This study describes the development and validation of a psychometrically-sound instrument, the Active Learning Strategies Inventory (ALSI), designed to measure learners' perceptions of their active learning strategies within an active learning context. Active learning encompasses a broad range of pedagogical practices and instructional methods that connect with an individual learner's active learning strategies. In order to fulfill the study's goals, a conceptual framework on learners' active learning strategies was developed and proposed, drawing upon the research literature on active learning. The development and construct validation of the Active Learning Strategies Inventory (ALSI), based on the conceptual and methodological underpinnings, involved identifying five scales of learners' active learning strategies: engagement, cognitive processing, orientation to learning, readiness to learn and motivational orientation. An item pool of 20 items was generated following an extensive review of the literature, standardized card sorting procedures including confirmatory factor analysis and scale validation of a pilot (n = 407) survey. The ALSI scale demonstrated strong internal consistency and reliability with a Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.81 to 0.87. High item loading scores from the factor analysis provided initial support for the instrument's construct validity of the five-factor model. The ALSI scale provides a reliable and valid method for researchers and academicians who wish to measure learners' perceptions of their active learning strategies within an active learning context. Finally, we discuss the implications and address the limitations and directions for future research.


Tree-root drying can reduce the water content of a soil in a significant manner and cause foundation settlement in expansive soil. Distortions of lightly loaded structures caused by tree root absorption are often observed in areas of expansive soil. Interest in numerical modeling of the influence of trees on soil shrinkage settlements has intensified recently. Nevertheless, no prescriptive method is given to describe the parameters and conditions in a tree-root-soil-water interaction model. In this paper, a general description of the factors involved in a tree root-absorption model is discussed. The estimation of transpiration, rainfall, evaporation and root distribution is provided. Flow equation and constitutive equation are also explored to describe the soil water interactions.


Skin bleaching, which involves using creams, soaps, and exfoliants to lighten skin tone by reducing melanin count, has been wildly popular in Western and Central Africa since its introduction to both regions. Although studies have shown that skin bleaching products have hazardous ingredients such as mercury and hydroquinone, which can cause kidney problems and infections in children, many Western and Central Africans continue the practice in hopes of obtaining a fairer, more "metisse" (mixed) appearance. In these regions, a lighter skin tone is tied to a higher level of beauty, increased chances of obtaining work and overall power, and higher status. The Social Learning Theory states that people engage in specific behaviors because of what they witness in their environment, the ability to reproduce the behavior, and a high probability for a positive outcome. Therefore, it is hypothesized that an increasing number of Africans in both regions continue to engage in skin bleaching because it is what they see their peers practice, the products are readily available, and the possibility of becoming more attractive and powerful is highly favorable and luring. The Colonial Mentality Theory suggests that peoples of nations which were formerly colonized still feel inferior to the peoples of the nation(s) that colonized them and still strive to be accepted by these former foreign powers. In turn, it is further hypothesized that Western and Central Africans bleach their skins in order to conform to a more European standard of beauty, since nations such as France, Germany, and Britain were former colonizers. This study is quantitatively and qualitatively examined and utilizes collected data from primary and secondary sources through the application of document analysis and expert interview techniques. The findings from the data analysis seem to support both hypotheses.


Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City is a cooperation project between Singapore and China that seeks not only to be sustainable, but also practical, scalable and replicable. A number of challenges exist at the site chosen for this unique project, in particular, scarce and polluted water resources. An urban landscape design that is water sensitive and maximises utilisation of stormwater as a resource and improves surface water quality is currently being prepared. Rationale and general design approach including unique challenges are discussed. Preliminary sizing and siting is presented. It is concluded that relevant overseas experience can be successfully applied in the Chinese context and that a Water Sensitive Urban Design and in particular, stormwater BMPs, are a key component of a sustainable Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City.


The objective of this study was to verify early nitrogen (N) fertilization on maize cultivated in succession to black oats. We conducted three experiments, relating to the 2012/13, 2013/14, and 2014/15 growing seasons, at UFSC-Curitibanos, in a randomized complete block experimental design, with four treatments and four replicates. The treatments were N management strategies in which the amount of N applied to maize was split into pre-sowing, at sowing, and topdressing times: (T1) control with no N application; (T2) 2/3 - 1/3 - 0; (T3) 1/3 - 1/3 - 1/3; and (T4) 0 - 1/3 - 2/3. The biometrics and productive potential parameters of the crop were evaluated. Application of N, regardless of the treatment, increased the yield. In 2012/13, there were no significant differences between the ways in which the N application was split, although they produced a higher yield than the control, resulting in a mean yield of 5,008 kg ha-1. In 2013/14, T2 was similar to T3 and T4, resulting in a yield of 9,858 kg ha-1; in 2014/15, T3 and T4 were similar, with a mean yield of 12,466 kg ha-1, while T2 resulted in a lower yield of 10,487 kg ha-1. When 2/3 of the N is applied pre-sowing, it is only effective when it is associated with the occurrence of a drought period at an early developmental stage of the plants. In adequate rainfall conditions, the early application of N fertilization is only effective when combined with a further 1/3 of the amount of N at sowing, and later as a topdressing.


The main principle of CRM is a customer oriented, consider the desires and expectations. It is necessary to in-depth analysis of the needs to improve the level of customer satisfaction. In this day where the consumer is better educated, it becomes more and more demanding – expect high quality customer service, accurate information and quick access to them. Knowing the customer perfectly there is a chance to meet his expectations and even exceed them, and thanks to this gain his trust and loyalty. We can provide them with exactly the product, which is expected, since we know his preferences, we are also able to provide him with good service and support. We save the budget because the firm keep focus on the customers who give the opportunity of cooperation and effort is not wasted on those who never takes advantage of our offer. The article aims to show what elements should appear in the customer management systems to store level, to provide better customer service, and to reduce the cost of its maintenance thanks to better warehouse management.


The benefits and constraints to angling participation experienced by recreational anglers with and without disabilities were compared in this study. Data were gathered for 775 angler organization members (n = 347 with disabilities) responding to a mail survey in Germany. Anglers with disabilities were older and more often retired than anglers without disabilities, but there were no differences in angling frequency between angler groups. The social and self-improvement benefits associated with recreational fishing were higher for anglers with disabilities compared to anglers without disabilities, and anglers with disabilities experienced significantly more and different constraints to participation. Targeted management actions specifically directed at people with disabilities are needed to capitalize on the importance of a nature-based recreation activity like angling for this demographic group.


We present a simple, general approach for ascertaining the aberrations due to rigid body motions that are encountered in optical tests. The expressions used are generally applicable to the displacement of an aspheric optic, relative to the aligned position. However, we apply these expressions to two cases of particular interest in interferometric testing. In the first case, the optic is tested in autocollimation at its focal point. We derive an equation for the wavefront aberrations induced by a small displacement from this focal position. Next we calculate the sensitivity to motion in a center-of-curvature test using nulling optics. We obtain the aberration function for a displacement of the test element from an aligned position. For each case, we analyze the sensitivities to the various degrees of freedom for particular off-axis aspheres of interest. In all such testing situations, in particular for high-precision work, displacements are present to some degree. The key requirement is then to remove the induced errors. We develop an optimum procedure for such removal and we give some example calculations. This procedure allows the metrologist to unambiguously identify surface correction profiles needed in the fabrication of precision, off-axis, aspheric segments.


VIRTUAL SMARTS OPTIMIZING THE COALESCING OF PEOPLE FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION WITHIN URBAN COMMUNITIES by Stephen Thomas Ricken Despite the importance of individuals coming together for social group-activities (e.g., pick-up volleyball), the process by which such groups coalesce is poorly understood, and as a consequence is poorly supported by technology. This is despite the emergence of Event-Based Social Network (EBSN) technologies that are specifically designed to assist group coalescing for social activities. Existing theories focus on group development in terms of norms and types, rather than the processes involved in initial group coalescence. This dissertation addresses this gap in the literature through four studies focusing on understanding the coalescing process for interest-based group activities within urban environments and a design of a mobile user interface aimed at increasing collective action initiation. Study One examined how well people's needs for social group activity engagement are being met in the context of an urban university. The analysis of 60 interviews highlighted how participants considered activity leadership a burden, where it took too much time and was difficult to find others. Study Two (a mixed methods study of 763 Meetup.com groups in the NY/NJ/CT Tri-State) and Study Three (A survey of 511 students at an urban university) corroborated results that attendance and participation at the first meeting determined long-term success by giving the organizer belief that their group would be successful. Study Four involved the design and testing of a mobile group coalescing user-interface (UI) that featured several "lightweight" coalescing features hypothesized to reduce the challenges to organizing. Results from the 2000 participant study indicated that the UI increased the likelihood non-leaders would initiate collective action. The models generated from the study data suggested that a new theory is required to understand the role of critical mass in collective action. The combination of these investigations into interest-based group activity coalescing uncovered important gaps in the current knowledge of interest-based group activity coalescing and collective action initiation. This work extends our knowledge about how to improve coalescing support and encourage non-leaders to initiate activity coalescing, which will lead to a greater number of activities forming. Finally, this research uncovers the need to redefine collective action and critical mass models to include motivation to organize and its moderators. VIRTUAL SMARTS OPTIMIZING THE COALESCING OF PEOPLE FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION WITHIN URBAN COMMUNITIES by Stephen Thomas Ricken A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems Department of Information Systems


Popcorning during solder reflow is driven by evaporation of absorbed water into interfacial defect void. Due to lack of data, the steam pressure during popcorning has been assumed as a single value, normally some fraction of the steam saturation pressure at a convenient temperature in popcorning models. A new experimental and analysis methodology to determine the engineering rate of water evaporation from polymer is described in this paper. Using the proposed method, evaporation rate from immersed epoxy is measured. Comparison of the measured rate with a conventional approximation of water evaporation, the conventional approach was found to overestimate the measured rate by nearly two orders of magnitude. To prevent popcorning, the actual evaporation rate can be used in process design as well as material selection of polymer materials.


