The measuring of semantic similarity is the key technique in information retrieval. Based on the common semantic similarity algorithm between concepts, this paper makes use of semantic weighted distance and introduces such factors as node density, concept attribute and concept information content, and presents an improved semantic similarity algorithm to make the measuring semantic similarity more accurate. Through experimental calculation and analysis, the semantic similarity obtained from the improved algorithm can describe more accurately the similar relation between ontology concepts, and correspond to a higher degree with human subjective judgment.


The presence of dormant seeds makes it difficult to evaluate physiological quality and requires the use of appropriate methods in order to break seed dormancy. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of different methods to break the dormancy of ryegrass seeds stored under environment conditions in different periods. Ryegrass seeds, BRS Ponteio cultivar, produced in two locations were used and evaluated after 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 days of storage under environment conditions. Seeds were submitted to the following methods to break dormancy: sowing at 20 to 30°C without applying any method to break dormancy (control); pre-cooling (5°C) for 3 days + KNO3 followed by sowing at 15 to 25°C; pre-drying (45°C) for 96 h followed by sowing at 20-30°C; immersing the seeds in sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) at 0.5% for 24 h, followed by drying at 45°C for 6 h and sowing at 15 to 25°C. At 60 days after harvest, the most effective method was immersion of seeds in a NaClO solution followed by drying at 45°C. From 90 days after harvest, all methods were equally effective to break seed dormancy, except pre-drying (45°C) for 96 h, which negatively affected the physiological quality of seeds. There is a difference in the effectiveness of the methods employed to break the dormancy of ryegrass seeds depending on the type of post-harvest storage.

 Key words: Lolium multiflorum, post-harvest storage, pre-cooling.


Previous studies of poverty in developing countries have to a great extent focussed on the characteristics of the household head and used these as proxies for the underlying ability of the household to generate income. This paper uses five rounds of panel data to investigate the persistence of poverty in urban Ethiopia, with a particular focus on the role of intra-household heterogeneity in occupations. Dynamic probit and system generalised method of moments regression results suggest that international remittances and labour market status of non-head household members are important determinants of households' poverty status. Results also show that controlling for these variables and the "initial conditions problem" encountered in nonlinear dynamic probit models reduces the magnitude of estimated poverty persistence significantly for urban Ethiopia. These findings have important implications for identifying the poor and formulating effective poverty reduction and targeting strategies.


MacEtch allows subwavelength-structured (SWS) texturing on the GaAs surface without compromising crystallinity. The current density increases greatly, which is directly due to the reduction in the reflectance. Photons absorbed under reduced light reflectance are less affected by the charge recombination arising from crystal defects. The catalytic metal remaining after MacEtch serves as a catalyst for water splitting and increases the open-circuit potentials of the SWS GaAs photocathodes. The SWS GaAs not only amplifies the absorption of light, but also improves the collection of deeply generated photons at long wavelengths. The solar-weighted reflectance (SWR) of SWS GaAs is 6.6%, which was much lower than the 39.0% of bare GaAs. The light-limited photocurrent density (LLPC) increased by approximately 90% and the tafel slope improved as etching progressed. The external quantum efficiency was as high as 80%, especially at long wavelengths, after MacEtch. SWS GaAs photocathodes fabricated using MacEtch significantly reduce reflectance and recombination loss, thereby improving the key performance of PEC for hydrogen production. This technology can fully utilize the high absorption rate and carrier mobility of GaAs and is applicable to various photoelectric conversion device performance enhancements.


Study Design: Prospective randomized Food and Drug Administration investigational device exemption clinical trial. Objective: The purpose of the present study is to report the 1-year clinical and radiographic outcomes and safety profile of patients who underwent lumbar facet arthroplasty through implantation of the Total Posterior Spine System (TOPS) device. Summary of Background Data: Lumbar facet arthroplasty is one proposed method of dynamic stabilization to treat grade-1 spondylolisthesis with stenosis; however, there are currently no Food and Drug Administration-approved devices for facet arthroplasty. Methods: Standard demographic information was collected for each patient. Radiographic parameters and patient-reported outcome measures were assessed preoperatively and at regular postoperative intervals. Complication and reoperation data were also collected for each patient. Results: At the time of this study, 153 patients had undergone implantation of the TOPS device. The mean surgical time was 187.8 minutes and the mean estimated blood loss was 205.7cc. The mean length of hospital stay was 3.0 days. Mean Oswestry Disability Index, Visual Analog Score leg and back, and Zurich Claudication Questionnaire scores improved significantly at all postoperative time points (P>0.001). There were no clinically significant changes in radiographic parameters, and all operative segments remained mobile at 1-year follow-up. Postoperative complications occurred in 11 patients out of the 153 patients (7.2%) who underwent implantation of the TOPS device. Nine patients (5.9%) underwent a total of 13 reoperations, 1 (0.6%) of which was for device-related failure owing to bilateral L5 pedicle screw loosening. Conclusions: Lumbar facet arthroplasty with the TOPS device demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in all patient-reported outcome measures and the ability to maintain motion at the index level while limiting sagittal translation with a low complication rate.


Continuing research into the effect of vehicle emissions is driving legislation, which is increasingly being enacted to encourage the retrofitting of emissions control devices. Of particular concern are emissions of diesel particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. More recently the adverse effects of nitrogen dioxide in particular, have been highlighted. A programme of work is underway in Santiago to demonstrate the suitability of retrofitting diesel particulate filters (DPF) to urban buses. This paper presents data, including regulated and unregulated emissions, from a bus fitted with a DPF that relies on a fuel borne catalyst (FBC) to facilitate regeneration of the DPF.


Introduction: The therapeutic modalities available for the conservative management of chronic lumbar pain included infrared laser therapy and underwater traction, which usefulness is not universally acknowledged. This study was intended to ascertain any beneficial impact of infrared laser therapy and weightbath treatment on the clinical parameters and quality of life of patients with lumbar discopathy. Material and methods: The study population comprised 54 randomised subjects. I. group of 18 patents received only infrared laser therapy to lumbar region and painful Valley points. II. group of 18 subjects each received underwater traction therapy of lumbar spine with add-on McKenzie exercise and iontophoresis. The remaining III. group treated with exercise and iontophoresis, served as control. VAS, Oswestry index, SF36 scores, range of motion, neurological findings and thermography were monitored to appraise therapeutic afficacy in lumbar discopathy. A CT or MRI scan was done at baseline and after 3 months follow-up. Result:Infrared laser therapy and underwater traction for discopathy achieved significant improvement of all study parameters, which was evident 3 months later. Among the controls, significant improvement of only a single parameter was seen in patients with lumbar discopathy. Conclusions: Infrared laser therapy and underwater traction treatment effectively mitigate pain, muscle spasms, enhance joint flexibility, and improve the quality of life of patients with lumbar discopathy.


The amount of acceptance of each amino acid per absorbancy unit of rabbit reticulocyte transfer RNA was determined. The results were compared with the amino acid composition of rabbit hemoglobin and with a similar determination of the transfer RNA content of rabbit liver. The histidine and isoleucine transfer RNA content of reticulocytes is specialized for the synthesis of hemoglobin, in which histidine is unusually common and isoleucine unusually scarce compared to most proteins.


Techniques that traditionally have been useful for retrieving same-domain analogies from small single-use knowledge bases, such as spreading activation and indexing on selected features, are inadequate for retrieving cross-domain analogies from large multi-use knowledge bases. In this paper, we describe Knowledge-Directed Spreading Activation (KDSA), a new method for retrieving analogies in a large semantic network. KDSA uses task-specific knowledge to guide a spreading activation search to a case or concept in memory that meets a desired similarity condition. Specifically, KDSA exploits evaluations of near-analogies encountered during the search to direct the search toward progressively more promising analogies. We describe a specific instantiation of this method for the task of innovative design, and we summarize the theoretical and experimental results used to validate KDSA.


This study set out to answer the question what factors are conducive for church growth through conversion in Protestant Thai churches. After 180 years of unhindered Protestant missionary activity only 0.3% of ethnic Thai, about 185,000 people, have become Protestants. Though small, ethnic Thai Protestantism has shown a rather high annual growth rate of 4.4% over the last three decades. This consists of 0.9% biological growth and 3.5% conversion growth. The personal background of people proved to be a predictor of conversion probability, yet the more striking finding was that persons from all different social groups were becoming Christians. One interesting finding is that old people are slightly more likely to convert than young people. This shows that conversion to Protestantism in Thailand is not driven by the modernization process and therefore lacks one of the most important push factors that results in rapid Protestant growth in some other countries. A very important finding is that relatives of Christians are hundreds of times more likely to become Christians than the general population. This confirms that among ethnic Thai pull factors are quite strong. Once people have Christians in their close social network there is a rather large chance that they become Christians as well. Yet push factors are almost absent. If Christianity is not present in their inner circle there is little or no impetus to seek an alternative to their present religion. Another subquestion addressed in this study was what kind of churches grow through conversion growth. The most important variable, trumping all others, is the age of a local church. Younger churches attract more new Christians. The continued growth of Protestantism in Thailand is tied to a vigorous planting of new churches. It makes a difference what kind of new churches are planted. The second main variable is traditionalism. Traditional churches, with a lot of church rules and emphasis on the role of the clergy, are less likely to grow. This is in line with the finding that the conversion of most new Christians is influenced by people in their own social network. A church that empowers its members is a church that will grow. These two variables together explain 80% of all variance in conversion growth. This study has some wider implications for the study of conversion and church growth. It shows that making a reliable count of the number of churches and Christians in a country is not impossible. Methodologically a new way was developed to measure conversion church growth. A time analysis of survey data, combined with census data, makes it possible to say something about conversion growth, biological growth, and the retention rate of children born in Christian families. This is a valuable tool that could profitably be used more often in missiology and the sociology of religion. Statistical modelling of conversion church growth showed which variables were independently important, and which were redundant. This brought about a clear picture of the important predictors of conversion church growth. In this way it is shown that modelling, which so far has been virtually absent in missiology, is an important tool.


