With increasing concerns over waste and the need for `greener' products, it is necessary to carry out LCAs of products and this will help manufacturers take the first steps towards greener designs by assessing their product's carbon output. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment, and to assess the impact of those energy and material used and released to the environment. This assessment includes the entire life cycle of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle, processes encompassing materials and energy acquisition, manufacturing, use and waste management. The following four major components of an LCA study as described in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14040/44 were used: Goal definition and scoping; Life-cycle inventory (LCI), Life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA), and Interpretation of results. Developing and providing sound environmental data using a life-cycle assessment approach will assist those and the targeted audience to pursue environmentally preferable alternatives.


: Fog Radio Access Networks (F-RANs) have been considered a groundbreaking technique to support the services of Internet of Things by leveraging edge caching and edge computing. However, the current contributions in computation offloading and resource allocation are inefficient; moreover, they merely consider the static communication mode, and the increasing demand for low latency services and high throughput poses tremendous challenges in F-RANs. A joint problem of mode selection, resource allocation, and power allocation is formulated to minimize latency under various constraints. We propose a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) based joint computation offloading and resource allocation scheme that achieves a suboptimal solution in F-RANs. The core idea of the proposal is that the DRL controller intelligently decides whether to process the generated computation task locally at the device level or offload the task to a fog access point or cloud server and allocates an optimal amount of computation and power resources on the basis of the serving tier. Simulation results show that the proposed approach significantly minimizes latency and increases throughput in the system.


This site provides faculty and staff with information about good teaching ideas and resources that are avalible at campus libraries and online.


The research was aimed to investigate the energy biomass productivity and biogas production from silage of different perennial grasses with evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions through the entire process from biomass cultivation to processing. The experiments with perennial grasses – cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata L.), tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Scherb.) and reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) were carried out at Institute of Agriculture, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in 2008–2010. The swards were grown in an Endocalcari-Endohypogleyic Cambisol (CMg-n-w-can), which contained: organic carbon – 1.61–1.75%, available P – 145–224 mg kg-1 and K – 128–158 mg kg-1, soil pH ranging between 6.7–7.0. The three perennial grass species with varying yields of biomass were used to ensure a steady operation of the selected biogas plant of 500 kWe electric power. The different quantities of biomass feedstock and varying energy input are required for such biogas plant. Therefore all data correspond to a biogas cogeneration plant of 500 kWe electric power. Required land area for the same amount of energy produced depends on species of perennial grasses, rates of fertilization and number of cuts. These results mainly depended on the biomass productivity and biogas yield from dry mass. Biomass yield from dry matter in the first year of use of tall fescue cut twice per vegetation season was higher compared to that cut three times, while cocksfoot and reed canary grass yielded better cut three times compared to cut twice. The highest yield was obtained in tall fescue swards cut twice and fertilized with N180. The total balance of greenhouse gas emissions showed their mitigation and ranged from 0.206 to 0.298 kg CO2 eq kWh -1.


I recall a scene in television dramatization of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in which the James Watson character is showing Rosalind Franklin the tinker toy model that he and Francis Crick have constructed. As he tries to explain it to her, she shushes him and says something to the effect that "It is so beautiful and simple it must be true" I love that scene: if it did not happen that way in real life it ought to have!Why do I begin this short essay honoring four of the giants of law and economics who have recently passed with a reference to an entirely foreign intellectual discipline? Because I believe that their work partakes in the same beautiful fundamental quality. All that the mind appears capable of understanding is the simple. The trick of course it to discern that simple clear melody concealed by the cacophony of noise that envelops it. This characteristic of mind to seek out and embrace the simple unitary explanation appears to be fortuitously aligned with the rules of the universe. That is, it seems that there is much that can be understood about the natural and social world by simple elegant beautiful insights.The perverse effect of this is that once the simple melody is heard it often cannot be unheard and may — not very gradually — come to seem obvious and trivial. So I take keyboard in hand to briefly note for the reader the core simple fundamental melodies that these recently departed gentlemen have revealed to us, revelations that given the stickiness of dogma were often not appreciated immediately. For those readers who would like a more thorough discussion of the scholarly impact of these (and other) giants of the field I commend to them the series of essays that Joshua Wright and I edited on the subject. I also note in passing that no slight is intended to other major figures who passed not long ago and are worthy of like honor. In addition I am happy to report that there are still law & economics giants who sleep on the green side of the grass: Demsetz, Epstein, Posner, Landes, Williamson, and Calabrese among others.So in this brief essay I shall set myself the task of reciting the simple core insight that each has supplied to the intellectual world, the insight that on reflection seems obvious — and it is, once a genius points it out.


The first off-lattice Monte Carlo kinetics model of interstellar dust grain surface chemistry is presented. The positions of all surface particles are determined explicitly, according to the local potential minima resulting from the pair-wise interactions of contiguous atoms and molecules, rather than by a pre-defined lattice structure. The model is capable of simulating chemical kinetics on any arbitrary dust grain morphology, as determined by the user-defined positions of each individual dust grain atom. A simple method is devised for the determination of the most likely diffusion pathways and their associated energy barriers for surface species. The model is applied to a small, idealized dust grain, adopting various gas densities and using a small chemical network. Hydrogen and oxygen atoms accrete onto the grain to produce H2O, H2, O2, and H2O2. The off-lattice method allows the ice structure to evolve freely; the ice mantle porosity is found to be dependent on the gas density, which controls the accretion rate. A gas density of 2 × 104 cm−3, appropriate for dark interstellar clouds, is found to produce a fairly smooth and non-porous ice mantle. At all densities, H2 molecules formed on the grains collect within the crevices that divide nodules of ice and within micropores (whose extreme inward curvature produces strong local potential minima). The larger pores produced in the high-density models are not typically filled with H2. Direct deposition of water molecules onto the grain indicates that amorphous ices formed in this way may be significantly more porous than interstellar ices that are formed by surface chemistry.


The euro countries currently experience a severe government debt crisis. Since Greece asked for financial assistance in May 2010 there has been a lively debate on how to resolve this situation. The solution that has been primarily suggested by politicians so far is to finance governments' financial needs through emergency credits from EU sources (EFSF/ESM) and the International Monetary Fund. After explaining provisions like the stability pact and risk premiums on interest rates which aimed at guaranteeing fiscal stability in the pre-crisis EMU an overview is given showing financial and other political reactions to the crisis. In a second step, the sustainability of the Greek debt situation is extensively analyzed by employing the government budget constraint. The necessary primary surpluses enabling Greece to finance its government debt without international support from 2020 onwards are, however, substantial. Therefore, it is very likely that Greece either needs further financial assistance or an additional hair cut. Finally, some suggestions are made how to avoid possible government debt crises in the future.


When a liquid is cooled well below its melting temperature at a rate that exceeds the critical cooling rate Rc, the crystalline state is bypassed and a metastable, amorphous glassy state forms instead. Rc (or the corresponding critical casting thickness dc) characterizes the glass-forming ability (GFA) of each material. While silica is an excellent glass-former with small Rc < 10(-2) K/s, pure metals and most alloys are typically poor glass-formers with large Rc > 10(10) K/s. Only in the past thirty years have bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) been identified with Rc approaching that for silica. Recent simulations have shown that simple, hard-sphere models are able to identify the atomic size ratio and number fraction regime where BMGs exist with critical cooling rates more than 13 orders of magnitude smaller than those for pure metals. However, there are a number of other features of interatomic potentials beyond hard-core interactions. How do these other features affect the glass-forming ability of BMGs? In this manuscript, we perform molecular dynamics simulations to determine how variations in the softness and non-additivity of the repulsive core and form of the interatomic pair potential at intermediate distances affect the GFA of binary alloys. These variations in the interatomic pair potential allow us to introduce geometric frustration and change the crystal phases that compete with glass formation. We also investigate the effect of tuning the strength of the many-body interactions from zero to the full embedded atom model on the GFA for pure metals. We then employ the full embedded atom model for binary BMGs and show that hard-core interactions play the dominant role in setting the GFA of alloys, while other features of the interatomic potential only change the GFA by one to two orders of magnitude. Despite their perturbative effect, understanding the detailed form of the intermetallic potential is important for designing BMGs with cm or greater casting thickness.


Abstract : This program was directed toward finding new leads to the synthesis or discovery of compounds which will be useful for the therapy of poison by various anticholinesterase agents. Several inter-related work areas have been investigated simultaneously: biochemistry, physical organic chemistry, pharmacology and organic synthesis. The biochemical studies have established a direct kinetic relationship between the loss of reactivatibility of GB -3H inhibited cholinesterases and the formation of free isopropanol -3H. Realkylation studies with diazomethane - 14C on both GD ages enzymes and EA 2192 inhibited cholinesterases indicated that the diazomethane probably realkylated since a low molecular weight radioactive material, tentatively identified as 14C - methyl phosphonic acid was obtained after subsequent nucleophile treatment. Physical organic studies have used p-nitrophenyl methylphosphonate as a model system and have achieved alkylation and displacement when nonaqueous media were used. The pharmacological program has given some evidence that novel reactivators may be found among bisquaternary oxamides. Another aspect of the program showed that such compounds as GB blocked collateral spinal inhibition; this may be instrumental in GB - induced spinal convulsions. In the synthesis programs, a number of potential reactivators and intermediates have synthesized. Additional physical-organic studies, which are reported in the Appendix, resulted in the alkylation of sodium p-nitrophenylmethyl-phosphonate with a large number of alkylating agents in dimethylformamide solvent. Differences in rates of hydrolysis of products indicated that a neighboring group mechanism is involved in the solvolytic displacement reaction. (Author)


DNA barcoding has attracted attention because it is a potentially simple and universal method for taxonomic assignment. One anticipated problem in applying the method to stylommatophoran land snails is that they frequently exhibit extreme divergence of mitochondrial DNA sequences, sometimes reaching 30% within species. We therefore trialled the utility of barcodes in identifying land snails, by analysing the stylommatophoran cytochrome oxidase subunit I sequences from GenBank. Two alignments of 381 and 228 base pairs were used to determine potential error rates among a test data set of 97 or 127 species, respectively. Identification success rates using neighbour‐joining phylogenies were 92% for the longer sequence and 82% for the shorter sequence, indicating that a high degree of mitochondrial variation may actually be an advantage when using phylogeny‐based methods for barcoding. There was, however, a large overlap between intra‐ and interspecific variation, with assignment failure (per cent of samples not placed with correct species) particularly associated with a low degree of mitochondrial variation (Kimura 2‐parameter distance < 0.05) and a small GenBank sample size (< 25 per species). Thus, while the optimum intra/interspecific threshold value was 4%, this was associated with an overall error of 32% for the longer sequences and 44% for the shorter sequences. The high error rate necessitates that barcoding of land snails is a potentially useful method to discriminate species of land snail, but only when a baseline has first been established using conventional taxonomy and sample DNA sequences. There is no evidence for a barcoding gap, ruling out species discovery based on a threshold value alone.


