This study describes the results of a survey of the practices of Major League Baseball strength and conditioning (MLB S&C) coaches. The response rate was 70.0% (21 of 30). This survey examines (a) background information, (b) physical testing, (c) flexibility development, (d) speed development, (e) plyometrics, (f) strength/power development, (g) unique aspects, and (h) comments. Results indicate, in part, that coaches assess an average of 3.6 parameters of fitness, with body composition testing being the most commonly assessed parameter. All coaches use a variety of flexibility development strategies. All coaches use speed development strategies, with form running drills being the most common. Twenty of 21 (95.2%) coaches employ plyometric exercises with their athletes. Eighteen of 21 (85.7%) of MLB S&C coaches follow a periodization model (PM). Five of 21 coaches (23.8%) indicated that their athletes use Olympic-style lifts. The squat and its variations and the lunge and its variations were most frequently identified as the first and second most important exercises used to train the athletes. This survey provides detailed information about strength and conditioning practices at the most competitive level of baseball and serves as a review, as well as a source of applied information and new ideas.


In the literature on sustainability of agriculture, both labourers and workers are conspicuously absent. Here, the sustainability of agriculture has been defined in terms of whether the farm household in question is able to yield an energy surplus when its members and the animals in its possession are obtaining an adequate 'energy income' or Calorie intake. To evaluate the sustainability of 590 farming households in the state of West Bengal, India, during 2004–5, four progressively stricter definitions of sustainability have been proposed, defined and applied. The method of energy balance analysis was followed. A negative surplus was found to be near-universal across size-groups in terms of the net area sown (NAS), the gross cultivated area (GCA) and agro-climatic zones. The threshold output for a non-negative surplus during the cultivating period was 700,000 megajoules (MJ); in terms of the GCA for a positive 'full and final' annual surplus, it was 3 hectares, and in NAS terms it was 2.5 hectares; against NAS per household size, it was 0.6 hectares, for ensuring a positive surplus beyond the annual sustainability. No evidence could be found in favour of household size as an explanation for the negative surplus.


Alveolar fluid clearance (AFC) is important in keeping the airspaces free of edema, mainly due to alveolar epithelial Na,K-ATPase pump and Na channels (ENaC). Angiotensin II (AngII) stimulates a variety of physiologic responses that supports arterial blood pressure and renal function. We previously showed that AngII impairs AFC (AFC in control rats was 0.44±0.04 ml/h (Mean ± SEM) and decreased by 40% in AngII treated rats (P = 0.003)). AngII effects are mediated by two specific receptors; AT1 and AT2. The localization of these two receptors in the lung was recently discovered, specifically in alveolar epithelial cells type II (ATII), but no studies investigated whether they play a role in AFC. In order to understand AngII mechanism, we investigated the effect of AT1 specific blocker (Losartan) using the isolated perfused lung model. Losartan administration, followed by AngII restored the inhibitory effect of AngII, indicating an AT1 mediated effect of AngII on AFC.

Furthermore, Oubain (Na,K-ATPase ihhibitor) and Amiloride (ENaC ihibitor) reduced AFC to 5.9±0.4 ml/hr and 5.8±0.11 ml/hr respectively. The administration of either Oubain or Amiloride with AngII tended to have more inhibitory effect on AFC (4.41±0.2 ml/hr or 5.29±0.08ml/hr respectively), suggesting that AngII signaling may target more than one protein. In ATII cells treated with AngII the expression of AT1 levels was upregulated. Notably, there was no significant change in αNa,K-ATPase and αENaC abundance after AngII treatment.

We herein provide a new mechanism of clinical relevance by which angiotensin adversely impairs the ability of the lungs to clear edema.


This article studies the observations which John Stuart Mill collected about Spain in his writings. The aim is to analyze how one of the most important thinkers of the time valued some political Spanish events, certain aspects of socioeconomic reality, or determined features which he considered to constitute the Spanish «national character». Throughout his entire intellectual trajectory, Mill seems to have been aware of the complex and eventful life of Spanish politics. Moreover, Mill visited Spain in 1860 and captured the image of a country in a process of economic transformation, similar to the image portrayed by historians today and far from the romantic stereotypes that were so common to travel books of the 19th century.


Maturation of secretory granules is a crucial process that ensures the bioactivity of cargo proteins undergoing regulated secretion. In Drosophila melanogaster, the larval salivary glands produce secretory granules that are up to four-fold larger in cross-sectional area after maturation. Therefore, we developed a live imaging microscopy approach to quantitate the size of secretory granules with a view to identifying genes involved in their maturation. Here, we describe the procedures of larval salivary gland dissection and sample preparation for live imaging with a fluorescence confocal microscope. Furthermore, we describe the workflow for measuring the size of secretory granules by cross-sectional surface area and statistical analysis. Our live imaging microscopy method provides a reliable read-out for the status of secretory granule maturation in Drosophila larval salivary glands.


In this paper, we interrogate whether data quality issues track demographic characteristics such as sex, race and age, and whether automated data cleaning — of the kind commonly used in production ML systems — impacts the fairness of predictions made by these systems. To the best of our knowledge, the impact of data cleaning on fairness in downstream tasks has not been investigated in the literature.We first analyze the tuples flagged by common error detection strategies in five research datasets. We find that, while specific data quality issues, such as higher rates of missing values, are associated with membership in historically disadvantaged groups, poor data quality does not generally track demographic group membership. As a follow-up, we conduct a large-scale empirical study on the impact of automated data cleaning on fairness, involving more than 26,000 model evaluations on five datasets. We observe that, while automated data cleaning has an insignificant impact on both accuracy and fairness in the majority of cases, it is more likely to worsen fairness than to improve it, especially when the cleaning techniques are not carefully chosen. This finding is both significant and worrying, given that it potentially implicates many production ML systems. We make our code and experimental results publicly available.The analysis we conducted in this paper is difficult, primarily because it requires that we think holistically about disparities in data quality, disparities in the effectiveness of data cleaning methods, and impacts of such disparities on ML model performance for different demographic groups. Such holistic analysis can and should be supported with the help of data engineering research. Towards this goal, we envision the development of fairness-aware data cleaning methods, and their integration into complex pipelines for ML-based decision making.


BACKGROUND
Approximately 80% of breast cancers amongst premenopausal women are hormone receptor-positive. Adjuvant endocrine therapy is an integral component of care for hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and in premenopausal women includes oestrogen receptor blockade with tamoxifen, temporary suppression of ovarian oestrogen synthesis by luteinising hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) agonists, and permanent interruption of ovarian oestrogen synthesis with oophorectomy or radiotherapy. Recent international consensus statements recommend single-agent tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors with ovarian function suppression (OFS) as the current standard adjuvant endocrine therapy for premenopausal women (often preceded by chemotherapy). This review examined the role of adding OFS to another treatment (i.e. chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, or both) or comparing OFS to no further adjuvant treatment.

OBJECTIVES
To assess effects of OFS for treatment of premenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer.

SEARCH METHODS
For this review update, we searched the Specialised Register of the Cochrane Breast Cancer Group, MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; 2019, Issue 8), the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), and ClinicalTrials.gov on 26 September 2019. We screened the reference lists of related articles, contacted trial authors, and applied no language restrictions.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included all randomised trials assessing any method of OFS, that is, oophorectomy, radiation-induced ovarian ablation, or LHRH agonists, as adjuvant treatment for premenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer. We included studies that compared (1) OFS versus observation, (2) OFS + chemotherapy versus chemotherapy, (3) OFS + tamoxifen versus tamoxifen, and (4) OFS + chemotherapy + tamoxifen versus chemotherapy + tamoxifen.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently extracted data and assessed risk of bias and certainty of evidence using the GRADE approach. Hazard ratios (HRs) were derived for time-to-event outcomes, and meta-analysis was performed using a fixed-effect model. The primary outcome measures were overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Toxicity, contralateral breast cancer, and second malignancy were represented as risk ratios (RRs), and quality of life data were extracted when provided.