Manuscript submitted 2017-03-04, revised 2017-04-24, initially accepted for publication 2017-05-15, published in December 2017. Abstract. Due to the star connection of the windings, the impact of the third harmonic which does not exist in three-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) cannot be ignored in five-phase PMSM. So the conventional sensorless control methods for three-phase PMSM cannot be applied for five-phase PMSM directly. To achieve the sensorless control for five-phase PMSM, an iterative sliding mode observer (ISMO) is proposed with the consideration of the third harmonic impact. First, a sliding mode observer (SMO) is designed based on the fivephase PMSM model with the third harmonic to reduce the chattering and obtain the equivalent signal of the back electromotive force (EMF). Then, an adaptive back EMF observer is built to estimate the motor speed and rotor position, which eliminates the low-pass filter and phase compensation module and improves the estimation accuracy. Meanwhile, by iteratively using the SMO in one current sampling period to adjust the sliding mode gains, the sliding mode chattering and estimation errors of motor speed and rotor position are further reduced. Besides, the stability of the SMO and the adaptive back EMF observer are demonstrated in detail by Lyapunov stability criteria. Experiment results verify the effectiveness of the proposed observer for sensorless control of five-phase PMSM.


Today, there is a lot of enthusiasm to fulfil global energy needs from alternative energy resources. Due to the increasing demand for electricity, the traditional electricity market relies on decisions to plan electricity systems, and to generate and distribute electricity to their consumers to balance demand and supply. The peak demands of electricity highly affect these decisions and often cause system failure and shortage of electricity. By predicting energy requirements, these peak demands and the uncertainties in human behaviour in households are optimised to balance the load through various demand response programmes. A smart grid ecosystem requires intelligent Home Energy Management Systems (HEMSs) to profile highly non-stationary and non-linear measurements and conduct correlations of such measurements with diverse inputs (e.g. environmental factors) in order to improve the end-user experience, as well as to aid the overall demand-response optimisation process. The huge amount of energy consumption information collected from the individual appliances opens up lots of opportunities to mine the hidden patterns in the data in order to understand the human behaviour related to energy usage. However, processing huge amounts of information for analysis purposes demands lots of resources e.g. time and computational power. Parallelisation techniques allow the processing of large amounts of data while requiring less computational time. However, neural networks widely used in data processing are highly complex to parallelise during the model parallelisation due to their sequential nature. A key challenge here is to exploit the parallelisation capabilities of hardware as well as software in terms of multicore/multithreaded CPUs and GPUs (Graphical Processing Units). To overcome these challenges, in this research work, we propose a new unified approach to predict day, week and month-wide energy consumption by reducing the computation resources and model human behaviour in households in order to save scarce energy resources and improve demand response programmes. We go beyond current profiling schemes by proposing Deep COLA; a Deep Competitive Learning Algorithm that addresses limitations of high dimensional data and enables accurate modelling of appliance-level energy consumption. We show that our proposed scheme is far more computationally efficient and scalable data-wise than three conventional clustering approaches namely, K-Means, DBSCAN and SOM, using real household datasets. This research work includes a number of contributions. The first is a dominant feature selection algorithm from the pool of features to increase the performance of the forecasting model. The second is a prediction model based on deep learning algorithms to improve the forecasting accuracy and processing time. The third is a clustering algorithm based on competitive learning to profile day, week and month-wide energy consumption patterns, using appliance-level data for a given household. The current methods are based on K-Means, DBSCAN and rule mining which require expert knowledge to get improved clustering. However, the proposed concept of competitive learning allows to extract compact and well separated clusters. This approach automatically extracts the optimal number of clusters without using Elbow, Silhouette or Bootstrap methods commonly seen in the existing work. The fourth is the profiling of appliance-level energy consumption in synergy with environmental factors in order to reveal per-household behavioural characteristics under three associations: appliance-to-appliance, appliance-to-time and appliance-to-environment. The last one is a parallelisation approach in the form of data parallelisation to forecast energy consumption by utilizing large amounts of data.


The effect of three insecticides commonly used in Arizona, dinotefuran, indoxacarb, and imidacloprid, was evaluated on two Arizona-native entmopathogenic nematodes (EPN), Heterorhabditis sonorensis (Caborca strain) and Steinernema riobrave (SR-5 strain), using Helicoverpa zea (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) as the insect host. Specifically, we assessed their effect on EPN survival and fitness (virulence and reproduction). Three application timings were considered: i) EPN applied first, insecticide applied 24 h later, ii) insecticide applied first, EPN applied 24 h later, and iii) simultaneous application of EPN and insecticide. Our results showed that infective juvenile (IJ) survival of S. riobrave and H. sonorensis was not significantly affected by the application of the selected insecticides. Indoxacarb had an ambiguous effect on the S. riobrave life cycle showing a synergistic effect in the virulence of this nematode but reducing its progeny production by two-fold. Similar results were observed for nematode progeny production when H. sonorensis and indoxacarb were applied simultaneously. All combinations of imidacloprid were antagonistic to the virulence of S. riobrave but additive with respect to the virulence of H. sonorensis . Dinotefuran had an additive effect in all combinations and timings evaluated for both EPN species. The negative effect of indoxacarb in the progeny of the tested EPN species suggests this insecticide may have an impact in the recycling of IJs in the soil.


Objectives A xenogeneic human tyrosinase DNA vaccine was developed for treatment of dogs with oral malignant melanoma (Oncept; Merial). No studies have evaluated the safety or efficacy of this vaccine in cats. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety of the canine melanoma vaccine in cats diagnosed with melanoma. Methods Medical records were reviewed from cats diagnosed with malignant melanoma and treated with the canine melanoma DNA vaccine (Oncept). Data regarding signalment, melanoma location, treatments received, vaccine adverse effects and cause of death were collected. Results A total of 114 melanoma vaccines were administered to 24 cats. Seven cats (11.4%) had clinical adverse effects from a total of 13 vaccines classified as grade 1 or 2 based on the Veterinary Cooperative Oncology Group's common terminology criteria for adverse events v1.1. These included pain on vaccine administration, brief muscle fasciculation, transient inappetence, depression, nausea and mild increase in pigmentation at the injection site. Nineteen cats were deceased at study close. The most common cause of death was melanoma (14 cats). Hematological and biochemical changes were observed in six cats, five of which had concurrent disease or treatments that likely caused or greatly contributed to the laboratory abnormalities found. Therefore, these adverse events were considered unlikely to be caused by the melanoma vaccine. One cat had transient grade 1 hypoalbuminemia, which was possibly caused by the vaccination but not thoroughly evaluated. Conclusions and relevance The canine melanoma DNA vaccine can be safely administered to cats, with minimal risk of adverse effects.


Surface water storage and fluxes in rivers are currently poorly observed at the global scale, although they represent major components of the water cycle and heavily influence human life. Stream gauges can provide timely measurements which are crucial for flood prediction and water resource management. However, heterogeneous distribution of in situ networks together with rising worldwide concern on river systems, prompt new techniques for realizing river dynamics and discharge. Satellite remote sensing of rivers is a rapidly emerging subdiscipline within hydrology. Satellite altimeters like ENVISAT and JASON can provide information on water surface elevation. Satellite imagery missions such as LANDSAT and MODIS can be used to estimate surface water extent, e.g., river width. Nonetheless, these techniques provide only one of the multiple measurements required to accurately estimate discharge from space. Furthermore, all of these measurements require in situ calibration to provide accurate discharge estimates. Therefore, a satellite mission which observes simultaneous, high-resolution measurements of parameters to estimate discharge without in situ calibration, is demanding. The future Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission is dedicated to provide terrestrial and ocean water surface elevations globally with high spatial resolution. Given SWOT observables namely the river surface elevation, width and slope, periodic estimation of river discharge would be possible. There have been several models to estimate river discharge with respective to SWOT measurements. In this thesis, we analyze nine different discharge models including experimental models and the hydraulic based models. We used water level time series from satellite altimetry H, effective river width W obtained from satellite imagery and slope S to evaluate the models along four defined reaches of two rivers namely Niger and Po with different morphological and climatic conditions. To assess the discharge models, we applied the Gauss-Helmert adjustment model for eight of these models to estimate unknown parameters of each model. The unknown parameters of each model depend on the characteristics of the defined reach along the rivers. The reason for the implementation of such algorithm is dealing with erroneous quantities on both sides of the discharge model or the observation equation in adjustment theory terminology. We tested and validated our results over the two mentioned rivers. Among the experimental models, namely models 2 to 5, model 3 with NSE of 0.92 for the river Niger and 0.44 for the river Po outperforms the other models. For the other models which have been developed by hydrologists, model 7 outperforms other models with NSE of 0.97 for the river Niger and 0.53 for the river Po. In addition to the discharge estimation, average base zero flow height–which will not among the observable quantities of SWOT mission–is estimated. This quantity which leads to river depth estimation is evaluated by three models including model 1, 6 and 7 where the convergence was possible during the iterative scheme of the Gauss-Helmert model. Validation of the results is done for the river Po where we have surveyed cross-sectional data. The first model shows the average error of ±0.5 m between estimated discharge and surveyed value, although the standard deviation is respectively large in comparison to the other two models.