This paper assesses the accuracy of decomposing income risk into permanent andtransitory components using income and consumption data. We develop a specificapproximation to the optimal consumption growth rule and use Monte Carlo evidence to show that this approximation can provide a robust method for decomposingincome risk. The availability of asset data enables the use of a more accurate approximation allowing for partial self-insurance against permanent shocks. We showthat the use of data on median asset holdings corrects much of the error in thesimple approximation which assumes no self-insurance against permanent shocks. This paper assesses the accuracy of decomposing income risk into permanent andtransitory components using income and consumption data. We develop a specificapproximation to the optimal consumption growth rule and use Monte Carlo evidence to show that this approximation can provide a robust method for decomposingincome risk. The availability of asset data enables the use of a more accurate approximation allowing for partial self-insurance against permanent shocks. We showthat the use of data on median asset holdings corrects much of the error in thesimple approximation which assumes no self-insurance against permanent shocks.


OBJECTIVE--To assess general practitioners' decisions to request lumbar spine radiographs according to the guidelines of the Royal College of Radiologists. DESIGN--Prospective questionnaire survey of outpatients attending for lumbar spine radiography. SETTING--London community hospital. SUBJECTS--100 consecutive adult outpatients attending for lumbar spine radiography at their general practitioner's request. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Patient's history and clinical signs; radiological diagnosis; change in management of patients with significant radiological abnormality in response to the radiologist's report. RESULTS--60 patients were aged between 18 and 45, 27 (45%) of whom were women. Five patients were fully examined by their doctor before radiographs were requested, 76 were partially examined, and 19 were not examined. In 37 patients the examinations showed radiologically normal findings; 30 had radiologically significant disc or degenerative disease. Pain score and radiological diagnosis was not correlated (6.43 (range 1-10) for patients with significant disease v 6.14 (range 1-10) for those without, p greater than 0.05). There were no cases of malignancy or infection. One patient with radiologically significant disease was referred to a hospital specialist, and the management of only two such patients was altered by the report. 52 of the examinations should not have been requested if the guidelines had been strictly applied. CONCLUSIONS--There is a need to inform doctors of the efficacy of radiological examinations. An awareness of the college's guidelines among general practitioners should be actively promoted by radiologists.


Endothelial dysfunction (ECD) is implicated in the etiopathogenesis of several entities, with special interest and new perspectives in collagen diseases and vasculitis. ECD precedes development of atherosclerotic coronary damage and thrombotic events, with accelerated atherogenesis. Mechanisms of ECD that are involved in vasculitis are not simply due to focal vascular inflammation, since it may be caused by inflammatory systemic mediators, for example C reactive protein and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) alpha. We already have preliminary studies about specific ECD treatment in vasculitis, with drugs such as anti-TNF.


At its maximum development in the type area on the Devon coast, the Upper Greensand Formation comprises up to 55 m of sandstones and calcarenites with laterally and stratigraphically variable amounts of carbonate cement, glauconite and chert that were deposited in fully marine, shallow-water environments. The formation is divided into three members, in ascending order the Foxmould, Whitecliff Chert and Bindon Sandstone, each of which is bounded by a prominent erosion surface that can be recognised throughout the western part of the Wessex Basin. The full thickness of the formation, up to 60 m, was formerly well exposed in cliffs in the Isle of Purbeck in the steeply dipping limb of the Purbeck Monocline. The upper part of the succession is highly condensed in comparison with the Devon succession and exhibits lateral variations over distances of hundreds of metres that are probably related to penecontemporaneous fault movements. Much of the fauna is not age-diagnostic with the result that the ages of parts of the succession are still poorly known. However, the Isle of Purbeck sections contain diverse ammonite faunas at a few stratigraphically well-defined levels that enable the succession to be correlated with that of east Devon and west Dorset.


On the basis of the review of the present situation and existing problems in structure real-time monitoring system, the paper designs and develops a structure vibration real-time monitoring system. In process of the application, spectral analysis was carried out through fast Fourier transform (FFT) technology, at the same time, the deformation and inherent mode shapes are monitored. In one words, the system realizes synchronously the real-time display of the structural total characteristic, mode shapes, time and frequency signals of key testing points on computer screen. In order to prove the validity of the system, the paper the paper takes a simple-supported beam for an example and receives a satisfying result.


Hearts with pressure-overload hypertrophy show an increased intracardiac activation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) which may contribute to myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury. This study investigates whether the hypertrophied myocardium is more vulnerable to ischemia and reperfusion injury and whether the specific inhibition of the cardiac RAS by captopril would modify ischemia arid reperfusion injury in the hypertrophied myocardium. By using the isolated working rat heart model, hypertrophied hearts, induced by abdominal aortic banding for 6 weeks, were subjected to 120 min of hypothermic ischemic arrest followed by 30 min of reperfusion. The postischemic cardiac function recovery was measured in both the untreated (n =.lO) and the captopril-treated (n = 11) groups and was compared with that of the sham-operated non-hypertrophied control hearts (n = 10). Captopril(23.0 PM) was given to one group with the hypertrophied hearts from the beginning of ischemia to the end of reperfusion. In comparison with the normal control hearts, the cardiac function recovery after 30 min reperfusion was poorer in the hypertrophied hearts, which was associated with a lower recovery of coronary flow (CF), a higher myocardial lactate content and a retarded peak myocardial creatinkinase (CK) release. Captopril significantly improved the cardiac function recovery, which was associated with an increased CF recovery and a lower myocardial lactate content, and a rapid peak CK release. In conclusion, this study shows that the hypertrophied myocardium leads to an increased susceptibility to ischemia and reperfusion injury. Captopril, most likely by its inhibition of the cardiac RAS, is effective in preventing the ischemia and reperfusion injury in the hypertrophied heart.


In maximum mutual information estimation (MMIE) training, the currently widely used update equations derive from the Extended Baum-Welch (EBW) algorithm, which was originally designed for the discrete hidden Markov model (HMM) and was extended to continuous Gaussian density HMMs through approximations. We derive a new set of equations for MMIE based on a quasi-Newton algorithm, without relying on EBW. We find that by adopting a generalized form of the MMIE criterion, the H-criterion, convergence speed and recognition performance can be improved. The proposed approach has been applied to a spelled-word recognition task leading to a 21.6% relative letter error rate reduction with respect to the standard Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) training method, and showing advantages over the conventional MMIE approach in terms of both training speed and recognition accuracy.


With technology advances, the interaction between organisations and consumers is evolving gradually from 'human-to-human' to 'human-to-machine', due, in part, to improvements in Artificial Intelligence (AI). One such technology, the AI-enabled digital human is unique in its combining of technology and humanness and is being adopted by firms to support customer services and other business processes. However, a number of questions arise with this new way of interacting, among which is whether people will trust a digital human in the same way that they trust people. To address this question, this study draws on technology trust theory, and examines the roles of social presence, anthropomorphism, and privacy to understand trust and people's readiness to engage with digital humans. The results aim to benefit organisations wanting to implement AI-enabled digital-humans in the workplace.


(Plates XII.–XIX.)

( Read November 3 rd, 1910.)

The systematic palaeobotanical exploration of the great Yorkshire Coalfield has now been in progress for a considerable number of years. The plant petrifactions, found in the "Coal Balls" of the Gannister or Halifax Hard Seam of the Lower Coal Measures of Yorkshire, have been described by Binney, Williamson, Scott and others. Dr. Kidston has been occupied for twenty years past with a study of the plant impressions, chiefly of the Middle Coal Measures, especially those from the central portion of the Yorkshire basin, and has published two papers,1 and six reports2 on the flora of these rocks. The plant remains from the Southern extension of the Yorkshire Coalfield in North Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have hitherto received little attention, and it is with this district that the present paper is concerned.

PREVIOUS RECORDS.

The earliest figures of fossil-plants from this portion of the Yorkshire Coalfield are to be found in Martin's Petrificata Derbiensia, published in 1809. Among the specimens there figured are examples from Chesterfield, Alfreton and elsewhere, of Alethopteris lonchitica (Schloth.) [= Phytolithus filicites ( striatus ), plate 10]; Stigmaria ficoides, Sternb. [= Phytolithus plantites (verrucosus), plates 11, 12]; and species of Neuropteris [plate 19], Annularia [plate 20], Trigonocarpus [plate 21], Calamites [plates 25, 26], and Lepidodendron [plate 50]. Several of the specimens figured were contained in ironstone nodules. No detailed information is, however, given as to the precise locality, seam or horizon.

