A study has been made of the distribution of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in triglycerides produced synthetically by esterification of selected mixtures of saturated and unsaturated higher fatty acids with glycerol, in order to compare the general structure of these synthetic products with that of a number of natural fats. The component glycerides of many natural fats have recently been investi gated in these laboratories, by converting all unsaturated groupings into acidic products by oxidation of the glycerides with anhydrous potassium permanganate in acetone solution ; only fully-saturated triglycerides present in the original fat are then left in the form of neutral compounds. This mode of attack leads primarily to a quantitative statement of the relative distribution of saturated and unsaturated acids in the glyceride molecules of a fat, but, if the combined fatty acids in the whole fat and in the fully-saturated portion are analysed in detail, and if oleic and linoleic acids (as is frequently the case) are the only unsaturated derivatives present, additional information as to the relative distribution of individual fatty acids can frequently be given. The general results of the observations on natural fats have been summed up in a recent communication* in which it was shown that the glyceride structure varies with the biological type of the fat. In vegetable seed fats there is a pro nounced tendency to even distribution of fatty acids throughout the glycerides; an acid ( e.g. , oleic acid), when present in subordinate amounts, tends to become linked with about 1 • 3 to 1*5 molecules of an acid which is present in larger proportions and, in consequence, as between saturated and unsaturated groups, the amount of fully-saturated glyceride present in a seed fat is, broadly, determined by the amount linked with unsaturated acids in the above favoured ratio. Thus in seed fats fully-saturated glycerides do not appear in appreciable quantity until the molecular proportion of saturated fatty acids in the total fatty acid mixture reaches about 60 per cent. In contrast to seed fats, the glycerides of vegetable pericarp fats and of animal fats such as various depot fats and milk fats are constituted on more heterogeneous lines, albeit in a


WITHIN recent years, radical surgery following intensive radiation therapy for cancer has been performed more and more frequently to extirpate residual or recurrent tumor and/or lymph nodes, the involvement of which could not be ascertained initially. This represents a laudable attempt to advance the horizons of knowledge by dynamic exploitation of currently available means. No one will deny that an element of considerable risk from the standpoint of postoperative morbidity is involved, although this risk does not constitute a logical objection to this prodigious undertaking, considering what is at stake. Nevertheless, when a definite hazard is entailed by a certain procedure with therapeutic principles at issue, a careful evaluation of its potential complications is in order. This should be done so that surgical indications and contraindications with respect to the irradiated patient may be brought into sharper focus. Obviously, if irradiation in even slight amounts predisposed to a high operative


The activities on which this report is based were financed in part by the
Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey, through the Ohio Water
Resources Center.


The many terms and legal expressions in the discourse of human rights are often unknown or misunderstood in their international context. Yet human rights have their ultimate expression in the international legal context: in international treaties, declarations, country-specific or thematic reports, decisions of administrative or quasi-judicial bodies, and court judgments, all of which employ legal terminology. The same is increasingly so in the national legal context, which looks to the international context as a source of law and legal interpretation. A Handbook of International Human Rights Terminology is a much-needed tool that provides access to the developing language of human rights and aids in full comprehension of human rights theory and issues. In this convenient handbook almost eight hundred key terms and acronyms commonly used in international and national human rights discourse are defined in non-technical language. Included are definitions of foreign language terminology, including many Latin terms. A useful appendix contains the full text of the four principal international human rights instruments that constitute the International Bill of Rights, along with an internationally accepted list of the specific substantive human rights contained in those instruments. An accessible introduction for students and newcomers to the field of human rights, this handbook will also serve as an indispensable reference for specialists.


This study examines the problem of low savings and capital accumulation as it relates to economic growth in Nigeria. Addressing some of the methodological issues, underlying these macroeconomic aggregates, as well as identifying policy implications of the linkage between savings, capital accumulation and growth in Nigeria, The study covers a period of thirty-three years starting from 1980 to 2012. The study employed savings model, investment model and Growth model. Savings model shows that investment and gross domestic product have a positive and significant effect on savings in Nigeria while, inflation has a negative and insignificant effect on savings in Nigeria. Lending rate has a positive but insignificant effect on savings. Savings has a positive and significant effect on investment in Nigeria, investment has a positive but insignificant effect on economic growth while savings has a positive and significant effect on economic growth in Nigeria. It is recommended that, Particular attention should be paid to economic and socio- cultural shocks specifically, the investment climate and policies must be put in place to curb inflation in Nigeria so as to ensure macroeconomic stability and economic development.


