The pH tolerance of the ciliates Balanion comatum, Favella ehrenbergii, Rimostrombid- ium caudatum and R. veniliae and the dinoflagellates Gyrodinium dominans and Oxyrrhis marina was studied using laboratory cultures at specific pH levels and prey concentrations. The results of these experiments divided the tested species into 2 groups: pH-tolerant species and pH-non-tolerant species. The tolerant group consisted of B. comatum, which experienced a reduction in growth when pH exceeded 9.5, and O. marina, which maintained its maximum growth within the pH limit of the ex- periment (pH 9.9). The pH-non-tolerant group consisted of 3 ciliates and 1 dinoflagellate. The most pH-sensitive species were F. ehrenbergii, R. caudatum and R. veniliae. Their growth rate became affected at pH 8.8 to 8.9 and they did not grow when pH exceeded 9.0. The more tolerant species of this group, G. dominans, experienced a reduction in its growth when pH exceeded 9.2, and negative growth when pH exceeded 9.4. In a different set of experiments with the same species, the algae were allowed to grow and thereby raise the pH. In these experiments, the pH-sensitive species F. ehren- bergii, R. caudatum and R. veniliae all died within 24 h when pH exceeded 9.3, whereas some cells of the more tolerant dinoflagellate G. dominans were able to survive at pH values around 10 for up to 5 d. Thus, heterotrophic protists differ in their pH limits for growth and in their survival response when ex- posed to pH exceeding their limits for growth. In nature, algal blooms may lead to elevated pH (> 9). Our results suggest that such pH levels will kill many, but not all, heterotrophic protists. This may, at least temporarily, lead to a reduction in grazing control of such algal blooms, thereby further allowing their growth and persistence.


Epidemic models have become a routinely used tool to inform policy on infectious disease. A particular interest at the moment is the use of computationally intensive inference to parametrize these models. In this context, numerical efficiency is critically important. We consider methods for evaluating the probability mass function of the total number of infections over the course of a stochastic epidemic, with a focus on homogeneous finite populations, but also considering heterogeneous and large populations. Relevant methods are reviewed critically, with existing and novel extensions also presented. We provide code in Matlab and a systematic comparison of numerical efficiency.


There is an intensive need for the development of novel drugs for the treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), the most lethal gynecologic malignancy due to the high recurrence rate. TP53 mutation is a common event in EOC, particularly in high-grade serous ovarian cancer, where it occurs in more than 90% of cases. Recently, PRIMA-1 and PRIMA-1MET (p53 reactivation and induction of massive apoptosis and its methylated form) were shown to have an antitumor effect on several types of cancer. Despite that PRIMA-1MET is the first compound evaluated in clinical trials, the antitumor effects of PRIMA-1MET on EOC remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic potential of PRIMA-1MET for the treatment of EOC cells. PRIMA-1MET treatment of EOC cell lines (n=13) resulted in rapid apoptosis at various concentrations (24 h IC50 2.6–20.1 µM). The apoptotic response was independent of the p53 status and chemo-sensitivity. PRIMA-1MET treatment increased intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), and PRIMA-1MET-induced apoptosis was rescued by an ROS scavenger. Furthermore, RNA expression analysis revealed that the mechanism of action of PRIMA-1MET may be due to inhibition of antioxidant enzymes, such as Prx3 and GPx-1. In conclusion, our results suggest that PRIMA-1MET represents a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of ovarian cancer irrespective of p53 status and chemo-sensitivity.


HVdc and cable technologies exist today that permit offshore integration and planning of point-to-point dc links that can be expanded into HVdc grids. Several VSC HVdc links are now in operation offshore in the harsh North Sea environment. Following the rapid increase in power transmission capacity and loss reduction, several new projects in the gigawatt range are in the construction phase. The benefits of larger intercontinental grids are being demonstrated in several ongoing studies. The first MT HVdc networks can therefore be seen as initial building blocks on the way to a larger offshore grid.


Can the information content of a building be given meaning? Provided it can be modeled as a set of repeating parts the entropy of those parts can be measured. One way to do this is to make a LEGO® model then base the calculation on how many pieces of each type have been used. It is claimed that Lego is a language-like method of representing the built environment and that Lego pieces are analogous to words because their rank–frequency distribution follows a Zipf–Mandelbrot distribution similar to words in English. The zero-order entropy of Lego was measured to be about 8.5 bits, compared with 9.4 bits per word of English. Lego models of famous buildings were found to have entropy of between 6 and 10 bits per piece, giving a quantitative measure of how unusual their pieces were.


ABSTRACT Plant viruses have movement protein (MP) gene(s) essential for cell-to-cell movement in hosts. Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) requires its own coat protein (CP) in addition to the MP for intercellular movement. Our present results using variants of both CMV and a chimeric Brome mosaic virus with the CMV MP gene revealed that CMV MP truncated in its C-terminal 33 amino acids has the ability to mediate viral movement independently of CP. Coexpression of the intact and truncated CMV MPs extremely reduced movement of the chimeric viruses, suggesting that these heterogeneous CMV MPs function antagonistically. Sequential deletion analyses of the CMV MP revealed that the dispensability of CP occurred when the C-terminal deletion ranged between 31 and 36 amino acids and that shorter deletion impaired the ability of the MP to promote viral movement. This is the first report that a region of MP determines the requirement of CP in cell-to-cell movement of a plant virus.


One hundred and seventy-one children up to 15 years of age and with acute otalgia were examined to find out whether otalgia or any other symptoms were so closely related to acute otitis media (AOM) as to make otoscopic examination unnecessary. AOM was diagnosed in 46%, simplex otitis in 15%, serous otitis media (SOM) in 17%, and normal eardrums in 22%. Children with AOM had fever and spontaneous perforation of the eardrums in 78% and 30% of the cases, respectively. Of the children who had not AOM (54%), the otalgia could in most cases be classified as referred pain due to, for instance, discomfort when swallowing, nasal obstruction or throat pain. Other reasons were general irritability due to fever, teething or moderate hearing loss. The difficulties in diagnosing AOM simply on the basis of symptoms were demonstrated in the investigation. Symptoms such as otalgia, otorrhea, fever or upper respiratory tract infection (URI), possibly except for the combination of otorrhea and fever, can occur without AOM. A correct otoscopic examination and evaluation of the eardrums is necessary in children with otalgia, other symptoms of URI or in doubtful cases of acute illness. Physicians without possibilities to evaluate the eardrums properly should thus refer the patient to an otologist without delay.


This research is about matrilineal in the Minangkabau community from the perspective of the Qur'an. This research was made in order to answer the impression of differences in normative values in the Minangkabau custom with the reality found in the Minang community. In the debates of scientists there are those who agree or reject and some even agree with the record of matrilineal norms if they are associated with the Qur'an. The purpose is to find out how the Qur'an views the concept of Matri. The object of this study, anthropological value in the matrilineal concept adopted by the Minang tribe when viewed from the Qur'an. This research is a library reseach or library research. Data sources consist of primary sources such as the tafsir al-Maraghi, Ibn Katsir, Tafsir alMuyassar and Tafsir Hamka. Meanwhile, secondary data from books and journals as well as blogs about Anthropology and Minang culture are related to this research. The conclusion in this study is that the concept of matriarchate in the Minang tribe is not contrary to the universal values brought by the Qur'an and the concept of the Basandi Syarak custom, syarak basandi kitabullah is embodied in Minang society and is in line with the Qur'an.


Changes in the activity of the brush-border Na-H antiporter are accompanied by parallel changes in the activity of the Na-HCO3 cotransporter. Adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP) and calmodulin inhibit the Na-H antiporter, whereas protein kinase C (PKC) stimulates it. We hypothesized that cAMP, calmodulin, and PKC should have similar effects on the Na-HCO3 cotransporter activity. Phosphorylated renal basolateral membranes were treated with either cAMP, calmodulin, or phorbol ester. cAMP, 1 microM, inhibited HCO3-dependent 22Na uptake without affecting 22Na uptake in presence of gluconate, suggesting that cAMP inhibits Na-HCO3 cotransporter activity without altering diffusive 22Na uptake. The effect of cAMP to inhibit the Na-HCO3 cotransporter could also be elicited by the catalytic subunit of cAMP, and this inhibitory effect was prevented by the protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor. Calmodulin (1 microM), in presence of Ca, also inhibited HCO3-dependent 22Na uptake in presence of HCO3, whereas 22Na uptake in the presence of gluconate was unchanged. The inhibitory effect of calmodulin on HCO3-dependent 22Na uptake was prevented by N-(4-aminobutyl)-5-chloro-2-naphthalene sulfonamide (W-13), an inhibitor of calmodulin. Phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate and PKC stimulated Na-HCO3 cotransporter activity, whereas the inactive analogue, 4 alpha-phorbol, failed to elicit such a stimulation. Basolateral membranes displayed cAMP-dependent and Ca-dependent protein kinase activities. Thus PKA and Ca-dependent protein kinases regulate the activity of the Na-HCO3 cotransporter and suggest that hormones that act through these systems modulate the activity of the Na-HCO3 cotransporter.


p‐Values are commonly transformed to lower bounds on Bayes factors, so‐called minimum Bayes factors. For the linear model, a sample‐size adjusted minimum Bayes factor over the class of g‐priors on the regression coefficients has recently been proposed (Held & Ott, The American Statistician 70(4), 335–341, 2016). Here, we extend this methodology to a logistic regression to obtain a sample‐size adjusted minimum Bayes factor for 2 × 2 contingency tables. We then study the relationship between this minimum Bayes factor and two‐sided p‐values from Fisher's exact test, as well as less conservative alternatives, with a novel parametric regression approach. It turns out that for all p‐values considered, the maximal evidence against the point null hypothesis is inversely related to the sample size. The same qualitative relationship is observed for minimum Bayes factors over the more general class of symmetric prior distributions. For the p‐values from Fisher's exact test, the minimum Bayes factors do on average not tend to the large‐sample bound as the sample size becomes large, but for the less conservative alternatives, the large‐sample behaviour is as expected.