In 1903, Mr. Wedd1 recorded Neuropteris sp., and Lepidodendron sp. from the Black Shale …


The two-dimensional stage paradigm (2DSP) has been suggested as an alternative audio mixing interface (AMI). This study seeks to refine the 2DSP by formally evaluating graphical track visualisation styles. Track visualisations considered were text only, circles containing text, individually coloured circles containing text, circles colour coded by instrument type with text, icons with text superimposed, circles with RMS related dynamic opacity and a traditional AMI. The usability evaluation focused on track selection efficiency and included user visualisation preference for this micro-task. Test subjects were instructed to click five randomly selected tracks for a six, sixteen and thirty-two track mix for each visualisation. The results indicate text only visualisation is best for efficiency however test subjects preferred icons and traditional AMI.


Dawn is an exhibition combining fragmented figurative sculptures, altered objects taken from the home, projected video and ambient audio to create an environment that merges physical and psychological spaces. This exhibition uses my ongoing experiences with sleep paralysis and the entanglements produced by my nighttime adventures to situate the viewer in the liminal space that I regularly revisit. In Dawn, fragments of figurative self-replicas and fragments of a bedroom become screens for projected imagery that reflect the disorientated feelings associated with moments of transition. Window blinds disrupt projected video of dust floating in the light like stars and murmuration's passing through the trees in my backyard, obscuring the figure that lies behind the blinds in stripes of light shifting with time. Together in a space, these works are a lens through which I examine my mental state as a liminal space, like that experienced in a state of sleep paralysis. INDEX WORDS: Sculpture, The figure, Sleep, Liminal, Photography, Video, Installation, Projection-mapping, Dawn


: A method is worked out for the estimation of the time of polypeptide chain synthesis in animals in vivo. The time of the synthesis of "middle" polypeptide was found to be 1.45 min. in mouse liver cells under normal conditions, while in the presence of translation inhibitors, cycloheximide (20 mg/kg) and aurintricarboxilic acid (1 g/mg) the time of the synthesis increased in 2.7 and 2.5 times respectively. The time of polypeptide synthesis linearly increased with the increase of aurintricarboxilic acid dose.


We propose new methods to identify the full impact of country-specific characteristics on bilateral trade flows within the framework of 'the new quantitative trade model'. We complement theory with a simple two-stage estimating procedure, and offer a proof of concept by quantifying the impact of country-specific research and development expenditure on trade. Results suggest a positive relationship overall, but a larger impact on international (versus domestic) trade. Further, our methodology allows us to recover trade elasticity estimates without the need for price/tariff data. Bringing this to the sectoral level, we obtain estimates of the trade elasticity for manufacturing, services, and tradable versus non-tradable sectors.


The adhesion molecule N-cadherin plays important roles in the development of the nervous system, in particular by stimulating axon outgrowth, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this effect are mostly unknown. One possibility, the so-called "molecular clutch" model, could involve a direct mechanical linkage between N-cadherin adhesion at the membrane and intracellular actin-based motility within neuronal growth cones. Using live imaging of primary rat hippocampal neurons plated on N-cadherin-coated substrates and optical trapping of N-cadherin-coated microspheres, we demonstrate here a strong correlation between growth cone velocity and the mechanical coupling between ligand-bound N-cadherin receptors and the retrograde actin flow. This relationship holds by varying ligand density and expressing mutated N-cadherin receptors or small interfering RNAs to perturb binding to catenins. By restraining microsphere motion using optical tweezers or a microneedle, we further show slippage of cadherin–cytoskeleton bonds at low forces, and, at higher forces, local actin accumulation, which strengthens nascent N-cadherin contacts. Together, these data support a direct transmission of actin-based traction forces to N-cadherin adhesions, through catenin partners, driving growth cone advance and neurite extension.


When citizens ask questions, how does their government answer? Requests for government information confront officials with incentives both for and against disclosure. We argue that officials seek to manage political risks in ways that favor requests from government-aligned regions. We study responsiveness in the context of Mexico's access-to-information law, using publicly available data from several hundred thousand information requests filed with Mexican federal government agencies between 2003 and 2015. Our empirical strategy makes comparisons only among requests sent to similar agencies on similar topics at similar times, while accounting for the complexity, sophistication, and sensitivity of individual requests. We find that requests filed from locales with higher governing-party vote shares receive more favorable responses, across multiple indicators of the nature and timing of responses. Further, we find bias only for requests on publicly relevant topics, providing evidence in favor of a mechanism of mitigating political risks over one of rewarding supporters with greater access to benefits.


As the high speed bearings, hybrid journal bearings are usually used in high and super high speed grinding machine spindle system. Since the bearing operates under high speed conditions, the excessive temperature rise of bearing is a key factor to lower the accuracy of the spindle system and limit the bearings working speed, so restrict the bearing applications. In this paper, the model of hybrid journal bearing is established to analyze the heat mechanism. In addition, the temperature field distribution for the certain hybrid journal bearing at high speed is studied by ANSYS considering the heat transfer characters between fluid and solid. The experiment of temperature for hybrid journal bearing system in super high speed grinding machine is also performed. The thermal properties and the measure for controlling temperature rise of such bearings are analyzed.


Periglacial weathering limits on two mountains in northwest Scotland separate zones of contrasting exposure history. Exposure dating of bedrock below the weathering limits gives ages consistent with late Devensian deglaciation, but six out of seven samples from above the weathering limits give minimum exposure ages older than late Devensian ice expansion. These results suggest that mountain summits stood as nunataks above the last ice-sheet surface and rule out formation of weathering limits by periglacial rock breakdown since deglaciation, trimming of frost debris during an ice-sheet readvance, or enhanced weathering prior to climatic warming during ice-sheet downwastage. The dating results do not preclude the possibility that weathering limits mark a former englacial boundary between passive cold-based ice on mountain summits and erosive, warm-based ice at lower elevations, although 26 Al/ 10 Be ratios for high-level bedrock surfaces provide no evidence of prolonged static ice cover.


Abstract Somatic cell hybrids were made between mouse myeloma cells and spleen cells derived from BALB/c mice immunized with liver microsomal cytochrome P-450 purified from rats treated with 3-methylcholanthrene (MC-P-450). Thirty-seven independent hybrid clones among 66 tested produced monoclonal antibodies to the MC-P-450 as measured by radioimmunoassay. More than 10 of the monoclonal antibodies formed were positive for MC-P-450 with respect to protein binding measured by radioimmunoassay, precipitation of the enzyme caused by antibody binding and enzyme aggregation, and inhibition of enzymatic activity. Analysis by gel electrophoresis indicated that a single microsomal protein band interacted with the antibody and that this band comigrated with MC-P-450. These monoclonal antibodies interacted with the major form of cytochrome P-450 from β-naphthoflavone-induced rats as well as with MC-P-450 but did not bind, precipitate, or inhibit the activity of the major form of cytochrome P-450 from phenobarbital-treated rats. The monoclonal antibodies inhibited 7-ethoxycoumarin deethylase and benzo( a )pyrene hydroxylation activity of the purified MC-P-450 with varying degrees, up to 90%, the latter as measured by the aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase assay for phenol production. Analysis of benzo( a )pyrene metabolism by high-pressure liquid chromatography indicated that the monoclonal antibodies inhibited the enzyme activity of the purified MC-P-450 at all of the positions at which oxidation occurs. The monoclonal antibodies also inhibited both aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase and 7-ethoxycoumarin deethylase of liver microsomes from 3-methylcholanthrene-treated rats by 70%, indicating that these activities are functions affected by antibody binding to a common or identical antigenic site on cytochrome(s) P-450 which account for 70% of the total activity in these microsomes. Microsomes from control or phenobarbital-treated rats were unaffected, suggesting that their enzyme activity is a function of a cytochrome P-450 other than that sensitive to the MC-P-450 directed antibody and that the latter P-450 is absent in these microsomes. High-pressure liquid chromatographic analysis of antibody inhibition of benzo-( a )pyrene metabolism by microsomes from 3-methylcholanthrene-treated rats showed an inhibition of phenol and diol formation that ranged from 46 to 72%. 1,6-Quinone production was not affected, which suggests that this metabolite was formed by another cytochrome P-450 isozyme or nonenzymatically. The purity, specificity, and potential immortality of their hybridoma cell source will make the monoclonal antibodies extraordinarily useful for the study of substrate and inducer specificity and in the identification and quantitative assay of multiple forms of the cytochrome P-450 and the determination of their content and function in different tissues, species, and individuals.


A common characterictic of many applications is that they are aimed at the high-volume consumer market, which is extremely cost-sensitive. However many of them impose stringent performance demands on the underlying system. Therefore the code generation must take into account the restrictions and features given by the target architecture while satisfying these performance demands. High-level language compilers often are unable to generate code meeting these requirements. One reason is the phase coupling problem between instruction scheduling and register allocation. Many compilers perform these tasks separately with each phase ignorant of the require- ments of the other. Commonly, each task is accomplished by using heuristic methods. As the goals of the two phases often conflict, whichever phase is performed first imposes constraints on the other, sometimes producing inefficient code. Integer linear programming (ILP) provides an integrated approach to the combined instruction scheduling and register allocation problem. This way, optimal solutions can be found - albeit at the cost of high compilation times. In our experiments, we considered as target processor the 32-bit DSP ADSP-2106x. We have examined two different ILP formulations and compared them with conventional approaches including list scheduling and the critical path method. Moreover, we have investigated approximations based on the ILP formulations; this way, compilation time can be reduced considerably while still producing near-optimal results. From the results of our implementation, we have concluded that integrating ILP formulations in conventional global algorithms is a promising method for generating high-quality code.