Observations and estimations of solar radiation at ground level deal most frequently with global horizontal irradiance (GHI) while direct irradiance is crucial notably for Concentrated Solar Technology (CST) such as solar energy conversion systems: parabolic through, solar towers, parabolic dish or concentrated photovoltaic. Several global-to-direct irradiance conversion schemes are proposed in the literature. They are obtained by regression of an empirical parametric function with global and direct irradiance measurements made at few stations over a time period. These schemes are well suited to the climatic region where they have been designed, but not likely to other climatic regions. A new method is proposed. A general shape of the relationship between the clearsky index (Kc) and the ratio of the diffuse to global irradiance (fD) is derived from literature and analysis of several data sets of ground measurements. This analytical function needs two parameters. One is defined by the case of the overcast skies; the other is changing depending on the clear-sky conditions for the location and time under concern. A clear-sky model provides the Kc and fD for the clear-sky conditions. The new method was validated against ground measurements made by BSRN ground stations located in Carpentras, Sede Boqer and Tamanrasset. It reveals itself accurate compared to other methods. Indeed, for the data sets used, the bias amounts to 0%, -9% and 10%, the root mean square deviation (RMSD) to 16%, 19% and 21% and the correlation coefficient to 0.98, 0.96 and 0.95. The proposed method is interesting because it is flexible, adaptive and does not rely on empirical parameter.


An incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics method for modeling immiscible and isothermal flow of two- and three-phase Newtonian fluids and solid particles subject to an external electric field has been developed. Continuum surface force method is used to calculate the surface tension forces on fluid-fluid interfaces. The materials are assumed to be either perfect or leaky dielectrics. Solid particles are modeled using viscous penalty method coupled with rigidity constraints. The equations are discretized using corrected derivatives and artificial particle displacement is used to ensure homogeneous particle distribution. The projection method is used to advance the governing equations of the flow and electric field in time. The components of the scheme are tested in three stages of two- and three-phase hydrodynamics, multiphase electrohydrodynamics and fluid-structure/solid interaction. The results of each stage is compared to experimental and numerical data available in literature and their validity is established. The combination of the individual elements of the numerical method is used to simulate the motion of rigid particles submerged in Newtonian fluids subject to an external electric field. The behavior of the particles are found to be in agreement with experimental and numerical observations found in the literature. This shows the applicability of the proposed incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics scheme in simulating such complex and relatively unexplored phenomena.


This paper shows an experimental testing of a small unit for combustion of solid fuels, such as charcoal and wood logs, that can provide electricity. One of the concepts is that the unit does not require qualified personnel for its operation. The unit itself is composed of two main parts. The design requires a heat producing stove and electricity producing thermoelectric generator. After the construction the unit was tested and the results show that the emission release is within the legislative requirements for emission production and environmental protection. That qualifies such unit for indoor application. Keywords—Micro-cogeneration, thermoelectric generator, biomass combustion, wood stove.


Abstract. The paper describes and discusses possibilities for soil loss estimation in the area of an arable slope using the radiocaesium method, GIS-based analysis, and very high resolution satellite imagery. The interdependences between caesium-137 activity, catchment area value, and the (sign of) profile curvature were estimated using GIS facilities. Interdependencies were estimated for four zones of an agricultural field located in the basin of the Sukhaya Orlitsa River in the Oryol district of the Oryol region (central part of European Russia). The zones were delineated according to differences of surface structure. Special attention was paid to the analysis of the caesium-137 and humus lateral and vertical (in the 0–25 cm arable soil layer) distribution in the area of agricultural field located on the slope of southern exposure. Overplowed soils were detected in one of the delineated zones. Overplowed soils are a type of degraded soils. This soil type was formed under conditions of applying a small amount of fertilizers for the period from 1991 to 2017 in agricultural fields remote from the central estates. In the studied area, the humus content in the arable horizon of plowed gray forest soil was reduced to 4%. The specific activity of caesium-137 does not exceed 140.0 Bq/kg (with its value at the reference plot of 174.7 Bq/kg). The radiocaesium method and estimations of morphometric parameters of topographic relief applied to the computation of soil runoff rate, made it possible to formalize the description of soil losses depending on in-the-relief position of the point, and to compile maps of soil runoff for each of the zones in the field. It was found that the area of overplowed soils is characterized by the largest soil losses (reaching 20 t/ha per year or more). Compiled map can allow to undertake a differentiated approach to the reclamation arrangement of the territory in the analyzed area. If enough fertilizers are applied, the productivity of the overplowed soils can be restored in the future.