MAIN RESULTS
This review update included 15 studies involving 11,538 premenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer; these studies were conducted from 1978 to 2014. Some of these treatments are not current standard of care, and early studies did not assess HER2 receptor status. Studies tested OFS versus observation (one study), OFS plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy (six studies), OFS plus tamoxifen versus tamoxifen (six studies), and OFS plus chemotherapy and tamoxifen versus chemotherapy and tamoxifen (two studies). Of those studies that reported the chemotherapy regimen, an estimated 72% of women received an anthracycline. The results described below relate to the overall comparison of OFS versus no OFS. High-certainty evidence shows that adding OFS to treatment resulted in a reduction in mortality (hazard ratio (HR) 0.86, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.78 to 0.94; 11 studies; 10,374 women; 1933 reported events). This treatment effect was seen when OFS was added to observation, to tamoxifen, or to chemotherapy and tamoxifen. The effect on mortality was not observed when OFS was added to chemotherapy without tamoxifen therapy (HR 0.95, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.09; 5 studies; 3087 women; median follow-up: range 7.7 to 12.1 years). The addition of OFS resulted in improved DFS (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.77 to 0.90; 10 studies; 8899 women; 2757 reported events; high-certainty evidence). The DFS treatment effect persisted when OFS was added to observation, to tamoxifen, and to chemotherapy and tamoxifen. The effect on DFS was reduced when OFS was added to chemotherapy without tamoxifen therapy (HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.01; 5 studies; 2450 women). Heterogeneity was low to moderate across studies for DFS and OS (respectively). Evidence suggests that adding OFS slightly increases the incidence of hot flushes (grade 3/4 or any grade; risk ratio (RR) 1.60, 95% CI 1.41 to 1.82; 6 studies; 5581 women; low-certainty evidence, as this may have been under-reported in these studies). Two other studies that could not be included in the meta-analysis reported a higher number of hot flushes in the OFS group than in the no-OFS group. Seven studies involving 5354 women collected information related to mood; however this information was reported as grade 3 or 4 depression, anxiety, or neuropsychiatric symptoms, or symptoms were reported without the grade. Two studies reported an increase in depression, anxiety, and neuropsychiatric symptoms in the OFS group compared to the no-OFS group, and five studies indicated an increase in anxiety in both treatment groups (but no difference between groups) or no difference overall in symptoms over time or between treatment groups. A single study reported bone health as osteoporosis (defined as T score < -2.5); this limited evidence suggests that OFS increases the risk of osteoporosis compared to no-OFS at median follow-up of 5.6 years (RR 1.16, 95% CI 1.10 to 28.82; 2011 women; low-certainty evidence). Adding OFS to treatment likely reduces the risk of contralateral breast cancer (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.57 to 0.97; 9 studies; 9138 women; moderate-certainty evidence). Quality of life was assessed in five studies; four studies used validated tools, and the fifth study provided no information on how data were collected. Two studies reported worse quality of life indicators (i.e. vaginal dryness, day and night sweats) for women receiving OFS compared to those in the no-OFS group. The other two studies indicated worsening of symptoms (e.g. vasomotor, gynaecological, vaginal dryness, decline in sexual interest, bone and joint pain, weight gain); however these side effects were reported in both OFS and no-OFS groups. The study that did not use a validated quality of life tool described no considerable differences between groups.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
This review found evidence that supports adding OFS for premenopausal women with early, hormone receptor-positive breast cancers. The benefit of OFS persisted when compared to observation, and when added to endocrine therapy (tamoxifen) or chemotherapy and endocrine therapy (tamoxifen). The decision to use OFS may depend on the overall risk assessment based on tumour and patient characteristics, and may follow consideration of all side effects that occur with the addition of OFS.


Methods: This 4 2 year retrospective study is based on 71 fetuses where termination of pregnancy (TOP) was performed because of a fetal malformation and/or chromosomal anomaly. Only fetuses who had undergone both fetal anatomy scanning and autopsy were included. Sensitivity and specificity of ultrasound findings with regard to autopsy findings were calculated. In addition, the fetuses were grouped into four categories depending on the degree of concordance between ultrasound and autopsy. Results: The sensitivity of ultrasound was highest for malformations in the cerebro-spinal and internal organ systems (100% and 91%), while many of the malformations in the cardiovascular and skeletal organ systems were detected only at autopsy (sensitivity of ultrasound 63% and 71%, respectively). The specificity of ultrasound was lowest for the internal and cerebro-spinal organ systems (87% and 89%). There was complete agreement between ultrasound and autopsy findings in 44% of the fetuses and a 'near match' in 46%. In 10% of the fetuses, the ultrasound findings were only partially confirmed or not confirmed at all by autopsy. The false positive ultrasound diagnoses were not crucial for the parents decision to terminate the pregnancy. Conclusions: Despite overall good agreement between ultrasound and autopsy findings, the ultrasound examinations were suboptimal for some organ systems. The detection rate was lowest for cardiovascular anomalies. Autopsy often provided important additional information unobserved at ultrasound examination.


An experimental study was conducted to investigate the thermal performance of a heat pipe having two dissimilar condenser sections which were subject to different boundary conditions. The first condenser dissipates heat to the surrounding air through annular fins by natural convection, while the second one is cooled by a liquid by forced convection at different temperatures. The container and the wick were made of stainless steel and the working fluid was Dowtherm-A for medium-temperature applications. The diameter and length of the heat pipe were 25.4 mm and 1 m, respectively. The maximum thermal load was 1 ㎾ and the operating temperature was around 250℃. The liquid fill charge was adjusted so that the first condenser section may work as an evaporator when the original evaporator was inactive in a vertical configuration. The experimental results were analyzed in terms of thermal resistance and effective thermal conductance against input heat flux and operating temperature.


Light and nitrogen are the main factors commanding horticulture production. Therefore, this study aims at evaluating the effects of two different greenhouse cover films (clear-Film A and diffuse light-Film B) on yield and nutritive value of a ready-to-eat salad lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta L.), grown under several nitrogen regimes (no nitrogen [N0], sub-optimal [N25] and optimal N fertilization [N50] corresponding to 0, 25 and 50 kg ha-1 , respectively). The combination N50 and Film B boosted SPAD index by 10.3% and yield by 91.9% compared to N0 × Film A. Concerning antioxidant activity and bioactive compounds, only total ascorbic acid was positively affected by Film B (9.4%), while there was no effect of this cover film on carotenoids and chlorophyllous pigments, which increased along the increment of nitrogen rates. Nitrate content in leaves was influenced by both factors and it showed increasing values, when nitrogen doses increased, reaching the highest value under N50-Film B conditions (3312.3 mg kg-1 fw). Our study showed that in the Mediterranean area, the use of greenhouse diffuse light film improved lamb's lettuce yield, but on the other hand incurred significant increase in nitrate level, nonetheless remaining constantly under the legal threshold imposed by the commission regulation (EU). Secondary metabolites, such as total phenols and carotenoids, showed similar values under both films, instead the diffuse light film improved total ascorbic acid content.


The effect of iron addition on the ductility and superconducting properties of Niobium Titanium alloys has been explored. The conclusion of this study is that iron up to 2000 parts per million by weight is not deleterious to the fabricability of multifilamentary composites. The hardening rate of the iron rich alloy as filaments in a copper matrix was observed to be the same as for low iron versions of the same nominal composition. The development of the pinning microstructure was monitored and compared to the critical current properties of the wire. The results for multifilamentary wires are compared for heats with and without high iron contents. The results were reproduced in the production environment from a full scale ingot. The critical current density for the iron enriched material is elevated relative to the low iron material at high fields. The beneficial influence of iron on the superconducting properties is discussed in light of the microstructure. A designed experiment was conducted to explore the range over which the chemistry can be varied without affecting the behavior. The goal is to broaden the range of iron allowed in Niobium Titanium alloys for superconducting applications.


The United Nations estimates that the global population will total 9.7 billion in 2050. Rapid population growth pose a significant obstacle to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly eradicating hunger and poverty. In view of the expanding population growth, food production ideally should triple to prevent massive food shortages. Sustainable food and nutrition security is the focal point of the dairy industry. Dairy production plays a pivotal role in addressing and advancing global food and nutrition security. It serves as a major source of protein, calcium, and phosphorus in many families in developing countries with a fast-growing population. Consequently, the dairy industry is expected to grow by approximately 26% in the next 10 years and produce an estimated 1077 million tonnes of milk by 2050. However, the growth and distribution of the dairy industry is limited by many factors such as culling and mortality of dairy cows. Several studies highlight reproduction failures, old age, poor milk yield, diseases (mastitis, lameness, and dystocia), and heat stress as some reasons for culling of dairy cows. Hence, this review highlights the factors influencing culling and mortality in dairy production farms, and discusses mitigating measures to limit culling.


Management of anemia in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) requires careful monitoring of iron status. Although serum ferritin is used as an indicator of iron stores, its value is limited because ferritin is an acute-phase reactant; its level increases sharply in the presence of inflammation and infection. This article presents information on the value and limitations of serum ferritin as a marker of storage iron in healthy individuals and in patients with ESRD. It also discusses the need to consider the percentage of transferrin saturation, total iron-binding capacity, and immature reticulocyte fraction as markers of iron storage, particularly in patients with infection and inflammation.


EDITOR,-In his article on paediatric inpatient units, Professor Taylor claims that many present paediatric units are too small to provide safe and cost effective care, do not meet required standards, and should combine into larger units providing specialist children's services.' We would disagree with him, at least with regard to rural communities. In many small district general hospitals a very high standard of care is offered, frequently directly by the consultant and often at great personal cost. The service shares many of the better aspects of primary care delivered by staffwho know the families and their backgrounds. Professor Taylor stresses the value of a good relationship with the tertiary centres; where this exists children can be referred to superspecialists when indicated. He does, however, make a good case for continuing update and education for all staff and the need for clinical commitments to be such that study and development of appropriate skills are possible. In a country area almost all acute admissions are at the request of a general practitioner. The request to admit is not undertaken without thought, although the reason is rarely that the disease is life threatening; parental anxiety, inexperience, exhaustion, lack of transport or telephone, or even inability to carry out instructions may all be factors. Is it feasible that a visiting service could overcome these difficulties? If rural units were to be amalgamated for financial reasons, children in Cumbria, for example, could have to travel 40 miles for inpatient care even if lucky enough to be left with a day centre. As most acute admissions occur in the evening and at weekends, few could be observed locally, even for a few hours. A massive increase in funding of the ambulance service, roads, and public transport would be needed. Sick children would need to travel for an hour before assessment by a paediatrician and family disruption would be extreme. It would be a brave obstetrician who considered offering a service where unforeseen complications in even 'low risk' deliveries were the responsibility of obstetric staff or even nurse practitioners, if the nearest paediatric support was 40 miles away. Professor Taylor's sad experience of district general hospital care for children is not universal. Even in today's climate of rising expectations and workload, some units are proud to provide a local and appropriate service. The equation should be restated; it is not 'quality versus access' but 'quality AND access versus financial expediency'.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. One of the pathological hallmarks of AD is amyloid β (Aβ) deposition. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs whose expression levels change significantly during neuronal pathogenesis and may be used as diagnostic markers. Some miRNAs are important in AD development by targeting genes responsible for Aβ metabolism. However, a systematic assessment of the miRNA expression profile induced by Aβ-mediated neuronal pathogenesis is still lacking. In the present study, we examined miRNA expression profile by using the APPswe/PS1ΔE9 mouse model of AD. Two sibling pairs of mice were examined, showing 30 and 24 miRNAs with significantly altered expression levels from each paired control, respectively. Nine known miRNAs were common in both groups. Prediction of putative target genes and functional annotation implied that these altered miRNAs affect many target genes mainly involved in PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. This study provides a general profile of miRNAs regulated by Aβ-associated signal pathways, which is helpful to understand the mechanism of Aβ-induced neuronal dysfunction in AD development.