Abstract The article investigates different approaches to the design of information systems. Much attention is paid to comparative analysis of criteria for selecting methodologies for software development, and also to not well-known methodology of DevOps (Development & Operation) [1], [2], which aims at consolidation of software developers (Development) and IT professionals' (Operation) efforts, and automation of implementation process. In conclusion, based on the retrospective analysis and practical experience, the authors formulate regularities and prospects of information systems design methodology development.


International literature on crime and violence suggests that social cohesion may play a key role in facilitating prevention at community level. It is argued that in South Africa high levels of crime entailing interpersonal violation not only reflect ruptures in the social fabric but also contribute to social disorganization. In exploring the traumatic impact of exposure to fairly pervasive criminality via the constructs of Fear of Crime (FoC) and Continuous Traumatic Stress the article explores some of the linkages between responses to crime and the facilitation or erosion of potentialities for social cohesion. It is argued that the common responses of fearfulness, suspicion and social withdrawal (as well as defensive aggression in some instances) are counter-productive to attempts to build pro-social organization. Consequently a rather intractable circular relationship may ensue in which the conditions that enable criminality are not challenged because indirect and direct exposure to violation, alongside perceived and actual deficits in formal state interventions, have eroded the motivation and capacity of citizens to tackle such conditions, leaving spaces open for violation to continue unchecked, Some of the complexities of thinking about forms of social cohesion as a route to challenge crime and its impact in South Africa are elaborated. It is emphasized that collective efficacy appears to be the aspect of social cohesion that is most pivotal in addressing this feature of society.


We study a New Keynesian model where banks create deposits through loans, subject to increasing marginal cost of lending. Banks do not intermediate commodity deposits between savers and borrowers, instead they offer a payment system that intermediates ledger-entry deposits between spenders and spenders. We discuss three implications. First, non-banks' aggregate purchasing power consists not only of their income but also of new loans/deposits. Second, near the ZLB policy rate reductions compress spreads, and thereby reduce bank profitability, deposit creation and output. Third, near the ZLB Phillips curves are flatter because lower factor cost inflation is partly offset by inflationary credit rationing.


Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is a frequent cause of perinatal morbidity as well as of impaired growth during childhood. Therefore, a clearcut definition of IUGR to identify those babies at risk is essential: The label IUGR generally should be assigned only to those infants with birth weight and/or birth length below the 10th percentile for GA with a pathologic restriction of fetal growth. According to the recent literature, clinical classification of the retarded babies seems to be less significant. Among the etiologic factors responsible for IUGR, one-third of the variations in birth weight are determined by genetic variables, two-thirds by environmental factors. In spite of the fact that a long list of established, different etiologic factors is known, in at least 40% of children no underlying pathology can be identified. Among the preventable, environmental causes of IUGR, smoking of the mother during pregnancy is by far the most important one, which is responsible for more than one third of all IUGR newborns.


Our earlier studies had demonstrated that inhibition of DNA methylation following carcinogen treatment potentiated initiation of the carcinogenic process in the rat liver system. The hepatic nodules developed by initiation-promotion protocols showed a characteristic hypomethylation in the cell-cycle-related genes c-fos, c-myc and c-Ha-ras. In the present study we have found that the gene for beta-hydroxy-beta-methyl glutaryl coenzyme A reductase, a major rate-limiting enzyme in the biogenesis of mevalonate, is also hypomethylated at both CCGG and GCGC sites and expressed in hepatic nodules. This gene, however, did not exhibit hypomethylation in CCGG sequences in non-nodular surrounding liver, livers from rats subjected to two-thirds partial hepatectomy, or exposed to initiator alone (1,2-dimethylhydrazine given 18 h after partial hepatectomy) or to diets containing 1% orotic acid alone (promoting regimen). The activity of the enzyme and mevalonate formation are positively correlated with DNA synthesis and cell proliferation--two key components of the carcinogenic process. Taken together, the results suggest that hypomethylation of specific genes occurs in the carcinogenic process and this altered pattern of DNA methylation may play a role in the growth of the nodules.


We report the synthesis and characterization of a series of three soluble polymeric hybrids in benzothiadiazole–indacenodithieno[3,2-b]thiophene based ladder-type polymers (BT–IDTT) containing the acceptor unit 3,6-dithien-2-yl-2,5-dialkylpyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4-dione (DTDPP), and donor moieties 7,8-bithienyl benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b0]di-thiophene (BDTT) and 4,8-bis(5-ethylhexylselenophen-2-yl) benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b0]dithiophene (BDTSe) in BT–IDTT–DTDPP (P1), BT–IDTT–BDTT (P2) and BT–IDTT– BDTSe (P3) copolymers to tune the strength of ambipolar charge-carrier transport properties for organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and ambipolar complementary inverters. A narrow band gap of 1.4–1.7 eV was achieved by the careful selection of the electron donor–acceptor unit and strong packing of those polymers in the film state. In particular, a very narrow bandgap of 1.38 eV and well-balanced ambipolar transistor characteristics were achieved by replacing benzodithiophene in P2 and P3 with diketopyrrolopyrrole in P1. Optimized top gate bottom contact OFETs with P1 polymer showed electron and hole mobilities of 0.015 and 0.007 cm V 1 s 1 respectively, and inverter gain of 14 using poly(methyl methacrylate) gate dielectric. Interestingly, hole transport properties were improved to a mobility of 0.1 cm V 1 s 1 in all OFETs with the BT–IDTT ladder-type polymer using fluorinated P(VDF-TrFE) dielectric, which can be ascribed to the increased hole accumulation at the semiconductor–dielectric interface.


In this paper, the author retraces Gioia Tauro's events from the building of the 5th Italian Iron and Steel Centre, which failed, to today's port, a key junction of worldwide transhipment. Nowadays, Gioia Tauro exemplifies a large investment for development and represents a successful case of collaboration between public and private sector - that public private partnership so much pursued in the European policy on infrastructures. Therefore, Gioia Tauro's port represents a positive experience with a strong symbolic value, enabling to modify the old idea on the "slow, resigned, far" South. It was inaugurated in September 1995 by the CMBT Concorde ship, and in only three years (1996-1998), a proper upsetting made what was considered as the "cathedral of waste" into the greatest challenge for innovation in the Mezzogiorno. Gioia Tauro's experience demonstrates that the Government can - and must - become, together with other lower and higher institutional levels, an active point for policies providing for a grid, a framework for territorial growth. Depending on how it will be performed in determining infrastructural choices within the district of Gioia Tauro, those areas will have different chances, very different fortunes. Their connection within larger-scale policies - on a European, national, regional scale - will change their placing in the world. That is where the challenge really lies for those who want respect market autonomy, but without being overwhelmed by it.


International students are considered active, rather than passive members of the Canadian society for a wide range of factors. First, it is important to note that the arrival of these individuals equip the country's post-secondary education sector with an unprecedented amount of revenues in the form of tuition fees. Second, international students' labour work and personal spending contribute towards Canada's economic growth. Third, the presence of international students in Canada enriches the country's socio-cultural climate. Unfortunately, international students encounter several challenges during their stay in Canada and struggle to have access to a set of comprehensive settlement services to enable them to smoothly adapt into their new environment. The following study is essentially a literature review that aims to fulfill two objectives. First, there will be an examination of the experiences and struggles of these students as they have so far been reported in the academic literature and the Canadian media. Second, some of the most prevalent knowledge gaps about international students that exist in the academic literature and the Canadian media will be identified and critically analyzed.

Key Words: International Students, Language Barriers, Discrimination, Micro-Aggression, Socio-Cultural Challenges, Settlement Services, Knowledge Gaps.


The purpose of this study is to determine how inter-coder differences in coding jobs impact the exposures subsequently assigned by a JEM. 1,000 jobs were selected from among the job histories reported by subjects in a case-control study of lung cancer conducted in Montreal. Two coders independently each job to four different occupation classifications (OC) and three different industry classifications (IC) which can be linked to the CANJEM job exposure matrix. For jobs coded differently by the two experts, CANJEM was used to obtain various metrics of exposure to gasoline engine emissions (GEE): exposed or unexposed (based on three cut-points of probability of exposure: 5%, 25% or 50%), exposure intensity (categorical) and frequency-weighted intensity (FWI – continuous). Interrater agreement between the exposure metrics to GEE was measured using Kappa statistics for categorical metrics and Intra-class Correlation Coefficients (ICCs) for FWI. Depending on the classification used, at the highest level of resolution, the proportion of jobs coded differently by the two experts varied from 46.8% to 64.3% for OC and from 21.5% to 36.8% for IC. Based on jobs coded differently, Cohen's kappa statistic for exposure status ranged from 0.32 to 0.49 when using OC and from −0.02 to 0.50 when using IC depending on the cut-point used. The corresponding numbers for intensity of exposure ranged from 0.34 to 0.48 for OC and from 0 to 0.44 for IC. When restricting analysis to jobs considered as exposed using both codes, ICC for FWI varied from −0.24 to 0.35 (OC) and from −0.13 to 0.68 (IC). Similar to other studies, a quite high proportion of jobs were coded differently by the two experts, especially for OC. Jobs with different codes had null to moderate agreement in exposure estimates. This exercise highlights the importance of improving and standardising coding of occupations and industries.


Recently, research on the catalytic production of glucose, the first platform chemical in biorefinery, has become attractive in catalysis studies and the chemical/fuel industry owing to its broad applications. It opens up a new route for achieving sustainable chemical production and energy supply. From this viewpoint, this contribution attempts to overview the recent advances in the catalytic routes for the synthesis of glucose from lignocellulosic biomass over various homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts.