Many augmented reality systems use general purpose computing hardware to perform tasks such as rendering computer graphics, video overlay, and vision tracking. This can result in systems being large and bulky due to the hardware complexity required and the power consumed. We have developed a hand tracking solution in a reconfigurable computer, which reduces power consumption and transfers some of the processing into specialised hardware. This paper presents a summary of the design and its implementation details.


This paper proposes a first magnetic susceptibility (MS) curve for the Devonian Limestone from Belgium. A comparison with a large scale depositional model shows the complex relations between MS and paleoenvironments. Other Devonian-scale MS curves from other parts of the world are necessary to constraint these relations. KEyWORDS. Magnetic susceptibility, Devonian, limestone, Belgium.


ObjectiveTo assess the variation in HIV-1 over the menstrual cycle, including RNA levels in the female genital tract, plasma HIV-1-RNA levels, CD4 cell counts, and culturable virus. DesignA prospective analysis of 55 HIV-1-infected women. MethodsBlood and genital tract specimens were collected weekly over 8 weeks, spanning two complete menstrual cycles. Applying repeated-measures models that used menses as the reference level, the variation in viral RNA levels was compared in endocervical canal fluid and cells (collected by Sno-strips and cytobrush, respectively) and ectocervicovaginal lavage (CVL) fluid. Repeated-measures models were also used to assess the variation in plasma CD4 cell counts and viral load. ResultsShedding patterns differed among the three sampling methods, independent of genital tract co-infections. Genital tract HIV-1-RNA levels from CVL fluid and endocervical canal cytobrush specimens were highest during menses and lowest immediately thereafter (P = 0.001 and P = 0.04). The HIV-1-RNA level in endocervical canal fluid was highest in the week preceding menses (P = 0.003). The menstrual cycle had no effect on blood levels of RNA (P = 0.62), culturable virus (P = 0.34), or CD4 cell counts (P = 0.55). HIV-1-RNA levels were higher in endocervical canal fluid than in peripheral blood plasma during the late luteal phase (P = 0.03). ConclusionHIV-1-RNA levels vary with the menstrual cycle in the female genital tract but not the blood compartment. HIV-1-RNA levels are higher in endocervical canal fluid than in blood plasma. These findings may have important implications for sex-specific pathogenesis, heterosexual transmission, and contraceptive hormone interventions in HIV-1-infected women.


Background
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is one of the pathogenesis mechanisms of posterior capule opcification (PCO). Studying EMT is of important significance for the prevention and treatment of PCO.However, EMT model is lack.

Objective
This study was to establish an in vitro EMT model for the study of human PCO.

Methods
In vitro mimic cataract enucleation was performed on 40 donor eyes, including anterior capsulorhexis, nucleus hydroexpression, and aspiration of lens fibers.The capsular bag of lens was dissected free during the surgery and pinned flat on a plastic culture dish with DMEM/F12 supplemented containing 10% fetal bovine serum for 4 weeks.The proliferation of LECs on the capsular bag was observed by phase-contrast and dark-field microscope in 0, 3, 7, 14 and 28 days after culture.The capsular bag tissues were collected in cultured 0, 3, 7 and 28 days for the preparation of sections and hematoxylin-eosin stain, and the growth and morphology of LECs were examined with optical microscope.The expression and location of α-SMA, E-cadherin and Vimentin were assessed by immunochemistry.The expression levels of α-SMA, E-cadherin and Vimentin mRNA and proteins were detected by using real-time fluorescnce quantitative PCR and Western blot in different time points.

Results
No LECs were seen on the uncultured capsular bag.LECs appeared in cultured day 3 on the periphery capsular bag and grew toward the center and covered the posterior capsule 7 days after cultured, with a cobblestone-like appearance.Wrinkles occurred and extended gradually along with the enhancement of bag tension.Immunochestry showed that the expression intensity of E-cadherin in the capsular bag gradually weakened, and that of α-SMA or Vimentin was gradually enhanced during the culture duration.The relative expression levels of E-cadherhin mRNA at 0, 3, 7, 14 and 28 days after culture were 3.35±0.13, 1.47±0.20, 1.13±0.14, 1.00±0.85 and 0.23±0.03, and relative expression levels of Vimentin mRNA were 1.00±0.73, 1.05±0.14, 2.24±0.43, 2.84±0.34 and 8.57±0.40, and those of α-SMA mRNA were 1.00±0.06, 2.68±0.28, 4.24±0.05, 2.05±0.90 and 15.30±0.19, showing significant differences among different time points (E-cadherhin mRNA: F=23.430, P=0.000; Vimentin mRNA F=8.915, P=0.002; α-SMA mRNA: F=103.500, P=0.000), with the lowest expression levels in the E-cadherhin mRNA and the highest expression levels in the Vimentin mRNA and α-SMA mRNA at 28 days during the culture period (all at P<0.01). The gray values of E-cadherin protein expression were 1.443±0.017, 1.023±0.003 and 0.568±0.018, and those of Vimentin protein were 0.565±0.012, 1.156±0.007 and 1.241±0.009, and those of α-SMA protein were 0.195±0.045, 0.693±0.036 and 1.501±0.005 at 0, 3 and 28 days, with significnant differences among various time points (E-cadherin: F=2 787.000, P=0.000; Vimentin: F=4 488.000, P=0.000; α-SMA: F=1 173.000, P=0.000). The expression levels were significantly declined in E-cadherhin protein and elevated in Vimentin and α-SMA proteins at 3 and 28 days after culture in comparison with before culture.

Conclusions
A novel in vitro EMT model of LECs is established in this study.This model can mimic a natural EMT procedure after extracapsular cataract enucleation and therefore is a useful model for the further research of the mechanism and prevention and treatment of PCO.

Key words:
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition; Epithelial cells, lens; Posterior capsular opacification; Cataract extraction/adverse effects; Lens capsule; Cells, cultured; Humans; Capsular package model


Empirical divergence maximization (EDM) refers to a recently proposed strategy for estimating f-divergences and likelihood ratio functions. This paper extends the idea to empirical vector quantization where one seeks to empirically derive quantization rules that maximize the Kullback-Leibler divergence between two statistical hypotheses. We analyze the estimator's error convergence rate leveraging Tsybakov's margin condition and show that rates as fast as n-1 are possible, where n equals the number of training samples. We also show that the Flynn and Gray algorithm can be used to efficiently compute EDM estimates and show that they can be efficiently and accurately represented by recursive dyadic partitions. The EDM formulation have several advantages. First, the formulation gives access to the tools and results of empirical process theory that quantify the estimator's error convergence rate. Second, the formulation provides a previously unknown derivation for the Flynn and Gray algorithm. Third, the flexibility it affords allows one to avoid a small-cell assumption common in other approaches. Finally, we illustrate the potential use of the method through an example.


In the province of Leon (Spain), common lands were the foundations of peasant's economy, due to its manifold functionalities: as arable land, cattle grazing areas and as a source of forest products, contributing also to sustain local finances. With the arrival of liberalism, communal properties and collective forms of organization were attacked, but peasant communities preserved a vast area of common lands and continued exploiting them according to the traditional model. One of the reasons fro this, was the defence carried out by the people over their properties and their collective way of life. In this essay it is argued that behind the survival of the common lands and collective organization, there is an explanation related to "moral economy" and culture.


To the Editor.— In regard to the article by Fredericks et al (Archives112:1158-1160 1976), the case of sulfone neuropathy conforms to those previously reported. Neuropathy was confined to motor nerves and appeared only after prolonged high-dose therapy. We describe here a case that demonstrates features of sulfone neuropathy not usually seen, ie, occurrence after low-dose treatment, and sensory nerve involvement. Report of a Case.— An 18-year-old man had been in good health except for severe cystic acne vulgaris of 2½ years' duration. Initial treatment elsewhere was with prednisone, 20 mg daily for two years, without significant improvement. Six months before admission he consulted us; prednisone therapy had been recently discontinued and he was now treated with 1 gm of tetracycline and 500 mg of erythromycin daily. He showed only slight improvement, and three months later sulfone therapy was begun. Results of a RBC glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase test were normal. Initial


Energy choices that are made in a society are also political choices. This article aims to study the extent to which these choices can be reoriented by technological developments related to renewable energies, thus contributing to a redistribution of possibilities and to social reorganization. Three steps are proposed to show that while the development of alternative energies depends on technological advances, it can, in this process, also reveal political potentials : 1) the first step clarifies the theoretical arguments that can be deployed in favour of an approach in terms of "technological potentialism"; 2) the second step extends this approach by identifying a set of potentials linked to renewable energies and the model that could take shape through these alternative forms; 3) the third step examines how these potentials could find ways of being updated.


The incidence of papillary thyroid cancer has rapidly increased in the past decade because of the progress in modern diagnostic technology. Novel therapeutic strategies for papillary thyroid cancer (which has low malignancy) based on organelle-targeted nanomaterials are greatly welcome in order to avoid over-treatment by conventional surgery. Herein, we demonstrate the mitochondria-targeted and exocytosis inhibition strategy of polydopamine (PDA)-coated inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) for enhanced papillary thyroid cancer therapy. PDA-coated gold-silver alloy NPs (Au-Ag@PDA NPs) were employed as the model of composite NPs. TPC-1 cells were chosen as the model of human papillary thyroid cancer cells. To better understand the effect of composite NPs on papillary thyroid cancer cells, the intracellular fate and corresponding cellular responses of Au-Ag@PDA NPs in TPC-1 cells were studied. The results indicate that Au-Ag@PDA NPs are internalized through a caveolae-mediated and macropinocytosis pathway and they are difficult to excrete by the TPC-1 cells. Au-Ag@PDA NPs mainly accumulate in mitochondria, resulting in the mitochondrial dysfunction and the decreased expression of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase. This leads to up-regulation of the p53 levels and therefore the S-phase cell cycle arrest and cell proliferation inhibition. In addition, despite cancer cells being able to survive by an autophagy-mediated pathway to escape apoptosis or necrosis, targeting mitochondria by Au-Ag@PDA NPs enables the destructive thermal ablation of TPC-1 cells by combination with photothermal therapy.