The effectiveness of damaged building investigation relies on rapid data collection, while jointly applying an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a backpack panoramic imaging system can quickly and comprehensively record the damage status. Meanwhile, integrating them for generating complete 3-D point clouds (3DPCs) is important for further assisting the 3-D measurement of the damaged areas. During the 2016 Meinong earthquake (Taiwan), the system collected multiview aerial images (MVAIs) and ground panoramic images of two collapsed buildings. However, due to the spatial offsets of the spherical camera result in nonideal panoramic images (NIPIs), an appropriate spherical radius has to be chosen to reduce the distance-related stitching errors. In order to evaluate the impact of using NIPIs for 3-D mapping, the geometric accuracy of the 3-D scene reconstruction (3DSR) and usability of the 3DPCs were assessed. This study introduces the stitching errors of panoramic images, uses sky masks for successful 3DSR, and obtains clean point clouds. It then analyzes the usability of point clouds that were obtained from only NIPIs, only MVAIs, and their integration. The analysis shows that NIPIs have more rapid processing efficiency than their unstitched original images and can increase the completeness of point clouds at the building's lower floor, while MVAIs can reduce the stitching errors of NIPIs to an acceptable range. Therefore, integrating both images is necessary to achieve rapid and complete point cloud generation.


We applied a new processing algorithm to extract intrinsic attenuation (1/Q) from the head P-wave of a full waveform sonic log. The sonic log was acquired in an oil reservoir in northeast Texas (USA). The reservoir is a sand-shale sequence characterized at the pore, core, and borehole scales. We found that the attenuation correlates with the lithology, including a sandstone zone partially saturated with oil and water. A comparison of 1/Q with the microseismogram and the petrophysics of other well logs provides a way of evaluating the consistency of Q at each borehole depth location. An analysis of the results explains the different attenuation anomalies found in the Q log.


The SCF multisubunit complex (Skp1, Cullins, F-box proteins) E3 ubiquitin ligase, also known as CRL (Cullin-RING ubiquitin Ligase) is the largest E3 ubiquitin ligase family that promotes the ubiquitination of various regulatory proteins for targeted degradation, thus regulating many biological processes, including cell cycle progression, signal transduction, and DNA replication. The efforts to discover small molecule inhibitors of a SCF-type ligase or its components were expedited by the FDA approval of Bortezomib (also known as Velcade or PS-341), the first (and only) class of general proteasome inhibitor, for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. Although Bortezomib has demonstrated a certain degree of cancer cell selectivity with measurable therapeutic index, the drug is, in general, cytotoxic due to its inhibition of overall protein degradation. An alternative and ideal approach is to target a specific E3 ligase, known to be activated in human cancer, for a high level of specificity and selectivity with less associated toxicity, since such inhibitors would selectively stabilize a specific set of cellular proteins regulated by this E3. Here, we review recent advances in validation of SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase complex as an attractive anti-cancer target and discuss how MLN4924, a small molecule inhibitor of NEDD8-activating enzyme, can be developed as a novel class of anticancer agents by inhibiting SCF E3 ligase complex via removal of cullin neddylation. Finally, we discuss under future perspective how basic research on SCF biology will direct the drug discovery efforts surrounding this target.


This paper is meant to be the first part of a two part unit that will be published next. The objective of this paper is to be an introduction of agri-product evaluation, within which a short summary of essentials of diversity measurement is given and to share experience on evaluation of environmental friendly agri-product. For biodiversity measurement and extern effects, literature of related publications was processed and experience gained over experimental projects on environmental-friendly technologies was summed up. Methods applied were based on influence-response approach which guided us all through the research work. It can be stated that one diversity measure or one diversity function fails to describe communities of living beings; therefore, at least two methods should be used in parallel. Scale-dependent description of diversity is necessary, which provides us with new information that can not be revealed by traditional methods. To identify external effects, we have to take influences of use of a specific product into account and the responses generated by use of that product. Influences might appear in parallel or can build up one another, similarly to the generated responses of environment. To be as precise as possible, it is suggested that we take into account only clear responses. Influence-response relations are shown here using terms and concepts in broad sense and in general. More sophisticated application of terms and concepts is needed to evaluate properly and in monetary terms. We will make efforts to clarify terms and their use in the future.


Viola odorata L., commonly known as banafshan, is widely distributed in Pakistan. Medicinally it used as expectorant. In present study a rapid and inexpensive qualification method for the quality control of Viola odorata on thin layer chromatography (TLC) was developed and validated on silica gel using solvent ethyl acetate–glacial acetic acid–formic acid-water (10 : 1.1 : 1.1 : 2.6 v/v)/v/v) (Rf of silybin 0.48 ± 0.05) in the absorbance mode at 254 nm. The method showed a good linear relationship (r2 = 0.999) in the concentration range 25–1500 ng per spot. It was found to be linear, accurate, precise, specifi c, robust and stability-indicating and can be applied for quality control and standardization. Also occurrence of rutin was figured out in different parts of plant. It was found that corolla of Viola odorata flower contain rutin in much higher concentration than calyx, while calyx have more rutin content than dried leaves, which in turn contain higher content of analyte than fresh leaves (figure- 1&2).


Recent AI-assistant agents, such as ChatGPT, predominantly rely on supervised fine-tuning (SFT) with human annotations and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to align the output of large language models (LLMs) with human intentions, ensuring they are helpful, ethical, and reliable. However, this dependence can significantly constrain the true potential of AI-assistant agents due to the high cost of obtaining human supervision and the related issues on quality, reliability, diversity, self-consistency, and undesirable biases. To address these challenges, we propose a novel approach called SELF-ALIGN, which combines principle-driven reasoning and the generative power of LLMs for the self-alignment of AI agents with minimal human supervision. Our approach encompasses four stages: first, we use an LLM to generate synthetic prompts, and a topic-guided method to augment the prompt diversity; second, we use a small set of human-written principles for AI models to follow, and guide the LLM through in-context learning from demonstrations (of principles application) to produce helpful, ethical, and reliable responses to user's queries; third, we fine-tune the original LLM with the high-quality self-aligned responses so that the resulting model can generate desirable responses for each query directly without the principle set and the demonstrations anymore; and finally, we offer a refinement step to address the issues of overly-brief or indirect responses. Applying SELF-ALIGN to the LLaMA-65b base language model, we develop an AI assistant named Dromedary. With fewer than 300 lines of human annotations (including<200 seed prompts, 16 generic principles, and 5 exemplars for in-context learning). Dromedary significantly surpasses the performance of several state-of-the-art AI systems, including Text-Davinci-003 and Alpaca, on benchmark datasets with various settings.


River Krishna in the Southern Peninsula of India is a typical receiving water body of both point and non-point discharges. Comparisons between upstream and downstream monitoring sites reveal changes in the concentrations and load to the river. This information is used to discriminate between point and non-point source contribution to pollution. The pre-monsoon and post-monsoon water quality and flow data are used to assess river pollution loads. The resulting differential loads, if adjusted for uncharacterized non-point source contribution may represent the total point loads to the river minus losses due to volatilization, sedimentation, adsorption and other physical, chemical and biological phenomena. The results of the mass balances indicate that non-point sources to be major contributors to the pollutant loads. The non-point sources in the study area predominantly include pollution due to agricultural practices and activities, soil erosion, dissolution of soil minerals or combination of these sources.


Sleep problems are one of the most common health complaints in the population. Furthermore, people often judge good sleep as crucial for everyday well-being and it has been shown that lack of sleep has negative health effects. However, sleep has not been a subject of much sociological study. In this study sleep problems are analysed in different ways. First, a cross-sectional analysis is done in order to find out whether sleep problems in the population have increased from 1968 to 2000. Secondly, a longitudinal analysis is done to see how sleep problems pattern from middle-age to old-age. Last, it is analysed whether there are any differences in the sleep patterns from middle-age to old-age for manual workers and non-manuals. This study shows that there has been an increase in sleep problems from 1968 to 2000 in the population. However the increase has only affected younger age groups (between the age 19-55), the elderly population is unaffected. The increase is found among both men and women. Longitudinal analyses of a cohort (born 1915-1925) followed from middle-age to old-age (for 34 years) showed that one out of four experienced an onset of sleep problems during the study. This is in line with earlier research stating that insomnia to a large part is age-related. Furthermore, it was found that manual workers had a larger increase of sleep problems across the 34 years than non-manuals, perhaps suggesting an accumulation effect. All analyses were separated for gender and women constantly reported more sleep problems than men. This is not surprising since this relation have been found across almost all cultures and times. Nevertheless, in this study no increase of the gender gap was found with advancing age, a relation found in most other studies. However more research is needed to understand the reason behind the gendered nature of sleep problems.