The paper presents the air-launch system enabling the delivery of small satellites into low Earth orbit. One of the most important advantages of the concept is its cost. Generally, the paper proves that launching a carrier from an aerial platform (a movable launch pad) provides the whole range of competitive advantages. In particular, the total losses during the launch from an aerial platform will reduce by 20–35%, and the characteristic velocity of the maneuver will reduce by 4–7%.


Ralph Louis Wain died on 14 December 2000, at the age of 89 years. Just a few weeks before his death he had kept an audience enraptured by his enthusiastic presentation of chemical ideas during a two-hour lecture. Louis applied his chemical acumen to the solution of agricultural problems, believing the advancement of agricultural practice was highly dependent on developments in chemistry. He was interested particularly in how subtle changes in the structures of chemicals could influence their plant-growth-regulatory properties, and he discovered and actively promoted a group of selective herbicides, some of which are still used today in commercial practice. Many would regard him as Britain's most outstanding agricultural chemist of the twentieth century. He received numerous honours and prizes, but two gave him especial pleasure, perhaps because of their unusual citations. These were the Actonian Prize of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, awarded only every seventh year, for outstanding scientific work 'which illustrated the wisdom and beneficence of the Almighty' (previous winners had included Edison, Marconi, Marie Curie and Fleming), and the John Scott (USA) International Award for 'research for the benefit, welfare and happiness of mankind'. Wain was ever conscious of the need to protect and increase the harvests of food crops for the peoples of poorer, developing countries, and he was a major player in scientists' successes in increasing food crop production. Louis took every opportunity to convey his ideas and enthusiasm to fascinated audiences, whether they were schoolchildren or learned scientists, at home or abroad. He listed travel as one of his hobbies. Did this passion derive from the many invitations he received to lecture abroad? Whatever the answer, he gained great satisfaction from this role; and his audiences were most appreciative of his lucid lecturing style, and often the puckish humour with which his ideas were presented.


Static analysis tools (SATs) have the potential to assist developers in finding and fixing vulnerabilities in the early stages of software development, requiring them to be able to understand and act on tools' notifications. To understand how helpful such SAT guidance is to developers, we ran an online experiment (N=132) where participants were shown four vulnerable code samples (SQL injection, hard-coded credentials, encryption, and logging sensitive data) along with SAT guidance, and asked to indicate the appropriate fix. Participants had a positive attitude towards both SAT notifications and particularly liked the example solutions and vulnerable code. Seeing SAT notifications also led to more detailed open-ended answers and slightly improved code correction answers. Still, most SAT (SpotBugs 67%, SonarQube 86%) and Control (96%) participants answered at least one code-correction question incorrectly. Prior software development experience, perceived vulnerability severity, and answer confidence all positively impacted answer accuracy.


Long-range scalar 5J(H1',F) couplings were observed in 5-fluoropyrimidine-substituted RNA. We developed a novel S3E-19F-alpha,beta-edited NOESY experiment for quantitation of these long-range scalar 5J(H1',F) couplings, where the J-couplings can be extracted from inspection of intraresidual (H1',H6) NOE cross-peaks. Quantum chemical calculations were exploited to investigate the relation between scalar couplings and conformations around the glycosidic bond in oligonucleotides. The theoretical dependence of the observed 5J(H1',F) couplings on the torsion angle chi can be described by a generalized Karplus relationship. The corresponding density functional theory (DFT) analysis is outlined. Additional NMR experiments facilitating the resonance assignments of 5-fluoropyrimidine-substituted RNAs are described, and chemical shift changes due to altered shielding in the presence of fluorine-19 (19F) are presented.


Nanotechnology has contributed to the technological advances in various industries, such as medicine, electronics, biomaterials and renewable energy production over the last decade. Recently, a renewed interest arises in the application of nanotechnology for the upstream petroleum industry; such as exploration, drilling, production and distribution. In particular, adding nanoparticles to fluids may drastically benefit enhanced oil recovery and improve well drilling, such as changing the properties of the fluid, wettability alternation of rocks, advanced drag reduction, strengthening sand consolidation, reducing the interfacial tension and increasing the mobility of the capillary-trapped oil. In this study, we focus on the fundamental understanding of the role of nanoparticles on the oil-water binary mixture in a confined nanochannel. A series of computational experiments of oil-water-nanoparticle flow behaviour in confined clay nanochannels are carried out by molecular dynamics simulations. Three sizes of nanochannels and different numbers of nanoparticles are considered. The results show that the pressure to drive the oil-water binary mixture through a periodic confined channel increases dramatically with the reduction of the channel size. In the absence of nanoparticles the pressure increases with the propelled displacement. Interestingly, an opposite behavior is observed in the oil-water system mixed with a small amount of nanoparticles: the pressure decreases with the increase of the displacement. The findings from molecular dynamics simulations may elucidate the role of nanoparticles on the transport of oil in nanoscale porous media, although the exact mechanisms remain to be further explored.


A novel Na2CO3/NaHCO3 texturization process for the surface structuring of the monocrystalline silicon substrate, aimed to improve the silicon optical characteristics to be used in solar cells, has been proposed in this thesis. The proposed process consists in the wet chemical anisotropic texturization of (100) oriented silicon with a new solution which has been designated as ultra-low concentration Na2CO3/NaHCO3 solution. The alkaline solution forms micrometric pyramids on the (100) silicon surface. This process presents several operation advantages: (i) no additives are required, contrarily to NaOH or KOH based processes; (ii) the 20 times lower concentration of chemicals compared to previously established high concentration Na2CO3/NaHCO3 processes allows saving costs and simplifies a possible implementation in the industry; (iii) the process temperature at semi-industrial scale is lower than the temperature of Na2CO3/NaHCO3 texturization processes found in the literature; (iv) the texturing solution can be reused several times; and (v) it can be applied to (100) silicon substrates with different characteristics. The resulting morphology obtained with the ultra-low concentration Na2CO3/NaHCO3 solution presents low values of standard weighted reflectance and smaller and more sharpened pyramids than the high concentration texturization process. Furthermore, it produces smoother facets of the pyramids, which is advantageous regarding to the mitigation of the surface recombination velocity. Different influencing parameters of the process, as the process temperature or the initial roughness of the substrate, have been studied. The ultra-low concentration Na2CO3/NaHCO3 solution has been used to study the mechanism of pyramid formation on (100) silicon by means of AFM and SEM. The proposed ultra-low concentration Na2CO3/NaHCO3 solution has been applied to a solar cell process as texturization step. The influence of the Na2CO3/NaHCO3 texturing on solar cell processing steps, as formation of phosphorous doped emitter layer, passivation, and deposition of thin layers, has been studied. The comparison of p-Cz phosphorous diffused and screen printed silicon solar cells produced with the high concentration and the new ultra-low concentration Na2CO3/NaHCO3 solutions demonstrate enhanced solar cell electrical parameters for the ultra-low Na2CO3/NaHCO3 concentration process. This is related to a lower front reflection and enhanced light trapping, and to the smaller size of the pyramids, which benefit cell processing, and probably to the lower facets nanoroughness, compared to the high concentration Na2CO3/NaHCO3 textured surface. The here proposed texturization method is a promising candidate to be implemented in the industry.


The fetlock joint (articulatio metacarpophalangea) ploys an exceptional role within the limb, as it is the only joint which is in hyperextension in the standing horse. It is therefore exposed to special loading situations compared to other joints. The objective of this study is to describe the distribution of the subchondral bone density as a measure for the longterm loading of the fetlock joint. The method of Computed Tomographic Osteoabsorptiometry (CT-OAM, Moller-Gerbi et al., 1989) was used. 45 joint preparations of the fetlock joint from 26 horses of different breeds and sizes, male and female were examined. The horses ranged from foal to 30 years of age. The joints were scanned in the sagittal plane in a CT-scanner Somatom AR(Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). Using these CT-data sets the bones of the fetlock joint were reconstructed three-dimensionally and the subchondral bone density was displayed topographically in a colour coded picture. Inthe dorso-distal aspect of the trochlea a broad transversal bond of highbone density can be observed. Palmar there are two almost triangular areas of high bone density at the trochlea. On the articular surface of the, proximal phalanx band shaped areas close to the dorsal and abaxial edges are heavily mineralized. The sesamoid bones display an average level of bone density throughout the articular facet. A relatively low bone density can be found in the dorsal and palmar part close to the border of the facet as well as in the axial area distally. This also applies to the palmar border of the phalangeal articular surface. Bone density increases significantly during growth of the animals. The density distribution of subchondral bone refers to areas of the articular surface which are exposed to extremely high loading. These are parts of the trochlea which correspond to the proximal phalanx and the proximal sesamoid bone at the angle of stance. CT-OAM is a non-invasive method, which allows the investigation of the articular longterm loading. It can be put to use in the living horse for follow-up studies after surgery or for scientific purposes.


Environmental Factors Associated with Toxic Cyanobacteria in Pinto Lake, a Coastal Lake in the Monterey Bay Area by Erin Rose Stanfield Master of Science in Coastal and Watershed Science and Policy California State University Monterey Bay, 2013 Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CHABs) dominate and disrupt aquatic ecosystems by virtue of their rapidly expanding biomass and the production of secondary metabolites, including potent toxins. Since 2007, toxin-producing CHABs have been documented in freshwater bodies draining into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) located on the California Central Coast. In this study, we combined freshwater ecology and molecular biology approaches to characterize the abundance of potentially toxic cyanobacteria, intracellular microcystin levels, and presence of microcystin synthesis genes in association with environmental factors in Pinto Lake, located in Watsonville, CA, a freshwater body seasonally draining into the MBNMS. We observed potentially toxic cyanobacteria increasing with water temperature, thermocline depth and decreasing ammonium and nitrate with microcystin levels increasing with cyanobacteria abundance during the summer and autumn months of 2009 through 2011. Additionally, our results support an association between toxic Microcystis sp. abundance and abundance of Aphanizomenon sp. indicating a positive association between the presence of microcystin toxin genes, intracellular microcystin levels, and abundance of potentially toxic cyanobacteria in Pinto Lake.