The overall aim of the ESA CAPACITY ('Composition of the Atmosphere: Progress to Applications in the user CommuITY') study (2003-2005) has been to define satellite components of a future operational system to monitor atmospheric composition for implementation by ESA/EU within the Space Component of GMES ('Sentinels 4/5'). Missing observational capabilities for an envisioned future integrated system to monitor atmospheric composition have been identified and the space elements needed to remedy these deficiencies have been defined. The principal time frame covers the period 2010 to 2020 concurrent with the EUMETSAT Polar System MetOp, MSG/MTG and non-European operational systems. Some recommendations have been formulated for the space elements of a post-EPS operational atmospheric composition system (>2020). The CAPACITY final report and technical notes are available via [1].


The purpose of this paper is to draw on the research and scholarly literature to explore the changing discourses and perspectives concerning adult learning, education, and the labour market in the employability regime. The focus of the analysis is a Nordic context. The dominant employability regime maintains a technical-rational perspective on learning and employability. Education is predominantly regarded as an instrumental preparation for the labour market. The future demands of the labour market are largely unknown, however, and vocational and professional training may not provide sufficient preparation for the increasing complexities of work. Theoretical discussions have been dominated by an alleged mismatch between individual competence and the qualifications that are required in the world of work. There is no consensus regarding how the gap should be described, explained, or bridged. New demands on educational design have emerged, and ideas related to liberal education and 'bildung' have been reinserted into the political agenda, offering general preparation for a wider array of challenges.


This article discusses about Greendroid mobile Application Processor. Dark silicon has emerged as the fundamental limiter in modern processor design. The Greendroid mobile application processor demonstrates an approach that uses dark silicon to execute general-purpose smart phone applications with less energy than today's most energy efficient designs.


In this paper we aim to investigate the demise of the DS-1 (Death Star I) Orbital Battle Station over the planet Yavin in the film "Star Wars: A New Hope" and propose any effects the explosion would have on Yavin IV. Kepler's 3rd law and Pythagoras Theorem are used to find the distance between Yavin IV and the Death Star, showing at the time of the explosion the Death Star is 1.17 × 1011 m away from Yavin IV. The flux density (irradiance) at the surface of Yavin IV is also calculated giving a value of 1.17 × 109 W m−2 , which we believe would be more than enough radiation to cause mass extinctions on Yavin IV, even at this extreme distance.


Recent advances in improving the spectroscopic energy resolution in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) have been achieved by integrating electron spin resonance (ESR) with STM. Here, we demonstrate the design and performance of a homebuilt STM capable of ESR at temperatures ranging from 1 to 10 K. The STM is incorporated with a homebuilt Joule-Thomson refrigerator and a two-axis vector magnet. Our STM design allows for the deposition of atoms and molecules directly into the cold STM, eliminating the need to extract the sample for deposition. In addition, we adopt two methods to apply radio-frequency (RF) voltages to the tunnel junction: the early design of wiring to the STM tip directly and a more recent idea to use an RF antenna. Direct comparisons of ESR results measured using the two methods and simulations of electric field distribution around the tunnel junction show that, despite their different designs and capacitive coupling to the tunnel junction, there is no discernible difference in the driving and detection of ESR. Furthermore, at a magnetic field of ∼1.6 T, we observe ESR signals (near 40 GHz) sustained up to 10 K, which is the highest temperature for ESR-STM measurement reported to date, to the best of our knowledge. Although the ESR intensity exponentially decreases with increasing temperature, our ESR-STM system with low noise at the tunnel junction allows us to measure weak ESR signals with intensities of a few fA. Our new design of an ESR-STM system, which is operational in a large frequency and temperature range, can broaden the use of ESR spectroscopy in STM and enable the simple modification of existing STM systems, which will hopefully accelerate a generalized use of ESR-STM.


The genus Lyssavirus comprises fifteen viral species including the archetype rabies virus (RABV). Lyssaviruses cause rabies disease that has a 100% case:fatality rate in humans, resulting in over 61,000 deaths/year and an annual financial burden of US$ 6 billion worldwide. A major aspect of viral infection is the capacity to evade host interferon (IFN)-mediated innate antiviral immunity, and it has been reported that RABV uses a unique mechanism to achieve this through selective targeting of IFN-activated STAT (signal transducer and activator of transcription) proteins by the viral phosphoprotein (P). The interaction of P-protein with STAT1 and STAT2 has been assumed to be critical to disease and to thereby represent a potential target for antiviral drugs and virus attenuation strategies for vaccine development. However, at commencement of the project described in this thesis, the precise binding site and specific residues of P-protein involved in the interaction with STATs had not been identified, so that no virus defective for this interaction had been generated. As a result, the genuine importance of P-protein:STAT interaction in infection and disease and its value as a therapeutic target was unknown. To address this, a comparative study of IFN/STAT antagonist functions of P-proteins from a panel of lyssaviruses representative of the evolutionary diversity in the genus, and of differing pathogenicity was performed. This revealed that the selective targeting of IFN-activated STATs by P-proteins is broadly conserved among lyssaviruses, indicative of importance to infection. However, subtle differences were observed in the interaction and inhibition of STATs by specific P-proteins. This enabled targeted sequence/structure analysis and site-directed mutagenesis to characterise the STAT-binding site for the first time, by identifying specific residues within a hydrophobic pocket of the P-protein C-terminal domain (CTD), the 'W-hole', that are critical for P-protein:STAT interaction and, thereby, antagonism of IFN-dependent antiviral responses. Importantly, although RABV P-protein is a multifunctional protein with essential roles in viral genome replication and transcription, we showed that mutation of the W-hole does not affect these functions, indicating that this region represents a highly specific, distinct site for STAT interaction. These findings enabled the generation of the first mutant lyssavirus specifically deficient for STAT interaction (STAT-blind virus). Growth of STAT-blind virus was indistinguishable from parental wild-type (WT) virus in cells that cannot produce IFN, but was strongly impaired following exposure to IFN, indicative of greatly increased IFN sensitivity. This showed that immune evasion functions of RABV P-protein are separable from its other key functions in infection, and provided the first structural insights into how P-protein can coordinate its diverse functions, a fundamentally important aspect of viral biology. Importantly, infection of mice indicated that growth of the STAT-blind virus is strongly attenuated in the brain, producing no major neurological symptoms or fatalities compared with the invariably lethal parental WT virus. This provides the first direct evidence that P-protein interaction with STATs in the central nervous system (CNS) is critical to the development of lethal rabies in vivo, and that STAT antagonism per se represents a potent target for viral attenuation. The characterisation of the P-protein STAT-binding interface, and of specific attenuating mutations therein, is significant to efforts to develop new vaccines/therapeutics for currently incurable lyssavirus infection.


This article reviews the carmaker-driven industrial restructurings that positioned First Tier Suppliers (henceforth FTS) at the heart of the world's automobile system. It also draws necessarily temporary conclusions about their performance. The article is organised into three main sections. The first recaps the major transformations induced by modularity that affected inter-firm vertical relationships and highlights the challenges facing FTS. The second uses a ranking of the 30 leading automobile suppliers to analyse the instability of their global hierarchy. The final section focuses on three questions that became key for suppliers: profitability; RD and internationalisation. Most analysis involves a statistical study of a sample of 20 companies. The three sections converge to reveal a diversity of automobile supplier trajectories, in terms of both their intrinsic performance and the new kinds of operational modes they have operated within their vertical relationships. .


Background Epilepsy, multiple sclerosis (MS), and depression are chronic conditions where technology holds potential in clinical monitoring and self-management. Over 5 years, the Remote Assessment of Disease and Relapse - Central Nervous System (RADAR-CNS) consortium has explored the application of remote measurement technology (RMT) to the management and self-management of patients in these clinical areas. The consortium is large and includes clinical and nonclinical researchers as well as a patient advisory board. Objective This formative development study aimed to understand how consortium members viewed the potential of RMT in epilepsy, MS, and depression. Methods In this qualitative survey study, we developed a methodological tool, universal points of care (UPOC), to gather views on the potential use, acceptance, and value of a novel RMT platform across 3 chronic conditions (MS, epilepsy, and depression). UPOC builds upon use case scenario methodology, using expert elicitation and analysis of care pathways to develop scenarios applicable across multiple conditions. After developing scenarios, we elicited views on the potential of RMT in these different scenarios through a survey administered to 28 subject matter experts, consisting of 16 health care practitioners; 5 health care services researchers; and 7 people with lived experience of MS, epilepsy, or depression. Survey results were analyzed thematically and using an existing framework of factors describing links between design and context. Results The survey elicited potential beneficial applications of the RADAR-CNS RMT system as well as patient, clinical, and nonclinical requirements of RMT across the 3 conditions of interest. Potential applications included recognition of early warning signs of relapse from subclinical signals for MS, seizure precipitant signals for epilepsy, and behavior change in depression. RMT was also thought to have the potential to overcome the problem of underreporting, which is especially problematic in epilepsy, and to allow the capture of secondary symptoms that are not generally collected in MS, such as mood. Conclusions Respondents suggested novel and unanticipated uses of RMT, including the use of RMT to detect emerging side effects of treatment, enable behavior change for sleep regulation and activity, and offer a way to include family and other carers in a care network, which could assist with goal setting. These suggestions, together with others from this and related work, will inform the development of the system for its eventual application in research and clinical practice. The UPOC methodology was effective in directing respondents to consider the value of health care technologies in condition-specific experiences of everyday life and working practice.


