The pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is not understood. We have previously shown increased levels of mediators that control vasoconstriction (endothelin-1), vascular cell proliferation (endothelin-1 and vascular endothelial growth factor), and vasodilation (endothelial nitric oxide synthase) in the intrapulmonary arteries of animals exposed to cigarette smoke. To determine whether these mediators could be implicated in the structural remodeling of the arterial vasculature and increased pulmonary arterial pressure caused by chronic cigarette smoke exposure, guinea pigs were exposed to daily cigarette smoke for 6 mo. Pulmonary arterial pressures were measured. Intrapulmonary artery structure was analyzed by morphometry, artery mediator protein expression by immunohistochemistry, and artery mediator gene expression by laser capture microdissection and real-time RT-PCR. We found that the smoke-exposed animals developed increases in pulmonary arterial pressure and increased muscularization of the small pulmonary arteries. Gene expression and protein levels of all three mediators were increased, and pulmonary arterial pressure correlated both with the levels of mediator production and with the degree of arterial muscularization. We conclude that chronic smoke exposure produces increased vasoactive mediator expression in the small intrapulmonary arteries and that these mediators are associated with vascular remodeling as well as increased pulmonary arterial pressure. These findings support the idea that hypertension in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a result of direct cigarette smoke-mediated effects on the vasculature and suggest that interference with endothelin and VEGF production and activity or augmentation of nitric oxide levels may be beneficial.


Homozygous mutations in the glucocerebrosidase (GBA) gene result in Gaucher disease (GD), the most common lysosomal storage disease. Recent genetic studies have revealed that GBA mutations confer a strong risk for sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD). To investigate how GBA mutations cause PD, we generated GBA nonsense mutant (GBA-/-) medaka that are completely deficient in glucocerebrosidase (GCase) activity. In contrast to the perinatal death in humans and mice lacking GCase activity, GBA-/- medaka survived for months, enabling analysis of the pathological progression. GBA-/- medaka displayed the pathological phenotypes resembling human neuronopathic GD including infiltration of Gaucher cell-like cells into the brains, progressive neuronal loss, and microgliosis. Detailed pathological findings represented lysosomal abnormalities in neurons and alpha-synuclein (α-syn) accumulation in axonal swellings containing autophagosomes. Unexpectedly, disruption of α-syn did not improve the life span, formation of axonal swellings, neuronal loss, or neuroinflammation in GBA-/- medaka. Taken together, the present study revealed GBA-/- medaka as a novel neuronopathic GD model, the pahological mechanisms of α-syn accumulation caused by GCase deficiency, and the minimal contribution of α-syn to the pathogenesis of neuronopathic GD.


Summer camps provide youth with opportunities to foster social, emotional, physical, and interpersonal development by offering novel, challenging, and engaging experiences that effectively open the learning pathways (Merryman, Mezei, Bush, & Weinstein, 2012). Researchers have only recently started to gather empirical information on the impact of the summer camp experience for youth-at-risk and as such the literature available on the subject is scant. This research aimed to contribute to understanding in this area through a study of youth-at-risk attending Camp Tippy Canoe in New Brunswick. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to explore the personal benefits youth-at-risk gain from attending an outdoor summer camp program and to compare the results to the findings of a general focus study of summer camps in Canada. This study was conducted during the summer of 2014 and it was modeled on the Canadian Summer Camp Research Project undertaken in 2011 through the University of Waterloo. In the current study, a total of 102 young people ranging from 10-17 years of age were observed by camp staff. Data collection was guided by a set series of questions adapted from the Canadian Summer Camp Research Project, at two intervals (48 hours after the start of camp and at the end of camp). The findings from this study showed youth who attended Camp Tippy Canoe displayed positive change in five key areas of development: social connections and integration, environmental awareness, self-confidence and personal development, emotional intelligence, and attitudes towards physical activity. Further analyses revealed that certain subgroups of campers showed more change in specific areas of development.


This work proposes an approach to address the problem of improving content selection in automatic text summarization by using some statistical tools. This approach is a trainable summarizer, which takes into account several features, for each sentence to generate summaries. First, we investigate the effect of each sentence feature on the summarization task. Then we use all features in combination to train cellular automata (CA), genetic programming approach and fuzzy approach in order to construct a text summarizer for each model. Furthermore, we use trained models to test summarization performance. The proposed approach performance is measured at several compression rates on a data corpus composed of 17 English scientific articles. This article shows that some features are more important to construct models rather than other.


Carotenoids are known for versatile roles they play in living organisms; however, their most pivotal function is involvement in scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) and photoprotection. In plant kingdom, an important photoprotective mechanism, referred to as the xanthophyll cycle, has been developed by photosynthetic organism to avoid excess light that might lead to photoinhibition and inactivation of photosystems and induce the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), resulting in photodamage and long-term changes in the cells caused by oxidative stress. Apart from high-light driven enzymatic conversion of violaxanthin (Viola) to zeaxanthin (Zea) that occurs mostly in higher plants, mosses and lichens, other less known types of the xanthophyll cycle have been hitherto described. The work is aimed at summarising the current knowledge on the pigments engaged in the xanthophyll cycles operating in various organisms.


After the discovery of the efficacy of propranolol on infantile hemangioma the beta-blockers became the first choice therapy of this neoformation rapidly supplanting corticosteroids because the latter, while being equally effective, were charged with severe side effects particularly during the first months of life. A multicenter, randomized, double-blind study established that the optimal dose of propranolol is 3 mg/kg/per day for 6 months (1). However, the discussion is still open both as regards the dosage of the drug and the duration of the treatment. Regarding the first problem, some Authors noted that even lower dosages of propranolol, such as those recommended for precaution in the extensive hemangiomas of the face in PHACE syndrome, may be effective (1, 2). The actual report showed that also dosages of 0.5 mg/kg/per day of propranolol can be effective in inducing a regression of hemangioma.


The Bacton Sandscaping scheme is a large-scale beach nourishment, designed to protect the Bacton Gas Terminal from cliff and beach erosion while also reducing flood and erosion risk to the communities of Bacton and Walcott, buying the time they need for adaptation to coastal change. The scheme was inspired by the even larger Dutch Zandmotor project, translating the concept to the different geography and governance setting of the UK - it can be seen as the Zandmotor's 'little nephew'. The term 'Sandscaping' was introduced to illustrate the large-scale and ambitious nature of the concept: work at a large scale, designing to work with natural processes and to achieve multiple objectives.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/FA3DjdCgKrk


In this paper we experimentally validate and compare three different methods for estimating the 3D parameters of a planar scene from a (possibly time-varying) set of feature points acquired by a moving monocular camera. The first method, based on the classical decomposition of the homography matrix, is meant to serve as a baseline condition classically used in many previous works. The other two methods exploit an active Structure from Motion (SfM) scheme for either extracting the plane from the reconstructed 3D position of all the tracked points, or for directly estimating the plane parameters by considering a set of discrete image moments as visual input. The possible loss/gain of point features during the camera motion is considered in all three methods by, in particular, introducing a suitable weighting strategy for the image moment case. Finally, the results of an experimental validation are presented with a comparative discussion of the pros/cons of the three methods.


Family-friendly workplaces have been shown to yield incredible benefits including improved child development, parents with better mental health outcomes, and important strides for gender equality and equal pay. That is why I am exploring the distribution of family-friendly entitlements in Australia by assessing the policies of 4,841 Australian workplaces against an original family-friendliness metric. I will then interview workplaces to identify which factors encourage and discourage family-friendly policies. The results of these analyses will be used to propose legislative recommendations with reference to international best practice to improve the distribution and prevalence of family-friendly workplaces in Australia moving forward.


The purpose with this study is to examine and analyze the eldercare staffs conceptions and perceptions about the construction of ethnicity and aging, in Swedish eldercare, to illustrate the process of othering. The authors interviewed eight people who work in the eldercare by using a vignette. We have analyzed our result from the interviews through several theories and earlier research pertinent to the subject. The study has shown that eldercare staff through their conceptions and perceptions unconscious been conducive to make and recompose constructions of ethnicity and elder. The constructions of ethnicity and elder can be conductive to processes of othering.


The ability to predict the movement of sediment and associated pollutants from catchments into waterways is crucial for water quality management of the future. Vegetative buffer strips are frequently used in catchments to intercept runoff from hillslopes and reduce fluxes of eroding sediment into waterways. However, the prediction of this sediment removal is difficult, as complex physical processes are involved and the buffer strip efficiency is time-dependent, changing as sediment deposition builds up. Our research focuses on settling of sediment in front of stiff grass buffers due to the induced backwaters under subcritical flow conditions. A new model is introduced, the Griffith University Soil Erosion & Deposition Model (GUSED-VBS), which couples the hydraulics, deposition and subsequent adjustment to bed topography, to simulate the build-up of sediments in the backwater zone and its effect on flow conditions. The model thus predicts changing water, sediment and nutrient profiles in front of buffers as well as sediment concentrations and size distributions of the outflow. Experiments to test the model were carried out in the Griffith University Tilting-Flume Simulated Rainfall facility. Water profiles were recorded, then sediment comprising a sandy soil (Podzol), a red clay (Ferralsol) and a black clay (Vertisol) was introduced into flow upstream of the buffer and sediment deposition and outflow characteristics were measured. The buffer caused a region of enhanced flow depth (backwater) upstream of the buffer. Deposition started at the beginning of the backwater but subsequent deposition varied with sediment type. Sediment loads in the outflow increased slightly with time for the Vertisol due to sediment movement into the buffer but were static for the other two soils and buffering reduced sediment to <11.3 % of the inflow concentrations, with a significant difference between the Podzol and Ferralsol. In contrast to other buffer research where deposited sediments were coarsest upstream of the backwater, we found the coarsest particles at the downstream end of the deposit for the Podzol and Ferralsol, indicating that bedload movement occurred in addition to the deposition, entrainment and re-entrainment processes that dominate supercritical flow. Sediments in the runoff were primarily in the 0.002 - 0.2 mm size range and the greatest enrichment of fines occurred in the Podzol. Particulate-carbon, -nitrogen and -phosphorous levels in the outflow were reduced by more than 60% compared to the inflow. Measured data from the flume experiments were compared to simulated data from GUSED. Water profiles and total sediment deposition were simulated well with low root mean square errors and coefficients of efficiency approaching 1. The sediment concentration/particle sizes in the outflow and reductions of the inflow nutrient loads were moderately well simulated. Further work is underway to test the model using field data.