Temporal changes in the water mass distribution and biogeochemical signals in the tropical eastern South Pacific are investigated with the help of an extended optimum multi-parameter (OMP) analysis, a technique for inverse modeling of mixing and biogeochemical processes through a multidimensional least-square fit. Two ship occupations of a meridional section along 85°50' W from 14° S to 1° N are analysed during relatively warm (El Nino/El Viejo, March 1993) and cold (La Nina/La Vieja, February 2009) upper-ocean phases. The largest El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impact was found in the water properties and water mass distribution in the upper 200 m north of 10° S. ENSO promotes the vertical motion of the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) associated with the hypoxic equatorial subsurface water (ESSW). During a cold phase the core of the ESSW is found at shallower layers, replacing shallow (top 200 m) subtropical surface water (STW). The heave of isopycnals due to ENSO partially explains the intrusion of oxygen-rich and nutrient-poor antarctic intermediate water (AAIW) into the depth range of 150–500 m. The other cause of the AAIW increase at shallower depths is that this water mass flowed along shallower isopycnals in 2009. The shift in the vertical location of AAIW reaching the OMZ induces changes in the amount of oxygen advected and respired inside the OMZ: the larger the oxygen supply, the greater the respiration and the lower the nitrate loss through denitrification. Variations in the intensity of the zonal currents in the equatorial current system, which ventilates the OMZ from the west, are used to explain the patchy latitudinal changes of seawater properties observed along the repeated section. Significant changes reach down to 800 m, suggesting that decadal variability (Pacific decadal oscillation) is also a potential driver in the observed variability.


Abstract The major objective of in vitro–in vivo correlations is to be able to use in vitro data to predict in vivo performance serving as a surrogate for an in vivo bioavailability test and to support biowaivers. Therefore, the aims of this review are: (i) to clarify the factors involved during bio-predictive dissolution method development; and (ii) the elements that may affect the mathematical analysis in order to exploit all information available. This article covers the basic aspects of dissolution media and apparatus used in the development of in vivo predictive dissolution methods, including the latest proposals in this field as well as the summary of the mathematical methods for establishing the in vitro–in vivo relationship and their scope and limitations. The incorporation of physiological relevant factors in the in vitro dissolution method is essential to get accurate in vivo predictions. Standard quality control dissolution methods do not necessarily reflect the in vivo behavior, so they rarely are useful for predicting in vivo performance. The combination of physiological based dissolution methods with physiological-based pharmacokinetics models incorporating gastrointestinal variables will lead to robust tools for drug and formulation development, nevertheless their regulatory use for biowaiver application still require harmonization of the mathematical methods proposed and more detailed recommendations about the procedures for setting up dissolution specifications.


Most asteroids are collisional rubble from eons past, and few of them have survived intact. Vesta, the second most massive asteroid, is the only differentiated, rocky body in this category. This asteroid provides a unique view of the kinds of planetesimals that accreted to form the terrestrial planets. We know more about this asteroid than any other, thanks to its recently completed exploration by the orbiting Dawn spacecraft and studies of the ~1000 meteorites derived from it. The synergy provided by in situ analyses and samples has allowed an unparalleled understanding of Vesta's mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, and geochronology.


The immunization process of current commercial manufacturing of anti-snake venom (ASV), uses injections of bentonite, complete Freund's adjuvant, or incomplete Freund's adjuvant, mixed with low doses of the snake venom in horses (but rarely in other large mammals), which frequently cause serious adverse effects in host animals. At the site of injection, horses may develop painful swelling, granuloma, abscess, scar, or systemic neurological and hematological defects, low antibody response, or death due to anaphylactic shock.We sought to investigate a novel alternate immunization strategy with oral administration of snake venom with adjuvants. We utilized M5904 mineral oil emulsion as an adjuvant that was mixed with sub-lethal doses (LD) of the snake venoms. Our preliminary experiments were initiated in March 2011 and the present data culminated in March 2018. In our initial experiments which were carried out in inbred mice, the LD100 was 10.36 ug/25 grams of mice for Naja. oxins and 10.0 ug/25 gram of Naja. karachians. We extrapolated the sub-LD dose to horses by cutting the LD100 in mice to 20%. This dose did not cause any apparent pathology in horses and therefore, we adopted that dose for the equine.
The antibody titers were measured in vitro by quantitative ELISA and in vivo by neutralization assay in mice. This method resulted in the development of high titer neutralization by the ASV antibodies, without any significant side effects in equine experimental models, against venoms of two cobra species namely Naja oxiana and Naja karachians. The results showed that three oral dosage schedules produced highly significant (P<0.001) neutralizing antibodies with persistent yield of immunoglobulin for 6-months of observation. This novel technique of oral administration of snake venoms will be useful for commercial ASV production of potent antibodies at a significantly reduced cost and without any significant adverse effects on equine health.


In testing hypotheses, we may confront with cases where data are recorded as non-precise (fuzzy) rather than crisp. In such situations, the classical methods of testing hypotheses are not capable and need to be generalized. In solving the problem of testing hypotheses based on fuzzy data, the fuzziness of the observed data leads to the fuzzy p-value. This paper has been focused to calculate fuzzy p-value based on fuzzy data using the extension principle. Also, considering that p-value method is the most widely used / popular approach for testing hypotheses among different sciences users, two fuzzy p-value-based case studies have been provided in this paper. The first case study is discussed on "the fuzzy data from a speedometer camera" and the second is deliberate about "the lifetime of produced batteries in a factory" and both of them have been solved by a novel approach considering other studies found in the literature.


In 118 male patients with duodenal ulcer smoking cigarettes, treatment with cimetidine 1 g/day promoted healing of the ulcers in 67% after four weeks. No differences were observed between healed and not healed patients for age, symptom period before treatment, early onset and multiple ulcers. In not healed patients, more had a greater ulcer diameter (p less than 0.001) and more were heavy smokers (greater than 30 cig./day; p less than 0.001). In not healed patients, pentagastrin-induced maximal acid output, corrected for age, was higher than in healed patients (p less than 0.001). We confirmed the linear relationship between acid output and the number of cigarettes smoked per day (p less than 0.001). By the stepwise logistic regression model, the following factors were selected as predictors for healing of duodenal ulcer with 68% correct classification: ulcer size (p less than 0.01) and daily consumption of cigarettes (p less than 0.01). (Acta gastroenterol. Belg., 1990, 53, 299-306).


SUMMARY: A strain of Verticillium albo-atrum produced CM cellulase in liquid culture containing either cellulose powder or carboxymethyl-cellulose (CM cellulose) as sole carbon source, and when the fungus was growing in its natural host (lucerne). The CM cellulase liberated when the fungus was grown in liquid culture was fractionated on Sephadex G75, giving three major peaks and two minor peaks of cellulase activity. The materials of the three major peaks differed from each other in molecular weight, Michaelis constant and pH/activity curve, but were the same whether induced by cellulose powder or CM cellulose. Incubation of the materials of the three major peaks with CM cellulose resulted in the production of only medium-length polymers and cellobiose. No cellobiase was detected in liquid culture. CM cellulase activity was found to be only slight in the living infected lucerne tissue but was considerable in the dead infected tissue.


ABSTRACT The geomorphic evolution of Mud Creek basin in eastern Iowa, U.S.A. serves to illustrate how geomorphic influences such as sediment supply, valley gradient, climate, and vegetation are recorded in the alluvial stratigraphic record. Sediment supply to the fluvial system increased significantly during the late Wisconsinan through a combination of periglacial erosion and loess accumulation. Subsequent evolution of the Holocene alluvial stratigraphic record reflects long-term routing of the late Wisconsinan sediment through the drainage basin in a series of cut-and-fill cycles whose timing was influenced by hydrologic response to change in climate and vegetation. When viewed in a regional context, the alluvial stratigraphic record appears to reflect a long-term complex response of the flu ial system to increased sediment supply during the late Wisconsinan. Hydrologic and sediment-supply changes accompanying the spread of Euroamerican agriculture to the basin in the 1800s dramatically upset trends in sedimentation and channel behavior established during the Holocene.


