spectroscopy) measurements have been used to characterize N-type silicon irradiated by MeV proton at fluences up to 10/sup 14/p/sup +/cm/sup -2/. The greatest drawback induced by proton implantation is the overdoping effect which can strongly reduce device efficiency. The present work reports this effect in both annealed and unannealed samples. >


Dr. Shirlaw gives a very good account of air-raid ·precaution organization in England in all its aspects, and anyone having to do with. air-raid precaution work in Australia should read this to gain a general idea of the magnitude and ramifications of this branch of civil defence. In view of recent experiences in London, his ideal scheme for the evacuation of casualties from the scene of bombing must be modified. It has been found, for instance, that many hospitals originally classed as base hospitals were exposed to as much danger as those classed as casualty clearing stations, and that well thought out evacuation schemes had to be instantly abandoned. As the book is written mostly from an administration point of view, much of the first sections could be eliminated, especially those chapters dealing with the treatment of bomb casualties, which are too sketchy to be of any value. Many diagrams, for instance those of obsolete tourniquets and the pneumatic sprayer for tannic acid spray treatment of but-ns, now superseded by the tannic acid-silver nitrate method, are valueless and serve only as padding. Taken on the whole, however, it is a most instructive book in a subject that is of interest to us all in these strenuous times.


Bacteria have evolved macromolecular machineries that secrete effectors and toxins to survive and thrive in diverse environments. The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is a contractile machine that is related to Myoviridae phages. It is composed of a phage tail‐like structure inserted in the bacterial cell envelope by a membrane complex (MC) comprising the TssJ, TssL and TssM proteins. We previously reported the low‐resolution negative‐stain electron microscopy structure of the enteroaggregative Escherichia coli MC and proposed a rotational 5‐fold symmetry with a TssJ:TssL:TssM stoichiometry of 2:2:2. Here, cryo‐electron tomography analyses of the T6SS MC confirm the 5‐fold symmetry in situ and identify the regions of the structure that insert into the bacterial membranes. A high‐resolution model obtained by single‐particle cryo‐electron microscopy highlights new features: five additional copies of TssJ, yielding a TssJ:TssL:TssM stoichiometry of 3:2:2, an 11‐residue loop in TssM, protruding inside the lumen of the MC and constituting a functionally important periplasmic gate, and hinge regions. Based on these data, we propose an updated model on MC structure and dynamics during T6SS assembly and function.


MAC (mandatory access control) model is a basic security model for describing and verifying information system. In this paper a method is presented to verify security policies in MAC model by means of colored Petri nets (CPN). The main theme of this paper is depicted as follows: firstly, based on the lattice model of multilevel security (MLS) and Bell-LaPadula model, the MAC model is formally defined. Subsequently, an equivalent MAC model described by colored Petri nets (CPN) is proposed. According to the derived state reachability graph, four security properties of access control policy relations in MAC model are investigated, i.e. access temporal relations, access reachability, covert channel analysis, inference of sensitive information. An example of the security model is given for illustration. The results show that this concise graphic analysis method is suitable for formal verification. This method can be efficiently used to analyze information flow security and therefore improve the whole access control policies during security design and implementation of the system.


A formula is given for the maximum gain of a class of antennas having fields expressible as a finite number of spherical wave functions. This maximum gain can be achieved for arbitrarily polarized radiation fields, and it can be related to antenna size by requiring the near fields to be small in magnitude. Also, the radiation field is in the form of a polynomial, so that patterns optimum in the Tchebycheff sense can be defined. Formulas for the relationship of beamwidth to sidelobe level are given.


In this study, an attempt was made to examine the alignment of the teaching context in secondary schools in Ethiopia with a constructivist approach as emphasized in the education policy of the country. Constructivism underlies innovative approaches such as active learning, problem solving, and cooperative learning, and is often associated with quality learning outcomes. Nevertheless, it is believed that such an approach is less likely to lead to intended outcomes unless the teaching context is conducive. In light of this, by engaging teachers in a critical reflection, the alignment of their views and teaching context with a constructivist approach was examined. Data were collected from a class of 25 secondary school teachers. The results revealed that teachers have positive views about a constructivist approach to teaching and its introduction to the education system in Ethiopia. However, it is found that its realization in practice is more rhetoric than reality as the existing teaching practices are far behind the principles of constructivism. The traditional approach to teaching in which the teacher lectures and students passively listen is an established culture of teaching in schools and is unlikely to change as intended due to the overwhelmingly complex impediments to change in the education system. The students" poor background, top-down policies and curricula, poor administrative and physical infrastructure are among the impediments that are holding back its implementation. Therefore, a supportive environment that encourages teachers to adopt the intended approach is needed as mere policy changes do not guarantee improvements at grassroots level.
Keywords: A constructivist Approach; Critical Reflection; Reality; Rhetoric; Teaching Context