Background The REGISTRY study was designed to obtain natural history data on a wide spectrum of HD patients in Europe over the course of 15 years. Several scales were administered to characterise and evaluate HD patients' progression, which included the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS). Aims The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity of translations of UHDRS to German, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish as applied in the REGISTRY study. Methods/techniques This study was submitted to European Huntington's Disease Network Scientific Bio-ethics Assessment Committee for authorisation and access to the REGISTRY data. Data was provided with baseline and follow up evaluations, by country and site. The analysis was performed for translated versions of the UHDRS if a minimum of 100 cases were observed per language and limited to HD gene expansion carriers with manifest disease. Statistical analysis included Cronbach's alpha and Confirmatory Factorial Analysis (CFA) trough SPSS and R software. Results/outcome A total of 6.009 manifest HD patients were analysed from 8 different languages (English was used as a control language), 53% female with a mean age of 48.2 years (SD 13.8), age-at-onset of 45 years (SD 12.3) and a CAG of 44.3 (SD 4.9). Cronbach's alpha results showed a high internal consistency in each of the four components of the UHDRS for all translated languages. Regardless the language assessed, CFA analysis demonstrated that motor items of dystonia, chorea and arms rigidity, and most of the behavioural items are not well explained by their respective latent component, with loadings below 0.7. Conclusions Results demonstrate that the translation process used in the REGISTRY did not affect UHDRS structure and basic clinemetrics indices across the different languages. However, this analysis revealed structural issues concerning UHDRS and its latent dimensions which require further evaluation.


A cascade digital scattering linear model of the cochlea, suitable for Kemp echo cochlea characterization, is developed. This model stems from a unidimensional transmission line model in which nonuniform and loss properties are included. Its lattice structure is obtained by rephrasing the model equations in terms of incident and reflected scattering waves. A characterization of the cochlea, through the estimation of the width, the stiffness, and the damping of the basilar membrane, is made with the model and the results compared to data available in the literature.


Despite advances in targeted therapies, standard chemotherapy remains the main line of treatment for most cancer patients. However, intrinsic resistance as well as acquired resistance remains an important obstacle to cancer treatment and having an impact on reducing patient's survival. The identification of mechanisms of resistance and biomarkers that may overcome resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs is one of the main goals of cancer research. This editorial examines the recent work of Hebbar et al . (1), whose data bring out new information into the mechanisms of Par-4 action on the tumour cells chemosensitivity and their potential to overcome resistance to cancer therapy.


This study presents the use of variable stiffness concept via curvilinear fiber placement to achieve improved structural characteristics in composite thin-walled beams (TWBs). The TWB used in the study is constructed in circumferentially asymmetric stiffness (CAS) configuration. The variation of fiber angles along the span and the width of the TWB is included by defining two fiber path functions. A parametric study is performed to investigate the effects of different fiber paths on the structural performance metrics including frequency spacing, unit twist, and critical buckling load. For this purpose, a semi-analytical solution method is developed to conduct free vibration, deformation, and buckling analyses of the TWB with curvilinear fibers. The semi-analytical method is validated with several finite element (FE) analyses performed using ABAQUS. Elastic stress analyses of TWBs with selected fiber paths subjected to simplified distributed loading are also conducted using the FE method, and a ply failure criterion is applied to evaluate the strength of these TWBs. Overall results show that curvilinear fiber placement varied along the span leads to greater structural performance for a composite TWB than the straight fiber configuration.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the reference values for lead in blood in an urban population in the city of Londrina, in the state of Paraná, Brazil.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The reference population was composed of 520 adult volunteers who were assessed from November 1994 to December 1996. Exclusion criteria were: occupational exposure to lead, exposure through personal habits or practices, smoking more than 10 cigarettes per day, and living near industrial plants or other places that use lead in their production processes. Also excluded were individuals with abnormal clinical or laboratory results or with chronic diseases or cardiovascular disorders. Lead blood levels were determined using air-acetylene flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The detectable limit was 1.23 micrograms/dL. After the analyses of lead in blood, the following values were determined: minimum value, first quartile, median, third quartile, and maximum value; geometric mean; 95% confidence interval; experimental interval; and reference value.

RESULTS
The reference values for lead in blood ranged from 1.20 micrograms/dL to 13.72 micrograms/dL. The geometric mean was 5.5 micrograms/dL.

CONCLUSIONS
In general, the values found in this study are lower than those that have been reported for other countries. Additional data should be gathered from Brazilian populations living in more-industrialized areas.


The ability to bind and utilize hemin is a trait common to many human pathogens. Nevertheless, the relationship between Legionella pneumophila, the agent of Legionnaires' disease, and hemin has received little attention. Thus, we explored the capacity of a virulent, serogroup 1 strain of L. pneumophila to bind hemin and use it as an iron source. Hemin, but not protoporphyrin IX, restored bacterial growth in iron-limiting media, indicating that it can serve as an iron source for L. pneumophila. In support of this idea, we observed that wildtype legionellae were able to bind 50 to 60% of added hemin, a binding capacity that was comparable to those of other pathogens. To begin to identify proteins involved in hemin acquisition, we identified a Legionella locus that conferred hemin binding upon Escherichia coli. Subcloning and nucleotide sequence analysis determined that a single open reading frame, which was designated hbp for hemin-binding promotion, was responsible for this binding activity. The hbp gene was predicted to encode a secreted, 15.5-kDa protein. To ascertain the importance of this gene in L. pneumophila biology, we used allelic exchange to construct an hbp mutant. Importantly, the mutant displayed a 42% reduction in hemin binding, confirming that hbp potentiates hemin acquisition by L. pneumophila. However, the strain was unaltered in its ability to grow within macrophage-like cells and freshwater amoebae, indicating that hbp is not required for intracellular infection. Despite this, Southern hybridization analysis and database searches demonstrated that hbp is nearly exclusive to the L. pneumophila species.


By social network analysis, users can know how information flows through social ties, how people acquire information and resources, and how cleavages and coalitions operate. In this research, based on social network theories, we develop a social network analysis system to facilitate teams' collaboration and then evaluate the system's performance. The system can draw graphs to present a team's social networks both ego-centered and whole network, and calculate the values of attributes characterizing the social network. The resulting system can facilitate understanding for both team leaders and general members and help them to see relations and interaction patterns of their teams. The evaluation results indicate that the social network analysis is acceptable by users in terms of simplicity, utility, certainty, and novelty for developing virtual teams of a cyber community.


D iabetic retinopathy is a highly specific vascular complication of both insulin-dependent (type I) and non-insulin-dependent (type II) diabetes mellitus. The prevalence of retinopathy is strongly related to the duration of diabetes. After 20 yr of diabetes, nearly all patients with type I diabetes and >60% of patients with type II diabetes have some degree of retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy poses a serious threat to vision. In the Wisconsin Epidemiologic Study of Diabetic Retinopathy (WESDR), 3.6% of younger-onset patients (aged <30 yr at diagnosis, an operational definition of type I diabetes), and 1.6% of older-onset patients (aged >30 at diagnosis, an operational definition of type II diabetes) were legally blind. In the younger-onset group, 86% of blindness was attributable to diabetic retinopathy. In the older-onset group, where other eye diseases were more common, one-third of the cases of legal blindness were due to diabetic retinopathy. Overall, diabetic retinopathy is estimated to be the most frequent cause of new cases of blindness among adults aged 20-74 yr.


This work presents a new low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) thin-film transistor pixel circuit with a novel driving scheme that is based on the simultaneous emission and reverse-biased methods. During high-speed 3D operation at 240 Hz, the proposed circuit can successfully compensate for the TFT threshold voltage variation and improve the IR drop in the power line. Simulation and experimental results confirm the stability of the OLED current and the amelioration of the OLED lifetime. Furthermore, over the entire range of data voltages, the nonuniformity of OLED current is less than 5%.


This study was conducted to investigate the effect of chickpea seeds on performance and blood constituents of broilers. One hundred and twenty eight unsexed one day old (Ross) broiler chicks were randomly assigned to four approximately isocaloric and isonitrogenous diets labeled as follows: Diet (F0) containing 0% chickpea (control diet), diet (F1) 10% chickpea substitute same levels of sesame meal and groundnuts meal, diet (F2) 10% chickpea substitute from groundnuts meal only and diet (F3) 10% chickpea substitute from sesame meal only. Each treatment had four replicates with 8 birds/ replicate. The study lasted for 8 weeks. Parameters Measured were feed intake, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), pre –slaughter weight, dressing percentage, protein efficiency, some blood parameters (glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride, total protein, calcium, and phosphorus) and profitability. The results showed significant decrease (P<0.05) in feed intake) for birds consumed the diets supplemented with chickpeas than control. Body weight gain, pre slaughter weight and carcass weight were significantly (P<0.05) greater for birds received diet F0 (1527.37g), (1615.49g), (1195.32g) respectively and diet F3 (1430.80g), (1472.29g), (1072.06g) respectively and lower for birds received diet F2 (937.71g), (761.58g) and (533.29g) respectively. No significant differences were observed in feed conversion ratio and protein efficiency ratio among all dietary treatments. Broiler chicks received diet F2 recorded significantly (P<0.05) poorer dressing percentage than other treated diets. All the treatments had no significant (P>0.05) effect on serum glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride, total protein, calcium and inorganic phosphorus levels. Broiler chicks received diet F3 recorded the highest profitability than other groups.