This thesis describes a series of experimental studies concerning waveguide structures based on the direct UV and direct grating writing fabrication techniques. The latter approach allows simultaneous definition of waveguide structures and Bragg gratings. The first result of this work describes the fabrication and characterisation of small angle X-couplers that exhibit low polarisation and wavelength dependence. Maximum and minimum coupling ratios of 95% (±0.8%) and 1.9% (±1%) respectively with typical excess loss of 1.0dB (±0.5dB) were recorded. Device modelling using Beam Propagation Method (BPM) and an analytical model showed good agreement with experimental results over a broad crossing angle and wavelength range. By introducing refractive index asymmetry in 2° X-couplers, it was possible to tune the response to give a 50:50 coupling ratio. Multiple UV exposure experiments investigated the 'proximity effect' and provided further proof of the ability of UV writing to produce raised waist index X-couplers. A first order Bragg grating electrically tunable via liquid crystal index modification with a maximum tunability of 141 GHz at 1562nm (TM polarised) and 114 GHZ at 1561.8nm (TE polarised) using electro-patterned ITO-coated glass electrodes is also presented. The 141GHz tuning range effectively covers up to five 25 GHz WDM channel spacing and was achieved with 170Vpp sinusoidal 1 kHz supply voltage. Hysteretic behaviour of the tuning curves was observed and is believed to be related to the dynamics of the disclination line formed along the waveguide axis with increase or decrease in supply voltage. Finally, a description of the successful demonstration of UV-written single channels, y-splitters, and Bragg gratings into a novel flat fibre substrate is provided. Utilising a series of Bragg gratings enabled assessment of the core layer uniformity and birefringence.


Based on a review of available literature, recommended procedures for timing the various types of signals are provided. Specifically, procedures are included for both pretimed and vehicle-actuated controllers located at isolated intersections and at intersections in a signal system. Smplicity and ease of use are emphasized as the targeted users are field technicians and those responsbile for signals in small cities and towns. A separate Field Manual has been prepared which is intended to provide a concise and easily applied set of procedures. Detailed theory and logic behind the procedures are provided in the Technical Report, as are brief descriptions of current computer programs which provide timing information. The Technical Report also presents the results of a questionnaire survey which had the objective of determing the types of signal equipment used in Virginia. (Author)


Whether duration influences the categorical perception (CP) of speech is still a controversial issue. Investigations on the effect of duration of stimuli on the CP has led to opposing results. The present study focused on the effect of duration on the CP of Mandarin lexical tones and aspiration of stops, in which the speech rates were normal for speech production and perception. The results showed that there was no significant duration effect on the CP of lexical tones. However, we found that syllable duration significantly changed the voice onset time (VOT) values of boundary position of aspiration of stops, although the discrimination ability of aspiration was not influenced by syllable duration, indicating that people have a robust perceptual competence to systematically encode alterations of speech production.


Numerous researches have shown that the original DCF access mode of IEEE 802.11 has low performance in case of heavy traffic and multi-hop environment [Yong Peng, et al., IEEE GLOBECOM 2002] [Shugong Xu, et al., IEEE GLOBECOM, 2001]. Based on the analysis of previous IEEE 802.11 DCF, [Yong Peng, et al., IEEE GLOBECOM 2002] have introduced a parameter that closely relative to the traffic load of the current wireless LAN and formed a new DCF-based protocol with the name NSAD, which is proved effective in the simple one-hop environment. In this paper, we proposed a new exchange protocol for fine tune NSAD. Our goal is to solve the problems that NSAD encountered in the error-prone multi-hop environment. We have done simulation in a more real environment than we do in NSAD [Yong Peng, et al., IEEE GLOBECOM 2002] and the results have shown that the proposed algorithm can achieve better performance when compared to the original NSAD algorithm (e.g. better property in goodput and fairness, window tuning accuracy).


This study aimed to quantify costs and benefits of allergen free food (food not containing ingredients that fall under the European labelling regime) production at a catering business under two scenarios. In scenario 1 the caterer provides information to the consumer regarding the presence of allergens in the meals served, uses allergen free ingredients in preparation of allergen free meals, but does not avoid cross contamination during food preparation. Scenario 2 expands upon scenario 1 as to also include the prevention of cross contamination during preparation of allergen free foods. A stochastic partial budgeting analysis was performed to simulate the costs and benefits in both scenarios, relative to the current situation of providing neither information regarding the presence of allergens nor serving allergen free meals. Costs values were based upon the adaptations necessary to comply with the two scenarios for an on premise catering location. Fixed and variable cost items were identified via literature review, critical inspection of the catering establishment, and expert opinion. Benefit items were identified and quantified via a questionnaire about willingness to pay and willingness to buy at a catering location, according to each scenario. Given the price increase of meals in accordance to the estimated willingness to pay, and using mean values of the distributions of the costs and benefit items, an investment payback time of 8.1 and 7.7 months was estimated for scenarios 1 and 2, respectively. However, with median values of the distributions, both scenarios were not profitable, since monthly net profits were estimated at € -413 and € -636 for scenarios 1 and 2, respectively. If additional costs are not passed on to the consumer, no scenario is profitable. Catering companies can use the methodology and results in their decision making process on serving allergen free foods.


Introduction: This study was performed to observe the efficacy of a modified surgical wound dressing applied as part of decannulation wound care after tracheotomy. Methods: Eighty-four patients were randomly allocated into a traditional care group, a surgical wound dressing group, and a modified surgical wound dressing group. Each group comprised 28 patients. The following outcomes were observed and analyzed: infection rate, wound closure time, dressing change frequency, cost of wound care, and patients' comfort. Results: The infection rate, wound closure time, dressing change frequency, and cost of wound care were much higher in the traditional care group than in the surgical wound dressing group and modified surgical wound dressing group. The study data indicated that patients in the modified surgical dressing group felt more comfortable than those patients in the other two groups. The differences among the three groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Discussion: The design of the herein-described modified surgical wound dressing is based on a butterfly shaped adhesive and mirrors the advantages of a modern surgical wound dressing. Its shape is suitable for the physiological structure of the neck, making it more comfortable to use. Aseptic packaging and a high degree of adhesiveness guarantee continuous fixation and pulling. At the same time, the design of the dressing decreases the chance of infection.


Current practice for evaluating recommender systems typically focuses on point estimates of user-oriented effectiveness metrics or business metrics, sometimes combined with additional metrics for considerations such as diversity and novelty. In this paper, we argue for the need for researchers and practitioners to attend more closely to various distributions that arise from a recommender system (or other information access system) and the sources of uncertainty that lead to these distributions. One immediate implication of our argument is that both researchers and practitioners must report and examine more thoroughly the distribution of utility between and within different stakeholder groups. However, distributions of various forms arise in many more aspects of the recommender systems experimental process, and distributional thinking has substantial ramifications for how we design, evaluate, and present recommender systems evaluation and research results. Leveraging and emphasizing distributions in the evaluation of recommender systems is a necessary step to ensure that the systems provide appropriate and equitably-distributed benefit to the people they affect.


Certain hand-held tools alter the mapping between hand motion and motion of the tool end point that must be controlled in order to perform a task. For example, when using a pool cue, the motion of the cue tip is reversed relative to the hand. Previous studies have shown that the time required to initiate a reaching movement (Fernandez-Ruiz J, Wong W, Armstrong IT, Flanagan JR. Behav Brain Res 219: 8-14, 2011), or correct an ongoing reaching movement (Gritsenko V, Kalaska JF. J Neurophysiol 104: 3084-3104, 2010), is prolonged when the mapping between hand motion and motion of a cursor controlled by the hand is reversed. Here we show that these time costs can be significantly reduced when the reversal is instantiated by a virtual hand-held tool. Participants grasped the near end of a virtual tool, consisting of a rod connecting two circles, and moved the end point to displayed targets. In the reversal condition, the rod translated through, and rotated about, a pivot point such that there was a left-right reversal between hand and end point motion. In the nonreversal control, the tool translated with the hand. As expected, when only the two circles were presented, movement initiation and correction times were much longer in the reversal condition. However, when full vision of the tool was provided, the reaction time cost was almost eliminated. These results indicate that tools with complex kinematics can be efficiently incorporated into sensorimotor control mechanisms used in movement planning and online control.


