Exposure of bacteria to sublethal concentrations of antibiotics can lead to bacterial adaptation and survival at higher doses of inhibitors, which in turn can lead to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. The presence of sublethal concentrations of antibiotics targeting translation results in an increase in the amount of ribosomes per cell but nonetheless a decrease in the cells' growth rate. In this work, we have found that inhibition of ribosome activity can result in a decrease in the amount of free RNA polymerase available for transcription, thus limiting the protein expression rate via a different pathway than what was expected. This result can be explained by our observation that long genes, such as those coding for RNA polymerase subunits, have a higher probability of premature translation termination in the presence of ribosome inhibitors, while expression of short ribosomal genes is affected less, consistent with their increased concentration. ABSTRACT In bacterial cells, inhibition of ribosomes by sublethal concentrations of antibiotics leads to a decrease in the growth rate despite an increase in ribosome content. The limitation of ribosomal activity results in an increase in the level of expression from ribosomal promoters; this can deplete the pool of RNA polymerase (RNAP) that is available for the expression of nonribosomal genes. However, the magnitude of this effect remains to be quantified. Here, we use the change in the activity of constitutive promoters with different affinities for RNAP to quantify the change in the concentration of free RNAP. The data are consistent with a significant decrease in the amount of RNAP available for transcription of both ribosomal and nonribosomal genes. Results obtained with different reporter genes reveal an mRNA length dependence on the amount of full-length translated protein, consistent with the decrease in ribosome processivity affecting more strongly the translation of longer genes. The genes coding for the β and β' subunits of RNAP are among the longest genes in the Escherichia coli genome, while the genes coding for ribosomal proteins are among the shortest genes. This can explain the observed decrease in transcription capacity that favors the expression of genes whose promoters have a high affinity for RNAP, such as ribosomal promoters. IMPORTANCE Exposure of bacteria to sublethal concentrations of antibiotics can lead to bacterial adaptation and survival at higher doses of inhibitors, which in turn can lead to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. The presence of sublethal concentrations of antibiotics targeting translation results in an increase in the amount of ribosomes per cell but nonetheless a decrease in the cells' growth rate. In this work, we have found that inhibition of ribosome activity can result in a decrease in the amount of free RNA polymerase available for transcription, thus limiting the protein expression rate via a different pathway than what was expected. This result can be explained by our observation that long genes, such as those coding for RNA polymerase subunits, have a higher probability of premature translation termination in the presence of ribosome inhibitors, while expression of short ribosomal genes is affected less, consistent with their increased concentration.


This article analyses regulatory innovation. It considers, in particular, how a regulatory environmental agency has been encouraged to innovate in the area of biopesticides. The literature on regulatory innovation is reviewed, the discussion situated within Moran's theory of the regulatory state. It considers to what extent innovation has occurred within the agency, looking at its pro-active stance, and how unusually for a regulatory body it has negotiated new policy spaces in which to operate. The article looks at the contextual drivers and also the exogenous and endogenous pressures behind the innovation. It shows how the executive has intervened in order to promote more use of biopesticides and how pressure is also being exerted within the regulatory authority. By using the existing literature and empirical evidence a framework is outlined for explaining the likelihood of regulatory innovation occurring in regulatory agencies.


This paper proposes a framework for the mesoscale modeling of potentially complex fault cores. Such faults cannot be modeled as simple frictional interfaces because they may be thicker and made of several slip surfaces embedded in a material that can contain both grains and broken blocks. Two main aspects are considered here. One, which is the main innovation in the paper, deals with the derivation for the specific rigid‐plastic interface constitutive law which was developed to account for the hardening/softening behavior of highly stressed rocks like in geological faults. The other one deals with the theoretical and numerical study of the response of the structural model in which this constitutive law was implemented. This first structural model was chosen to represent the behavior of faults surrounded by elastic rock masses. The results obtained from this model already illustrate the high potentiality of the proposed interface constitutive law in the context of seismology. When far‐field displacement boundary conditions evolving time are used, different modes of evolution emerge, and transitions happen, from quasi‐static to dynamic or vice versa with timescales extending from tens of years to seconds. The instability domain and the dynamic solution are detailed together with the related energy considerations. An extensive analysis of specific case studies is available in Maury et al., companion paper, in particular as regards the possibility for slow slip events to transition into seismic slip (or vice versa). The implementation of the interface model into more realistic and advanced numerical fault models should offer many perspectives.


This paper deals with dispatching systems in open-pit mines. It illustrates the different strategies that exist for solving the dispatching problem and analyses the advantages and disadvantages of these strategies. Moreover, the most important elements that should be part of the dispatching system in the future are highlighted.


Over the last several years, the interface between the digital and analog RF subsystems of a radio (the analog RF-digital interface) has become increasingly important. this article first discusses the different technology alternatives that exist for this interface and the rationale behind them. the emergence of cognitive radio technology is identified as a trend that increases the importance of the analog RF-digital interface. then the article discusses in detail the VmE bus International trade association (VIta) 49 standard. VIta 49 is a packet-based protocol to convey digitized signal data and metadata (or context data) pertaining to different reference points within a radio receiver. the metadata includes analog front-end parameters such as RF center frequency, bandwidth, If center frequency, sampling rate, gain, location, etc. this standard allows all information about the spectrum as seen by a radio at its antenna to be described, stored, and transported to other systems. VIta 49 is identified as a hierarchical radio description language that is a new paradigm for radio architectures.


A variety of UCST-type thermoresponsive ammonium iodide salts is systematically designed and synthesised with desired aqueous solubility, phase-transition temperature, osmolality change, phase-transition concentration range, stability, and toxicity by controlling the ionic interactions, hydrophobicity, and symmetry of the salt structure. Suitable draw solutes can be selected based on the characteristics of the ammonium iodide salts as well as the feed solutions for feasible forward osmosis (FO)-based water purification. In this research, highly concentrated wastewater from a flue gas desulfuriser (FGD), with osmotic pressure three times higher than seawater, is targeted for purification by FO using the draw solutes. Two ammonium iodide salts (HM8I and HM10I) show a remarkable water flux from the wastewater samples and significantly lower salt leakage compared to conventional draw solutes. The osmolality of the phase-separated draw solution drops to less than one tenth of that of the initial feed solution, and reverse osmosis or nanofiltration can be applied to the solution with much lower external pressure for the final purification to produce fresh water. This systematic approach to the design and selection of suitable draw solutes can be an effective strategy for future practical FO-based wastewater treatment and seawater desalination.


Cellular automaton (CA) is applied to simulating the microstructure evolution during the solidification, and finite element method (FEM) was used for solving the conservation equations which govern the macro-transport phenomena during the twin-roll casting process of the magnesium strip in the molten pool. Coupling CA with FEM can predict the microstructure evolution during solidification involving nucleation and growth of the grains. On the basis of this CA-FEM method,the effects of the main parameters involving pouring temperature, casting speed and pool height on the characteristic of solidification microstructure such as grain size and orientation can be quantitatively clarified by numerical simulation, which can provide the theoretical basis for the optimization of the processing parameters and the control of the solidification structure.


Antibodies have two properties that make them valuable biochemical reagents: specificity and sensitivity. By specificity, we mean the selective ability of the antibody to react only with the chemical grouping (antigen) that induced its formation or with closely related groupings. The selective property is clearly based on details of the spatial orientation of the inducing antigen. Small differences in chemical structure of antigens determine their combining affinity with antibody. For example, it is quite easy to distinguish o-, p-, and m- configurations of aminobenzenes or to separateD- and 14- forms of tartaric acid by immunological means. Antibodies are specialized plasma proteins, referred to as immunoglobulins. Details of their amino acid sequence determine their specific combining properties with antigen, and their bivalent or multivalent structure allows amplification of this combination with antigen, thereby providing extraordinary sensitivity. Modern methods permit detection of nanogram amounts of antibodies in their reaction with antigens. Moreover, antigenantibody combinations can be blocked by excess antigen; miniscule amounts of free antigen may suffice to inhibit antibody combination. The sensitivity of these procedures allows measurements of constituents in body fluids by simple procedures and in quantities not usually conveniently demonstrated in the laboratory by other means. These two features of the immune reaction, specificity and sensitivity, offer a great variety of applications in the clinical laboratory. It is likely that these applications will increase in future


The paper addresses a robust wavelet-based speech enhancement for automatic speech recognition in reverberant and noisy conditions. We propose a novel scheme in improving the speech, late reflection, and noise power estimates from the observed contaminated signal. The improved estimates are used to calculate the Wiener gain in filtering the late reflections and additive noise. In the proposed scheme, optimization of the wavelet family and its parameters is conducted using an acoustic model (AM). In the offline mode, the optimal wavelet family is selected separately for the speech, late reflections, and background noise based on the AM likelihood. Then, the parameters of the selected wavelet family are optimized specifically for each signal subspace. As a result we can use a wavelet sensitive to the speech, late reflection, and the additive noise, which can independently and accurately estimate these signals directly from an observed contaminated signal. For speech recognition, the most suitable wavelet is identified from the pre-stored wavelets, and wavelet-domain filtering is conducted to the noisy and reverberant speech signal. Experimental evaluations using real reverberant data demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.


