New coal gasification processes are now being developed which can generate electricity with high thermal efficiency either in a combined gas-turbine, steam-turbine cycle or in a fuel cell. Both of these coal-to-electricity pathways require that the coal-derived fuel gas be at a high temperature and be free of potential pollutants, such as sulfur compounds. Unfortunately, some high-sulfur Illinois coals also contain significant chlorine which converts into hydrogen chloride (HC1) in the coal-gas. This project investigates the effect of HC1, in concentrations typical of a gasifier fed by high-chlorine Illinois coals, on zinc-titanate sorbents that are currently being developed for H{sub 2}S and COS removal from hot coal-gas. This study is designed to identify any deleterious changes in the sorbent caused by the HC1, both in adsorptive operation and in the regeneration cycle, and will pave the way to modify the sorbent formulation or the process operating procedure to remove HC1 along with the H{sub 2}S and COS from the coal-gas. This will negate any harmful consequences of utilizing high-chlorine Illinois in these processes. The bench- scale fluidized bed has been modified to prevent potential HC1 corrosion and startup experiments have proven the reactor system operable and capable of yielding reliablemore » experimental results. The first of the planned experiments in the project are now being performed. 1 fig.« less


This ethnographic article explores the manner in which the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN), a grassroots organization made up of homeless and low‐income Skid Row residents, generates video evidence for use in lawsuits against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). For marginalized communities fighting police abuse, the 1992 acquittal of four LAPD officers charged with the beating of Rodney King demonstrated that even the most "obvious" and condemning video evidence is subject to reinterpretation and reframing by skilled legal professionals. In response, LACAN has developed interactional filming strategies designed to constrain officers' ability to offer alternative explanations, while alleviating disparities in court‐recognized authority. In the tradition of legal consciousness scholarship, this article "de‐centers" the law by shifting emphasis from formal judicial decisions in the courtroom to citizen groups in their own communities, as they learn to use legal norms and conventions in social justice campaigns.


Rotting wood is inhabited by a large diversity of bacteria, fungi, and insects with complex environmental relationships. The aim of this work was to study the composition of the microbiota (bacteria and fungi) in decaying wood from a northwest Spanish forest as a source of industrially relevant microorganisms. The analyzed forest is situated in a well-defined biogeographic area combining Mediterranean and temperate macrobioclimates. Bacterial diversity, determined by metagenome analyses, was higher than fungal heterogeneity. However, a total of 194 different cultivable bacterial isolates (mainly Bacillaceae, Streptomycetaceae, Paenibacillaceae, and Microbacteriaceae) were obtained, in contrast to 343 fungal strains (mainly Aspergillaceae, Hypocreaceae, and Coniochaetaceae). Isolates traditionally known as secondary metabolite producers, such as Actinobacteria and members of the Penicillium genus, were screened for their antimicrobial activity by the detection of antibiotic biosynthetic clusters and competitive bioassays against fungi involved in wood decay. In addition, the ability of Penicillium isolates to degrade cellulose and release ferulic acid from wood was also examined. These results present decaying wood as an ecologically rich niche and a promising source of biotechnologically interesting microorganisms.


This unit discusses choice of chromatofocusing medium and buffers, determination of the quantity of medium needed, and preparation of CF buffers. A protocol is provided for a typical chromatofocusing experiment, and support protocols describe regeneration of the chromatofocusing column and several methods for separation of the polybuffer from the purified protein.


The senses are the interface between an organism and its environment. To interact with the world, animals must detect external stimuli, interpret sensory signals to encode relevant information, and make appropriate decisions based on previous experience and behavioral goals. All of these abilities depend on the organization and activity of neural circuits. To piece together the puzzle of how circuits produce perception and behavior, it is necessary to label, monitor and manipulate specific network components to assess their role in information processing. The recent development of molecular, genetic, and optical techniques enables this type of circuit dissection with unprecedented precision in the mouse model. While the mouse uses sensory information to navigate its environment and make decisions, as in other mammals, relatively little is known about processing beyond primary sensory areas in this species. Anatomical studies have predicted the existence of multiple higher visual areas in the mouse (Wang & Burkhalter 2007), yet their functional and behavioral roles remain unknown. The aim of this dissertation is to begin adding pieces to the puzzle by examining the information represented by higher visual areas, in terms of visual field topography and encoding for basic visual features. First, the representation of the visual field across the cortical surface was mapped using intrinsic signal imaging. As each distinct area contains its own independent map of visual space, analysis of visual field gradients allowed precise identification of 11 distinct higher areas and their boundaries, including two previously undescribed regions in mice. Characterization of visual coverage across areas demonstrated that higher areas often have incomplete or biased representations of visual space, suggesting an emphasis on processing particular types of visual information. Next, areas identified using intrinsic imaging were selectively targeted for higher resolution imaging using two-photon microscopy to measure the sensory evoked response properties across large populations from seven different visual areas. We found that neurons in higher visual areas respond selectively to basic visual features including orientation, direction, spatial frequency and temporal frequency, and that different areas could be distinguished based on encoding for specific combinations of spatiotemporal features. These results demonstrate the unique functional specializations of different mouse higher visual areas, and suggest specific hypothesis about their behavioral roles. Together, this work establishes the basic topographic and functional organization of nearly a dozen distinct visual areas across the mouse cortex, providing a foundation for future studies examining the circuit and cellular mechanisms of information processing in this system. Future work examining more complex functional properties, the circuitry that links areas across the network, and the relationships between specific circuit components and behavior, will be essential to create a more complete picture of sensory processing in the mouse


A pharmacophore model has been generated and 3D-QSAR studies performed on a set of fifty fluorinated compounds having known activities for PDHK inhibition (IC 50 values ranging from 0.1 µ mol L -1 to 100.0 µ mol L -1 ). Common pharmacophore hypotheses have been developed and a predictive atom based 3D-QSAR model is further generated for all the surviving hypotheses. All the statistical parameters calculated for the obtained model (AHH.2) have been found to be satisfactory. The model obtained suggests that the presence of hydrophobic groups and ability to form hydrogen bonds are the two vital features which play significant roles in the activity of the selected ligands. The binding site of the protein is hydrophobic in nature and hence the presence of –F in the binding compounds enhances their inhibiting property. An excellent correlation between the calculated and experimental IC 50 values of the compounds has been obtained. Virtual screening of a database comprising 2924 commercially available drug molecules has been performed to ensure the validity of the model developed. A total of 1263 compounds, which show good fit to the model, have been docked to the PDHK protein for further study of their binding affinities and interaction with the protein. A few of these are short-listed for further evaluation.


Mineralization is an essential requirement for normal skeletal development, which is generally accomplished through the function of two cell types, osteoblasts and chondrocytes. Soft tissues do not mineralize under normal conditions, but under certain pathological conditions some tissues like articular cartilage and cardiovascular tissues are prone to mineralization. The aim of this study was to gain more insight in the processes that take place during the initiation of biological or cell-mediated mineralization and the effectors involved in these processes. Therefore, the mouse embryonal carcinoma-derived ATDC5 cell line was used in our study. It was hypothesized that serum, which is known to contain mineralization inhibitors such as fetuin, inhibits the early stages of mineralization in the cell culture system. Therefore, it was tested whether excluding serum from the medium shortened the cell culture period to induce mineralization, making this model system more suitable for investigation. This resulted in the development of large (sub millimetre size range) mineralizing structures (LMS) in the medium in 2 hours. LMS were shown to contain whole cells, which were embedded in hydroxyapatite and observed to have a stretched morphology. In the presence of serum no LMS were formed, but multiple small mineralized structures were observed inside the cell after 24 hours. Taken together, the results show that excluding serum in the cell culture system enhances rapid crystal growth and suggest that cell-mediated mineralization may start intracellularly. To investigate whether ATDC5 cells themselves or factors released by ATDC5 cells nucleate and/or remodel hydroxy-apatite in the absence of serum, the effect of conditioned medium from ATDC5 cells on the formation of apatite crystal was investigated. It was found that soluble factors released by the ATDC5 cells have the ability to affect the formation of the calcium-phosphate crystal. This suggest that soluble factors released by ATDC5 cells play a role in the growth phase of LMS formation once in the initial phase the crystal nucleus has been formed. Since an imbalance of mineralization may lead to pathological conditions, the ATDC5 cell culture system was also used to test the effect of several agents implicated in bone growth and development as well as pathological mineralization, including the gaseous substance nitric oxide (NO). Therefore, the effect of an NO donor drug, sodium nitroprusside (SNP) on cell mediated mineralization was investigated. It was found that 100 ?M SNP inhibits mineralization. However, the inhibition was not affected by inhibitors of guanylyl cyclase nor mimicked by a cGMP analog. Furthermore, sodium nitroprusside did not inhibit phosphate uptake nor inhibited apoptosis in the ATDC5 cells. Therefore, we subsequently investigated the effect of SNP on mineralization to elucidate the mechanism of action. It was shown that the iron moiety of sodium nitroprusside, rather than nitric oxide, inhibits mineralization.


This special edition of the Journal of the University College of the Cayman
Islands on the subject of educational leadership and its changing nature is timely.
Faced with external factors such as the recent economic meltdown, globalisation and
changing borderland narratives and shifts in government policy, education institutions
the world over are being forced to "do education differently." This shift is as much
about the leadership of policymakers in education departments and ministries as it
is about the practice of leadership by school leaders and teachers at all levels. Much
less is being spent on education in real terms by many governments, when more is
being demanded; fewer teachers are being employed at a time when some systems
are experiencing growth in pupil numbers and class sizes; and education institutions
are struggling to respond in a timely manner to changes in their environment brought
about by the impact of information and communications technology. That said,
educational leadership in these unpredictable and swiftly changing times requires
an approach that is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but that is encompassing,
synergistic, innovative, and practical.