From the Publisher:
After an overview of the implementation process, this book charges into the new Accelerated program, ASAP. You'll learn about ASAP in its five phases and the various objectives, requirements, time frames, and tasks associated with each phase. You'll prepare for the day the system goes live through intelligent implementation design, discussion of staffing and other resources, and an introduction to the available utilities. And you'll see a walk-through of the process, from inception through planning, designing and testing. The CD includes a test engine, useful toward becoming an SAP Certified Technical Consultant. |


Abstract. The performance of the joint assimilation in a land surface model of a Soil Wetness Index (SWI) product provided by an exponential filter together with Leaf Area Index (LAI) is investigated. The data assimilation is evaluated with different setups using the SURFEX modeling platform, for a period of seven years (2001–2007), at the SMOSREX grassland site in southwestern France. The results obtained with a Simplified Extended Kalman Filter demonstrate the effectiveness of a joint data assimilation scheme when both SWI and Leaf Area Index are merged into the ISBA-A-gs land surface model. The assimilation of a retrieved Soil Wetness Index product presents several challenges that are investigated in this study. A significant improvement of around 13 % of the root-zone soil water content is obtained by assimilating dimensionless root-zone SWI data. For comparison, the assimilation of in situ surface soil moisture is considered as well. A lower impact on the root zone is noticed. Under specific conditions, the transfer of the information from the surface to the root zone was found not accurate. Also, our results indicate that the assimilation of in situ LAI data may correct a number of deficiencies in the model, such as low LAI values in the senescence phase by using a seasonal-dependent error definition for background and observations. In order to verify the specification of the errors for SWI and LAI products, a posteriori diagnostics are employed. This approach highlights the importance of the assimilation design on the quality of the analysis. The impact of data assimilation scheme on CO2 fluxes is also quantified by using measurements of net CO2 fluxes gathered at the SMOSREX site from 2005 to 2007. An improvement of about 5 % in terms of rms error is obtained.


As the largest consumer of petroleum and second highest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, the United States currently is a leading country in bioenergy production driven by a series of policies. One such public program that directly subsidizes biomass feedstock growers is the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), which recently received attention for stimulating the development of bioenergy. However, critiques were also raised, concerning the possibility of intensifying the feedstock competition between bioenergy and forest products. This study, therefore, aimed at assessing the effects of BCAP on the forest product markets with the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM). Three alternative scenarios were designed to simulate three payments in BCAP. In the first scenario, the matching payment was simulated by adjusting the manufacturing cost of fuelwood and particleboard. In the second scenario, establishment payment was simulated by adjusting the supply rate of industrial roundwood. In the third scenario, the annual payment was simulated by linking the supply change rate with the soil rental rate for industrial roundwood. We found that, under the matching payment scenario, industrial roundwood and particleboard will experience a sharp decrease in production and an increase in price. For establishment payments, industrial roundwood will experience a continuous increase in production and a decrease in price. For annual payments, the industrial roundwood will experience a V-shape pattern production.


Control of polyene macrolide production in Streptomyces natalensis is mediated by the transcriptional activator PimR. This regulator combines an N-terminal domain corresponding to the Streptomyces antibiotic regulatory protein (SARP) family of transcriptional activators with a C-terminal half homologous to guanylate cyclases and large ATP-binding regulators of the LuxR family. The PimR SARP domain (PimRSARP) was expressed in Escherichia coli as a glutathione S-transferase (GST)–fused protein. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that GST-PimRSARP binds a single target, the intergenic region between the regulatory genes pimR and pimMs in the pimaricin cluster. The PimRSARP-binding site was investigated by DNaseI protection studies, revealing that it contains three heptameric direct repeats adjusting to the consensus 5′-CGGCAAG-3′. Transcription start points of pimM and pimR promoters were identified by 5′-RACE, revealing that unlike other SARPs, PimRSARP does not interact with the -35 region of its target promoter. Quantitative transcriptional analysis of these regulatory genes on mutants on each of them has allowed the identification of the pimM promoter as the transcriptional target for PimR. Furthermore, the constitutive expression of pimM restored pimaricin production in a pimaricin-deficient strain carrying a deletion mutant of pimR. These results reveal that PimR exerts its positive effect on pimaricin production by controlling pimM expression level, a regulator whose gene product activates transcription from eight different promoters of pimaricin structural genes directly.


International Studies with a focus in the Middle East and minoring in Journalism. The conflict over Kashmir is the longest unresolved conflict on the UN Security Council docket. It began in 1947 and has continued for six decades without any significant progress toward peace. Due to the rapid rise in the influence of pan-Islamic groups operating in Kashmir over the past decade, scholars have tended to cast the conflict as an Islamic conflict. This paper seeks to address two related questions: first, why has the conflict in Kashmir been interpreted by scholars and commentators as one motivated primarily along religious lines, as a battle between Islamic militant groups in response to religious persecution by a Hindu government? Second, is that characterization accurate? In other words, is the motivation for violence in Kashmir best explained by religious or secular and political factors? In addressing these questions, this paper will focus on the motivations for conflict with specific attention to the various militant groups operating in the region and how both the groups and their grievances have shifted over time. Accurately identifying the motivations for conflicts—especially those that are cast as Islamic conflicts—is important in order to prevent the spread of misconceptions, as these false impressions of conflicts often shape the opinions of the conflict and proposed solutions. This paper concludes that although the original motivations for the conflict were primarily political, the recent surge in influence of pan-Islamic groups has caused the media and scholars to mischaracterize the essential nature of the conflict as primarily religious. Though religion has influenced how militant groups have mobilized and used symbolism, this popular depiction is flawed because the fundamental grievances and motivations are predominantly political. The IslamIcIzaTIon of PolITIcs: moTIvaTIons for vIolence In KashmIr


Introduction: Urethral duplication is a rare congenital anatomical anomaly. It can often be associated with other organ system anomalies. Methods: We report a case of a male child with VACTERAL association and complete duplication of the urethra. The associated congenital anomalies and the various different urethral imaging techniques were also described. Results: The child underwent surgical repair of the duplicated urethra and resection of the associated anterior megalo-urethra at age 6. Early post op follow up showed excellent cosmetic and functional outcome. Discussions: We reviewed the literature regarding the embryology of the male urethra. Classification of the different anatomical variants of urethral duplication and their proposed aetiologies were also discussed.


A small-signal analysis of direct modulation of laser diodes is presented. The analysis is valid over a wide frequency range, up to the frequency corresponding to the round trip time of the active region. This theory is best for laser diodes with small active regions but with large and complicated optical cavities. Optical resonances may occur in this range, resulting in a large response to direct modulation as a result of interaction of the lasing mode with the optical resonance. This theory can predict the linear response of the laser to direct modulation throughout this frequency range. It also predicts the lower frequency relaxation oscillation effect, thus unifying these different effects with a single treatment. The form of the modulation response is found to be the same as the standard relaxation oscillation formula, modified by a factor the form of which depends on the optics of the laser cavity alone. >


The article discusses the main challenges and threats of global climate change and their impact on economic and socio-demographic processes in the countries most exposed to climate change. In world politics the topic of global climate change is not new, and every year more countries participate in international programs to reduce the impact of climate change on social, economic, demographic and even geopolitical processes. The problem of climate change is not local in nature and affects the entire group of countries and even continents. According to the intergovernmental group of experts of the UNPO, in the period 1880 to 2012, global average temperatures have risen by 0.85 degrees Celsius (The official website of UNPO, 2015). At the same time, every year more and more countries feel the consequences of climate change. According to the world organization for migration, in 2014, more than 19,3 million people were forced to change their place of permanent residence in connection with climatic factors (Gemenne et al., 2015). The loss of the world economy is measured in billions of US dollars.


Among the various tools in educational contexts to affect L2 learners' language proficiency, textbooks play a crucial role (Garinger, 2001) not least because of their inherent property to cater to the learners' specific needs. The aim of this study was to investigate the appropriateness of Iranian High schools "English Textbook 2" from teachers' perspectives. For this purpose, 80 male and female experienced English language teachers were randomly selected from different high schools in Dezful, Iran. They were chosen based on the availability sampling method. The evaluation of the textbook was conducted quantitatively through a 5-point Likert scale checklist which was proposed by Litz (2005). The textbook evaluation scheme contained 19 items which relied upon four main criteria namely a) layout and design, b) subject and content, c) activities, and d) skills (see Appendix). The results indicated that from the teachers' perspective there was an incongruity between the presumed educational purposes and the teachers and learners' needs. It is believed that the results of the study could provide intriguing hints for the curriculum designers and materials developers to think of adapting the available materials or adopting an alternative textbook which contains an organized layout, useful and real-life subjects and contents, covers relevant skills and activities, and corresponds to teachers' and learners' emerging needs.


A comprehensive numerical model for simulating the electrical and thermal behavior of a bipolar transistor is developed. The proposed model is in the form of an electrical network for its easy implementation using a circuit analysis program. One of the suggested solution techniques enables us to simulate a fairly large problem with a reasonable amount of computer time. The effect of temperature dependence of thermal conductivity of the device material upon thermal instability is shown. It is described how the model can be used to find the appropriate values of ballasting resistors desired for the improvement of thermal stability. Prediction of a safe operating area using the proposed model is also reported.


The purpose of the study is to explore the moderating role of Growth Need Strength (GNS) on the relationship between Perceived Organisational Support (POS), Perceived External Prestige (PEP) and job satisfaction in the healthcare industry of Pakistan. The data was collected from nurses working in the public sector hospitals in Pakistan. After a successful confirmatory data analysis, a multivariate regression analysis was utilised to interpret the results. The results indicate that there is a positive and statistically significant effect of POS and GNS on job satisfaction. However, no statistically significant association is found between PEP and job satisfaction. The findings also reveal that GNS positively moderates the relationship between POS and job satisfaction. Healthcare organisations can utilise these results as a basis for future planning and decision making to retain nurses and to improve their job satisfaction level. These organisations should give preference to employees with high growth needs.


The tandem reactions of salicylic aldehydes or salicylic imines with alpha,beta-unsaturated compounds have only been studied systematically in recent years. These tandem reactions provide an easy access to a variety of heterocycles, such as chromanes, chromenes, coumarins and tetrahydroxanthenones, many of which are synthetic useful intermediates.


