We analyse short-term individual and group behavioural reactions and long-term individual responses of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in New Zealand to remote skin biopsy sampling. The biopsy system employed uses a small stainless steel tip (5-mm diameter, 9-mm length) mounted on a lightweight polycarbonate projectile, fired from a modified veterinary rifle with adjustable pressure. Individual and group behavioural reactions were scored on a 5-point scale from 0 (no reaction) to 5 (strenuous reaction). A total of 187 individual and 145 group behavioural reactions were recorded from the Bay of Islands subpopulation, while 38 individual and 39 group behavioural reactions were recorded from the Doubtful Sound subpopulation. Short-term reactions (<1 min duration) were ranked from low or mild (levels 1–2), as evidenced by startle responses, to moderate (level 3), as evidenced by multiple leaps of the sampled individual. Most attempts (99%) resulted in only mild reactions with only two attempts resulting in moderate reactions. There were no strenuous reactions by individuals or groups and no significant differences in behavioural reactions between the two subpopulations. Analyses of resighting rates and capture probabilities based on individual identification records for 40 of the biopsied dolphins showed no evidence of long-term avoidance responses. Wound healing was documented in for 10 dolphins across periods of 3 days to 7 months. Results reported here agree with previous findings showing that remote biopsy sampling causes only short-term reactions in both the targeted individual and its group.


Respiratory symptom description of Quality Control workers in crude palm oil processing plant PT. Smart Tbk Belawan on 2013. Occupational disease can decrease the health and welfare degree of workers, one of causes factor is chemical. The quality control workers always use chemical which corrosive and irritant to the respiratory system. The method of this research is descriptive survey research. Population is all of quality control workers totaling 36 person. Sample used is the total population. The result of this research showed that a total of 30 workers (83,4%) aged ≤ 31 years, there were 24 workers (66,7%) had a mild respiratory symptom. In 6 workers aged g 31 years, there were 3 workers (8,3%) had a mild and severe respiratory symptom. In 31 workers (86,1%) have worked for ≤ 10 years, there were 25 workers (69,4%) had a mild respiratory symptom. In 5 workers (13,9%) have worked for g 10 years, there were 2 workers (5,6%) had a mild respiratory symptom and 3 workers (8,3%) had a severe respiratory symptom. In 20 workers (55,6%) who always used mask while working, there were 15 workers (41,7%) had a mild respiratory symptom. In 16 workers (44,4%) who rarely used a mask while working, there were 12 workers (33,3%) had a mild respiratory symptom and 3 workers (8,3%) had a severe respiratory symptom. Based on the result, company should provide the respiratory personal protective equipment which appropriate for using chemical, and the workers should always use it as prevention of respiratory diseases.


The paper applies a series of research methods, according to research, it shows that in recent years, China researches on sports academics present rising trend, sports research strength distribution is extensive, and spread all places in the province. But every place research degrees gap is obvious, development is imbalances. In recent years, China sports academic development has already got involved in every main sports event, but it still has problems, every main sports event and its sub event research strength has differences, therefore it has more advantageous events; and meanwhile it also has some weak events, even are blank points. The paper also puts forward suggestions and some solutions for sports academic development and changes process existing problems.


A method based upon the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detecting genes encoding the Fc receptors of Staphylococcus aureus and streptococci is described. Primers were designed from the nucleotide sequences of the five Fc receptor genes encoding protein A, protein G, protein H, FcRA and protein V. Amplification products corresponding in size to the protein A and protein G genes were detected in S. aureus strain Cowan 1 and Streptococcus pyogenes strain G148, respectively, as expected. Str. pyogenes strain AR1 was shown to possess the type H receptor gene. Two clinical isolates of Str. pyogenes, strains IP-28 and ES-21L, were shown to possess genes for Fc receptor types FcRA and protein G, respectively. The identification of all these products was confirmed by restriction endonuclease analysis. Amplification of protein H genes from two other clinical isolates of streptococci, MS-4 and MS-38, yielded a product larger than expected and with a different restriction fragment pattern to strain AR1, indicating a new type of Fc receptor gene. This PCR method provides a DNA-based method for the determination of Fc receptor type in S. aureus and streptococci.


Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) has gain significant momentum with the prevailing usage of Cloud computing. Multi-tenancy is one of the key features of DBaaS offering, where a large volume of databases with different Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements are co-located in one environment and sharing resources. As Cloud resources are elastic and resource demands of database requests are unpredictable, it is challenging to decide when and where to place databases in Cloud environment according to their resource requirements. In this paper, we propose a cost-efficient placement algorithm striving to produce placement solution that optimizes multiple objectives considering multi-resource constraints, user preferences and system preferences. The objective is to help DBaaS providers to achieve effective resource allocation among multiple databases, minimize the disturbance to the system caused by database migration, and maximize Cloud resource utilization. The demonstrated online placement technique can be used as decision making reference for DBaaS providers to make optimal resource planning. The effectiveness and efficiency of the algorithm have been verified by intensive simulation experiments and real-case study in IBM cloud platform.


Deciduousness in dry tropical forests results in substantial seasonal changes to canopy gap fractions. The characterization of such structural properties over large areas is necessary for understanding energy and nutrient distribution within forest ecosystems. However, a spatial extrapolation of measurements from relatively few, spatially-concentrated field observations can yield estimated values that have questionable accuracy and precision at regional scales. This paper uses linear regression models to compare measurements of canopy gap fraction from in situ digital cover photography in the dry tropical forest of the Southern Yucatán, Mexico, to measurements of seasonal vegetation change based on three vegetation indices—the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), two-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2), and the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI)—derived from Landsat-7 ETM+ and Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) data to gauge the ability of standardized combinations of multispectral reflectance data to accurately describe the intensity of deciduousness that occurs during the dry season. Discrete observations are compared, as well as spatially summarized values at coarser spatial scales. Model R2 values are greater at coarse spatial scales for all vegetation indices. Models of in situ measurements of gap fraction and Landsat NDWI normalized seasonal change exhibit stronger correlation than do models that feature NDVI or EVI2 (R2 = 0.751 and Mean Absolute Error = 0.04 after aggregation, R2 = 0.552 and MAE = 0.07 for observation-level data). Based on its comparatively strong correlation with field observations, NDWI is adapted to a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time series and used for spatial extrapolation and the monitoring of canopy conditions. NDWI values derived from MODIS data are regressed against Tropical Rainforest Measuring Misson (TRMM) rainfall data over the period 2000–2011, and the regression results are compared to those of a prior study that used regression to explain the variation of a MODIS EVI using TRMM rainfall data. A MODIS NDWI time series reveals stronger correlation (R2 = 0.48 in deciduous forests) with TRMM accumulated (three-month) rainfall data than a MODIS EVI time series. The results indicate that an NDWI time series can accurately describe a variability of canopy leaf abundance during the dry season and could be an alternative basis of long-term monitoring of season phenology in a dry tropical forest.


We have studied the phase diagram and entanglement of the one dimensional Ising model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction. We have applied the quantum renormalization group (QRG) approach to get the stable fixed points, critical point and the running of coupling constants. This model has two phases, antiferromagnetic and saturated chiral phases. We have shown that the staggered magnetization is the order parameter of system and DM interaction produce the chiral order in both phases. Moreover we have analyzed the relevance of the entanglement in the model which let us shed insight on how the critical point is touched as the size of the system becomes large. Nonanalytic behaviour of entanglement and finite size scaling have been analyzed which tightly connected to the critical properties of the model.


Neonatology 2019 conference has been successfully completed the 4th Edition. We must thank the attendees, Hesperia Barcelona Del Mar, Conference Centre Staff, the Organizing Committee, Ad-Sponsors, Media partners and everyone else that helped to make this 4th World Congress on Neonatology and Perinatology with the theme Assessing the newborn physiology during the transition from fetal to newborn life a huge successful conference.
Attendees and Participants of Neonatology 2019 got the sort of development specialized ideas in the field of Neonatology and Perinatology that they were looking for, and that their job in the field has been upgraded through their cooperation. They had the option to participate in every one of the sessions and utilize the enormous progressions in Neonatology and Perinatology that researchers and analysts are working with.
The Majorly Focused Highlights for our Neonatology 2019 Conference were Neonatology, Neonatal Neurology, Neonatal Surgery, Neonatal CNS Disorders, Neonatal Hepatology, Neonatal Syndromes, Newborn Screening Technology, Neonatal and Fetal Nutrition, Neonatal Infectious Diseases etc.
Naser Elkabir | Alwakra Hospital | Qatar
Brankica Vasiljevic | NMC Royal Hospital | UAE
Ana Maria Quezada Ugalde | Universidad de Costa Rica | Costa Rica
Edith Cyrill Liban Caysido | Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center | Philippines
Surekha Tony | Sultan Qaboos University Hospital Muscat | Oman
Said Moustafa M. Eldeib | NMC Health Care Group | Abu Dhabi
Hence, Neonatology 2019 gave justice to the theme "Assessing the newborn physiology during the transition from fetal to newborn life"