The Escherichia coli codBA operon encodes cytosine permease (CodB) and cytosine deaminase (CodA). CodB mediates uptake of exogenously supplied cytosine, and CodA catalyses the hydrolytic deamination of cytosine to uracil and ammonia. The hydropathic profile of CodB indicates that it is an integral cytoplasmic membrane protein possessing several transmembrane-spanning domains. The membrane topology of CodB was investigated by using gene fusions containing varying lengths of the amino-terminus of CodB fused to either alkaline phosphatase (AP) or beta-galactosidase (BG). The AP activities expressed by the CodB-AP fusions are consistent with a topological model in which the amino- and the carboxy-termini of CodB are located in the cytoplasm, and in which CodB possesses 12 membrane-spanning segments. The enzyme activities of most of the CodB-BG fusions support the model. However, the results obtained with some of the CodB-BG fusions illustrate the limitations of using BG as a reporter protein in studies of membrane protein topology.


Background Lymphogranuloma venereum is a clinical condition caused by infection with one of the Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) L serovars. Proper diagnosis of LGV is critical as the treatment varies significantly from antibiotic therapy utilised for other CT infections. LGV has re-emerged in Europe as an important sexually transmitted infection (STI), particularly in men who have sex with men (MSM), due to an outbreak in the Netherlands. LGV surveillance data for the USA is lacking as LGV screening is not routinely performed, even in high risk populations. This study presents LGV surveillance data from multiple sites in the USA. Methods 1671 rectal samples from African-American MSM participating in a study of the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN 061) BROTHERS Project, were collected from six different cities: Los Angeles and San Francisco CA, Atlanta, GA, Boston MA, Washington D.C., New York, NY; and tested for CT by Aptima Combo 2 (Gen-Probe). Additionally, 127 samples from men from Baltimore, MD who reported anal sex or were symptomatic for CT, and had rectal swabs positive for CT by Combo 2 were also included. All samples were screened for LGV utilising a previously verified LGV specific real-time PCR to determine if the samples were positive for any one of the CT L serovars. Results Of the 1671 HPTN 061 samples, 112 (6.75%) were positive for CT and 102 of these have been screened thus far for LGV; none were LGV+. Of 127 CT+ samples from Baltimore, two were LGV+. Thus, of 229 CT+ rectal samples, only 2 (0.87%), tested positive for LGV by real-time PCR. Conclusions Less than 1% of the CT positive samples obtained from rectal swabs from MSM in the US tested positive for LGV. The samples utilised for this study were from a population presumably at high risk for acquisition of LGV, as all samples tested were from men who had either tested positive for CT, reported anal sex, or were symptomatic for CT infection. The prevalence for LGV in this study was quite low, while the non LGV CT prevalence was high in African American MSM from the six cities. Concomitant STDs are thought to drive the disproportionate HIV epidemic among African American MSM and the low prevalence of LGV in this study is of interest. LGV has re-emerged as an important STI in Europe, however this data suggests that it has either not re-emerged in the U.S. or has re-emerged in a population that is not being screened.


Management has addressed the critical issue of environmental protection by developing environmental management systems. The purpose of this research is to describe the organizational structure for environmental protection, an attribute of environmental management systems of privately held companies, certified with MS ISO 14001. Descriptive statistics are reported for the primary data. The commonly reported attributes provide evidence of high-level commitment to environmental protection: written environmental policy statement, corporate-level environmental management function, and Board of Directors' responsibility for oversight of environmental affairs. Findings indicate that companies have educational programs and environmental goals to disseminate environmental management values throughout their organizations.


Identifying effective therapies for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with fibrosis is a pressing challenge, with 1%‐2% of the population in developed nations at risk of developing NASH cirrhosis and its complications. The design of NASH clinical therapeutic trials is hampered by the long period of minimally symptomatic disease that typically precedes the development of decompensated cirrhosis and the accompanying uncertainties regarding the best precirrhotic trial endpoints that reliably reflect a subsequent reduction in liver‐related morbidity and mortality. The Liver Forum is a multistakeholder organization comprised of academic, industry, and regulatory experts working from a regulatory science perspective to identify barriers, prioritize research, and identify solutions to accelerate therapeutic development for NASH. Past work of The Liver Forum has focused on recommendations for disease definitions and baseline parameters to be implemented in clinical trials that are designed to assess disease status and prevent progression to cirrhosis, liver transplantation, hepatocellular carcinoma, and death. The purpose of this summary is to review currently available clinical data to identify parameters that change in parallel with liver histology and are likely to reflect clinically meaningful reductions in the risk of developing cirrhosis and its complications. We review available data on exploratory histological, blood‐based, and imaging pharmacodynamic biomarkers that may reflect meaningful treatment responses and provide recommendations regarding measurements to be considered in phase 2 and 3 trials as well as during postmarketing monitoring trials.


Long-term customer retention in the upscale restaurant industry requires successful management of postconsumption service evaluations. The purpose of this research is to identify drivers of price fairness and postconsumption behavioral intentions within the context of upscale/fine dining restaurant patronage. Specifically, this study identifies the dual roles of consumer innovation and restaurant image as drivers of price fairness and behavioral intentions. Based on a review of the literature, a construct nomology was proposed. The model was then tested using data collected from a sample of upscale restaurant patrons residing in the United States. Results of a structural equation analysis suggest, for innovative consumers, the perception that a restaurant is likewise innovative results in increased perceptions of price fairness and positive postconsumption behavioral intention. Innovative customers, grateful to the restaurant for having their needs for novelty satisfied, were more likely to perceive prices as fair and were more likely to report positive behavioral intentions. The academic and managerial implications of these findings are considered.


Rhizoctonia root and hypocotyl rot, caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn [teleomorph Thanatephorus cucumeris (Frank) Donk], is an important disease of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. Planting resistant cultivars would be an effective and environmentally sound strategy to minimize economic losses from this disease. To facilitate developing resistant cultivars, a study was conducted to: (i) investigate inheritance of resistance to Rhizoctonia root and hypocotyl rot in the moderately resistant soybean PI 442031, and four moderately susceptible commercial cultivars and (ii) identify simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers associated with resistance to Rhizoctonia root and hypocotyl rot. Genetic analysis of several segregating populations indicated that resistance to Rhizoctonia root and hypocotyl rot in soybean was quantitatively inherited and controlled by both major and minor genes with additive gene effects. The estimates of broad sense heritability of resistance were low to moderately high. Transgressive segregants with enhanced levels of resistance were developed by crossing adapted but moderately susceptible commercial soybean cultivars. Three SSR markers (Satt281, Satt177, and Satt245) were significantly associated with host resistance in both F 2 and F 4:5 populations of PI 442031 x Sterling, wherein both parents contributed resistant alleles. This is the first report on mapping of Rhizoctonia root and hypocotyl rot resistance genes in soybean. Our results indicate that marker assisted selection, coupled with phenotypic selection in later generations, should help to facilitate the development of soybean cultivars resistant to Rhizoctonia root and hypocotyl rot.


Face detection is the determination of the positions and sizes of faces, primarily human, within digital images and videos, often as a component of a broader facial recognition system. It is seen as technologically mature, yet its operational performance typically remains sub-optimal, even within the less difficult frontal face detection tests. Empirical evidence shows that the Viola–Jones framework, a standard face detection solution with generally superior performance and other desirable properties, underdetects in some instances. Some true faces survive all but the final stages of the rejection cascade, resulting in missed faces. A hybrid framework consisting of a neural network following a truncated Viola–Jones cascade is constructed in an attempt to recover the undetected faces. Presumably, the neural network could fine tune and augment the face decision. Its inputs are a subset of the thresholding (detection) values of a rejection cascade's intermediate stages. Experiments reveal significantly improved performance, with increased detection rates if no false alarm increases are tolerated, with a greater detection rate increase if some false alarm increases are acceptable, and with a substantial false alarm reduction with no detection reduction. These improved face detection results could address shortcomings in widely-varying applications.


An all-thin-film glass/ITO/MoO3/LiAlO2/NiOx/ITO device was deposited by magnetron sputtering for electrochromic application. The amorphous MoO3 and LiAlO2 thin films were prepared with the substrate temperature below 0 °C and in O2 and Ar gas pressure. The structure and surface morphology of the films were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). It has been found that the amorphous LiAlO2 thin film was a suitable ion conductor for the electrochromic device. The transmittance in the wavelength range of 400-800 nm for the ITO/MoO3/LiAlO2/NiOx/ITO device changed from 14.48 % to 57.68 % by the applied voltage of 7 V. The blue-colored electrochromic property could be observed for the all-thin-film device. The experimental results indicated that such a monolithic system had great potential to be applied in flat-panel displays and smart windows.