The analysis of objects living on ultrametric trees, in particular the block-diagonalization of 4-replica matrices $M^{\alpha \beta ; \gamma \delta}$, is shown to be dramatically simplified through the introduction of properly chosen operations on those objects. These are the Replica Fourier Transforms on ultrametric trees. Those transformations are defined and used in the present work.


Progressive studies in dogs with skin and oral melanomas were undertaken to determine whether or not the WHO-classification of melanomas, which is based mainly on histological criteria, reflects sufficiently the biological behaviour of these tumours. Furthermore, some prognostic parameters, important in the prognosis of human malignant melanomas were tested with respect to their significance for canine melanomas. The paper deals with progressive studies in 182 dogs with surgically treated benign and malignant skin and oral melanomas. Parameters of the biological behaviour were the 2 years death rate and the median survival time. The melanomas were classified according to the recommendations of the WHO. Within 2 years after the first treatment five (5.7%) of 87 dogs with benign skin melanomas, 29 (65.9%) of 44 dogs with malignant skin melanomas and 44 (86.2%) of 55 dogs with malignant oral melanomas were killed because of recurrence or metastases or both. The median survival time of dogs with benign skin melanomas was more than 24 months, with malignant skin melanomas 8 months and with malignant oral melanomas 3 months. In dogs with large malignant skin melanomas the 2 years death rate was 100% with a median survival time of 4 months, whereas animals with small melanomas had a 2 years death rate of 54.3% and a median survival time of 12 months. The site of skin melanomas, sex and histological type of both skin and oral melanomas, however, had no significant influence on the course of the disease. Also, histological parameters, important in the prognosis of human malignant melanoma (rate of mitosis, size of nucleoli, pigmentation and vascular invasion), had no significant influence on the course of the disease.


From the very beginning of this project we have focused on taking a balanced approach to identifying the strengths and challenges of new immi grants in the Great Plains. Discussions of change in our world invariably focus on problems, and only occasionally on the strengths. We set out to look at new immigrants from a different perspective, in our view, a more realistic perspective: seeing the inherent strengths they possess as newcom ers to our region and the gifts they bring, and examining the cultural assets the newcomers and the longer-term residents all can rely upon in working together to meet the inevitable challenges that an influx of new people brings to our world. What, then, have we learned about the new immigrants and the new immigrant families to the Heartland? What challenges do they face in their journey to create a safe, prosperous, and harmonious new home for them selves and their loved ones and friends? What strengths do they possess to accomplish these goals? What gifts do they bring to our region? Let's go back to the original questions posed by the authors, and discuss what we have learned.


We investigate the influence of building height on the ability of people to feel earthquakes and observe that, in an urban area, short and tall buildings reach different levels of excitation. We quantify this behavior by analyzing macroseismic reports collected from individuals through the Internet; we focus on elastic regime transitory effects of recent earthquakes in Italy in the local magnitude ( M L) range of 3–5.9. We find a maximum difference of 0.6 intensity units between the top floors of tall (7–10 stories) and short (1–2 stories) buildings at the highest considered magnitudes. As expected, tall buildings experience greater shaking than short buildings during large earthquakes at large source distances. However, we observe the opposite behavior at close distances when the M L is <3.5. These results can be explained by considering the different spectra radiated by small and large earthquakes and the different fundamental mode resonances of buildings (i.e., shorter buildings have higher resonance frequencies and vice versa). Using idealized building models excited by real acceleration time histories, we compute synthetic accelerograms on the top floors of short and tall buildings and confirm the trend of the observed differences in felt intensities.


Present study screened ten Cyanobacterial extracts for antimicrobial activity, cytotoxicity (against human cervical carcinoma cells Hela and SiHa) & GC-MS for chemical composition. Cyanobacterial extracts were subjected to Agar Well Diffusion Assay at concentration of 100μg. well -1 and incubated at 37 + 2 o C. Inhibition zone was measured in millimetres (mm) after 18-24 hour. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined by using the broth microdilution method in 96-well microtitre plates. Drug dilutions were performed using cation adjusted Mueller Hinton Broth (MHB) in a concentration range of 128-0.25 μg.ml -1 . Cytotoxicities were assessed using MTT assay. GCMS analysis was carried out on a GCMS-QP 2010 Plus Shimadzu system having RTX-5 column (Restek, USA) (60 m, ID 0.25mm, film thickness 0.25 μm). Cyanobacterial extracts exhibited significant antibacterial effect on clinical isolates of S.aureus MRSA & MRSE whereas selectively inhibited Gram-negative. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were in the range between 64 to 128 μg/ml. Activity Index of active extracts ranged from 0.33 to 1.50. Activity Index and Zone of Inhibition were significantly correlated with p>0.03.GC-MS detected distinct groups of active compounds with pronounced presence of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Pharmaceutically important compounds like sesquiterpenoids (Farnesol), dicarboxylic acids, imidazole, indolinones, α-tocopherol, phenolics, phytosterols, heptadecane, tetradecane and 9-octadecenal were moderately present. Extracts also exhibited cytotoxic effect on human cervical carcinoma cells lines with LD50 values ranging from 34 to 146μg/ml. Cyanobacterial species have distinct active group metabolites which are promising sources of antiproliferative and antimicrobial compounds.


We studied the surface characterization of milled–silicon nitride nano-powders by XPS and TEM. The change of the chemical state and morphology of the oxide layer on the surface of Si3N4 nano-particles before and after a conventional wet–ball–milling process are investigated by X–ray photoelectron spectroscopy for measuring the chemical state of the oxide layer and transmission electron microscopy for observing surface morphology. The native oxide layers of as-received Si3N4 powders confirmed by HREM observation and their chemical states were different each other. As increasing ball–milling time, the chemical composition and the volume of oxide layer in Si3N4 powders were changed. The chemical state of as–received Si3N4 powder was near to SiO2 phase. After ball–milling process for long time, that of the milled Si3N4 powder shifted to Si2N2O phase. As increasing ball-milling time, the oxide layer of Si3N4 powder was also increased.


Background: The aim of this study was to determine the hospitalization rate due to pneumonia in preschool children in our region and to compare the rate found with those reported in the literature. Methods: We performed a prospective study between October 2004 and September 2006 in patients aged less than 3 years old in San Sebastian (Spain) and the surrounding region. All children admitted to hospital for radiologically-confirmed pneumonia (presence of lobar or segmental alveolar infiltrate, interstitial infiltrate and/or pleural effusion) were included. Results: There were 116 episodes requiring hospitalization, representing an incidence of 6.4 cases/1000 inhabitants (6.2 in infants aged less than 1 year and 6.6 in children aged 12-35 months). Admission to the intensive care unit was required in 10.3% (12/116). Alveolar infiltrate was found on chest radiograph in 62.1% (72/116), ranging from 51.4% (19/37) in in- fants aged less than 1 year and 69.6% (32/46) in children aged 24 months or more. Mortality at 30 days of admission was nil. Conclusion: The incidence of hospitalization due to community-acquired pneumonia in infants and children, as well as that of pneumonia with alveolar infiltrate, was high in our region. Evaluation of the potential utility of the new pneumo- coccal conjugate vaccine and the influenza vaccine for children should also take into account their effectiveness in pre- venting pneumonia in this age group.


The objectives of this research were: (1) to describe the target needs of grade XI students of Patisserie Study Programme; (2) to describe the learning needs of grade XI students of Patisserie Study Programme; and (3) to develop appropriate English learning materials for grade XI students of Patisserie Study Programme. This study was a Research and Development (R & D) study. The subjects of this study were grade XI students of Patisserie Study Programme at SMK Negeri 1 Sewon, the English teacher, and a material development expert. The steps of this study were adapted from Jolly and Bolitho (1998)'s steps which were conducting the needs analysis, developing the course grid, developing the first draft of the materials, evaluating the materials or conducting expert judgment, and writing the final draft of the materials. The data was collected through distributing questionnaire and interviewing both the English teacher and the students. Two types of questionnaires were used to collect data. The first questionnaire was made to obtain the data for the needs analysis while the second questionnaire was used to obtain the data for materials evaluation through the expert judgment questionnaire. The data for both questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics. The data from the interviews was analyzed qualitatively using the data analysis model proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994). The products of the research were three units of English learning materials. Each unit reflected the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) and scientific approach. The topics were related to patisserie field and daily life. The tasks were varied, from individual tasks to small group tasks. Based on the results of expert judgement, the developed materials were considered appropriate. The mean score of all aspects of the developed materials was 3.82 and was categorised as "Very Good".


A rapid and reproducible RP-HPLC chromatographic method has been developed for the estimation of famciclovir in its pure form as well as in pharmaceutical formulation. Chromatography was carried out on an C 18 column using a mixture of methanol and acetonitrile as the mobile phase at flow rate of 0.5 mL/min and detection was done at 222 nm. The retention time of the drug was 1.63. The results obtained with the proposed methods are in good agreement with labeled amounts, when marketed pharmaceutical preparations are analyzed. The recovery in the present method is in the range of 99.24 - 99.56. Results obtained are found to be reproducible.