Soil washing is one of the popular soil remediation methods which is widely studied for
treating heavy metal contaminated land. However, this method suffers from high wash
solution consumption, which eventually increases treatment cost. In order to solve this
problem, a study on the incorporation of electrokinetic process into soil washing as soil
remediation method was carried out, as electrokinetic process can transport metal ions
using electricity in the absence of hydraulic gradient. In this study, two-stage
electrokinetic washing was introduced as a novel soil remediation method in treating
lead (Pb) contaminated soil at low wash solution consumption. This process consists of:
i) initial soil washing to provide desorption condition in the soil, and ii) electrokinetic
process to transport desorbed Pb from the soil. The study revealed that two-stage
electrokinetic washing could enhance Pb removal efficiency by 4.98-20.45% in
comparison to normal soil washing. Among the wash solutions, 0.1M citric acid
emerged as the best wash solution as it not only yielded high removal efficiency at low
power consumption compared to 0.01M NaNO3, 0.1M HNO3 and 0.01M EDTA but
also maintained a stable system, low solution: soil ratio and low effluent generation.
A further study on the effect of operating parameters using citric acid as the
wash solution revealed that the increase in electric potential difference and wash
solution concentration enhanced the removal efficiency and the interaction between
these two parameters was significantly positive whereby low pH and high current
density were the most important criteria in the removal process. However, unfavourable
high effluent generation and power consumption were also observed under these
conditions. An optimisation study on these parameters showed that an optimum removal
efficiency of 84.14% with negligible extra effluent generation and low power
consumption of 2.27kWh/kg Pb removed could be achieved under 7.58V and 0.057M
citric acid concentration. The study proved that two-stage electrokinetic washing
iv
process could enhance the soil remediation efficiency by ≈16% than normal soil
washing under similar low consumption of wash solution at <0.8mL:1g soil and
operating conditions.
Other than incorporating into soil washing, the ability of electrokinetic process
as soil pretreatment method in contaminated soil volume reduction was also
investigated for single Pb contaminated soil and Pb/Cr co-contaminated soil. The results
showed that electrokinetic process could provide soil volume reduction by
concentrating Pb and Cr into smaller soil volume in both types of soils via
electromigration without hydraulic flow. The study also suggested that the performance
of electrokinetic process was strongly dependent on the types of wetting agents, types of
contaminants and soil conditions, whereby 0.1M citric acid was suitable for single Pb
contaminated soil while 0.1M EDTA showed better performance in treating Pb/Cr cocontaminated
soil. Further study on the application of approaching electrode technique
in electrokinetic process revealed that this technique did not enhance the
electromigration significantly in the present study. Nevertheless, approaching electrode
was found to reduce the power consumption by 18% to 42% for single Pb contaminated
soil and 22.5% for co-contaminated soil.


Gaining a better understanding of the spatial population structure of infectious agents is increasingly recognized as being key to their more effective mapping and to improving knowledge of their overall population dynamics and control. Here, we investigate the spatial structure of bancroftian filariasis distribution using geostatistical methods in an endemic region in Southern India. Analysis of a parasite antigenemia prevalence dataset assembled by sampling 79 villages selected using a World Health Organization (WHO) proposed 25 x 25 km grid sampling procedure in a 225 x 225 km area within this region was compared with that of a corresponding microfilaraemia prevalence dataset assembled by sampling 119 randomly selected villages from a smaller subregion located within the main study area. A major finding from the analysis was that once large-scale spatial trends were removed, the antigenemia data did not show evidence for the existence of any small-scale dependency at the study sampling interval of 25 km. By contrast, analysis of the randomly sampled microfilaraemia data indicated strong spatial contagion in prevalence up to a distance of approximately 6.6 kms, suggesting the likely existence of small spatial patches or foci of transmission in the study area occurring below the sampling scale used for sampling the antigenemia data. While this could indicate differences in parasite spatial population dynamics based on antigenemia versus microfilaraemia data, the result may also suggest that the WHO recommended 25 x 25 km sampling grid for rapid filariasis mapping could have been too coarse a scale to capture and describe the likely local variation in filariasis infection in this endemic location and highlights the need for caution when applying uniform sampling schemes in diverse endemic regions for investigating the spatial pattern of this parasitic infection. The present results, on the other hand, imply that both small-scale spatial processes and large-scale factors may characterize the observed distribution of filariasis in the study region. Our preliminary analysis of a mountain range associated large-scale trend in the antigenemia data suggested that a nonlinear relationship of infection prevalence with elevation might be a factor behind such observed global spatial patterns. We conclude that geostatistic methods can provide a powerful framework for carrying out the empirical investigation and analysis of parasite spatial population structure. This study shows that their successful application, however, will crucially depend on our gaining a more thorough understanding of the appropriate geographic scales at which spatial studies should be carried out.


The purpose of this article is threefold. First, it reinforces an argument made by Benjamin Esty in the Spring 1999 issue of the Journal of Project Finance that variable discount rates should be used for valuation of projects because both leverage and business risk change over the course of the project. Second, the author argues for discounting equity cash flow at the cost of equity rather than discounting free cash flow at the weighted-average cost of capital. Third, she disputes the traditional wisdom that leverage should be measured in market value terms and offers simpler-to-compute notional book debt ratios as an alternative.


A naturalistic study was made of the risk-taking behavior of 120 subjects on a TV quiz program. Final wagers in a series showed a significant positive correlation between amount of capital and amount wagered. Significant negative correlations were found between capital and proportion wagered, and capital and degree of riskiness. On regular trials in the series preceding the final wager, capital and both amount wagered and degree of riskiness were positively correlated. A 2-loss sequence preceding the final wager was followed by a greater proportion of capital wagered than was a 2-win sequence. Analysis of the complete series of win-loss consequences and final wagers showed a negative linear relationship, with high-ratio losers betting a greater proportion of capital than high-ratio winners. On regular trials, there was a significant relationship between the previous consequence and betting decisions, with winners tending to increase and losers to decrease their next wagers. Subjects who did not participate on a round increased their next wagers more than winners or losers. Results were compared with those of previous laboratory experiments on effects of capital and reinforcement on gambling decisions. An attempt was made to interpret the findings with a behavioral analysis approach.


Background. Although decision-making authority is associated with maternal healthcare utilisation, the evidence on the relative importance of individual-level v. community-level decision-making participation for child survival in sub-Saharan Africa is limited. Objectives. To assess the net effects of individual- and community-level measures of decision-making involvement (DMI) on under-5 mortality in Nigeria. Methods. Data on a nationally representative sample of 31 482 children in the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey were analysed. Mothers who reported involvement in decision-making on own healthcare, major household purchases and visits to friends and relatives were categorised as having high DMI. Community-level measures of DMI were derived by aggregating the individual measures at the cluster level. Kaplan-Meier estimates of childhood mortality rates were computed. Multilevel discrete-time hazard models were employed to investigate the net effect of individual- and community-level DMI on childhood mortality. Results. Childhood mortality, at 59 months, was higher among children of women with low DMI (120 per 1 000) compared with those with high DMI (84 per 1 000). The full multilevel model showed that there was no difference in the risk of childhood death between children whose mothers had high v. low DMI (hazard ratio (HR) 1.01, CI 0.90 - 1.12). However, mortality risk was found to be lower among children in communities with medium DMI (HR 0.84, CI 0.74 - 0.96). Maternal age at child's birth, education, household wealth index and preceding birth interval were significantly associated with under-five mortality. Conclusion. Besides socioeconomic and biodemographic characteristics, community- and not individual-level DMI was associated with under-5 mortality. Women's empowerment programmes targeting maternal and child health outcomes should also focus on communities.


Abstract. Cultural heritage structural documentation is of great importance in terms of historical preservation, tourism, educational and spiritual values. Cultural heritage across the world, and in Nepal in particular, is at risk from various natural hazards (e.g. earthquakes, flooding, rainfall etc), poor maintenance and preservation, and even human destruction. This paper evaluates the feasibility of low-cost photogrammetric modelling cultural heritage sites, and explores the practicality of using photogrammetry in Nepal. The full pipeline of 3D modelling for heritage documentation and conservation, including visualisation, reconstruction, and structure analysis, is proposed. In addition, crowdsourcing is discussed as a method of data collection of growing prominence.


Introduction Ambulatory ECG Holter monitoring has historically been the conventional method through which symptom and arrhythmia are correlated for diagnostic purposes. Holter recorders (e.g. SpaceLabs) have traditionally comprised a 3-lead ECG with attached wires to a wearable console. the innovation of device components has enabled smaller, wearable technology to be a reality and this has been developed into several novel, single-use devices. The older systems have multiple disadvantages including patients failing to return them on time, which in turn can reduce available units for other patients. The units are expensive and additionally, the quality of the ECG tracings is often poor. The latest technologies on the market have designed a single channel patch designed for comfort, duration of wear, non-impact to daily living and most importantly accuracy of recordings. We formulated this study to evaluate the patient's perspective on a sample of these devices. Method 250 patients were randomly selected from the Barts Heart Centre outpatient cardiology clinics between October 2018 and February 2019. No exclusions were made with regards to age, gender or reason for referral and written consent was given by each patient. Patients were selected to receive patches from either Bardy, Technomed and Zio, in addition to Spacelabs (our control group). Technomed, Zio and Spacelabs were fitted to 50 patients, and Bardy were fitted to 100 where 50 of these tapes were analysed at Barts using the Bardy software, and full disclosure was reviewed on all tapes analysed by the selected companies to ensure quality control. Patients were asked to complete a feedback form. The feedback forms included 9 questions (table 1.1) with the opportunity to give qualitative feedback in a comments section. Statistical analysis was performed using a one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction. Abstract 43 Table 1 Results We received feedback from 80.8% of patients, a total of 202. (Zio 38, Bardy 76, Technomed 38 and Spacelabs 50). The main focus of the feedback was patient experience which can be visualised by the mean and Standard error results from questions 3, 4, 7 and 9 shown in graph 1.1. Results demonstrated significant differences between all four devices when comparing the size and shape, comfort, practicality and returning method, P ≤ 0.0001. On Bonferroni correction significant differences were seen specifically between Spacelabs and the three new patches, with the most noticeable difference between Spacelabs and Bardy and Spacelabs and Technomed (Spacelabs Vs Technomed Mean 4.3 ± 1.34 and 5.7 ± 0.8, P ≤ 0.0001 and Spacelabs Vs Bardy Mean 4.3 ± 1.34 and 5.5 ± 0.95, P ≤ 0.0001). There were no significant differences between Zio, Bardy and Technomed.Abstract 43 Figure 1 Mean and Standard error values for Patient feedback, questions 3,4,7 and 8 Conclusion Our data shows patients have a preference for miniaturised ambulatory ECG monitoring compared with the conventional Holter monitor which is used in most UK hospitals. Further analysis incorporating an evaluation of data accuracy in addition to a cost-effective analysis would be required in order to make the case for switching to new patch technology in the future. Conflict of Interest NA