Background Numerous studies confirm the association between exposure to indoor air dampness and molds and different health outcomes. Of these, upper respiratory tract problems are the most commonly reported work-related symptoms in damp indoor environments. The aim of this study was to describe a clinically investigated patient series with occupational rhinitis induced by molds. Methods Nasal provocation test (NPT) with commercial fungal allergens was performed in 369 patients during 1995–2004 at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Of these, 60 (16%) were positive. In addition to positive NPT, the diagnosis of occupational rhinitis was based on verified exposure to molds, work-related nasal symptoms, and clinical investigations. We wanted to review the patient files of these 60 patients retrospectively, and 56 patients gave their informed consent. Results The mean age of the patients was 43.7 years (SD ∓ 9.5). Fifty (89.3%) patients were women. In 23% of the patients, IgE-mediated allergy to molds could be established. Atopy significantly increased IgE sensitization to molds (OR, 10.3 [95% CI, 2.0–52.5]). The most common mold to induce occupational rhinitis was Aspergillus fumigatus. Exposure time was over 5 years in 63% of the patients. Association between the IgE sensitization to molds and exposure level was statistically significant (Fisher's exact test, p = 0.046). Conclusion This is the first clinically investigated series on occupational rhinitis in relation to a moldy environment. Based on our findings, we conclude that molds growing in conjunction with moisture damages can induce occupational rhinitis. IgE-mediated allergy to molds was not common. Atopy and significant exposure level increased IgE sensitization to molds. zri00508


As part of the shift in emphasis in environmental policy from clean-up to avoidance, environmental policy instruments that spec@ preferred technological directions for an industry are increasingly being used. Take-back requirements and mandatory recycling are cases in point. These directly affect the mix of materials and the technologies used by an industry. These effects reverberate throughout the industry and influence market conditions for everyone both up-and downstream in the supplier/client chains. As these chains frequently cross international frontiers, environmental policy-making is becoming increasingly signhcant in influencing competitive structures and international trade patterns. Concerns are that policy-making may lock in inappropriate technologies and that the policy process may be manipulated for industrial or trading advantage. Using fibre recycling in the European pulp and paper sector as a case study, it is shown how these concerns are manifest and also that materials accounting and operational research techniques exist to mitigate them. It is concluded that there is a need to establish agreed environmental impact evaluation methodologies to provide guidance on the robustness of policy-making and a basis for consistent, predictable and defensible policy-making.


The nucleon electromagnetic form factors are calculated in a light cone QCD sum rules framework using the most general form of the nucleon interpolating current. Using two models for the distribution amplitudes, we predict the form factors. The predictions are also compared with existing experimental data. It is shown that our results describe remarkably well the existing experimental data.


Hyperspectral remote sensing produces large volumes of data, quite often requiring hundreds of megabytes to
gigabytes of memory storage for a small geographical area for one-time data collection. Although the high spectral resolution
of hyperspectral data is quite useful for capturing and discriminating subtle differences in geospatial characteristics of the
target, it contains redundant information at the band level. The objective of this study was to identify those bands that contain
the most information needed for characterizing a specific geospatial feature with minimal redundancy. Band selection is performed
with both unsupervised and supervised approaches. Five methods (three unsupervised and two supervised) are proposed
and compared to identify hyperspectral image bands to characterize soil electrical conductivity and canopy coverage
in agricultural fields. The unsupervised approach includes information entropy measure and first and second derivatives
along the spectral axis. The supervised approach selects hyperspectral bands based on supplemental ground truth data using
principal component analysis (PCA) and artificial neural network (ANN) based models. Each hyperspectral image band was
ranked using all five methods. Twenty best bands were selected by each method with the focus on soil and plant canopy characterization
in precision agriculture. The results showed that each of these methods may be appropriate for different applications.
The entropy measure and PCA were quite useful for selecting bands with the most information content, while derivative
methods could be used for identifying absorption features. ANN measure was the most useful in selecting bands specific to
a target characteristic with minimum information redundancy. The results also indicated that a combination of wavebands
with different bandwidths will allow use of fewer than 20 bands used in this study to represent the information contained in
the top 20 bands, thus reducing image data dimensionality and volume considerably.


In light of the increasing importance of social innovation, this study looks at the theoretical concepts, areas of empirical research and observable trends in the field of social innovation. This trend study starts with an overview of the current situation and the perspectives of socio-scientific innovation research that have greatly contributed to the development and spread of an enlightened socio-scientific understanding of innovation. Against the backdrop of clear paradoxes and confusion in prevailing politics of innovation, the contours of a new innovation paradigm are becoming visible and causing social innovation to grow in importance. This is accompanied by an exploration of the question of what (new) roles social sciences can play in analyzing and shaping social innovation. The study looks at the future fields of research and research questions and explores the possible contribution that social innovation can make in working through global dilemmas. At the same time, the theoretical concept of social innovation outlined in the study is a precondition for the development of an integrated theory of socio-technological innovation in which social innovation is more than a mere requirement, side effect and result of technical innovation. Only by taking into account the unique properties and specifics of social innovation is it possible to make the systemic connection and interdependence of social and technological innovation processes comprehensible.


Obesity in children has been recognized as a major underlying factor of the pathogenesis of several diseases and a reduced life expectancy. This study aims to verify if clinical parameters, such as waist circumference and/or body mass index and biohumoral and inflammatory parameters can help predict cardiac structural and functional alterations, through an echocardiogram test in obese children and adolescents. Children were prospectively enrolled at the AUOC outpatients' department of Emergency Paediatrics, University Hospital, Messina, from June to December 2017. Clinical, metabolic parameters and an inflammation marker (HMGB1) were evaluated and a transthoracic echocardiogram was carried out. Twenty-two obese subjects were prospectively enrolled.HMGB1 values were 12.6 ± 2ng/ml, significantly higher compared to a previously studied healthy control group. A significant positive correlation was found both between total cholesterol levels and HMGB1 values (r=0.846, p=0.000) and between LDL cholesterol and HMBG1 values (r=0.663, p=0.001). No correlation was found between clinical, biohumoral and echocardiograph parameters. In obese children cardiac parameters obtained from echocardiogram tests may be in the normal range. However, other parameters may be altered in the early phase, showing that infantile obesity can compromise myocardial functions, even in the absence of comorbidities. Furthermore, the evaluation of concentrations of HMBG1 could explain how an initial inflammation can trigger the condition of meta-inflammation.


Hardware accelerators have evolved as the most prominent vehicle to meet the demanding performance and energy-efficiency constraints of modern computer systems. The prevalent type of hardware accelerators in the high-performance computing domain are PCIe attached co-processors to which the CPU can offload compute intensive tasks. In this paper, we analyze the performance, power, and energy-efficiency of such accelerators for sparse matrix multiplication kernels. Improving the efficiency for sparse matrix operations is of eminent importance since they work at the core of graph analytics algorithms which are in turn key to many big data knowledge discovery workloads. Our study involves GPU, Xeon Phi, and FPGA co-processors to embrace the vast majority of hardware accelerators applied in modern HPC systems. In order to compare the devices on the same level of implementation quality we apply vendor optimized libraries for which published results exist. From our experiments we deduce that none of the compared devices generally dominates in terms of energy-efficiency and that the optimal solutions depends on the actual sparse matrix data, data transfer requirements and on the applied efficiency metric. We also show that a combined use of multiple accelerators can further improve the system's performance and efficiency by up to 11% and 18%, respectively.


Aims: To clarify the role of mesangial fibrinogen deposition in crescentic Henoch-Schönlein nephritis (HSN). Methods: A retrospective analysis of 21 children with HSN treated with immunosuppressants. Serial renal biopsies were performed before and after treatment. They were divided into two groups according to the immunofluorescent course of fibrinogen deposition: group I (n = 9), no or decreased deposition; group II (n = 12), persistent or increased deposition. Results: There were no differences between the two groups in renal manifestations or laboratory and histological findings at presentation. However, the activity index after immunosuppressive treatment was significantly decreased in group I (mean, 7.9 (SEM, 0.7) v 2.9 (0.4); p = 0.008) and unchanged in group II (mean, 6.8 (SEM, 0.3) v 6.0 (2.1)). The chronicity index was unchanged in group I, but increased in group II (mean, 0.8 (SEM, 0.3) v 1.8 (0.3); p = 0.02). Univariate analysis revealed that the only factor significantly related to persistent or increased fibrinogen deposition was age more than 9 years (p = 0.03). Furthermore, the intensity of fibrinogen deposition at the second biopsy correlated positively with the age at onset (R2 = 0.306; p = 0.009) and changes in the percentage of crescents (post-treatment crescents (%) minus pretreatment crescents (%)) correlated positively with the intensity of fibrinogen deposition at the second biopsy (R2 = 0.193; p = 0.046). Conclusions: This study indicates that fibrinogen deposition has an important role to play in renal injury of crescentic HSN and reflects persistent severe histological activity.


Plants are continually subjected to ultraviolet-B (UV-B) irradiation (290 to 320 nanometers) as a component of sunlight, which induces a variety of types of damage to the plant DNA. Repair of the two major DNA photoproducts was analyzed in wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana and in a mutant derivative whose growth was sensitive to UV-B radiation. In wild-type seedlings, repair of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers occurred more slowly in the dark than in the light; repair of this photoproduct was not affected in the mutant. Repair, in the dark, of pyrimidine-pyrimidinone(6-4) dimers was defective in the UV-sensitive mutant.


In this paper we describe improvements to the IBM speech activity detection (SAD) system for the third phase of the DARPA RATS program. The progress during this final phase comes from jointly training convolutional and regular deep neural networks with rich time-frequency representations of speech. With these additions, the phase 3 system reduces the equal error rate (EER) significantly on both of the program's development sets (relative improvements of 20% on dev1 and 7% on dev2) compared to an earlier phase 2 system. For the final program evaluation, the newly developed system also performs well past the program target of 3% Pmiss at 1% Pfa with a performance of 1.2% Pmiss at 1% Pfa and 0.3% Pfa at 3% Pmiss.


Consider an energy harvesting (EH) sensor that continuously monitors a system and sends time-stamped status update to a destination. The sensor harvests energy from nature and uses it to power its updating operations. The destination keeps track of the system status through the successfully received updates. With the recently introduced information freshness metric "Age of Information" (AoI), our objective is to design optimal online status updating policy to minimize the long-term average AoI at the destination, subject to the energy causality constraint at the sensor. Due to the noisy channel between the sensor and the destination, each transmitted update may be erased with a fixed probability, and the AoI at the destination will be reset to zero only when an update is successfully received. We first consider status updating without feedback available to the sensor and show that the Best-effort Uniform updating (BU) policy is optimal in a broadly defined class of online policies. We then investigate status updating with perfect feedback to the sensor and prove similar optimality of the Best-effort Uniform updating with Retransmission (BUR) policy. In order to prove the optimality of the proposed policies, for each case, we first identify a lower bound on the long-term average AoI among a broad class of online policies, and then construct a sequence of virtual policies to approach the lower bound asymptotically. Since those virtual policies are sub-optimal to the original policy, the original policy is thus optimal.