Shared window systems allow collaboration transparent, single-user applications interacted with on multiple users' workstations, enabling the members of a cooperative ensemble to simultaneously share and revise information. The paper presents a system capable of sharing applications running under the X Window System. In contrast to previously implemented systems, the present shared window system addresses issues that are crucial for general-purpose use. The shared window system is policy-free, i.e., there are no preferred policies for handling issues such as admission and floor control. Instead, it offers a set of essential mechanisms on top of which various policies and user paradigms may be realized. Further, the system distributes the sharing functionality among all sites involved in a cooperative activity. Measurements have shown a positive impact of this on the overall performance of the system and thus justified the viability of the design decisions taken. >


Annis and Janet Matthews. [Boston: Ginn and Company. 40c.] Miss Annis, Director of Physical Education, and Miss Matthews, Director of Music, Laboratory School, both of Teachers College, Bemidji, Minnesota, have answered a need by supplying a Manual of Rhythmic Activities to accompany "The World of Music" series. The manual has a wealth of suggestions for hundreds of songs throughout the series, and, as the preface states, the compiled rhythmic activities "are given as suggestions for the teacher to use in developing other similar activities." The book will be helpful to teachers of physical education as well as to teachers of music, and will be particularly valuable in systems where the classroom teachers are responsible for the teaching of all subjects, music and physical education included. -Delinda Roggensack


Our perception of the world and current events is formed through  diverse and often contradictory sources. It is always amended and  augmented throughout the unceasing process of information  consumption. Since the beginning of the XX century this process has  been more and more governed by images. That is why the  great powers drawn in the Great War were actively using visual  materials for propaganda purposes: to steer their people towards  confrontation and to create "the image of the enemy". The issue "construction of an enemy" does not lose its relevance due to  the fact that today's media wars propaganda principles and  techniques are still the same as they were one hundred years ago.  The article describes the milestones of the enemy image creation  and gives a thorough analysis of Russian propaganda postcards from the World War I in order to outline the key features of German  enemy figure. The emphasis is made on the idea that the image of  Germany is ambivalent: the country and its citizens were pictured  differently. The postcards serve as sources of the current study since they were one of the main means of communication during the war  time and one of the most effective propaganda tools: people used to  distribute the postcards themselves, thus creating an emotional  bond between the recipient and the image on the front side. The  novelty of the research is attributable to the fact that this issue has  not been considered through the prism of historical imagology.


Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory condition. The age of onset, chronicity, physical, and psychosocial consequences of the disease cause psoriasis to have a significant impact on patient quality of life. Scalp psoriasis is no different, and effective treatment results in an improvement in quality of life. Successful management of scalp psoriasis includes topical therapies that are acceptable to the patient for mild-to-moderate disease, and systemic therapies for recalcitrant or moderate-to-severe disease. The most effective topical therapies are corticosteroid products, or combination products with calcipotriol and corticosteroid. Newer vehicle options provide more attractive and pleasing products for patients and may improve adherence. The current perspectives for management of scalp psoriasis are discussed including available data for systemic therapy of severe disease.


The need to engage students studying at a distance in order to reduce isolation, foster a sense of belonging and enhance learning has received significant attention over the past few years. Conversely, very little research has focused on teachers working in this type of environment. In fact, we argue, they appear to be the forgotten dimension in 'communities' of distance learning. In this paper we identify some of the problems generated by teaching university subjects simultaneously across a network of campuses: a practice known as multi‐location teaching. We examine strategies for engaging multi‐location teachers as key contributors to a quality learning experience for students, and provide an analysis of how identified teaching needs and professional development are addressed within one particular teaching team by a small but powerful micro‐practice called the 'Tutors' Forum'. Drawing on data collected through a survey and interviews conducted over 2006/07, we discuss the benefits and critical success factors of the Tutors' Forum in facilitating engagement and professional development for teachers working at a distance from the subject coordinator and other members of the teaching team. These factors include a specific style of leadership that fosters an inclusive, dialogic space where the patterns of interaction are characterised by reciprocity, collegiality and professional care. We discuss the implications of this practice for the further engagement of university teachers in an increasingly casualised and fragmented higher education sector.


This paper reports results from a national survey in 1999 of voluntary hospice services in the UK. It focuses on volunteer and staff views of the purposes of hospice care, and on current debates within palliative care. Twenty-five hospice services, stratified by region, services provided (inpatient care, day care and/or home care) and number of beds were randomly sampled from amongst 175 voluntary hospices in the UK. Nineteen participated. Seventy per cent of a random sample of professional and voluntary staff within these hospices returned a postal questionnaire. Both volunteers and professionals considered care of the whole person, pain and symptom control, quality of life and dying peacefully to be important aspects of hospice care. Most doctors chose care of the whole person as the most important aspect, and they were more likely to choose this option than other staff. Hospice volunteers were less positive than hospice staff (particularly doctors and nurses) in their attitudes to extending hospice care to noncancer patients (where many volunteers held no strong view), to restricting care to patients with specialist palliative care needs, and less negative about euthanasia. These findings illustrate the importance of including hospice volunteers and the general public, as well as hospice staff, in debates about the future of hospice and palliative care in the UK. Further research is needed into lay and professional views of the role of hospices and palliative care services.


Abstract Managers working in just-in-time manufacturing environments have little or no slack resources available to them to cushion against the difficulties caused by defective raw materials, production errors, irregular supply and demand schedules or to mask inefficiencies (Griffin and Harrell, 1991). This makes the performance-related information provided by management accounting systems critical in such environments. This paper reports the results of a study that empirically tested the above statement. It was done by evaluating the impact of adoption of just-in-time manufacturing (JIT) and the information provided by the management accounting system on organisational performance (profitability). Data for the study were collected through personal interviews with financial controllers of 55 organisations located in Australia. Of these organisations, 28 adopted JIT at least three years prior to the study and the rest were non-adopters at the time of the study. The results suggest that the JIT adopter organisations with high (low) provision of the information earn high (low) profit. The study supports the argument that adoption of JIT and provision of the information together can assist an organisation in improving its profitability.


Clear cell carcinoma (CCC) is a histologically distinct carcinoma subtype that arises in several organ systems and is marked by cytoplasmic clearing, attributed to abundant intracellular glycogen. Previously, transcription factor hepatocyte nuclear factor 1-beta (HNF1B) was identified as a biomarker of ovarian CCC. Here, we set out to explore more broadly the relation between HNF1B and carcinomas with clear cell histology. HNF1B expression, evaluated by immunohistochemistry, was significantly associated with clear cell histology across diverse gynecologic and renal carcinomas (P<0.001), as was hypomethylation of the HNF1B promoter (P<0.001). From microarray analysis, an empirically-derived HNF1B signature was significantly enriched for computationally-predicted targets (with HNF1 binding sites) (P<0.03), as well as genes associated with glycogen metabolism, including glucose-6-phophatase, and strikingly the blood clotting cascade, including fibrinogen, prothrombin and factor XIII. Enrichment of the clotting cascade was also evident in microarray data from ovarian CCC versus other histotypes (P<0.01), and HNF1B-associated prothrombin expression was verified by immunohistochemistry (P = 0.015). Finally, among gynecologic carcinomas with cytoplasmic clearing, HNF1B immunostaining was linked to a 3.0-fold increased risk of clinically-significant venous thrombosis (P = 0.043), and with a 2.3-fold increased risk (P = 0.011) in a combined gynecologic and renal carcinoma cohort. Our results define HNF1B as a broad marker of clear cell phenotype, and support a mechanistic link to glycogen accumulation and thrombosis, possibly reflecting (for gynecologic CCC) derivation from secretory endometrium. Our findings also implicate a novel mechanism of tumor-associated thrombosis (a major cause of cancer mortality), based on the direct production of clotting factors by cancer cells.


This manuscript focuses on a novel actively controlled hybrid magnetic battery/ultracapacitor based energy storage system (ESS) for vehicular propulsion systems. A stand-alone battery system might not be sufficient to satisfy peak power demand and transient load variations in hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV, PHEV). Active battery/ultracapacitor hybrid ESS provides a better solution in terms of efficient power management and control flexibility. Moreover, the voltage of the battery pack can be selected to be different than that of the ultracapacitor, which will result in flexibility of design as well as cost and size reduction of the battery pack. In addition, the ultracapacitor bank can supply or recapture a large burst of power and it can be used with high C-rates. Hence, the battery is not subjected to supply peak and sharp power variations, and the stress on the battery will be reduced and the battery lifetime would be increased. Utilizing ultracapacitor results in effective capturing of the braking energy, especially in sudden braking conditions.


With the rise of big data, more and more users will launch computing systems to process a large volume of data in various applications. A Scheduling algorithm is crucial to the performance of the processing platforms, especially when they are concurrently executing a batch of jobs. Such jobs usually represent multiple stages. Each stage produces the intermediate data which will be piped to the next stage for further processing. However, the scheduling problem in a big data computing system is different from the traditional multi-stage job scheduling problem as for any two consecutive stages, the later stage usually starts before the former stage is finished to "shuffle" the intermediate data. In this paper, we consider MapReduce/Hadoop as a representative computing system and develop a new strategy named OMO, Optimize MapReduce Overlap with a Good Start (Reduce) and a Good Finish (Map). A MapReduce job contains two consecutive phases: map and reduce. Our general target is to optimize the internal overlap between these two phases. There are two new techniques included in our solution, Lazy start of reduce tasks and Batch finish of map tasks, which aim to approach an effective alignment of the two phases based on the characteristics of the MapReduce process. OMO has been implemented on the Hadoop system with extensive experiments for performance evaluation. The results show that OMO's performance is superior in terms of total completion time (i.e., makespan) of a batch of jobs.