Adoptive transfer of natural killer (NK) cells can induce remission in patients with relapsed/refractory leukemia and myeloma. However, to date, clinical efficacy of NK cell immunotherapy has been limited to a sub-fraction of patients. Here we show that steps incorporated in the ex vivo manipulation/production of NK cell products used for adoptive infusion, such as over-night IL-2 activation or cryopreservation followed by ex vivo expansion, drastically decreases NK cell surface expression of the bone marrow (BM) homing chemokine receptor CXCR4. Reduced CXCR4 expression was associated with dampened in vitro NK cell migration toward its cognate ligand stromal-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α). NK cells isolated from patients with WHIM syndrome carry gain-of-function (GOF) mutations in CXCR4 (CXCR4R334X). Compared to healthy donors, we observed that NK cells expanded from WHIM patients have similar surface levels of CXCR4 but have a much stronger propensity to home to BM compartments when adoptively infused into NOD-scid IL2Rgammanull (NSG) mice. Therefore, in order to augment the capacity of adoptively infused NK cells to home to the BM, we genetically engineered ex vivo expanded NK cells to express the naturally occurring GOF CXCR4R334X receptor variant. Transfection of CXCR4R334X-coding mRNA into ex vivo expanded NK cells using a clinically applicable method consistently led to an increase in cell surface CXCR4 without altering NK cell phenotype, cytotoxic function, or compromising NK cell viability. Compared to non-transfected and wild type CXCR4-coding mRNA transfected counterparts, CXCR4R334X-engineered NK cells had significantly greater chemotaxis toward SDF-1α in vitro. Importantly, expression of CXCR4R334X on expanded NK cells resulted in significantly greater BM homing following adoptive transfer into NSG mice compared to non-transfected NK cell controls. Collectively, these data suggest up-regulation of cell surface CXCR4R334X on ex vivo expanded NK cells via mRNA transfection represents a novel approach to improve homing and target NK cell-based immunotherapies to BM where hematological malignancies reside.


: The paper presents the components of the problem of chemical safety as well as the criteria for setting priorities for chemical hazard control. Chemical safety comprises risk identification, estimation, evaluation, and management. The first three issues constitute an integral part known as risk assessment. Their implementation allows to determine the nature, magnitude and distribution of diseases resulting from exposure to chemicals as well as to compare the risk assessed with other socially accepted risks. Risk management can be considered in terms of risk control and decision-making. Risk control refers to the surveillance of the compliance with rules regarding environmental protection, occupational hygiene, nutritional hygiene, and other regulations confining man's exposure to toxic compounds in production, use, waste disposal, and contingency planning. Within the decision-making process, costs and benefits are calculated, as related to the production, possible changes in technology, and protective measures. At that stage, evaluation of existing regulatory controls is essential, as is the decision-making in relation to new or supplementary legal acts. Priority setting is essential for chemical safety. This activity is aimed at rational allocation of financial means for national policy designed to meet social requirements within health care. What is of vital importance is the determination of priority setting criteria. The primary criteria include: biological effects of the chemical concerned, environmental impact, production volume, distribution, and the population exposed. Of value are also some sociological factors such as identification and social acceptance of risk. The paper presents the principles of priority setting.


This paper presents a blind detection implementation method for the IPR-OFDM (interleaving and phase rotation-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) system described in Sheng-mei et al. (2004). The IPR approach uses V interleavers to produce V permutations of the input data frame and one novel phase rotation vector called SPI (side phase of IFFT) to multiply the V permuted sequences, and then the frame with the lowest PAR is chosen for transmission. To perform de-interleaving, the receiver must know the interleaving order in the transmitter. In Sheng-mei et al. (2004), the SI (side information) is used to implement it. In this paper, a blind detection approach is proposed to get the order.


BACKGROUND
Clinical features that consistently predict ischemic stroke in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation have been identified, while echocardiographic risk factors are less well defined.

OBJECTIVE
To determine whether the results of transthoracic echocardiography add independent information to the clinical risk factors for stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation.

METHODS
Transthoracic echocardiographic findings and clinical features from 1066 patients with atrial fibrillation assigned to placebo or control in 3 randomized trials (Boston Area Anticoagulation Trial for Atrial Fibrillation, Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation I Study, and Veterans Affairs Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation Study) were correlated with subsequent ischemic stroke by multivariate analysis.

RESULTS
The mean + SD age of patients was 67 +/- 10 years, 78% were men, 55% had a history of hypertension, 19% had a history of diabetes, 7% had a previous transient ischemic attack or stroke, and 27% had a history of heart failure. During a mean follow-up of 1.6 years, 78 ischemic strokes occurred (annual rate, 4.7%). Moderate to severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction shown via 2-dimensional echocardiography was a strong independent predictor of stroke (relative risk, 2.5; P<.001) in the 1010 patients in whom echocardiographic values for left ventricular function were available. Left atrial diameter by M-mode echocardiography did not predict stroke (relative risk, 1.02/mm; P = .10). Of 163 patients categorized as low risk based on clinical features (annual stroke rate, 0.8%; 95% confidence interval, 0.2%-3.0%), 10 had moderate to severe left ventricular dysfunction shown via 2-dimensional echocardiography and a 9.3% per year risk of stroke (95% confidence interval, 1.3%-66%). Conversely, 728 of the 847 patients at high risk for stroke based on clinical criteria had normal or mildly abnormal left ventricular function; their stroke rate was 4.4% (95% confidence interval, 3.4%-5.8%).

CONCLUSIONS
Left ventricular systolic dysfunction shown via 2-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography independently predicts risk of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation. Echocardiography may prove most useful in a small group of patients who have a low risk of stroke according to clinical factors.


Geochemical and other evidence shows that granite magmas are generally derived from a mixture of melted crust and mantle material and the existence of a spectrum of types varying from largely mantle-derived to mainly crustal-derived is emphasized. Each pluton possesses a unique mix or range of mixtures which preserves an adumbrate history of the deeper levels of the crust and mantle at the particular location. Four illustrative granite-forming provinces are considered: (1) Archaean cratons with their voluminous tonalites, (2) magmatic arcs as exemplified by the western Americas, (3) the British Tertiary Province as an example of the results of extensional faulting and (4) the British and Irish Caledonide granites, the main phase (440–390 Ma) of which was produced during major Acadian strike-slip faulting. All these granites provide evidence of mixing of source materials. Geochemistry, especially of the Rare Earth Elements, U-Pb ages and isotopic studies of Sr, Nd, Pb, O, H and in some volcanic rocks Be, is beginning to enable quantification of the source components. The importance of major fracturing of the crust and mantle in providing magma triggers, magma focusses and magma consolidation sites is stressed; major batholiths probably occupy holes created by pulling apart the crust. Geophysical evidence does not suggest that granite plutons are distributed throughout the thickness of the crust, but rather that they are concentrated relatively near the surface. The extant elevation of the whole of the north British crust, its altitude over the last 400 Ma and even in places the present shape of the coastline, are significantly influenced by Caledonian granites, the tops of which are generally within about 3 km of the present landsurface. Thus relatively little erosion of most of these bodies has taken place and the dominant sources of post-Silurian clastic sediments in the area were stripped off volcanic cover rocks and recycled sediments and metasediments. By inference, other continental areas with numerous exposed granite pluton roofs had a similar history. The process of granite formation is an important means of density-stabilization of the crust with high-level emplacement of light sialic granite refined out of the mantle and lower, middle and even upper crust. The refractory mafic residues generally become denser and sink or stay down in the density-stratified crust but the division into residue and magma is not sharp with some granite magmas including significant quantites of restite.


OBJECTIVE
The study was done to assess knowledge, attitudes and practices of women within the child bearing age with regard to smoking and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on children's health.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
A cross-sectional study with quantitative and qualitative components was designed to collect data from women in the child-bearing age. The sample comprised of persons from the two largest combined family planning and antenatal clinics in Kingston, Jamaica.

RESULTS
The women surveyed had a fair level of knowledge about ETS health risks, negative attitudes to smoking in general, and most supported a ban on smoking in public places. Significant knowledge differences existed between young and older women and between smokers and non-smokers.

CONCLUSION
Women with the highest level of knowledge were the non-smokers: of the low knowledge score group (current smokers), 50% were in the 15-24-year age range. There is a need for more public education on smoking and the consequences of environmental tobacco smoke exposure on children's health.


Disruption of nucleocytoplasmic transport is increasingly implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Moreover, there is a growing recognition of cell-specific differences in nuclear pore complex structure, prompting a need to adapt nuclear transport methods for use in neurons. Permeabilized cell assays, in which the plasma membrane is selectively perforated by digitonin, are widely used to study passive and active nuclear transport in immortalized cell lines but have not been applied to neuronal cultures. In our initial attempts, we observed the rapid loss of nuclear membrane integrity in primary mouse cortical neurons exposed to even low concentrations of digitonin. We hypothesized that neuronal nuclear membranes may be uniquely vulnerable to the loss of cytoplasmic support. After testing multiple approaches to improve nuclear stability, we observed optimal nuclear integrity following hypotonic lysis in the presence of a concentrated bovine serum albumin cushion. Neuronal nuclei prepared by this approach reliably import recombinant fluorescent cargo in an energy-dependent manner, facilitating analysis of nuclear import by high content microscopy with automated analysis. We anticipate that this method will be broadly applicable to studies of passive and active nuclear transport in primary neurons.