Challenged by urbanization and increasing travel needs, existing transportation systems call for new mobility paradigms. In this article, we present the fleet management and charging scheduling of a shared mobility-on-demand system, whereby electric vehicle fleets are operated by a centralized platform to provide customers with mobility service. We provide a comprehensive review of system operation based on the operational objectives. The fleet scheduling strategies are categorized into four types: i) order dispatching, ii) order-dispatching and rebalancing, iii) order-dispatching, rebalancing and charging, and iv) extended. Specifically, we first identify mathematical modeling techniques implemented in the transportation network, then analyze and summarize the solution approaches including mathematical programming, reinforcement learning, and hybrid methods. The advantages and disadvantages of different models and solution approaches are compared. Finally, we present research outlook in various directions.


BACKGROUND
Using ICD-9 codes underestimates the prevalence of obesity in adults; however, the validity of these codes in studies of pregnancy-related outcomes is not known.

OBJECTIVES
To compare classification of maternal obesity based on ICD-9 codes in hospital discharge records versus data from birth certificates in the same women, examine predictors of agreement, and assess how associations between obesity and two birth outcomes differ by source of weight data.

METHODS
This population-based study included 2 329 145 California births between 2007 and 2012. We compared data on obesity from childbirth hospital discharge records (ICD-9 codes for obesity) and birth certificates (pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) calculated from weight and height) and identified predictors of agreement between the two sources. Logistic regression models assessed whether the two definitions of obesity resulted in different estimates of the associations of obesity with caesarean birth and large-for-gestational age.

RESULTS
Overall, 464 754 women (20.0%) had obesity based on their pre-pregnancy BMI while only 100 002 (4.3%) had an obesity-related ICD-9 code. The sensitivity of ICD-9-based obesity was low at 16.2%; however, obesity codes were highly specific at 98.7%, with a negative predictive value of 82.5% and a positive predictive value of 75.2%. Among women with obesity identified by the birth certificate, those with pre-pregnancy and pregnancy-related complications (eg diabetes and hypertension) were more likely to have an obesity-related diagnosis in their delivery hospital discharge record. Using ICD-9 codes overestimated the association of obesity with caesarean birth and newborn large-for-gestational age.

CONCLUSIONS
ICD-9 codes in childbirth discharge records captured only one in five women with pre-pregnancy obesity. Sensitivity varied by maternal characteristics and conditions. This misclassification resulted in bias when examining the association of obesity and pregnancy-related outcomes.


Many people enjoy the social aspects of gaming, but most video games are designed to be played by only one person at a time. We introduce WeGame, a system that increases the sociability of single-player video games by allowing joint co-located play. The WeGame mediation framework flexibly merges the inputs of multiple players into a single control stream before forwarding it to the gaming system in real-time, and supports visual overlays to give players feedback on the newly-injected social dimensions of the game. Studies with more than 50 participants explore the new space enabled by WeGame, showing the social and preferential effects of several archetype mediation strategies. The WeGame approach has the potential to improve the social aspects of existing single-player games, allow novices to learn from experts while playing together simultaneously, and improve gaming performance.


Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) are the usual primary mesenchymal neoplasms of the GI tract. Interstitial cells of Cajal (ICCs) are intestinal pacemaker cells that instigate peristalsis in the stomach and intestine, and are measured to be precursors of GIST. We are reporting a 17 year old boy with chronic constipation since childhood and a huge rectum in abdominal radiography, who underwent exploratory laparotomy, resection of huge rectum and construction of sigmoid colostomy. Pathology report was "Hyperplasia of Interstitial Cells of Cajal".