Correspondence BRITI MEDICAL JOURNAL accepted with enthusiasm. Mention may be made particularly of those aimed at keeping down the bulk of material to be stored and the use of a folder rather than an envelope. Most of the smaller hospitals are coping with a shortage of all categories of medical staff. A consultant's time is saved and his work eased if the notes are typed on a clearly marked folded sheet holding all the notes and correspondence related to his specialty. Considerable time is wasted and special investigations are repeated unnecessarily if notes are not quickly and easily read. Illegible longhand notes written consecutively regardless of the specialty gravely lower standards and morale of medical and other staff and of the standard of care available to the patient. If notes are typed any form of fastener tends to waste secretarial time and causes damage to the notes. A folder with a pocket to prevent loss of its contents is simple, less frustrating, and no more expensive than the method recommended in the report. Many of us have tried and discarded different forms of fastener and clip. The remarks from Hammersmith Hospital (20 November, p. 1242) relating to several of these points are very important.-I am, etc.,


This thesis argues that state-building in Sudan in the modern era cannot be understood without a multilevel analysis of the links between water, civilisation and power. More particularly, it focuses on the hydropolitical economy of the Al-Ingaz Revolution since its launch in 1989. I analyse the efforts by Sudan's military-Islamist leaders at material and immaterial transformation of society through visions of hydro-engineering civilisation. "Economic Salvation" -the rescue of Sudan's economy through a "hydro-agricultural mission" that will create an 'Islamic' middle class- is central to this ideology. The hydro-agricultural mission is a revolutionary attempt at Islamist state-building through a hyper-ambitious Dam Programme and an Agricultural Revival in Sudan's riverain core. It intends to entrench Al-Ingaz in power by delivering for those riverain constituencies and external partners on the Arabian Peninsula and in East Asia deemed critical to continued hegemony. This thesis is fundamentally about Islamist Sudan's hydropolitical economy, but makes broader contributions. First, it highlights how, far from being exceptional, the hydro-agricultural mission is deeply embedded in historical ways of thinking about water, civilisation and power in Sudan and the Nile Basin more broadly, echoing assumptions, policy prescriptions and logics of political control and high-modernist development that have been salient for almost 200 years. In the past, grand state-building projects, predicated on the dream of controlling the water to control the people, have been characterised by high levels of violence and developmental mirages in the desert. I show why, under military-Islamist rule, this experience is being repeated in Sudan. Second, this thesis is situated in wider debates in the early 21st century, with fears about resources crunches proliferating amidst rising global commodity prices and the impact of climate change. The idea that environmental scarcity, as an exogenous variable, is the main shaper of societies and their politics is enduring, but both theoretically and empirically misguided. Moreover, it has often been manipulated by elites in processes of power and wealth accumulation that reproduce the very societal and ecological problems they claim to be resolving. I argue that the links between water, civilisation and power in Sudan highlight not just the endogeneity of environmental scarcity to political-economic processes, but also the violent consequences of a modernist paradigm that is seen by ruling elites as both enlightened science and the route to hegemony while reproducing conflict at the local, national and regional level.


Abstract Laboratory weathering tests are important in the field of restoration as they provide a means of estimating, in a relatively short time, the longer-term performance of conservation materials when applied in practice. Accelerated tests to simulate the damage caused to porous materials by soluble salts such as sodium sulphate are well known and highly effective. However, when using sodium chloride the existing test methods are not particularly successful. Research on case studies has shown that the environmental conditions play an important role in determining the occurrence of the decay. Therefore understanding the effect of the environmental conditions on the damage constitutes a first step in the development of an effective weathering test for sodium chloride. The research described in this paper studies the effect of environmental conditions on the decay due to sodium chloride with the ultimate aim of defining an effective laboratory test. The experiments have been performed on two plasters with very different physical, mechanical and mineralogical properties. Different techniques of analysis have been used: mercury intrusion porosimetry, optical polarized microscopy, environmental scanning electron microscopy, chemical analyses and X-ray diffraction. The results obtained highlighted which of the test conditions under evaluation were the most effective. Using this information, a new procedure for an effective accelerated salt weathering test using sodium chloride is proposed.


This essay is based on my plenary address at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association (AAA). I am honored to have been selected as the AAA 2021 Presidential Scholar. This essay represents a call to action. I invite my fellow accounting professors to fulfill our stated mission and shared values to be thought leaders in accounting. I present ideas and suggestions on how we can lead our students, our academic institutions and the accounting profession in supporting a prosperous and just society.


undesignated values for truth-value assignments of a particular form. The fact that an unprovable formula may belong to no class creates a hiatus in the proof, but the argument is easily completed by showing that every unprovable formula is interdeducible with a product of formulas belonging to classes. According to 4071A, p. 40, Rose's result may have been anticipated in unpublished findings of 1930. I t is unlikely, however, that the earlier results can be recovered for


A retrospective study comparing clinical and computerized tomography (CT) in 11 patients diagnosed as having schizencephaly was conducted. Seven of these patients were girls and four boys. Six of them had tetraparesis, three hemiparesis and one no motor deficits. Six had epilepsy and ten developmental delay. On CT examinations, 7 patients were found as having bilateral clefts and four unilateral defect. Eight had opened lip clefts and four had a closed lip defect. The commonest associated anomaly was an absent septum pellucidum (n=9), followed by subependymal nodules (n=4), hydrocephalus (n=2) and microcephaly (n=1). Despite magnetic resonance image is the gold-standard to diagnose neuronal migration anomalies, CT can be useful in showing typical aspects of schizencephaly.


A combined ab initio approach to calculate the thermodynamic properties of bcc iron including vibrational, electronic, and magnetic free-energy contributions is derived. Special emphasis is placed on the magnetic contribution that is obtained using the frozen-magnon approach combined with Monte Carlo (MC) calculations. The importance of spin quantum-mechanical effects has been studied for magnetically nonfrustrated model systems by comparing classical and quantum MC. Based on this analysis, we propose a rescaling scheme which allows an approximate ad hoc inclusion of the quantum effects into the classical MC simulations. The rescaled MC scheme is found to be robust with respect to the specific magnetic configuration and the lattice type and is therefore expected to yield an approximate yet reliable description of the magnetic contribution for cases where quantum MC calculations are not practical. Applying the method to bcc iron and combining the magnetic, vibronic and electronic contributions, we find an excellent agreement with experimental data for the heat capacity and free energy, both, below and above the Curie temperature.


Phenomenology is a philosophical method created by Edmund Husserl at the beginning of the last century. In general terms, phenomenology is a way of investigating meaning, where "meaning" is the most formal concept describing the way the world (with its different kind of objects) is given in every kind of experience.The most influential development and modification of Husserl's phenomenology is to be found in the works of his disciple Martin Heidegger. In Heidegger's magnum opus Sein und Zeit we can read that philosophy in its most original sense is ontology, and ontology is only possible in the form of phenomenology.Heidegger, however, never gave a systematic and explicit account of the phenomenological method of ontology. The ambition of this study is to read the ontological investigation of the being of man (or the being of "Dasein") which Heidegger develops in Sein und Zeit, as an investigation which ultimate purpose is to give ontology its own methodological self-consciousness. More specifically, on the basis of Heidegger's investigations into Dasein's being, together with the explicit methodological discussions which can be found both in Sein und Zeit and in the lecture-courses Heidegger gave before and around the time of that work, the ambition of this study is to try to reconstruct and unfold a systematic analysis of Heidegger's phenomenological method. This analysis is thus centered around questions such as: Given the fact that the philosophical research does not seek knowledge about something which can be found anywhere in the world, how does philosophy gain access to its own thematic "object"? How does philosophy ground and prove? What characterizes philosophical knowledge? And most importantly: what characterizes that peculiar form of articulation and conceptuality which in a genuine way tries to mediate and generate knowledge about something which "is" not?


Spectroscopic analysis is a useful technique for identifying and quantitatively determining the presence of specific gaseous constituents. Development of high-power tunable lasers has made the spectroscopic technique for detection of trace constituents in the atmosphere very attractive for practical applications. In this article three of the currently used modes for laser detection of pollution are reviewed: (i) long-path measurements, (ii) laser Raman (differential absorption) measurements, and (iii) optoacoustic detection. Progress in the field has been extremely rapid in the last few years and very useful and reliable data on air pollution can now be obtained routinely with the techniques described.


Early interactions seem to be adaptive, it is fundamental to know them in order to understand human ontogenesis. This study compares data of observations of mother-baby dyads, analyzing the behavior of the partners, the complexity of the interchanges and their affective components. The participants were 56 dyads (28 with one-month old babies and 28 with five-month old babies), filmed in their homes in free situations. Interaction episodes were identified and analyzed. The results showed the effect of the factor type of dyad (one or five months-old babies) in four dependent variables that indicate complexity of the interactions. Differences in the manifestation of reciprocal affectivity of the partners were observed in the two groups. The interactions were predominantly face-to-face when the babies are one-month old, and the system of object stimulation is predominant when the babies are five-months old. This indicates a tendency observed in Western urban groups. The affective manifestations and the presence of interactions which are characterized by the system of body contact favor the formulation of a hypothesis of the presence of an autonomous relational pattern. The results confirm the literature about the possibility of interchanges in initial stages of the development, and the study contributes for the knowledge of its characteristics. The affective aspect is stressed, and its constitutive role in interactions is emphasized, assuming its importance in child development.