OBJECTIVES
To present a contemporary review of the functional outcomes following robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy based on published postoperative erectile function and urinary continence data.

METHODS
A review of the available literature on Medline and PubMed databases was performed.

RESULTS
Factors affecting erectile function include age, preoperative SHIM scores, co-morbidities and nerve sparing techniques. Large robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RALP) series like the Vattikuti Institute's and Ohio State University's demonstrate early potency outcomes: 70% and 80% of patients, respectively, who underwent bilateral nerve sparing and had a pre-operative SHIM score > 17, regained potency after a follow-up of 12 months. This has also been reproduced by smaller series, where 43% of patients achieved potency within 3 months postop and 68%, 79% of patients who underwent unilateral or bilateral nerve sparing, respectively, were able to have intercourse with or without PDE5 inhibitors after 12 months follow-up. Postoperative continence rates after RALP for larger series are 76%-92% and 95. 2%-98% while that for smaller series range from 76% and 89% at 3 and 12 months, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
RALP is a safe, minimally invasive procedure that produces functional outcomes comparable to contemporary results of both open and laparoscopic prostatectomy.


textabstractThe Internet has become the key medium to obtain health information for many people. This
makes the Internet an attractive and increasingly used medium for the delivery of health behaviour
change programs aiming to contribute to the primary prevention of chronic diseases.
Although in theory Internet applications hold great promise for the delivery of health promotion
and behaviour change interventions, evidence suggests that the use of such Internet
interventions is disappointingly low, especially when these interventions are implemented
for use by the general public. Until recently, research on Internet-delivered health behaviour
change interventions primarily focused on the effect evaluation of such interventions in more
or less controlled research settings. Considerably less research attention has been directed at
exploring or promoting, the dissemination, reach and use of such interventions after they have
become available for use by the public. In order to improve overall impact of these interventions,
more insight is needed in how to improve dissemination, reach and use of Internetdelivered
health promotion interventions.
This thesis reports on six studies that identify which factors can contribute to a better dissemination
of and exposure to Internet-delivered health behaviour change interventions (from
now on referred to as 'Internet interventions') for adult target populations. The focus will be
on Internet interventions aimed to promote health behaviours that contribute to the primary
prevention of chronic diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and
cancer. Such interventions include programs that promote healthy eating and physical activity,
that encourage smoking cessation and discourage alcohol consumption. The thesis focuses
on interventions aiming to reach the general adult public and on implementation in real-life
settings (i.e., outside of a study setting). This introductory chapter describes the trends in
access and use of the Internet, the background of Internet interventions, the study aims, the
theoretical frameworks used in this thesis, and presents an overview of the individual studies
within this thesis.


Dickeya dadantii 3937 (ex Erwinia chrysanthemi), a member of the Enterobacteriaceae, causes soft rot in many economically important crops. A successful pathogen has to reach the interior of the plant in order to cause disease. To study the role of motility and chemotaxis in the pathogenicity of D. dadantii 3937, genes involved in the chemotactic signal transduction system (cheW, cheB, cheY and cheZ) and in the structure of the flagellar motor (motA) were mutagenized. All the mutant strains grew like the wild-type in culture media, and the production and secretion of pectolytic enzymes was not affected. As expected, the swimming ability of the mutant strains was reduced with respect to the wild-type: motA (94%), cheY (80%), cheW (74%), cheB (54%) and cheZ (48%). The virulence of the mutant strains was analysed in chicory, Saintpaulia and potato. The mutant strains were also tested for their capability to enter into Arabidopsis leaves. All the mutants showed a significant decrease of virulence in certain hosts; however, the degree of virulence reduction varied depending on the virulence assay. The ability to penetrate Arabidopsis leaves was impaired in all the mutants, whereas the capacity to colonize potato tubers after artificial inoculation was affected in only two mutant strains. In general, the virulence of the mutants could be ranked as motA<cheY<cheB=cheW<cheZ, which correlated with the degree to which swimming was affected. These results clearly indicate that motility plays an important role in the pathogenicity of this bacterium.


Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a popular technique to map the structure and function of the human brain. Over the past two decades, this imaging method has seen rapid developments, resulting in ever-increasing technical possibilities and applications. With the advent of ultra-high (7 Tesla and higher) field MRI scanners, it has become possible to investigate both structure and function of the human brain at a sub-millimeter resolution. Sub-millimeter resolutions enable the investigation of cortical depth-dependent signals reflecting contributions from different cortical layers, also known as laminar MRI. A particularly interesting new possibility is studying feedforward and feedback influences on information processing in the cortex as these afferents terminate in different cortical layers. While laminar fMRI is increasingly popular, some challenges remain to be addressed. One of the major assumptions underlying nearly all fMRI data-analysis techniques, is that fMRI responses are linearly proportional to a local average neuronal activity over a period of time. This linearity assumption largely holds for conventional-resolution fMRI. However, due to contributions of hemodynamic changes at other cortical depths to the local signal, this assumption may not be valid for laminar fMRI. Additionally, the majority of laminar fMRI studies thus far have focused on sensory and motor functions. Ultimately, however, we would want to extend this to cognitive functions and higher-order laminar information processing. In this thesis, I first show that the linearity assumption commonly made for conventional-resolution fMRI also holds for laminar fMRI. I then apply laminar fMRI to answer questions about the information processing flow in cognitive functions. Specifically, I look at processing of numerosity information -perception of the set size of a group of items- across cortical depth in a piece of numerosity-responsive cortex in the parietal lobe. For this, I use a population receptive field-based approach to model the preferred numerosity and tuning width for each voxel. The current analysis shows that laminar information processing in numerosity-selective cortex appears to be different from laminar information processing in early visual cortex. While laminar fMRI has a great spatial resolution, this comes at the cost of a limited temporal resolution. To obtain a higher temporal resolution while maintaining a reasonable spatial resolution, I use intracranial electrodes to directly record activity of neuronal populations. I find a neuronal population tuned to numerosity seven, with decreasing responses for displays of higher and lower numerosity. The location of this population roughly corresponds to the parietal site of the most consistently identified numerosity map in fMRI studies. Moreover, I show that the recorded responses do not reflect typical visual responses, further supporting the apparent differential information processing of cognitive processes. In summary, I show that the linearity assumption holds for laminar fMRI. This enables wider application of laminar fMRI to study sensory and cognitive processes. Using our own methods, I conclude that laminar fMRI is a useful tool to study cognitive processes -in this case numerosity perception- and that this can lead to new insights about information processing in the human brain.


Twenty-seven cases of kidney injury in children under 15 years old are reviewed. All of them were diagnosed, treated and subsequently followed in our Service between 1979 and 1992. Clinical evaluation, blood and urine analyses, and imaging techniques are the three basic tools in the management of kidney injuries. Regarding imaging techniques, dynamic CT is currently the best diagnostic method, mainly due to its high anatomic resolution and because it permits evaluation of renal function and of possible associated lesions in other organs. Kidney injuries were classified into three categories: I (18 cases), II (4 cases), and III (4 cases). The last injury affected a pathological kidney. Emergency surgical procedures were performed in 7 cases (25.9%): 2 were category II, 4 category III, and the pathologic kidney that suffered trauma. Surgery was deferred in one case (category II) and the remaining 19 cases (74.1%) were treated conservatively: 18 were category I and 1 category II. Nephrectomy was required only for the pathologic kidney. All the other kidneys were preserved. Language: es


From a biological view, most of the processes involved in insulin resistance, which drives the pathobiology of type 2 diabetes, are reversible. This theoretically makes the disease reversible and curable by changing dietary habits and physical activity, particularly when adopted early in the disease process. Yet, this is not fully implemented and exploited in health care due to numerous obstacles. This article reviews the state of the art in all areas involved in a diabetes cure-focused therapy and discusses the scientific and technological advancements that need to be integrated into a systems approach sustainable lifestyle-based healthcare system and economy. The implementation of lifestyle as cure necessitates personalized and sustained lifestyle adaptations, which can only be established by a systems approach, including all relevant aspects (personalized diagnosis and diet, physical activity and stress management, self-empowerment, motivation, participation and health literacy, all facilitated by blended care and ehealth). Introduction of such a systems approach in type 2 diabetes therapy not only requires a concerted action of many stakeholders but also a change in healthcare economy, with new winners and losers. A "call for action" is put forward to actually initiate this transition. The solution provided for type 2 diabetes is translatable to other lifestyle-related disorders.


Turkish television has seen the diversification of themes and genres in both fictional and factual programmes reflecting the expansion of the television market in the 2000s. As well as thematic television channels, various television shows on cooking and food are currently on air in Turkey. These cookery programmes not only introduce and 're-invent' local recipes from different regions of Turkey but also promote particular lifestyles and consumption patterns for the audience. However, in the case of Turkey, cookery programmes draw comparisons between Islamic and secular lifestyles through combining religious tales with personal stories, local ingredients with global recipes and suggested housework strategies for producing tasteful food. This article examines Kitchen Love, a cookery programme presented by Emine Beder, one of the pioneers of culinary consumption as a form of popular culture. Both Emine Beder's public persona and her show frame food and cooking as part of an Islamic identity that negotiates Islamic values in relation to modern lifestyles and patterns of consumption.