Bedform migration on an intertidal sand body in the Minas Basin, Bay of Fundy, is controlled by time-velocity asymmetry of tidal currents and by water depth. Dune migration occurs during ebb tide, whereas sand wave migration occurs during flood tide. Bedform migration is limited to short periods ranging from 40 min to 1.5 hrs, which coincide with maximum velocity phases of time-velocity profiles. Normal bottom-current velocities are achieved rapidly after sand body submergence and high water stage. Initiation of bedform migration occurs during both a subsequent decrease in bottom-current velocity and a later sharp increase to maximum bottom-current velocities. Dune migration takes place in water depths greater than those required for sand wave migration. This contrasts with water depth relations predicted from empirical formulae relating bedform wave length and wave height to depth of fluid flow. Representation of intertidal bedform migration variables on a depth-velocity-particle-size diagram shows excellent agreement with similar data obtained from experimental studies.


Over the last two decades, satellite tagging of adult and sub-adult white sharks Carcharodon carcharias off the west coast of North America has revealed a predictable onshore-offshore migratory cycle. Our current understanding of the vertical movements exhibited by white sharks while in their coastal foraging phase in the California Current, however, remains limited. Here, we used recovered datasets from 31 archival satellite tags to quantify vertical habitat use. Tags were deployed on individuals between 2000 and 2018 and recorded depth and temperature data at continuous 1–120 s intervals before being recovered up to a year after deployments. Four satellite-tagged individuals were concurrently tagged with acoustic tags, providing precise location data when detected by acoustic receivers that allowed us to explore how reported vertical habitat use varied spatially. While in the coastal shelf waters, white sharks moved at a mean depth ± SD of 14.3 ± 4.0 m and occupied significantly deeper depths during the day than the night. High individual, temporal and spatial variation was evident in vertical movements, while consistent diel and lunar effects emphasized the importance of light-level driving vertical behavior around hunting sites. The vertical movement behaviors reported here provide knowledge of how white sharks may directly and indirectly interact with their mammalian prey in a dynamic three-dimensional system during their capital foraging phase. Temporal patterns in vertical behavior, for instance, indicated that surface waters during early morning hours are the riskiest place for prey. Combining these novel findings with higher-resolution biologging techniques in future studies will allow us to further contextualize fine-scale vertical movement behaviors of white sharks and examine the specific foraging events that could not yet be isolated in the tagging data.


The translational machinery, i.e., the polysome or polyribosome, is one of the biggest and most complex cytoplasmic machineries in cells. Polysomes, formed by ribosomes, mRNAs, several proteins and non-coding RNAs, represent integrated platforms where translational controls take place. However, while the ribosome has been widely studied, the organization of polysomes is still lacking comprehensive understanding. Thus much effort is required in order to elucidate polysome organization and any novel mechanism of translational control that may be embedded. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a type of scanning probe microscopy that allows the acquisition of 3D images at nanoscale resolution. Compared to electron microscopy (EM) techniques, one of the main advantages of AFM is that it can acquire thousands of images both in air and in solution, enabling the sample to be maintained under near physiological conditions without any need for staining and fixing procedures. Here, a detailed protocol for the accurate purification of polysomes from mouse brain and their deposition on mica substrates is described. This protocol enables polysome imaging in air and liquid with AFM and their reconstruction as three-dimensional objects. Complementary to cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), the proposed method can be conveniently used for systematically analyzing polysomes and studying their organization.


The federal government has a large presence in state and local policy activities such as education, housing, and transportation. That presence is facilitated by "grants-in-aid" programs, which are subsidies to state and local governments accompanied by top-down regulations.

Federal aid spending was $697 billion in 2018, which was distributed through an estimated 1,386 separate programs. The number of programs has tripled since the 1980s, indicating that the scope of federal activities has expanded as spending has grown.

Rather than being a positive feature of American federalism, the aid system produces irresponsible policymaking. It encourages excessive and misallocated spending. It reduces accountability for failures while generating costly bureaucracy and regulations. And it stifles policy diversity and undermines democratic control.

Cutting federal aid would reduce federal budget deficits, but more importantly it would improve the performance of federal, state, and local governments. The idea that federal experts can efficiently solve local problems with rule-laden subsidy programs is misguided. Decades of experience in many policy areas show that federal aid often produces harmful results and displaces state, local, and private policy solutions.

This study describes the advantages of cutting federal aid. It discusses 18 reasons why it is better to fund state activities with state revenues rather than with aid from Washington. Shrinking the aid system would improve American governance along many dimensions.