Objective: To determine the levels of serum lactate dehydrogenase 2 (LD2) Isoenzyme and β2 microglobulin (β2m) in patients of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and to correlate these levels in NHL patients with and without bone marrow infiltration.
Study Design: Cross sectional study.
Place and Duration of Study: Post Graduate Medical Institute, Lahore and Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB), Lahore, from 2008 to 2010.
Material and Methods: The study was conducted on 80 subjects irrespective of age and sex and divided into three groups i.e. group A comprising 20 normal healthy controls, group B 30 patients of NHL without bone marrow infiltration while group C consisted of 30 NHL patients with bone marrow infiltration. Serum β2m and LD2 isoenzyme levels were determined in the subjects and the values were compared with healthy age and sex matched controls. The estimations were made prior to the institution of chemotherapy.
Results: Serum β2 microglobulin and LD2 levels were significantly raised in NHL patients compared with controls. There was also significant difference when the values were compared between the patients of NHL with and without bone marrow infiltration.
Conclusion: The levels of β2m and LD2 showed positive correlation with the extent of the disease, so we conclude that non-invasive parameters are useful indicator of the extent of the disease.


BACKGROUND
Hemodialysis dependence is an independent risk factor for hematogenous complication, including distant metastatic infection and osteomyelitis. Chronic osteomyelitis is a serious disease that fails to respond to aggressive medical and surgical treatment. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been proved to enhance bone and soft tissue healing in many studies. This article presents the preliminary result of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in hemodialysis-dependent patients with chronic osteomyelitis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Ten hemodialysis dependent patients who were diagnosed with chronic diffuse osteomyelitis were treated prospectively with adjunctive hyperbaric oxygen therapy, in addition to aggressive surgical debridement and antibiotic treatment.

RESULTS
The hyperbaric oxygen therapy averaged 20 daily sessions. Successful treatment was achieved in eight patients (80%). The mean length of treatment was 21 days. The preliminary results are comparable with other series.

CONCLUSION
Hyperbaric oxygen is effective as an adjunct to aggressive medical and surgical treatment in chronic refractory osteomyelitis among hemodialysis-dependent patients.


After the Portuguese government requested a bailout from the European Union, many argued that Spain would he next in line. Although recent reforms led by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero provide reason to be optimistic about Spain's economy, they have come at a high political cost. In fact, Zapatero has announced that he will not run for a third term as Prime Minister to keep his party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE), in power; however, current polls indicate that the PSOE will lose the next election anyway. Despite this weak standing, Zapatero is determined to continue pushing forward controversial economic reforms. The fear that Spain could fall into a deep economic crisis is not unfounded. Spain's budget deficit is the third highest in Europe. This is partly due to the global financial crisis, as well as the increase in government spending during Zapatero's first term in office. Before 2008, Spain had been growing at a rate of 3.2 percent every year. At the end of 2004, Spain had a budget surplus of 2.2 percent. Unemployment and inflation were also low, which created optimism for the country's future. However, unemployment started increasing after the economic crisis and has now reached a historical high of 20 percent. In addition, the Spanish economy seems to be recovering slowly. For 2011, the government predicts economic growth of 1.3 percent. This situation has not Only contributed to the decline of Zapatero's popularity in the country, but has also led many to question whether Spain will be next to request a bailout from the European Union. However, it is too soon to declare the economic collapse of Spain. Immediately after the economic crisis that hit Greece and Ireland, the Spanish government started to push forward a set of reforms to counteract a potential economic breakdown. These reforms aim to reduce government spending by cutting public workers' wages and slashing welfare payments, among other measures. One of the most controversial reforms establishes an increase in the retirement age from 65 to 67 years. The reform was so unpopular that a nationwide general strike was organized in September 2010 in protest. Zapatero's reluctance to eliminate the policy added to his declining popularity. According to a survey by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS), 80 percent of the population disagreed with the packet of reforms proposed by the Prime Minister. In spite of the great political cost of these reforms, Zapatero seems determined to carry them forward. Although the full impact of the reforms will be determined in the long run, short-run measures adopted by the government are beginning to improve Spain's economic outlook. Certainly, they have contributed to decreasing the budget deficit, which has gone from 11.1 percent in 2009 to 9.3 percent in 2010. Zapatero's government aims to further decrease the deficit to 6 percent this year. …


The most pressing question about cognitive brains is how they support the compositionality that enables combinatorial manipulations of images, thoughts and actions. When addressing this problem with synthetic modeling, the conventional idea prevalent in artificial intelligence and cognitive science, generally, is to assume hybrid systems and corresponding neural network models, where higher-order cognition is realized by means of symbolic representation and lower sensory-motor processes by analogue processing. However, the crucial problem with such approaches is that the symbols represented at higher order cognitive levels cannot be grounded naturally in sensory-motor reality. The former are defined in a discrete space without any metric and the latter are defined in a continuous space with a physical metric. These, therefore, cannot directly interact with each other, regardless of the interface that is assigned between them. The proposal in the current paper is to reconstruct higher-order cognition by means of continuous neuro-dynamic systems that can elaborate delicate interactions with the sensory-motor level while sharing the same metric space. Our neuro-robotics experiments including language-action associations and the learning of goal-directed actions show that the compositionality necessary for higher-order cognitive tasks can be acquired by means of self-organizing dynamic structures, via interactive learning between the top-down intentional process of acting on the physical world and the bottom-up recognition of perceptual reality. Using robotic simulations, the current paper demonstrates that nonlinear dynamic phenomena, such as bifurcations and the chaotic dynamics induced by unstable fixed points, could play essential roles in realizing higher-order functions.


ABSTRACT
 This article presents a brief overview of the impact that antibiotic use in clinical medicine and in other settings, such as agriculture and animal farming, exerts on antimicrobial resistance. Resistance has been described to all antibiotics that are currently in use, and resistant strains were sometimes reported as soon as months after specific antibiotics became commercially available. There are many examples in which the increasing prevalence of resistant microbial strains jeopardized the continuing effective use of the respective antibiotics in clinical medicine. In addition to resistant infections that occur in health-care establishments, one of the recent challenges is the emergence of pathogens, such as MRSA, in the community, among individuals without any apparent risk factors for the infection. The transmission of resistant pathogens and antimicrobial resistance determinants across different components of the ecosystem transforms antibiotic resistance into a topic that extends beyond the scope of clinical medicine and needs to be visualized through an integrated global perspective that should incorporate a broad range of disciplines, including molecular genetics, microbiology, food science, ecology, agriculture, and environmental science. Understanding this complex multi- and interdisciplinary framework will enable the implementation of the most appropriate interventions toward determining the dynamics of antimicrobial resistance, limiting the emergence and spread of resistant strains, and ensuring the ongoing effective and safe use of antibiotics.


A fundamental re-appraisal of Italian glass - largely synonymous with glass from Murano - has been made in recent years. The mass of technically perfect, colourful knick-knacks and "ornamental glass" objects which flooded the market over a long period, obscured the works of lasting value in which the artistic substance of Italian glass art is manifested. This volume provides a critical analysis of some 270 glass works of art from Murano and Milan, documenting and highlighting important developments during four decisive decades of Italian glass manufacture. The text unites the works of the most significant companies and designers, such as those of the architect Carlo Scarpa from the 1930s and early 1940s, and of the painter Fulvio Bianconi from the 1950s-60s. Both were working for Venini & C., the leading manufacturer of this period. The result is a new view of Italian glass art in the 20th century. Murano glass expresses the spirit and vitality of a whole epoch, particularly the creative explosion of the 1950s, which supplied the essential impulses to contemporary international studio glass art. Included in the text are extensive commentaries on all glass works, introductory texts,


SIR,-I venture to disagree with some of the points in your leading article on "Cholera Again" (3 October, p. 2). The 5/4/1 Dacca solution can be used only for cholera or choleraic dysentery. It is absurd to stockpile specialized fluid of this kind when equally good results are obtainable by the use of lactated Ringer (Hartmann's solution), provided that the extra potassium and alkali needed for full replacement therapy are given orally, either as a four-hourly or six-hourly dose of KC7, 3 g, and NaHCO3, 45 g. As lactated Ringer is used for the intravenous therapy of many conditions, it is widely available, and any stock of it can be sure to be turned over regularly as it is used and replaced, thus obviating deterioration as the result of lengthy storage. It is unnecessary and often actually misleading to use the measurement of plasma specific gravity as an indication of the intravenous fluid requirements. So easy is it to see when the patient has been given enough fluid that we usually delegate the decision when to stop to the nursing staff-after they have had a little supervision over the first case or two-and they have no difficulty in deciding correctly. Surely what our nurses can do a physician in England can also do? I deprecate forsaking observing physical signs in exchange for reading laboratorv reports. My account' of the 1965 Brunei cholera epidemic may be of assistance to those who wish to know more of the practical aspects of cholera therapy. A second epidemic on a smaller scale has been dealt with subsequently in an identical manner, and we have yet to see one of our patients succumb to cholera. As a matter of practical experience, therefore, the simpler methods recommended in my article are difficult to improve on.-I am, etc.,


On 30 September 2017, an Air France Airbus A380-800 suffered a failure of its fourth engine while over Greenland. This failure resulted in the loss of the engine fan hub, fan blades and surrounding structure. An initial search recovered 30 pieces of light debris, but the primary part of interest, a ~220 kg titanium fan hub, was not recovered because it had a different fall trajectory than the light debris, impacted into the ice-sheet's snow surface, and was quickly covered by drifting snow. Here we describe the methods used for the detection of the fan hub and details of the field campaigns. The search area included two crevasse fields of at least 50 snow-covered crevasses 1 to ~30 m wide with similar snow bridge thicknesses. After 21 months and six campaigns, using airborne synthetic aperture radar, ground-penetrating radar, transient electromagnetics and an autonomous vehicle to survey the crevasse fields, the fan hub was found within ~1 m of a crevasse at a depth of ~3.3 to 4 m and was excavated with shovels, chain saws, an electric winch, sleds and a gasoline heater, by workers using fall-arrest systems.