Among the fruits whose economic value was underestimated, oak acorns ( Quercus sp.) are gradually arousing interest by their biochemical and biological properties. The objective of this study was to incorporate acorns into human food through the formulation of new desserts. Acorns were collected from a cork oak forest located in northwestern Tunisia. Firstly, the physicochemical characteristics of the fruits as a base product were determined. Then, four dessert formulations were tested by adding ingredients to acorns: water, sugar, cocoa powder and sesame paste. A sensory analysis was carried for the products obtained such as: color, appearance, smell, sweetness and texture. The results indicated a moisture content equal to 44.71% ± 1.02 and showed total polyphenol and tannin contents estimated, respectively, in oak acorns at 8 ± 0.34 mg / ml EAG and at 25.88 ± 9.62 mg / ml EC. The extract obtained from the acorns is endowed with a high anti-free radical power. Thus, acorns are interesting as a food except that tannins content is high giving a bitter taste. Therefore, boiling method was selected to be the best to reduce bitterness. Then, this method was used to product acorns for dessert formulation. The results of the sensory analysis showed percentages of acceptability estimated at 53% and 40%, respectively, for the C formulations based on acorns and. chocolate and for D made from acorns and sesame. These desserts can be classified as natural foods that contain agro-food elements beneficial to human health.


Sequencing batch reactor (SBR) technology has found many applications in industrial wastewater treatment in recent years. The aim of this study was to determine the optimal time for a cycle of the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and evaluate the performance of a SBR for petrochemical wastewater treatment in that cycle time. The reactor was operated with a suspended biomass configuration under aerobic conditions. Carbon removal and operating parameters such as pH, temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) were monitored during the wastewater treatment. The SBR was run at different cycle times and amongst the cycle times tested, the best performance was obtained with a 7 h cycle time composed of a fill time of 15min, reaction of 6 h, settling of 30 min, and withdrawal of 15 min. The SBR with the determined cycle time was used to study the treatment of wastewater with various organic loading rates (12.88 gr COD/L.d, 18.02 gr COD/L.d and 31.39 gr COD/L.d). The SBR performance was evaluated by chemical oxygen demand (COD), total solids (TS) total suspended solids (TSS) removal efficiencies. During the shock loading tests, the maximum COD, TS and TSS removal efficiencies were 84%, 67% and 92%, respectively.


In this paper we present a method of parallelizing test generation for combinational logic using boolean satisfiability. We propose a dynamic search-space allocation strategy to split work between the available processors. This strategy is easy to implement with a greedy heuristic and is economical in its demand for inter-processor communication. We derive an analytical model to predict the performance of the parallel versus sequential implementations. The effectiveness of our method and analysis is demonstrated by an implementation on a Sequent (shared memory) multiprocessor. The experimental data shows significant performance improvement in parallel implementation, validates our analytical model, and allows predictions of performance for a range of time-out limits and degrees of parallelism.


There is a growing body of evidence indicating that individual differences and Internet usage have an interaction relationship. We conducted a questionnaire survey of personal blog authors to extend this research to a popular online format for expression: blogging. The results indicate that bloggers and non-bloggers share lots of similarities in personality-related characters. Additionally, self-esteem is a major determinate to bloggers' physical self-concept, while self-esteem, emotional intelligence, conscientiousness and neuroticism show direct effect on non-bloggers' physical self-concept. The finding suggests that the impact of blog usage generates to personal psychological traits in daily life.


Spectral width is one of the standard data types produced by the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN). A pronounced latitudinal gradient in spectral width has been reported in the literature and is used as an empirical proxy for the ionospheric footprint of the open-closed field-line boundary. In this work we investigated the daytime radar echo properties near the spectral width boundary using a multi-frequency sounding regime. We have found that the relatively large spectral width values ≥150 m/s observed poleward of the boundary are produced by ionospheric irregularities with lifetime τ l ≃10–25 ms, which is essentially independent of the scale size. These irregularities are statistically co-located with low-energy (~100 eV) electron precipitation, which may play a major role in producing F-region turbulence above 75 MLAT via restructuring the ionospheric plasma on time scales ~τ l .