Collagen production is fundamental for the ontogeny and the phylogeny of all multicellular organisms. It depends on hydroxylation of proline residues, a reaction that uses molecular oxygen as a substrate. This dependency is expected to limit collagen production to oxygenated cells. However, during embryogenesis, cells in different tissues that develop under low oxygen levels must produce this essential protein. In this study, using the growth plate of developing bones as a model system, we identify the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor 1 α (HIF1α) as a central component in a mechanism that underlies collagen hydroxylation and secretion by hypoxic cells. We show that Hif1a loss of function in growth plate chondrocytes arrests the secretion of extracellular matrix proteins, including collagen type II. Reduced collagen hydroxylation and endoplasmic reticulum stress induction in Hif1a-depleted cells suggests that HIF1α regulates collagen secretion by mediating its hydroxylation and consequently its folding. We demonstrate in vivo the ability of Hif1α to drive the transcription of collagen prolyl 4-hydroxylase, which catalyzes collagen hydroxylation. We also show that, concurrently, HIF1α maintains cellular levels of oxygen, most likely by controlling the expression of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1, an inhibitor of the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Through this two-armed mechanism, HIF1α acts as a central regulator of collagen production that allows chondrocytes to maintain their function as professional secretory cells in the hypoxic growth plate. As hypoxic conditions occur also during pathological conditions such as cancer, our findings may promote the understanding not only of embryogenesis, but also of pathological processes.


The most common disease with recurrent fever is PFAPA syndrome, which includes fever, aphthous stomatitis, pharyngitis, and cervical adenitis. Medical treatment (attack treatment, prophylactic treatment) and tonsillectomy are recommended treatments for this disease, and there are corticosteroids that are effective in the management of fever attacks, colchicine for the prophylaxis of febrile attacks, and some drugs whose efficacy has not yet been proven. Tonsillectomy may be an option for some patients. PFAPA syndrome of childhood usually resolves during adolescence. There are also adult-onset and childhood-onset PFAPA syndrome cases.


The electrical and spectroscopic properties of the TiO_2/Ni protection layer system, which enables stabilization of otherwise corroding photoanodes, have been investigated in contact with electrolyte solutions by scanning-probe microscopy, electrochemistry and in-situ ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS). Specifically, the energy-band relations of the p+-Si/ALD-TiO_2/Ni interface have been determined for a selected range of Ni thicknesses. AP-XPS measurements using tender X-rays were performed in a three-electrode electrochemical arrangement under potentiostatic control to obtain information from the semiconductor near-surface region, the electrochemical double layer (ECDL) and the electrolyte beyond the ECDL. The degree of conductivity depended on the chemical state of the Ni on the TiO2surface. At low loadings of Ni, the Ni was present primarily as an oxide layer and the samples were not conductive, although the TiO_2 XPS core levels nonetheless displayed behavior indicative of a metal-electrolyte junction. In contrast, as the Ni thickness increased, the Ni phase was primarily metallic and the electrochemical behavior became highly conductive, with the AP-XPS data indicative of a metal-electrolyte junction. Electrochemical and microtopographical methods have been employed to better define the nature of the TiO_2/Ni electrodes and to contextualize the AP-XPS results.


Climate change poses great risks for China, which makes adaptation an essential response. However, adaptation planning and implementation are still at a preliminary stage with respect to the theoretical framework and methodology. This article focuses on the status, problems and basic needs as regards adaptation to climate change, and outlines the operational framework that the government is seeking to pursue for China's adapting to climate change. The conclusion is that, to satisfy the basic needs of development, it is necessary to clarify development-oriented and incremental adaptation. Furthermore measures to enhance adaptive capacity can be classified as infrastructure-based, technology-based and institutional. Lastly the authors stress the importance of appraising adaptation actions and measures from an economic perspective.


Abstract This article revisits my ethnography of the British in rural France to question how mobility in post‐migration life was deemed intrinsic to the better way of life that they sought through their migration. Through the exploration of the migrants' everyday lives, I reveal that the migrants' mobile practices and their expectations of mobility contributed towards the perceived success of their new lives and were thus significant to the ongoing process getting to a better way of life. Beyond this example, the article also demonstrates how the findings of mobilities researchers may be mobilized in traditional anthropological fieldwork.


The article focuses on early childhood as a critical site of datafication and dataveillance. First, it provides an overview of approaches that situate the datafication of childhood within the new business logic and modes of governance called 'surveillance capitalism'. Second, it presents approaches that theorise how surveillance culture has been normalised in a range of everyday family practices, including those supported by pregnancy and parenting apps, baby wearables and the Internet of Toys (IoToys). Finally, it develops the argument that we need to understand data traces as socially situated and account for the everyday embedding of algorithms in early childhood and family life, if we want to avoid the essentialism that characterises much of the debate around surveillance culture in the lives of young children.


While living systems have developed highly efficient ways to convert chemical energy (e.g., ATP hydrolysis) to mechanical motion (e.g., movement of muscle), it remains a challenge to build muscle-like biomimetic systems to generate mechanical force directly from chemical reactions. Here we show that a continuous flow of reactant solution leads to by far the largest volume change to date in autonomous active gels driven by the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. These results demonstrate that microfluidics offers a useful and facile experimental approach to optimize the conditions (e.g., fabrication methods, counterions, flow rates, concentrations of reagents) for chemomechanical transduction in active materials. This work thus provides much needed insights and methods for the development of chemomechanically active systems based on combining soft materials and microfluidic systems.


Ventricular tachycardia, which appears in about 2% of the cases, is admitted to be a serious complication of acute myocardial infarction. It most commonly occurs within the first five days but may occur later during the course of the disease, particularly in those patients who have been given digitalis. 1 Spontaneous reversion to a normal sinus mechanism is rare, and it is therefore a situation which calls for prompt, exact diagnosis and therapy. Sabathie 2 has reported the treatment of ventricular tachycardia with morphine sulfate. It has been suggested by Gold 3 that other central nervous system depressants, particularly barbiturates and bromides, might be used for the treatment of ventricular ectopic beats. Harris, 4 noting that the heart and central nervous system respond to many drugs in a similar fashion, reported that diphenylhydantoin (Dilantin) sodium caused cessation of ventricular ectopic activity, produced by ligating the anterior descending coronary artery in


The purpose of the study was to prepare solid dispersions of sparingly soluble drug Rosiglitazone by dispersion method with PGS and SSG as polymers to enhance the aqueous solubility of the drug and thereby bio availability. 12 batches of solid dispersions with two polymers (PGS, SSG) with varying drug: carrier ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:4, 1:6, and 1:8 and 1:10) were prepared for optimization. All the formulation batches were subjected to phase solubility, IR diffraction, XRD, wettabilty, saturation solubility, assay, and in-vitro dissolution. Among the formulations batches that showed highest dissolutions R-PGS (1:1, 1:4) and R-SSG (1:1, 1:2) were selected and the in-vivo Permeation study in goat intestine was performed. FT-IR spectra indicated no interaction between the drug and the carriers in the dispersions. Reduced crystallinity of the drug was evident in the x-ray diffraction patterns. The decreased crystallinity of the dispersion along with decreased particle size, disaggregation of the particles, and increased wetability all accounts for the enhanced dissolution of the drug from solid dispersions


State-of-the-art deep reading comprehension models are dominated by recurrent neural nets. Their sequential nature is a natural fit for language, but it also precludes parallelization within an instances and often becomes the bottleneck for deploying such models to latency critical scenarios. This is particularly problematic for longer texts. Here we present a convolutional architecture as an alternative to these recurrent architectures. Using simple dilated convolutional units in place of recurrent ones, we achieve results comparable to the state of the art on two question answering tasks, while at the same time achieving up to two orders of magnitude speedups for question answering.


Enhanced premixed combustion of neat butanol in a compression ignition engine can have challenges with regards to the peak pressure rise rate and the peak in-cylinder pressure. It was proposed to utilize a butanol post injection to reduce the peak pressure rise rate and the peak in-cylinder pressure while maintaining a constant engine load. Post injection timing and duration sweeps were carried out with neat n-butanol in a compression ignition engine. The post injection timing sweep results indicated that the use of an early butanol post injection reduced the peak pressure rise rate and the peak in-cylinder pressure and it was observed that there was an optimal post injection timing range for the maximum reduction of these parameters. The results also showed that an early post injection of butanol increased the nitrogen oxide emissions and an FTIR analysis revealed that late post injections increased the emissions of unburned butanol.The post injection duration sweep indicated that the peak pressure rise rate was significantly reduced by increasing the post injection duration at constant load conditions. There was also a reduction in the peak in-cylinder pressure. Measurements with a hydrogen mass spectrometer showed that there was an increased presence of hydrogen in the exhaust gas when the post injection duration was increased but the total yield of hydrogen was relatively low. It was observed that the coefficient of variation for the indicated mean effective pressure was significantly increased and that the indicated thermal efficiency was reduced when the post injection duration was increased. The results also showed that there were increased nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, and total hydrocarbon emissions for larger post injections. Although the use of a post injection resulted in emission and thermal efficiency penalties at medium load conditions, the results demonstrated that the post injection strategy successfully reduced the peak pressure rise rate and this characteristic can be potentially useful for higher load applications where the peak pressure rise rate is of greater concern.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


The antiproliferative effects and pharmacological interactions of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in combination with gamma interferon (IFN-gamma) were determined against the human colon carcinoma H630 cell line in vitro. H630 was 9-fold more resistant to 5-FU, as compared to a relatively sensitive human colon line (C1). IFN-gamma showed modest antiproliferative activity against the H630 line, with a 50% inhibitory concentration of 440 units/ml. Simultaneous treatment of H630 with subinhibitory concentrations of IFN-gamma and 5-FU produced a significant enhancement of the 5-FU-associated growth inhibition. The growth-inhibitory activity of the combination against H630 was prevented by the addition of 20 microM thymidine. Thymidylate synthase (TS) activity was measured by both the 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine-5'-monophosphate binding and catalytic assays, using cytosolic extracts. A 24-h exposure to 1 microM 5-FU in the H630 line resulted in a 3.1-fold increase in the total amount of TS, while in the 5-FU/IFN-gamma-treated cells TS remained unchanged from non-drug-treated control levels. Moreover, we found that free thymidylate synthase in the 5-FU/IFN-gamma-treated cells was significantly decreased, as compared to the cells treated with 5-FU alone. Incorporation of 5-FU into both the RNA and DNA fractions did not change with the addition of IFN-gamma. Accumulation of the fluoropyrimidine metabolites 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine-5'-monophosphate and 5-fluorouridine-5'-triphosphate remained the same for 5-FU alone and the combination treatment. These findings suggest that acute TS induction by 5-FU may provide an important mechanism by which human colon carcinoma cells express decreased sensitivity to 5-FU and that IFN-gamma can reverse the development of resistance to 5-FU in the H630 line by inhibiting the overexpression of TS that results from 5-FU exposure. These studies contribute to a growing understanding of the complex interaction between 5-FU and IFN-gamma.