This article explores the advent of two foundational characteristics of the modern concept of harmony inaugurated by Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie (1722): first, that its principal objects are sonorities of three or more distinct pitch classes, that is, consonant and dissonant chords; and second, that these chords "move" from one to the next in ways determined by certain inherent relations among them, in a process in which dissonances, as well as consonances, play a significant if not crucial role. This article shows that the ancestors of these two fundamental properties of harmony, newly understood as a specifically polyphonic phenomenon, first emerged into theoretical discourse in polemical writings of the Northern Italian theorists Nicolò Burzio (1487), Giovanni Spataro (1491), and Franchino Gaffurio (1496, 1518), sparked by the inflammatory views of Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareia (1482). Moreover, while these ideas about harmony come to cohabit in Gioseffo Zarlino's Istitutioni harmoniche (1558), they were initially proposed not as complementary but as explicitly competing new conceptions of the nature of harmony, advanced to support their authors' polemical positions and attacks on each other.


We present an empirical study of social interaction in a professional social network. As the point of departure, we take previous research into distributed work and information foraging theory to explore interaction search behavior of individuals active in professional networks, examining how social factors govern their behavior. For this exploration, we focused on the process through which relevant collaborators are chosen to execute shared work tasks in the area of logistics, and identified six characteristics of the explored processes. We recognized the "survival of the social" as a cornerstone for efficient and long-term professional networks and outlined design implications arising from our findings. More specifically, we found that participants are oriented to solutions that involve active social agents and social relations, rather than optimizing based on task characteristics, efficiency, and cost. These behaviors motivate the need for the concept of social interaction foraging.


In the aftermath of the Great War the Ottoman and imperial Russian empires came to an end, and new geopolitical formations, what became the Soviet Union and Republican Turkey, emerged. In both countries a search ensued for new cultural identity and new cultural forms. At the same time, there lingered the possibility of creating new transnational formations and alliances. Clark's article attempts to place the momentous shift from Ottoman to Republican Turkey and the almost simultaneous shift from Russia to the Soviet Union, and the subsequent attempts at cultural rapprochement between the two, within a broader context of cultural interactions with Europe as rival cosmopolitanisms competed for defining the "new Turkey" and also the "new Russia."


Abstract PathBank (www.pathbank.org) is a new, comprehensive, visually rich pathway database containing more than 110 000 machine-readable pathways found in 10 model organisms (Homo sapiens, Bos taurus, Rattus norvegicus, Mus musculus, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Arabidopsis thaliana, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa). PathBank aims to provide a pathway for every protein and a map for every metabolite. This resource is designed specifically to support pathway elucidation and pathway discovery in transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and systems biology. It provides detailed, fully searchable, hyperlinked diagrams of metabolic, metabolite signaling, protein signaling, disease, drug and physiological pathways. All PathBank pathways include information on the relevant organs, organelles, subcellular compartments, cofactors, molecular locations, chemical structures and protein quaternary structures. Each small molecule is hyperlinked to the rich data contained in public chemical databases such as HMDB or DrugBank and each protein or enzyme complex is hyperlinked to UniProt. All PathBank pathways are accompanied with references and detailed descriptions which provide an overview of the pathway, condition or processes depicted in each diagram. Every PathBank pathway is downloadable in several machine-readable and image formats including BioPAX, SBML, PWML, SBGN, RXN, PNG and SVG. PathBank also supports community annotations and submissions through the web-based PathWhiz pathway illustrator. The vast majority of PathBank's pathways (>95%) are not found in any other public pathway database.


The entire researchers till 1970's believed that RCC beam-column joints behave as rigid joint. So in none of the pre 1970 building codes, they had not provided the confining reinforcement in the joints. With lot of damage and destruction of building due to shear force under earthquakes most of the code committee has introduced the confinement in the joints. But recently due to use of high grade of concrete and better quality control in the RCC structures, confinements in the joints as per the new provision of codes leading to the problem of the congestion. It has been observed at many construction sites that this congestion leads to poor workmanship at the joints, which actually making the joint more vulnerable than previous. Researcher has been working on this area to counter act by Increasing the size of the joints, Using the steel fiber in the joints, Using GRFP to wrap the joints, Prestressing the beam including the joint, Using of the crossed rebar at the joint cores. This paper tries to combine the benefits of the crossed rebar and prestressing in the joints together. The present work is divided into two phase. In first phase a family of planar building has been chosen and designed according to IS 456:2000 and shear force are calculated as per ACI 352-02. From this phase we come to conclusion that first two stories have higher shear force demand and these joints are more susceptible to congestion and prestessing of joint core should be implemented to these joints only. In the second phase exterior beam-column joint from previous experiments are chosen. They were model and analyse using ANSYS v13. Improvement in the ultimate load and failure pattern has been detailed in the thesis. From this phase we come to conclusion that this new technique is more effective than the previous prestressing technique of joints.


This paper is about the study on systematic interface formed from composition of architectural space from three aspects, intermediary material representation of interface, systematic expressions of interface semiotics and improvisation of interface design. Rational utilization of the mutual interdependence of construction factors of spatial interface is proposed for effective enclosure, limitation, guidance and organization. This is beneficial in realizing the ordered combination of multilevel space, so that the changes and development of space can be conducted in an orderly manner under the organization of various interface elements. This can also avoid the one-sided subjectivity of "either this or that" in the train of thoughts of composing, to form a holistic comprehension towards spatial configuration.


Hydrothermal explosions are produced when water contained in near-surface rock at temperatures as high as perhaps 250°C flashes to steam and violently disrupts the confining rock. These explosions are due to the same instability and chain reaction mechanism as geyser eruptions but are so violent that a large proportion of solid debris is expelled along with water and steam.

Hydrothermal explosions are not a type of volcanic eruption. Although the required energy probably comes from a deep igneous source, this energy is transferred to the surface by circulating meteoric water rather than by magma. The energy is stored as heat in hot water and rock within a few hundred feet of the surface.

At least ten hydrothermal explosion craters, ranging in diameter from a few tens of feet to about 5000 ft, have been recognized in Yellowstone National Park. Eight of these craters are in hydrothermally cemented glacial deposits; two are in Pleistocene ash-flow tuff. Each is surrounded by a rim composed of debris derived from the crater. Juvenile volcanic ejecta are absent, and there is no evidence of impact.

Geologic relations at the Pocket Basin crater establish that the explosion there took place during the waning stages of early Pinedale Glaciation. This association with ablating ice suggests that an ice-dammed lake existed over a hydrothermal system at the Pocket Basin site and that the hydrothermal explosion was triggered by the abrupt decrease in confining pressure consequent to sudden draining of the lake. Most of the other explosion craters in Yellowstone Park could have been triggered in the same manner.

Calculations of energy available in Yellowstone hot-spring systems and of energy required to form craters indicate that the proposed mechanism is reasonable. The sizes of craters expected in various rock types correspond with those observed.


Evidence is presented that links the timing of vein-type (Cu-Ag(U)) to stratiform Mississippi Valley-type (MVT, Pb-Zn) ore events in Ireland. The rare occurrence of pitchblende, coffinite(.), and brannerite mineralization, which is regarded as a precursor component to the sulfide mineralization in the Gortdrum deposit (Ireland), provides the first direct radiometric dating tool for these carbonate-hosted deposits. The U-Pb (340 +25/-20 Ma) and Pb-Pb (359 +/- 26 Ma) whole-rock ages constrain the uranium and base-metal mineralizing events to the Early Carboniferous. The data support a model according to which MVT and earlier uranium mineralization stages of some major ore bodies resulted from fracturing coincident with large basin-dewatering events. The Pb-Pb and concordia data are consistent with an Early Carboniferous age for the mineralization at Gortdrum and agree closely with a previously published Rb-Sr age of 359 +/- 22 Ma, obtained for Missouri glauconites. Furthermore, other comparative geologic data from Ireland and from North American MVT mineral provinces support a model of Pb-Zn-Cu(U) mobilization on a regional scale that implicates the later closing stages of the proto-Atlantic. 40 references, 3 figures, 1 table.


A 21-year-old man presented with fever, rash, seizure, stiff neck and rapidly progressive bilateral pulmonary infiltrates. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) study revealed pleocytosis with predominant polymorphonuclear cells, and hypo-glycorrhachia. Status epilepticus occurred, followed by acute respiratory distress syndrome with respiratory failure. Blood and CSF cultures for bacteria were negative, but an indirect immunofluorescence assay revealed a fourfold rise in antibody to Rickettsia tsutsugamushi in paired serum and a 1:2560 (+) IgM antibody titer. Severe scrub typhus with meningoencephalitis and extensive pneumonitis was diagnosed. The patient survived after intravenous minocycline therapy and intensive care, including aggressive seizure control, supportive mechanical ventilation and avoidance of fluid overloading. He had a nearly complete recovery. Practicing physicians in Taiwan should be aware of this reportable disease and its potentially serious complications if not promptly diagnosed and treated.