Backgorund: The resistance of Enterococcus faecalis bacteria in root canals is because it
can form a biofilm. Biofilms are communities of microorganisms in a complex and dynamic
structure attached to a surface, embedded in Extracellular Polymeric Substance (EPS).
Propolis extract contains of flavonoids that can inhibit biofilm growth. Objective: To analyze
the effectiveness of propolis extracts against Enterococcus faecalis biofilm EPS in vitro.
Materials and Methods: Enterococcus faecalis biofilm grown on media Tryptic Soy Broth
(TSB), dextran conjugate alexa fluor 647 reagent was added, then incubated 24 hours.
Enterococcus faecalis biofilm were divided into 4 groups: 3 groups treated by soaking
propolis extracts 24 hours with each concentration of 02, 0.8% and 1.2%; 1 control group
without extract of propolis. Biofilm samples examined using Confocal Laser Scanning
Microscope (CLSM). Yield data was then analyzed using One Way ANOVA and Tukey HSD
Test (p <0.05). Results: The treatment group showed a decrease in the average volume of
biofilm EPS than the control group. Conclusion: propolis extracts with concentration of
0.2% 0.8% and 1.2%, effectively reducing the Enterococcus faecalis biofilm EPS.


The objective of this paper is to discuss the level of information technology (IT) adoption by internal audit unit (IAU) in Malaysian public sector, the types of the IT applications implemented and the purposes of its implementation. In recent years, internal auditors have begun to realize the important of IT to perform their audit tasks. Specifically, the use of Computer Assisted Auditing Tools and Techniques (CAATTs) can help in terms of audit efficiency and effectiveness. This research employed an online and mail survey methods to gather data from 266 head of internal auditors in Malaysian public sector. The results show that the level of IT adoption by IAU in Malaysian public sector is high. However, with regards to the usage of IT specifically in auditing, it is considerably low despite the huge benefits that have been offered by the technology. Due to the nature of the data collection method, the study might reflects the perfection of the respondents which may not translate into actual practice. Further research should consider a field study to examine the real issue regarding the IT implementation in public sector.


Background
This study aims to discuss the early-term postoperative thoracic complications in videothoracoscopic anterior vertebral body tethering surgery.

Methods
The study included 56 patients (3 males, 53 females; mean age 12.6 years; range, 10 to 16 years) operated with a total of 65 videothoracoscopic anterior vertebral body tethering surgeries between April 2014 and November 2018. Surgical indications were adolescents with different growth potentials, who had thoracic, thoracolumbar or double curves less than 70°. Surgical details and postoperative thoracic complications were recorded.

Results
Forty-two patients were administered thoracic tether, whereas five and nine patients were administered thoracolumbar tether and both approaches concomitantly, respectively. Two patients developed ipsilateral total atelectasis, one patient contralateral lobar atelectasis, one patient chylothorax, one patient pleural effusion, and one patient pneumothorax after chest drain removal. Overall thoracic complication rate was 9.2% and 30-day readmission rate was 1.8%. All patients achieved their rehabilitation goals.

Conclusion
Videothoracoscopy-assisted anterior vertebral body tethering is a safe and efficient technique that yields low complication rates. Early postoperative functional results are promising with high patient satisfaction. Pre- and postoperative respiratory rehabilitation may decrease thoracic complication rates.


Objective To examine the relationship between levels of lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], diabetes, and glycemic control in white and black nondiabetic control and insulindependent diabetic (IDDM) children and adolescents, fasting blood analyses were conducted on a subject sample drawn from referral-based diabetes and endocrine clinics and a primary-care general pediatric clinic. Research Design and Methods Thirty-six white and 16 black children with IDDM who volunteered to participate in this study were compared with 30 white and 42 black nondiabetic control children. Results Lp(a) protein levels were significantly higher (P < 0.05) in both groups of black children compared with whites (black vs. white nondiabetic children 6.8 ± 0.95 vs. 3.1 ± 0.68 mg/dl and black vs. white diabetic children 7.5 ± 1.52 vs. 3.0 ± 0.64 mg/dl). Lp(a) protein levels directly correlated with the level of glycosylated hemoglobin (r = 0.46, P < 0.01) in white diabetic children but not in black diabetic children. Well-controlled white diabetic children (n = 12, glycosylated hemoglobin <10%) had a mean Lp(a) protein level of 1.4 ± 0.3 mg/dl compared with poorly controlled white diabetic children (n = 10, glycosylated hemoglobin >13%) whose mean Lp(a) protein level was 5.7 ± 1 . 7 mg/dl (P < 0.01). Conclusions We conclude that circulating levels of Lp(a) protein are increased in hyperglycemia. A genetically determined elevated level of Lp(a) is a risk factor for atherosclerotic disease in white and Asian adults. Elevated Lp(a) should be investigated as an independent risk factor for atherosclerotic disease in IDDM. It could prove to be an additional mechanism for the development of diabetic complications in selected populations.