Recent studies on the economic dimensions of sports and physical activity in Germany have revealed that sport-related tourism is one of the important contributors to private household consumption. Due to a lack of representative and large-scale data sets, this topic has never been displayed in detail before. By using computer assisted telephone and web interviews, we collected a total data set of n=19,396 persons living in Germany. The expenditures for active sport tourism were isolated, which is understood as travelling to take part in different sporting activities. Data are provided on the overall spending of German households for sport trips, with skiing (€ 3.4 bn) and scuba diving (€ 2.2 bn) being the sports with the highest consumption. We differentiate 71 types of sport and provide data on the most important 20 types. German households undertake 28 million trips each year and spend on average € 460 for each trip. This adds up to € 12.8 bn, which is a significant contribution to the economic dimension of sport. Austria, the Netherlands and Spain are the most important destinations for German households regarding active sport trips. The paper provides useful data to shed further light on the active sport tourism market.


Background Anthropologists' research repeated for over half a century now prove that the body build constitutes one of the elements differentiating sportsmen from persons not carrying out a systematic physical training. However, in the population of sportsmen one deals with the accumulation two factors – features of persons selected to practise a particular sport (thus with the greatest predispositions) and the results of training. The aim of the study was to properties of the body build among judo competitors of the national team compared to persons of the same population not practising professional sport. Material & Methods: The study involved competitors from the Polish national team in men's judo (n=14). Competitors' age 20–30 (x=23 years), body mass 63 kg to 160 kg (x=93.8 kg), body height 166–197 cm (x=179.3 cm), training experience 13±4.2 years. The reference group was made up of students of Warsaw Technical University (Poland). Eighteen basic somatic features were measured. Slenderness, Rohrer's, BMI, and Manouvrier's indices were calculated. Body density, complete body fat, active tissue, overall profile of the body build and internal proportions of the body build were determined. Results: Weight categories (with the increase in body mass, a distinct decrease in slenderness features takes place) are an important factor determining morphological differentiation of judo competitors. Proportions of features of factors analysed internally show that competitors of all weight categories are characterised by particularly strong muscles of the forearm and weak ones of the shank. Conclusions: A selection of an appropriate technique of fight (throws, grips, feints and their combinations) to the body build and other components of the judo competitor's personality still remains an open issue. These problems must be tackled by coaches in reference to particular competitors individually.


Pressure ratios of modern high pressure radial compressors tend to increase along with pressure fluctuations and the excitation potential on the impellers. The vibrational interactions between side cavities, filled with high pressure fluid, and the impeller structure play an important role in designing a machine for reliable operation. However, they are not yet fully understood. Vibrations at frequencies that have been uncritical at lower pressure levels could become critical at a higher pressure level. Additionally, coupling effects between fluid and structure are becoming stronger at higher fluid densities. For a safe and reliable design, the excitation and the damping mechanism of coupled modes has to be better understood.
 To understand the interaction, especially regarding the damping behavior, of coupled structure and acoustic modes, a comprehension of the behavior of the uncoupled or weakly coupled modes is required. The structural damping ratio is very small and it has been analyzed in existing literature extensively. The damping behavior of uncoupled acoustic modes, however, is not yet well investigated.
 This paper focuses on the damping behavior of acoustic modes that are weakly coupled to structure modes. Measurement results gathered at the aeroacoustic test rig at the University of Duisburg-Essen are presented. The results show the influence of fluid pressure variations on the damping behavior of acoustic modes. Therefore, the response functions of some selected acoustic modes are evaluated with the Peak-to-Peak method. In general, the damping decreases with increasing fluid pressure. Furthermore, a relationship of the damping ratio, the kinematic viscosity, and the natural frequency of the acoustic modes has been detected.


Editor's Note Pictorial representation of a subject enhances understanding. Graphical thinking enhances an individual's memory, as images enable the learners to understand the complex information with ease. With help of high quality images, the medical and clinical personnel can analyze the patient's condition and provide accurate information for quick and efficient diagnosis, therapy and cure. International Journal of Clinical & Medical Imaging is an open access online imaging journal that publishes Images, power point presentations, flow charts, e-posters, case blogs and graphical abstracts of high quality related to discoveries and inventions in the clinical and medical sciences. In the present volume 3 of issue 6, case blogs and clinical images of high quality were published. Authors Shunmugavelu et al., Yakar et al., Kumar et al., Nakabayashi et al., Sisodiya et al., and Shunmugavelu have contributed case blogs on lobular caplillary haemangioma, chemical pneumonia, variant angina, distal stenting, urethral meatal stone, and horizontally impacted mandibulars respectively, while Meenakshi et al. described about an unusual case of a leech in the nose [1-3,6-9,10]. Mund et al. made a power point presentation on the role of miRNA in treating Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Nai et al., Baba et al. and Deepak et al. submitted high quality clinical images of temporal artery pseudoaneurysm repair, torsion of the gallbladder and knee swelling respectively [5,11]. The published articles are helpful for the better understanding of the concept to the aspiring doctors for the diagnosis. They are equally useful for the researchers and academicians in their respective fields of research and teaching.


Communication systems utilize correlation filters to detect waveforms. In a broader sense, these filters examine the amount of resemblance between a template pattern and the input pattern. In the domain of smart grids, many applications require the detection of active electrical appliances, their condition as well as their current state of operation. Furthermore, the identification of power eaters, the recognition of ageing effects, and the forecast of required maintenance represent important challenges in (home) energy management systems. In this paper, we examine the applicability of correlation filters as a possible solution to meet such challenges. First, we introduce the concept of predictability to power consumption patterns of electrical appliances. Second, we present our concept and the implementation of correlation filters for this kind of application. The correlation filters utilize a particular consumption pattern of an electrical appliance to detect the respective appliance in energy readings from smart meters and smart plugs. Lastly, we assess the performance of the correlation filters on the real-world energy consumption dataset GREEND, which provides readings from smart meter data as well as appliance-level measurement equipment. As the results approve, the correlation filters show a good performance for appliances with predictable consumption patterns such as refrigerators, dishwashers, or washing machines. Thus, we propose that future work should evaluate the applicability of correlation filters in appliance diagnosis systems.


This paper discusses problems of harmonisation and regulation of the European Internal Financial Market. The argument is that the current division of powers between the EU and Member States is not achieving sufficient harmonisation to develop an internal market. The obstacles to the Internal Financial Market presented by national regulatory and supervisory regimes remain too high, and the EU minimum standards and mutual recognition regime has failed to lower these barriers sufficiently. There is a need for broader based regulatory and supervisory institutions, undertaking at a European level what cannot effectively be done at a national level, including providing a system for preventing and dealing with systemic crises and risks of such crises. The European Central Bank may develop a response to the latter, but the establishment of an EU financial market regulator is the better solution. The paper also addresses some of the agency problems of the decision making process, and the crisis driven nature of regulatory reform. The paper was delivered at the W G Hart Legal Workshop at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London in June 2008 and an earlier version was delivered as the Annual Guido Carli Lecture at the University of LUISS Guido Carli, Rome in 2006.


The Tertiary anatid fossils (Aves: Anatidae) from Oligocene and Miocene deposits in Australia are described. Most fossils derive from the Late Oligocene – Early Miocene (26–24 Mya) Etadunna and Namba Formations, respectively, in the Lake Eyre and Lake Frome Basins of South Australia. The local faunas from these two formations contain the same suite of anatid species. Two new genera, the oxyurine Pinpanetta, with three new species (Pi. tedfordi, 18 specimens; Pi. vickersrichae, 15 specimens; Pi. fromensis, 20 specimens), and the tadornine Australotadorna, for a large new species known from eight specimens, are established. Three anatid bones from the Waite Formation (c. 8 Mya) at Alcoota, Northern Territory reveal the presence of a tadornine that is neither Australotadorna nor an extant Tadorna species, and an indeterminate duck about the size of Malacorhynchus. Phylogenetic analyses establish Pinpanetta as a basal member of an oxyurine (stiff-tailed duck) radiation. Oxyurines are found to include the Recent Stictonetta and Malacorhynchus as basal members, along with the fossil taxa Mionetta, Manuherikia, and Dunstanetta, and the traditionally included Recent Oxyura, Biziura, Thalassornis, and Nomonyx. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 156, 411–454. ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: Australotadorna – Oxyurinae – phylogeny – Pinpanetta.