Since 2000, important advances have been made worldwide in the dendrochronology of wood associated with past human activity and cultural heritage. This review summarizes this recent progress in regions with a longstanding tradition of using tree-ring methods, such as Europe and the USA, as well as others such as Asia where developments have been particularly rapid in recent years. The oldest wood generally originates from archaeological sites and the largest amount of wood for research comes from historical structures such as monumental and vernacular architecture. In addition to construction wood, wooden doors, ceilings, furniture, objects of art (such as panel paintings and sculptures), Medieval books, musical instruments and boats can also be utilized. Dating is the first and crucial step of the research and is often difficult even in regions where dendrochronology has a long history of use. In addition to absolute dates, dendrochronology has provided extra information that has enhanced historical knowledge from other sources. Behavioral and environmental inferencing and dendroprovenancing are becoming major areas of research in regions with well-developed networks of reference chronologies and active cooperation among laboratories. The online Bibliography of Dendrochronology and information from conferences have been indispensable in this compilation, because much work related to dendrochronology in cultural heritage is still published in "gray" literature, making it difficult to access.


Collective action is important when the activities and costs of restoration cannot all be internalized by the government or when urgent maintenance is required beyond the scope of the restoration project. Collective action can be influenced by social capital. In this study, we examine components of social capital and the factors that affect them. Using key informant interview, household survey, and participant observation, we also identify the extent to which social capital is related to collective action. We found that women farmer groups have high social capital, which has led to strong collective action. Social capital in Dompas' women groups is characterized by the norms of trust and reciprocity. Strong trust and reciprocity are driven by shared culture and values and supported by kinship. Social capital arises from and is reflected in the interactions between individuals in the group. It is naturally embedded within the community, supported by strong motivation and commitment, primarily to improve the family welfare. The social capital established influenced and drove collective action, which contributes to successful management of the women farmer groups' action arena. This paper highlights the evidence of social capital and its relation to collective action in a case from restoration in the Global South. We suggest that for a restoration action to successfully mobilize voluntary, active participation from the community, the intervention should be designed with an emphasis on establishing social capital.


The study aimed to build a risk metric for finding the lower boundary limits for Altman's z-score bankruptcy model. The new metric included a volatility of Altman's variables and predicted the riskiness of a firm bankrupting in adverse situations. The research examined whether the new risk metric is feasible and whether it provides satisfying outcomes compared to Altman's z-score values during the same period. The methods to conduct the analysis were based on Value at Risk methodology. The main tools used in constructing the model were Monte Carlo simulation, Lehmer random number generator, normal and t-distribution, matrices and Cholesky decomposition. The sample firms were selected from FTSE 250 index. The important variables used in the analysis were all Altman's z-score variables, and the period under observation was 2001–2007. The selected risk horizon was the first quarter of 2008. The first results were promising and showed that the model does work to the specified extent. The research demonstrated that Altman's z-score does not provide a full and accurate overview. Therefore, the lower bound risk metric developed in this research, produces valuable supplementary information for a well-informed decision making. To verify the model, it must be back- and forward tested, neither of which was carried out in this research. Furthermore, the research elaborated on limitations and suggested further improvement options for the model.


Chronic environmental exposure to arsenic in drinking water is a major public health concern affecting the health of more than 130 million people worldwide. In addition to causing cancer and non-cancer diseases, arsenic causes muscle weakness and dysfunction. We found that arsenic targets muscle stem cell mitochondrial functionality to impair muscle maintenance and regeneration. Stem cell behavior was determined by their epigenetic memory. Although mitochondrial remodeling is inescapable for successful differentiation and pluripotency reprogramming and mitochondria-derived outputs shape cellular epigenetic landscape, their role in the regulation of cellular memory is poorly understood. Arsenic is a mitochondrial stressor and epigenetic modifier that alters stem-cell fate determination making it an excellent tool to determine the mitochondrial contribution to regulation of cellular memory and fate decisions. Using a model of myogenic differentiation, we imprinted a memory of arsenite-induced stress into myogenic reserve cells (RC) and monitored the fate of their progeny in arsenic-free medium. Phenotyping of primed RC revealed inherited aberrant mitochondrial dynamics that limited self-renewal capacity and enhanced their proliferation; trapping them in a poised state. Non-Gaussian statistics demonstrated that nuclear protein profiles and morphometrics were distributed as power-laws, indicating the presence of critical self-organization at the cell population level. Using graph theory, we modeled the mitochondria and showed an increased connectivity of the primed RC progeny mitochondrial networks. We identified crucial interplay of H2A.Z acetylation with RNA polymerase II at bivalent chromatin domains that define chromatin state and transcriptional plasticity of the primed RC. Importantly, the intervention by mitochondria-targeted XJB-5-131 fully restored mitochondrial functionality and dynamics, RC cellular phenotypic identity, nuclear morphometrics, and epigenetic regulation that reset RC memory including histone modifications. Collectively, this work demonstrated that poising of chromatin regulation and cellular memory are fundamentally contingent on mitochondrial functionality and dynamics. Furthermore, we provided an innovative conceptual framework whereby cellular memory and cell fate are statistical properties defined at the cell population level by intricate mechanisms integrated at the mitochondrial level and governed by power laws. Significantly, the beneficial effects of XJB-5-131 suggest a window of opportunity for preventing or reverting disease resulting from stem cell dysfunction.


An isothermal two-phase ternary mixture model that takes into account conservation of momentum, mass, and species in the anode of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is presented and analyzed. The slenderness of the anode allows a considerable reduction of the mathematical formulation, without sacrificing the essential physics. The reduced model is then verified and validated against data obtained from an experimental DMFC outfitted with a transparent end plate. Good agreement is achieved. The effect of mass-transfer resistances in the flow field and porous backing are highlighted. The presence of a gas phase is shown to improve the mass transfer of methanol at higher temperatures (>30 degreesC). It is also found that at a temperature of around 30 degreesC, a one-phase model predicts the same current density distribution as a more sophisticated two-phase model. Analysis of the results from the two-phase model, in combination with the experiments, results in a suggestion for an optimal flow field for the liquid-fed DMFC.


In order to study the extent to which rumen soluble nitrogen can contribute to the intestinal flow, a study was carried out to simultaneously assess the dynamics of protein disappearance from dacron bags placed in the rumen and the amount of various N products in the rumen fluid (total nitrogen (tN), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), non-ammonia nitrogen (NAN)). The measurements were carried out on 4 sheep fed successively various red clover forages. These forages included the initial growth of fresh red clover (50% bud, first flower, and full flower). In addition, one silage and one wrapped big bale at the first flower stage and two wrapped big bales (harvested at 51% and 71% dry matter) at the full flower stage were given. The effective degradability of nitrogen (DegN) for a fresh forage estimated from the nylon bag procedure did not vary (p > 0.05) with the vegetation stage (0.727 for the bud stage, 0.694 at the first flower, 0.706 at the full flower). The DegN of the silage was higher (p < 0.05; 0.735) and the DegN of the wrapped big bale was markedly lower (p < 0.05; 0.660), than the original fresh forage at the first flower. The DegN of the wrapped big bales made at 51 and 71% DM, respectively, were 0.625 and 0.604 against 0.706 for fresh forage at the full flower stage. The concentrations of tN and NAN in the rumen fluid were low, highest 1 h to 2 h after feeding, and then decreasing up to 7 h after feeding whatever the growth stage and conservation mode. A part of the solubilised nitrogen remained as protein 1 h after feeding for fresh red clover harvested at various growth stages, while minimal protein could be seen in the rumen fluid after the sheep were fed silage or wrapped big bales. The part of NAN escaping rumen degradation and transiting with the rumen fluid was between 7 and 13% of the nitrogen disappearing from the nylon bags (NAN/CP x DegN) placed in the rumen. There was only a small difference for forages at different stages of growth, or modes of conservation. This fraction was higher for wrapped big bales and particularly for the late stage forage (wrapped big bale, 71% DM, harvested at the full flower stage).


Abstract. An intercomparison between 10 single-column (SCM) and 5 large-eddy simulation (LES) models is presented for a radiation fog case study inspired by the LANFEX field campaign. 7 of the SCMs represent single-column equivalents of operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, whilst 3 are research-grade SCMs designed for fog simulation, and the LES are designed to reproduce in the best manner currently possible the underlying physical processes governing fog formation. The LES model results are of variable quality, and do not provide a consistent baseline against which to compare the NWP models, particularly under high aerosol or cloud droplet number (CDNC) conditions. The main SCM bias appears to be toward over-development of fog, i.e. fog which is too thick, although the inter-model variability is large. In reality there is a subtle balance between water lost to the surface and water condensed into fog, and the ability of a model to accurately simulate this process strongly determines the quality of its forecast. Some NWP-SCMs do not represent fundamental components of this process (e.g. cloud droplet sedimentation) and therefore are naturally hampered in their ability to deliver accurate simulations. Finally, we show that modelled fog development is as sensitive to the shape of the cloud droplet size distribution, a rarely studied or modified part of the microphysical parametrization, as it is to the underlying aerosol or CDNC.


A case of bilateral renal artery stenosis and aneurysms in association with neurofibromatosis and hypertension is discussed and the literature is reviewed. In patients with neurofibromatosis and hypertension, the association of pheochromocytomas is well known. The association of renal of renal vascular lesions must also be recognized. In children with neurofibromatosis and hypertension, renal artery stenosis is far more common than pheochromocytoma. In adults aneurysms often accompany the renal artery stenosis. Laboratory studies, as well as most intravenous pyelograms, have been normal and, therefore, unreliable for screening. Angiography is essential in the investigation of hypertension in patients with neurofibromatosis.