Renewable energy resources are contributing evermore to the generation mix worldwide, however, expanding grids in size and complexity have given rise to unforeseen complications such as frequency oscillations, voltage sags and spikes, and power outages. In 2013, nearly 100% of electricity generation in Iceland was from hydropower and geothermal sources; there is also high potential for wind and tidal energy, both options are being explored and would benefit from additional technologies to manage fluctuations and store energy surplus. Landsnet is the sole transmission system operator (TSO) responsible for energy balance in Iceland. On the consumer side, load variations represent difficulties for utilities to meet ever-changing demand. Research indicates high-capacity electricity energy storage (EES) has the potential to be economically beneficial as well as carbon neutral, all while improving power and voltage quality, peak-shaving, reducing the number of grid failures and reducing natural fluctuations in renewable energy (RE) sources. Two complex resource deployment scenarios are modeled using GridCommand™ Distribution: (1) large-scale 10 MWh capacity EES evenly distributed across the transmission system, and (2) large-scale 10 MWh capacity EES clustered at targeted substations in the transmission system. Results reveal 10 MWh capacity battery EES at a density of 60% in the transmission model provides optimal performance conditions. Optimal conditions are defined by EES performance metrics, and signify improvements in power quality, energy balance, and peak-shaving when electricity demand is at its highest. EES technologies are presented and tested at different locations across the Icelandic grid to predict which solutions are best for the future development of the electricity system.© 2014 ASME


Several studies employed the genome-wide association (GWA) analysis of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to identify susceptibility regions in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the functional studies exploring the role of associating SNPs with cancer biology are limited. Herein, using chromatin immunoprecipitation assay (ChIP), reporter assay and chromosome conformation capture sequencing (3C-Seq) augmented with publically available genomic and epigenomic databases we aimed to define the function of rs6702619/1p21.2 region associated with CRC in the Polish population. Using ChIP we confirmed that rs6702619 region is occupied by a CTCF, a master regulator of long-range genomic interactions, and is decorated with enhancer-like histone modifications. The enhancer blocking assay revealed that rs6702619 region acts as an insulator with activity dependent on the SNP genotype. Finally, a 3C-Seq survey indicated more than a hundred loci in the rs6702619 locus interactome, including GNAS gene that is frequently amplified in CRC. Taken together, we showed that the CRC-associated rs6702619 region has in vitro and in vivo properties of an insulator that demonstrates long-range physical interactions with CRC-relevant loci.


The breakdown of organic substances to retrieve energy is a naturally occurring process in nature. Catabolic microorganisms contain enzymes capable of accelerating the disintegration of simple sugars and alcohols to produce separated charge in the form of electrons and protons as byproducts that can be harvested extracellularly through an electrochemical cell to produce electrical energy directly. Bioelectrochemical energy is then an appealing green alternative to other power sources. However, a number of fundamental questions must be addressed if the technology is to become economically feasible. Power densities are low, hence the electron flow through the system: bacteria-electrode connectivity, the volumetric limit of catalyst loading, and the rate-limiting step in the system must be understood and optimized. This project investigated the miniaturization of microbial fuel cells to explore the scaling of the biocatalysis and generate a platform to study fundamental microstructure effects. Ultra-micro-electrodes for single cell studies were developed within a microfluidic configuration to quantify these issues and provide insight on the output capacity of microbial fuel cells as well as commercial feasibility as power sources for electronic devices.Several devices were investigated in this work. The first prototype consisted of a gold array anode on a silicon dioxide passivation layer that intended to imitate yet simplify the complexity of a 3D carbon structure on a 2D plane. Using Geobacter sulfurreducens , an organism believed to utilize direct electron transfer to electrodes, the 1 mm 2 electrode demonstrated a maximum current density of 1.4 mA and 120 nW of power after 10 days. In addition, the transient current-voltage responses were analyzed over the bacterial colonization period. The results indicated that over a 6-day period, the bacteria increased the capacitance of the cell 5-orders-of-magnitude and decreased the resistance by 3X over the bare electrode. Furthermore, over short experimental scales (hours), the RC constant was maintained but capacitance and resistance were inversely related. As the capacitance result coincides with expected biomass increase over the incubation period, it may be possible for an electrical spectroscopy (impedance) non-invasive technique to be developed to estimate biomass on the electrode. Similarly, the R and C relationship over short experimental scales could be explored further to provide insight on biolm morphology. Lastly, fluorescence and SEM microscopy were used to observe the biofilm development and demonstrated that, rather than growing at even density, the bacteria nucleated at points on the electrode, and dendritically divided, until joining to form the dense biofilm. In addition, viable microorganisms undergoing cell division were found dozens of microns from electrode surfaces without visible pili connections.To investigate single-cell catalysis or microstructure effects, a sub-micro-liter microfluidic single-channel MFC with an embedded reference electrode and solid-state nal electron acceptor was developed. The system allowed for parallel (16) working ultra-micro-electrodes and was microscopy compatible. With Geobacter sulfurreducens , the semiconducting ITO electrodes demonstrated forward bias behavior and suitability for anodic characterization. The first prototype demonstrated, with 179 cells on the electrode, a per cell contribution of 223 fA at +400 mV (vs. SHE). The second prototype with a 7 mm diameter electrode produced a current density of 3.9 pA/mm 2 (3.9 A/m 2 ) at +200 mV (vs. SHE) and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 4.9 when inoculated at a seeding density of 10 9 cells/mL. However, diluting the sample by 10x produced an SNR of 0.5, suggesting that obtaining single cell electron transfer rates to an electrode over short experimental time scales may not be possible with the system as tested. Nevertheless, the platform allows microstructure characterization and multiplexing within a single microfluidic chamber.


Theophrastus of Eresus was Aristotle's pupil and successor as head of the Peripatetic School. He is best known as the author of the amusing Characters and two ground-breaking works in botany, but his writings extend over the entire range of Hellenistic philosophic studies. Volume 5 of Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities focuses on his scientific work. The volume contains new editions of two brief scientific essays-On Fish and Afeteoro/o DEGREESy-accompanied by translations and commentary. Among the contributions are: "Peripatetic Dialectic in the De sensibus," Han Baltussen; "Empedocles" Theory of Vision and Theophrastus' De sensibus," David N. Sedley; "Theophrastus on the Intellect," Daniel Devereux; "Theophrastus and Aristotle on Animal Intelligence," Eve Browning Cole; "Physikai doxai and Problemata physika from Aristotle to Agtius (and Beyond)," Jap Mansfield; "Xenophanes or Theophrastus? An Aetian Doxographicum on the Sun," David Runia; "Place1 in Context: On Theophrastus, Fr. 21 and 22 Wimmer," Keimpe Algra; "The Meteorology of Theophrastus in Syriac and Arabic Translation," Hans Daiber; "Theophrastus' Meteorology, Aristotle and Posidonius," Ian G. Kidd; "The Authorship and Sources of the Peri Semeion Ascribed to Theophrastus," Patrick Cronin; "Theophrastus, On Fish" Robert W. Sharpies.


The genes encoding the low-density lipoproteins receptor and its ligand apolipoprotein B, have been the only two genes classically implicated in autosomal dominant hypercholesterolemia. We have identified in 2003, the third gene implicated in this disease: PCSK9 (Proprotein Convertase Subtilin Kexin 9). Several mutations (p.S127R, p.F216L, p.D374Y...) of this gene have been reported to cause hypercholesterolemia by a gain of function leading to a reduction of LDL receptor levels. Other variations of PCSK9 are conversely associated with hypocholesterolemia particularly the non-sense p.Y142X and p.C679X mutations found in 2% of black Americans and associated with a decrease of LDL levels and coronary heart diseases. PCSK9 substrates and exact role have not been elucidated yet, but it seems that PCSK9 is definitely a major actor in cholesterol homeostasis. PCSK9 inhibitors might constitute new therapeutic targets that would decrease plasma LDL cholesterol levels and be synergistic with statin drugs. © 2007 Elsevier Masson SAS. Tous droits réservés.


This paper aims to show the impact of hyperinflation on financial results, a phenomenon that is experienced in developed or developing countries. The concepts of hy- perinflation and financial results were highlighted in addition to the effects of hyperinflation on the financial results based on secondary sources and the financial results of multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in Venezuela, which is currently the first among the econo- mies affected by hyperinflation; a significant impact of this type of inflation on these affected corporations was observed. The most important result for this paper is that hyperinflation leads to the issuance of financial results in a misleading manner, and thus it causes difficulty in making proper decisions. Therefore, economies affected by hyperinflation should pay at- tention to solving this problem by focusing on how to manage the causes of hyperinflation.


Analogical reasoning is vital to advanced cognition and behavioral adaptation. Many theorists deem analogical thinking to be uniquely human and to be foundational to categorization, creative problem solving, and scientific discovery [1]. Comparative psychologists have long been interested in the species generality of analogical reasoning, but they initially found it difficult to obtain empirical support for such thinking in nonhuman animals (for pioneering efforts, see [2, 3]). Researchers have sincemustered considerable evidence and argument that relational matching-tosample (RMTS) effectively captures the essence of analogy, in which the relevant logical arguments are presented visually [4]. In RMTS, choice of test pair BB would be correct if the sample pair were AA, whereas choice of test pair EF would be correct if the sample pair were CD. Critically, no items in the correct test pair physically match items in the sample pair, thus demanding that only relational sameness or differentness is available to support accurate choice responding. Initial evidence suggested that only humans and apes can successfully learn RMTS with pairs of sample and test items [4–7]; however, monkeys have subsequently done so [8–12]. Here, we report that crows too exhibit relational matching behavior. Even more importantly, crows spontaneously display relational responding without ever having been trained on RMTS; they had only been trained on identity matching-to-sample (IMTS). Such robust and uninstructed relational matching behavior represents the most convincing evidence yet of analogical reasoning in a nonprimate species, as apes alone [7] have spontaneously exhibited RMTS behavior after only IMTS training.