Demographic dividend is a dynamica in demographic that accurs due to the change of demographic structure based on age, where the number of productive population is higher than un-productive populatian. Indonesia has experiancing this conditian since 2015 untill 2035. Although west Sumatera is not fully experiancing demographic dividend, this conditions still offers an opportunity to improve welfare and promote a better economic development by improving and optimalizing the development of economic sector. Since agricultural sector is the biggest sector contributing to GDP and absorb labour in West Sumatera, the goverment should optimalize the develpment of this sector. Beside that, West Sumatera is a hinterland area (LQ=1,750) that can provide agricultural commodity for other provinces. Assumingly that the requarement of a good quality of human resource is fulfilled, the ability to purchase of  the productive population in Indonesia will increase and create more demand for good quality of agricultural commodities. Additionally, this condition is an opportunity of West Sumatera to develop sub-sector of agroindutry in order to create value added of agricultural commodity. The development of agroindustry not only will increase farmers income in rural area but also will reduce un-employment in West Sumatera. Key word : demographic, development, agriculture


Obesity threatens developing countries as urbanization increases, with civil servants being particularly vulnerable. The authors assess overweight/obesity prevalence among Nepalese civil servants along with their knowledge and attitudes. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey conducted among 341 participants (97.4% response rate) also recorded height and weight. Participants were 40 ± 6.6 years, mostly males, married, and from a single ethnic group. Overweight/obesity prevalence was 33.4%. Knowledge of obesity was good. However, some attitudes toward obese people were negative, despite half of the participants believing obesity to indicate prosperity. Logistic regression indicated marriage and/or having a better job increased the overweight/obese risk by nearly 8 and 9 times, respectively. Heavier people were more likely to disagree with attitudes that obese people were "lazier" and "untidy." Obesity prevalence among Nepalese civil servants is already higher than the general population level. Health education and interventions are needed to translate knowledge into attitude and behavior changes in order to prevent this becoming an epidemic.


During a range expansion, deleterious mutations can "surf" on the colonisation front. The resultant decrease in fitness is known as expansion load. An Allee effect is known to reduce the loss of genetic diversity of expanding populations, by changing the nature of the expansion from "pulled" to "pushed". We study the impact of an Allee effect on the formation of an expansion load with a new model, in which individuals have the genetic structure of a Muller's ratchet. A key feature of Muller's ratchet is that the population fatally accumulates deleterious mutations due to the stochastic loss of the fittest individuals, an event called a click of the ratchet. We observe fast clicks of the ratchet at the colonization front owing to small population size, followed by a slow fitness recovery due to migration of fit individuals from the bulk of the population, leading to a transient expansion load. For large population size, we are able to derive quantitative features of the expansion wave, such as the wave speed and the frequency of individuals carrying a given number of mutations. Using simulations, we show that the presence of an Allee effect reduces the rate at which clicks occur at the front, and thus reduces the expansion load.


Real-world medical data is often heterogeneous, containing many cases and features, each of which requires different a type of processing. Generally, this means that the subsets of relevant features are different for various cases. The set of voice descriptors in the problem of hearing impairment diagnosis is an example of such a heterogeneous domain. Ensemble feature selection techniques are adopted to take into account the data heterogeneity. This paper analyses the applicability of various feature selection approaches in diagnosing hearing impairments in the context of an ensemble classification. Ensemble feature selection produces multiple classifiers for this domain, based on feature subsets derived by different feature selection approaches. In particular, we are interested in performing feature selection for each particular case, taking into consideration any hidden heterogeneity in the data. We use real-world clinical hearing impairment data and compare ensemble classification to the single-classifier technique.


The main objective of this study was to examine the role of trade unions in solving employee's problems. Mwanza city council as the case study.Simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to get a total of 75 study respondents from distinct trade unions which are C.W.T, TUGHE, and TALGWU. Data were collected through documentary reviews, questionnaires, and interviews. Data analysis was
based on qualitative analysis which is complemented by quantitative analysis presented in forms of tables, charts, and percentages. The findings of this study shows that trade unions havenot played its role to the extent that to insure employee's problems are solved and their rights are preserved since workers complain that their problems still exist in the working places while trade unions are there. The study revealed that if employees' problems could be solved there will be satisfactory working environment thus it will strengthen working and employment relationships. Therefore, under performance of trade unions leads to employee's dissatisfaction resulting to high absenteeism rate and workers turnover. The study recommends the government should, reform regulatory framework of employment
and labour relations acts in order to increase independent functioning of trade union also workers should insure election and appointment of committed leaders to their
trade union who could stand firm during defending the interests of its members to their employers'. This will result in good working performance and satisfaction to
employees.
Key words; Trade union, Employee, Health and safety, Salary scale, Labour cases.


Preparations of sheep liver cytoplasmic aldehyde dehydrogenase obtained by published methods were found by analytical isoelectric focusing in the pH range 5--8 to contain 5--10% by weight of the mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase. Under the conditions used the pI of the cytoplasmic enzyme is 6.2 and that of the mitochondrial enzyme 6.6. The mitochondrial enzyme can be removed from the preparation by selective precipitation of the cytoplasmic enzyme with (NH4)2SO4. Kinetic experiments and inhibition experiments with disulfiram show that the properties of the two sheep liver enzymes are so different that the presence of 10% mitochondrial enzyme in preparations of the cytoplasmic enzyme can introduce serious errors into results. Our results suggest that the presence of 10 microM-disulfiram in assays may completely inactivate the pure cytoplasmic enzyme. This result is in contrast with a previous report [kitson (1978) Biochem. U. 175, 83--90].


This article is an ethnography of color and black-and-white in medical images of a particular kind—prenatal ultrasound—in a particular place—Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It is also a meditation on histories and theorizations of color. It moves from the discourse and practice of pregnant women, family members, and doctors about color and black-and-white, to political and intellectual histories of color in Cambodia and in anthropology, to Buddhist ontologies of pregnancy and life. Across this diverse terrain, the notion of the image-affect conveys how images stimulate affective responses in viewers and how images affect their referents. A method of listening to and for image-affects helps us to understand how people relate to the elemental instability of images and the instability of beings to which images refer and with which they become.


The PhD dissertation proposes tractable linear and semidefinite relaxations for optimization problems that are hard to solve and approximate, such as polynomial or copositive problems. To do this, we exploit the structure and inherent symmetry of these problems. The thesis consists of five essays devoted to distinct problems. First, we consider the kissing number problem. The kissing number is the maximum number of non-overlapping unit spheres that can simultaneously touch another unit sphere, in n-dimensional space. In chapter two we construct a new hierarchy of upper bounds on the kissing number. To implement the hierarchy, in chapter three we propose two generalizations of Schoenberg's theorem on positive definite kernels. In the fourth chapter, we derive new certificates of non-negativity of polynomials on generic sets defined by polynomial equalities and inequalities. These certificates are based on copositive polynomials and allow obtaining new upper and lower bounds for polynomial optimization problems. In chapter five, for any given graph we look for the largest k-colorable subgraph; that is, the induced subgraph that can be colored in k colors such that no two adjacent vertices have the same color. We obtain several new semidefinite programming relaxations to this problem. In the final sixth chapter, we consider the problem of allocating tasks to unrelated parallel selfish machines to minimize the time to complete all the tasks. For this problem, we suggest new upper and lower bounds on the best approximation ratio of a class of truthful task allocation algorithms.


PURPOSE
To investigate gas formation during hepatic interstitial laser photocoagulation (ILP).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In vitro, ILP was performed with a neodymium yttrium aluminum garnet laser on a piece of liver in a water bath. In vivo, nine pigs underwent 24 ultrasound (US)-monitored ILP procedures. Fiber tips were more than 1 cm from (n = 16) or adjacent to (n = 8) intrahepatic veins. The gas production seen on US images was graded on a scale of 0 to 4. Precordial Doppler US was performed in all cases.

RESULTS
In vitro, smoke bubbles emanated from the vessels during ILP. In vivo, US showed intravascular gas production during nine of 15 exposures of at least 500 seconds duration. Gas production scores of 2 or more were recorded for nine exposures. Intracardiac gas was identified on eight precordial Doppler US recordings. All animals survived.

CONCLUSION
Gas was detected in the heart during some ILP exposures. Patients with a probe-patent foramen ovale (24% prevalence) could be at risk for paradoxic air embolus during ILP.


Chronic exposure to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) induces tolerance to cannabinoid-induced locomotor effects, which are mediated by cannabinoid receptors (CB1Rs) located in motor control regions, including the cerebellum. There is substantial evidence of cerebellar CB1R molecular adaptation and modifications in receptor signaling after prolonged cannabinoid exposure. However, very little is known about the effects of chronic cannabinoid administration on cerebellar synaptic plasticity, which may contribute to the development of cannabinoid behavioral tolerance. In the cerebellar cortex, activation of CB1R inhibits excitatory synaptic transmission at parallel fiber (PF)–Purkinje cell (PC) synapses by decreasing neurotransmitter release. Our study aimed to investigate the neurophysiological adaptive responses occurring at cerebellar PF-PC cell synapses after repeated THC exposure. In THC-tolerant mice, an increase of the basal release probability was found at PF-PC synapses, in parallel with a facilitation of slow mGluR1 (metabotropic glutamate receptor type 1)-mediated excitatory postsynaptic currents and a reduced sensitivity to the inhibitory effects of the CB1R agonist CP55,940 [(−)-cis-3-[2-hydroxy-4-(1,1-dimethylheptyl)phenyl]-trans-4-(3-hydroxypropyl)cyclohexanol]. Additionally, after repeated THC exposures, presynaptic PF-PC long-term potentiation was blocked by A1R (adenosine receptor-1) activation. Inhibition of the extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) pathway prevented these alterations of cerebellar synaptic transmission and plasticity. In summary, we provide evidence for ERK-dependent modulatory mechanisms at PF-PC synapses after chronic THC administration. This contributes to generation of forms of pathological synaptic plasticity that might play a role in cannabinoid dependence.