The object of this study is the notarial practice in Pisa in the eleventh century. First (§ 1) the Author discusses the charters preserved within the period c. 720-c.1100 in their number, form and tipology, both as object of diplomatics and as sources for the economic and social history. Then the A. focuses on the sales ( chartae venditionis ) of the tenth century (§ 2) and the 'promises' (chartae promissionis) of the eleventh century - the so called  repromissionis paginae , as the pisan notars usually said in the charters of this period: the 'charters of promise' are the real new entry in the surviving charters evidence of Pisa and its own territory (§ 4). In this first part of the paper the A. explores the evolution of their form and establishes the textual structure of both types of charters, by focusing on  formulae , that the scholars have never considered before, and explaining them: for example, the formula "cum portione seu exemplar", wich is so typical in some charters of sale (§ 3), and the formula "eidem omini qui unc promissio pre manibus abuerit", wich gained a pregnant sense in the charters of promise (§ 5). The A. discusses also the way, in wich the charters are transmissed: in the case of sales, wich in the tenth and eleventh century are mostly transmissed only in notarial contemporary copy, the A. shows (§ 3) that the practice of making copy was a specific phase by recording the transactions of portions of lands and properties, wich were possessed by  consortes .
The main point of the study is however the practice - typical for the eleventh century in Pisa - of writing  chartae venditionis and  repromissionis paginae together, by the same notar, with the same issuers and beneficiaries and the same  datatio . These charters demonstrate the existence of a specific practice, wich notars and judges set up to put on records and made sure in each phase (wich could last for years) the credit transactions based on landed property as guarantee; circulation and mutual relationship of single, different and formal autonomous charters as "ecrits d'etape" (F. Bougard) were the columns of this practice, and the  pagina repromissionis just the keystone (§ 5). Two other elements had a role in this 'play of charters': 1. the so called  tenore (a little text, that notars wrote after their completio, out of the structural frame of the  charta venditionis , nevertheless in close connection with her, because it contained a condition, that only let exist the legal transaction recorded in the  charta itself), wich the A. explains in a different way from the other scholars (§ 6); 2. another little text - that the scholars have completely ignored up to now - that appears written by the notar after the tenore in the charters of sales in the second half of the eleventh century, and represents an 'abbreviation' of a  repromissionis pagina , that the notar had still to write (§§7-8).


In this correspondence, we present some more properties of separating systems (SS) and completely separating systems (CSS) from coding theory framework. First we derive the necessary and sufficient conditions for a set of vectors to be a SS or CSS. Then we show that in the case of linear codes, the necessary and sufficient conditions required for (1, 1) CSS are similar to that of (2, 1) SS and by deleting the 0 vector from a binary code that forms a (2, 1) SS, the set of remaining code words forms a (1, 1) CSS. Even though some linear codes form (2, 1) and (2, 2) SS, we prove here that no linear code forms a(2, 1) or a(2, 2) CSS.


Pitted keratolysis (PK) is a plantar skin disorder mainly caused by coryneform bacteria. A common treatment consists of the topical use of erythromycin. Hyperhidrosis is considered a predisposing factor for bacterial proliferation and, consequently, for the onset of PK. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between PK erythromycin and hyperhidrosis. All patients with PK seen in Sant'Andrea Hospital, between January 2009 and December 2011, were collected. PK was clinically and microscopically diagnosed. All patients underwent only topical treatment with erythromycin 3% gel twice daily. At the beginning of the study and after 5 and 10 days of treatment, a clinical evaluation and a gravimetric measurement of plantar sweating were assessed. A total of 97 patients were diagnosed as PK and were included in the study. Gravimetric measurements showed that in 94 of 97 examined patients (96.90%) at the time of the diagnosis, there was a bilateral excessive sweating occurring specifically in the areas affected by PK. After 10 days of antibiotic therapy, hyperhidrosis regressed together with the clinical manifestations. According to these data, we hypothesize that hyperhidrosis is due to an eccrine sweat gland hyperfunction, probably secondary to bacterial infection.


ABSTRACT The relationship between gender and mortality in nineteenth-century Europe has been highly debated. In particular, historians disagree about the manner and degree to which gender discrimination affected the mortality risk of the female population. This article contributes by examining the evidence of gendered mortality differences among children and adolescents in nineteenth-century Denmark. It makes use of both child sex ratios and mortality rates to explore the prevalence of excess female mortality. We show that the female mortality rate in Denmark was higher than that of males starting from around age four and lasting until adulthood, for the majority of the nineteenth century. This mortality gap, while initially narrow, was systematic and most pronounced in rural areas and during late adolescence. The gap was produced by a faster mortality decline among males. This pattern is clear both in time, as the gap widened during the nineteenth century, and during the life course, as the male mortality rate declined faster and reached lower levels during late childhood and early adolescence. While it is possible that various forms of gender discrimination slowed the mortality decline of females, the aggregated nature of the data limits our interpretation. However, by comparing the two mortality measures employed, we argue that in a low child-mortality setting such as Denmark, sex ratios are not always sensitive enough to measure excess female mortality in childhood. Further, since sex ratios primarily excel at measuring 'hidden' or unregistered mortality, they may be a suboptimal measure of mortality differences in the presence of a thorough and reliable vital registration system.


IZA DP No. 15447 JULY 2022 The Understated 'Housing Shortage' in the United States* Following popular discourse, we abuse economic terminology by defining the "housing shortage" in the United States as the difference between the number of homes that would be built in the absence of supply constraints and the actual number of homes. The magnitude of the housing shortage is important to policymakers, who use it to measure the scope of the housing supply problem and the extent to which proposed policies would solve it. However, previous studies understate the housing shortage because they estimate how many more homes would have been built if historical building or household formation trends prevailed today, even though historical trends were also affected by supply constraints. We are the first to use a supply and demand framework to estimate the full housing shortage in the United States. Using county-level data on land shares of home prices, we estimate that the U.S. housing shortage was 20.1 million homes in 2021, 14.1 percent of the national housing stock. Our housing shortage estimate is 4 to 5 times as large as previous estimates, and 13 times as high as the shortage cited by the White House to contextualize the effects of policies intended to close the gap. Consistent with predictions of economic theory, our estimated housing shortage is uniformly low in areas with low regulation but varies in areas with high regulation, since a housing shortage requires both stringent regulations and strong housing demand. JEL Classification: R31, R38, R52


This study aimed to evaluate the possible protective effect of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) on ischemia reperfusion (I/R)-induced ovarian injury in a rat model. Forty adult female albino rats were randomly assigned to four groups: control, ischemia, I/R, and I/R + intraperitoneal PRP. Induction of ischemia was done by bilateral ovarian torsion for 3 h, while reperfusion was done by subsequent detorsion for another 3 h. PRP was injected 30 min before detorsion. Histological assessment and measurement of ovarian anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) were done to assess the degree of tissue damage and the remaining ovarian reserve. Ovarian malondialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) levels were measured to evaluate the oxidant-antioxidant balance. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) was measured to assess degree of inflammation. Immunohistochemical assessment of ovarian vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) was also done. PRP treated I/R group revealed a significant decrease in MDA (P = 0.007), TNF-α (P = 0.001), and a significant increase in TAC (P = 0.001) and VEGF-A (P = 0.003) in comparison to the untreated I/R group. Furthermore, limited vascular congestion and inflammatory infiltration were observed after PRP treatment. However, no significant difference was detected in AMH after PRP treatment. Our results denoted that PRP may help in preservation of ovarian function and structure during surgical conservative detorsion of the torsioned ovary. These protective effects could be attributed to its ability to reduce oxidative stress, inflammation and also to its high content of growth factors especially VEGF.


This article examines the impact of values on a key phenomenon of modern politics: non-violent protest. Previous studies have examined only the individual-level effects of values. Studying in addition the 'ecological' effects – how the social prevalence of values affects protest – generates new insights. Focusing on 'emancipative values', two ecological effects are shown: (1) the prevalence of emancipative values lifts people's protest above the level that their own emancipative values suggest (elevator effect); (2) the prevalence of these values enhances the impact of people's own emancipative values on protest (amplifier effect). We conclude that examining values in models of protest (and possibly of other activities), not only as individual attributes but also as ecological properties, gives 'culture' its full weight in explaining behaviour.


Transmission of infectious diseases became an immediate public health concern when approximately 27,000 New Orleans-area residents evacuated to Houston's Astrodome and Reliant Park Complex following Hurricane Katrina. This article presents a surveillance system that was rapidly developed and implemented for daily tracking of various symptoms in the evacuee population in the Astrodome "megashelter." This system successfully confirmed an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis and became a critical tool in monitoring the course of this outbreak.


In this paper, we present a method to trap analyte molecules in hotspots by fabricating free-standing silver bowtie nanostructures with supporting bridges. The existence of supporting bridges makes more analyte molecules in hotspots, which efficiently enhance the Raman intensity. An enhancement factor of 2.4 × 108 is obtained for the structures, and a low concentration of analyte (10−10 M) can be detected. Furthermore, the relative standard deviation for Raman measurement is down to 5.91% for the structures. This method may be applied for SERS measurements.


ABSTRACT Lockdown policies brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic pose a threat to well-being. This study examined the effectiveness of three positive psychology interventions, with different time-orientations, on well-being as well as predictors of well-being during lockdown. Participants (n= 261) completed measures of lockdown characteristics, attachment orientation, and emotion regulation, were then randomly allocated to one of four interventions; nostalgia (past), gratitude (present), best possible self (BPS; future) or control (recalling a TV show), and completed outcome measures of well-being and affect. Results showed that BPS resulted in higher positive affect and that both BPS and gratitude resulted in higher social connectedness than the nostalgia intervention. Further, greater well-being during lockdown was predicted by greater attachment security, greater emotion regulation, and more social interactions. In sum, focusing on the present or future during lockdown is more effective for well-being than focusing on the past, which alongside trait characteristics predict well-being under lockdown.