Abstract. We use the 3-D FinROSE chemistry transport model (CTM) and Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) observations to study connections between atmospheric dynamics and middle atmospheric NO x (NO x = NO + NO 2 ) distribution. Two cases are considered in the northern polar regions: (1) descent of mesospheric NO x in February–March 2009 after a major sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) and, for comparison, (2) early 2007 when no NO x descent occurred. The model uses the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operational data for winds and temperature, and we force NO x at the model upper altitude boundary (80 km) with ACE-FTS observations. We then compare the model results with ACE-FTS observations at lower altitudes. For the periods studied, geomagnetic indices are low, which indicates absence of local NO x production by particle precipitation. This gives us a good opportunity to study effects of atmospheric transport on polar NO x . The model results show no NO x descent in 2007, in agreement with ACE-FTS. In contrast, a large amount of NO x descends in February–March 2009 from the upper to lower mesosphere at latitudes larger than 60° N, i.e. inside the polar vortex. Both observations and model results suggest NO x increases of 150–200 ppb (i.e. by factor of 50) at 65 km due to the descent. However, the model underestimates the amount of NO x around 55 km by 40–60 ppb. According to the model results, chemical loss of NO x is insignificant during the descent period, i.e. polar NO x is mainly controlled by dynamics. The descent is terminated and the polar NO x amounts return to pre-descent levels in mid-March, when the polar vortex breaks. The break-up prevents the descending NO x from reaching the upper stratosphere, where it could participate in catalytic ozone destruction. Both ACE-FTS observations and FinROSE show a decrease of ozone of 20–30 % at 30–50 km from mid-February to mid-March. In the model, these ozone changes are not related to the descent but are due to solar activation of halogen and NO x chemistry.


The ocean contains mass of clean and renewable energy in many types, the wave energy is one of them. Though the wave energy is wildly distributed, its low quality needs the devices with special design to capture the energy efficiency. Shanghai Ocean University has proposed an impeller wheel wave energy generator. To ensure its efficiency, the impeller CFD analysis is required. In this article, the relationship of single grade impeller and distance of double grades was simulated and discussed. And finally find out the most appropriate design parameters.


Mechanisms and consequences of sediment resuspension are well studied in coastal environments, but the associated resuspension of micro-organisms is poorly understood. Using an in situ flume, and by sampling the benthic boundary-layer during tidal cycles, we measured resuspension of protists and sediment at a subtidal, sandy site in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, USA, and compared it to previous studies at a silty site in the bay with similar current magnitude. At the sandy site, where the bottom shear stress typically is greater on flooding than on ebbing tides, resuspension occurred only with the flooding current, whereas at the silty site, where the bottom stress is relatively similar on flooding and ebbing tides, resuspension occurred during both flood and ebb. For sediment and most protistan taxa at the sandy site, erosion thresholds were higher and the total material resuspended in strong flow was lower than at the silty site. At both sites, organic-rich, flocculent surficial sediment resuspended in weak flow, but the composition of the protistan community associated with it differed. At the sandy site it included heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNan), euglenoid flagellates, oligotrich ciliates, and scuticociliates, whereas at the silty site it included HNan, oligotrich ciliates, and the diatom Navicula distans. Differences in the resuspension thresholds of ciliate groups between sites were due largely to differences in taxonomic composition, whereas differences for diatoms were linked to sediment dynamics. At both sites, protistan taxa resuspended in sequence as flow accelerated, implying that the assemblage of species exchanged between benthic and planktonic communities depends on the maximal bottom stress. At the silty site, however, the composition of this group should be more sensitive to variations in tidal strength (e.g. during the spring-neap cycle) than at the sandy site. Resuspension of protists may have strong impacts on microbial food-web ecology in the water column and sediments by linking the communities and by creating strong fluctuations of cell concentrations (measured up to 24x in the boundary-layer in the case of oligotrichs). Tidal resuspension of protists is common in the subtidal of Buzzards Bay, but its dynamics depend on local sediment properties, hydrography, and taxonomic composition.


Bacterial amidases are essential to split the shared envelope of adjunct daughter cells to allow cell separation. Their activity needs to be precisely controlled to prevent cell lysis. In Escherichia coli, amidase activity is controlled by three regulatory proteins NlpD, EnvC and ActS. However, recent studies linked the outer membrane lipoprotein DolP (formerly YraP) as a potential upstream regulator of NlpD. In this study we explored this link in further detail. To our surprise DolP did not modulate amidase activity in vitro and was unable to interact with NlpD in pull-down and MST (MicroScale Thermophoresis) assays. Next, we excluded the hypothesis that ΔdolP phenocopied ΔnlpD in a range of envelope stresses. However, morphological analysis of double deletion mutants of amidases (AmiA, AmiB AmiC) and amidase regulators with dolP revealed that ΔamiAΔdolP and ΔenvCΔdolP mutants display longer chain length compared to their parental strains indicating a role for DolP in cell division. Overall, we present evidence that DolP does not affect NlpD function in vitro, implying that DolP is not an upstream regulator of NlpD. However, DolP may impact daughter cell separation by interacting directly with AmiA or AmiC, or by a yet undiscovered mechanism.


Function, aesthetics, strength, durability and economic criteria are kept at the forefront in building design. But when fire safety is concerned, due to not enough understanding of the seriousness of fire safety and lack of sufficient knowledge of architects and engineer, provisions of regulation cannot reflect to building design. How the measures architects and engineers take on the hospitals such as required special fire safety measures and regulations and what level at which they apply regulations is one of the objectives of the study. In addition, intended to be implemented through the clinical portion of the building by identification of problems that arose in the history of fire, is the purpose of the study. Deficiencies of clinics have been identified in in two stages. In the first stage determined that the hospital is appropriate to the fire regulations or not. In the second stage interviews had been made with serving staff, doctor, nurse, hospital management, patient and their relatives about recent hospital fire to determinate the defiance and proposals have been in light of the obtained information. Application this is made believed to be an example to other hospitals in the process to ensure the fire safety of the clinic.


Tourist business is considered to be the global socio-economic phenomenon of the modern world, society. Half a billion of tourists, vacationers, travelers spend more than one-third of a trillion dollars on trips. The relevance of the study of innovation processes of the governance management, the policy of maintenance of company's strategies – the mission of the tourist business is dictated by practical and scientific considerations. In practical terms, the rapidly emerging industry of tourism business, using the obvious, lying on the surface the reserves of development require the latest momentum in the process of transformation and change, in search of innovation to justify their position in the competition. Especially big risks take on the organization, realizing the strategic guidelines. Russian tourist industry, forming its own way, needs a generalization of accumulated experience in the formation of a unified policy of innovation management and its application. This article contains the information about the directions of formation of innovative activity in the sphere of tourism services and in the literate application of it in the enterprises of this industry. Also it informs the main of innovative technologies of the governance management, its content, application and effectiveness. Keywords : innovation, tourism, management, governance, globalization, competitiveness and profits JEL Classifications : M31, O35, M14, O32


Rationale & Objective
                  Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disproportionately affects people with chronic diseases such as chronic kidney disease (CKD). We assessed the incidence and outcomes of COVID-19 in people with CKD.

                  Study Design
                  Systematic review and meta-analysis by searching MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PubMed through February 2021.

                  Setting & Study Populations
                  People with CKD with or without COVID-19.

                  Selection Criteria for Studies
                  Cohort and case-control studies.

                  Data Extraction
                  Incidence of COVID-19, death, respiratory failure, dyspnea, recovery, intensive care admission, hospital admission, need for supplemental oxygen, hospital discharge, sepsis, short-term dialysis, acute kidney injury, and fatigue.

                  Analytical Approach
                  Random-effects meta-analysis and evidence certainty adjudicated using an adapted version of GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation).

                  Results
                  348 studies (382,407 participants with COVID-19 and CKD; 1,139,979 total participants with CKD) were included. Based on low-certainty evidence, the incidence of COVID-19 was higher in people with CKD treated with dialysis (105 per 10,000 person-weeks; 95% CI, 91-120; 95% prediction interval [PrI], 25-235; 59 studies; 468,233 participants) than CKD not requiring kidney replacement therapy (16 per 10,000 person-weeks; 95% CI, 4-33; 95% PrI, 0-92; 5 studies; 70,683 participants) and kidney or pancreas-kidney transplant recipients (23 per 10,000 person-weeks; 95% CI, 18-30; 95% PrI, 2-67; 29 studies; 120,281 participants). Based on low-certainty evidence, the incidence of death in people with CKD and COVID-19 was 32 per 1000 person-weeks (95% CI, 30-35; 95% PrI, 4-81; 229 studies; 70,922 participants), which may be higher compared to people with CKD without COVID-19 (incidence rate ratio, 10.26; 95% CI, 6.78-15.53; 95% PrI, 2.62-40.15; 4 studies; 18,347 participants).

                  Limitations
                  Analyses were generally based on low-certainty evidence. Few studies reported outcomes in people with CKD without COVID-19 to calculate the excess risk attributable to COVID-19 and potential confounders were not adjusted for in most studies.