Our previous work demonstrated a key function of the thyroid hormone nuclear receptor TRα1, a T3-modulated transcription factor, in controlling intestinal development and homeostasis via the Wnt and Notch pathways. Importantly, increased expression of TRα1 in the intestinal epithelium in a mutated Apc genetic background (vil-TRα1/Apc+/1638N mice) accelerated tumorigenesis and contributed to a more aggressive tumor phenotype compared to that of the Apc mutants alone. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the relevance of this synergistic effect in human colorectal cancers and to gain insights into the mechanisms involved. We analyzed cohorts of patients by in silico and experimental approaches and observed increased TRα1 expression and a significant correlation between TRα1 levels and Wnt activity. TRα1 loss-of-function and gain-of-function in Caco2 cell lines not only confirmed that TRα1 levels control Wnt activity but also demonstrated the role of TRα1 in regulating cell proliferation and migration. Finally, upon investigation of the molecular mechanisms responsible for the Wnt-TRα1 association, we described the repression by TRα1 of several Wnt inhibitors, including Frzb, Sox17 and Wif1. In conclusion, our results underline an important functional interplay between the thyroid hormone nuclear receptor TRα1 and the canonical Wnt pathway in intestinal cancer initiation and progression. More importantly, we show for the first time that the expression of TRα1 is induced in human colorectal cancers.


We describe a device engineered for realistic simulation of myringotomy and tympanostomy tube insertion that tracks instrument placement and objectively measures operator proficiency. A 3-dimensional computer model of the external ear and cartilaginous external auditory canal was created from a normal maxillofacial computed tomography scan, and models for the bony external auditory canal and tympanic cavity were created with computer-aided design software. Physical models were 3-dimensionally printed from the computer reconstructions. The external auditory canal and tympanic cavity surfaces were coated with conductive material and wired to a capacitive sensor interface. A programmable microcontroller with custom embedded software completed the system. Construct validation was completed by comparing the run times and total sensor contact times of otolaryngology faculty and residents.


In this manuscript, the monotone iterative scheme has been extended to the nature of solution to boundary value problem of fractional differential equation that consist integral boundary conditions. In this concern, some sufficient conditions are developed in this manuscript. On the base of sufficient conditions, the monotone iterative scheme combined with lower and upper solution method for the existence, uniqueness, error estimates and various view plots of the extremal solutions to boundary value problem of nonlinear fractional differential equations have been studied. The obtain results have clarified the nature of the extremal solutions. Further, the Ulam--Hyers and Ulam--Hyers--Rassias stability have been investigated for the considered problem.  Two illustrative examples of the BVP of the nonlinear fractional differential equations have been provided to justify our contribution.


Clitics can be defined as prosodically defective function words. They can belong to a number of syntactic categories, such as articles, pronouns, prepositions, complementizers, negative adverbs, or auxiliaries. They do not generally belong to open classes, like verbs, nouns, or adjectives. Their prosodically defective character is most often manifested by the absence of stress, which in turn correlates with vowel reduction in those languages that have it independently; sometimes the clitic can be just a consonant or a consonant cluster, with no vowel. This same prosodically defective character forces them to attach either to the word that follows them (proclisis) or to the word that precedes them (enclisis); in some cases they even appear inside a word (mesoclisis or endoclisis). The word to which a clitic attaches is called the host. In some languages (like some dialects of Italian or Catalan) enclitics can surface as stressed, but the presence of stress can be argued to be the result of assignment of stress to the host-clitic complex, not to the clitic itself. One consequence of clitics being prosodically defective is that they cannot be the sole element of an utterance, for instance as an answer to some question; they need to always appear with a host.
 A useful distinction is that between simple clitics and special clitics. Simple clitics often have a nonclitic variant and appear in the expected syntactic position for nonclitics of their syntactic category. Much more attention has been paid in the literature to special clitics. Special clitics appear in a designated position within the clause or within the noun phrase (or determiner phrase). In several languages certain clitics must appear in second position, within the clause, as in most South Slavic languages, or within the noun phrase, as in Kwakw'ala. The pronominal clitics of Romance languages or Greek must have the verb as a host and appear in a position different from the full noun phrase. A much debated question is whether the position of special clitics is the result of syntactic movement, or whether other factors, morphological or phonological, intervene as well or are the sole motivation for their position. Clitics can also cluster, with some languages allowing only sequences of two clitics, and other languages allowing longer sequences. Here one relevant question is what determines the order of the clitics, with the main avenues of analysis being approaches based on syntactic movement, approaches based on the types of morphosyntactic features each clitic has, and approaches based on templates. An additional issue concerning clitic clusters is the incompatibility between specific clitics when combined and the changes that this incompatibility can provoke in the form of one or more of the clitics. Combinations of identical or nearly identical clitics are often disallowed, and the constraint known as the Person-Case Constraint (PCC) disallows combinations of clitics with a first or second person accusative clitic (a direct object, DO, clitic) and a third person (and sometimes also first or second person) dative clitic (an indirect object, IO, clitic). In all these cases either one of the clitics surfaces with the form of another clitic or one of the clitics does not surface; sometimes there is no possible output. Here again both syntactic and morphological approaches have been proposed.


BACKGROUND
Although it has been shown that high-molecular weight adiponectin is an active form, few studies have attempted to clarify the relationship between high molecular weight adiponectin and markers linked with cardiovascular diseases in the general population.

METHODS
We screened 236 Japanese study participants recruited from the general population, residing in one large and four small islands. In addition to serum lipids and lipoproteins, serum total adiponectin and each multimer were measured. The genotype single-nucleotide polymorphism 276G>T was detected in real-time PCR with LightCycler hybridization probes, using fluorescent-labeled nucleotides.

RESULTS
Multiple linear regression analysis showed that high-molecular weight adiponectin, as well as total adiponectin, were significantly correlated with body weight, body mass index, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides. Total adiponectin and high-molecular weight adiponectin concentrations were not significantly different between GG and TX (GT and TT) genotypes of 276G>T polymorphism in the adiponectin gene. Interestingly, no differences were observed for participants from the large island between GG and TX genotypes with regard to both total adiponectin and high-molecular weight adiponectin, whereas significant differences were observed for those from the small islands.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results show that total adiponectin and high-molecular weight adiponectin are associated with similar factors in the general population. Furthermore, different effects of 276G>T for participants from small and large islands suggest that regional background due to geographic barriers may control the effects of 276G>T on adiponectin concentrations.


Facing the strict and alienating rules imposed by the totalitarian communist party in all aspects of civil life and having to have their children educated in the communist education system, the Romanian families found innovative ways to keep and pass on the rich cultural and religious traditions together with the ancient beliefs and values. However, this was accomplished with sacrifices and long term consequences on the development of children. This paper introduces the broad political, social and economical context of the communist regime in Romania and presents several sociocultural challenges which the children and families found ways of adapting to and integrate in their daily lives. The article demonstrates that, although the communist system left profound and unmistakable scars on children development, families have succeeded in transmitting their cultural heritage to the next generation. Using the sociocultural theories of learning as an anchoring framework, the author conducted a literature review and several in-depth ethnographic interviews to describe and formulate an explanation of the continuity and change of Romanian transmission of family traditions under duress.


Teaching and learning EFL speaking modules is one of the most challenging productive modules for both instructors and learners. In a student-centered interactive communicative language teaching approach, learners and instructors should be aware of the fact that the target language must be taught as/for communication. The student must be empowered by tools that will work on more than one level of their communicative competence. Communicative learning will need a teaching and learning methodology that will address the goal. Teaching turn-taking rules, pragmatic principles and speech acts will enhance students' sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence together with discourse competence. Sociolinguistic competence entails the mastering of speech act conventions and illocutionary acts of refusing, agreeing/disagreeing; emotive acts like, thanking, apologizing, inviting, offering; directives like, ordering, requesting, advising, and hinting, among others. Strategic competence includes enlightening students' consciousness of the various particular turn-taking systemic rules of organizing techniques of opening and closing conversation, adjacency pairs, interrupting, back-channeling, asking for/giving opinion, agreeing/disagreeing, using natural fillers for pauses, gaps, speaker select, self-select, and silence among others. Students will have the tools to manage a conversation. Students are engaged in opportunities of experiencing the natural language not as a mere extra student talking time but rather an empowerment of knowing and using the strategies. They will have the component items they need to use as well as the opportunity to communicate in the target language using topics of their interest and choice. This enhances students' communicative abilities. Available websites and textbooks now use one or more of these tools of turn-taking or pragmatics. These will be students' support in self-study in their independent learning study hours. This will be their reinforcement practice on e-Learning interactive activities. The students' target is to be able to communicate the intended meaning to an addressee that is in turn able to infer that intended meaning. The combination of these tools will be assertive and encouraging to the student to beat the struggle with what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. Teaching the rules, principles and techniques is an act of awareness raising method engaging students in activities that will lead to their pragmatic discourse competence. The aim of the paper is to show how the suggested pragmatic model will empower students with tools and systems that would support their learning. Supporting students with turn taking rules, speech act theory, applying both to texts and practical analysis and using it in speaking classes empowers students' pragmatic discourse competence and assists them to understand language and its context. They become more spontaneous and ready to learn the discourse pragmatic dimension of the speaking techniques and suitable content. Students showed a better performance and a good motivation to learn. The model is therefore O. F. Elkommos is with the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, British University in Egypt., Ph.D.in Applied Linguistics (phone: 00202-01222434381; e-mail: email@example.com). suggested for speaking modules in EFL classes. Keywords—Communicative competence, EFL, empowering learners, enhance learning, speech acts, teaching speaking, turntaking, learner centered, pragmatics.