Rotunda and the Arch of Galerius (Kamara) are important archaeological monuments of Roman period in the heart of the urban fabric of Thessaloniki. The Arch of Galerius was dedicated to celebrate the victory of the Roman Emperor in the East. Rotunda, the monumental round structure was originally part of the palace complex of Galerius. Many archaeologists believe Rotunda was initially used as a pagan temple, while others believe it was constructed to be used as a mausoleum for Galerius. It has gone through multiple periods of use and modification as a Christian church and a mosque. Both monuments dominate the landscape today and they become part of everyday life. The reason for choosing this subject is the significant degradation of the area despite its historic value. The aim of this paper is the unification of these monuments, so that despite their integration within the modern image of the city, they maintain their uniqueness, highlight their long history, improve the quality of life of the residents and enable tourists to visit the monuments. The inspiration of the design is a target; the target is a circle - simple, memorable and timeless - with a pattern of rings. The design target consists of concentric circles (rings) that start from the Rotunda, because of the significance of the monument. The existence of the Arch Galerius supports the definition of Rotunda as the centre of the circle and acts as the indicator of the final destination. The imaginary extensions of the surrounding roads act as radii of the shape, enhancing the Rotunda as the central point. The design proposal is an aesthetic, functional and environmental remodelling of the study area, contributing decisively to the improvement of public life and restoration of the historic area.


Abstract Field experiments were conducted in 2001, 2002, and 2003 to evaluate PRE applications of mesotrione at 150, 230, and 310 g ai/ha alone, and in mixtures with S-metolachlor at 1,070 g ai/ha and atrazine at 560 and 1,120 g ai/ha in corn. Corn injury was 11 to 18% with all treatments in 2002 when 3.2 cm of rainfall occurred within 10 d after PRE applications, but no injury was observed in 2001 and 2003 when rainfall was 0 and 1.1 cm within 10 d after PRE applications, respectively. Rainfall following PRE herbicide applications also influenced weed control, where weed control was generally poor with all herbicide treatments in 2001. Mesotrione at 150 g/ha controlled common lambsquarters and smooth pigweed at least 95% in 2002 and 2003, but control was 70% or less in 2001. PRE mesotrione at rates of 230 or 310 g/ha controlled common ragweed at least 83% in 2002 and 2003, but control exceeded 88% with mixtures of mesotrione at rates greater than 150 g/ha plus S-metolachlor plus atrazine at 560 g/ha. Morningglory species (ivyleaf morningglory, pitted morningglory, and tall morningglory) were not consistently controlled by mesotrione alone. In 2002 and 2003, mixtures of all mesotrione rates plus S-metolachlor plus atrazine at 1,120 g/ha controlled morningglory species at least 90%. Corn treated with mesotrione at any rate plus S-metolachlor plus atrazine at 1,120 g/ha consistently produced high yields. It is concluded that control with this three-way mixture would be most consistent with a minimum rate of mesotrione at 230 g/ha and atrazine at 1,120 g/ha. Nomenclature: Atrazine; mesotrione; S-metolachlor; common lambsquarters, Chenopodium album L. CHEAL; common ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia L. AMBEL; ivyleaf morningglory, Ipomoea hederacea (L.) Jacq. IPOHE; morningglory species, Ipomoea spp. IPOSS; pitted morningglory, Ipomoea lacunosa L. IPOLA; smooth pigweed, Amaranthus hybridus L. AMACH; tall morningglory, Ipomoea purpurea (L.) Roth PHBPU; corn, Zea mays L. 'Dekalb DKC64-10 (RR2)', 'Pioneer 33B51', 'Pioneer 33G26'.


Are You Ready for the Math on the GRE(R) or GMAT(R) exams? You Will Be. Kaplan's GRE(R)& GMAT(R) Exams Math Workbook, Third Edition immerses you in all the math concepts you need to know. With comprehensive review and powerful strategies for every type of question, this intensive workbook provides you with the targeted math training you need to score well on the GRE(R) and GMAT(R) exams. You will be prepared. You will score your best. We guarantee it. (See details inside.) Intensive Practice Question after question, practice set after practice set, you will build the skills you need to master every math subject, every math concept, and every math question type. Targeted Review GRE(R) & GMAT(R) Exams Math Workbook provides you with comprehensive, step-by-step training on everything from math basics to the most advanced concepts on the tests, including graphs, word problems, and data sufficiency problems. Powerful Strategies To round out your review, you will learn how to apply Kaplan's exclusive graduate math strategies, allowing you to maximize your time, effort -- and score! Sign up for the Kaplan Edge. Tape into Kaplan's expertise with the Kaplan Edge, our series of free email newsletters. Filled with admissions tips, the latest test and career news, important deadline reminders, study aids, and more, the Kaplan Edge is an excellent resource for critical graduate and business school admissions information. Sign up today at kaptest.com Test Prep, Admissions and Guidance. For life. Kaplan has helped more than 3 million students achieve their educational and career goals. With 185 centers and more than 1,200 classroomlocations throughout the U.S. and abroad, Kaplan provides a full range of services, including test prep courses, admissions consulting, programs for international students, professional licensing preparation, and more. For more information, contact us at 1-800-KAP-TEST or visit kaptest.com (AOL Keyword: kaplan).


In this paper, a type of the high-strength abrasion-resistant steel-NM360 has been studied with the aid of the modern physical simulation technology to solve the problem of its poor weldability. In the experiment, the welding thermal cycles under different cooling conditions with the peak heating temperature of 1320oC were simulated via the Gleeble-1500D thermal/mechanical simulator. The SH-CCT diagram of NM360 has been established by investigating the microstructure transformation course and the hardness of the welded heat-affected zone (HAZ) near fusion line during different cooling process. Moreover, the impact toughness and fracture in HAZ with different cooling rate have been studied. The established SH-CCT diagram and impact toughness in HAZ provide the referential experimental basis for selecting proper welding parameters. At last, the welding parameters for NM360 steel are determined with the aid of nomography of carbon dioxide gas shielded arc welding and empirical formula.


In this paper Islanding fault of rectifier and inverter substations are studied in HVDC system both in back to back and long transmission line systems. The effect of system short circuit ratio (SCR), are studied too. System's controller action, pulse blocking of faulty converter and rectifier changing operation to inversion mode are three control schemes that studied here. Finally the results compared with each other and with system that has no control action and the best method for each fault are determined. All of these simulations are done using MATLAB- SIMULINK.


We present a case of late infective endocarditis on the mechanical aortic valve prosthesis, complicated by large paraortic abscesus. It was dificult to diagnosed this patient, because of negative blood cultures results and not diagnostic view in transthoracic echocardiogram. Transesophageal echo was performed just before cardiac surgery because of very bad patient's condition.


Acoustic echo cancelers (AECs) are used in teleconferencing systems to reduce undesired echoes originating from coupling between the loudspeaker and the microphone. Better performance in terms of sound localization can be achieved only by using multichannel AECs. By the use of a two-channel (stereo) system, it is already possible to obtain more realistic performance than the monochannel case because listeners have more spatial information that helps to identify the speaker position. In this paper, a novel approach to stereo AEC is proposed based on a combination of psychoacoustic effects. The principle of the proposed structure is to use an approach based on the "missing-fundamental" phenomenon at low frequencies (below 500 Hz) and a modified phase modulation approach at higher frequencies. Several results are presented in terms of magnitude-squared coherence, Itakura-Saito measure, convergence speed of adaptive filters, interaural cross-correlation, and subjective evaluation, in order to confirm the validity of the proposed approach.


The bryostatins are a unique family of cancer chemotherapeutic candidates isolated from marine bryozoa. While their molecular mode of action is not known, these macrolactones exhibit high affinities for protein kinase C (PKC) isozymes, compete for the phorbol ester binding site on PKC, and stimulate kinase activity in vitro and in vivo. Unlike the phorbol esters, they do not act as tumor promoters. Despite promising biological properties, the supply of these compounds is limited by the difficulty of their isolation from natural sources and their synthetic complexity. A new class of bryostatin analogues which retain the putative recognition domain of the bryostatins but are simplified through deletions and modifications in the C1—C14 spacer domain have been designed using computer models. A convergent synthesis has been realized for the production, in gram quantities, of these recognition and spacer domains whose coupling allows for the generation of a range of analogues. The final closure process involves a novel macrotransacetalization reaction which proceeds with complete stereoselectivity. The solution structures of two synthetic analogues were determined by NMR spectroscopy and found to be very similar to the previously reported structures of bryostatins 1 and 10. In addition, these structures appear to indicate that the stereochemistry of the C3 hydroxyl group plays a significant role in the conformation of the macrolactone. All analogues bound strongly to a mixture of PKC isozymes, and several exhibited significant levels of in vitro growth inhibitory activity against human cancer cell lines. Taken together, this work provides important steps toward the development and understanding of simplified, synthetically accessible analogues of the bryostatins as potential chemotherapeutic agents. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Med Res Rev, 19, No. 5, 388–407, 1999.


Selenium-doped hydroxyapatite (HA) was biomimetically coated on Ti6Al4V plates with the aim of combining the anticancer and antibacterial properties of selenium with the biocompatibility and bioactivity of HA. For the coating process, the composition of 1.5 × SBF (solution with ion concentrations at 1.5 times that of simulated body fluid, SBF) was modified to include 0.15 mM selenate (SeO42−) ion. The selenium-doped HA coating was characterized by several methods, such as scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The cytotoxicity of selenium on osteoblast and osteosarcoma cells was determined. The coating was shown to inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis.