                  Conclusions
                  The incidence of COVID-19 may be higher in people receiving maintenance dialysis compared to those with CKD not requiring kidney replacement therapy or those who are kidney or pancreas-kidney transplant recipients. People with CKD and COVID-19 may have a higher incidence of death than people with CKD without COVID-19.


Practice resulting in successful blended learning:

A recognized need to ensure equity and ready access to health services through well-trained health staff led to the design of a performance-based upgrading program implemented in 23 countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America. The main objective was to prepare laboratory managers to function effectively and efficiently within in the dynamic of the Caribbean environment. Important challenges included bringing together 23 sovereign territories, speaking four different languages, all having different beliefs and cultures while establishing basic competencies as a means of standardizing and harmonizing the regional training effort.

The focus was on action learning: reinforcing and extending the existing knowledge and skills through a blended learning approach. Learning via distance education was new for almost all of the 56 students. The course participants came together occasionally, but depended heavily on written training materials which included assignments to be sent in, discussions, and telephone tutoring support.

This blended approach worked very well, not only resulting in a number of competent health managers, but also in preparing staff that can take on an important role in the further development of training in health-services using distance education as is now being implemented in the region.


The general objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of the Open
Performance Review and Appraisal System of Public primary school teachers. The
study was conducted in Mvomero District. Specifically, the study sought to:
examine the effect of the levels of understanding of appraisal system by supervisors
and supervisees in the implementation of OPRAS; assess teachers' perceptions on
the implementation of the OPRAS as required by the Management; assess the
usefulness of OPRAS in decision making regarding transfers, promotions and
demotions and to find out the challenges affecting the implementation of OPRAS to
public primary school teachers in Mvomero District. A study was descriptive
whereby both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis approaches
were employed. Respondents comprised of 20 supervisors and 120 supervisees
making a total of 140. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS and excel sheet. The
study revealed that OPRAS implementation to Public primary school teachers in
Mvomero District was ineffective. Low level of understanding of appraisal system
by supervisors and supervisee, negative teachers' perceptions on OPRAS
implementation, failure to use the evaluation feedback by supervisors in decision
making, contributed to ineffective implementation of OPRAS. In view of above
findings it is recommended that level of understanding of appraisal system by
supervisors and supervisee and teachers' perception on OPRAS should be increased
through training and the OPRAS evaluation feedback should be used in managerial
decision making to motivate teachers to be accountable on their work.


Adrenalin is the single life-saving therapy known in the treatment of anaphylaxis. Therefore, all the guidelines recommend prescription of adrenalin autoinjectors to all patients who have a risk of recurrence of anaphylaxis. This brings not only increase in the use of adrenalin autoinjectors but also errors with its application. In the present review, development process and ideal features of adrenalin autoinjectors; the effects of design of autoinjectors on its proper use, and current progressions in the autoinjector technology are discussed in the light of published reports.


The article is focused on initial teacher training and illustrates the historical features and the institutional and political background that should be considered in order to understand how initial teacher education and training has developed. To design policies which allow to educate and train teachers is an incredible challenge. In today's context, with the undergoing economic and social changes, high-quality schooling is more important than ever. Teacher education is essential since teacher quality is more and more being identified as decisive to student outcomes. It is now acknowledged that teachers are the school variable that influences the most student achievement (OECD, 2005). To teach is a complex and intellectual work, one that cannot be accomplished without the adequate preparation. Teacher education not only ensures that teachers are – and remain competent, but it also allows to assure that they stay motivated (Eurydice, 2004). Research shows that the effective way to increase educational quality is to modify initial teacher education and recruitment, and to develop the means to train teachers that are already in-service; indeed, teacher education has a significant impact on teachers' behaviors and teaching skills, and on the student outcomes. A complete teacher education combines strong subject-matter and pedagogical knowledge, the ability to collaborate with different actors (students/colleagues/administrators), and the capability to continue developing these skills and to understand the indepth context of the schools in which they teach.


The current study aimed to investigate the effects of Cromolyn Sodium (CS) on proinflammatory cytokines in Paraquat (PQ)-induced lung damage in rat. Animals were randomly divided into 5 groups. Group 1 and 2 received nebulized vehicle and CS (8 mg/kg) for 3 consecutive weeks, respectively. Group 3 was treated with single oral dose of PQ (40 mg/kg). Groups 4 and 5 were PQ groups which received nebulized CS (6 and 8 mg/kg/day, respectively) from 1 week before to 2 weeks after PQ administration. Finally, the animals were scarified and the changes of hydroxyproline (HP) and histology were evaluated in lung tissue. In addition, IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-8 levels were determined in serum samples. The results showed that lung HP level as well as IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-8 were significantly lower in the CS treated rats as compared to PQ group. The best response, however, was observed with the 8 mg/kg of CS as confirmed by histology findings. This study suggests that CS may prevent progression of PQ-induced lung damage by decreasing of inflammatory cytokines.


In this paper, the level-set evolution is exploited in the design of a novel evolutionary algorithm (EA) for global optimization. An application of Latin squares leads to a new and effective crossover operator. This crossover operator can generate a set of uniformly scattered offspring around their parents, has the ability to search locally, and can explore the search space efficiently. To compute a globally optimal solution, the level set of the objective function is successively evolved by crossover and mutation operators so that it gradually approaches the globally optimal solution set. As a result, the level set can be efficiently improved. Based on these skills, a new EA is developed to solve a global optimization problem by successively evolving the level set of the objective function such that it becomes smaller and smaller until all of its points are optimal solutions. Furthermore, we can prove that the proposed algorithm converges to a global optimizer with probability one. Numerical simulations are conducted for 20 standard test functions. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with that of eight EAs that have been published recently and the Monte Carlo implementation of the mean-value-level-set method. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm is effective and efficient.


Many social interactions happen indirectly via modifications of environmental variables, e.g. through the depletion of renewable resources or the secretion of functional compounds. Here, we derive the selection gradient on a quantitative trait affecting the dynamics of such environmental variables that feedback on reproduction and survival in a patch-structured population that is finite, of constant size, and subject to isolation by distance. Our analysis shows that the selection gradient depends on how a focal individual influences the fitness of all future individuals in the population through modifications of the environmental variables they experience, weighted by the neutral relatedness between recipients and the focal. The evolutionarily relevant trait-driven environmental modifications are formalized as the extended phenotypic effects of an individual, which quantify how a trait change in the individual in the present affects the environmental variables in all patches at all future times. When the trait affects reproduction and survival through some payoff function, the selection gradient can be expressed in terms of extended phenotypic effects weighted by scaled-relatedness coefficients. We show how to compute extended phenotypic effects, relatedness, and scaled-relatedness coefficients using Fourier analysis, allowing us to investigate a broad class of environmentally mediated social interactions in a tractable way. We illustrate our approach by studying the evolution of a trait controlling the costly production of some lasting commons (e.g. a common-pool resource or a toxic compound) that can diffuse in space. We show that whether selection favours environmentally mediated altruism or spite depends on the spatial correlation between an individual's lineage and the commons originating from its patch. The sign of this correlation depends on interactions between dispersal patterns and the commons' renewal dynamics. More broadly, we suggest that selection can favour a wide range of social behaviours when these are mediated in space and time through environmental feedback.


In order to reduce the rate of human-induced biodiversity loss of wild species, it has become increasingly important to stem this loss on private and tribal lands and to find effective policies to do this. Some writers believe that granting landholders commercial property rights in wildlife might be effective in dealing with this matter and result in the sustainable use of wildlife. This paper explores this view using economic theory. In doing so, it takes into account the total economic valuation concept. While granting of commercial property rights is found to be effective for conserving some species, it is predicted to be a complete failure as a means of conserving other species. In addition, particular attention is given to the economics of the utilisation and conservation of non-captive fugitive (or mobile) wildlife. The economic theory involved is contrasted and compared with that for the exploitation of open-access resources.


Cascaded Integrated Comb (CIC) filters are mainly used as low pass filter in rate converter module in a multi rate signal processing based systems. Hardware implementation of CIC filter is very efficient as it does not require any multiplier and uses very less memory. The paper presents the FPGA implementation of modified Cascaded Integrated Comb (CIC) filter for satellite communication system. The realized modified filter offers more stop band attenuation than conventional CIC filter. A look up table is developed for calculation of parameters of modified CIC filter, depending on the attenuation requirements. Paper highlighted the design and hardware realization of modified CIC filter. The filter is realized on Xilinx platform. Along with the performance, comparison results of developed filter with conventional CIC filter is also presented. The real time results verified that modified CIC filter has more stop band attenuation and less pass band droop.


It has been hypothesized recently that core collapse supernovae are triggered by mildly relativistic jets following observations of radio properties of these explosions. Association of a jet, similar to a gamma-ray burst jet but only slower, allows shock acceleration of particles to high energy and non-thermal neutrino emission from a supernova. Detection of these high energy neutrinos in upcoming kilometer scale Cherenkov detectors may be the only direct way to probe inside these astrophysical phenomena as electromagnetic radiation is thermal and contains little information. Calculation of high energy neutrino signal from a simple and slow jet model buried inside the pre-supernova star is reviewed here. The detection prospect of these neutrinos in water or ice detector is also discussed in this brief review. Jetted core collapse supernovae in nearby galaxies may provide the strongest high energy neutrino signal from point sources.