The authors investigate geographical patterns of homicide in Sa¬ o Paulo, Brazil. The geography of crime in developing world cities has been an underresearched area in part because of the lack of goodquality, geocoded offence data. In the case of Sa¬ o Paulo the availability of a new digital police dataset has provided the opportunity to improve our understanding of its crime patterns. The authors report the testing of hypotheses about the spatial variation in homicide rates. This variation is explained by poverty, situational conditions determined by differences in land use, and processes that indicate links with the geography of drug markets and the availability of firearms. DOI:10.1068/a38283


Abstract In many ant species, queen size is dimorphic, with small microgynes and large macrogynes, which differ, for example, in size, insemination rate, ovary development, and dispersal tactics. These polymorphic queens often correspond with alternative reproductive strategies. The Palearctic ant, Manica rubida (Latreille) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), lives mostly in mountainous regions in either monogynous colonies, containing one macrogynous queen or polygynous colonies, containing a few large macrogynous queens. In 1998, a colony of M. rubida was discovered containing macrogynes and many small alate microgynes that did not engage in a nuptial flight but, instead, stayed in the home nest the following winter. These microgynes were studied more closely by investigating their size, behavior, and spermatheca in relation to M. rubida macrogynes and workers. Mitochondrial DNA of macrogynes, microgynes and workers from four nests was sequenced to detect possible genetic differences between them. The microgynes were significantly smaller than the macrogynes, and the head width of the gynes was completely bimodal. The microgynes behaved like workers of the macrogynes in every experiment tested. Furthermore, the microgynes had a normal spermatheca and could be fecundated, but rarely (only one in several years). Finally, all the individuals were genetically identical, except three workers that differed by only one codon position. Because these microgynes have features of both queens and workers, their functional significance in the colony is not yet clear.


An Internet survey targeting at from 200 to 500 samples in every prefecture in Japan (n=15,316) was conducted in order to analyze the expression of attitudes or silence regarding public works. The data indicated those who had different attitudes from the perceived public attitude were likely to express their attitudes, those whose attitude was neutral were not likely to express it, and those with positive attitudes were likely to express more than those with negative attitudes. The tendency that those with positive attitudes were more likely to express them than those with negative attitudes decreased as the residential population increased. Those with positive attitudes in Tokyo kept "silence" regarding their attitudes, similar to those with neutral attitudes. Analysis regarding the attitudes in different prefectures indicated that attitudes toward public works were positively related to the yearly public stake in the prefecture.


The paper analyses the evolution of inequality in Italy from 1989 to 2014, focusing on three business-cycle phases: the 1992 currency crisis, the moderate growth from 1993 to 2007, and the double-dip recession from 2008 to 2013. Data from the national accounts and the Bank of Italy's Survey on Household Income and Wealth are used. Income inequality rose sharply during the recession of the early 1990s but much less during the recent double-dip recession, though the share of people at risk of poverty rose similarly during the two crises. This follows from the fact that the reduction in income hit the whole population during the double-dip recession. This apparent stability hides the widening gap between socio-demographic groups, in particular between the young and the elderly, and between native and foreign-born households.


We have measured the interfacial magnetization depth profile in ferromagnet / antiferromagnet exchange-coupled NiFe / CoO bilayers. Both a polycrystalline and an epitaxial-(111) bilayer were examined. We find that the nonswitchable magnetization profile in the biased state is highly correlated with the magnetization profile in the unbiased state. The nonswitchable moment distributions are shown to be consistent with the predictions of a previously reported model for the magnetic and microstructural features of the interfacial region


To face the intensive use of natural gas and other fossil fuels to generate hydrogen, water electrolysis based on renewable energy sources (RES) seems to be a viable solution. Due to their fast response times, and high efficiency, proton exchange membrane electrolyzer (PEM EL) is the most suitable technology for long-term energy storage, combined with RES. Like fuel cells, the development of fit DC-DC converters is mandatory to interface the EL to the DC grid. Given that PEM EL operating voltages are quite low and to meet requirements in terms of output current ripples, new emerging interleaved DC-DC converter topologies seem to be the best candidates. In this work, a three-level interleaved DC-DC buck converter has been chosen to supply a PEM EL from a DC grid. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to develop a suitable control strategy of this interleaved topology connected to a PEM EL emulator. To design the control strategy, investigations have been carried out on energy efficiency, hydrogen flow rate, and specific energy consumption. The obtained experimental results validate the performance of the converter in protecting the PEM EL during transient operations while guaranteeing correct specific energy consumption.


Pairs of goldfish retinal ganglion cells with overlapping receptive fields were recorded during stimulation with repeated light flashes. Cross‐correlation histograms for 'maintained' discharge, 'on' responses, and 'off' responses were computed with a correction for the systematic responses to the stimuli; cross‐covariances were derived from these. If stimulus‐induced signals and noise combine linearly, then the cross‐covariances are independent of differences in mean firing rate. Cross‐covariances of pairs of cells with the same response polarity displayed a positive peak near zero lag; pairs with complementary responses showed a negative peak. 'On‐off' cells could generally be classified as on‐like or off‐like, based on the plateau of firing during a prolonged flash and the relative magnitudes of the on and off peak responses; the cross‐covariances of these cells were as one would predict if they were pure on‐ or off‐centre neurones. The cross‐covariances derived from the on period usually differed in magnitude from those derived in the dark (either maintained or off response). In general, cross‐covariances for off responses were nearly identical to those for the maintained discharges of the same pair, although the mean rates at off were usually quite different from the maintained. The change in magnitude of the cross‐covariances from on responses therefore appears to be a non‐linear effect of light, and not of the changes in firing rate induced by the light. Other features of the cross‐covariances were not affected by stimulation. The general shapes remained fairly constant, and the lags at which the peaks occurred were not consistently affected. We estimated the variance of the firing rate of each unit in three ways, and used two methods of portioning the variance implied by the cross‐covariances; from these estimates, we obtained an upper bound for the proportion of the variance of firing of a cell which is due to the common noise that affects both members of a pair. We found that the common influence accounts for less than 20% of the total variance. During stimulation, both the magnitude of the cross‐covariance and the variance of the rates change; however, the percentage of total variance contributed by the common noise source is constant. We conclude that light has the effect of changing the gain of the pathway after the introduction of both the common and unshared (private) noise sources but before the ganglion cell.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Introduction. Main limitation for complete occlusion of wide neck brain aneurysms is a major challenge for the Endovascular Technique. Stent assisted reconstruction of the parent vessel associated with coils embolization has been proposed as a solution. Retrospective analysis of effectiveness and complications in a series of thirty five wide neck aneurysms using the self expandable brain vessel dedicated stent Nueroform (Bostos Scientific) is described. Material and methods. In the tern of fifty months 530 brain aneurysms were treated by endovascular approach. Due to their anatomy in 35 of these, stent assisted reconstruction of the parent artery with or without coiling of the aneurysm sac was performed. Under antiplatelet therapy and anticoagulation Neuroform stents were deployed in the artery at the neck of the aneurysm followed by detachable coil occlusion of the sac itself. Results. Only in one case stent deployment could not be achieved. In thirty two cases stent assisted aneurysm coil embolization was performed while in two cases single stent deployment was done. In nine cases coil embolization had been performed previously and stent assisted coil embolization was performed in order to occlude the aneurysm neck. One patient died after a subarachnoid hemorrhage secondary to the treatment; another patient presented with a transient ischemic episode twelve days after the procedure and one patient had a retroperitoneal hematoma related to the artery puncture at the groin. Twenty five patients had three and twelve months follow up angiograms performed showing minimal compaction in four cases, and arterial stenosis at the site where stent has been deployed in three of them. In the twelve month angiogram one of these cases showed complete regression while the other two showed a mild reversion. Conclusions. Neuroform self expandable stent system allowed arterial wall reconstruction in 97% of cases of wide neck brain aneurysms increasing the rate of stabilization of coil occlusion. This technique still carries risks of ischemia and delayed intra stent stenotic phenomena reason for which it should be performed solely in those cases in which neck anatomy precludes sole coil embolization.


The instrumentation of real systems is often designed for control purposes and control inputs are designed to achieve nominal control objectives. Hence, the available measurements may not be sufficient to isolate faults with certainty and diagnoses are ambiguous. Active diagnosis formulates a planning problem to generate a sequence of actions that, applied to the system, enforces diagnosability and allows to iteratively refine ambiguous diagnoses. This paper analyzes the requirements for applying active diagnosis to space systems and proposes ActHyDiag as an effective framework to solve this problem. It presents the results of applying ActHyDiag to a real-space case study and of implementing the generated plans in the form of on-board control procedures. The case study is a redundant SpaceWire network where up to six instruments, monitored and controlled by the on-board software hosted in the satellite management unit, are transferring science data to a mass memory unit through SpaceWire routers. Experiments have been conducted on a real physical benchmark developed by Thales Alenia Space and demonstrate the effectiveness of the plans proposed by ActHyDiag.