Little is known about the metacognitive strategies college students are using for university level reading and discipline specific reading. As students progress through their education and become more skilled in their respective fields, their reading strategies should improve and be more flexible according to research that indicates that older, more experience readers have more evolved and flexible reading strategies (Pressley & Lundberg, 2008) This study focuses on the self-reported strategies used by college students in relation to the expert reader. A mass invitation to participate in the survey Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) developed by Mokhtari and Reichard (2002) was sent to a large public university in the Midwest. The MARSI is intended to measure the self-reported reading strategies used for academic reading and was validated with adolescent and adult readers (2002).This study examines the self-reported reading strategies of U.S. college students to determine if field of study or number of college credits impacted their use of reading strategies. These results indicated statistically significant differences in the reading strategies used by students' disciplines.


Physics
Some of the coldest places on our planet are created in physics laboratories, where dilute alkali gases are coaxed into showing their quantum character. To prepare the samples, experimenters employ irreversible methods such as evaporative and sympathetic cooling. It is often hard to measure the final temperature of the gases, however, particularly in contexts where they are loaded into optical lattices to simulate condensed-matter systems such as Mott insulators and superconductors. Catani et al. address this challenge by tracking entropy, rather than temperature (which, technically speaking, is a measure of how much a system's entropy changes on incremental energy input). Specifically, they load two distinguishable Bose gases into the same magnetic trap and then apply an additional optical trap that affects only one of them, the target gas. By slowly increasing the strength of the trap, they achieve an exact entropy transfer from the target gas (41K) to the auxiliary gas (87Rb), condensing the K and maintaining the temperature equilibrium between the two gases. Through cycles of compression and decompression, they observe oscillation of the K ensemble between condensed and uncondensed states. When the target gas is then loaded into a one-dimensional optical lattice, its temperature is directly reflected in the auxiliary gas cloud size after expansion.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 , 140401 (2009).


Summary

Current efforts to restore and create ecosystems require greater understanding of ecosystems' responses to commonly used physical and biological intervention approaches to overcome ecological and technological limitations.
We estimated effect sizes from measurements of biotic assemblage structure and biogeochemical functions at 628 restored and created wetlands globally, in comparison with 499 reference wetlands. We studied the recovery trajectories of wetlands where different restoration or creation approaches were used under different environmental settings.
Although the variance explained by a linear mixed-effects models was low (6–7%), the study of recovery trajectories showed that the restoration or creation approach had no significant effects in most environmental settings.
In particular, wetlands where surface modification and flow re-establishment were used followed similar recovery trajectories regardless of whether they were revegetated or not. We even found potential detrimental effects of biological manipulations on the recovery of the plant assemblage, particularly in cold climates and in wetlands restored or created in agricultural areas.
Since physical interventions are required to recover or create the hydrological conditions of degraded or new wetlands, and given the high cost (22–73%) of biological interventions (i.e. revegetation), the need for biological interventions is, in most cases, unclear.
Our results highlight the urgent need to increase our understanding of the long-term effects of restoration and creation actions in our aim to engage in large-scale ecosystem management strategies for wetlands.
Synthesis and applications. These results suggest that, currently, the recovery and development processes of restored and created wetlands can be driven by spontaneous processes rather than by the response of wetlands to human interventions other than those targeted to restore hydrological conditions that existed prior to disturbance. However, given the synthetic nature of the data set, the mixed nature of available data and the limited number of measures we found to estimate recovery, caution must be exercised when adapting the results presented here to the planning and execution of specific ecosystem restoration projects.


ABSTRACT Background: Dissociated vertical deviation (DVD) is commonly measured using a prism and alternate cover test (PACT), but some providers use a prism under cover test (PUCT). The aim of this study was to compare a standardized PUCT measurement with a PACT measurement, for assessing the magnitude of DVD. Methods: Thirty-six patients with a clinical diagnosis of DVD underwent measurement of the angle of deviation with the PACT, fixing with the habitually fixing eye, and with PUCT, fixing both right and left eyes. The PUCT was standardized, using a 10-second cover for each prism magnitude, until the deviation was neutralized. The magnitude of hyperdeviation by PACT and PUCT was compared for the non-fixing eye, using paired non-parametric tests. The frequency of discrepancies more than 4 prism diopters (PD) between PACT and PUCT was calculated. Results: The magnitude of hyperdeviation was greater when measured with PUCT (range 8PD hypodeviation to 20PD hyperdeviation) vs. PACT (18PD hypodeviation to 25PD hyperdeviation) with a median difference of 4.5PD (range –5PD to 21PD); P < 0.0001. Eighteen (50%) of 36 measurements elicited >4PD hyperdeviation (or >4PD less hypodeviation) by PUCT than by PACT. Conclusions: A standardized 10-second PUCT yields greater values than a prism and alternate cover test in the majority of patients with DVD, providing better quantification of the severity of DVD, which may be important for management decisions.