In rangeland revegetation, selection of forages palatable to the primary grazer is crucial Five tame mule deer were used in the spring and fall to determine forage preferences for 16 grasses commonly found on seeded foothill rangelands. Trials were conducted within a planted enclosure. Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) was the most preferred species in spring, and also preferred in fall. Other preferred species included 'Paiute' orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.), 'Luna' pubescent wheatgrass (Agropyron trichophorum link.), and fairway wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum [L.] Gaertn). The least preferred grasses were three species of wildrye, 'Vinall' and 'Boisoisky' Russian wildrye (Psathyrostachys juncea Fisch.) and 'Magnar' basin wildrye (Elymus cinereus Scrib. and Merr.). Results showed a wide range of preferences for grasses.


Advances in deep learning and neural networks have resulted in the rapid development of hardware accelerators that support them. A large majority of ASIC accelerators, however, target a single hardware design point to accelerate the main computational kernels of deep neural networks such as convolutions or matrix multiplication. On the other hand, the spectrum of use-cases for neural network accelerators, ranging from edge devices to cloud, presents a prime opportunity for agile hardware design and generator methodologies. We present Gemmini -- an open source and agile systolic array generator enabling systematic evaluations of deep-learning architectures. Gemmini generates a custom ASIC accelerator for matrix multiplication based on a systolic array architecture, complete with additional functions for neural network inference. Gemmini runs with the RISC-V ISA, and is integrated with the Rocket Chip System-on-Chip generator ecosystem, including Rocket in-order cores and BOOM out-of-order cores. Through an elaborate design space exploration case study, this work demonstrates the selection processes of various parameters for the use-case of inference on edge devices. Selected design points achieve two to three orders of magnitude speedup in deep neural network inference compared to the baseline execution on a host processor. Gemmini-generated accelerators were used in the fabrication of test systems-on-chip in TSMC 16nm and Intel 22FFL process technologies.


Introduction:
 Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is one of the most common genetic disease worldwide. The Acute Chest Syndrome (ACS) is a leading cause of death for SCD patients. The PRESEV1 study was set to produce a predictive score to assess the risk of an ACS development (Bartolucci et al., 2016). PRESEV2 was an international, multicenter prospective confirmatory study to validate the PRESEV score. This study aims at improving these predictions with the addition of a machine learning (ML) method.
 Patients and methods:
 Included patients follow PRESEV1 and PRESEV2 studies 'rules. The dataset thus contains 97 patients who developed an ACS episode (18.3%) against 434 patients who did not (81.7%).
 To compute the PRESEV score, we firstly used the method developed previously with the following variables as input: leukocytes, reticulocytes, hemoglobin levels and cervical spine pain. This method is based on a decision tree with fixed rules and is referred to as the decision tree method throughout this abstract. Secondly we used a ML method using a combined sampling method named SMOTEENN to balance the data and a C-Support Vector Classification (SVC) with fixed parameters to predict the score. This method produces a probability, with a threshold of 0.2, under which the patient is predicted to declare an ACS. We considered the dataset composed of PRESEV1 dataset and 80 percent of PRESEV2 with a randomly choice. The test dataset is thus composed of the remaining 20 percent of PRESEV2. This technique of random choice allowed us to use a 50-cross-validation and compute with Python an average score and a standard deviation (std). In order to allow comparison of the developed score with or without the addition of the ML method, rates were calculated by adding the weight of ACS representation in the dataset.
 Results:
 Among all parameters analyzed, the SVC method considered the following variables for calculation of the score: leukocytes, LDH, urea, reticulocytes and hemoglobin levels. A hundred and two adult patients with a severe VOC requiring hospitalization were included. Out of this pool of patients, 26 (25.5%) were predicted with a low risk of developing an ACS episode (SVC method). Sensibility and specificity were of 94.7% and 26.8%, respectfully. The negative predictive value (NPV) was of 95.8% and the positive predictive value (PPV) of 22.4%. Results are resumed in table 1. When compared to the PRESEV score (decision tree method), 44 patients out of 372 were identified with a low risk score (11.8%),
 Discussion and Conclusion:
 While the addition of a ML method did not allow the improvement of the sensibility or the NPV of the PRESEV score, it improved both the specificity and the PPV. The addition of artificial intelligence thus provides a better prediction with a higher percentage of "low-risk" patients. As highlighted in the international PRESEV study, this score could represent a useful tool for physicians in hospital settings, with limited beds. While the PRESEV score could allow a better management of "low risk" patients on one side, the identification of "high-risk" patients could also represent a serious advantage to physicians, as it could improve the feasibility of clinical trials for the prevention of this lethal complication in SCD patients.

 Bartolucci: Innovhem: Other; Novartis: Research Funding; Roche: Consultancy; Bluebird: Consultancy; Emmaus: Consultancy; Bluebird: Research Funding; Addmedica: Research Funding; AGIOS: Consultancy; Fabre Foundation: Research Funding; Novartis: Consultancy; ADDMEDICA: Consultancy; HEMANEXT: Consultancy; GBT: Consultancy.


Investments in cybersecurity are critical to the national and economic security of a nation. There is, however, a strong tendency for firms in the private sector to underinvest in cybersecurity activities. This paper reports the results of a survey designed to empirically assess whether treating cybersecurity as an important component of a firm's internal control system for financial reporting purposes serves as a driver for private sector firms to invest in cybersecurity activities. The findings, in this regard, are significantly positive. The study also shows that a firm's concern over the risk of incurring a large loss due to a cybersecurity breach and the degree the firm treats cybersecurity investments as generating a competitive advantage are drivers of the level of private sector investment in cybersecurity activities. The implications of the empirical results for designing public policies to mitigate the tendency of private sector firms to underinvest in cybersecurity are also explored.


Information Flow Control at Operating System (OS) level features interesting properties and have been an active topic of research for years. However, no implementation can work reliably if there does not exist a way to correctly and precisely track all information flows occurring in the system. The existing implementations for Linux are based on the Linux Security Modules (LSM) framework which implements hooks at specific points in code where any security mechanism may interpose a security decision in the execution. However, previous works on the verification of LSM only addressed access control and no work has raised the question of the reliability of information flow control systems built on LSM@. In this work, we present a compiler-assisted and reproducible static analysis on the Linux kernel to verify that the LSM hooks are correctly placed with respect to operations generating information flows so that LSM-based information flow monitors can properly track all information flows. Our results highlight flaws in LSM that we propose to solve, thus improving the suitability of this framework for the implementation of information flow monitors.


In the course of preparing muscular and neurovascular specimen of human right arm a combination of several rare anatomic variants was discovered which, to the authors opinion, are worth attention. 1. Formation of the median nerve at the border between middle and inferior thirds of brachium. 2. Variant of n. musculocutaneus origination from the lateral fascicle of plexus brachialis by several branches. 3. Variant of n. antebrachii cutaneous lateralis origination from the lateral fascicle by two branches. 4. Radial artery branching from humeral artery at the level of middle third of the brachium. 5. Three heads were discovered in m. biceps brachii. The variants described are interesting from scientific and clinical interest: they contribute to general conception of human anatomy and clinical manifestations of injuries of brachial nerves and arteries.


The goal of my multi-study research program has been to learn how to engage all students in learning science. Most learning theories applied to science pedagogy take either a psychological or a sociocultural perspective and hence ignore either sociocultural or motivational factors when considering classroom learning. Based on my own research studies, as well as on a complex of theories from a range of disciplines, I propose including psychological, psychosocial and sociocultural perspectives in a more holistic perspective-a biosocial system perspective. Because it allows for the interdependence of the various levels of the ecological system in which learning takes place, I believe it has considerable potential to advance knowledge about teaching and learning. This biosocial system perspective focuses in particular on how the mind is affected both by the way the embodied human brain functions and by its sociocultural context. As applied to science pedagogy, it highlights neglected subconscious processes involved in interpersonal communication at both levels of activity. On the one hand, it accords a significant role in learning to intuitive processes and feelings, and interpersonal relationships, and on the other hand, addresses 'the potentially problematic nature of classroom discourse in science. Such a perspective grew as I carried out several research studies in science education in Brisbane, Australia, including a study that explored ways of helping disadvantaged Year 8 students engage in learning science. (Contains 68 references.) (Author) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document Improving engagement in science NARST, Philadelphia, PA, 2003 Improving Engagement in Science: A Biosocial System Perspective


A three dimensional simulation of short fatigue crack propagation in a polycrystalline microstructure using a crystal plasticity finite element model is carried out. The experimental microstructure which contains several hundreds grains, was obtained via diffraction contrast tomography. A step‐by‐step short fatigue crack growth model based on capturing the plastic activity at the crack tip is used. Technical details are given and discussed in light of the compromise needed to perform such demanding calculations. The crack propagates through several grains and depicts some of the characteristic short crack features observed experimentally in the literature.


This paper presents a secondary analysis of supporting documents from the UN Study on Violence against Children. The purpose of the analysis is to identify sport-related material in the documents, and gaps in research knowledge about the role of sport in both preventing and facilitating violence against children. This is a complementary document to the IRC study 'Protecting Children from Violence in Sport: A review with a focus on industrialized countries', developed by the same research team. Content analysis was undertaken on material archived for the UN Study, including submissions by UN agencies and non-governmental organizations on research relating to violence against children, and on the country surveys that had been returned by governments as part of the UN Study consultation. A list of search terms was established and each selected text or survey was searched against them. On the basis of these analyses, several key conclusions emerged. First, there is a marked absence of empirical data about the forms, prevalence and incidence of violence to children in sport and about the best mechanisms for preventing or resolving such problems. Second, there is a lack of coordination between governments and sport NGOs on the subject of violence against children in sport, and there appears to be no evidence of a functional link between the agencies responsible for sport for development and those responsible for prevention of violence to children. The findings point to the need to do more, targeted research on violence against children in sport and to assess the efficacy of sport as a tool of violence prevention. Since countries approach the matter of violence to children in many different ways, the establishment of international standards for safeguarding children and for violence prevention in sport is recommended.