Little is known about the determinants or the influence of childcare arrangements for school age children in the Irish context. Using longitudinal data from Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) child cohort study, this paper examines the factors associated with participation in non-parental after-school care in middle childhood and examines the influence of such care settings on children's outcomes at age 13. The findings show that participation in the type of after-school clubs captured by the GUI data (largely paid care in a group setting) is supporting children with specific educational needs and those with limited family support, as well as being strongly associated with maternal employment and high household income. Cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes at thirteen years are best explained by child, family, school and parental characteristics rather than direct effects of the type of out-of-school care arrangement held at age nine.


We examine several hypotheses regarding the determinants and implications of political protest, motivated by the wave of popular uprisings in Arab countries starting in late 2010. While the popular narrative has emphasized the role of a youthful demography and political repression, we draw attention back to one of the most fundamental correlates of political activity identified in the literature, namely education. Using a combination of individual-level micro data and cross-country macro data, we highlight how rising levels of education coupled with economic under-performance jointly provide a strong explanation for participation in protest modes of political activity as well as incumbent turnover. Political protests are thus more likely when an increasingly educated populace does not have commensurate economic gains. We also find that the implied political instability is associated with heightened pressures towards democratization.


This paper advances the debate concerning the relationship between politics and business conduct by investigating the influence of the institutional context on leveraged buyout investments. We propose that the formal and informal institution context in 'red' states (those dominated by the U.S. Republican Party) is more aligned with the principal strategies through which leveraged buyout investors create value than such a context is in 'blue' states (those dominated by the Democratic Party). Therefore, according to institutional theory, one would expect, ceteris paribus, a higher likelihood of buyout transactions in red states and vice versa. We analyze a sample of 10,746 U.S. buyout investments in 4,633 distinct target companies made by 2,396 different funds managed by 1,300 private equity firms from 1980 to 2003. The results indicate strong evidence of a positive association between a more aligned institutional context and both the volume of buyout activity and different measures of performance for these buyouts.


Pregnancy in a diabetic woman brings about many changes that can lead to the development of diabetic retinopathy (DR) or worsening of pre-exi ing disease. In some patients this may develop into sight threatening disease, which if not treated adequately, can cause deva ating visual impairment. There is a lack of e ablished guidelines for screening these patients during pregnancy. In this article we discuss the physiological changes during pregnancy that contribute to worsening of diabetic retinopathy and review the relative contribution of risk factors to the underlying pathological processes. It is important to identify and treat any preexi ing retinopathy in diabetic women considering pregnancy and optimise glycaemic control prior to conception. Rapid tightening of glycaemic control after conception is associated with a less favourable outcome. Based on the exi ing literature we sugge  guidelines for diabetic retinopathy screening for women during pregnancy. E ablished sight-threatening retinopathy should be treated at an earlier  age in pregnant women compared to non-pregnant diabetics with a similar disease. Bangladesh J Obstet Gynaecol, 2014; Vol. 29(1) : 37-42


OBJECTIVE: The objective of this retrospective study was to compare, by means of lateral cephalograms, the facial growth pattern changes due to the treatment with and without extractions of four first premolars in dolichofacial individuals. METHODS: Groups 1 and 2 were constituted of 23 dolichofacial patients each, with Class II malocclusion, division 1 and initial age average of 12.36 and 12.29 years, respectively. Patients from Group 1 were treated without extractions and Group 2 was treated with extraction of the four first premolars, given that both used occipital headgear. Groups were compatibilized according to age, treatment period, gender and malocclusion severity. The t test was applied for intergroups comparison. RESULTS: Most variables (SN.PP, SN.Ocl and FMA) did not present statistically significant difference between groups. CONCLUSION: Although the treatment with extractions tend to reduce the mandibular plane angle (SN.GoGn) and the facial axis (NS.Gn), the analyzed treatment protocols did not affect in a clinically relevant way the facial growth pattern.


Chlorophyll degradation is a complex phenomenon that often accompanies insect feeding damage to plants. Loss of chlorophyll can be initiated by several reactions, including oxidative bleaching, chlorophyllase activity, and Mg‐dechelatase activity. Extracts from the Russian wheat aphid [Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko)], the bird cherry‐oat aphid [Rhopalosiphum padi (L.)], and aphid‐infested and uninfested wheat plants were assayed in vitro for activities involved in chlorophyll degradation. Although the initial infestation was the same (10 apterous adults) for both aphid species, D. noxia weight was significantly higher than R. padi after feeding for 12 days. Consequently, D. noxia feeding caused greater fresh leaf weight reduction than R. padi feeding. Chlorophyll degradation assays showed no activity from either D. noxia or R. padi extracts. Plant extract assays showed a significant difference in Mg‐dechelatase activity, while no difference was detected in either the chlorophyllase or oxidative bleaching pathways among the aphid‐infested or uninfested plant extracts. Diuraphis noxia‐infested leaf extracts showed a greater increase of Mg‐dechelatase activity than either R. padi‐infested or the uninfested plants. The findings suggest that leaf chlorosis elicited by D. noxia feeding is different from the chlorophyll degradation that occurs in natural plant senescence. Aphid‐elicited chlorosis might be the result of a Mg‐dechelatase‐driven catabolism of chlorophyll in challenged wheat seedlings, however, the factor(s) from D. noxia that elicited the increase of Mg‐dechelatase activity still remain to be determined.


Tissue culture techniques were developed for the clonal propagation of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata Donn ex Sm.). Surface sterilization presented no problems when callus cultures were required. Regeneration of shoots from callus from mature trees was only obtained when cultures were initiated from stamens or styles and when zeatin was included in the medium. Callus derived from stem segments did not regenerate shoots.

Shoot cultures derived from naked buds of trees. suspected of being resistant to jarrah leafminer (Perthida glyphora Common) infection, or jarrah dieback (Phytophthora cinnamomi Rands), were used to produce clonal plantlets to compare growth and resistance with seedlings. Surface sterilization of naked buds was most successful if material was collected during summer months and when zephiran was the sterilant. Growth and multiplication of shoots was possible in a medium containing BAP and NAA and although it improved after several subcultures, it remained variable between clones. Root induction was readily achieved from shoots obtained from juvenile explants but was more difficult with shoots from mature trees. These shoots required several subcultures (up to 12 months or more in culture) before roots could be induced. Some clones have 'not produced roots even after four years in culture.

Plantlets from mature trees were compared with seedlings in glasshouse and field experiments. The clones had mature leaf morphology and branching habit. did not produce lignotubers, flowered earlier than the seedlings and lacked the basal coppice growth which is typical of young jarrah plants.

Clonal plants were exposed to field infestation of leafminer. The mine size and larval survival within a clone was similar over two years, but in the second year the clones had significantly smaller mines than the ortet.

Jarrah clones and seedlings were inoculated with Phytophthora cinnamomi zoospores in vitro and in glasshouse experiments. When inoculated in vitro the clones showed a consistent response to infection. After inoculation in the glasshouse one clone gave similar results to seedlings indicating that its ortet was possibly a field escape from the pathogen. Three other clones were less affected than seedlings.


OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy of Neodymium: YAG laser membranotomy and posterior hyaloidotomy in achieving rapid intravitreal drainage of dense premacular hemorrhage and rapid visual rehabilitation. METHODS: Eight eyes of eight patients had Nd: YAG laser treatment to release trapped hemorrhage overlying the macula. Two to five laser membranotomies were performed. Colored fundus photographs were taken. Patient with diabetes had panretinal photocoagulation prior to YAG laser treatment. RESULTS: The premacular hemorrhage originated from proliferative diabetic retinopathy in four eyes, from a retinal macroaneurysm in two eyes, from leukemic retinopathy one eye and from valsalva retinopathy in one eye. Complete intravitreal dispersion was achieved in all eyes within one week with marked improvement of vision. One diabetic eye showed less improvement in vision due to diffuse dispersion of hemorrhage in the vitreous. CONCLUSION: Nd: YAG laser membranotomy seems helpful in rapid clearing of premacular hemorrhage and improvement of vision in certain eyes.


Complex diagnosis using additional radiation procedures (computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging) for tuberculous spondylitis complicated by spinal disorders was made in 52 patients. It made the genesis of spinal cord disorders more clear. The genesis was due to epidural abscess, necrotic osseous tissue and bony compression of destroyed vertebrae. Spinal cord structural changes were detectable in the postoperative period. Hemosorption in combination with blood ultraviolet radiation was used in 25 (40%) patients for their indications, which allowed all the patients to be operated on. Surgical treatment of 60 patients by using radical interventions into the target site and extended corporolateral decompression of the spinal cord, by employing autograft spondylolodesis resulted in rehabilitation in 95% of cases.