A major difficulty in the simulation of river hydraulics flows is bound to model
parameters definition. Solutions of the shallow water equations are determined by
initial conditions, boundary conditions, bed elevation, physical and numerical
parameters. Data assimilation methods make it possible to combine optimally physical
information from the model and observation data of the physical system to identify
the value of model inputs that correspond to a numerical simulation which is
consistent with reality.

Variational data assimilation consists in finding the control variables that minimize
a cost function measuring the discrepancy between the model state variable and
observation data of the physical system. An efficient minimization using a
Quasi-Newton algorithm requires the computation of the gradient of the cost function.
The latter is easily computed from the adjoint state which is solution of an adjoint
model.

However, in river hydraulics, observation data are available only in very small
quantities. Local water level measurements are usually very sparse in space and
velocity measurements are even rarer, especially in case of extreme events such as
floods. Consequently, in practice these eulerian observations are usually not
sufficient to take advantage of data assimilation.

We present a method to use lagrangian data from remote sensing observation in the
assimilation process, in addition to classical eulerian observations of the flow. The
trajectory of particles advected by the flow can bring information on the surface
velocity thanks to an appropriate transport model. Numerical twin experiments
demonstrate that this additional information makes it possible to improve the
identification of model parameters. In order to deal with real data, an observation
operator based on a multi-scale filtering scheme is proposed.


Background The primary aim of the present study was to verify the potential risk factors for developing a delirium after hip fracture surgery. The secondary aim of this study was to examine the related clinical outcomes after a delirium developed post-hip fracture surgery. Patients and methods Data were extracted from a prospective hip fracture database and completed by retrospective review of the hospital records. A total of 463 patients undergoing hip fracture (hip hemiarthroplasty) surgery in a level II trauma teaching hospital between January 2011 and May 2016 were included. Delirium was measured using the Delirium Observation Screening Scale, the confusion assessment method, and an observatory judgment by geriatric medicine specialists. Results The results showed that 26% of the patients (n=121) developed a delirium during hospital stay with a median duration during admission of 5 days (IQR 3–7). The multivariable model showed that the development of delirium was significantly explained by dementia (OR 2.75, P=0.001), age (OR 1.06, P=0.005), and an infection during admission (pneumonia, deep surgical site infection, or urinary tract infection) (OR 1.23, P=0.046). After 1 year of follow-up, patients who developed delirium after hip fracture surgery were significantly more discharged to (semi-independent) nursing homes (P<0.001) and had a significantly higher mortality rate (P<0.001) compared to patients without delirium after hip fracture surgery. Conclusions The results showed that 26% of the patients undergoing hip fracture surgery developed a delirium. The risk factors including age, dementia, and infection during admission significantly predicted the development of the delirium. No association was confirmed between delirium and time of admission or time to surgery. The development of delirium after hip fracture surgery was subsequently found to be a significant predictor of admission to a nursing home and mortality after 1 year.


Studies have shown that closed-loop myoelectric control schemes can lead to changes in user performance and behavior compared to open-loop systems. When users are placed within the control loop, such as during real-time use, they must correct for errors made by the controller and learn what behavior is necessary to produce desired outcomes. Augmented feedback, consequently, has been used to incorporate the user throughout the training process and to facilitate learning. This work explores the effect of visual feedback presented during user training on both the performance and predictability of a myoelectric classification-based control system. Our results suggest that properly designed feedback mechanisms and training tasks can influence the quality of the training data and the ability to predict usability using linear combinations of metrics derived from feature space. Furthermore, our results confirm that the most common in-lab training protocol, screen guided training, may yield training data that are less representative of online use than training protocols that incorporate the user in the loop. These results suggest that training protocols should be designed that better parallel the testing environment to more effectively prepare both the algorithms and users for real-time control.


The relationship between macroeconomic variables and asset prices varies over time. Recent research points to monetary policy as an important driver of this dynamic relationship. On the one hand, most central banks pursue a mandate that takes into account expected inflation and some measure of the expected output gap. On the other hand, realized inflation and output gap are influenced by monetary policy. The main part of this paper provides an overview of the most important transmission channels of conventional and unconventional monetary policy (and their potential impact on asset prices). The current environment of low to zero interest rates challenges the traditional transmission of monetary policy. However, recent academic research suggests that the central bank is not armless in such an environment. Unconventional monetary policy has been adopted by most developed markets central banks since the start of the Great Financial crisis. This paper also reviews potential limits and side-effects of such policies. Finally, some policy implications of tapering are presented.