This paper proposes a genetic-algorithm-based method for selecting a small number of significant fuzzy if-then rules to construct a compact fuzzy classification system with high classification power. The rule selection problem is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem with two objectives: to maximize the number of correctly classified patterns and to minimize the number of fuzzy if-then rules. Genetic algorithms are applied to this problem. A set of fuzzy if-then rules is coded into a string and treated as an individual in genetic algorithms. The fitness of each individual is specified by the two objectives in the combinatorial optimization problem. The performance of the proposed method for training data and test data is examined by computer simulations on the iris data of Fisher. >


Accounting technologies have dominated public sector management reforms and accrual based financial reporting has been significant amongst these technologies. This paper examines the process of change in the New South Wales Government's early adoption of accrual based financial reporting. The study's main objective is to present a history that identifies the agents of change promoting and facilitating an early adoption of public sector accrual accounting. The main primary data source for this research was interviews with three categories of participants who had some involvement in the decision that dates back to the late 1980s. Historical research methods were used within an analytical framework provided by a proposed variant of Luder's (1994) Contingency Model. The paper finds that a revised Contingency Model is useful as a framework and that the major role played by management consultants was a significant aspect of the case study.


Postharvest diseases of fruits and grapes are caused by fungi and bacteria and the losses in this step increase several folds than in the field. In the case of the grapes, most damages are due to the presence of filamentous fungi belonging to species like Botrytis sp., Penicillium sp. or Aspergillus sp. Several non-chemical treatments have been proposed for fungal decay control, including acetic acid. Our experiments have targeted the potential inhibitory effect of different tea sourced Kombucha crude extracts on the most common moulds of the grapes in pre and postharvest steps. Kombucha is known mainly as a consortium (SCOBY symbiotic acetic/lactic bacteria and yeast). Because of the presence of acetic bacteria the final content in acetic acid of Kombucha suspensions vary between 8.5 and 17 g/l. Kombucha tea suspension has been prepared starting from three different source of tea plants, respectively green tea, green tea with Melissa officinalis L. and oolong tea. The most significant inhibition has been registered in the case of Botrytis cinerea (38 -55%), less significant on Penicillium expansum (4-8%) and not significant on Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus carbonarius. It is proposed further to investigate the inhibition of Kombucha extracts, in vivo, on artificially infected grape berries with Botrytis cinerea and to validate the in vitro results.


Mandatory access control (MAC) enforcement is becoming available for commercial environments. For example, Linux 2.6 includes the Linux security modules (LSM) framework that enables the enforcement of MAC policies (e.g., type enforcement or multi-level security) for individual systems. While this is a start, we envision that MAC enforcement should span multiple machines. The goal is to be able to control interaction between applications on different machines based on MAC policy. In this paper, we describe a recent extension of the LSM framework that enables labeled network communication via IPsec that is now available in mainline Linux as of version 2.6.16. This functionality enables machines to control communication with processes on other machines based on the security label assigned to an IPsec security association. We outline a security architecture based on labeled IPsec to enable distributed MAC authorization. In particular, we examine the construction of a xinetd service that uses labeled IPsec to limit client access on Linux 2.6.16 systems. We also discuss the application of labeled IPsec to distributed storage and virtual machine access control


Like so many thousands of tourists before me my visit experience of Indonesia was on a short visit to Bali. I have since visited many other regions of Indonesia, but the "Island of the Gods" still has a strong attraction. Thus it was that when the idea came to me that the Dutch conquest of Bali may be a good topic for an Honours thesis I hastened to prepare for another journey to the island. I planned to see for myself some of the places where important events have occurred. I was, however, not too surprized to discover that many Balinese seemed quite indifferent to their history. One young man said to me "It's only you westerners who are interested in history. We Balinese are interested in the present." The history of the Dutch conquest of Bali, however, is a fascinating story, stretching over centuries, and I was pleased to find that the young man's sentiments were not shared by all the people I met. In Singaraja the librarians in the Gedung Kirtya and the staff of the adjacent tourist office were interested in the history of the Dutch occupation of their island and knowledgeable of the valiant Balinese attempts to prevent it happening. At Jagaraga, the site of a great Dutch defeat, the name of the Balinese leader Gusti Jelantik is still mentioned with pride. At the Goa Lawah near Kusambe the death of the Dutch General Michiels at the hands of the Balinese defenders seemed to be common knowledge. The Balinese have also commemorated major events such as the Puputan Badung and the Puputan Klungkung by erecting large public monuments. Although some Balinese claim to have little interest in their past it is clear that this is not a majority view. The Dutch are now long gone from Bali, but the brave attempts of many Balinese who attempted to stop the Dutch occupation of their island is not forgotten.


Abstract : Both theoretical and numerical modeling studies of the current system off western and southern Australia are conducted to characterize the features of the current system, their temporal variability, and their impact on the sound speed structure. The theoretical study examines why boundary current separation occurs off Cape Leeuwin creating an area of enhanced eddy generation. It is shown that the beta effect, vortex stretching, and streamline curvature all act to decelerate the current and to thus enhance separation. The current is then turned left under the influence of Coriolis force and subsequently forms meanders which then detach from the current as eddies. The model results, using the Princeton Ocean Model (POM), reproduce the main features of the current system. They also provide insight into the generation of the main features. In particular, the current direction is caused by the thermohaline gradient, while topography is responsible for the location of the current along the shelf break. Current speed results from a combination of thermohaline gradient, the opposing wind, and topography, while meanders and eddies result from the opposition of the thermohaline and wind forcing. The gyre and upwelling in the Great Australian Bight are caused by the change in wind direction in summer. Daily wind experiments are shown to capture the seasonal variability of the current system with the Leeuwin Current along the western coast stronger in winter than in summer and mesoscale activity highest in summer. Seasonal and interannual variability are highlighted with the gyre and upwelling in the bight and along Kangaroo Island appearing intermittently but always in summer. Lastly mesoscale features in the current system, advection of water by the surface current and undercurrent, eddies, and upwelling are all shown to cause significant changes in sound speed which can adversely affect sonar operations.


Leaders at the 2010 nuclear security summit agreed on the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material in four years. This goal implied that many countries would change their nuclear security policies. But the factors that drive changes in nuclear security policies, and that constrain those changes, are not well understood. We conducted a survey of selected nuclear security experts in countries with nuclear weapons, highly enriched uranium (HEU), or separated plutonium, to explore this issue. The survey included: (a) perceptions of which threats are credible; (b) approaches to nuclear security based on a design basis threat (DBT); (c) changes in nuclear security policy in the last 15 years; (d) factors causing and constraining changes in nuclear security policy; and (e) policy on how much information to release about nuclear security. This paper describes the survey, its results, and implications for next steps to strengthen global nuclear security.


BACKGROUND
Variation in susceptibility to cadmium (Cd) toxicity may partly be due to differences in Cd toxicokinetics. Experimental studies indicate that zinc (Zn) homeostasis proteins transport Cd.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the potential effect of variation in Zn-transporter genes (SLC39A8 and SLC39A14) on Cd concentrations in blood and urine.

METHODS
We studied women from the Argentinean Andes [median urinary Cd concentration (U-Cd) = 0.24 μg L(-1); erythrocyte Cd (Ery-Cd) = 0.75 μg L(-1) (n = 172)] and from rural Bangladesh [U-Cd = 0.54 μg L(-1) (n = 359), Ery-Cd = 1.1 μg L(-1) (n = 400)]. Polymorphisms (n = 36) were genotyped with Sequenom. Gene expression was measured in whole blood with Illumina DirectHyb HumanHT-12 v4.0.

RESULTS
Polymorphisms in SLC39A8 and SLC39A14 were associated with Ery-Cd concentrations in the Andean population. For SLC39A14, women carrying GT or TT genotypes of rs4872479 had 1.25 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.07-1.46] times higher Ery-Cd than women carrying GG. Also, women carrying AG or AA of rs870215 had 1.17 (CI 1.01-1.32) times higher Ery-Cd than those carrying GG. For SLC39A8, women carrying AG or GG of rs10014145 had 1.18 (CI 1.03-1.35) times higher Ery-Cd than those with AA, and carriers of CA or AA of rs233804 showed 1.22 (CI 1.04-1.42) times higher Ery-Cd than CC. The Bangladeshi population had similar, but statistically non-significant associations between some of these SNPs and Ery-Cd. In the Andean population, the genotypes of SLC39A14 rs4872479 and rs870215 associated with lower Ery-Cd showed positive correlations with plasma-Zn (P-Zn) and SLC39A14 expression.

CONCLUSIONS
Polymorphisms in SLC39A14 and SLC39A8 seemed to affect blood Cd concentrations, for SLC39A14 this effect may occur via differential gene expression.


In current archaeological research the failure to find common ground between world-systems theory believers and their counterparts has resulted in a stagnation of theoretical development in regards to modeling how early state societies interacted with their neighbors. This book is an attempt to redress these issues. By shifting the theoretical focus away from questions of state evolution to state interaction, the authors develop anthropological models for understanding how ancient states interacted with one another and with societies of different scales of economic and political organization. One of their goals has been to identify a theoretical middle ground that is neither dogmatic nor dismissive. The result is an innovative approach to modeling social interaction that will be helpful in exploring the relationship between social processes that occur at different geographic scales and over different temporal durations. The scholars who participated in the SAR Advanced Seminar that resulted in this book used a particular geographic and temporal context as a case study for developing anthropological models of interaction that are cross-cultural in scope but still deal well with the idiosyncrasies of specific culture histories.