Thermal pollution can have considerable influence on water temperature in freshwater systems notably affecting stratification (Kirillin et al., 2013). Consequences can be seen across the entire aquatic food web including benthic organisms (Barnett, 1971), algae (Cairns, 1971) and fish (Sylvester, 1972). The increased usage of aquatic systems as sinks and sources of heat necessitates detailed investigations of the impact of thermal pollution on lakes and reservoirs. Here we investigate the impact of thermal pollution on temperature and heat fluxes in the perialpine Lake Biel (7°10'E, 47°5'N, 39.3 km2 and 74 m deep). The lake has a short hydraulic residence time of only 58 days and is under strong influence of the Aare tributary. The source of the thermal pollution, the Muhleberg Nuclear Power Plant, is located 20 km upstream. The plant emits 700 MW as cooling water into the Aare River. Consequently, as the river enters the lake, it is heated locally by up to 4.5 °C. The aim of our study is to provide guidelines regarding model selection for studies of thermal pollution in similar aquatic systems. Materials and methods The thermal consequences of the Muhleberg Nuclear Power Plant for Lake Biel was investigated with two hydrodynamic models. We used the one-dimensional model SIMSTRAT (Goudsmit et al., 2002) and the three-dimensional model Delft3D-Flow version 6.01.07.3574 (Deltares, 2016). The power plant is up for decommissioning scheduled for 2019. The influence of thermal pollution was therefore investigated by running the models with and without thermal emission. The temporal variability of the lake was analyzed for a cold (April to March 2010/2011) and a warm period (April to March 2013/2014). Results and discussion We observe a strong seasonal dependence in the response of Lake Biel to thermal pollution. By removing the thermal pollution the lake cools down by -0.3 °C between October and March. The corresponding value from April to September was -0.1 °C. The impact was marginally stronger for the warm period compared to the cold period. The majority of thermal pollution ( 60 %) leaves Lake Biel through the Aare outflow. This is due to the lake's short retention time and the short distance between the Aare inflow and outflow ( 8 km). Surprisingly we were able to reproduce this throughflow accurately even with the one-dimensional model. The reason being the high discharge of the Aare which quickly flushes the incoming heat out of the lake. The flushing was likewise observed in the three- dimensional model. This model could furthermore resolve the path of the river intrusion within the lake. We could identify periods where the river water travelled along the shoreline directly from the inflow to the outflow, thereby short-cutting the lake. Additionally the spatial impact of thermal pollution was, as expected, better resolved by the three- dimensional model. With observed temperature fluctuations up to –4.5 °C in Delft3D-Flow and –1.8 °C in SIMSTRAT. We argue that three-dimensional models should be used to assess the spatial impact of extreme levels of thermal pollution, which can have severe impact on biota. For overall system assessment one-dimensional models are sufficient. However, care is required for aquatic systems with short distance between the thermal source input and outflow.


Background: Pancreatic islets of Langerhans originate from endocrine progenitors within the pancreatic ductal epithelium. Concomitant with differentiation of these progenitors into hormone-producing cells such cells delaminate, aggregate and migrate away from the ductal epithelium. The cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating islet cell delamination and cell migration are poorly understood. Extensive biochemical and cell biological studies using cultured cells demonstrated that Rac1, a member of the Rho family of small GTPases, acts as a key regulator of cell migration. Results: To address the functional role of Rac1 in islet morphogenesis, we generated transgenic mice expressing dominant negative Rac1 under regulation of the Rat Insulin Promoter. Blocking Rac1 function in beta cells inhibited their migration away from the ductal epithelium in vivo . Consistently, transgenic islet cell spreading was compromised in vitro . We also show that the EGF-receptor ligand betacellulin induced actin remodelling and cell spreading in wild-type islets, but not in transgenic islets. Finally, we demonstrate that cell-cell contact E-cadherin increased as a consequence of blocking Rac1 activity. Conclusion: Our data support a model where Rac1 signalling controls islet cell migration by modulating E-cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesion. Furthermore, in vitro experiments show that betacellulin stimulated islet cell spreading and actin remodelling is compromised in transgenic islets, suggesting that betacellulin may act as a regulator of Rac1 activity and islet migration in vivo . Our results further emphasize Rac1 as a key regulator of cell migration and cell adhesion during tissue and organ morphogenesis.


sonohysterography & invited to enter the SISES study. Ninetyeight patients were prospectively recruited. SISES was performed at the end of sonohysterography using a Uterine Explora II Curette at the sight of the endometrial abnormality or at a representative site in the uterine cavity if the endometrial cavity was normal. The histopathologic diagnoses of EMB & SISES were compared to a gold-standard pathological diagnosis obtained on hysteroscopyD&C or hysterectomy specimen. Kappa values for the two different sampling techniques were compared. Results: Eighty-eight SISES samples were obtained. The Kappa between SISES & final pathology was 0.37 (0.20, 0.53). When comparing EMB to final pathology diagnoses, the Kappa was only 0.13 (−0.03, 0.29). EMB underestimated the incidence of pathology, especially when focal lesions & malignancy were present. This difference was statistically significant, with a P-value of 0.0448. Sonohysterography outperformed both sampling techniques, with a Kappa of 0.74 (0.63, 0.86).


Fuzzing, or random testing, is an increasingly popular testing technique. The power of the approach lies in its ability to generate a large number of useful test cases without consuming expensive manpower. Furthermore, because of the randomness, it can often produce unusual cases that would be beyond the awareness of a human tester. In this paper, we present Grammarinator, a general purpose test generator tool that is able to utilize existing parser grammars as models. Since the model can act both as a parser and as a generator, the tool can provide the capabilities of both generation and mutation-based fuzzers. The presented tool is actively used to test various JavaScript engines and has found more than 100 unique issues.


This study conducts dynamics analysis on acceleration phase and uniform phase of the sprint, finds that athletes whose physical condition is not dominant can compensate for this deficiency by changing angle e between the reaction force F and the ground. Build nonlinear regression models according to the scores of the top three of the past 30 yearsÂ' track and field world championships menÂ's hectometer. The research results show that the top three time and annual of menÂ's hectometer are in negative correlation, indicating thatmenÂ's hectometer scores are steadily improving. Conduct scores forecast on the top three of the 2013 track and fieldWorld Championship menÂ's hectometer, the performance is 9.84 seconds, 9.97 seconds and 10.01 seconds respectively. This study helps athletes to strengthen the key projects training on the basis of comprehensive training, to improve their physical fitness, and thus improve competition scores on certain degree.


This study examined the comparison in retention of information between watching a movie scene and reading a movie script from that scene. There have been controversies on how technology has impacted retention of information among students. The use of technologies can create distractions among those who use it, which may lead to a lower rate of remembered information. I conducted an experiment using block randomization. We looked at a sample of 20 students who either read a movie script or watched a movie scene. After the experiment, each participant was asked to complete a 5-question quiz assessing their knowledge on the scene. The relationship between retention of information after reading a movie script (M = 4.200; SD = 1.135) versus watching the film clip (M = 3.600; SD = 1.264) was not statistically significant.


Several pelagic fish populations in the upper San Francisco Estuary have recently declined to historically low abundances, prompting an interest in the status of their food supply. Previous studies have indicated that the primary food supply for metazoans in the Delta is phytoplankton productivity, and the long-term decrease in phytoplankton over the last few decades may very well play a role in the long-term decline of pelagic fish abundance. Regional phytoplankton biomass trends during 1996–2005, however, are positive in the Delta and neutral in Suisun Bay, the two major sub-regions of the upper estuary. The trend in Delta primary productivity is also positive. Changes in phytoplankton biomass and production during the last decade are therefore unlikely to be the cause of these more recent metazoan declines. The main source of interannual phytoplankton variability in the Delta during 1996–2005, including the upward trend, appears to have been freshwater flow variability and its effect on particle residence time. This conclusion is supported by trend analyses; the concurrence of these time trends at widely-separated stations; empirical models at the annual and monthly time scales; particle residence time estimates; and experience from other estuaries. A significant temperature increase was also noticed, at least partially independent of flow changes, but its net effect on the phytoplankton community is unknown because of differential effects on growth and loss processes. Phytoplankton biomass in Suisun Bay, in contrast to the Delta, did not increase during 1996–2005. Consistent with this observation, Suisun Bay phytoplankton exhibited relatively low responsiveness to flow variability. This behavior differs from earlier chlorophyll-flow relationships reported in the literature. The reason appears to be the invasion of Suisun Bay by a clam—Corbula amurensis—in 1986, which has since maintained the phytoplankton community mostly at low levels by vigorous filter-feeding. In the past, flows into Suisun Bay generally diluted the higher phytoplankton concentrations within the bay; now they bring in higher phytoplankton concentrations from upstream. The supply of phytoplankton carbon to Suisun Bay has always been dominated by allochthonous sources, at least for mean flow conditions. Now this dominance must be even more pronounced.


This thesis presents the design and instigation of a new optical imaging survey to search for stellar variability, exoplanets and solar system bodies. The data collection was carried out using the Moses Holden Telescope based at Alston Observatory, Preston UK. Over the course of 183 nights from our first observing season and 3 nights from our second season (with actual observing achieved on 25 nights from season 1) the survey obtained 3728 images, and obtained at least 200 repeat observations for 29,399 objects.
Preliminary analysis indicates a total of 430 stars display variability above 3σ, thereby increasing the number of known variables in the survey region by a factor of at least 200. Ongoing observations and analysis will classify the various forms of variability, and further push down the thresholds for detection of variability to allow the detection of transiting exoplanets.