. We investigate the use of oxygen (O 2 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) measurements for the estimation of the fossil fuel component of atmospheric CO 2 in the UK. Atmospheric potential oxygen (APO) – a tracer that combines O 2 and CO 2 , minimising the influence of terrestrial biosphere fluxes – is simulated at three sites in the UK, two of which make atmospheric APO measurements. We present a set of model experiments that estimate the sensitivity of APO simulations to key inputs: fluxes from the ocean, fossil fuel flux magnitude and distribution, the APO baseline, and the ratio of O 2 to CO 2 fluxes from 5 fossil fuel combustion and the terrestrial biosphere. To estimate the influence of uncertainties in ocean fluxes, we compared three ocean O 2 flux estimates, from the NEMO – ERSEM and ECCO-Darwin ocean models, and the Jena CarboScope APO inversion. The sensitivity of APO to fossil fuel emission magnitudes and to terrestrial biosphere and fossil fuel exchange ratios was investigated through Monte Carlo sampling within literature uncertainty ranges, and by comparing different inventory estimates. Of the factors that could potentially compromise APO-derived fossil fuel CO 2 estimates, we find that the ocean 10 O 2 flux estimate has the largest overall influence at the three sites in the UK. At times, this influence is comparable to the contribution to APO of simulated fossil fuel CO 2 . We find that simulations using different ocean fluxes differ from each other substantially, with no single model estimate, or a simulation with zero ocean flux, providing a significantly closer fit to the observations. Furthermore, the uncertainty in the ocean contribution to APO could lead to uncertainty in defining an appropriate regional background from the data. Our findings suggest that the contribution of non-terrestrial sources need to be 15 well accounted for, in order to reduce their potential influence on inferred fossil fuel CO 2 .


Cost-benefit analysis helps the private sector to decide on additional investments in education. It also helps the social sector to make educational plans and policies. This paper aims to review the methods and procedures, current practices, and guiding theories for the study of cost-benefit analysis of education. This study is based on the review survey design, and the materials have been collected using the purposive sampling method. It is concluded in the study that to study the cost-benefit analysis of education, researchers have used only five sources of data; households, employees, employers, students and educational institutions. Furthermore, to estimate the rate of return to education, Ingredient Approach, Mincerian Log Earnings Function, Ordinary Least Square, Multiple Regression and Age-earning Profiles (before-tax, after-tax, adjusted and unadjusted profiles) have been used. Likewise, it is also found that the value of BCR, NPV, IRR, adjusted R2, Mean, and Standard Deviation should be used; and human capital theory as a guiding theory should also be used to analyze the cost-benefit analysis of education.


.-Studies of adaptive radiations require robust phylogenies, estimates of species num bers for monophyletic groups within clades, assessments of the adaptive value of putative key innovations, and estimates of the frequency of speciation modes. Four criteria are necessary to identify an adaptive radiation within the parasitic platyhelminths: (I) a group contains signifi cantly more species than its sister group, (2) species richness is apornorphic, (3) apomorphic traits enhance the potential for adaptively driven modes of speciation (sympatric speciation and speciation by peripheral isolation via host switching), and (4) the frequency of adaptively driven speciation modes is high within the group when compared with data from free-living groups. Only the species-rich Monogenea fulfill all four criteria. The Digenea and Eucestoda also are more species rich than their sister groups, their species richness is derived, and they possess unique characters that increase the potential for host switching to occur. However, because there is not enough information to determine whether the frequency of adaptive modes of speciation is high for those groups, we cannot yet assert that their radiations have been adaptive.


A method for detecting wild-type canine parvovirus (CPV) strains which contaminate vaccines for dogs has been developed by PCR. PCR primers which distinguish vaccine strains from the most common, recent strains of wild-type CPV in many countries, including Japan and the United States, were developed. This PCR is based on the differences in nucleotide sequences which determine the two antigenic types of this virus. CPV vaccine strains derived from antigenically old-type virus prevalent in former times were not detected by PCR with differential primers. Detection sensitivity of PCR was 100- to 10,000-fold higher than that of the culture method in Crandell feline kidney cells.


INTRODUCTION
Bleeding esophageal varices is the most serious complication of the portal hypertension, and the greater cause of dead (25% of the patients). The survival after esophageal varices bleeding depends in wide part from the swiftness and effectiveness of hemostasis and from the degree of functional liver reserve. Aim of our manuscript is to report our experience about hemostasis bleeding esophageal varices with endoscopic rubber band ligation.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
From January 1999 to January 2008 we performed 302 esofagogastroduodenoscopy (EGDS) for esophageal varices bleeding (M: F ratio = 1.4:1, mean age 56.4 years, 62% of cases with HCV-related cirrhosis, 29% alcoholic cirrhosis and 9% cryptogenic cirrhosis; 20% suffered from chronic renal failure, 15% diabetes mellitus, 10% hepatocellular carcinoma on cirrhosis, 5% systemic encephalopathy and 1% AIDS). RESULTS; All patients were treated within 6 hours after the first reported episode of haematemesis and all received beta-blocker therapy after the episode. In the first phase of our experience were used rechargeable elastic ligator and then multibyte, even in combination with polidocanol sclerotherapy (8%) or injection of cyanoacrylate (5%). The best results were achieved with band ligation, in terms of primitive haemostasis, rebleeding, (3%), intraoperative mortality (1%) and 6 weeks mortality (1%).

CONCLUSION
To date, no single method applicable to all patients with bleeding esophageal varices, but endoscopic rubber band ligation is currently considered the first-line treatment of proper multidisciplinary approach to the patient, both during the acute event than prevention of rebleeding, because it is an effective, safe and repeatable, in experienced hands.


Two severe heat waves triggered coral bleaching and mass mortality in the Maldives in 1998 and 2016. Analysis of live coral cover data from 1997 to 2019 in shallow (5 m depth) reefs of the Maldives showed that the 1998 heat wave caused more than 90% of coral mortality leaving only 6.8 ± 0.3% of survived corals in all the shallow reefs investigated. No significant difference in coral mortality was observed among atolls with different levels of human pressure. Maldivian reefs needed 16 years to recover to the pre-bleaching hard coral cover values. The 2016 heat wave affected all reefs investigated, but reefs in atolls with higher human pressure showed greater coral mortality than reefs in atolls with lower human pressure. Additionally, exposed (ocean) reefs showed lower coral mortality than those in sheltered (lagoon) reefs. The reduced coral mortality in 2016 as compared to 1998 may provide some support to the Adaptive Bleaching Hypothesis (ABH) in shallow Maldivian reefs, but intensity and duration of the two heat waves were different. Analysis of coral cover data collected along depth profiles on the ocean sides of atolls, from 10 to 50 m, allowed the comparison of coral mortality at different depths to discuss the Deep Refuge Hypothesis (DRH). In the upper mesophotic zone (i.e., between 30 and 50 m), coral mortality after bleaching was negligible. However, live coral cover did not exceed 15%, a value lower than coral survival in shallow reefs. Low cover values of corals surviving in the mesophotic reefs suggest that their role as refuge or seed banks for the future recovery of some species in shallow-water reefs of the Maldives may be small. The repeatedly high coral mortality after bleaching events and the long recovery period, especially in sites with human pressure, suggest that the foreseen increased frequency of bleaching events would jeopardize the future of Maldivian reefs, and ask for reducing local pressures to improve their resilience.


Presently, the most practical approach for
bootstrapping initial secret keys in sensor networks is to load
keys into sensor nodes before they are deployed. However, some of
them are vulnerable to impersonation attacks. We describe a novel
key distribution and management scheme for clustered ad hoc sensor
networks. The scheme uses the Boneh-Franklin's ID-based encryption
(IBE) scheme and Yi's ID-based signature scheme to achieve mutual
authentication between nodes. The signature scheme is used to
distribute a cluster key which can be updated. We also derive a
master key from the signature which can also be updated when
needed. Our contribution is that we resolved the impersonation
problems that exist in current key distribution schemes for ad hoc
sensor networks. A timestamp is incorporated in the signing
procedure, avoiding message replay attacks. Finally, This scheme
can be extended to hierarchical ad hoc sensor
networks.


Abstract: Composite materials are playing a greater role in engineering application due to their optimized structure and mechanical characteristics. Study here aims at composite design which enables the fabricated composite to have excellent mechanical behavior even in extremely corrosive environment, for example, environment with extremely high ozone gas concentration. To take advantage of the great anticorrosion property of pure aluminum (Al), PET thin film coated with pure aluminum (Al) on its surface has been introduced as the top layer of the fabricated composite with polyester textile as the middle layer. To bond these layers together, the composites with this sandwiched structure are manufactured at different temperature. Main purpose of the study is to evaluate the influence of processing temperatures on the mechanical properties of the manufactured composites, and on their failure behavior. In this way, optimized processing temperature may be found.


prerogative of Europe alone" (456). In his detailed exploration of the very real internal tensions of' late imperial administrationmost centr;illy, between moralism and pragmatism---Riowe is able also to unmask, then, one of the false tensions of early modem global history: the claim that a monolithic "West" outpaced a still-evolving "East" in the development of major core philosophical principles of governance.


The present study explored the effects of a workload transition on three dimensions of stress: task engagement, distress, and worry. Previous research on the effects of workload transitions has generated conflicting results. It was suggested that the concept of a continuous stress appraisal process could potentially resolve these prior conflicting results. A digit-processing task with high and low task demands was used to test this suggested explanation. Subjective reports of stress were measured both one minute and six minutes posttransition to show changes over time. The results showed that a workload transition affects each of the three stress dimensions differently such that task engagement declined over time, distress decreased following a high-to-low transition six minutes posttransition, and worry increased following a transition. These results suggest that distress and worry are more sensitive to workload transitions than task engagement. Further, the appraisal process may partially explain the prior conflicting findings by accounting for changes in stress over time.