This paper explores the issue of racist behaviour by young people, particularly
White young people and the response of youth workers and other educators to
that racism. In particular, it argues that anti-racism is simply not working with the
young people it really needs to work with. The paper provides evidence that
youth workers have been disempowered by understandings of anti-racist policy
and practice, and that the same policies may well, unintentionally, be having a
negative affect on the most marginalised white young people. The paper argues
that this may well be due to 'deficit' understandings of such white young people,
understandings close to 'underclass' pathology.
The paper was conceived before the events of summer 2001, which saw violent
clashes involving white and Asian young people, and the Police, in several
towns in the North of England, and violent incidents directed at Asylum Seekers
across the UK, culminating in a racist murder in Sighthill, Glasgow. However,
these events can be viewed as all too predictable. They pose fundamental
questions of theory and practice for Youth Workers and other educators already
working with young people who may support, or even perpetrate, such acts of
racist violence.
This paper aims to debate these questions by focussing in particular on the
findings and lessons of an action research project carried out by the University
of Huddersfield, material from which has since been published by the
Commission for Racial Equality as 'Open Talk, Open Minds' (CRE, 1999). The
methodology and findings of this research are discussed below.


In-Flight Survey of International Air Travelers. U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, Tourism Industries, Washington, DC 20230. 1996. 130p. This report is the result of a survey program that was developed to measure U.S. residents traveling overseas and to Mexico. Information was collected from questionnaires covering the traveler, the air trip, activities and places visited, and air travel expenditures. The survey was conducted voluntarily by selected major airlines on a sample of their international flights departing U.S. airports. Reports on 11 specific origin countries are available.


Abstract Periodic sampling of 30 independent monitors, initially active with the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki, was conducted to evaluate the effects of soil treated with imidacloprid on nearby termite activity. Monitors were located adjacent (1–3 m) to the buildings. Soil around and under the buildings was treated with 0.05% imidacloprid. None of the termites collected showed latent mortality attributed to imidacloprid intoxication. Imidacloprid soil treatments did not measurably reduce C. formosanus populations adjacent to the treatments. Imidacloprid does not seem to fit the liquid-bait model.


Matthew L. Reznicek, "Absurd Speculations: The Tragedy of Development in Maria Edgeworth's Ormond " (pp. 291–314) This essay explores shared concerns regarding the representation of economic development that occurs in Maria Edgeworth's Irish bildungsroman Ormond (1817) and in Johann Wolfang von Goethe's two-part tragic retelling of the Faust myth (1808, 1832), building on recent interest in the representation of money in literature from the romantic period. While these two literary works are often seen as foundational texts in their respective national literatures, they both also explore the damning effects of economic and social development, especially through the medium of paper money. To this end, I examine the representation of paper money in Goethe's Faust Part Two and of the capitalist ventures of Sir Ulick O'Shane in Ormond in order to situate more firmly Edgeworth's writing within the broad European literary and social landscape. By focusing on the tragic representation of modernizing economics in these two works, it becomes obvious that Edgeworth, like Goethe, participates in and advances the formation of a modern world.


Deoxyribonucleic acid reassociation measurements revealed that 50 of 111 Bacillus circulans Jordan 1890 strains examined could be separated into 10 groups of genetically related organisms. The results of deoxyribonucleic acid relatedness studies and phenotypic comparisons suggested that five of these groups were hitherto undescribed species and that four others probably represented previous ly, but inadequately, described species. The tenth group, which included the type strain, represented the species B. circulans sensu stricto. Our data show that B. circulans and Bacillus macerans Schardinger 1905 are genetically and phenotypically distinct species. Thus, the phenotypic heterogeneity of the species B. circulans sensu lato is not due to inherent variability of genetically related strains but rather is due to inclusion of genetically unrelated organisms in this taxon.


New NMR experiments are presented for the measurement of methylmethyl distances in 13Clabeled proteins from a series of amino acid-type separated 2D or 3D NOESY spectra. Hadamard amino acid-type encoding of the proximal methyl groups provides the high spectral resolution required for unambiguous methylmethyl NOE assignment, which is particularly important for fast global fold determination of proteins. The experiments can be applied to a wide range of protein systems, as exemplified for two small proteins, ubiquitin and MerAa, and the 30 kDa BRPBlm complex.


We encountered 3 cases of ventricule premature contraction (VPC) after anti-cancer chemotherapy with ifosfamide (IFM). These cases were administered IFM of more than 2 g/body/day for 3 days, and they were more than 70 years old. They had no cardiovascular disorder before the chemotherapy. Among them, 1 case who received a total dose of 15.0 g of IFM showed severe VPC. She had also received a total dose of 155 mg of doxorubicin (ADM) in earlier treatment. There was also 1 case, whose VPC was aggravated after anti-cancer chemotherapy with IFM. He had dilated cardiomyopathy and had already showed frequent VPC before the chemotherapy. His VPC became more frequent after the chemotherapy. IFM was a common agent among the anti-cancer agents used in these cases. We must be careful for the occurrence of VPC when more than 2 g/body/day of IFM is administered to patients more than 70 years old. An increase in the total dose of IFM or former ADM may cause severe VPC. When IFM is given a patient with VPC, the existing VPC may be aggravated.


Moral theories provide us with reasonable criteria for making moral judgments and evaluating decisions and actions. There is, however, one difficulty with approaching moral reasoning strictly from a "moral-theories" approach: despite their knowledge of ethical theories, intelligent, reasonable people make moral mistakes. These mistakes cannot be attributed solely to ignorance or insensitivity or even merely to weakness of character, but rather to a paucity of moral imagination. Moral judgments involve a delicate balance of context, evaluation, projection of moral standards, and imagination. The linchpin of this process is a highly developed moral imagination that perceives the nuances of a situation, challenges the framework or scheme in which the event is embedded, and imagines how it might be different.


Time constraints have been implicated in family planning providers inability to offer comprehensive counseling to their clients. It is important for providers to know whether lengthening counseling sessions increases the amount of relevant information imparted to clients. 28 women were trained to pretend to solicit an effective method and to opt for the injectable contraceptive at 19 clinics in urban areas from a national sample of Ministry of Health facilities in Peru. Each clinic was visited on different days by 6 of these 'simulated clients' for a total of 114 cases. For each visit the woman recorded on a 46-item checklist the topics discussed by the provider and estimated the duration of the counseling session. Providers dedicated anywhere from 2-45 minutes to counseling. The amount of information given that was relevant to the clients choice significantly increased by 43% when the session length went from 2-8 minutes to 9-14 minutes. However further improvements in the amount of useful information exchanged were trivial and nonsignificant when session lengths extended beyond 14 minutes. At any duration many pieces of information that should have been exchanged had not been. Offering a wide range of contraceptive options took up most of the consultation time and was highly correlated with session length. Discussion of the chosen method's side effects and screening for contraindications did not vary by session length. Counseling sessions longer than 14 minutes confer little advantage in terms of effective counseling for women who choose the injectable. It is important that providers use the available time more efficiently; that they be more practical in assessing clients' needs; and that they avoid providing too much information about irrelevant methods. They should focus on the method chosen by the client and address that specific method in greater depth. (authors)


Counterfactual explanations are an increasingly popular form of post hoc explanation due to their (i) applicability across problem domains, (ii) proposed legal compliance (e.g., with GDPR), and (iii) reliance on the contrastive nature of human explanation. Although counterfactual explanations are normally used to explain individual predictive-instances, we explore a novel use case in which groups of similar instances are explained in a collective fashion using ``group counterfactuals'' (e.g., to highlight a repeating pattern of illness in a group of patients). These group counterfactuals meet a human preference for coherent, broad explanations covering multiple events/instances. A novel, group-counterfactual algorithm is proposed to generate high-coverage explanations that are faithful to the to-be-explained model. This explanation strategy is also evaluated in a large, controlled user study (N=207), using objective (i.e., accuracy) and subjective (i.e., confidence, explanation satisfaction, and trust) psychological measures. The results show that group counterfactuals elicit modest but definite improvements in people's understanding of an AI system. The implications of these findings for counterfactual methods and for XAI are discussed.


Nowadays, one of the main challenges in metal implants for bone substitution is the achievement of an elastic modulus close to that of human cortical bone as well as to provide an adequate interaction with the surrounding tissue avoiding in vivo foreign body reaction. From this perspective, a new Ti-based alloy has been developed with Nb and Hf as alloying elements which are known as non-toxic and with good corrosion properties. The microstructure, mechanical behaviour and the physicochemical properties of this novel titanium alloy have been studied. Relationship of surface chemistry and surface electric charge with protein adsorption and cell adhesion has been evaluated due to its role for understanding the mechanism of biological interactions with tissues. The Ti25Nb21Hf alloy presented a lower elastic modulus than commercial alloys with a superior ultimate strength and yield strength than CP-Ti and very close to Ti6Al4V. It also exhibited good corrosion resistance. Furthermore, the results revealed that it had no cytotoxic effect on rat mesenchymal stem cells and allowed protein adsorption and cell adhesion. The experimental results make this alloy a promising material for bone substitution or for biomedical devices.


Knowledge based-entrepreneurial firms struggle to survive because they must be simultaneously entrepreneurial on several dimensions. Can those firms rely on users to achieve sufficient efficiency in some entrepreneurial dimensions? To answer this question we drew on the entrepreneurial theories of the firm and on the users/innovator literature. In this work we present the plural entrepreneurship framework and then with a longitudinal case study of a mobile phone video-game firm which relies on users to improve their games we show that the user can significantly enhance the efficiency of the innovation of the firm. We also show that the other important dimensions of the firm behavior (organization, business model) can be significantly improved by the implication of users.