The article explores sanctuary practices within public institutions by examining instances where public libraries in Denmark (Copenhagen), Norway (Oslo) and Sweden (Malmo and Stockholm) open up their services for persons who lack residence permits on state territory (so-called irregular migrants). Public libraries are understood to be protected public spheres where the right to information and the freedom of expression are safeguarded. Such spaces, where rights are provided, as Hannah Arendt famously pointed out in her reflections over statelessness, are primarily open to citizens. Hence, when public libraries offer their services to irregularized migrants, this is a demonstration of how public institutions representing the sovereign may engage in contestations of deportation regimes produced by the sovereign. Such enactments of sanctuary, or acts of citizenship in the city, open up new meanings of Arendts notion of ''the right to have rights''. Through an in-depth case study in Malmo , Sweden, this article suggests that a new role is emerging for municipal institutions as providers of transnational rights decoupled from any territorial basis. Rather than being linked to nationhood, the institutional role in democracies may be constitutive of rights in local contexts, in this case the protected right to access library services. An equally progressive development can be found in Norway; however, this is not the case in Denmark which could be understood as a reflection of Denmarks more restrictive approach to immigration in general. (Less)


The seasonal snowpack of the temperate glaciers are sources of diverse microbial inoculi. However, the microbial ecology of the tropical glacial surfaces is endangered, hence poses an extinction threat to some populations of some microbes due to rapid loss of the glacier mass. The aim of this study was to isolate and phylogenetically characterise the prokaryotes from the seasonal snow of Lewis glacier in Mt. Kenya. Snow samples were inoculated into Difco™ R2A Agar and BG-11 medium. Genomic DNA of seventeen representative axenic isolates was extracted using the mixture of MP FastDNA soil kit and the 16S rDNA gene region partially sequenced. The 16S rDNA gene sequences were blastn analyzed against the Genbank database and phylogenetic analysis was performed using MEGA 6 software. Phylogenetic analysis grouped the isolates into three phyla: Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria. Isolates were affiliated with the genera Bacillus (53%), Stenotrophomonas (23.4%), Cryobacterium (5.9%), Paenibacillus (5.9%), Subtercola (5.9%) and Arthrobacter (5.9%). The results confirm that the seasonal tropical snowpack of Lewis glacier is dominated by the general terrestrial prokaryotes and a few glacier and snow specialist species.

 Key words: Seasonal snowpack, tropical glacier, prokaryotes, 16S rDNA.


Deciding the request for nucleic corrosive buildups in natural examples is a basic part of a wide assortment of examination applications. Throughout the most recent fifty years enormous quantities of scientists have put forth a concentrated effort to the creation of methods and advancements to work with this accomplishment, sequencing DNA and RNA atoms. This time-scale has seen gigantic changes, moving from sequencing short oligonucleotides to a great many bases, from battling towards the derivation of the coding grouping of a solitary quality to fast and broadly accessible entire genome sequencing. This article crosses those years, repeating through the various ages of sequencing innovation, featuring a portion of the key revelations, analysts, and groupings en route.


Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death worldwide. Patients who have survived a coronary event are the highest priority for secondary prevention. In the secondary prevention of CAD, strong evidence of the beneficial effects of exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation is confirmed. The positive effects of physical activity are well established in primary prevention, but the question of whether these effects also relate to patients with CAD still remains to be explored. It is theoretically possible that kinesiophobia, fear of movement, may prevent successful cardiac rehabilitation. The impact on kinesiophobia by rehabilitation outcomes in patients with CAD has not previously been investigated. The overall aim of this thesis was to study the impact of exercise and physical activity in relation to kinesiophobia and cardiac risk markers in patients with CAD. Study I evaluated the effects of high-frequency exercise before and after an elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Study II examined the level of physical activity in patients with CAD and investigated the association between physical activity and cardiac risk markers. Study III investigated the validity and reliability of the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia Heart (TSK-SV Heart), a brief questionnaire to detect kinesiophobia, in patients with CAD. Study IV described the occurrence of kinesiophobia in patients with CAD and investigated the impact on kinesiophobia by clinical variables with an influence on rehabilitation outcomes. The main findings were that high-frequency exercise improved the maximum aerobic capacity and muscle function in patients treated with PCI, which may have clear advantages when it comes to preventing the progress of CAD. A relatively high level of physical activity was found among patients with CAD, six months after the cardiac event. After adjustment for confounders, statistically significant, yet weak, associations were found between physical activity and several cardiac risk markers. Support was found for the TSK-SV Heart as a reliable, valid questionnaire for measuring kinesiophobia in patients with CAD. A high level of kinesiophobia was found in 20% of patients with CAD, six months after the cardiac event. In addition, an impact on kinesiophobia was identified by clinical variables with an influence on rehabilitation outcomes in patients with CAD, representing medical variables, all components of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and health-related quality of life. In conclusion, high-frequency exercise in patients treated with PCI improved their maximum aerobic capacity and muscle function. Significant, yet weak, associations were identified between physical activity and cardiac risk markers in patients with CAD. Several important clinical findings with an impact on rehabilitation outcomes were found to be associated with a high level of kinesiophobia. Kinesiophobia therefore needs to be considered in cardiac rehabilitation and would benefit from future research.


Medicinal plants include various types of plants used in herbalism or herbal medicine. It is the use of plants for medicinal purposes, and the study of such uses. The use of medicinal plants is gaining popularity all over the world; hence the need to exploit various plant that could be of economic importance to both man and animal. Centella asiatica is one of such plants that are underutilized. Therefore, investigating the chemical and elemental constituents of C. asiatica leaf meal is very vital. The phytochemical analyses, proximate composition, vitamin and mineral concentrations were determined using standard procedures. Considerable quantity of phytochemical compounds such as phenolic, saponin, flavonoids, phytate and tannin were determined and the values obtained for these components were 2.75, 8.20, 12.85, 0.76 and 0.0%, respectively. While for the proximate: 95.76, 2.77, 12.40, 2.80, 2.40 and 75.44% were obtained for dry matter, crude fiber, crude protein, ash, ether extract and carbohydrate. The leaf meal contains appreciable quantity of calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus and sodium. Vitamins A, C and B6 are readily available in the leaf meal while E and B1 are not available. The nutrient composition of C. asiatica revealed that it contains some bioactive components which can serve as feed supplements in animal production and improve human health.

 Key words: Chemical analysis, Centella asiatica, vitamins, minerals, additives, proximate.


Objectives: Orthopedic residency training program in Saudi Arabia is one of the relatively new programs that are being expanded to accommodate a growing need. This program has not been studied systematically before. As such, assessing orthopedic trainees' needs and evaluating the program from the trainees' perspective are essential components to ensure optimal training. The purpose of this study was to assess Saudi orthopedic trainees' perceptions of the content and adequacy of their current training and its impact on knowledge and skills acquisition. Methods: Electronic questionnaire surveys were sent to all postgraduate orthopedic trainees in Saudi Arabia. A 36-items questionnaire was constructed and piloted. A 5-point Likert scale was used to obtain trainees' rating of six main areas of training. Results: Seventy-four out of 104 trainees responded to the survey (71%). Sixty-five percent of trainees rated their satisfaction with the current program as neutral (46%) or satisfactory (20%) and 34% were dissatisfied. A perceived lack of rotation-specific learning objectives (63%), suboptimal technical skills training and practice opportunities including exposure as the primary surgeon (80%), and lack of feedback (80%) were some of the main concerns expressed by trainees. Conclusions: This study highlights several areas for improvement in the current program to address trainees' learning needs and optimize surgical competency. The observed large percentage of trainees' dissatisfaction seems to be predominantly related to the lack of surgical exposure; a parameter that could be improved. In addition, research to address the training needs of orthopedic educators and program directors' perspective is required.


We develop a technique for gluing relative trisection diagrams of $4$-manifolds with nonempty connected boundary to obtain trisection diagrams for closed $4$-manifolds. As an application, we describe a trisection of any closed $4$-manifold which admits a Lefschetz fibration over $S^2$ equipped with a section of square $-1$, by an explicit diagram determined by the vanishing cycles of the Lefschetz fibration. In particular, we obtain a trisection diagram for some simply connected minimal complex surface of general type. As a consequence, we obtain explicit trisection diagrams for a pair of closed $4$-manifolds which are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. Moreover, we describe a trisection for any oriented $S^2$-bundle over any closed surface and in particular we draw the corresponding diagrams for $T^2 \times S^2$ and $T^2 \tilde{\times} S^2$ using our gluing technique. Furthermore, we provide an alternate proof of a recent result of Gay and Kirby which says that every closed $4$-manifold admits a trisection. The key feature of our proof is that Cerf theory takes a back seat to contact geometry.


Purpose of review Isomeric fatty acids have the same number of carbon and hydrogen atoms, but may have distinct metabolic and health effects. Two well-known examples of isomeric fatty acids are cis and trans monounsaturated fatty acids, and conjugated isomers of linoleic acid (CLA). The purpose of this review is to summarize recent findings from human studies on the metabolic and health effects of these two classes of isomeric fatty acids. Recent findings Apart from an unfavorable effect on serum lipoproteins, trans monounsaturated fatty acids from hydrogenated oils may increase plasma markers for a low-grade inflammatory state. From epidemiological studies, however, it is not possible to conclude if effects of ruminant and industrial trans fatty acids on cardiovascular risk are different. In contrast to in-vitro and animal studies, there are no indications that in humans the two most common CLA isomers (cis9,trans11-CLA and trans10,cis12-CLA) affect body composition differently. Longer-term supplementation, however, may slightly decrease body fat mass without apparent effects on plasma markers for glucose and lipid metabolism. Other studies have even reported adverse effects of CLA supplementation on insulin resistance and lipid peroxidation. Summary Evidence is increasing that trans monounsaturated fatty acids from hydrogenated oils increase plasma markers of low-grade chronic inflammation. From epidemiological studies, however, it is not clear if effects of ruminant and industrial trans fatty acids on cardiovascular risk are different. Effects of CLA on body composition remain controversial and more research is needed before the widely available CLA supplements should be advocated as an adjunct to control body weight. Abbreviations CLA: conjugated linoleic acid; C-RP: C-reactive protein.