Tim Johnston Introduction After half a century of almost uninterrupted economic growth, we have largely forgotten to factor in the potential impact of sustained economic weakness when analysing geopolitical risk. Global economic growth has slowed substantially since the heady days before the financial crisis of 2008. The advanced Western economies have barely recovered, and, after decades of average growth of 10% in China, Beijing says the Chinese economy is now expanding at 6.7%— a figure many external analysts believe is optimistic. There's little sign of a return to pre-financial-crisis growth rates any time soon. The potential dangers of a prolonged economic trough are global, but in East Asia many governments depend on their ability to deliver economic growth either to fulfil election promises, in the case of the democracies, or to justify their continued monopoly on power, in the case of the autocracies.


Modern photonics is being revolutionized through the use of nanostructured plasmonic materials, which confine light to sub-diffraction limit resolution providing universal, sensitive, and simple transducers for molecular sensors. Understanding the mechanisms by which light interacts with plasmonic crystals is essential for developing application-focussed devices. The strong influence of grating coupling on electromagnetic field distribution, frequency and degeneracy of plasmon bands has now been characterized using hexagonal nanohole arrays. An equation for nanohole arrays was derived to demonstrate the strong influence of incidence and rotation angle on optical properties of 2D plasmonic crystals such as nanohole arrays. Consequently, we report experimental data that are in strong agreement with finite difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations that clearly demonstrate the influence of the grating coupling conditions on the optical properties (such as plasmon degeneracy and bandwidth), and on the distribution of the plasmon field around nanohole arrays (including tuneable penetration depths and highly localized fields). The tuneable 3D plasmon field allowed for controlled sensing properties and by increasing the angle of incidence to 30 degrees, the resonance wavelength was tuned from 1000 to 600 nm, and the sensitivity was enhanced by nearly 300% for a protein assay using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and by 40% with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors.


A single injection of either 5 or 10 mg/kg 8-methoxypsoralen (8-MOP) was given intraperitoneally to male rats at the end of the 14 h light phase (at 2000 h). Two h later (at 2200 h), when the normal nocturnal surge of N-acetyltransferase (NAT) activity and melatonin content in the pineal gland had begun in vehicle-injected controls, mean pineal NAT after the 10 mg/kg 8-MOP was 1.8-fold higher than that after vehicle, though pineal melatonin content did not differ between vehicle- and drug-injected rats. By 4 h into the dark period (at 2400 h), the NAT activity in both 8-MOP injected groups of rats was greater than that in vehicle treated animals; again, however, 8-MOP treatment did not influence the pineal melatonin content. At 0200 h (6 h into the dark period), the difference between the NAT activity in pineals of rats treated with 5 mg/kg 8-MOP and the vehicle was not statistically significant, but the animals that received 10 mg/kg drug still had statistically elevated levels of the serotonin acetylating enzyme. At 0200 h the pineal melatonin levels were equivalent among the three treatment groups. Rats given 5mg/kg 8-MOP always had NAT values intermediate between those of rats injected with vehicle and those that received 10 mg/kg 8-MOP suggesting that the NAT response to the drug was dose related. These results show that the pineal response to psoralen involves an elevation of NAT activity without a commensurate change in the melatonin content of the gland.


ABSTRACT Wireless sensor networks suffer from limited resources, in particular finite energy supply. A common way to save energy is reducing radio transmissions by using in-network data aggregation, which is very sensitive to non-cooperative nodes, e.g., nodes that have been compromised by an attacker. Usually, security to such attacks can only be achieved by spending considerably more energy. In this paper, we present the ESAWN framework, a highly customizable protocol for secure in-network data aggregation. The main contribution of ESAWN is providing gracefully degrading security guarantees, in particular dataauthenticity. Instead of providing 'full' authenticity, we only assure an aggregate to be authentic with a given probability. This is done by propagating aggregates on redundant paths, allowing other nodes to check correctness. Hence, a user can trade-off security against energy in a very fine-grained manner. We present both analytical and MICA2-based simulation results, showing the practicality of our approach. For example, with 10% compromised nodes, ESAWN saves, up to 70% energy while degrading authenticity by 5%.


Accurately identifying hands in images is a key sub-task for human activity understanding with wearable first-person point-of-view cameras. Traditional hand segmentation approaches rely on a large corpus of manually labeled data to generate robust hand detectors. However, these approaches still face challenges as the appearance of the hand varies greatly across users, tasks, environments or illumination conditions. A key observation in the case of many wearable applications and interfaces is that, it is only necessary to accurately detect the user's hands in a specific situational context. Based on this observation, we introduce an interactive approach to learn a person-specific hand segmentation model that does not require any manually labeled training data. Our approach proceeds in two steps, an interactive bootstrapping step for identifying moving hand regions, followed by learning a personalized user specific hand appearance model. Concretely, our approach uses two convolutional neural networks: (1) a gesture network that uses pre-defined motion information to detect the hand region; and (2) an appearance network that learns a person specific model of the hand region based on the output of the gesture network. During training, to make the appearance network robust to errors in the gesture network, the loss function of the former network incorporates the confidence of the gesture network while learning. Experiments demonstrate the robustness of our approach with an F1 score over 0.8 on all challenging datasets across a wide range of illumination and hand appearance variations, improving over a baseline approach by over 10%.


The present study aims to investigate the possibility of using wind energy in some regions of Zanjan province. The current research concentrates on computing the wind energy potential and wind power density. Furthermore, some features related to wind for two locations in Zanjan province have been obtained. Feasibility study of wind energy utilization and computing of wind power density and wind power potential has been widely (Extensively-comprehensively) conducted for Zanjan province. First, two locations in Zanjan province have been considered to analyze the data at a reasonable level of province and to avoid over-focusing on one area. Thereafter, the statistics about wind speed were achieved from the Renewable Energy Organization of Iran in ten-minute intervals and included wind speeds at the heights of 30,10, and 40 m and wind directions at heights of 30 and 37.5 m. Finally, various wind features have been investigated for given locations in Zanjan province. The results demonstrate that the annual wind speed for Soltanieh and Tarom in the height of 40 m were 4.81 m/s and 3.93 m / s, respectively. The highest value U_me and U_mp is calculated, It was observed at a height of 40 m at Soltanie, It is 11.35 m / s and 1.27 m / s, respectively. Also, the performance of several wind turbines in the mentioned areas has been investigated. Finally, a suitable wind turbine has been identified.


For the past fifty years, critics and scholars have been searching for a critical language to explain the work of Britain's most successful playwright, Harold Pinter. One of the richer paths of enquiry has been to analyse the plays using a psychoanalytic vocabulary. In general terms, however, most of these studies have been restricted to using a Freudian terminology.
This study develops the psychoanalytic tradition of Pinter studies by applying the theories of one of Freud's successors, Melanie Klein. The study has been undertaken through an analysis of play texts to develop a synthesis of Kleinian theory and Pinter. Klein's work develops Freudianism by exploring the primitive building blocks of the infant's mind.
Chapter 1 introduces the thesis argument and gives a detailed introduction to Pinter's background and his work as writer. Chapter 2 provides an examination of the fundamental elements of Klein's theories in the context of Freud's own ideas. Chapter 3 uses Klein's theory of dreams to analyse Pinter's earlier work and argues that the plays explore complex unconscious phantasies of relations to bad and good objects. A further contribution is made to psychoanalytic vocabulary with the introduction of the notion of the split object. Chapter 4 explores the manic- depressive aspects of The Dwarfs, whilst Chapter 5 is a close reading that argues that The Caretaker can be read through the lens of the characters' anxious attempt to repair 'objects' damaged in phantasy. Chapter 6 provides a detailed Kleinian exegesis of The Homecoming and then Pinter's later work in considered: his memory plays, and his work after 1980, including his overtly political work and his last plays including Ashes to Ashes and Celebration. In this chapters Kleinian lexis is employed to get at the unconscious undercurrents of the plays.
Throughout, along with a specific emphasis on the characters' unconscious anxieties and relations to objects, the relationship between society, the historical moment and the text are considered.


The intent of this dissertation was to move toward a constructive grounded theory that portrayed the ways in which parents of preschool children with disabilities make meaning of their children's social relationships. The rationale for this inquiry emerged from the confluence of four complex discourses: typical child development discourses with particular attention paid to the importance of social development; family discourses with particular attention paid to the role of the family in a child's social development; disability discourses with particular attention paid to the unique challenges families face in supporting the social development of their children with disabilities; and early childhood special education discourses related to family-centered approaches to educational intervention. Narrative vignettes were used to present the ground of the study. These vignettes were generated from conversational interviews with parents of preschool children with disabilities. Emerging meanings were constructed using a number of conventions of grounded theory analysis and include four conceptual categories: choosing your own reality, holding onto hope, striving to make connections, and struggling for recognition. Additionally, the core concept of living with "shifting pictures" in a kaleidoscopic world is discussed. This kaleidoscope metaphor is utilized as parents seem to struggle to find a place of belonging for their children represented by symmetry, while simultaneously struggling to avoid social isolation represented by asymmetry. However, as the research process moved toward culmination a variety of issues began to surface including a narrative shift from the more specific understanding of social relationships to an understanding of the myriad of concerns families face when parenting a preschool child with a disability. These concerns are discussed along with a critique of my use of interpretative grounded theory methods. Implications for practice include the reframing of normal, and the use of empathetic witnessing and reflection as core concepts of early intervention pre-service training and practice. Possible directions for future study may be the effects of HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and FERPA (The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) on the social relationships of children with disabilities, and an exploration of what sense of belonging parents may or may not have for their children with disabilities.