The explosive growth of the Internet and the continued dramatic increase for all wireless services are fueling the demand for increased capacity, data rates, support of multimedia services, and support for different Quality of Services (QoS) requirements for different classes of services. Furthermore future communication networks will be strongly characterized by heterogeneity. In order to meet the objectives of instant adaptability to the users' requirements and of interoperability and seamless operation within the heterogeneous networking environments, flexibility in terms of network and resource management will be a key design issue. The new emerging technology of mobile agent (MA) has arisen in the distributed programming field as a potential flexible way of managing resources of a distributed system, and is a challenging opportunity for delivering more flexible services and dealing with network programmability.
This dissertation mainly focuses on: (a) the design of models that provide a generic framework for the evaluation and analysis of the performance and tradeoffs of the mobile agent management paradigm; (b) the development of MA based resource and network management applications. First, in order to demonstrate the use and benefits of the mobile agent based management paradigm in the network and resource management process, a commercial application of a multioperator network is introduced, and the use of agents to provide the underlying framework and structure for its implementation and deployment is investigated. Then, a general analytical model and framework for the evaluation of various network management paradigms is introduced and discussed. It is also illustrated how the developed analytical framework can be used to quantitatively evaluate the performances and tradeoffs in the various computing paradigms. Furthermore, the design tradeoffs for choosing the MA based management paradigm to develop a flexible resource management scheme in wireless networks is discussed and evaluated. The integration of an advanced bandwidth reservation mechanism with a bandwidth reconfiguration based call admission control strategy is also proposed. A framework based on the technology of mobile agents, is introduced for the efficient implementation of the proposed integrated resource and QoS management, while the achievable performance of the overall proposed management scheme is evaluated via modeling and simulation. Finally the use of a distributed cooperative scheme among the mobile agents that can be applied in the future wireless networks is proposed and demonstrated, to improve the energy consumption for the routine management processes of mobile terminals, by adopting the peer-to-peer communication concept of wireless ad-hoc networks. The performance evaluation process and the corresponding numerical results demonstrate the significant system energy savings, while several design issues and tradeoffs of the proposed scheme, such as the fairness of the mobile agents involved in the management activity, are discussed and evaluated.


Abstract. This paper presents a study, based on simulations, of the impact of cirrus cloud heterogeneities on the retrieval of cloud parameters (optical thickness and effective diameter) for the Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR) on board CALIPSO. Cirrus clouds are generated by the stochastic model 3DCLOUD for two different cloud fields and for several averaged cloud parameters. One cloud field is obtained from a cirrus observed on 25 May 2007 during the airborne campaign CIRCLE-2 and the other is a cirrus uncinus. The radiative transfer is simulated with the 3DMCPOL code. To assess the errors due to cloud heterogeneities, two related retrieval algorithms are used: (i) the split-window technique to retrieve the ice crystal effective diameter and (ii) an algorithm similar to the IIR operational algorithm to retrieve the effective emissivity and the effective optical thickness. Differences between input parameters and retrieved parameters are compared as a function of different cloud properties such as the mean optical thickness, the heterogeneity parameter and the effective diameter. The optical thickness heterogeneity for each 1 km × 1 km observation pixel is represented by the optical thickness standard deviation computed using 100 m × 100 m subpixels. We show that optical thickness heterogeneity may have a strong impact on the retrieved parameters, mainly due to the plane-parallel approximation (PPA assumption). In particular, for cirrus clouds with ice crystal diameter of approximately 10 μm, the averaged error on the retrieved effective diameter and optical thickness is about 2.5 μm (~ 25%) and −0.20 (~ 12%), respectively. Then, these biases decrease with increasing effective size due to a decrease of the cloud absorption and, thus, the PPA bias. Cloud horizontal heterogeneity effects are greater than other possible sources of retrieval errors such as those due to cloud vertical heterogeneity impact, surface temperature or atmospheric temperature profile uncertainty and IIR retrieval uncertainty. Cloud horizontal heterogeneity effects are larger than the IIR retrieval uncertainty if the standard deviation of the optical thickness, inside the observation pixel, is greater than 1.


This paper experimentally and numerically investigates the water hammer phenomenon in serially connected steel and HDPE pipes with different diameters. The aim of the laboratory tests was to obtain the time history of the pressure head at the downstream end of the pipeline system. Transient tests were conducted on seven different pipeline system configurations. The experimental results show that despite the significantly smaller diameter of the HDPE pipe compared to the steel pipe, introducing an HDPE section makes it possible to suppress the valve-induced pressure surge. By referring to the results of the experimental tests conducted, the comparative numerical calculations were performed using the fixed-grid method of characteristics. To reproduce pressure wave attenuation in a steel pipe, Brunone-Vitkovský instant acceleration-based model of unsteady friction was used. To include the viscoelastic behavior of the HDPE pipe wall, the one-element Kelvin–Voigt model was applied. By calibrating the unsteady friction coefficient and creep parameters, satisfactory agreement between the calculated and observed data was obtained. The calibrated values of parameters for a single experimental test were introduced in a numerical model to simulate the remaining water hammer runs. It was demonstrated that using the same unsteady friction coefficient and creep parameters in slightly different configurations of pipe lengths can be effective. However, this approach fails to reliably reproduce the pressure oscillations in pipeline systems with sections of significantly different lengths.


This paper extends the pre-bid R&D and auctions design literature to an independent private value setting where each bidder incurs a private-information valuation discovery cost upon entry. The seller commits to a mechanism before the bidders' entry decisions. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, a second-price auction with no entry fee and a reserve price equal to seller's valuation is ex ante efficient. Secondly, a second price auction with the same reserve price and appropriate ex ante entry fees is revenue-maximizing. Every bidder's ex ante entry fee equals the hazard rate of his entry cost distribution, evaluated at the desired entry-threshold for him. Thirdly, the revenue-maximizing entry differs from the ex ante efficient entry. Fourthly, even for the symmetric setting, the ex ante efficient/revenue-maximizing entry could be asymmetric. Lastly, for the symmetric setting, when the cumulative distribution function of the entry costs changes rather slowly with respect to its argument, the efficient entry must be symmetric across bidders and it is the unique entry equilibrium of the efficient auction. If the hazard rate of the entry cost distribution is additionally increasing, then the revenue-maximizing entry must also be symmetric and it is the unique entry equilibrium of the revenue-maximizing auction. These results mean that large dispersion in the entry costs restores the symmetry in the efficient/revenue-maximizing entry.


This paper examines the explosion of activism around housing in Ireland in the late Sixties. At a time of political commemoration around the anniversaries of the 1916 Rising, and the establishment of the first revolutionary independent parliament (Dail) in 1919, a group of activists calling themselves the Dublin Housing Action Committee sought to disrupt political consensus and ask serious questions about the priorities of the Irish state. The group began through cooperation between homeless people in the city, but soon garnered support from anti-establishment agitators within the republican party, Sinn Fein. By 1969, the group was pressing government for response to the acute housing crisis in the city.

The significance of the DHAC was threefold. In the first instance, it sheds light on a local political problem, challenging the consensus of an Irish 'success' narrative, and putting the spotlight on the failure of the state to deliver on its promise to its citizens at exactly the time when this 'success' was being celebrated. The strategies of the DHAC demonstrated how the wider national question of Irish unity could be fused with local issues in order to successfully build alliances beyond its organic political base. Secondly, it sought to exploit a rights-based language placing socio-political protest in Ireland within a much broader international context. Thirdly, the case of the DHAC prompts us to rethink the position of Ireland within the global 'sixties', beyond the dominant narrative of civil rights activism in Northern Ireland. The actions of this housing movement indicate that the struggles of a small modernizing economy on the fringes of Europe produced the same kinds of protest as were evident in urban unrest in Britain, the US and other parts of Europe.


Shortage of resources demands a consequent lightweight design with aluminum. Process stability and a high seam quality in welding processes of this material are difficult to achieve especially for hard to weld materials like EN AW-6060. Bifocal hybrid laser welding (BHLW) demonstrates how this material can be welded reliably without defects in a butt joint configuration. The used hybrid laser system consists of a Nd:YAG laser and a high power diode laser (HPDL). This leads to a high welding penetration with a high seam quality. In this publication the welding results of BHLW in a T-joint configuration are shown. An additional filler wire supplement was used to create filled welding seams with a high joining cross section and less hot crack length. The influence of defocusing the laser beam on the welding seam quality is investigated. The paper also shows the results of displacing the laser beam to the abutting edge to the joining cross section and the silicium distribution in the welding seam. Depending on the oxide layer of the welding region, a high displacement leads to an asymmetrical silicium distribution.Shortage of resources demands a consequent lightweight design with aluminum. Process stability and a high seam quality in welding processes of this material are difficult to achieve especially for hard to weld materials like EN AW-6060. Bifocal hybrid laser welding (BHLW) demonstrates how this material can be welded reliably without defects in a butt joint configuration. The used hybrid laser system consists of a Nd:YAG laser and a high power diode laser (HPDL). This leads to a high welding penetration with a high seam quality. In this publication the welding results of BHLW in a T-joint configuration are shown. An additional filler wire supplement was used to create filled welding seams with a high joining cross section and less hot crack length. The influence of defocusing the laser beam on the welding seam quality is investigated. The paper also shows the results of displacing the laser beam to the abutting edge to the joining cross section and the silicium distribution in the welding seam. Depending o...