Spinning neutron stars (NSs) can emit continuous gravitational waves (GWs) that carry a wealth of information about the compact object. If such a signal is detected, it will provide us with new insight into the physical properties of matter under extreme conditions. Future space-based GW detectors, such as LISA and TianQin, can potentially detect some double NSs in tight binaries with orbital periods shorter than 10 minutes. The possibility of a successful directed search for continuous GWs from the spinning NS in such a binary system identified by LISA/TianQin will be significantly increased with the proposed next-generation ground-based GW observatories, such as Cosmic Explorer and Einstein Telescope. Searching for continuous GWs from such a tight binary system requires highly accurate waveform templates that account for the interaction of the NS with its companion. In this spirit, we derive analytic approximations that describe the GWs emitted by a triaxial non-aligned NS in a binary system in which the effects of spin-orbit coupling have been incorporated. The difference with the widely used waveform for the isolated NS is estimated and the parameter estimation accuracy of an example signal using Cosmic Explorer is calculated. For a typical tight double NS system with a 6~min orbital period, the angular frequency correction of the spinning NS in this binary due to spin precession is $\sim 10^{-6}~{\rm Hz}$, which is in the same order of magnitude as the angular frequency of orbital precession. The fitting factor between the waveforms with and without spin precession will drop to less than 0.97 after a few days ($\sim 10^5~{\rm s}$). We find that spin-orbit coupling has the potential to improve the accuracy of parameter estimation, especially for the binary inclination angle and spin precession cone opening angle, by up to 3 orders of magnitude. (Abridged)


Chronic inflammation can result in pathophysiological changes to numerous organs of the body such as heart tissue (atherosclerosis) and damage to bone. Sources of inflammation can include autoimmune disease, cancer, and chronic infections such as those triggered by HIV or Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Most of the damage associated with chronic inflammation can be associated with chemical mediators, cytokines, given off by cells of the innate immune system. One measure of an active innate immune system can be assessed by quantifying nitric oxide (NO) production by bone marrow (BM) cells. The purpose of these experiments is to determine if zymosan, a known inflammatory molecule associated with yeast cell wall, could stimulate cells of the innate immune response to produce cytokines capable of inducing NO production by BM cells. In these experiments mouse spleen cells were used as a source of innate immune cells and BM cells as the NO producing cell. In vitro, SpC and BM were cultured with yeast and NO production measured by the Greiss assay. In vivo mice were injected with yeast in the footpad and 48 hours later BM was removed and cultured and tested for NO production. In vitro and in vivo experiments show that yeast could stimulate cells of the innate immune system to produce cytokines that could activate NO production. The levels NO produced were low but significant. The results show that yeast can activate cells of the innate immune system and potentially be a source of chronic inflammation.


Background Positive mental health (PMH) is a combination of emotional, psychological and social well-being that is necessary for an individual to be mentally healthy. The current study aims to examine the socio-demographic differences of PMH among mental health professionals and to explore the association between job satisfaction and total PMH. Methods Doctors, nurses and allied health staff (n = 462) completed the online survey which included the multidimensional 47-item PMH instrument as well as a single item job satisfaction question. Associations of PMH with job satisfaction were investigated via linear regression models. Results Significant differences in PMH total and domain specific scores were observed across socio-demographic characteristics. Age and ethnicity were significantly correlated with PMH total scores as well as various domain scores, while gender, marital and residency status and the staff's position were only significantly correlated with domain specific scores. Job satisfaction was also found to be a significantly associated with total PMH. Conclusion The workplace is a key environment that affects the mental health and well-being of working adults. In order to promote and foster PMH, workplaces need to consider the importance of psychosocial well-being and the wellness of staff whilst providing an environment that supports and maintains overall health and work efficiency.


The postmodern moment creates paranoia in the grand narratives of patriarchy, masculinity, and heteronormativity. This paranoia is called pomophobia, the fear of the shift the postmodern moment created and continues to create in the hegemony. In response, the dominant views, particularly patriarchy, have regrouped themselves and created hegemonic masculinity present in athleticism, especially male-driven sports such that of Mixed Martial Arts. This study looks closely at Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as portrayed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and how its components exhibit self-reflexivity, to the point that it asserts rebuttals to the very ideologies it advocates. This study looks at MMA in UFC as a counterproposal to the meta-narratives of patriarchy and the universality of truths and how it manifests the postmodern phenomenon.


This paper analyses the impact of relational capital and relationship networks on business internationalisation, in particular in the technology sector in relation to internationalised Andalusian university spin-offs. First, a literature review based on these theories is carried out, from which a series of hypotheses are established in a pioneering way. These allow us to design a model of relationships that is empirically tested through a quantitative analysis. The study constructs were measured using five-point Likert scales. Once the data had been collected through the survey developed, they were coded for statistical analysis using the SPSS Statistics V28.0 programme. It is shown that the output of the international activity of these companies depends on their capacity to develop and sustain relationships with each of the different actors involved. Along this line, university spin-offs obtain diverse and strategically valuable external information and resources, significantly reducing business failure chances. The elements that influence the internationalisation process of the companies under study are relationships with customers, allies/collaborators, suppliers, and the company's reputation and image. Similarly, those referring to relations with competitors, public bodies, and organisations have less impact. Nevertheless, it is evident that companies need to commit more time and resources to create, maintain, and develop relationships with different actors. Therefore, a strategic tool focused on international management is provided, based on the relationships of the spin-offs studied, which may constitute a starting point for its applicability to other industrial sectors and geographical areas.


Recent petrologic studies of pristine nonmare samples from the Apollo 14 site have demonstrated the unique character of the western highlands crust. Many of the lithologies which occur here are not found at other highland sites or represent unique variations of more common lithologies. Rare highland samples found at the Apollo 12 site have petrologic and geochemical affinities with the Apollo 14 highland suite and the two sites taken together constitute what can be called the Western Highland Province. Rocks of the Western Highland Province are geochemically distinct from similar lithologies found at eastern highland sites (Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17, and the Luna sites) -- a fact which adds further complications to current petrogenetic models for the lunar crust. Nonetheless, an understanding of how the Western Highlands Province formed and why it differs from highland crust in the east is crucial to our overall understanding of primordial lunar differentiation and petrogenesis.


Objective:
 Our goal is to identify supplements that can improve neuronal survival of postnatal neuronal cultures. Here, we hypothesize that resveratrol could rescue neurons that are stressed during the brain dissociation and plating procedures.

 Background:
 The standardized B27 supplement with neurobasal medium has been used to facilitate neuronal growth and attenuates glial proliferation. We have documented that resveratrol (3,4'5 trihydroxystilbene), a natural polyphenol and a bioactive component of red wine, have numerous neuroprotective properties both in vivo and after oxygen-glucose deprivation protocols. We have proposed that this stilbene would not likely act as a direct antioxidant but act as a bioactive agent capable to induce an intracellular cytoprotective cascade.

 Methods:
 Postnatal cultures of cortical neurons were derived from 0- to 1-day-old C57BL/6 mice. Brains were dissociated and neurons plated and maintained in three different media: neurobasal medium without any supplement (NBM), neurobasal medium without any supplement but containing resveratrol 10μM (NBM+R10μM), and neurobasal medium with B27 supplement (NBM+B27). Neuronal survival was assessed with the live/dead cell calcein AM/EthD-1), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and (MTT) assays after plating in these three different media.

 Results:
 Significant increase in live cells (52.9+/-5.5% and 53.6+/-4.5%, p<0.0001) was recorded in cultures incubated in NBM+R10μM and NBM+B27 respectively, when compared to NBM by calcein-AM assay and increase in viability (50.8+/-8.5% and 54.3+/-6.5%) by MTT assay. Significant decrease in dead cells (73.9+/-6.3% and 74.7+/-5.3%, p<0.0001) was recorded in cultures incubated in NBM+R10μM and NBM+B27 respectively, when compare to NBM by EthD-1 assay and decrease in cytotoxicity (17.9+/-2.5% and 19.4+/-2.8) by LDH assay.

 Conclusions:
 Results indicated that growth of primary neurons in resveratrol containing medium was most effective suggesting that resveratrol itself is sufficient to enhance neuronal attachment and survival during plating. Efforts are currently being conducted to characterize the mechanism by which resveratrol can limit cell death and increase neuron survival.


BACKGROUND
This study seeks to quantify and compare bone marrow tolerance during postoperative chemotherapy therapy between rectal cancer vs. colon cancer patients. During rectal cancer treatment, patients receive neoadjuvant chemoradiation (CRT) irradiation which can exacerbate the hematologic toxicity (HT) via incidental irradiation of the pelvic bone marrow (PBM) during myelosuppressive postoperative chemotherapy. In contrast, colon cancer patients receive the same postoperative myelosuppressive chemotherapy but do not routinely receive preoperative chemoradiation therapy. This comparison will help elucidate the lasting myelosuppressive effects of incidental pelvic bone marrow (PBM) irradiation on rectal cancer patients during neoadjuvant preoperative chemoradiation therapy.

METHODS
Rectal cancer patients treated with preoperative CRT followed by postoperative 5-Fluorouracil and oxaliplatin (OxF) chemotherapy (n=35) were compared to colon cancer patients who received only postoperative OxF chemotherapy (n=42). End points were ≥ grade 3 hematologic toxicity (HT3) or hematologic event (HE) defined as ≥ grade 2 HT and a dose reduction in OxF. Wilcoxon rank sum test tested continuous variables and Chi-squared test measured differences in categorical variables. HT3 and HE probability during postoperative chemotherapy was estimated with Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression analysis.

RESULTS
During OxF chemotherapy, 40.0% (n=14) of rectal cancer patients experienced HT3 compared to 26.1% (n=11) of colon cancer patients (P=0.4). HE was experienced by 48% (n=17) of rectal cancer patients compared to 36% (n=15) of colon cancer patients (P=0.36). Rectal cancer patients were likelier to experience HT3 on multivariable cox regression analysis, controlling for several clinical covariates, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 2.49, [(95% CI: 1.02-6.02), P=0.045] than colon cancer patients. While rectal cancer patients were more likely to experience HE than colon cancer patients on multivariable Cox regression analysis with a HR of 1.8 (95% CI: 0.95-3.75), this only trended in statistical significance, P=0.07.