This paper describes a novel tracking performance evaluation metric based on the successful detection of events, rather than low-level image processing criteria. A general event metric is defined to measure whether the agents and actions in the scene given by the ground truth were correctly tracked by comparing two event lists using dynamic programming. This metric is suitable to evaluate and compare different tracking approaches where the underlying algorithm may be completely different. Furthermore, we introduce an automatic extraction of those semantically high level events from different types of low level tracking data and human annotated ground truth. A case study with two different trackers on public datasets shows the effectiveness of this evaluation scheme.


Research on violence in US prisons frequently finds higher rates of violence among ethnic minorities compared to whites. Explanations focus on a "subculture of violence," sometimes referred to as an honor culture or code of the street, whereby minorities import a deeply internalized, violent subculture into prison. Subcultural theories of violence have been challenged by scholarship that views culture as providing a "toolkit" of frames and scripts that individuals draw upon in different social contexts. According to this model, the importation of violence is far from inevitable, because violence results from the interplay between social context and cultural toolkits. We assess the ability of these two cultural models to explain ethnic differences in prison violence in a different national context by comparing rates of violence among Arab Muslim and Jewish criminal prisoners in Israel. Subcultural models lead us to expect higher rates of violence among Arab Muslim prisoners, while a toolkit-based explanation that draws on social identity research predicts lower rates of violence. We test these hypotheses using both logistic regression and propensity score matching on data covering over 16,000 prisoners, supplemented by in-depth interviews with prisoners and staff. Our results conflict with the expectations of subcultural theories and lend support to culture-as-toolkit explanations. We conclude by discussing the relevance of our findings for research on prison violence, theories of the relationship between culture and violence, and the usefulness of incorporating social identity into toolkit theory.


According to the investigation results of 70 green food enterprises in Sichuan Province, the strategic targets of enterprises implementing green food certification are discussed by borrowing ideas from the Balanced Score Card. Balanced Score Card index system is selected and improved according to the changes of enterprises before and after implementing the green food certification system. Then, the performance evaluation index system of enterprises implementing green food certification is established. This index system has five strategic directions of finance, customer, internal management, social ecology, and learning and growth, and has 11 strategic targets, such as increasing operating profit, expanding market, improving the quality of staff, improving the production technology level, enhancing the core competence of enterprises, ensuring food safety, improving the physical quality of human, and protecting ecological environment. According to the principles of guidance, scientificity, comparability, feasibility, and significance, a total of 24 evaluation indices are established, including the change of product cost, change of product sales revenue, change of profit rate, change of return on investment, change of internal and external lost cost, change of the proportion of certified products in total sales and so on.


OBJECTIVE
To explore the categories of drugs causing hepatotoxicity and analyze the clinical and histological features of the corresponding drug-induced liver injury (DILI), in order to gain insights into potential diagnostic factors for DILI.

METHODS
A total of 138 DILI patients treated at our hospital from April 2008 to April 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. The responsible drug for each DILI case was recorded. The Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) had been used to diagnose DILI. Only cases that had scored as highly probable or probable (more than or equal to 6 points by RUCAM) were included in this study. The patients' general condition, clinical manifestations, and serum biochemical and immunological parameters were assessed. Sixty-six of the patients underwent liver biopsy, and were assessed for liver pathological changes. Clinical and laboratory test data were collected and used to classify the total 138 cases as hepatocellular injury, cholestatic, or mixed hepatocellular-cholestatic types.

RESULTS
Within our patient population, the leading cause of DILI was Chinese herb medicine, accounting for 53.62% of cases. Antibiotics were implicated in 7.97% of cases, and dietary supplement in 6.52% of cases. Correlation between the clinical features and histological injury pattern was stronger at the time of biopsy (more than or equal to 3 days after laboratory results) (kappa = 0.63, P less than 0.05) than at the onset of DILI (kappa = 0.25, P less than 0.05). All modified hepatic activity index (HAI) necroinflammatory scores and fibrosis scores were more severe in the cholestatic and mixed injury types than in the hepatocellular injury type (P less than 0.01 and P less than 0.05, respectively).

CONCLUSION
Chinese herbal medicine, dietary supplements and antibiotics were the main causes of DILI in our patient population. The clinical and histological features correlated well, especially at later stages of DILI. The degree of inflammation and fibrosis was significantly higher in cholestatic and mixed hepatocellular-cholestatic injury types than in the hepatocellular injury type. Assessment of both clinical and pathological features may represent a more accurate diagnostic method for DILI.


Abstract The relevance of the idea of 'crisis' for careers and careers guidance is examined, together with some of the critical responses that have been made to recent crises. It is argued that careers guidance generally responds to such challenges by seeing them as external problems rather than as changes which may alter its very assumptions and methods. Two particular taboos are noted in this context concerning the value of work and of working for an organisation. The questioning of these taboos leads to four models of alternative careers: the Uncareer, the Guerilla Career, the Cop-Out Career, and the Non-Career. These forms of career raise the broader issues of order and disorder within careers, with their associated implications for careers guidance.


This paper deals with the capacity behavior of single carrier modulation with frequency-domain equalization (SC-FDE) systems in broad-band multipath fading environments for the case where the channel is unknown at the transmitter and perfectly known at the receiver. The capacity performance of SC-FDE system is compared with that of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system. And the influence of the propagation environment and system parameters on capacity of these systems is studied. A useful conclusion is obtained that the expected capability of the SC-FDE is always poorer than that of OFDM in frequency-selective fading channel, and it is closer to OFDM in channel with lower delay spread. Furthermore, it is found that although the expected capacity of SC-FDE decreases with increasing delay spread, the outage probability may decrease as a result of the frequency diversity.


The Pasadena Office of the U.S. Geological Survey, together with the California Institute of Technology Seismology Laboratory (Caltech Seismo Lab), operates a network of more than 300 remote seismometers in southern California called the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN). Signals from these sites are telemetered to the central processing site at the Caltech Seismology Laboratory in Pasadena. These signals are continuously monitored by computers that detect and record thousands of earthquakes each year. Phase arrival times for these events are picked by analysts and archived along with digital seismograms. Data acquisition, processing, and archiving is achieved using the CUSP system (Dollar, 1989). These data are used to compile the SCSN Catalog of Earthquakes , a list beginning in 1932 that currently contains more than 282,000 events. This data set is critical to the evaluation of earthquake hazards in California and to the advancement of geoscience as a whole.

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This paper presents the extension of a well-established Immersed Boundary (IB)/cut-cell method, the LS-STAG method (Y. Cheny & O. Botella, J. Comput. Phys. Vol. 229, 1043-1076, 2010), to viscoelastic flow computations in complex geometries. We recall that for Newtonian flows, the LS-STAG method is based on the finite-volume method on staggered grids, where the IB boundary is represented by its level-set function. The discretization in the cut-cells is achieved by requiring that global conservation properties equations be satisfied at the discrete level, resulting in a stable and accurate method and, thanks to the level-set representation of the IB boundary, at low computational costs. In the present work, we consider a general viscoelastic tensorial equation whose particular cases recover well-known constitutive laws such as the Oldroyd-B,White-Metzner and Giesekus models. Based on the LS-STAG discretization of the Newtonian stresses in the cut-cells, we have achieved a compatible velocity-pressure-stress discretization that prevents spurious oscillations of the stress tensor. Applications to popular benchmarks for viscoelastic fluids are presented: the four-to-one abrupt planar contraction flows with sharp and rounded re-entrant corners, for which experimental and numerical results are available. The results show that the LS-STAG method demonstrates an accuracy and robustness comparable to body-fitted methods. AMS subject classifications: 68U20, 76A10, 76D05, 76M12, 76M25


Rats with lesions of the hippocampus or mammillary bodies were impaired in learning reversal problems in a T-maze. Test trials given after learning each reversal disclosed little forgetting in the mammillary body group but rapid forgetting in the hippocampal group. These findings resemble those recently reported in patients with amnestic syndromes.


SCIENCE SIGNALING
Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4, which recognizes bacterial cell wall components, interacts with the TIRAP-MyD88 pair of adaptor proteins to stimulate the production of inflammatory cytokines, and also with the TRAM-TRIF adaptor pair to stimulate the production of type I interferons. Curious about how TLR4 coordinates activation of these two signaling pathways, Kagan et al. analyzed TLR4 location in macrophages and found that it was present both at the plasma membrane and in early endosomes. Inhibition of dynamin-dependent endocytosis prevented lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced internalization of endogenous TLR4 and blocked TRAM-TRIF-dependent phosphorylation of the transcription factor IRF3 (and the expression of target genes) whereas TIRAP-MyD88-dependent phosphorylation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and IκBα degradation were unaffected. Although TIRAP localized to the plasma membrane, TRAM was present at both the plasma membrane and in early endosomes. Analyses of LPS-induced cytokine production by TRAM localization mutants indicated that TLR4 signaling through TRAMTRIF took place in endosomes. Noting that no known TLRs stimulate type I interferon production from the plasma membrane (TLR4 had been thought to be the lone exception), the authors propose that TLR4 stimulates TIRAP-MyD88 signaling from the cell surface and initiates TRAM-TRIF signaling only after internalization. — EMA

Nat. Immunol. 9 , 361 (2008).


Community networking is an emerging model of a shared communication infrastructure in which communities of citizens build and own open networks. Community networks offer successfully IP-based networking to the user. Cloud computing infrastructures however, while common in today's Internet, hardy exist in community networks. We explain our approach to bring clouds into the Guifi.net community network. For this we have started integrating part of our cloud prototype into the Guifi.net community network management tools. A proof-of-concept cloud infrastructure is currently under deployment in the Guifi.net community network. Our long term vision is that the users of community networks will not need to consume cloud applications from the Internet, but find them within the community network.