The purpose of this study is to describe the knowledge and attitudes regarding abortion of a sample of health professionals in Mexico. In particular, we aim to explore their association with the practice of abortion and the care of post-abortion complications, taking into consideration the present legal framework in Mexico. The data come from an anonymous and computerized survey applied to participants attending a national meeting of gynecology and obstetrics in Mexico in 2009 (n=418). The attitudes of health professionals in relation to abortion play a key role in promoting access to both medical and surgical abortion services. We did not find a statistical association between living in a largely restrictive federal entity and the practice of abortions, which may be explained by the lack of knowledge that these survey participants had about abortion laws in their federal entity. This lack of knowledge about abortion legislation can hinder a woman's access to these services even when the legal framework such access.


A random sample survey of an online self-help group for people with hearing loss was conducted. Two factors predicted active participation in the group: a lack of real-world social support and being comparatively effective (having less disability, coping more effectively, and using real-world professional services). More active participation in the group was associated with more benefits from the group and stronger reports of community orientation. The authors also found evidence that integration of online and real-world support (if it existed) benefited participants. That is, if supportive family and friends in the real world shared the online group with participants, participants reported above average benefits, whereas if supportive family and friends were uninvolved in the online group, participants reported below average benefits.


An electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometric method was developed for low-picogram detection of an ergot alkaloid, cabergoline, in coyote plasma extracts. Cabergoline is under investigation as an abortifacient in canid species. Central to the successful development of this method was the ability to introduce relatively large sample volumes into the mass spectrometer. This was achieved by focusing the analyte on a conventional high-performance liquid chromatography guard column prior to elution into the spectrometer. Volumes up to at least 900 (cid:237) L could be injected onto the guard column using a 100% aqueous mobile phase. Cabergoline retained on the column was eluted as a discreet band into the mass spectrometer by the rapid addition of methanol (30%) to the mobile phase. As compared to flow injection sample introduction, the ability to inject larger sample volumes led to a greatly lowered detection limit. Using this technique and a modification of a previously reported extraction procedure, cabergoline could be determined in coyote plasma at concentrations as low as 9 pg of cabergoline/ mL of plasma. ( latrans ) predation


This article examines two important components of measurement of fecundity in the European lobster Homarus gammarus: (i) comparing the traditional gravimetric dry weight fecundity method against two non-invasive depth gauge methods initially developed for Homarus americanus and (ii) utilizing the depth gauge method to determine egg loss during the brooding period and its impacts on effective fecundity estimates. No significant difference was observed between fecundity estimates derived using either the traditional or depth gauge methods. Derived fecundity estimates from the two depth gauge methods differed by −0.31% (±2.7 s.e.) for cylinder and −1.1% (±2.4 s.e.) for ellipsoid fecundity estimates compared with the traditional method. This highlights the utility of the depth gauge method for providing fast, reliable and low-cost estimates without sacrificing lobsters or their egg masses. Egg loss is estimated to be as high as 44% from initial extrusion to hatching. The application of the non-invasive methods for estimating fecundity to other fisheries and stocks is discussed along with the importance of understanding egg loss in this commercially valuable fishery.


In order to elucidate whether inactive renin may represent a precursor of the active enzyme we examined the short-term effects of ambulation and of Captopril administration on active and cryoactivatable renin in patients with essential hypertension before and after 5 days of diuretic therapy. We have found that in the large majority of patients before diuretic the increments in active renin in response to these stimuli were moderate and associated with unchanged levels of cryoactivatable renin; significant decrements in cryoactivatable renin were observed only in a small group of patients in whom the increments in active renin induced by ambulation were unusually rapid and marked. Diuretic therapy caused parallel increments in baseline values of active and of cryoactivatable renin and potentiated the response of the active enzyme to ambulation and to Captopril; however, cryoactivatable renin was still unmodified during both the acute stimuli. Thus, it appears that, normally, the rise in active renin induced by ambulation and Captopril administration is associated, both before and after diuretic therapy, with unchanged levels of the inactive enzyme; however, before diuretic, abrupt increments in the demand for active renin can determine changes in opposite direction of inactive renin as if the latter were a precursor of the former.


A subset of patients with celiac disease (CD) on a gluten-free diet (GFD) reported the persistence of functional gastrointestinal disorders. Foods containing fermentable, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols (FODMAP) can trigger a broad range of gastrointestinal symptoms in sensitive individuals. We evaluated the effects of a low FODMAP diet (LFD) on gastrointestinal and psychological symptomatology in CD patients. A total of 50 celiac patients on GFDs and with persistence of gastrointestinal symptoms were included. The patients were randomly allocated to one of two dietary groups—one on a low FODMAP GFD (LF-GFD, n = 25) and the other on a regular GFD (R-GFD, n = 25)—for 21 days. Psychological symptomatology and quality of life were evaluated by the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90) and the Short Form (36) Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaires, respectively. Gastrointestinal symptomatology and general well-being were evaluated by visual analogue scale (VAS) scores. After 21 days, 21 and 23 patients completed the dietary treatment on LF-GFD and R-GFD, respectively. A reduced global SCL-90 index (p < 0.0003) was found in the LF-GFD group but not in the R-GFD one. However, the SF-36 scores did not differ between groups after treatment. The VAS for abdominal pain was much lower, and the VAS for fecal consistency enhanced after treatment in the LF-GFD group. General well-being increased in both groups but with a much higher improvement in the LF-GFD (p = 0.03). A short-term LFD regimen helps to improve the psychological health and gastrointestinal symptomatology with enhanced well-being of CD patients with persisting functional gastrointestinal symptomatology. The long-term clinical effects of LFD in particular subgroups of CD patients need further evaluation.


Isolated tricuspid valve infective endocarditis is relatively rare. However, the frequency of tricuspid valve infective endocarditis in the United States is rapidly increasing, mainly due to the epidemic of intravenous drug use. A medical treatment is the first choice for this disease; however, surgical intervention is required when the patients suffer from heart failure, large vegetation, or persistent bacteremia despite appropriate medical treatment. Several techniques for tricuspid valve reconstruction have been proposed, and their outcomes have been reported to be good. However, in the cases of severe valve destruction, tricuspid valve replacement is required. Post-surgical management of drug-induced infective endocarditis is challenging due to its poor compliance to medication and high rate of reinfection. There is an ethical controversy as to surgical indication for reinfection induced by relapse of drug use. In addition, because reoperation for tricuspid valve carries high risk, there is also a controversy regarding valve choice in drug users.


Our purpose is to list some clinical and anatomical states related to sigmoidorectal intussusception, and to report a case. Acute attacks of sigmoidorectal intussusception cause lower abdominal, pelvic, or perineal pain, which starts suddenly and is relieved promptly by reduction of the intussusception. 7,12 For at least 75 years proctologists have discussed sigmoidorectal intussusception, noting that procidentia occurs intermittently and rarely becomes incarcerated. 1 Unstable colon, discussed by Granet, consists of a redundant sigmoid with a long mesentery. The sigmoid slides into a capacious rectum held in situ by fascia. Granet terms this a procidentia of the sigmoid and recommends conservative treatment. 2,3 Chronic intussusception is a term used by some, decried by others. 4,5,13 Still's four cases (three ileocecal, one ileocolic) described in 1921 had intussusception verified to have existed from 21 to 42 days. Emaciation ensued, although other symptoms were mild after the onset. Each had surgical reduction


Objectives: The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2007. Three IMIA Presidents from three continents were invited to give their personal retrospectives on the world's largest organization in medical informatics. Method: Reports, based on personal reminiscenses. Results and Conclusions: IMIA was established in the 1970s by individuals already active in medical informatics in their home countries. It has evolved into a strong international organization based on the mutual trust and friendship of members throughout the world. IMIA serves as a 'bridge' organization both within an interorganizational context and within the broader context of IMIA's professional aims. Being a driving motor for successive waves of change in the field, IMIA helps to significantly improve health care by building bridges across regions, disciplines, and professions, to bridge the distances around the globe.


Visual Speech Recognition is the ability to interpret spoken text using video information only. To address such task automatically, recent works have employed Deep Learning and obtained high accuracy on the recognition of words and sentences uttered in controlled environments, with limited head-pose variation. However, the accuracy drops for multi-view datasets and when it comes to interpreting isolated mouth shapes, such as visemes, the values reported are considerably lower, as shorter segments of speech lack temporal and contextual information. In this work, we evaluate the applicability of synthetic datasets for assisting recognition of visemes in real-world data acquired under controlled and uncontrolled environments, using GRID and AVICAR datasets, respectively. We create two large-scale synthetic 2D datasets based on realistic 3D facial models - with near-frontal and multi-view mouth images. We perform experiments that indicate that a transfer learning approach using synthetic data can get higher accuracy than training from scratch using real data only, on both scenarios.


Tumor emboli to peripheral vessels usually arise from atrial myxomas. A new case of non-myxomatous embolization is presented, as well as a review of the literature regarding embolization from previously unrecognized malignancies. Sites of origin of peripheral tumor emboli are discussed, as are possible pathological mechanisms.