The lack of efficient application of transportation planning process
in developing cities, such as Gaza, leads to deficiency in adopting the
suitable transport policies to mitigate the transportation problems resulting
from urbanization and rapid increase of population. The mode choice model is
probably the most important element in transportation planning and policy
making. The aim of this study is to develop mode choice model for work trips in
Gaza city and therefore investigating the factors that affect the employed
people's choice for transport modes. The model was developed using about two
thirds of 552 questionnaires distributed for this purpose. The rest remaining
third of questionnaires were used to validate the chosen models. The results of
this research show that the factors that significantly affect the choice of
transport modes are: total travel time, total cost divided by personal income,
ownership of means of transport, distance, age, and average family monthly
income. The developed model is able to predict the choice behavior of employed
people in Gaza city as it is valid at 95% confidence level. This study can be
used by transportation planners to predict the employed people's behavior and
travel demand analysis. The developed model can be used for predicting the
future modal split by inputting predicted future value of exploratory
variables.


Sie material presented in this thesis is the result of a study of state high school athletic associations through their bulletins, pamphlets, and handbooks, in which thirtyfive states are represented! of the handbook of the ITational Federation of State High School, Athletic Associations! of contacting present and former Louisiana High School Athletic Association officials! and of books found in the ' • library of the Louisiana State University, . She study is divided Into six parts which deal with the history of the Louisiana Association, the functions of an athletic association, the comparison of the Louisi ana Association with associations In other states, the or ganisation of the athletic association under the state physical education department, the value of the athletic coach-, and conclusions and recommendations. According to authorities the desired athletic associa tion should strive toward a better education of the individ ual through activities* Sports properly conducted can ac complish some of the important aims of education, fhe nearest approach to the ideal, would be an association that was sponsored by the physical education department


Extracted text; EARLY PREDICTORS OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
by
Maribeth Wicoff
December, 2015
Director of Thesis: Kathleen R. King, PhD
Major Department: Pediatric School Psychology
Children and adults spend the majority of their waking time engaged in sedentary activities. These activities may be affecting the child's physical and mental health. Little research exists on the relationship between the amount of physical activity, screen time, and academic achievement as a predictor for later physical activity and academic achievement. This study examined physical activity, screen time, and academic achievement predictors and the relationship on adolescent physical activity and academic achievement. Data for this investigation were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) and focused on 9,096 children who completed physical activity questions in eighth grade. The findings indicate that there were significant, positive relationships between reading and math skills. Additionally, there were significant relationships between kindergarten predictor variables. These predictor variables also all significantly contributed to physical activity participation in eighth grade. Similar to previous research, the current study found that children who scored high on reading and math assessment in kindergarten were more likely to continue to score high on reading and math in eighth grade. Policy recommendations for education and future research implications are discussed.


Using density functional theory, we investigated the position preference and diffusion mechanisms of interstitial oxygen ions in lanthanum silicate La9.33Si6O26, which is an apatite-structured oxide and a promising candidate electrolyte material for solid oxide fuel cells. The reported lanthanum vacancies were explicitly taken into account by theoretically determining their arrangement with a supercell model. The most stable structures and the formation energies of oxygen interstitials were determined for each charged state. It was found that the double-negatively charged state is stable over a wide range of the Fermi level, and that the excess oxygen ions form split interstitials with the original oxygen ions, while the neutral and the single-negatively charged states preferably form molecular oxygen. These species were found near the lanthanum vacancy site. The theoretically determined migration pathway along the c-axis essentially follows an interstitialcy mechanism. The obtained migration barrier is sensitive to the charge state, and is also affected by the lanthanum vacancy. The barrier height of the double-negatively charged state was calculated to be 0.58 eV for the model structure, which is consistent with the measured activation energy.


As individuals engage in new activities and social collectives they begin the journey from novice to expert (Leder et al:2004). In pursuits such as wine, gourmet food, and art it has been argued that the oenophile, gourmand, and aficionado can more fully appreciate their respective experiences (Clarkson et al :2013). However such experiences have historically been regarded as high threshold and as such expertise has been available to few, guarded by gatekeepers and as such difficult for the lay individual to achieve. Based upon a qualitative study with art buyers and gallery owners this paper suggests that the contemporary art buyer challenges these assumption. It argues that, with the increase in a 'social media savvy society', individuals can develop their expertise using a new range of tools which speed their advancement to expert status and indeed alter the meaning of expertise. No longer is expertise the preserve of the critic or art seller with vested interests in desirable taste rather it becomes democratised as novices use online resources to quickly increase the breadth of their consumption knowledge; develop requisite vocabulary to differentiate stimulus properties, finely tune preferences and explore their refinement; and build relationships with artists directly enhancing their in-group status. Online art communities therefore come to represent a distributed form of cultural authority. One can now demonstrate taste without acquisition but rather by association and simultaneously claim of authority and expertise about what constitutes good taste.


The Himalayan syntaxes, characterized by extreme rates of rock exhumation co-located with major trans-orogenic rivers, figure prominently in the debate on tectonic versus erosional forcing of exhumation. Both the mechanism and timing of rapid exhumation of the Namche Barwa massif in the eastern syntaxis remain controversial. It has been argued that coupling between crustal rock advection and surface erosion initiated in the late Miocene (8–10 Ma). Recent studies, in contrast, suggest a Quaternary onset of rapid exhumation linked to a purely tectonic mechanism. We report new multisystem detrital thermochronology data from the most proximal Neogene clastic sediments downstream of Namche Barwa and use a thermo-kinematic model constrained by new and published data to explore its exhumation history. Modeling results show that exhumation accelerated to ∼4 km/m.y. at ca. 8 Ma and to ∼9 km/m.y. after ca. 2 Ma. This three-stage history reconciles apparently contradictory evidence for early and late onset of rapid exhumation and suggests efficient coupling between tectonics and erosion since the late Miocene. Quaternary acceleration of exhumation is consistent with river-profile evolution and may be linked to a Quaternary river-capture event.


Background and Purpose— To improve stroke awareness and reduce life-threatening prehospital delays worldwide, a universal stroke educational program is needed. To meet this unmet need, we developed a universal program without language barriers and tested its acceptance in Taiwan, where Chinese is the native language. Methods— Stroke 112 was developed using the universal emergency phone number, 112. The numbers imply an emergency and correspond to the 3 stroke recognition signs used in FAST (Face, Arm, Speech, and Time): 1 uneven face (crooked mouth); 1 weak arm (arm weakness); 2 incoherent lips (slurred speech). An online survey was used to determine the acceptance of the Stroke 112 program compared with that of FAST in Chinese. The surveys were delivered using SurveyMonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com) on 2 separate occasions in Taiwan; in August 2017 for an initial estimation of the acceptance of Stroke 112 and in March 2018, 2 weeks after the official release of Stroke 112 in Taiwan, including a special introductory lecture for neurologists hosted by the STARS-Taiwan (Stroke Treatment and Research Society-Taiwan). Results— The initial survey with 465 survey responders, 54.6% thought that Stroke 112 was easier to remember for people in Taiwan compared with FAST (41.2%). After Stroke 112's official release in Taiwan, 610 individuals completed the survey, and the majority (66.4%) thought that Stroke 112 was easier to remember, a significant increase compared with the initial survey (P=0.0001). Among the 130 neurologists who attended the Stroke 112 introductory lecture, 55 completed the online survey. A greater acceptance of Stroke 112 (74.6%) compared with FAST (16.4%) was observed among these 55 neurologists (P=0.0001). Conclusions— Stroke 112, a universal stroke educational program without language barriers was developed. It could potentially be implemented worldwide, especially where 112 is used as an emergency phone number.


Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is a common tree species throughout the eastern United States and the Great Plains. Although "cedar" is in the common name, the scientifc name shows a botanical kinship to the juniper species of the American southwest. Red cedar can survive and thrive within a broad range of soil conditions, seasonal temperature swings, and soil moisture. The oldest red cedar trees are found on rocky escarpments and the edges of cliffs. These are not necessarily big trees, but can reach 900 years of age or more in areas not easily reached by lumbermen or wildfire. On more fertile ground, red cedar can grow to be large majestic trees and are most readily found as colonizers of former fields and pastures. Although not traditionally planted as a street or yard tree, red cedar is increasingly part of the community and neighborhood forest as the urban interface extends into former agricultural areas.


Including topics not traditionally covered in literature, such as (1+1)-dimensional QFT and classical 2D Coulomb gases, this book considers a wide range of models and demonstrates a number of situations to which they can be applied. Beginning with a treatise of nonrelativistic 1D continuum Fermi and Bose quantum gases of identical spinless particles, the book describes the quantum inverse scattering method and the analysis of the related Yang–Baxter equation and integrable quantum Heisenberg models. It also discusses systems within condensed matter physics, the complete solution of the sine-Gordon model and modern trends in the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz. Each chapter concludes with problems and solutions to help consolidate the reader's understanding of the theory and its applications. Basic knowledge of quantum mechanics and equilibrium statistical physics is assumed, making this book suitable for graduate students and researchers in statistical physics, quantum mechanics and mathematical and theoretical physics.


The opening chapter discusses catalytic asymmetric carbocyclic Diels–Alder reactions. The chapter is organized initially by the type of dienophile, and within each dienophile subheading a brief survey of 'useful' (ee's > 90%) chiral Lewis acids are presented. Recent advances in enantioselective Diels–Alder reactions using organocatalysts are only briefly presented. Unfortunately, no coverage of the reactions of '1-amino'-substituted dienes is presented. Especially useful is a concluding table that directly summarizes and compares a number of aluminum, boron, or titanium-containing chiral Lewis acids (as well as others) that have been used to promote the Diels–Alder reaction between standard test substrates (e.g. cyclopentadiene and acrolein).