CONCLUSIONS
Rectal cancer patients are more likely than colon cancer patients to experience hematologic toxicities impacting the tolerance of standard of care chemotherapeutics during adjuvant therapy. Focused PBM sparing during radiation therapy for rectal cancer patients may improve tolerance of myelosuppressive chemotherapeutic agents delivered in the postoperative setting.


: A strap beam is designed to redistribute the weight of a column between two or more footings. The combination of the footings and the strap beams is known as strap footing. Strap footings are in practice are constructed either with the strap beams at the same level with the footing or at above the footing levels. All these are based on assumptions that the structural behavior of the two strap footings arrangements is the same in either arrangement. This study determined the structural response of strap beams based on physical footing models with two types of connections and compare the results with those from the conventional analysis approach, two assemblies of strap footing arrangements consisting of two RC columns 0.15m x0.15m x 0.6m on 0.5mx0.5mx 0.3m RC bases and connected by RC strap beams of 0.15m width by 0.3m depth by 1.5m length at different levels of connection were constructed and tested in a structural laboratory. The various strains were recorded on application jacking forces through steel I beam horizontally placed on the top of the two columns thus equally distributing the applied axial loads through a centrally placed loading cell. Conventional analysis was undertaken and the values compared with the experimental results. The study revealed that in above the footing level the deviations are between ±36-41% for same level as footing connection case, the deviations are more diverse with no clear pattern. The results for above footing level connection indicates a better agreement with the results of conventional methods with a correlation of 92.5% while for same level as footing has 88.7% correlation.


Beach erosion is often associated with sea-level rise, sediment depletion or variation in wave conditions; however above-normal rainfall can cause beach retreat by increasing water-table elevation on the foreshore. On Stanwell Park beach, New South Wales, Australia annual rainfall accounts for 12.4% of the variance in the long-term, high-ride position measured accurately to ±2.5 m for the whole beach using 135 oblique photographs dated between 1895-1980. Sea-level changes account for an additional 4.6%. A 100 mm increase in annual rainfall or a 1 cm rise in sea-level results in 0.79 or 0.44 m retreat respectively of the average high-tide position for this beach. Because of relationships with the Southern Oscillation, initiation of above-normal rainfall periods can be forecast by several months in the Southern Pacific area, The southern Oscillation refers to a fluctuation in atmospheric pressure between the East Pacific and Indo-Australian regions, and has worldwide climatic teleconnections. The worldwide variation in rainfall and sea-level for the period 1960-1979 was accessed using information from NOAA and Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level tapes. There is far more information on rainfall characteristics than on sea-level changes. Results indicate that sealevel has not risen uniformly worldwide in the last two decades; it has fallen in Western Europe and western North America. Most stretches of world coastline where rising sea-level has traditionally been invoked to account for beach retreat are also areas where rainfall regimes have become wetter or more variable. The main factor initiating worldwide alterations in rainfall, as well as influencing sea-levels, is the recent shift in climate since 1948 when, with a cooling globe, rainfall has increased in mid and high-latitudes. Since 1970 meteorological events, including rainfall, have become more variable. In areas with low rates of sea-level rise, changes in rainfall regime may be an important cause of beach change. In areas with a rising sea-level, regime alterations may exacerbate beach erosion.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the kinematics of external fixation devices used for distal radius fractures. Dynamic external fixator devices that are placed across the wrist joint facilitate fracture healing by allowing force transmission across the fracture site and articular cartilage repair by allowing wrist motion. If external fixation devices are to be used dynamically, then their actual effect on wrist kinematics should be determined. Unfortunately, there has been no agreement among authors regarding normal carpal kinematics. This study investigated several parameters, global wrist flexion/extension, angles between carpal bones, and the instantaneous screw axis (ISA), in an attempt to quantify normal kinematics and the kinematics of wrists with external fixators attached. The results of this study show that the center of rotation of the wrist is not limited to the proximal head of the capitate as previously suggested. It also shows that the global range of motion of the wrist is limited with the application of any of the dynamic external fixators tested. Finally, the intercarpal bone joint angles are altered with the application of an external fixator. The radial-lunate joint has an increased range of motion with an external fixator attached in order to compensate for the constraints imposed by the external fixator.


Music therapy helps in a wide range of pain conditions, primarily by its ability to improve mood, encourage relaxation and increase threshold. Therefore the study examined how effective music therapy is in the psychosocial management of patients with Spinal Cord Injury. The study was carried out among 120 registered members of the Spinal Cord Injury Association of Nigeria Rehabilitation Center located in Amuwo-Odofin in Lagos. The participants were purposively selected. Pre-test/post-test quasi  experimental research design was adopted for the study. The participants received music therapy  sessions in groups twice in a week for eight consecutive weeks. Goals included reducing pain, increasing mood and spiritual well-being, as well as improving their overall quality of life. Pain, physical well-being, social well-being, emotional well-being, mental well-being and spiritual well-being were assessed at the end of the 8th week. Five hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance, using One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Findings from the study established that music therapy significantly reduced the pain experienced by spinal cord injury patients. It was also established that music therapy significantly  enhanced physical, social, and spiritual well-beings of the spinal cord injury patients. However, music therapy did not significantly enhance the psychological well-being of the spinal cord injury patients; though the result was positive. The study recommended that medical social workers should incorporate music therapy into array of social services rendered to patients and relatives. Also, administrators of hospitals, hospices and rehabilitation homes should establish Music Units for the benefits of patients and relatives. KEY TERMS: Effectiveness, music therapy, psycho-social management, patients, spinal Cord Injury, Nigeria


Confirmation bias is the human tendency to search for, collect, interpret, analyse, or recall information in a way that confirms one's prior beliefs or preferences. In this paper, we review previous research and demonstrate confirmation bias and its effect in two software engineering contexts. The first study documents that managers bias their interpretation of randomly generated project data towards confirmation of their preferred contract type. The second study reports from an analysis of the results of 35 published comparisons of regression and analogy-based cost estimation models. Twenty of these comparisons evaluate the performance of a self-developed analogy-based estimation model relative to a regression-based model and may be biased towards finding evidence confirming a better accuracy of their own model. A statistical meta-analysis of all 35 comparisons showed that the analogy-based models were more accurate than the regression-based models, whereas removing the 20 comparisons where the researchers evaluated their own models gave the opposite result. Our results support the idea that it is important to consider the presence and degree of confirmation bias when collecting information about topics where there are prior preferences, beliefs, or vested interests to avoid misleading conclusions.


This paper analyzes Robert Lucas' contribution to economic theory between 1967 (year of his first solo publication) and 1981 (the year before the emergence of Real Business Cycle approach), and it has two parts. In the first one, using citation data from four different sources, we try to answer two questions: (i) what are Lucas' most influential papers currently? and; (ii) how this influence changed through time? We show, for instance, that according to two of those three sources, Lucas' most influential paper today is not from his business cycle research agenda, which gave him his Nobel Prize in 1995. Moreover, it is clear the loss of influence of Lucas' macroeconomic theory since early 1980s. In the second part, by cataloguing all the works that Lucas had used as bibliographical references in his papers, and separate those in two categories (positive and negative), we try two understand who exerted influence on him. We show that the author that Lucas most cited in a positive context were John Muth, Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps. The authors more often cited in a negative context were John M. Keynes and A. W. Phillips. We discuss the reasons behind this data.


The High accuracy extrapolated ab initio thermochemistry (HEAT) protocol has been applied to a variety of commonly studied chemical species in order to obtain the thermodynamic energy values of their relevant states – primarily ground states but not necessarily. The work aims to extend the growing list of molecules already treated by the protocol, computed purely from theoretical standpoint without appeal to empiricism, for the purpose of complementing the experimental thermochemical values and predicting thermodynamics where measurement becomes difficult. Among the predictions are that methylene ground state is triplet, lower in energy than the singlet state by 37.6533 kJ/mol; the trans-conformer of formic acid is 16.917 kJ/mol lower in energy than the cis-conformer; and that the true ground state of Si3 is singlet, 1.0008 kJ/mol lower in energy than the triplet state.


Singapore is at the crossroads in more sense than one. Situated south of the Malay Peninsula and centrally within the nations of Southeast Asia, this island-state has a land area of some 600 square kilometers and a population of 3 million. This republic is located between the economic giants of the United States and Europe to the West and Japan to the East. Due to its strategic position, the Port of Singapore Authority and the Changi International Airport have grown to be among the busiest in the world. Politically, in November 1990 a historic transition occurred: a change of prime minister after 31 years, the first ever since Singapore's independence in 1959! "The Next Lap" of this young nation's history has just begun. 1 Sociologically, the profile of Singaporeans is as follows: ethnic Chinese, Malay, Indian, and others. The values of this multiracial society have evolved from the mishmash of Western


Young people aged 12—25 are now widely recognised to be the highest risk group for the development of mental health problems and mental disorders. Many health policies and interventions aim to address this high level of need, yet major barriers still remain to young people's timely access to the services they require to support their mental health. Fundamentally, young people prefer not to seek traditional professional help and, compounding this reluctance, sufficient resources are not available to provide the level and types of face-to-face service they require. Young people have a wide range of needs to promote their mental health, from basic information to high-level ongoing clinical support. As computer-mediated communication is an integral and accepted part of life for today's young people, appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) options supporting mental health must be facilitated. Such interventions are being developed at a rapid pace, and the field would benefit from a framework to incorporate these trends. It is time to examine what types of intervention are being developed, where the evidence for their effectiveness is accumulating, and the challenges and gaps that are emerging. This paper applies a mental health promotion approach to the developing field of ICT interventions for youth mental health, using the spectrum of interventions for mental health as a framework to examine current and potential opportunities.


Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma induces systemic inflammatory response (SIR), which can be assessed either by ratios between blood cell counts (neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, NLR; platelet to lymphocyte ratio, PLR) or concentrations of acute phase proteins, clotting factors and albumins. These tests are biologically justified by multiple events including bone marrow activation, development of immune-suppressing immature myeloid cells, generation of pre-metastatic niches and neutrophil extracellular trap formation from externalised DNA network in bidirectional association with platelet activation. Despite biological complexity, clinical assessment of SIR is widely available, patient-friendly and economically feasible. In this chapter, we present a review on NLR, PLR, Glasgow prognostic score and fibrinogen, recently reported to have a prognostic role regarding overall survival, cancer/progression free and cancer-specific survival in early and advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Practical consequences abound, including preference for surgical or combined, active or sparing treatment, as well as prediction of non-resectability or chemotherapy response. In this chapter, we also scrutinise the main controversies including different cut-off levels, hypothetic correlation with tumour burden and morphology, negative findings and discussions on the best marker. Future developments should include elaboration of complex scores as will be described here.


Special Issue: Abstracts of the EAO 23rd Annual Scientific Meeting. Publication of this supplement was sponsored by the European Association
for Osseointegration


We did a retrospective analysis of the clinical files of 26 neonates with arrhythmia born during the period between January 1994 and February 1999. Fourteen (53.8%) of the neonates were male and 16 (61.5%) had prenatal diagnosis. Four (15.3%) had associated congenital heart disease. Twenty-one (80.7%) had abnormal rhythm and five (19.2%) had cardiac conduction disorder. Digoxin was the therapy of first choice to restore normal rhythm, used in 66.6% of the patients, followed by adenosine (16.6%) and electrical cardioversion (16.6%). An epicardial pacemaker was used in two of the three neonates with complete atrioventricular (AV) block. One neonate died due to cerebral hemorrhage. All the neonates were discharged in a clinically stable condition and 16 (88.8%) of them were medicated with digoxin. In a follow-up period that varied from 0 to 71 months (mean of 30.8 months), two patients had an episode of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) after treatment withdrawal. Perinatal arrhythmias, although uncommon, can be life-threatening, and hence we consider our experience with these situations worth presenting.


High-throughput mass spectrometers can produce massive amounts of redundant data at an astonishing rate with many of them having poor signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio. These low S/N ratio spectra may not get interpreted using conventional spectra-to-database matching techniques. In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm, CAMS-RS (Clustering Algorithm for Mass Spectra using Restricted Space and Sampling) for clustering of raw mass spectrometry data. CAMS-RS utilizes a novel metric (called F-set) that exploits the temporal and spatial patterns to accurately assess similarity between two given spectra. The F-set similarity metric is independent of the retention time and allows clustering of mass spectrometry data from independent LC-MS/MS runs. A novel restricted search space strategy is devised to limit the comparisons of the number of spectra. An intelligent sampling method is executed on individual bins that allow merging of the results to make the final clusters. Our experiments, using experimentally generated data sets, show that the proposed algorithm is able to cluster spectra with high accuracy and is helpful in interpreting low S/N ratio spectra. The CAMS-RS algorithm is highly scalable with increasing number of spectra and our implementation allows clustering of up to a million spectra within minutes.


: Multiple displacement patterns, stride dimensions, and temporal components during slow, free-speed, and fast walking were compared in the same seven above-knee amputees using prostheses with constant-friction knee components and using hydraulic swing-control knee components. During walking with the hydraulic-type prostheses, the amputees showed a wider range of walking speeds, improvement in the equality of the durations of successive swing and stance phases, and greater uniformity of forward progression. Improvements toward normal were also seen in several of the displacement patterns of the prosthetic limb during walking with the hydraulic knee. Several gait abnormalities persisted with both types of prostheses.


Pure copper and copper alloy infiltrated carbon materials were newly developed for the application of the contact strip on the pantograph system of high-speed electric railway. After the compaction and following baking process at an elevated temperature, the shape and size of pores in carbon materials were controlled by the processes developed in this work. The infiltration of pure copper or copper silicon alloy was performed in a specially designed chamber equipped with an evacuation system by a diffusion pump and also a pressurizing system by a high pressure gas. In order to evaluate the performance of metallized carbon strip samples, the wear tests were performed in a wear testing machine which was designed for an actual operating condition for the high-speed electric railway. Wear properties of samples were discussed by tacking various wear testing data.


In scholar curriculum, the integration of contents from different learning areas has been always a challenging issue, but with very few practical experimentations. This paper reports an experimental project of teaching natural science, mathematics, and computer science (technology education) in the first level of the Italian secondary school, by means of a common integrate path based on practical experiments. We show effectiveness of the conceived interdisciplinary approach by means of a case study in a network of thirty classrooms of 11 years old scholars.


The study of the evolutionary and population genetics of quantitative traits requires the assessment of within- and among-population patterns of variation. We carried out experiments including eight Iberian Arabidopsis thaliana populations (10 individuals per population) in glasshouse and field conditions. We quantified among- and within-population variation for flowering time and for several field life-history traits. Individuals were genotyped with microsatellites, single nucleotide polymorphisms and four well-known flowering genes (FRI, FLC, CRY2 and PHYC). Phenotypic and genotypic data were used to conduct Q(ST)-F(ST) comparisons. Life-history traits varied significantly among- and within-populations. Flowering time also showed substantial within- and among-population variation as well as significant genotype × environment interactions among the various conditions. Individuals bearing FRI truncations exhibited reduced recruitment in field conditions and differential flowering time behavior across experimental conditions, suggesting that FRI contributes to the observed significant genotype × environment interactions. Flowering time estimated in field conditions was the only trait showing significantly higher quantitative genetic differentiation than neutral genetic differentiation values. Overall, our results show that these A. thaliana populations are genetically more differentiated for flowering time than for neutral markers, suggesting that flowering time is likely to be under divergent selection.


Kidney is very important organ for blood filtration. Impaired renal function often results in chronic kidney disease. Sarang semut ( Myrmecodia tuberosa ) is traditionally used to cure various diseases. This research was conducted to determine the effect of sarang semut infusion in nephrotoxicity rats models by gentamicin-piroxicam. Thirty male Wistar rats were divided into 6 groups. Group I as normal control (CMC Na was treated orally for 7 days), group II was treated sarang semut infusion dose of 1g/kgBW orally for 7 days, group III as nephrotoxic control was injected by gentamicin 100mg/kgBW intraperitoneally and piroxicam 3.6mg/kgBW orally daily for 7 days and group IV until VI were rats simultaneously treated with sarang semut infusion at the dose of 1, 2, and 4g/kgBW, respectively and induced by gentamicin-piroxicam daily for 7 days. Parameters of kidney function such as serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels were measured on day 0 and 7 using spectrophotometer. The rats were then sacrificed, kidneys tissue were removed for examination of renal index and kidney histology. These results showed that sarang semut tubers infusion at the dose of 1, 2, and 4g/kgBW reduced BUN and creatinine levels on induced-nephrotoxic rats. Creatinine level was reduced significantly to 1.76±0.13; 0.86±0.15; 0.60±0.07mg/dL, respectively. The creatinine level of nephrotoxic control was 5.16±0.27mg/dL. BU level decreased significantly to 55.66±6.22; 18.49±2.61; 16.81±1.24mg/dL, respectively. Meanwhile the BUN level of nephrotoxic control was 276.65±50.52mg/dL. Rat histological profile of the three doses tratment showed improvement in renal cell after administration of sarang semut infusion for 7 days.


The US Army Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) commissioned Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to conduct a contamination source review to identify and define areas of toxic or hazardous contaminants and to assess the physical condition and accessibility of APG buildings. The information obtained from the review may be used to assist the US Army in planning for the future use or disposition, of the buildings. The source contamination review consisted of the following tasks: historical records search, physical inspection, photographic documentation, geophysical investigation, investigation of potential hazardous materials facilities (HMFs), and review of available records regarding underground storage tanks. This report provides the results of the contamination source review for Building E7995. any of the APG facilities constructed between 1917 and the 1960s are no longer used because of obsolescence and their poor state of repair. Because many of these buildings were used for research, development, testing, and/or pilot-scale production of chemical warfare agents and other military substances, the potential exists for portions of the buildings to be contaminated with these substances, their degradation products, and other laboratory or industrial chemicals. These buildings, and associated structures or appurtenances, may contribute to environmental concerns at APG.


In ``-omic data'' analysis, information on the structure of covariates are broadly available either from public databases describing gene regulation processes and functional groups such as the Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG), or from statistical analyses -- for example in form of partial correlation estimators. The analysis of transcriptomic data might benefit from the incorporation of such prior knowledge.
In this paper we focus on the integration of structured information into statistical analyses in which at least one major step involves the estimation of a (high-dimensional) covariance matrix. More precisely, we revisit the recently proposed ``SHrinkage Incorporating Prior'' (SHIP) covariance estimation method which takes into account the group structure of the covariates, and suggest to integrate the SHIP covariance estimator into various multivariate methods such as linear discriminant analysis (LDA), global analysis of covariance (GlobalANCOVA), and regularized generalized canonical correlation analysis (RGCCA). We demonstrate the use of the resulting new methods based on simulations and discuss the benefit of the integration of prior information through the SHIP estimator.
Reproducible R codes are available at
http://www.ibe.med.uni-muenchen.de/organisation/mitarbeiter/020_professuren/boulesteix/shipproject/index.html.