Abstract Commercial varieties of rapeseed grown in Kenya have various production constraints. Mutation breeding has been used globally to develop varieties with desirable traits. The objectives of the studies were to identify the best level of irradiation for creating variability in M2 and to characterise selected M3 and M6 mutant lines. M2 generations of three varieties of rapeseed which had been irradiated at various levels were planted in blocks. M2 plants were selected at random and data taken on plant height and pods per plant for each level of irradiation. M3 lines selected based on earliness were planted and data was taken on various characters. Observations were also made on M6 lines. There were significant (P<0.01) differences between the levels of irradiation in the number of pods per plant and significant interaction (P<0.01) between varieties and levels of irradiation for pods per plant. Association among the parents and M3 mutant lines revealed by the PCA indicated that the M3 mutant lines had higher genetic diversity. Genotypes that were distinctly different from the parents were observed at M6. Mutation breeding was effective in creating variability and in the development of new plant genotypes that may be of agronomic value.


current immunological ideas depend and the possible bearing that they may have on the widening problems of immunopathology. The concept of immunological tolerance as regards the transplantation of tissues and the reactions to nonliving antigens is considered in great detail by Hasek and his colleagues and by R. T. Smith respectively. The nature of complement and its participation in both normal and pathological processes is discussed at considerable length by Osler. The possible production of antibodies by cells cultivated in vitro is examined by Stavitsky, and the biological behaviour in allergic reactions of antigen-antibody complexes prepared in vitro is discussed by Weigle. Epidemiologists will appreciate Hale's review of duration of immunity that follows certain virus diseases. The phenomena of delayed hypersensitivity are examined by Gell and Benacerraf in the light of their own extensive study of skin reactions to simple protein antigens. Lastly, the late Peter Gorer provides a comprehensive survey of his and other investigators' study of the antigenic structure of tumours. This first volume of the series Advances in Immunology will prove invaluable to the many biologists and pathologists now becoming engaged in research in this rapidly expanding subject. Each chapter is very fully documented with modern literature, so that the book not only provides an admirable collection of specialized essays but also serves an important additional purpose as a work of reference in particular fields of immunology. G. PAYLING WRIGHT.


The design of coherently strained InGaN epilayers for use in InGaN p-n junction solar cells is presented in this letter. The X-ray diffraction of the epitaxially grown device structure indicates two InGaN epilayers with indium compositions of 14.8% and 16.8%, which are confirmed by photoluminescence peaks observed at 2.72 and 2.67 eV, respectively. An open-circuit voltage of 1.73 V and a short-circuit current density of 0.91 mA/cm2 are observed under concentrated AM 0 illumination from the fabricated solar cell. The photovoltaic response from the InGaN p-n junction is confirmed by using an ultraviolet filter. The solar cell performance is shown to be related to the crystalline defects in the device structure.


Dr Berry raises several important questions concerning predictive genetic testing in children: the age at which a child's opinion about his/her own testing should be sought, whether a proxy should give an opinion in the case of a young child, and the extent to which a child should have a say in the decision about whether and when to be tested. In the absence of data to inform these questions directly, research concerning children's informed consent in other areas can shed some light.' The general trend over the last decade has been one of discovering


This paper is devoted to studies of the mechanical response of an atomically blunted cavity uncovered and covered by copper atoms by means 3D molecular dynamic (MD) simulations. The cavity is loaded uni-axially in tension mode I. Our question is how the copper atoms influence the ductile-brittle behavior at the crack front of the blunted cavity in comparison with the blunted cavity in pure bcc iron. We show that the dislocation emission is easier in the Fe–Cu system in comparison with pure bcc iron. However, stability of the blunted cavities seems to be weaker in copper region than in pure bcc iron.


Accurate control of a humanoid robot's global position (i.e., its three-dimensional position in the world) is critical to the reliable execution of high-risk tasks such as avoiding collision with pedestrians in a crowded environment. This paper introduces a time-based nonlinear control method that achieves accurate global-position tracking (GPT) for multi-domain bipedal walking. Deriving a tracking controller for bipedal robots is challenging due to the highly complex robot dynamics that are time-varying and hybrid, especially for multi-domain walking that involves multiple phases/domains of full actuation, over actuation, and underactuation. To tackle this challenge, we introduce a continuous-phase GPT control law for multi-domain walking, which provably ensures the exponential convergence of the entire error state within the full and over actuation domains and that of the directly regulated error state within the underactuation domain. We then construct sufficient multiple-Lyapunov stability conditions for the hybrid multi-domain tracking error system under the proposed GPT control law. We illustrate the proposed controller design through both three-domain walking with all motors activated and two-domain gait with inactive ankle motors. Simulations of a ROBOTIS OP3 bipedal humanoid robot demonstrate the satisfactory accuracy and convergence rate of the proposed control approach under two different cases of multi-domain walking as well as various walking speeds and desired paths.


Siemocardiography is a non-invasive technique for cardiomechanical assessment by analyzing the local vibrations on chest surface which can be readily acquired from cost-effective accelerometers. The peaks in siesmocardiogram (SCG) signal correspond to underlying mechanical events in heart cycle and have numerious potential clinical and health-awareness applications. However, utilization of SCG signal requires annotation of these peaks that is challenging due to variations in inter-subject morphology and noise prone characteristics of SCG signal. In this paper, we propose an approach to automatically annotate the desired peaks in SCG signal that are required for systolic time intervals (STI). The approach is based on formulating sliding template for the oncoming beat which is less noisier and hence desired peak detection is easier. The information of peak detected in the sliding template is then used to narrow-down the search of desired peak in actual signal.


Home education, or home schooling, is an issue that has attracted little attention and the legal framework has remained largely unchanged since 1944. However, the number of parents opting to home educate has been increasing steadily in recent years and the Government has now published guidance for local authorities and commissioned an independent review. This article reviews the current law, highlights the practical issues requiring clarification and identifies the connections with other policy developments such as Every Child Matters and the increasing regulation of the independent education sector. Critically evaluating the respective rights and interests of parents, children and the state it concludes that parents who opt to home educate should be required to register with local authorities. At the same time it argues that attempts to evaluate the content of home education can not be considered in isolation of broader political agendas and that the policy dilemmas confronting the forthcoming review touch upon complex questions about the meaning of education in a liberal democratic society.


Curcumin (CUR) is an active food compound, but its insolubility and instability in water contributes to low bioavailability. In this study, the solubility of CUR was enhanced by utilizing the solubilizing properties of rubusoside (RUB). The solubility of CUR in water increased linearly from 61 μg/mL to 2.318 mg/mL in the presence of RUB ranging from 1% to 10% (w/v). Dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy studies found that CUR and RUB formed CUR-RUB nanoparticle (∼8 nm) complexes. The RUB-solubilized CUR was stable in physiological conditions and did not precipitate when diluted or degrade when spray-dried to a completely reconstitutable powder. Furthermore, cell viability assays demonstrated the efficacy of RUB-solubilized CUR against human colon, breast, and pancreatic cancer cell lines. The development of this new solubilized, stable, and biologically active CUR formulation lays the foundation for future bioavailability improvement.


Background and Objective: To evaluate extended spectrum betalactamase (ESBL) positive strains of Klebsiella pneumonia and Escherichia coli in positive bacterial cultures. Materials and Methods: In this analytical cross-sectional study, between March 2006 and March 2007, 170 bacterial isolates including 133 cases of E. coli and 37cases of K. pneumonia were examined. All cases underwent double disk diffusion for ESBL. Demographic data were assessed and all data analyzed accordingly. Results: Patients' mean age was 55 ±26.63 yr. Ninety six cases (56.5%) were female and 74 cases (43.5%) were male. Clinical presentation of infection were 118 cases UTI (96.4%), 15 cases septicemia (8.8%), 16cases wound infection (9.4%), 7 cases pneumonia (4.1%), 1 case meningitis (0.6%) and 13 cases other presentations (7.6%). Frequency of ESBL positive in E. coli isolates was 38 cases (28.6%) and in K. pneumonia isolates was 10 cases (27%). There was no significant correlation between ESBL positivity and age, gender, ward or clinical presentation of infection. Conclusion: Incidence of ESBL positive isolates of E. coli and K. pneumonia was high. These results should be considered in administration of broad-spectrum antibiotics by clinicians.


Storytelling or the narrative approach is increasingly becoming a core element in influence processes such as education, teaching, leadership, culture, history, marketing and its facets and a whole range of other functionalities across the multitudes of human activities. By nature human processes are a story told for a purpose; be it, as fun, socialisation, education, business, and so forth. Storytelling, be it narrated consciously or otherwise, tends to have a huge impact on society. It is the contention of this paper that the story is the ultimate in shaping minds and behaviour, and creating perceptions for the clientele or the stakeholders in any human engagement. While some writers might question the authenticity of using the storytelling approach on the pretext that it is not scientific they cannot take away the influence that the story has in shaping the thought process. In any case the human heritage is a story that transcends through generations: evolution, creation, discoveries of places, scientific discoveries or inventions, obituaries, product profiles, organisational profiles, advertisements, etc. Anything that is current, past or future that is narrated encapsulates a story be it past, present or future and each has its own purpose. Marketing has taken on board this notion in most of its facets in communications and brand development though this element does not come out strongly in the marketing literature. A quick check on the marketing literature would not present the notion of storytelling or the narrative as a topic in marketing books other than in the form of case studies. Ultimately the paper emphasises the notion that every influence process involving people is down to a story and no one can deny that socialisation is a story of perpetuating humanity and its facets. Denning (2007a) suggests that there are eight types of stories that serve a range of business related purposes and other facets of life or man's desire to understand or explain the notion of the earth and its dynamics. Boje (2008) articulates how a story defines people, places, products, etc, pointing out that every entity is known by its story in a given context. In view of the pervasive nature of the story it would be appropriate to argue that the story reminds of the past, shapes the present and inspire for the future; hence the story is the life that was, is and will be.