Identifiability, or recovery of the true latent representations from which the observed data originates, is de facto a fundamental goal of representation learning. Yet, most deep generative models do not address the question of identifiability, and thus fail to deliver on the promise of the recovery of the true latent sources that generate the observations. Recent work proposed identifiable generative modelling using variational autoencoders (iVAE) with a theory of identifiability. Due to the intractablity of KL divergence between variational approximate posterior and the true posterior, however, iVAE has to maximize the evidence lower bound (ELBO) of the marginal likelihood, leading to suboptimal solutions in both theory and practice. In contrast, we propose an identifiable framework for estimating latent representations using a flow-based model (iFlow). Our approach directly maximizes the marginal likelihood, allowing for theoretical guarantees on identifiability, thereby dispensing with variational approximations. We derive its optimization objective in analytical form, making it possible to train iFlow in an end-to-end manner. Simulations on synthetic data validate the correctness and effectiveness of our proposed method and demonstrate its practical advantages over other existing methods.


The article deals with the main works of the poet and translator Sofya Alexandrovna Sviridova (1882 — not earlier than 1928, pseudonyms S. Sviridenko, G. Sviridova), first of all, the history of the creation and first publication of the first complete translation into Russian of the Elder Edda (1910, 1st volume published in 1917), in a manuscript awarded the Academic Prize of M. N. Akhmatov. Archival materials found by the author of the publication shed light on some episodes from Sviridova's biography, including the years of her studies at the St Petersburg Higher Women's (Bestuzhev) Courses. The article deals with the episodes that influenced the life and creative destiny of Sophia Sviridova, such as, for example, acquaintance with Professor F. A. Brown, who became her teacher and then chief reviewer, collaborated with A. Blok, who systematically gave the translator a job at the "World Literature" publishing house. Particular attention is paid to the description of the second volume of the complete translation of the Old Norse epic Elder Edda, which to this day remains in the manuscript and is stored in the archive of the publisher M. V. Sabashnikov. This study can serve as a theoretical basis for the publication of the second volume of the translation of the Elder Edda by S. Sviridenko (Sviridova), or the publication of the entire work in one book — this is exactly how it seemed logical and correct to the translator herself. Hopefully some other works from the rich literary heritage of S. A. Sviridova will be published in the future.


Context. In the search of a sample of metal-poor bright giants using Strömgren photometry, we serendipitously found a sample of 26 young (ages younger than 1 Gyr) metal-rich giants, some of which have high rotational velocities. Aims. We determined the chemical composition and rotational velocities of these stars in order to compare them with predictions from stellar evolution models. These stars where of spectral type A to B when on the main sequence, and we therefore wished to compare their abundance pattern to that of main-sequence A and B stars. Methods. Stellar masses were derived by comparison of the position of the stars in the colour-magnitude diagram with theoretical evolutionary tracks. These masses, together with Gaia photometry and parallaxes, were used to derive the stellar parameters. We used spectrum synthesis and model atmospheres to determine chemical abundances for 16 elements (C, N, O, Mg, Al, Ca, Fe, Sr, Y, Ba, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, and Eu) and rotational velocities. Results. The age-metallicity degeneracy can affect photometric metallicity calibrations. We identify 15 stars as likely binary stars. All stars are in prograde motion around the Galactic centre and belong to the thin-disc population. All but one of the sample stars present low [C/Fe] and high [N/Fe] ratios together with constant [(C+N+O)/Fe], suggesting that they have undergone CNO processing and first dredge-up. The observed rotational velocities are in line with theoretical predictions of the evolution of rotating stars.


Brittle fracture in carbon steel seriously impacts structural safety. It is considered that the elementary step of the brittle fracture of polycrystalline steel corresponds to cleavage in each crystal grain and their connection process. However, the detailed mechanisms of brittle fracture are not completely understood. In this study, the elementary process of brittle crack propagation is clarified using the dynamic strain recording of a strain gauge near the crack path. The results indicate that the brittle crack propagation rate in a single crystal grain is much slower than the Rayleigh wave rate. To estimate the dissipation energy during crack propagation in a single crystal grain, dynamic finite element analyses were conducted by assuming constant critical stress during crack propagation. The dissipated energy is not small even inside a single crystal grain and appears to exhibit a proportional relationship with the stress intensity factor.


Childhood cognitive and behavioral deficits have been reported in children born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy (Institute of Medicine, 2001). To investigate these potential responses in an animal model, reproductive and neurotoxicity evaluations based on the U.S. FDA guidelines were used to examine the offspring of male and female Sprague-Dawley rats exposed 2 h/day, 7 days/week by nose-only inhalation to whole mainstream smoke total particulate matter (TPM). Concentrations of 150, 300, or 600 mg/m(3) were used (males: 4 weeks prior to and during mating; and females: 2 weeks prior to mating, during mating, and through weaning at postnatal day 21). Sham air controls receiving filtered air and cage controls were also maintained. F(1) rats were weighed, identified by gender, examined for clinical signs of toxicity, and evaluated for neurobehavioral effects through postnatal day 65. Parental exposure was evidenced by smoke concentration-related increases in blood carboxyhemoglobin, nicotine, and cotinine and by characteristic cigarette smoke-related rodent respiratory tract histopathology. Also, nicotine and cotinine were found in F(1) blood through the lactation period. Maternal toxicity occurred at concentrations of 300 and 600 mg TPM/m(3), where total body weight gain during gestation was significantly (p < or = 0.05) decreased compared to sham controls. While smoke concentration-related decreases in F(1) birth weight and growth were evident (600 mg TPM/m(3), significantly different from sham at all time points), no adverse effects on developmental landmarks, including age at vaginal patency or preputial separation, motor activity, acoustic startle response or learning, and memory, were observed in the F(1) generation. This study confirmed that maternal exposure to high levels of mainstream cigarette smoke during gestation and lactation reduces birth weight and retards growth in the rat neonate; however, the developmental and neurobehavioral testing methodologies employed did not appear to be sensitive for an evaluation of neonatal behavioral effects following parental smoke exposure.


This article presents a study in which three inverse modeling techniques were applied to hourly heating and cooling load data extracted from 35 office buildings in Ottawa, Canada. These modeling techniques were three-parameter change point models, regression trees, and artificial neural networks. The change point models were trained with outdoor temperature data, whereas the other two models were trained with four regressors: outdoor temperature, wind speed, horizontal solar irradiance, and a binary work hours indicator. The correlations among the change point model parameters of individual buildings were analyzed. The sensitivity of heating and cooling load intensities to the four regressors was examined. The models were used to identify several types of energy use anomalies. The anomalies detected by different modeling techniques were generally in agreement. The results indicate that nearly half of the buildings did not have effective after-hours schedules to save energy. In all but three buildings, the cooling change point temperature was lower than the heating change point temperature—indicating a simultaneous heating and cooling problem. Moreover, a few buildings with anomalies potentially related to high air infiltration or overventilation, high thermal conductance, and high solar heat gains during summer were identified.


In Shakespeare's England, credit was synonymous with reputation, and reputation developed in the interplay of language, conduct, and social interpretation. As a consequence, artful language and social hermeneutics became practical, profitable skills. Since most people both used credit and extended it, the dual strategies of implication and inference—of producing and reading evidence—were everywhere. Like poetry or drama, credit was constructed: fashioned out of the interplay of artifice and interpretation. The rhetorical dimension of economic relations produced social fictions on a range of scales: from transitory performances facilitating local transactions to the long-term project of maintaining creditworthiness to the generalized social indeterminacy that arose from the interplay of performance and interpretation. Fictions of Credit in the Age of Shakespeare examines how Shakespeare and his contemporaries represented credit-driven artifice and interpretation on the early modern stage. It also analyses a range of practical texts—including commercial arithmetics, letter-writing manuals, legal formularies, and tables of interest—which offered strategies for generating credit and managing debt. Looking at plays and practical texts together, Fictions of Credit argues that both types of writing constitute "equipment for living": practical texts by offering concrete strategies for navigating England's culture of credit, and plays by exploring the limits of credit's dangers and possibilities. In their representations of a world rewritten by debt relations, dramatic texts in particular articulate a phenomenology of economic life, telling us what it feels like to live in credit culture: to live, that is, inside a fiction.


We provide the first analysis of the risk exposure and consequent risk-adjusted performance of impact investing funds, private market funds with dual financial and social goals. We introduce a new dataset of impact fund cash flows constructed directly from financial statements. When accounting for market risk exposure, impact funds underperform the market by $0.30 on the dollar, but outperform venture capital (VC) funds by $0.15 on the dollar, consistent with the presence of substantial frictions in private markets. Impact funds perform on par with funds matched on size, asset class, and vintage years. We exploit known distortions in measures of VC performance to characterize the risk profile of impact funds. Impact funds have substantially lower market beta than VC funds, contradicting the idea of sustainability as a "luxury good." Adding additional factors does not change the estimate of performance.


BACKGROUND
A hydraulic force generated by blood moving the atrio-ventricular plane is a novel mechanism of diastolic function. The direction and magnitude of the force is dependent on the geometrical relationship between the left atrium and ventricle and is measured as the short-axis atrio-ventricular area difference (AVAD). In short, the net hydraulic force acts from a larger area towards a smaller. It is currently unknown how cardiac remodeling affects this mechanism. The aim of the study was therefore to investigate this diastolic mechanism in patients with pathological or physiological remodeling.

METHODS
70 subjects (n=11 heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), n=10 heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), n=7 signs of isolated diastolic dysfunction, n=10 hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), n=10 cardiac amyloidosis, n=18 triathletes and n=14 controls) were included. Subjects underwent Cardiac MR and short-axis images of the left atrium and ventricle were delineated. AVAD was calculated as ventricular area minus atrial area and used as an indicator of net hydraulic force.