OBJECTIVE To review family physicians' role in investigation and management of infertile couples. QUALITY OF EVIDENCE MEDLINE and PubMed were searched using the MeSH headings infertility, advanced maternal age, polycystic ovarian syndrome, clomiphene citrate, and insulin sensitizers. Bibliographies of review articles and textbooks were also searched. Review articles, randomized trials, observational studies, and case series are cited. MAIN MESSAGE Approximately 8% of Canadian couples have difficulty conceiving. Mother's age significantly affects ability to conceive. Infertility assessment focuses on ovulatory dysfunction, tubal factors, sexual factors, and male factors. Women older than 35 years more than 12 months infertile; women younger than 35 more than 18 months infertile; women likely to have such problems as anovulation, tubal disease, or endometriosis; women whose partners' semen tests abnormal; and women who request referral should be referred. Patients treated with clomiphene citrate should be aware of its potential side effects. CONCLUSION Family physicians have an important role in preconception counseling. Detailed and focused assessment facilitates initial investigations and treatment and can identify couples who could benefit from referral for further assessment.


Aim: Controversies exist on the optimal diagnostic workup for neonates with esophageal atresia (EA) with/without tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF). Aim of this study was to describe the current diagnostic policies in EA/TEF patients enrolled in an International multicenter registry. Methods: All patients consecutively registered from July 2014 to December 2017 in the EUPSA Esophageal Atresia Registry (EUPSA-EAR) were included in the study. Data related to diagnostic investigations among Centers forming the EUPSA-EAR were analyzed. Main Results: During the study period, 374 consecutive patients were recorded by 23 Centers. The majority of patients underwent chest X-rays, echocardiography, abdominal ultrasound, and abdominal X-rays. Preoperative bronchoscopy and esophageal gap measurement were performed in one third of the patients. Conclusions: Present data from a large cohort of patients from the EUPSA-EAR show both inter-institutional and intra-institutional variability in diagnostic workup of patients with EA/TEF. Efforts should be made to develop guidelines on the diagnostic workup for EA/TEF patients.


Current business-critical systems have stringent requirements for the significant and measurable increase in the end-to-end intelligence, security, scalability, self-adaptation and resilience. Existing state-of-the-art messaging systems achieve arbitrary resilience by a brute-force approach. Selfhealing is either rudimentary or non-existent. In this study we present a self-healing and secure adaptive messaging middleware that provides solutions to overcome limitations in robustness, resilience, self-adaptability, scalability, and assurance against security threats and erroneous input during run-time in the face of changing threats. This developed system supports a messaging infrastructure which enables adaptive functions and assurance against security vulnerabilities and erroneous input vulnerabilities to improve the reliability, robustness and dependability of business-critical infrastructures. It provides autonomous adjustments of the run-time configuration of the system in order to preserve and maintain optimal and uninterrupted operation, improvement of the strength of security and degree of trust in the system, and improvement of the assessability and verifiability of the trustworthiness of the system. The methodology used in this research is partly analytical and partly experimental. We develop the new core functionalities theoretically and validate them practically by prototyping.


Small‐bodied terrestrial animals such as songbirds (Order Passeriformes) are especially vulnerable to hail‐induced mortality; yet, hail events are challenging to predict, and they often occur in locations where populations are not being studied. Focusing on nesting grassland songbirds, we demonstrate a novel approach to estimate hail‐induced mortality. We quantify the relationship between the probability of nests destroyed by hail and measured Level‐III Next Generation Radar (NEXRAD) data, including atmospheric base reflectivity, maximum estimated size of hail and maximum estimated azimuthal wind shear. On 22 June 2014, a hailstorm in northern Colorado destroyed 102 out of 203 known nests within our research site. Lark bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys) nests comprised most of the sample (n = 186). Destroyed nests were more likely to be found in areas of higher storm intensity, and distributions of NEXRAD variables differed between failed and surviving nests. For 133 ground nests where nest‐site vegetation was measured, we examined the ameliorative influence of woody vegetation, nest cover and vegetation density by comparing results for 13 different logistic regression models incorporating the independent and additive effects of weather and vegetation variables. The most parsimonious model used only the interactive effect of hail size and wind shear to predict the probability of nest survival, and the data provided no support for any of the models without this predictor. We conclude that vegetation structure may not mitigate mortality from severe hailstorms and that weather radar products can be used remotely to estimate potential for hail mortality of nesting grassland birds. These insights will improve the efficacy of grassland bird population models under predicted climate change scenarios.


We have been working on the formalization of the probability and the randomness. In [15] and [16], we formalized some theorems concerning the real-valued random variables and the product of two probability spaces. In this article, we present the generalized formalization of [15] and [16]. First, we formalize the random variables of arbitrary set and prove the equivalence between random variable on Σ, Borel sets and a real-valued random variable on Σ. Next, we formalize the product of countably infinite probability spaces.


This comprehensive literature review seeks to define strategic planning in a K-12 setting. Principally, it asks, what characteristics distinguish educational strategic planning from other planning approaches? What follows is a content analysis of the educational strategic planning literature detailing the critical attributes of various planning models designed specifically for K-12 educational entities. The study focuses on the issues related to K-12 strategic planning. A purposive sampling of selected literature sources was conducted. The authors analyzed 66 books, 29 journal articles, 28 research presentations from national conferences and the ERIC data base, 6 doctoral dissertations and several miscellaneous sources completed the data pool. Each evidence piece was interpreted through documentary analysis and a constant comparative approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, Strauss and Corbin, 1990, and Merriam, 1998). First, the data was used to develop definitions, benefits and barriers to K-12 strategic planning. Second, a comparison was made of all models of strategic planning to determine critical attributes. Finally, the elements of strategic planning were explored, listed and explained. ********** Strategic planning in an educational context was defined in a variety of ways in the relevant literature. Basham and Lunenburg (1989) asserted that strategic planning was not a well-defined concept; however, there exists a number of definitions pertaining to educational strategic planning. Perhaps, more specifically, Basham and Lunenburg referred to the lack of a uniform, discrete definition of educational strategic planning amongst the various prescribed planning models. From the reviewed literature, Table 1 depicts some of the various definitions associated with the concept of educational strategic planning. The educational strategic planning definitions found in Table 1 provide insights into the concept's underlying premises. What characteristics distinguish educational strategic planning from other planning approaches? To answer this question, Cooper (1985) provided this description: ... typical planning is generated by internal organization goals and priorities. The typical plan charts a course of action to achieve these goals, accounting for external forces primarily as obstacles or incentives to their achievement. The process is often formal and the product is schematic, documenting and projecting current activity in relation to stated objectives of the organization. (p. 1) Valentine (1991) provided a more detailed differentiation between typical long-range planning and strategic planning approaches. The differences between the two planning approaches are highlighted in Table 2. Another differentiation between traditional planning approaches and strategic planning is the impetus from which the plans are developed. Strategic planning is considered to be a "grass roots" or "bottom-up" approach, where planning is accomplished with input from a variety of organizational constituents or stakeholders, as opposed to the traditional "top-down" planning typically employed and directed by central office administrators (Rieger, 1994). Mecca and Adams (1991) contended that strategic planning processes "required administrators to confront district issues which might otherwise be overlooked with conventional planning approaches" (p. 16). Educational entities using strategic planning found that participative forms of management (e.g., decentralized decision making, shared power, shared decision-making, site-based decision-making, devolved management) were compatible and viable with this chosen planning approach (Bryson, 1995; Conley, 1994; Cook, 1995; Frese, 1996; Mauriel, 1989; McCune, 1986). Clay et al. (1989) asserted that educational strategic planning features the best features of 'top down' and 'bottom up' management. Top management maintains its responsibility for over-all direction, but the [strategic] planning team includes broad representation of stakeholder groups. …


9 October 1973 at 5.15 p.m. The influence of geology on the design of the Poechos Dam, northern Peru. By D. J. Eastaff. The Poechos Dam forms part of the Chira-Piura Irrigation Project in northern Peru. The initial site investigation carried out in 1967 indicated that it was economically feasible to construct a 60 metre high and 7 kms. long dam across the Rio Chira. Further investigations consisting of boreholes, drillholes, pits, trenches and geophysical traverses were done during the design stage of the project in 1971 and these revealed the presence of thin layers of gypsum and bentonite in the foundations as well as shear zones between some of the major lithological units. The influence of these findings on the design of the dam was discussed in detail. 13 November 1973 at 9.40 a.m. Introductory remarks by Prof. A. W. Skempton; papers included: Mudflows: A Review and Classification. By J. N. Hutchinson and D. Brunsden. A Study of Coulee Boueuses in the French Alps. By Ch. Azimi and P. Desvarreux. Landslides and Mudflows, Wrightwood, Southern California (including a film). By R. H. Campbell. Volcanic Mudflows. By G. Walker. Mudflows and Associated Mass-transport Deposits in the Geological Record. By G. Kelling. The Mudflows at Mutiscua, Departmento de Norte de Santander, Columbia. By B. Denness. Catastrophic Mudslide Behaviour. By J. N. Hutchinson, D. B. Prior and N. Stephens. Spring 1969, Soil Slips and Debris Flows in Coastal Southern California. By R. H. Campbell. A full record


Aims. To examine the effectiveness of brief behavioral interventions adapting the principles and techniques of Motivational Interviewing (MI) to four behavioral domains: substance abuse, smoking, HIV risk and diet/exercise. Design. We conducted a systematic review of 29 randomized trials of MI interventions. Data on methodological quality were extracted and tabulated. Between-group behavior change effect sizes and confidence intervals were calculated for each study. Findings. Due to varying intervention time lengths, targeted problem behaviors, settings and interventionists' backgrounds and skill levels, outcomes were not combined meta-analytically. Sixty per cent of the 29 studies yielded at least one significant behavior change effect size. No significant association between length of follow-up time and magnitude of effect sizes was found across studies. There was substantial evidence that MI is an effective substance abuse intervention method when used by clinicians who are non-specialists in substance abuse treatment, particularly when enhancing entry to and engagement in more intensive substance abuse treatment treatment-as-usual. Data were inadequate to judge the effect of MI in the other domains. Client attribute-treatment interactions were understudied and the sparse and inconsistent findings revealed little about the mechanism by which MI works or for whom it works best. Conclusion. To determine more effectively how well MI works in domains other than substance abuse and for whom it works best in all domains, researchers should study MI with risk behaviors other than substance abuse, while examining both interactions and the theoretical components of MI.