Many of the issues that plague society are a consequence of the way we live and build. Preferences for large sections and spacious homes have led to a series of complications at both individual and communal levels, which can be resolved by adopting housing typologies that are responsive to modern issues and lifestyles. Wide spread low-density housing has formed sprawling suburbs, consuming most buildable land resources and increasing its value, culminating in significant affordability issues. This style of living constructs highly private individual residences, creating isolated communities by discouraging pedestrian activity and limiting opportunity for social interaction.
Internationally, smaller living environments have been successfully implemented for many decades to reduce the effect of urban sprawl and its ramifications, however this is yet to be realised in New Zealand at an impactful scale. Accommodating our living preferences in medium-high density environments presents a challenge that this research will explore. Although apartment typologies are a solution to density issues, they require residents to adapt to unfamiliar living circumstances, and have struggled to grow in popularity.
Smaller homes on compact sites have the potential to facilitate community and ease resource and affordability issues, whilst providing a strong connection to the external environment, an aspect that many New Zealander's seek.
The research is tested on a site in Featherston, a small satellite town less than hour's train ride from Wellington. Intensification of satellite towns and city fringes is key to sustainably easing housing demands and generating supportive communities. The design tests the research at varying scales; how private buildings are designed, how the space between them is designed, and how the wider urban environment is designed to collectively achieve a desirable housing alternative that is responsive to New Zealand's housing issues and preferences.
An understanding of accommodating functional and psychological needs of housing and the role of common facilities is at the forefront of this research, as it ensures the homes have the ability to be occupied long-term. This was investigated through precedents, design testing and background theory research over four design phases, which examine private spaces, public spaces, and the areas in between.
This research demonstrates that dense, small home communities can offer a more desirable housing alternative than traditional forms, and incidentally provide inherent solutions for New Zealand housing.


The ANtarctic geological DRILLing Program (ANDRILL; www.andrill.org), an international collaboration between scientists, drillers, engineers, educators, and technicians from Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United States working together in the spirit of the 4th International Polar Year (IPY), successfully completed the drilling phase of its second project in early December 2007. This new drillcore in the western Ross Sea complements and expands the results from ANDRILL's first successful drilling season. The primary objectives of ANDRILL were to recover and examine stratigraphic records of sedimentary rock from the Antarctic continental margin that document key steps in Antarctica's Cenozoic climatic and glacial history, and reveal events in the development of the Transantarctic Mountains and West Antarctic Rift System(http://www.andrill.org). ANDRILL's two new stratigraphic sections are guiding our understanding of how fast, how large, and how frequent were glacial and interglacial changes in the Antarctic region, and will help establish, through correlation to existing records and integration with climate and ice sheet models, how these local changes relate to regional and global events.


Conventional tracking algorithms rely upon the hypothesis of one detection per target for each frame. However, very fine spatial resolution radars represent widespread systems that provides data for which this hypothesis could be no longer valid. This problem is often called in the literature extended target tracking. In this paper we propose to use the well-established random matrix theory to deal with this issue. A suitable measurement model to address the radar's measurement noise and its conversion into Cartesian coordinates is proposed. The benefits of the proposed converted measurements - extended target tracking with regard to the problem of the targets' size estimation are demonstrated by using both simulated and real data acquired by an X-band marine radar. Average gains of 75% in the estimation of the targets' cross-range size and 31% for the along-range size are observed by comparing the proposed approach with the one that neglects the sensor's noises.


The purpose of this study was to understand the life of nurses in assisting the porter of cleft lip and palate In order to so we decided for a qualitative approach in the methodology of phenomenology. We interviewed nine subjects who took part of this study and their interviews were guided by this question: "How is it like to watch over/take care of patients with cleft lip and or palate?", The themes that emerged revealed the essence of the phenomenon in the nurse's perspective searching with the careful meanings to contribute to the improvement of assistance quality, thus offering subsidies to the development of a continuous educational program to the nursing team (staff).


The so-called "apparatus theory" that developed in France, England and the US in the 1970s, moving beyond formalist and aesthetic approaches, produced an analysis of the structural conditions (technological, social and economic) of the cinema. The concept of voyeurism was central to those accounts: the "cinematic apparatus" aligns the spectator's look with the "all-seeing" look of the camera (the famous "primary identification" theorized by Metz). In offering him a "vicarious look" onto a world to which he is not responsible, the apparatus constructs the spectator, through technical means, as a voyeur: he (for this position was also shown to be gendered) sees without being seen. Subsequent approaches in film and media theory have attempted to de-prioritize vision, invoking a spectator who is embodied, synesthetic, proprioceptive, or involved in an "intersubjective" exchange with the "film body." Exploring the virtues and limitations of such approaches, this paper argues that the idea of a technically mediated "vicarious look" remains crucial to an account of the "cinematic apparatus" and suggests a basis for understanding post-cinematic media as well. The argument proceeds through an analysis of the films of Andy Warhol, which offer, it argues, a profound reflection on the very "ontology" of the medium. Warhol's proto-strutural '60s films, in isolating the operations of primary identification, restored to those operations a sense of their erotic foundation. Treating Warhol not as a gay iconoclast but as a film theorist, and putting him as such in conversation with Metz and Baudry, as well as Stanley Cavell and Linda Williams, the paper argues—clearing up some misapprehensions about the term—that the ontological "voyeurism" of the cinematic apparatus, though not always specifically sexual, is fundamentally queer. Finally, it suggests that even as apparatus theory describes a set of technological and spectatorial conditions that are no longer paradigmatic, its signal achievement was to lay bare the relation of technological elements to psychically dense modes of subjectivity, a relation which (far from universal) is both historical and ideological. This in turn gives us a crucial foundation for asking in what ways post-cinematic media produce a new orientation of, and technical infrastructure for, desire.


Additive manufacturing (AM) or three-dimensional (3D) printing has introduced a novel production method in design, manufacturing, and distribution to end-users. This technology has provided great freedom in design for creating complex components, highly customizable products, and efficient waste minimization. The last industrial revolution, namely industry 4.0, employs the integration of smart manufacturing systems and developed information technologies. Accordingly, AM plays a principal role in industry 4.0 thanks to numerous benefits, such as time and material saving, rapid prototyping, high efficiency, and decentralized production methods. This review paper is to organize a comprehensive study on AM technology and present the latest achievements and industrial applications. Besides that, this paper investigates the sustainability dimensions of the AM process and the added values in economic, social, and environment sections. Finally, the paper concludes by pointing out the future trend of AM in technology, applications, and materials aspects that have the potential to come up with new ideas for the future of AM explorations.


To the editor,

Chronic pain is usually defined as any persistent or intermittent pain that lasts more than 3 months.1 When this definition is used, more than 40% of the general population reports having chronic pain, primarily due to arthritis or other musculoskeletal disorder.2 Based on our clinical observations, within the chronic pain population, a subgroup has an intractable pain syndrome or disease. All have incurable, extremely painful conditions, as evidenced by failure of various interventions to control their pain, including surgery, nerve blocks, physical rehabilitation, and weak opioids. Patients describe their pain as constant, debilitating, and potent enough to interfere with sleep and sexual function. Many report suicidal thoughts for the sole purpose of stopping the pain, incessant crying spells, fatigue, depression, social isolation, restriction of mobility, and numerous bed- or couch-bound days.

California, Oregon, and Washington have passed "intractable pain" laws, primarily to allow physicians to legally prescribe opioids to needy pain patients

Objective assessment of these patients invariably reveals intermittently elevated blood pressure and pulse rate and abnormal concentrations of serum cortisol and other adrenal hormones, indicating the presence of a severe and extended stress state.3 Others have also recently postulated that severe chronic pain may produce an extended, destructive stress state characterized by neuroendocrine dysregulation, fatigue, dysphoria, myalgia, and impaired mental and physical performance.4

We suggest that this constellation of abnormalities be called "intractable pain disease." About a dozen states, including California, Oregon, and Washington, have passed "intractable pain" laws, primarily to allow physicians to legally prescribe opioids to needy pain patients. Although the legal and legislative definition of "intractable" in the various state laws may be vague, the legislative intent of all these laws is clearly to identify the subgroup of patients with chronic pain who require opioids. It, therefore, appears prudent and practical to adopt the term intractable for those patients with severe, chronic pain who demonstrate the extended, severe stress response described above. Although some other name could be adopted for this tragic group of afflicted patients, an intractable pain syndrome clearly needs to be recognized, treated, and researched independently as a separate disease that differs from simple chronic pain whose symptoms may merely be minor, mild, intermittent, or persistent for longer than 3 months.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
Accurate prediction of the effect of atmospheric changes, including pollutants, on emergency department (ED) visits for respiratory symptoms would be useful, but has proven difficult. The main difficulty is the limitation of the classical linear models and logistic regression with multiple variables to handle the multifactorial effect.

DESIGN AND SETTING
To predict ED visits, we have created a computer-based model called an artificial neural network (ANN) using a back-propagation training algorithm and genetic algorithm optimization. This ANN was fed meteorologic and air pollution input variables and trained to predict the number of patients admitted to the ED with respiratory symptoms of asthma, COPD, and acute and chronic bronchitis on the corresponding day. One thousand twenty data sets were extracted from an ED admittance database at the Barzilai Medical Center (Ashkelon, Israel), and randomized to a network training set (n = 816) and a test set (n = 204).

RESULTS
The neural network performed best when the predictor variables used were temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, SO(2), and oxidation products of nitric oxide, and the data presented as peak value 24 h prior to ED admission and the average during the 7 days before the ED visit. The neural network was able to predict the test set with an average error of 12%.