The close approach to the Earth of Comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake) in March 1996 allowed searches for minor volatile species outgassed from the nucleus. We report the detection of deuterated water (HDO) through its 101–000rotational transition at 464.925 GHz using the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. We also present negative results of a sensitive search for theJ(5–4) line of deuterated hydrogen cyanide (DCN) at 362.046 GHz.

Simultaneous observations of two rotational lines of methanol together with HDO in the same spectrum allow us to determine the average gas temperature within the telescope beam to be 69 ± 10 K. We are thus able to constrain the excitation conditions in the inner coma and determine reliably the HDO production rate as (1.20 ± 0.28) × 1026s−1on March 23–24, 1996. Available IR, UV, and radio measurements led to a water production rate of (2.1 ± 0.5) × 1029s−1at the time of our HDO observations. The resulting D/H ratio in cometary water is thus (29 ± 10) × 10−5, in good agreement with the values of (30.8+3.8−5.3) × 10−5(H. Balsigeret al., 1995,J. Geophys. Res.100, 5827–5834). and (31.6 ± 3.4) × 10−5(P. Eberhardet al., 1995,Astron. Astrophys.302, 301–316) determined in Comet P/Halley fromin situion mass spectra. The inferred 3σ upper limit for the D/H ratio in HCN is 1%.

Deuterium abundance is a key parameter for studying the origin and the early evolution of the Solar System and of its individual bodies. Our HDO measurement confirms that, in cometary water, deuterium is enriched by a factor of at least 10 relative to the protosolar ratio, namely the D/H ratio in H2in the primitive Solar Nebula which formed from the collapse of the protosolar cloud. This indicates that cometary water has preserved a major part of the high D/H ratio acquired in this protosolar cloud through ion–molecule isotopic exchanges or grain-surface reactions and was not re-equilibrated with H2in the Solar Nebula. However, there are strong presumptions that interstellar grains were partly mixed in the early nebula prior to cometary formation with water reprocessed in the warm inner part of the nebula and transported by turbulent diffusion. Scenarios of formation of comets consistent with these results are discussed.


We revise the standard method for extracting spectroscopic factors from transfer reactions and discuss a new combined method which is based on including the asymptotic normalization coefficient (ANC) of the overlap functions into the transfer analysis. This new method determines the SF from fitting the internal part of the reaction amplitude, while the contribution of the external part, typically dominant, is fixed. This is in contrast with the standard approach in which the SF is extracted at the expense of the arbitrary variation of the external part contribution. As examples, we show results for (d,p) reactions on a variety of targets: 208Pb, 7Li 12C, and 84Se. The modified method has the potential of improving the reliability and accuracy of the structure information. Ultimately, it can be used as a check of DWBA by simultaneously introducing the information on the ANC and SF into the analysis.


This proposal sought to develop experiential field-based learning in two ways, both involving mobile digital learning equipment and resources. Firstly the work acknowledges that there may be times when less closely supervised enquiry based learning can on occasion leave students exposed and frustrated and perhaps less competent than when they began. Identifying one such situation, the use of relatively unfamiliar field equipment while away from standard forms of support, we researched the development and structuring of a library of supportive podcasts to fill this gap that could be used across a range of field-oriented disciplines. Evaluation, conducted through the use of reflective diaries and focus groups, identified that all students thought the podcast reference library was a worthwhile exercise, of particular appeal to students with a more visual approach to learning. Notably, the podcasts appear to foster a confident and independent attitude to learning. Secondly, we sought to develop strategies to bridge learning from University to field by developing a geo-tagging system that enables students to refer to digital journal resources by locational context, via a mapping interface in the field. The latest version of this tool, which makes use of the more recently available Google Earth customizable api, appears to have been more successful that an initial version of the tool prototyped within a GIS system although further evaluation is ongoing. The students' strong preference for researching readings from home rather than University was an important reason behind the relative interest associated with the later Google-based tool.