Efficient recognition of DNA is a prerequisite for the development of biological effectors, including transcription and translation regulators, transfection vectors, and DNA sensors. To provide an effective scaffold for multivalent interactions with DNA, we have fabricated mixed monolayer protected gold clusters (MMPCs) functionalized with tetraalkylammonium ligands that can interact with the DNA backbone via charge complementarity. Binding studies indicate that the MMPCs and DNA form a charge-neutralized, nonaggregated assembly. The interactions controlling these assemblies are highly efficient, completely inhibiting transcription by T7 RNA polymerase in vitro.


This study aims at identifying the role that Social Work in Health Care in the process of Advanced Care Planning (hereinafter ACP). For this purpose, a bibliographic review has been carried out whose population study was composed of scientific articles related to ACP, published between 1 Jan. 2009 and 1 Jan. 2019, related to the Social Work aria Health Care discipline. For the selection of articles, descriptors from Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) have been used. The search terms "Social Work" and "Advanced Care Planning" have been used in natural and controlled language. Boolean operators ("y" "and", in Spanish and English) have also been used. Regarding search platforms and databases, the following have been used: PubMed, Cochrane Library Plus, IME, CSIC, SCOPUS, OvidSPMEDLINE and Google Scholar. As to the results, 14,248 articles were located, from which 1,295 entered the review process of these, only 20 were selected as the rest did not adapt to the selection criteria. Looking at the year of publication, the scientific production for 2016 represented 27.2% of the total. Regarding the type of research, 45.4% were quantitative studies and 90.9% focused their attention on the attitude of Social Work professionals regarding the ACP. With regard to the categories of the reviewed articles, 45.4% referred to training in Social Work in Health Care on Advanced Care Planning ACP. That same percentage referred to the commitment of these professionals with ACP. The current study shows that Social Workers in Health Care have the aptitude and commitment necessary for Advanced Care Planning ACP. However, these professionals require more training. The paper also raises the issue that the topic of a dignified 'end of life' process needs to be present in syllabuses for grade and postgraduate education within the Social Work in Health Care discipline.


Evidence suggesting that the growth of civic roots in adolescence may be crucial to the long-term development of citizenship has stimulated research into factors that might influence civic development during this time. One interesting finding to emerge from that exploration is the apparent importance of discussion to the development of civic competence. Adolescents who discuss politics and current events with their parents, peers, or teachers tend to score higher than other youth on measures of civic behaviors, attitudes, and skills. They develop higher levels of political knowledge, show greater intention to vote in the future, and do better on a range of civic outcomes from petitioning and boycotting to raising money for charities and participating in community meetings (Torney-Purta et al. 2001; Andolina et al. 2003).


Two derivatives of trans-2-naphthyloxycyclohexanol were synthesized, their enantiomers were separated by enzyme mediated kinetic resolution and their absolute configuration was established by synthesizing their diastereomers with esters of known chiral description. Chiral alcohols were then used as chiral auxiliaries for the preparation of esters by coupling with racemic α-halo acids. During the coupling reactions with DCC and a suitable base, an efficient dynamic thermodynamic resolution was observed and the products were isolated in high diastereomeric purity. The effect of several parameters on the reaction was studied and the absolute configuration of a newly created chiral centre was established by single crystal X-ray analysis; the correlation of the structure of chiral auxiliary and diastereoselectivity was investigated. The observed diastereoselectivity was in accordance with the relative energy profile of the products. The chirally pure α-halo acid could be separated from the auxiliary, without any loss of optical purity of both components.


In SHM applications various damage-sensitive features can be used for making decisions regarding damage detection. In all cases, classifiers evaluate the results and make a final decision regarding the state of the structure. Often, there are discrepancies among the decisions of different classifiers, resulting in different detection performances for each damage feature. This is expected as different classifiers may be better suited for different data settings, even in data sets corresponding to the same system. Boosting algorithms combine multiple base classifiers to produce an ensemble, whose joint decision offers a better performance than any of the base classifiers. Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost) is deployed in this paper to build a strong classifier based on the classifiers of a three-tier modular SHM framework for improving detection performance. The framework consists of three parts: application of machine learning clustering algorithms for data normalization, feature extraction and hypothesis testing (HT). Each connection of damage feature, also referred to as condition parameter (CP), and HT composes a classifier that can be used as a weak classifier in the boosting algorithm. Information from the SHM framework classifiers is used, in order to build a strong classifier that is able to classify the value of any CP and improve the detection performance. The integration of AdaBoost with the three-tier SHM framework is validated on an operating 3 kW wind turbine. The results are demonstrated in receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves with AdaBoost increasing the performance of damage detection.


The U.S. Endangered Species Act is often criticized as "pitting people against wildlife" by conserving habitat at the cost of jobs, but relatively little is known about the labor market effects of listing a species under the Endangered Species Act. We examine changes in employment associated with the lesser prairie chicken, which was listed as threatened in May 2014. Using county-level employment data and variation in suitable prairie chicken habitat, we apply a difference-in-differences strategy to measure the employment effects of the listing decision. We find evidence that employment declined about 1.5% in affected counties. The effect is proportional to habitat, which means counties with relatively more habitat experienced a larger share of employment losses.


Context: Edentulism is a handicap that affects the quality of life and nutrition. Tooth loss leads to functional impairment at the level of the orofacial system, significantly interfering with chewing, swallowing and speech, as well as to temporomandibular joint dysfunction, disorders of intermaxillary relation, and facial physiognomy. Aim: The aim of the study was to explore variables that influence self-reported oral health and denture satisfaction in partially and completely edentulous patients using oral health impact profile for edentulous (OHIP-EDENT). Materials and Methods: A hospital-based study was carried out on the patient's age ranged from 30 to 70 years in the dental college who had been treated with complete dentures and removable partial denture using convenience sampling method. Prevalidated questionnaire consisting of OHIP-EDENT was self-administered to all the study participants. The information about the appetite, perceived general and oral health, and satisfaction from the dentures was recorded using a 4-point Likert scale. Data were collected, entered, and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. One-way ANOVA was performed to test for comparison between different denture groups. P < 0.05 shows statistically significant difference. Results: When the mean of denture satisfaction level was calculated between different denture group and different domains of OHIP-EDENT, there was no difference found in level of denture satisfaction between different denture groups, i.e., overall denture satisfaction mean in Group 1 was 2.18 ± 0.32, Group 2 has 2.23 ± 0.36, Group 3 has the mean of 2.18 ± 0.42, Group 4 has 2.23 ± 0.67, and P value was 0.810 which shows nonsignificant difference. Conclusion: The results of the present study suggest that the poor self-perceived satisfaction among denture wearers affect their quality of life.


Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate last week launched a new caucus dedicated to spotlighting the role of the chemistry enterprise in the U.S. economy. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), and Gary C. Peters (D-Mich.) cosponsored the caucus. Lending support for the caucus are the American Chemical Society, which publishes C&EN, and two industry groups: the American Chemistry Council and the National Association of Chemical Distributors. In addition to the cosponsors, the caucus includes Sens. John N. Boozman (R-Ark.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.). Caucuses in the Senate are informal groups that do not receive official recognition from the chamber or funding through appropriations. The House created a chemistry caucus last year, and its membership, which has grown to include about 35 lawmakers, supported the 2016 revision of the federal law governing commercial chemicals, the Toxic Substances Control


Hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels participate in pacemaker currents, modulating the funny current (I[f ]) in cardiac cells and the hyperpolarization-activated current (I[h]) in neurons. Depending on the neuronal and synaptic localization, HCN channels regulate synaptic integration, long-term potentiation, synaptic transmission, and resting membrane potential. In summary, it contributes to the electrical activity between the excitatory and inhibitory stimuli through its shunting effect. Several second messengers modulate I(h) currents in the synapses by changing voltage-dependent activation kinetics. I(h) currents are being investigated in numerous central nervous system disorders, including epilepsy. On one hand, it is well known that I(h) currents lead to synchronized oscillations in the rhythmic burst mode in thalamocortical neurons underlying the pathophysiology of absence epilepsy. However, much of the evidence is contradictory. Therefore, it is important to understand the dynamic relationship of HCN channels within the oscillatory networks to determine the regional "queerness" of I(h), and we need further investigation to determine if upregulation or downregulation of I(h) is needed in order to suppress seizure activity.


Abstract The aim of the present study was to test whether teacher–student relationship (TSR) quality and student–student relationship (SSR) quality at class level and class moral disengagement (CMD), considered together in a single model, were related to class prevalence of victims (CPV) of bullying. A sample of 899 Swedish children was recruited from 43 elementary school classes. The participants filled out a questionnaire. Because the focus of the present study was on class behaviours, all analyses were conducted on aggregated class-level data. A path analysis revealed that the prevalence of victims was likely to be lower in classes with more positive teacher–student and SSRs and lower levels of CMD. TSR quality was not directly linked to CPV, but indirectly through its direct association with SSR quality. SSR quality was negatively associated with CMD and both were directly related to CPV. Results suggest that caring, supportive and warm SSRs in the class should be considered as a crucial protective factor against bullying victimisation. Further, the findings suggest that CMD has to be addressed in bullying prevention.