CONCLUSION
Based on meteorologic and pollution data, the use of an ANN can assist in the prediction of ED visits related to respiratory conditions.


Fiscal sustainability tests have largely ignored the institutional setting of fiscal policy making. Fiscal equalization schemes in federal states are one such institution. We examine whether German state governments pursue sustainable fiscal policies taking into account fiscal equalization transfers. Using panel data techniques we assess fiscal sustainability by investigating whether the debt-to-GDP-ratio has had a positive influence on the primary surplus (Bohn-model). Distinguishing between different measures of the primary surplus we show that including/excluding fiscal transfers changes the results of the Bohn-model. While fiscal equalization transfers do render the fiscal policy of the states sustainable they also provide the states with incentives to increase government spending which, eventually, might render the entire equalization scheme politically unsustainable.


This study uses data from hospitals to test the hypothesis that management representation on nonprofit boards leads to "excessive" CEO pay, defined as compensation that exceeds the level predicted by a market wage model. We document a relatively small, but statistically significant, positive association between CEO pay and "insider" boards that include the CEO and other employees as members. Additional tests confirm that this result is not driven by endogenous board structure and that excess pay is greater in the absence of competition from for-profit hospitals. We then examine whether management board representation is associated with larger underlying agency concerns that lead to reduced donations. Our tests do not support this hypothesis but do, however, reveal a negative correlation between donations and physician representation on the board – suggesting a potential conflict between the interests of donors and non-employee physicians. Our overall evidence provides empirical support for modeling nonprofit organizations as consisting of competing stakeholders.


A new structure of 4H–silicon carbide (SiC) merged PiN-Schottky (MPS) diodes with offset field-plate (FP) as edge termination is developed. To understand the influences of 4H–SiC MPS diodes with offset FP on the characteristics, simulations have been done by using ISE TCAD. Related factors of offset FP have been studied as well to optimise the reverse characteristics of 4H–SiC MPS diodes. The simulation results show that the device using offset FP can create a higher blocking voltage under reverse bias as compared with that using field guard rings. Besides, the offset FP does not cause any extra steps in the manufacture of MPS diodes.


Non-rigid registration of medical images is usually presented as a physical model driven by forces deriving from a measure of similarity of the images. These forces can be computed using a gradient-descent scheme for simple intensity-based similarity measures. However, for more complex similarity measures, using for instance local statistics, the forces are usually found using a block matching scheme. Here, the authors introduce a Gaussian window scheme, where the local statistics (here the sum of local correlation coefficients) are weighted with Gaussian kernels. The authors show that the criterion can be deducted easily to obtain forces to guide the registration. Moreover, these forces can be computed very efficiently by global convolutions inside the real image of the Gaussian window in a time independent of the size of the Gaussian window. The authors also present two minimization strategies by gradient descent to optimize the similarity measure: a linear search and a Gauss-Newton-like scheme. Experiments on synthetic and real 3D data show that the sum of local correlation coefficients optimized using a Gauss-Newton scheme is a fast and accurate method to register images corrupted by a non-uniform bias.


The development of new energy storage technologies is central to solving the challenges facing the widespread use of renewable energies. An option is the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon-based products which can be achieved within an electrochemical cell. Future developments of such processes depend on the availability of cheap and selective catalysts at the electrode. Here we show that a unique well-characterized active electrode material can be simply prepared via electrodeposition from a molecular copper complex precursor. The best performances, namely activity (150 mV onset overpotential and 1 mA cm−2 current density at 540 mV overpotential), selectivity (90% faradaic yield) and stability for electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 into formic acid in DMF/H2O (97 : 3 v/v) have been obtained with the [Cu(cyclam)](ClO4)2 complex (cyclam = 1,4,8,11-tetraazacyclotetradecane) as the precursor. Remarkably the organic ligand of the Cu precursor remains part of the composite material and the electrocatalytic activity is greatly dependent on the nature of that organic component.


This study assessed the use of mobile telephone for extension among female agricultural practitioners in Lagos State. The study adopted purposive selection of Epe and Ikorodu Local Government Areas (LGA), while simple random sampling technique was used to select 60 female farmers and 5 female EAs in each of the two LGAs. Data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and chi square. Results showed that female agricultural practitioners in Lagos State cut across different age groups, changing trend of farming business as youths and the younger generation now take active part. The majority (97.69%) of the respondents owned and used mobile phone for accessing market information among others. Also, 90.8% respondents agreed that it's an efficient and effective facility for extension communication. High cost of subscription, mobile phone and accessories were the major constraints reported. This study provided evidence on the role of mobile phones in reducing information search costs and asymmetries and increasing market efficiencies. It is recommended that an agricultural extension service incorporates/strengthens use of mobile phones for information dissemination by training EAs on opportunities inherent in the use of mobile phones. Keywords: Female agricultural practitioners, mobile phones, extension tools


In this paper, we propose a surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm (EA) for hyperparameter optimization of machine learning (ML) models. The proposed STEADE model initially estimates the objective function landscape using RadialBasis Function interpolation, and then transfers the knowledge to an EA technique called Differential Evolution that is used to evolve new solutions guided by a Bayesian optimization framework. We empirically evaluate our model on the hyperparameter optimization problems as a part of the black box optimization challenge at NeurIPS 2020 and demonstrate the improvement brought about by STEADE over the vanilla EA.


For nearly 15 years, The Art of Service has been the guiding light for those in pursuit of satisfying and fulfilling employment in IT. This SLA Manager edition has been completely revised and rewritten and is designed to work in conjunction with the latest best practices. At the heart of this Guide's formula for your SLA Manager Role are five questions: Where does the SLA Manager's role fit, What does it mean to be or become a SLA Manager, How to be a SLA Manager, When is a SLA Manager successful and Why be a SLA Manager. This Guide has all the answers and sets you up, well on your way to finding, keeping and being successful in the job you really want. This book is not filled with theoretical babble but practical and useful information, knowledge and experience! Packed with time-tested advice, This SLA Manager Handbook works as a good companion for those just starting out in the "real world" as well as for those who are thinking seriously about a career change. If you have ever worked in or managed an IT organization, this book will not only answer a lot of your troubling questions, it will also explain matters that you did not know the questions to - just the obnoxious frustration of something that was not working. It is with incredible ease, yet depth and understanding that this book ploughs through the important issues that concerns not only HR managers and CIOs, but anyone who wants to climb up the SLA Manager ladder. This Guide is filled with Valuable hints, tips and guidance on how to successfully be a SLA Manager, it contains many forms, templates and checklists to get you going right away. The Art of Service's Guides have helped thousands of people find truly satisfying work. This guide tells you how you process information, make decisions and interact with the world around you in your SLA Manager role - and shows you what works best. Then, using workbook exercises and real-life examples to highlight the strengths and pitfalls of the SLA Manager, it shows you step-by-step how to ensure the best results in the shortest period of time. And if you plan to stay in your job, the SLA Manager Guide provides savvy advice for getting the most out of your current career. Every other career guide offers generic, one-size- fits-all advice. But because it is based on this specific career, The SLA Manager Handbook helps you determine what you need to be more successful and satisfied.


A business process re-engineering value in improving the business process is undoubted. Nevertheless, it is incredibly complex, time-consuming and costly. This study aims to review available literature in the use of machine learning for business process re-engineering. The review investigates available literature in business process re-engineering frameworks, methodologies, tools, techniques, and machine-learning applications in automating business process re-engineering. The study covers 200+ research papers published between 2015 and 2020 in reputable scientific publication platforms: Scopus, Emerald, Science Direct, IEEE, and British Library. The results indicate that business process re-engineering is a well-established field with scientifically solid frameworks, methodologies, tools, and techniques, which support decision making by generating and analysing relevant data. The study indicates a wealth of data generated, analysed and utilised throughout business process re-engineering projects, thus making it a potential greenfield for innovative machine-learning applications aiming to reduce implementation costs and manage complexity by exploiting the data's hiding patterns. This suggests that there were attempts towards applying machine learning in business process management and improvement in general. They address process discovery, process behaviour prediction, process improvement, and process optimisation. The review suggests that expanding the applications to business process re-engineering is promising. The study proposed a machine-learning model for automating business process re-engineering, inspired by the Lean Six Sigma principles of eliminating waste and variance in the business process.


Although France is a quintessential example of the provision of fundamental rights, it does not give constitutional or legislative status to the fundamental right of access to water. The Constitutional Council could have offset this omission, but it has only adopted a hesitant jurisprudence of this issue. French multinational water companies, with their economic power, are fighting protective laws. The explicit recognition of such a right in the Constitutional Block would be a welcome addition. Since the idea is not popular in France, a comparative law study of Latin American states will allow for new ways of reflection, which would possibly permit to bridge the gap.


On infection of its host, Escherichia coli, bacteriophage lambda can follow one of two alternative developmental pathways: lytic or lysogenic. Here we demonstrate that the "lysis-versus-lysogenization" decision is influenced by guanosine tetraphosphate (ppGpp), a nucleotide that is synthesized in E. coli cells in response to amino acid or carbon source starvation. We found that the efficiency of lysogenization is the highest at ppGpp concentrations somewhat higher than the basal level; too low and too high levels of ppGpp result in less efficient lysogenization. Maintenance of the already integrated lambda prophage and phage lytic development were not significantly influenced in the host lacking ppGpp. We found that the level of HflB/FtsH protease, responsible for degradation of the CII protein, an activator of "lysogenic" promoters, depends on ppGpp concentration. The highest levels of HflB/FtsH was found in bacteria lacking ppGpp and in cells bearing increased concentrations of this nucleotide. Using lacZ fusions, we investigated the influence of ppGpp on activities of lambda promoters important at the stage of the lysis-versus-lysogenization decision. We found that each promoter is regulated differentially in response to the abundance of ppGpp. Moreover, our results suggest that the cAMP level may influence ppGpp concentration in cells. The mechanism of the ppGpp-mediated control of lambda development at the stage of the lysis-versus-lysogenization decision may be explained on the basis of differential influence of guanosine tetraphosphate on activities of p(L), p(R), p(E), p(I), and p(aQ) promoters and by dependence of HflB/FtsH protease level on ppGpp concentration.


The mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) is the most numerous and widespread duck in the northern hemisphere and a model species in ecology and harvest management. Migration is a crucial life stage for many birds and understanding the drivers of migration has important implications for conservation biology and assessment of animal population responses to global changes. Furthermore, mallard migration is a fundamental determinant of the epidemiology of many diseases of major relevance for both animal and human health. For example, it is the reservoir host for influenza A viruses (IAV), a widespread zoonosis causing mortality and economic damage. Improved knowledge of mallard behaviour during migration and the impacts of infection in mallards is needed to determine the role of wild birds in global IAV dynamics.This thesis focuses on mallard stopover ecology, an explicitly important part of the annual life cycle that is not well understood. The study area was southern Oland, SE Sweden, where mallard stopover behaviour was scrutinized by a combination of telemetry and ringing data analyses. Specifically, habitat preferences, movements, and emigration decisions were studied in-depth. Potential effects of low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAIV) infection on movement parameters were also investigated. Radio-tracking revealed that stopover mallards adhered to a strict diel pattern, in which they spent the days resting along the coast, visited crop fields at dawn and dusk, and foraged on inland water bodies during the darkest night hours. Notably, the importance of residual maize, as well as small ephemeral wetlands on the unique alvar steppe habitat that predominates on Oland, was previously unknown. LPAIV infection status did not affect movement behaviour, highlighting the possible risk of spread of IAV from wild mallards to poultry along the migratory flyway. Through capture-mark-recapture modelling, it was confirmed that weather, particularly wind direction, was the most important determinant of departure from the stopover site. In contrast, the body condition of departing mallards was less crucial. Taken together, the research presented in this thesis contributes to improved knowledge about mallard stopover ecology and its role in LPAIV disease dynamics.


Smart Grid is a new type of power grid that will provide reliable, secure, and efficient energy transmission and distribution. Cyber attacks against data readmission system threaten the security of smart grid. Hence, identifying and preventing the false data injection as early as possible becomes a critical issue. However, there is no existing solution that considers all aspects such as deployment cost and system efficiency. In this paper, we apply a light-weight watermarking technique to defend against false data injection attacks. To be specific, we add a secure watermark to real-time meter readings and transmit the watermarked data through high speed unsecured network. The utility can then correlate the watermarked data with the original watermark to detect the presence of false data injected by adversary. Our simulation results show that watermarking technique can effectively detect any false manipulation to the watermarked data at low cost.


Two images, "black swans" and "perfect storms," have struck the public's imagination and are used—at times indiscriminately—to describe the unthinkable or the extremely unlikely. These metaphors have been used as excuses to wait for an accident to happen before taking risk management measures, both in industry and government. These two images represent two distinct types of uncertainties (epistemic and aleatory). Existing statistics are often insufficient to support risk management because the sample may be too small and the system may have changed. Rationality as defined by the von Neumann axioms leads to a combination of both types of uncertainties into a single probability measure—Bayesian probability—and accounts only for risk aversion. Yet, the decisionmaker may also want to be ambiguity averse. This article presents an engineering risk analysis perspective on the problem, using all available information in support of proactive risk management decisions and considering both types of uncertainty. These measures involve monitoring of signals, precursors, and near‐misses, as well as reinforcement of the system and a thoughtful response strategy. It also involves careful examination of organizational factors such as the incentive system, which shape human performance and affect the risk of errors. In all cases, including rare events, risk quantification does not allow "prediction" of accidents and catastrophes. Instead, it is meant to support effective risk management rather than simply reacting to the latest events and headlines.


The various screening and corrective processes of the driver licensing process as it addresses elderly drivers will not occur without a set of processes to support them. Changes in the way these support processes are carried on must precede improvements elsewhere. The support processes include: selection and training of licensing personnel; identification and referral of deficient drivers by enforcement personnel; physician reporting; and functioning of medical advisory boards. This paper examines the identification and referral of deficient drivers by enforcement personnel, describing the problem giving rise to the process, the needs that the process must satisfy, and the actions that must be taken to meet those needs.


A double-blind comparison of carbonated lidocaine and lidocaine hydrochloride in caudal epidural anesthesia was performed in 8 horses. Among 5 horses with successfully paired bilateral caudal epidural blockades, no significant differences in onset time, duration, or sensory blockade were demonstrated. In the present study, carbonated lidocaine did not offer an advantage over the hydrochloride salt for caudal epidural anesthesia in the horse.


Objective: To determine the usefulness of different intensities of follow up when atorvastatin is used in the secondary prevention of ischemic heart disease. Material and methods: Design. Prospective study with balanced randomized allocation including a concurrent control group. Setting: Ambulatory care. Patients: 75 patients hospitalized because of acute coronary syndromes were administered atorvastatin as secondary prevention of ischemic heart disease and randomized either to intensive folow up or to a control visit 6 months apart. Interventions: The intensive folow up group (40 patients) was controlled every 2 months as outpatients and a physical examen and lipid profile was done, enhancing diet and exercise and adjusting the statin dose. The control group was evaluated just once after a 6 six month period. Results: 88% were males and the average age was 63.7 ′10 year. Basal characteristics, myocardial infarction, revascularized procedures and initial chemistry and lipid profile were similar in both groups, although there was a higher proportion of patients in the control group taking ACE. After 6 months total cholesterol, LDL colesterol and triglycerides reduction was higher in the intensive follow up group (33 vs. 24, 34 vs. 26 y 51 vs. 24 mg/dl, respectively) without realising statistical significance. Hospital readmissions were lesser in the intensive group (7.3% vs. 19.4%, P = 0.114). There was one death in each group. Conclusions: Results show a tendency indicating that follow up planification is relevant to obtein the target lipid level recomended in the secondary prevention.


Background. Group A beta-haemolytic streptococci (GABHS)-associated pharyngitis can complicate into rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Objectives. To determine the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility of GABHS isolates in children presenting with acute pharyngitis and assess the utility of Zambian Treatment Guideline (ZTG) criteria as a local clinical scoring system. Methods. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the paediatric outpatient department of the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia. The study cohort, comprising children aged 3 - 15 years ( n =146), were recruited as presenting with symptoms of pharyngitis. The children underwent a clinical assessment that included a detailed case history, presenting symptoms and a throat swab that was subsequently cultured. Microbial isolates were typed and the antibiotic sensitivity of cultured GABHS to penicillin and erythromycin determined. Results. GABHS were cultured from 22 (15.1%) children within this study. All the GABHS isolates ( n =22) were susceptible to penicillin G; however, 19% of isolates displayed reduced susceptibility to erythromycin. None of the ZTG criteria, when used individually, was sufficiently sensitive to detect GABHS pharyngitis among this cohort. Conclusion. The prevalence of GABHS pharyngitis is similar that been described elsewhere. While GABHS remains highly susceptible to penicillin, which is used in the local RHD control programmes, concern remains for children treated with erythromycin owing to the resistance noted in some of the isolates. The ZTG clinical criteria displayed poor sensitivity in identifying GABHS pharyngitis. This has significant implications for effective diagnosis and treatment of pharyngitis and associated complications within this high RHD endemic area.


Genomics, proteomics and metabolomics are providing the tools to assess human health, but what knowledge resource can guide scientific research to improve it? The Darwinian selective pressure on lactation to promote the competitive success of offspring drove the emergence of nutritional strategies that go beyond the simple provision of essential nutrients. Identifying the molecules, mechanisms and health benefits encrypted in milk is the goal of milk genomics. Variations in gene expression during lactation reveal principles of lactation and some surprises. There is apparently no lactation switch, most milk-specific genes are induced gradually during pregnancy. The genes down regulated during lactation are also intriguing, ubiquitination is turned off. Milk provides remarkable insights into health promotion. Oligosaccharides in human milk selectively support the growth of Bifidobacteria longum subspecies infantis. Its genome is revealing evidence of the co-evolution of milk and commensal bacteria and new genes with potential benefits to human health.


In this Letter, ultrastrong plasmon-exciton coupling in an Ag nanoprism-J-aggregate hybrid nanostructure is reported. A localized surface plasmon wavelength of Ag nanoprisms is tunable starting from 400 to 1100 nm. Because of the large electric field localization at the corners of the nanoprisms, the observed Rabi splitting energy is higher than the previously reported Rabi splitting energies using metal nanoparticles. A giant Rabi splitting energy of more than 400 meV corresponding to ~19% of the j-band energy has been observed, thus indicating the ultrastrong coupling regime. The hybrid nanostructure of nanoprism-J-aggregate is easy to prepare in large quantities and it can be uniformly assembled on solid substrates.


Object-oriented programming with explicit state emphasis has advantages of object-oriented and automta-based paradigms. Main advantages of such an approach are scalability, flexibility and presence of mechanism for complex behaviour description on the base of finite state machines. Object-oriented and dynamic approaches for inheritance and embedding of automata classes in dynamic programming languages.