This research will examine the impact of training in the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS), a suicide assessment and intervention protocol, on the knowledge, perceived skills, and confidence for providers at three different levels of training. The trainee groups will include Qualified Mental Health Professionals (County), master's prepared third-year doctoral students on the Behavioral Health Consultation Crisis team (BHCC), and first-year psychology trainees (First-years). The three levels of participants were asked to complete a pre-test prior to and post-test immediately following their respective CAMS training. A 2 X 3 mixed ANOVA was conducted using different participant groups (experience) as the independent variable and knowledge, perceived skills, and confidence preand posttraining as the second independent variable to examine the within-subjects change in knowledge, 1 Qualified Mental Health Professionals are defined by the Oregon Administrative Rules (OARs 309-016-0005-59) as licensed medical practitioners that can provide individual, family, and/or group therapy to clients with Medicaid. CAMS TRAINING OUTCOME iv perceived skills, and confidence over time and the interaction of the between subjects variable of experience. A follow-up one-way ANOVA and T-TESTS were completed. For knowledge, all groups improved significantly post-training but the training did not differentially impact the amount of acquired knowledge based on experience. However, for perceived skill, the groups came in with statistically different levels of skills with County more skilled than First-years. There was an overall pre-post improvement for all groups but First-years demonstrated relatively greater improvement in perceived skills. Similar to perceived skills, the three groups came in with different levels of confidence with County higher than First-years. There was a main effect of overall pre-post improvement in confidence with the First-years' confidence increasing significantly more than the other two groups.


The electromechanical coupling in ferroelectric materials is controlled by several coexisting structural phenomena which can include piezoelectric lattice strain, 180 degrees and non-180 degrees domain wall motion, and interphase boundary motion. The structural mechanisms that contribute to electromechanical coupling have not been readily measured in the past, particularly under the low-to-medium driving electric field amplitudes at which many piezoelectric materials are used. In this feature, results from in situ, high-energy, and time-resolved X-ray diffraction experiments are interpreted together with macroscopic piezoelectric coefficient measurements in order to better understand the contribution of these mechanisms to the electromechanical coupling of polycrystalline ferroelectric materials. The compositions investigated include 2 mol% La-doped PbZr0.60Ti0.40O3, 2 mol% La-doped PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3, 2 mol% La-doped PbZr0.40Ti0.60O3, undoped PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3, and 2 mol% Fe-doped PbZr0.47Ti0.53O3. In all compositions, a strong correlation is found between the field-amplitude-dependence of the macroscopic piezoelectric coefficient and the contribution of non-180 degrees domain wall motion determined from the diffraction data. The results show directly that the Rayleigh-like behavior of d(33) piezoelectric coefficient is predominantly due to a Rayleigh-like behavior of non-180 degrees domain wall motion. Furthermore, after separating contributions from lattice (atomic level) and domain wall motion (nanoscale level) to the measured macroscopic piezoelectric properties, we show that previously ignored intergranular interactions (microscopic level) account for a surprisingly large portion of the electromechanical coupling. These results demonstrate that electromechanical coupling in polycrystalline aggregates is substantially different from that observed in single crystalline materials. The construct of emergence is used to describe how averaged macrolevel phenomena are different from the material response observed in an isolated subcomponent of the material. Consequently, and due to its size-scale complexity, the description of grain-to-grain interactions is presently inaccessible in most ab initio and phenomenological approaches. Results presented here demonstrate the need to account for these interactions in order to completely describe macroscopic electromechanical properties of polycrystalline materials.


Preventive safety functions help drivers avoid or mitigate accidents. No quantitative methods have been available to evaluate the safety impact of these systems. This paper describes a framework for the assessment of preventive and active safety functions, which integrates procedures for technical performance, human factors, and safety assessments in one holistic approach. The concept of situational control , which is defined as the degree of control that a joint driver-vehicle system exerts over a traffic situation, has been introduced. Assessment involves technical evaluation , which assesses that the system and all subsystems work according to the functional and technical specifications, human factors evaluation, which assesses the behavioral situational control parameters, and safety potential evaluation, which performs a detailed assessment of internal and external impact mechanisms that change the situational control at the traffic level. The methodology has been applied to the INSAFES project, which integrates lateral and longitudinal control functions.


The article investigates the ordering of complements in Latin support verb constructions (SVC) of the type bellum inferre or insidias facere with prototypically trivalent verbs, which can either keep or lose the third valency in such constructions. After the brief synopsis of the issues regarding general aspects of the SVCs, the author focuses on the order of the Direct and Indirect objects within the nine constructions (304 occurrences in total) taken from the works of Classical Latin writers. The theoretical background of the analysis applied is the idea of interaction and competition between the three language dimensions, i. e. semantic, pragmatic and deictic-denotative ones, which can determine various orderings of the complements in their relation to each other. On the basis of a previous corpus study concerning the argument structure of Latin trivalent verbs, the author considers the order Direct-Indirect object (DI) as unmarked (neutral), while the opposite order ID as resulting from either special deictic-denotative properties of the arguments or pragmatic factors. As regards the deictic-denotative properties, they depend on the place occupied by the noun or the pronoun in the animacy hierarchy. The promotion of the Indirect object to the priority position is explained by the animacy of its denotatum or by the status of speech act participant, if it is expressed by a personal / reflexive / anaphoric pronoun. The author analyzes the order of the Direct and Indirect objects in the nine support verb constructions selected from the works by Caesar, Cicero and Sallust (304 occurrences in total). The analysis demonstrates that the order ID is attested three times as often as the opposite order DI, because the Indirect objects are usually animate or pronominal in the constructions of this type. In some cases, however, the pragmatic factors such as focus, contrast or emphasis may also influence the ordering. The findings are represented in the table and are followed by the examples.


Breuste, J.; Jayathunga, S.: Representatives of nature conservation and ecotourism in different biomes of Sri Lanka. – Hercynia N. F. 43 (2010): 257–276. Tourism in nature-based destinations is prominent in many countries where mass tourism takes place. The study focuses on the representatives of nature conservation and ecotourism in all biomes of Sri Lanka. It aims at the investigation of nature conservation strategies adopted and of which ecosystems are highly utilised for tourism. Simultaneously, the representation and interaction between biomes, nature conservation strategies and ecotourism are evaluated in order to identify the influence and effectiveness of each other. Digital maps show the defined biomes in the different bioregions. The bioregions are demarcated in accordance with geographical, climatical and biological features and characters. Major biomes identified in the country are forest, wetland, coastal and marine biomes. The management categories of nature conservation, namely strict nature reserves, nature reserves, national parks, marine reserves, sanctuaries, natural forests and wetlands are evaluated in accordance with their objectives, efficiency and effectiveness. Activities of nature-based tourism take place in different biomes like jeep safaris, nature trekking and boating and are categorised in different aspects as wildlife watching, bird watching and nature admiring. The study shows the dominance of state involvement in nature conservation in different kinds. Many nature conservation strategies are concentrated on forest biomes. Nature-based tourism is not equally distributed among all biomes and is mainly focused in the forest biomes in the dry-zone bioregion. In this bioregion, many national parks are situated and infrastructure for tourism has been developed. In other biomes is much more potential available for promoting tourism. A physical study should be conducted to determine what the reasons and constraints of the actual situation are as well as to answer the question what other biomes offer potential for further expansion and development of ecotourism in terms of nature conservation and socioeconomic development of the local people. Key words: ecotourism, nature conservation, bioregions, protected area, national parks


We have demonstrated that the variant JH2604 of the herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) strain HG52 is completely avirulent in BALB/c mice following intracranial inoculation, with an LD50 of > 107 p.f.u./mouse compared to the wild-type LDso of < 10 z p.f.u./mouse. In JH2604, a 1-5kbp deletion extends from the DR1/Ub junction of the 'a' sequence to 511 bp upstream of the 5' end of IE 1 in both long repeats. We have since constructed a second variant (2701) in which only 850 bp are removed from the R L. This deletion lies entirely within the sequences deleted in JH2604 and leaves intact most of a short 189 bp open reading frame (ORF) highly conserved between HSV-1 and HSV-2. Like JH2604, 2701 shows wild-type growth characteristics and is neither host rangenor temperaturerestricted. This was most noteworthy in the case of mouse 3T6 cells. 2701 has an LDso of 5x l05 p.f.u./mouse on intracranial inoculation, a value intermediate between those of HG52 and JH2604. In assays for intracranial replication, JH2604 exhibits no detectable growth with a rapid decline in virus titre, 2701 shows limited growth over the first 24 to 36 h postinoculation before the titre again declines and HG52 grows rapidly, reaching a high titre until the mice die. Taken together these results suggest that a region of the genome upstream of IEl encodes a gene product essential for HSV replication in neurons of the central nervous system. It is highly likely that the conserved ORF is in an important region of a polypeptide essential for neurovirulence, although the upstream sequences present in 2701 but absent from JH2604 must also play a role. Although JH2604 and 2701 are avirulent, they both establish latent infection in the dorsal root ganglia of BALB/c mice and reactivate in vitro in a manner indistinguishable from HG52. This suggests a distinct separation of the factors involved in neurovirulence and the establishment of/reactivation from latency.


Packet reservation multiple access (PRMA) is a media access control (MAC) protocol for wireless systems which can also be used as a packet control layer on top of TDMA. This paper analyzes the performance of PRMA for data traffic in a wireless communication system. A modification has also been proposed to improve the data transmission fairness under congested traffic condition. Markov model and computer simulations have been used to study the channel utilization, packet access time etc. of the data system. The analysis shows that the performance of the PRMA protocol for data traffic is satisfactory. The derived mathematical model provides an accurate tool for evaluating the system performance.