Abstract Studies of the weathering of platinum-group minerals in natural deposits have indicated that the platinum-group elements (PGE) can be mobilized under appropriate conditions and have sufficient solubility to move into solution. Although inorganic chemistry provides feasible mechanisms under the extreme conditions encountered in laterites it appears likely that PGE-organic complexes offer a more convincing explanation of the apparent solubility. Experimental work undertaken to illustrate the organic processes and the reaction timescale examined various reactions including those between Pt and Pd foils and humic and fulvic acid solutions. These reactions appear pertinent to those that may occur between the PGE particles ejected by vehicle exhaust catalysts and the natural environment. The experimental work produced up to 195 μ/1 Pt and 102 μ/1 Pd in humic acid solutions exposed to the metal foils for about a year at room temperature. The experimental conditions can be compared to those encountered in roadside drainage supplied with PGE particles and decaying vegetation. Consideration of the possible health effects of the PGE from the particles ejected by vehicle exhaust catalysts has centred on inhalation of the particles or absorption through the skin. Intake from drinking water or from food produced using PGE-bearing water should now also be investigated. Due to the variety of organic compounds produced by decaying vegetation the identity of the PGE-organic products is not yet known so their toxicity cannot be estimated.


ABSTRACT We used contribution analysis to verify the key assumption in the intervention logic of an innovation fund in Bolivia directed to economic farmer organisations to develop value-added activities. We focussed the research on three sub-components of the intervention logic: relevance of the farmer groups for local economic development, effectiveness of the fund in strengthening these group, and efficiency of the grant allocation mechanism. We used a case-based comparative analysis to assess effectiveness: improved market access for members, strengthened organisational capacities and the capacity to pay organisational costs. We showed that the grants to already well-endowed organisations were particularly unsuccessful.


Historical films made by neuroscientists have shown up in several countries during past years. Although originally supposed to have been lost, we recently found a collection of films produced between 1909 and 1940 by Rudolf Magnus (1873–1927), professor of pharmacology (Utrecht) and his student Gysbertus Rademaker (1887–1957), professor of physiology (1928, succeeding Willem Einthoven) and neurology (1945, both in Leiden). Both collections deal with the physiology of body posture by the equilibrium of reflex musculature contractions for which experimental studies were done with animals (labyrinthectomies, cerebellectomies, and brainstem sections) and observations on patients. The films demonstrate the results of these studies. Moreover, there are films with babies showing tonic neck reflexes and moving images capturing adults with cerebellar symptoms following cerebellectomies for tumors and several other conditions. Magnus' studies resulted in his well-known Körperstellung (1924, "Body Posture") and Rademaker's research in his Das Stehen (1931, "Standing"). The films probably had an educative and scientific purpose. Magnus demonstrated his films at congresses, including the Eighth International Congress of Physiologists (Vienna, 1910) and Rademaker screened his moving images at meetings of the Amsterdam Neurologists Society (at several occasions as reflected in the Winkler-Monakow correspondence and the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde). Next to these purposes, the films were used to analyze movement and a series of images from the films were published in articles and books. The films are important historical sources that provide a portrait of the pre-World War II era in neuroscience, partly answering questions on how physicians dealt with patients and researchers with their laboratory animals. Moreover, the films confirm that cinematography was an important scientific tool in neuroscience research.


A new classification and nomenclature scheme for the amphibole-supergroup minerals is described, based on the general formula AB 2 C 5 T 8 O 22 W 2 , where A = □, Na, K, Ca, Pb, Li; B = Na, Ca, Mn 2+ , Fe 2+ , Mg, Li; C = Mg, Fe 2+ , Mn 2+ , Al, Fe 3+ , Mn 3+ , Ti 4+ , Li; T = Si, Al, Ti 4+ , Be; W = (OH), F, Cl, O 2− . Distinct arrangements of formal charges at the sites (or groups of sites) in the amphibole structure warrant distinct root names , and are, by implication, distinct species; for a specific root name, different homovalent cations (e.g., Mg vs. Fe 2+ ) or anions (e.g., OH vs. F) are indicated by prefixes (e.g., ferro-, fluoro-). The classification is based on the A, B, and C groups of cations and the W group of anions, as these groups show the maximum compositional variability in the amphibole structure. The amphibole supergroup is divided into two groups according to the dominant W species: W (OH,F,Cl)-dominant amphiboles and W O-dominant amphiboles (oxo-amphiboles). Amphiboles with (OH, F, Cl) dominant at W are divided into eight subgroups according to the dominant charge-arrangements and type of B-group cations: magnesium-iron-manganese amphiboles, calcium amphiboles, sodium-calcium amphiboles, sodium amphiboles, lithium amphiboles, sodium-(magnesium-iron-manganese) amphiboles, lithium-(magnesium-iron-manganese) amphiboles and lithium-calcium amphiboles. Within each of these subgroups, the A- and C-group cations are used to assign specific names to specific compositional ranges and root compositions. Root names are assigned to distinct arrangements of formal charges at the sites, and prefixes are assigned to describe homovalent variation in the dominant ion of the root composition. For amphiboles with O dominant at W, distinct root-compositions are currently known for four (calcium and sodium) amphiboles, and homovalent variation in the dominant cation is handled as for the W (OH,F,Cl)-dominant amphiboles. With this classification, we attempt to recognize the concerns of each constituent community interested in amphiboles and incorporate these into this classification scheme. Where such concerns conflict, we have attempted to act in accord with the more important concerns of each community.


UNLABELLED
The prevalence rate and clinical significance of the metabolic syndrome in type 1 diabetic patients are not well established. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence rate of the metabolic syndrome in adult patients with type 1 diabetes. Patients with type 1 diabetes (n=533; age: 35.6+/-11.6 years; duration of diabetes: 18.0+/-11.1 years; x+/-SD) were consecutively enrolled from 11 diabetes outpatient departments. Data on medical history, actual treatment, anthropometric and laboratory parameters as well as actual blood pressure were registered while eating habits and physical activity were evaluated by standardized questionnaires. The prevalence rate of the metabolic syndrome according to the ATP-III criteria was 31.1% (29.7% in men, 32.7% in women; p>0.05). Using the IDF criteria a higher overall prevalence rate of the metabolic syndrome (36.2%; [32,8% in men, 39.4% in women; p>0.05]) was observed. Comparing type 1 diabetic patients to the general population, the prevalence rate of the metabolic syndrome proved to be significantly higher in each age-group of patients with type 1 diabetes. According to the stepwise logistic regression analysis the metabolic syndrome in type 1 diabetic patients was associated in a decreasing ranking order of significance with waist circumference, serum triglycerides, female gender, antihypertensive medication, HDL-cholesterol, diastolic blood pressure and serum creatinine.

CONCLUSIONS
The metabolic syndrome can frequently be detected and is predominantly associated with higher waist circumference in adult patients with type 1 diabetes in Hungary.


In this paper, we statistically analyze the performance of a threshold-based parallel multiple beam selection scheme (TPMBS) for Free-space optical (FSO) based system with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) in cases where a pointing error has occurred for practical consideration over independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) Gamma-Gamma fading conditions. Specifically, we statistically analyze the characteristics in operation under conventional heterodyne detection (HD) scheme for both adaptive modulation (AM) case in addition to non-AM case (i.e., coherentnon-coherent binary modulation). Then, based on the statistically derived results, we evaluate the outage probability (CDF) of a selected beam, the average spectral efficiency (ASE), the average number of selected beams (ANSB), and the average bit error rate (BER). Some selected results shows that we can obtain the higher spectral efficiency and simultaneously reduce the potential increasing of the complexity of implementation caused by applying the selection based beam selection scheme without a considerable performance loss.


This is a work that discusses the foundations of statistical mechanics (SM) by revisiting its postulates in the case of the two main extant versions of the theory. A third one will here we added, motivated by the desire for an axiomatics that possesses some thermodynamic "flavor", which does not happen with neither of the two main SM current formulations, namely, those of Gibbs' (1; 2), based on the ensemble notion, and of Jaynes', centered on MaxEnt (3; 4; 5). One has to mention at the outset that we "rationally understand" some physical problem when we are able to place it within the scope and context of a specific "Theory". In turn, we have a theory when we can both derive all the known interesting results and successfully predict new ones starting from a small set of axioms. Paradigmatic examples are von Neumann's axioms for Quantum Mechanics, Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism, Euclid's axioms for classical geometry, etc. (1; 3). Boltzmann's main goal in inventing statistical mechanics during the second half of the XIX century was to explain thermodynamics. However, he did not reach the axiomatic stage described above. The first successful SM theory was that of Gibbs (1902) (2), formulated on the basis of four ensemble-related postulates (1). The other great SM theory is that of Jaynes' (4), based upon the MaxEnt axiom (derived from Information Theory): ignorance is to be extremized (with suitable constraints). Thermodynamics (TMD) itself has also been axiomatized, of course, using four macroscopic postulates (6). Now, the axioms of SM and of thermodynamics belong to different worlds altogether. The former speak of either "ensembles" (Gibbs), which are mental constructs, or of "observers' ignorance" (Jaynes), concepts germane to thermodynamics' language, that refers to laboratory-parlance. In point of fact, TMD enjoys a very particular status in the whole of science, as the one and only theory whose axioms are empirical statements (1). Of course, there is nothing to object to the two standard SM-axiomatics referred to above. However, a natural question emerges: would it be possible to have a statistical mechanics derived from axioms that speak, as far as possible, the same language as that of thermodynamics? To what an extent is this feasible? It is our intention here that of attempting a serious discussion of such an issue and try to provide answers to the query, following ideas developed in (7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13). 1


We address the problem of data compression and transmission applied to images. We present a differential pulse coded modulation (DPCM) scheme whose prediction filter is the Ll filter. We also present an ECC decoder which takes advantage of information to selectively filter reconstructed prediction difference sequence, using the weighted median filter. We apply our schemes to some test images, and we compare their performance to the appropriate baseline schemes. Our techniques exhibit a lot of resilience to noise, even for very noisy channels.