Through an empirical approach of several conspiracy theories (Knight Templars, Jesuits, Illuminati, Free-masons or Jewish conspiracy), I have noticed they develop six main characteristics. First, the conspiratorial myth points out scapegoats in a non-aleatory way. They usually belong to ethnical or religious minorities. Secondly, those scapegoats try to acquire an overwhelming power in all fields. Thirdly, to achieve this goal, they corrupt the whole society, especially on mores and sexuality. Fourthly, to set up their domination the scapegoats use the art of simulation and dissimulation. They yield a cult of secrecy. Fifthly, the scapegoats are consistently portrayed through symbolic morphological types, frequently as animals. Finally, conspiratorial myths undergo a process of hybridization and creolization. They go through transformations, alterations and medleys. Every conspiracy theories mix up into one another.


The objective of the study was to optimize the bread baking condition in superheated steam oven. Independent variables were the baking time (20, 25, and 30 min) and the baking temperature (180, 200 and 220°C). The bread quality parameter including moisture content, color and texture properties were measured. The response surface methodology was used for the optimization. The effect of baking condition on the parameters of bread were investigated using secondorder central composite design. Baking temperature and time significantly affect moisture content and color of bread. Numerical optimization and superimposed contour plots suggested the optimum baking condition of bread to be 180 °C (temperature) and 20.77 minutes (time). The optimum moisture content, L* and hardness value are predicted to be 38.52 %, 76.24 and 13.26 N of the baked bread respectively. Baking bread in these conditions produce high quality bread in terms of moisture content, color and texture properties


Introduction People with aphasia (PWA) sometimes try to use alternative means of communication to convey their message. Studies have shown that they produce gestures when speaking, and, more importantly, these can convey information absent in their speech (Hogrefe et al., 2013; Mol et al., 2013). As such, gestures have the potential to contribute to the communication of PWA by helping interlocutors to understand their intended message. Studies on conversations by non-brain damaged participants (NBDP) have shown that interlocutors almost exclusively focus on the speaker's face while speaking (Beattie et al., 2010; Preisig et al., 2015). However, it remains unclear whether healthy interlocutors do the same when conversing with PWA. Therefore, the present paper investigates up to what degree people pay attention to the gestures produced by PWA. Methods Participants Forty-six native speakers of Dutch (13 male) participated in our study. They were asked to watch videos of individuals (NBDP and PWA) explaining two scenarios. Participants were naive to the purpose of this study. Design Stimuli were short videos of PWA (n=18) and NBDP (n=9) explaining two scenarios from the Scenario Test (van der Meulen et al., 2009). People in the videos explained one of two scenarios: a) buying a sweater, b) having witnessed an accident. The videos used were selected on the criteria that the participants used iconic gestures in their narrations. The videos lasted between 4 and 45 seconds. Participants watched all videos, of which the order was semi-randomized. Eye movements were recorded by means of a remote eye-tracker. Results We analyzed the time that participants looked at the gestures of NBDP and PWA. As the duration of the clips varied, we used proportions. An independent t-test showed that participants looked longer at gestures produced by PWA (M = 0.54, SD = 8.06) than at gestures produced by NBDP (M = 8.97, SD = 7.05), t(25) = -3.67, p = .001. Overall participants looked more at the face than at the gestures, but they looked less at the faces of PWA (M = 69.70, SD = 8.99) than at the faces of NBDP (M = 80.11, SD = 8.76), t(25) = 2.83, p < .01. Discussion Our study provided first evidence in the direction that interlocutors pay more attention to gestures of PWA than those of NBDP. This implies that the gestures produced by PWA are noted by the interlocutor and that they can pick up information conveyed by these gestures. Further research is desirable to determine if interlocutors also tend to understand the message better. At the conference we expect to present further analyses looking into the factors that guide people's attention to gestures, such as: a) the attention for the gesture by the speakers themselves, but also, b) the comprehensibility of the spoken message.


The stress-strain curve in the large plastic deformation process is always not available due to the strain gauge deficiencies in large deformation measurement. Considering this problem, digital marker identification technique is used to measure large deformation of Steel Q235 with images taken by with charge-coupled device. Then together with the deformation measured by traditional stain gauge at small deformation stage, the total stress and strain curve is obtained at macroscale. The mesoscopic deformation is measured by a material testing system assembled with scanning electronic microscope. The images from the initial stage to the rupture stage are captured synchronously. What's more, using the grid method, the strain and rotation in rational mechanics is analyzed.