The effects of cadmium and kinetin on transpiration rate, stomatal opening and leaf relative water content were studied in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) plants. Pollution of the root environment with concentration of cadmium ranging from 3 to 30 μM, supplied as CdCI2, reduced leaf area, transpiration rate, stomatal opening and leaf relative water content. Transpiration rates were reduced to 59, 60, 55 and 48% of those in the control plants at 3, 10, 20 and 30 μM Cd, respectively. Reduction in transpiration due to higher cadmium contaminators is quite large at noon unlike that in the early morning or late afternoon. Kinetin greatly reduced or reversed the inhibitory effect of cadmium. Kinetin-treated plants generally showed a significantly higher transpiration rate, larger stomatal aperture and higher leaf turgidity than those untreated plants. Kinetin also increased leaf area significantly at higher Cd concentration. The highest kinetin concentration used was most effective in this respect. The results proved that cadmium mediated reduction in transpiration rate, stomatal opening and leaf turgidity are effectively reversed by kinetin.


Marketing of library services in the present century is important, considering the developments in the profession. The value of marketing is to ensure the survival and growth of the library and information services, and to enhance the community they serve. Marketing is important in the profession because of customers' needs, competitions from cybercafes, other information providers and changes in libraryresources. Despite this fact, a lot of challenges such as changes  in educational programs, impact of inf ormation and communication technology, new methods of information provision and decline in the budget have made marketing of library services mandatory and a necessary function to carry out in order to present the library to the clients. Due to these changes and competitions, there is a critical need to devise strategies to package information in the format that will suit the users and meet them at the point of their need. This paper outlines the marketing strategies that can be undertaken by library and information science (LIS) professionals to serve their users. Four objectives were formulated to guide the study, while the survey research method was adopted for this study. The population of the study was made up of library and information science professionals in Nigeria. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The findings reveal that marketing of LIS is undertaken in most libraries. The major reasons for marketing include:to showcase the resources available in the library,for librarians to maintain theirrelevance,to promote the image of the library, tohelpinthe survival of the  library, to create awareness among the university communityand,to ensure the visibility of the library. The following challenges hinder effective marketing; inadequate funding, lack of training and education of librarians on marketing, lack of ICT infrastructure, and lack of internet facilities to reach out to the global world. While the major strategies for effective marketing of LIS are: good communication skills, face to face interaction with the user community, networking among professional colleagues,using bulletin boards,seminars and workshops,newsletters, publicity through advertisements and announcements, and through website. Keywords ; Marketing, Library and Information Professionals, Nigeria,


Summary In this paper we study the symplectic relations appearing as the generalized cotangent bundle liftings of smooth stable mappings. Using this class of symplectic relations the classification theorem for generic (pre) images of lagrangian submanifolds is proved. The normal forms for the respective classified puilbacks and pushforwards are provided and the connections between the singularity types of symplectic relation, mapped lagrangian submanifold and singular image, are established. The notion of special symplectic triplet is introduced and the generic local models of such triplets are studied. We show that the open swallowtails are canonically represented as pushforwards of the appropriate regular lagrangian submanifolds. Using the SL2(ℝ) invariant symplectic structure of the space of binary forms of n appropriate dimension we derive the generating families for the open swallowtails and the respective generating functions for its regular resolutions.


O6-Alkylguanine-DNA-alkyltransferase is a DNA repair protein known to carry out the transfer of alkyl groups from the O6-position of guanine in alkylated DNA to a cysteine acceptor site contained within its own protein sequence. We have examined the ability of this protein isolated from either E. coli or mammalian cells to perform this repair reaction in short oligodeoxynucleotides. Dodecadeoxynucleotides of the sequence 5'-dCGNGAATTCm6GCG-3' where N is any one of the normal four bases were all repaired very rapidly by the protein with 50% repair in less than 15 s at 0 degree C. The hexadeoxynucleotide 5'-dCGCm6GCG-3' was repaired slightly more slowly with 50% removal taking 7 min at 0 degree C and 1.5 min at 37 degrees C. The tetradeoxynucleotide 5'-dTm6GCA-3' was also a substrate but was repaired much more slowly requiring 45 min for 50% repair at 37 degrees C. These results indicate that (a) the AGT has a strong but not absolute preference for double-stranded DNA substrates; (b) the repair of O6-methylguanine is independent of the base opposite the lesion; and (c) that oligodeoxynucleotides as short as tetramers are substrates for repair by this protein.


The thesis involved an assessment of the impact of climate variability on malaria epidemic around Mount Elgon of Bududa district, Uganda. The specific objectives were to investigate certain impacts of climate variability influencing malaria epidemic and to explore people's awareness of the possible association between climate variability and malaria, and corresponding copying strategies in their communities.Climate variability refers to variations in the mean state of climate on all temporal and spatial scales far than that of individual weather events. Climate variation is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere. The variation is also due to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. In Uganda including Bududa district malaria has become high and rampant in high altitude areas like 1800 meters above sea level in recent years.The Human ecological model was used as an analytical tool for the study to explain the impacts of climate variability influencing malaria. The human ecology model is a theoretical and analytical framework that fairly explains the objectives under study and can be used for local level studies. However, the model doesn't explain some external linkages like political issues or factors either at local, national and international levels. Concepts explaining causes of climate variability, risk factors, climate variability and health concept, controlling and preventing malaria out break all contributed in the flow of arguments of the findings.A qualitative method of data collection was used. For this study, information was collected using formal interviews, informal interviews, observation, focused group discussion and secondary data. An interview guide was used. Quantitative approaches were also used to a smaller extent to look at relationships between age, education level, gender and place of residence. It was also used in presenting some secondary information like rainfall and temperature data, and malaria cases for Bududa district. Informants were selected through purposive sampling. 10 key informant interviews, 18 individual interviews with local community members and 12 female members of the community from the lower (Buwanabisi with 1400m asl), middle (Bumakuma with 2000m asl) and higher (Bufukhula with 2500m asl) villages for focused group discussion to collect primary data.Findings revealed that Bududa district is experiencing increasing outbreak of diseases such as malaria. Malaria has even become common in areas of the high altitude which didn't have malaria cases in the past. Injuries and loss of lives all have been attributed to the variation in climate besides other risk factors. More frequent occurrence of heavy rainfall and extreme weather conditions (temperature) has direct effects in the spread of malaria to the upper village (Bufukhula) and more frequent to the lower area (Buwanabisi) by creating suitable breeding grounds for the mosquito vector. Extreme weather has caused landslides, damage to houses and infrastructure to the people in the higher altitude village of Bufukhula contributing to migration (permanent or temporary) to the lower area which are more malaria infected, hence creating an indirect effect of climate. Those from the higher altitude village are prone to malaria attack due to reduced immune system and low experience in protection against mosquitoes and malaria. Awareness of climate variability and existence of strategy at the individual and community, district, and national level is still low and limited. Copying strategies to the impacts of climate variability are of three types: Adaptation and active adjustments, acceptance and migration at different levels ranging from individual and community, district and national level. Possible recommendations for risk reduction for vector control and malaria were made by the informants and the researcher.


A fragment of HTLV-IIIB gag-gene, coding for the first 441 amino acids of the p53 gag-precursor was expressed in the recombinant vaccinia virus, vC5. Two HIV specific proteins were detected by western blot in CV-1 cells infected with vC5. Their relative molecular masses were 50 and 35 Kd, pointing out that the first of the proteins is a full length expression product of the cloned sequence, while the second one is a result of processing or abortive translation. Possibilities of using such a strain as a vaccine or in Western blot conformation test are discussed.


We study the problem of novel view synthesis from sparse source observations of a scene comprised of 3D objects. We propose a simple yet effective approach that is neither continuous nor implicit, challenging recent trends on view synthesis. Our approach explicitly encodes observations into a volumetric representation that enables amortized rendering. We demonstrate that although continuous radiance field representations have gained a lot of attention due to their expressive power, our simple approach obtains comparable or even better novel view reconstruction quality comparing with state-of-the-art baselines [49] while increasing rendering speed by over 400x. Our model is trained in a category-agnostic manner and does not require scene-specific optimization. Therefore, it is able to generalize novel view synthesis to object categories not seen during training. In addition, we show that with our simple formulation, we can use view synthesis as a self-supervision signal for efficient learning of 3D geometry without explicit 3D supervision.


This article examines two separate events of 2013: the pro-Black Pete demonstration in the Hague and the anti-Putin demonstration in Amsterdam. By analyzing the contexts and bodies of these debates, this paper looks at several ways in which a Dutch national subject is imagined within these events. I argue that these are local and global sites that are both creating, and created by, structural forces of in- and exclusion within and beyond a notion of "Dutch national identity." In this paper, I use a transnational feminist framework and queer of color critique to analyze the multiple linkages within, between, and among both spaces to ask how Dutchness is demonstrated.