This paper analysis the correlation of Vincent van Gogh's mental and physical state with his application and choice of color in his self-portraits. His life before art held a heavy influence over his self-perception throughout his artistic career. Van Gogh could not escape his sense of guilt from failing his family, and constantly felt like a burden on his brother, Theo, who sponsored his artistic endeavors. Through Theo's encouragement and work as an art dealer, van Gogh developed his own artistic style and met other popular artists from his time. His friendships along with his developing mental issues lead to an influx of development in the later half of his career, when van Gogh delved more into the realm of color. He expressed his current emotional state through his works, through the combination of colors and the application of the paint. His brush strokes and color combinations varied depending on the mood he was evoking. The analysis of his correspondences developments a better understanding of his current mental state at the time of each self-portrait. By analyzing his self-portraits, a direct comparison with his changing view of self is drawn through the comparison of his current mental state. The depiction of self varies depending on the utilization of color and brush stroke, showing the varying intensity of emotions. By developing an understanding of his use of color in representing his current perception of self, the same concepts can be applied to understand his mental state in other works of art.


ABSTRACT The avian sarcoma and leukosis virus (ASLV) family of retroviruses contains five highly related envelope subgroups (A to E) thought to have evolved from a common viral ancestor in the chicken population. Three genetic loci in chickens determine the susceptibility or resistance of cells to infection by the subgroup A to E ASLVs. Some inbred lines of chickens display phenotypes that are somewhere in between either efficiently susceptible or resistant to infection by specific subgroups of ASLV. The tvb gene encodes the receptor for subgroups B, D, and E ASLVs. The wild-type TvbS1 receptor confers susceptibility to subgroups B, D, and E ASLVs. In this study, the genetic defect that accounts for the altered susceptibility of an inbred chicken line, line M, to infection by ASLV(B), ASLV(D), and ASLV(E) was identified. The tvb gene in line M, tvbr2, encodes a mutant TvbS1 receptor protein with a substitution of a serine for a cysteine at position 125 (C125S). Here, we show that the C125S substitution in TvbS1 significantly reduces the susceptibility of line M cells to infection by ASLV(B) and ASLV(D) and virtually eliminates susceptibility to ASLV(E) infection both in cultured cells and in the incidence and growth of avian sarcoma virus-induced sarcomas in chickens. The C125S substitution significantly reduces the binding affinity of the TvbS1 receptor for the subgroup B, D, and E ASLV envelope glycoproteins. These are the first results that demonstrate a possible role of the cysteine-rich domain 3 in the function of the Tvb receptors.


States of Dispossession: US Political Culture, State Form, and Race from 1930 to the Present Christian Ravela Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Eva Cherniavsky Department of English States of Dispossession: US Political Culture, State Form, and Race from 1930 to the Present creates a genealogy of US political culture of dispossession to historicize contemporary experiences of left melancholia. By dispossession, I mean the material conditions, power relations, and discourses through which political subjects experience and know their loss and suffering. Even though dispossession is a condition more often associated with nineteenth and early twentieth century through settler colonialism, chattel slavery, and imperial expansion, my inquiry begins with emergence of the New Deal during which the problem of the dispossessed takes on a political prominence and a national scale in the wake of the Great Depression and then moves on into the late 20 th century to trace its centrality in the development of liberal governmentalities. Through an analysis of key nodal moments, the dissertation argues how the dispossessed gets bound to the legitimacy and operations of the state through techniques of governance that simultaneously rationalize state intervention and manage political crises. Through analyses of historical documents and multiethnic literature, States of Dispossession pursues its inquiry by demonstrating the alignment of political rationalities of state recuperative practices and political subjectivities via the historical norms of race, gender, and sexuality. For instance, by situating James Agee's and Walker Evan's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in the political operation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Chapter 1 asserts that the documentary novel normalizes the dispossessed as a technical problem by both generating a political subjectivity that sees state intervention to be direct democracy and ethnicizing whiteness as an object for state tutelage and an object of national spirit. By situating John Okada's No No Boy in the political crises of the Pacific in World War II, Chapter 2 argues how Japanese internment ironically acts as a contradictory recuperative practice of the state that resolves the contradiction of dispossessed "Japanese American" by racializing Japanese culture through gendered and sexual norms of the reproductive family. By situating Oscar Zeta Acosta's Revolt of the Cockroach People in the political crisis spurred by the expansion of the black freedom movements, Chapter 3 shows that projects of empowering the dispossessed poor simultaneously reified race around the uneven geography of capital and introjected the spectral body into political subjectivity. Finally, by situating Samuel Delany's The Mad Man in the political crisis of the 1970s that formed the pre-conditions neoliberalism, Chapter 4 claims that homelessness social policy promulgates neoliberal forms of freedom that contradictorily revivifies possessive individualism at the level of political subjectivity. Taken together, the dissertation shows how the political subjectivities of dispossession both sanction the legitimacy and operations of the liberal state and chart the racialized tensions and limits of twentieth century political culture.


In the present work orodispersible tablets of Ondansetron hydrochloride were formulated by effervescent and sublimation method using factorial design. In the effervescent method, crospovidone (1.31%-4.68%) was used as superdisintegrant whereas citric acid (7.95%-18.04%) and sodium bicarbonate (5.22%-28.77%) were used as effervescent agent. In the sublimation method, crospovidone (1.58%-4.41%) was used as superdisintegrant whereas camphor (6.34%-17.35%) was used as subliming agent. The prepared batches of tablets were evaluated for hardness, friability, drug content uniformity, wetting time, disintegration time and In Vitro drug release pattern. Total 15 batches were formulated by effervescent method and 9 batches were formulated by sublimation method. Disintegration time of the formulations prepared by effervescent method was found between 13-36 secs whereas formulations prepared by sublimation method showed disintegration time between 7-39 secs. Among all the formulations, the formulation (S6) prepared by sublimation method using crospovidone 4% and camphor 8% was found to have the minimum disintegration time (7 seconds). Finally, it was concluded that Orodispersible tablet of Ondansetron Hydrochloride can be successfully formulated using effervescent and sublimation method and can be used as a novel drug dosage form for pediatric and geriatric with improved patient compliance and enhanced bioavailability.


We report here a murine model for experimental chronic colitis where administration of trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS) in 50% ethanol induced inflammation of large intestine in susceptible (C3H/HeJ and BALB/c) but not resistant (C57BL/6 and DBA/2) mouse strains. We queried whether mucosal trinitrophenyl (TNP)-specific B cell responses were induced in mice with TNBS-induced colitis, and if induction of tolerance to TNBS by oral administration of this hapten protected mice from development of colitis. Isotypes and subclasses of polyclonal and TNP-specific Ab-forming cells (AFC) were assessed in mucosal and peripheral lymphoid tissues of C3H/HeJ mice with TNBS-induced colitis. Increased numbers of IgA- and IgG-secreting cells were found in the inflamed colon lamina propria. Inflamed colonic tissue also contained high frequencies of IgG anti-TNP AFC (predominantly of IgG1, IgG2a, and IgG2b subclasses); however, anti-TNP responses in noninflamed mucosal tissues of mice with colitis exhibited dominant IgA and IgM with low IgG anti-TNP responses. CD4+ T cells stimulated with TNP-splenocytes produced more IFN-gamma and less IL-4, suggesting a Th1-type response. Oral administration of TNBS before induction of colitis markedly decreased mucosal anti-TNP responses and completely inhibited anti-TNP IgG2a and IgG2b responses. Control mice did not show inhibition of anti-TNP AFC responses or TNBS-induced colitis. Intracolonic sensitization of susceptible C3H/HeJ mice with TNBS induces a localized IgG anti-TNP B cell response in the inflamed tissue, whereas prior oral administration of TNBS results in unresponsiveness to this agent and protects mice from development of TNBS-induced colitis.


We present efficient power estimation techniques for hardware-software (HW-SW) system-on-chip (SoC) designs. Our techniques are based on concurrent and synchronized execution of multiple power estimators that analyze different parts of the SoC (we refer to this as coestimation), driven by a system-level simulation master. We motivate the need for power coestimation, and demonstrate that performing independent power estimation for the various system components can lead to significant errors in the power estimates, especially for control-intensive and reactive-embedded systems. We observe that the computation time for performing power coestimation is dominated by: i) the requirement to analyze/simulate some parts of the system at lower levels of abstraction in order to obtain accurate estimates of timing and switching activity information and ii) the need to communicate between and synchronize the various simulators. Thus, a naive implementation of power coestimation may be too inefficient to be used in an iterative design exploration framework. To address this issue, we present several acceleration (speed-up) techniques for power coestimation. The acceleration techniques are energy caching, software power macro-modeling, and statistical sampling. Our speed-up techniques reduce the workload of the power estimators for the individual SoC components, as well as their communication/synchronization overhead. Experimental results indicate that the use of the proposed acceleration techniques results in significant (8/spl times/ to 87/spl times/) speed-ups in SOC power estimation time, with minimal impact on accuracy. We also show the utility of our coestimation tool to explore system-level power tradeoffs for a TCP/IP check-sum engine subsystem.


The purpose of this study is to improve students' understanding of science learning in grade V SD. This research is a classroom action research conducted in 3 cycles. Each cycle consists of stages of planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. The subjects of this study were 17 students of grade V SD Negeri Nglondong. Data collection techniques using observation and tests. Data analysis includes data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. Research shows that the use of video media can improve students' understanding of science class V SD in the 2020/2021 academic year as evidenced by the percentage of completeness of learning outcomes and the class average. In the first cycle of 52.9% with a class average of 71.18 to 100% with an average of 86.47 in the second cycle and in the third cycle it was 100% complete with a class average of 95.29.