RESULTS
At the onset of diastole, AVAD in HFpEF was median -9.2 cm2 versus -4.4 cm2 in controls, p=0.02). The net hydraulic force was directed towards the ventricle for both, but larger in HFpEF. HFrEF was the only group with a positive median value 11.6 cm2 and net hydraulic force was throughout diastole directed towards the atrium.

CONCLUSION
The net hydraulic force may impede cardiac filling throughout diastole in HFpEF, worsening diastolic dysfunction. In contrast, it may work favorably in patients with dilated ventricles and aid ventricular filling.


Animal-human interactions have been found to have positive influences on children across the world. In particular, research supports the benefits of animal-assisted activities in addressing students' social and behavioral problems within the classroom environment. The general information about animal-assisted activities provided in this article can help teachers identify key steps in effectively using such activities to teach socially important behaviors to children with learning disabilities, emotional and behavioral disorders, and autism. The author explains that the effectiveness of animals in classrooms is dependent on strong administrative, parental, and collegial support; clear and measurable goals; well-developed instructional plans; an appropriate animal choice; well-developed health and safety procedures; and systematic plans for monitoring progress in student performance.


A new modulo 2 n +1 multiplier architecture is proposed for operands in the weighted representation. A new set of partial products is derived and it is shown that all required correction factors can be merged into a single constant one. It is also proposed that part of the correction factor is treated as a partial product, whereas the rest is handled by the final parallel adder. The proposed multipliers utilise a total of (n+1) partial products, each n bits wide and are built using an inverted end-around-carry, carry-save adder tree and a final adder. Area and delay qualitative and quantitative comparisons indicate that the proposed multipliers compare favourably with the earlier solutions


The fundamental idea for measuring the intraocular pressure was proposed by the Russian physician A.N. Maklakoff as early as the end of 19th century and is still the basis for almost all the methods used in clinical practice. An improved Maklakoff's tonometer is introduced in this paper. On the basis of this applanation tonometer, the experimental study on intraocular pressure-volume relation for the simulated eye is performed. Quantitative results and Qualitative conclusions that follow our study and may be of practical interest in finding the intraocular pressure and estimating the rigidity (stiffness) of the eyeball from the pressure–volume relationship are discussed.


This article addresses the debate over the causes of urbanisation and counter-urbanisation in Zambia: Are urbanisation and counter-urbanisation caused mostly by net migration or are they caused mostly by the natural growth or decline of the urban population? Using population censuses, we apply the intercensal forward survival ratio method to measure net migration and the natural population growth of urban and rural areas in 1990, 2000 and 2010. The results show that the most important cause of urbanisation and counter-urbanisation was net migration rather than natural urban population growth or decline. Although natural urban population growth was roughly twice that of net migration, this had very little influence on urbanisation because it was matched by the natural growth of the rural population. We also address the causes of migration by examining employment trends. These results indicate that economic decline during the 1990s resulted in decreased urban employment and a dramatic rise in urban unemployment, which in turn caused migration from urban to rural areas. Conversely, during the 2000s, absolute employment grew and unemployment decreased, which corresponded with increased rural–urban migration (resulting in net urbanisation). Our findings also show that even during the period of net out-migration from urban areas and high urban unemployment levels, the resident urban-born workforce continued to grow strongly through natural increase. Thus, these results also show that urban population growth can increase substantially in the absence of urban economic growth, thereby increasing urban unemployment and urban–rural migration.


The layer-by-layer ionic self-assembly of silica nanoparticles (SiO2 NPs) and poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) can yield high-quality, tunable, and cost-effective anti-reflection coatings (ARCs). However, these purely ionic films lack the necessary scratch resistance for long-term stability. The addition of thermally-crosslinking polyelectrolytes, PAH and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), can provide a solution to this challenge. The improved ARC design involves the formation of repeat-units of PAH/PAA/PAH/SiO2 interlayer ionic self-assembled multilayers (ISAM) films. This paper examines the associated effects resulting from the manipulation of the PAA pH to result in low to high chain charge densities (pH = 3.0 to 6.0, respectively). This PAA pH alteration dramatically shifts the films' scratch resistance and anti-reflective properties in opposite directions. The films' RMS surface roughness and surface morphology are also found to be substantially affected by the PAA pH variation, especially when the pH is in close proximity to the PAA pKa. In this report, characterization of these properties is obtained through UV-vis spectroscopy, ellipsometry, profilometry, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), tribology, macro-scale scratch testing, and haze measurements. The development of covalent amide linkages in PAH/PAA films upon thermal crosslinking is confirmed through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The primary goal of the study is an optimization of the trade-off between scratch resistance and anti-reflection properties within PAH/PAA/PAH/SiO2 interlayer ISAM ARCs through modification of the PAA pH. An optimal trade-off is found at a PAA pH value of 5.2.


Do fake news and what some have labeled our post-truth predicament represent a new and deadly challenge to the epistemic presuppositions of the public sphere? While many commentators have invoked Hannah Arendt to help answer this question, I argue that Arendt is the wrong place to look. Instead, I suggest that, on one hand, deliberative democracy and Jürgen Habermas' idea of democracy as truth-tracking offer a more helpful framework for assessing and combating the threat of fake news and, on the other hand, Bernard Williams' virtues of accuracy identify the citizen virtues necessary to counteract fake news. The virtues of accuracy, I contend, can be facilitated and encouraged through structural and regulatory features in the public sphere. We are indeed seeing a recalibration and significant push back on fake news due to both structural changes and ordinary citizens becoming more epistemically responsible consumers of digital information.


Rapid growth in private sector herbicide imports has led to a dramatic rise in use of commercial herbicides by Malian smallholder farmers. Given weak regulatory capacity to monitor markets, the recent proliferation in herbicide products and brands has been accompanied by widespread sales of unregistered products. We test the effects of herbicides applied to Mali's major dryland cereals, sorghum and maize, on yield and labor productivity, differentiated by gender and age. We employ a multivalued treatment model with data collected from 623 households and 1273 plots. Findings show negative effects of unregistered herbicides on yields. In contrast, the use of registered herbicides enhances labor productivity of adult male and children. However, we find no significant effects on registered herbicides on yields or labor productivity of women.


To evaluate the fatty acid profile of milk from cows fed palm kernel cake (PKC), 12 Holstein × Zebu crossbred cows were kept in the feedlot, distributed into a triple 4 × 4 Latin square, and fed the following treatments: 1) control; 2) inclusion of 50 g PKC/kg in the total dry matter (TDM); 3) inclusion of 100 g PKC/kg in the TDM; and 4) inclusion of 150 g PKC/kg in the TDM. Milk samples from the morning and afternoon milkings were collected in the amount of 1% of the daily production of each animal; subsequently, 100-mL subsamples were frozen for analysis of the fatty acid profile. Inclusion of PKC did not change the concentration of short-chain fatty acids or myristoleic (C14:1), pentadecenoic (C15:1), palmitic (C16:0), and palmitoleic (C16:1) fatty acids. Concentrations of medium-chain and lauric (C12:0) and myristic (C14:0) fatty acids increased linearly (P 0.05) on the long-chain fatty acids and those of the omega 6 and 3 series; on the ratio between poly-unsaturated and saturated fatty acids; or on the ratio between the fatty acids of the omega 6/omega 3 series. The concentration of conjugated linoleic acid was not influenced (P > 0.05) by inclusion of PKC in the diet. Addition of palm kernel cake to the diet of lactating cows influences the concentration of medium-chain fatty acids, and of lauric (C12:0), myristic (C14:0), and pentadecanoic (C15:0) fatty acids in their milk.


We introduce quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and discuss QAM architectures used to overcome transmission impairments typically encountered on 6 MHz wide terrestrial and cable TV VHF/UHF channels. The input data to the QAM transmitter is mapped into N bit words called symbols; N determines the QAM level. The signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver determines the QAM level that can be used. Typical terrestrial and cable channels allow N=4 and N=8, leading to user data rates of about 20 and 40 Mbits/s, respectively. Transmission impairments include random noise, reflections, phase noise, and frequency offset. Adaptive equalizers are used by the cable and terrestrial QAM receivers to remove amplitude and phase distortion due to reflections and filter imperfections. The cable adaptive equalizer consists of feed-forward and feedback sections; the terrestrial equalizer uses a feed-forward section only. Both the cable and terrestrial receivers accomplish both start-up and steady-state equalization using only the user data. We also describe carrier recovery and symbol timing recovery for the terrestrial receiver. >


Messenger RNA is degraded as it moves through the tomato phloem, and the mobility of a transcript cannot be reliably predicted based on its abundance in the Nicotiana benthamiana leaf or on whether it harbors a tRNA-like structural motif. Recent heterograft analyses showed that large-scale messenger RNA (mRNA) movement takes place in the phloem, but the number of mobile transcripts reported varies widely. However, our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying large-scale mRNA movement remains limited. In this study, using a Nicotiana benthamiana/tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) heterograft system and a transgenic approach involving potato (Solanum tuberosum), we found that: (1) the overall mRNA abundance in the leaf is not a good indicator of transcript mobility to the root; (2) increasing the expression levels of nonmobile mRNAs in the companion cells does not promote their mobility; (3) mobile mRNAs undergo degradation during their movement; and (4) some mRNAs arriving in roots move back to shoots. These results indicate that mRNA movement has both regulated and unregulated components. The cellular origins of mobile mRNAs may differ between herbaceous and woody species. Taken together, these findings suggest that the long-distance movement of mRNAs is a complex process and that elucidating the physiological roles associated with this movement is challenging but remains an important task for future research.