The possible challenges to a family-centred approach to care are from practice-based tensions illustrated in the example given here - confidentiality, consent and managing risk. They could be outweighed possibly by the advantages of approaching care from a relational point of view, encouraging the person with dementia to maintain family relationships in a familiar environment with the people that they know best. Admiral Nurses are familiar with partnership working, providing an enabling and empowering approach as a necessary part of working with a carer as a primary focus to care. Our research study is currently collecting data from carers, people with dementia, Admiral Nurses and stakeholders who are part of the Admiral Nurse service to develop consensus around the meaning and applicability of the family-centred approach to various stakeholder groups, including people with dementia, family groups and practising Admiral Nurses. The research study aims to discover if the philosophy of Admiral Nursing in particular can be guided by a family-centred approach with outcomes of care generated from relationships expressed from both within the family and from their close social support network. It is not people with dementia who removed themselves from within their family, social and relationship context, but public policy, practitioners and the researcher community who have made this separation. It is time to connect the dots and join up lives.


An independent review of the hospital complaints system in England has demanded urgent action within the next 12 months to improve the way in which patients' complaints are handled, after a "decade of failure" to reform the process.1

The review was commissioned by the prime minister, David Cameron, and England's health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, after Robert Francis's report into failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust concluded that problems there would have been spotted earlier if patients' complaints had been listened to and acted on.

Francis emphasised that complaints were a warning sign of problems within hospitals. He called for a change in the NHS's culture so that patients and staff did not fear raising issues about care and for the introduction of a duty of candour on health organisations and professionals to ensure that they were open and honest with patients and relatives when mistakes had been made.2

The final report of the review of the NHS hospitals complaints system, published …


In literature, the contribution of teaching and research to society usually assumes economic-oriented tones in its application, by developing the concept of university as a stakeholder in economy and industry. Yet, a broader awareness of the idea of regional and local development, in relation to universities, is growing, escaping the boundaries of economic growth to target social, cultural and environmental objectives. This essay contends that this engagement in local development aiming at the formation of human and social capital, as key factors of development, could be mutually beneficial to the academic function of knowledge production, and to the community involved. This local engagement is considered here as a type of service provided by the university; in this sense, it is a function of the higher education institutions in society, in the same ways as teaching and research are. These functions constitute the immediate applications of the social role of the university, which I identify as a dynamic dimension determined by the economic, cultural and social developments affecting the expectations of society towards the university. I contend that the university should develop an awareness of the social context in which it is embedded on several grounds: because social knowledge is local, as the intensity and the pervasiveness of social and scientific change have made both highly sensitive, and therefore susceptible, to local environments. I am proposing one specific way in which the university can re-interpret its engagement into the local context. What matters to this essay is to analyze the implementation of human and social factors useful to local development. Some cases, taken from the US context, are taken as an application laboratory for my considerations.


After the migration of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) to Medina, about 80 battles happened between him and the infidel, out of which 30 battles are referred to as ghazawat. One of the ghazawat is known as Banū Qurayza. Following the Jewish violation of their treaty with the prophet, the prophet intended to punish them. There are two types of accounts in historical resources about the outcome of the resulting battle: a) killing of men and capturing of women and children, b) killing of the warriors and capturing of women and children. Some orientalists have used these reports as pretexts to try to present a violent and arrogant picture of the prophet of Islam. The present descriptive and analytical study attempted at a logical evaluation of the reports, comparing them with the sīra of the prophet in wars, and contemplating the Qur'anic ayahs related to this war. The results reveal that no general massacre occurred in this ghazwa. Rather, some Jews were killed in the battlefield and during the battle and some others were captured.


We investigated the reactivity of lectins to spores of Glugea plecoglossi from ayu Plecoglossus altivelis. Smear preparations of purified spores were treated with 8 kinds of lectins. Lectin blots were used to detect glycoproteins of spore lysates. In addition, lectin-treated spores were applied to head kidney macrophages of ayu, and the percentage of phagocytosis (PP) was calculated and compared with the control. Two lectins (ConA, WGA) reacted with the surface of the spores, and a major band (55 kDa) and some minor bands were visualized on blots after treatment with these. PP was decreased after ConA treatment. From these results, we suggest that G. plecoglossi spores can be phagocytized by ayu head kidney macrophages via ConA-reactive glycoprotein-mediated recognition.


The hydrolysis of β-lactam antibiotics by class A β-lactamases is a common cause of bacterial resistance to these agents. The β-lactamase inhibitory protein (BLIP) is able to bind and inhibit several class A β-lactamases, including TEM-1 β-lactamase and SME-1 β-lactamase. Although the TEM-1 and SME-1 enzymes share 33% amino acid sequence identity and a similar fold, they differ substantially in surface electrostatic properties and the conformation of a loop-helix region that BLIP binds. Alanine-scanning mutagenesis was performed to identify the residues on BLIP that contribute to its binding affinity for each of these enzymes. The results indicate that the sequence requirements for binding are similar for both enzymes with most of the binding free energy provided by two patches of aromatic residues on the surface of BLIP. Polar residues such as several serines in the interface do not make significant contributions to affinity for either enzyme. In addition, the specificity of binding is significantly altered by mutation of two charged residues, Glu73 and Lys74, that are buried in the structure of the TEM-1·BLIP complex as well as by residues located on two loops that insert into the active site pocket. Based on the results, a E73A/Y50A double mutant was constructed that exhibited a 220,000-fold change in binding specificity for the TEM-1 versus SME-1 enzymes.


In criminal cases, the prosecution frequently offers evidence of uncharged conduct (usually prior criminal activity), claiming that it will tend to prove the mens rea element of the charged offense. When such an offer is made, Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) creates a dilemma for the trial court. On the one hand, the rule forbids the introduction of uncharged conduct evidence (UCE) for one purpose: proof of a person's character in order to show that the person acted in conformity with that character trait on a particular occasion. On the other hand, it permits the introduction of the evidence for any other purpose - including proof of intent or of other mens rea elements of the offense. The dilemma exists because admission of the uncharged conduct will frequently lead the jury to draw both the permitted and the forbidden inference. Rule 403 mandates admission of the UCE unless "its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice," but this general mandate has provided little meaningful guidance in resolving the dilemma created when UCE is offered to prove mens rea. This article uses visual and mathematical models to analyze that dilemma. It describes the basic model itself, isolates and identifies various effects of UCE and their probative or prejudicial nature, and, introduces a powerful new analytic tool, "windfall analysis," based on the concepts of evidentiary ideals and evidentiary windfalls. It concludes that the Seventh Circuit is wrong to uniformly reject conditional concessions as an adequate substitute for the evidence. It also concludes that, to the extent that the other circuits suggest that conditional concessions should always be accepted, those circuits may also be wrong. It then sets forth a proposition not yet adopted by any of the circuits: that there are situations in which a trial court should require conditional concessions as a pre-requisite for excluding UCE even though that evidence would be excludable under 403 even without that concession.


Background: Preserved ratio impaired spirometry (PRISm) is defined as a FEV1 of less than 80% predicted and a FEV1/forced vital capacity (FVC) ratio of 0·70 or higher. Previous research has indicated that PRISm is associated with respiratory symptoms and is a precursor of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, these findings are based on relatively small selective cohorts with short follow-up. We aimed to determine the prevalence, risk factors, clinical implications, and mortality of PRISm in a large adult general population. Methods: For this cohort analysis, we used data from the UKBiobank to assess PRISm prevalence, risk factors and associated symptoms, and associated comorbidities in a large adult population. Participants with spirometry deemed acceptable by an investigator (best measure FEV1 and FVC values) at baseline were included. Participants were excluded if they did not have acceptable spirometry or were missing data on body-mass index or smoking status. Control spirometry was defined as a FEV1 of 80% or more predicted and a FEV1/FVC ratio of 0·70 or higher. Airflow obstruction was defined as a FEV1/FVC ratio of less than 0·70. We used multivariable regression to determine risk factors for PRISm and associated comorbidities. Individuals who lived within close proximity to an assessment centre were invited for follow-up, with repeat spirometry. Only participants who had been included at baseline were examined in follow-up. This allowed for a longitudinal analysis of PRISm over time and risk factors for transition to airflow obstruction. We also did the survival analysis for a 12-year period. Findings: Participants were recruited by UK Biobank between Dec 19, 2006, and Oct 10, 2010. We included 351 874 UK Biobank participants (189 247 women and 162 627 men) in our study, with a median follow-up of 9·0 years (IQR 8·0–10·0). 38 639 (11·0%) of 351 874 participants had PRISm at baseline. After adjustment, PRISm was strongly associated with obesity (odds ratio [OR] 2·40 [2·26–2·55], p < 0·0001), current smoking (1·48 [1·36–1·62], p < 0·0001), and patient reported doctor-diagnosed asthma (1·76 [1·66–1·88], p < 0·0001). Other risk factors identified included female sex, being overweight, trunk fat mass, and trunk fat percentage. PRISm was strongly associated with symptoms and comorbidity including increased risk of breathlessness (adjusted OR 2·0 [95% CI 1·91–2·14], p < 0·0001) and cardiovascular disease (adjusted OR 1·71 [1·64–1·83], p < 0·0001 for heart attack). Longitudinal analysis showed that 241 (12·2%) of 1973 participants who had PRISm at baseline had transitioned to airflow obstruction consistent with COPD. PRISm was associated with increased all-cause mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 1·61 [95% CI 1·53–1·69], p < 0·0001) versus control participants. Interpretation: PRISm was associated with breathlessness, multimorbidity, and increased risk of death, which does not seem to be explained by smoking, obesity, or existing lung disease. Although for many patients PRISm is transient, it is important to understand which individuals are at risk of progressive lung function abnormalities. Further research into the genetic, structural and functional pathophysiology of PRISm is warranted. Funding: UK Medical Research Council and University of Bristol.