Indications: Forscreening for tuberculosis. Precautions: Usewith caution in persons with octive tuberculosis (ocnvorton of quiescent lesions is rore): ond in patients with known allergy to acacia. Reactivity ro the test may be suppressed in those receiving corticosteroids or immunosuppressive agents, or those wha have recently been vaccinated with live virus vaccine such as measles. With a positive reaction further diagnostic procedures must be considered (i.e.. chest x-ray microbiologic examinations of sputum and other specimens, confirmation of positive tine test by Mantoux method). Adverse Reactions: Vesiculation, ulceration, or necrosis may appear at test site in highly sensitive persons. Pain, pruritus and discomfort at test site may be relieved by cold packs or by topical glucocorticoid ointment or cream. Any transient bleeding at puncture site isnot significant. ""1LEDERLE LABORATORIES, A Division of American Cyanamid Company Pearl River, New York 10965 445-8 Book Reviews


Federated learning is an approach to distributed machine learning where a global model is learned by aggregating models that have been trained locally on data-generating clients. Contrary to centralized optimization, clients can be very large in number and face challenges of data and network heterogeneity. Examples of clients include smartphones and connected vehicles, which highlights the practical relevance of federated learning. We benchmark three federated learning algorithms and compare their performance against a centralized approach where data resides on the server. The algorithms Federated Averaging (FedAvg), Federated Stochastic Variance Reduced Gradient, and CO-OP are evaluated on the MNIST dataset, using both i.i.d. and non-i.i.d. partitionings of the data. Our results show that FedAvg achieves the highest accuracy among the federated algorithms, regardless of how data was partitioned. Our comparison between FedAvg and centralized learning shows that they are practically equivalent when i.i.d. data is used. However, the centralized approach outperforms FedAvg with non-i.i.d. data.


This thesis aims to answer the question of how South Park uses music to effectively satirise Hell. With the analyses of animated materials and its music being largely reduced to the more mainstream areas of study such as Disney and Warner Brothers, less attention has been given to the more 'low brow' animated shows such as South Park. The goal for this thesis aims to fill in the academic gap in the music of South Park as well as music's role in satirical animation. This is supported by providing previously published insights into the underlying semiotic links between the music and cinematics within the animated show. With careful examination of five primary case studies and supplementary episodes selected for their dual inclusion of negative eschatological audio-visual elements, conclusions were drawn to support that music played a significant role in the cinematic satirization of South Park.


Current efforts to provide distinct levels of quality-of-service in the Internet are concentrated on the differentiated services (DS) approach. In order to investigate the gain for users of those differentiated services, early experiences with implementations with respect to real applications are needed. Simulation models are often not sufficient if a judgement of the behavior under realistic traffic scenarios is desired. Because implementing new functionality into dedicated router hardware is difficult and time-consuming, we focused on a software implementation for standard PC hardware. In this paper we present an implementation of differentiated services functions for a PC-based router running under the Linux operating system. Two per-hop forwarding behaviors for assured service and premium service were realized. Components for traffic conditioning such as traffic meter, token bucket, leaky bucket and traffic shaper were implemented as well as an efficient traffic classificator and queueing disciplines. We describe the design and implementation issues of these components, which were validated in detail by measurements. Evaluation of these measurements shows that the proposed forwarding behaviors work well for boundary and interior routers. But, it also becomes apparent that standard applications using short-lived TCP connections cannot always exploit the requested service completely whereas rate-controlled sending applications are able to take full advantage of it. Furthermore, it is planned to release the implementation to the public for research purposes.


Doe productivity indices are important in evaluating rabbit population since it influences the efficiency and profitability of rabbit production for small-holders and commercial rabbit production. Rabbits for this study were obtained from heterogeneous populations reared in south-western Nigeria, and a total of fifty-six adult rabbits (6 months old) comprising of 49 does and 7 sires were randomly allocated into sire families. Reproductive data were taken from each breeding doe and recorded for each sire family. The reproductive data obtained include annual productivity indices for each doe and sire family at birth, weaning and at week 12 post-partum. The total number of kits delivered at each kindling were recorded as the litter size at birth , the numbers weaned/doe/year were derived by multiplying the average litter size at weaning by number of litters/doe/year. The numbers of fryers/doe/year were obtained by multiplying average number weaned/doe by number of litters/doe/year multiplied by post weaning survival. Annual fryer yield (kg)/doe/year were obtained by multiplying total number of fryers/doe/year with live market weight (kg). Kilogram meat/doe/year were derived from the product of annual fryer yield (kg)/doe/year and the dressing percentage (0.55). Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed using SAS® 2004. Results showed that, the long kindling interval (93 to 115 days ) between two consecutive litters affected overall numerical doe productivity with a range of 6 to 27, 3 to 21 and 3 to 18 kits per doe/year at kindling, weaning and 12th week of age respectively. Annual fryer yield/doe/year was 20.24 Kg and the projected Kg meat/doe/year was 11.13 Kg. Mortality was highest in the first two weeks of life and continued to occur throughout the period of the study though at varying degrees across sire families. There was significant sire effect (P<0.05) in litter size at weaning and kindling- interval in the sire families. It was concluded that, the major factors affecting doe productivity indices in this population were low litter size at birth, long kindling interval and pre-weaning mortality. Thus, future genetic improvement programmes targeted towards productivity for this rabbit population must consider selection for traits which include increased litter size at birth, short kindling interval and low pre-weaning mortality in the maternal lines while litter size at weaning and kindling interval must be considered for the paternal lines.


Sleep is critical for physical and mental health and peak cognitive performance (Watson et al., 2015). While main effects of genetic and environmental factors, including stress, on sleep quality are well-established, the influence of gene-environment interactions on sleep merits further study. The present research evaluated the relationship between serotonergic genetic variation, exposure to recent perceived life stress, and sleep quality outcomes among a sample of emerging adults. Given the polygenic influences underlying sleep processes, the cumulative effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in and near several serotonin system genes was examined. A genetic profile score was constructed using a sum of alleles hypothesized to confer risk for sleep disruption. Undergraduate participants provided DNA samples, wore wrist-actigraphs to record sleep-wake patterns over three nights, and completed daily diary entries for two weeks. Diaries included assessments of sleep quality and exposure to daily hassles, a form of life stress. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we evaluated the hypotheses that 1) daily hassles would be associated with poorer quality of sleep in main effect and 2) genetic profile scores would significantly moderate the relationship between hassles and sleep, such that higher genetic risk scores would predict poorer quality of sleep in the context of increased daily hassles. Findings indicated that interpersonal and non-interpersonal daily hassles did not predict self-reported or actigraph-measured sleep outcomes in main effect, and the interaction of hassles and serotonergic MLP score did not predict sleep outcomes. Results suggested that the study sample exhibited relatively healthy sleep patterns and reported relatively few hassles. The findings suggest avenues for future research, including exploration of the roles of additional forms of stress in sleep disruption.


Spatial distribution of brown trout (Salmo trutta) was studied on the Finnish coast of the northern Baltic Sea in 1998–2010 based on smolt tagging. The studied trout stocks were hatchery reared, and smolts were tagged with Carlin tags before release into the rivers. The distance between the release and recapture sites as well as location of the recapture site in relation to the release site (north, south, west, east) were analysed, taking the stock and sea age of the trout into account. The most important tag recovery areas at sea were the estuaries of the spawning rivers and coastal areas surrounding them. The natural direction of movement was along the coast line, north or south on the western coast and east or west in the Gulf of Finland. The release site and age affected migration direction. The distance of recoveries from the release sites varied for the same genetic stock released at different sites. The longest median recapture distances were recorded during the second sea year. The stocked brown trout (80%–95%) were mainly caught during their first two years in the sea before they become mature. Knowledge of spatial dispersal of sea trout is important for the management of the stocks and fisheries.


BACKGROUND Hyperuricemia is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and chronic allograft nephropathy after renal transplantation. It has recently been demonstrated that treatment of asymptomatic hyperuricemia is associated with improved patient and graft survival; although, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. The present study investigated the association of serum uric acid (SUA) and systemic arterial function after renal transplantation. MATERIAL AND METHODS In a cross-sectional study, arterial function was analyzed in 54 renal transplant recipients by means of pulse wave analysis. Different measurement techniques were combined providing data on pulse wave velocity, augmentation index, small and large artery elasticity, and total peripheral vascular resistance. RESULTS The prevalence of hyperuricemia was 87.0%, and 33.3% of renal transplant recipients received SUA lowering medication. The median SUA concentration was 7.4 mg/dL. There was no significant difference in all the aforementioned parameters in patients with a SUA <7.4 versus >7.4 mg/dL (p>0.05 each) and no significant differences between hyperuricemic patients with versus without SUA lowering medication. Linear regression analysis between SUA and both pulse wave velocity and augmentation index showed no significant association (p>0.05 each). This finding remained consistent after adjustment of data for age, time on dialysis, time since transplantation, and systolic blood (partial correlation analysis, p>0.05). CONCLUSIONS Neither the concentration of SUA nor the pharmacological treatment of hyperuricemia had measurable effects on arterial stiffness. Thus, the beneficial effects of SUA lowering treatment on patient and graft survival cannot be explained by direct effects on arterial function in the study population.