A study was conducted with the objective of determining the occurrence of parasite eggs and oocysts in washed and unwashed vegetables sold in some selected markets in Zaria, Kaduna State. Cabbage (Brassica oleracea), Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), Carrot (Daucus carota) and Spinach (Spinacea oleracea) were collected based on convenient sampling from 5 markets. Three hundred grams of each vegetable was purchased every week in the morning hours from each of the selected markets during the rainy and dry seasons. Floatation technique was used for processing of the vegetable samples. Unwashed vegetables (269) had more parasite eggs and oocysts than washed vegetables (209). Spinach (52.50%) had the highest contamination, followed by carrot (48.75%), cabbage (42.50%), lettuce (40.0%) and tomatoes (28.75%). There was a significant (p 0.05) association between the occurrence of parasite eggs and oocysts and the unwashed vegetables. Among the different markets, vegetables purchased from Dan Magaji market (51.25%) were highly contaminated, followed by Tudun Wada (49.38%), Sabongari (48.75%), Zaria city (48.75%) and Samaru market (41.88%).There was, however, no significant (p > 0.05) association between the occurrence of parasite eggs and oocysts on vegetables and the markets where the vegetables were purchased. The study showed that eggs and oocysts of various parasites mainly of human and animal faecal origin were present on vegetables marketed for human consumption even after washing. Therefore, people should properly wash their vegetables before consumption and indiscriminate defecation should be discouraged to prevent contamination and improve hygienic conditions.


Abstract : Immediate memory spans were obtained for groups of homogeneously meaningful CVC trigrams selected so as to sample the entire range of Archer's norms. The items at the lowest level were nonsense syllables of the lowest possible association value. At the opposite extreme were highly meaningful three-letter words. The design of the study involved the use of two types of instruction, the first calling for the ordering of recall and the second calling for free recall. For each type of instruction there were two modes of recall, namely, spelling and pronunciation. Pronunciation yielded appreciably higher memory spans than spelling. In spite of the freedom permitted in the instructions for free recall, the Ss tended to reproduce the items in the order of their presentation. There was an apparent tendency for the spans to increase with meaningfulness at a positively accelerated rate when the Ss spelled the items. An attempt is made to relate these findings to a group of tenable theoretical assumptions. (Author)


Retinoic acid (RA) is the bioactive metabolite of vitamin A (retinol) which acts on cells to establish or change the pattern of gene activity. Retinol is converted to RA by the action of two types of enzyme, retinol dehydrogenases and retinal dehydrogenases. In the nucleus RA acts as a ligand to activate two families of transcription factors, the RA receptors (RAR) and the retinoid X receptors (RXR) which heterodimerize and bind to the upstream sequences of RA-responsive genes. Thus, in addition to the well-established experimental paradigm of depriving animals of vitamin A to determine the role of RA in embryonic and post-embryonic development, molecular biology has provided us with two additional methodologies: knockout the enzymes or the RAR and RXR in the mouse embryo. The distribution of the enzymes and receptors, and recent experiments to determine the endogenous distribution of RA in the embryo are described here, as well as the effects on the embryo of knocking out the enzymes and receptors. In addition, recent studies using the classical vitamin A-deprivation technique are described, as they have provided novel insights into the regions of the embryo which crucially require RA, and the gene pathways involved in their development. Finally, the post-embryonic or regenerating systems in which RA plays a part are described, i.e. the regenerating limb, lung regeneration, hair cell regeneration in the ear and spinal cord regeneration in the adult.


A sub-pixel disparity refinement algorithm based on Lagrange interpolation is proposed to calculate the sub-pixel disparity and the elevation of the target construction on the remote sensing image. The accurate integer matching feature points are obtained by improved affine scale invariant feature transform. A series of interpolation samples can be estimated through the three times magnification results of each feature matching point and its close neighbor pixels. The final sub-pixel deviation can be calculated by the interpolation samples. Experiment results show that a more accurate elevation information can be obtained on the remote sensing image with corrective epipolar line, and an accurate sub-pixel disparity result can be estimated without the epipolar line constraint as well.


A firm's actions in one market can change competitors' strategies in a second market by affecting its own marginal costs in that other market. Whether the action provides costs or benefits in the second market depends on (a) whether it increases or decreases marginal costs in the second market and (b) whether competitors' products are strategic substitutes or strategic complements. The latter distinction is determined by whether more "aggressive" play (e.g., lower price or higher quantity) by one firm in a market lowers or raises competing firms' marginal profitabilities in that market. Many recent results in oligopoly theory can be most easily understood in terms of strategic substitutes and complements.


This study aimed to describe the physique characteristics and competition nutrient intake of professional Rugby League players and to assess use of a statistical technique for evaluating validity of dietary reporting. Players (n = 74) were endomorphic mesomorphs and had a mean weight, height, and BMI of 93.4 +/- 10.9 kg, 179.9 +/- 7.3 cm, and 28.5 +/- 2.1 kg/m2 respectively. Mean sum of eight skinfolds was 78.9 +/- 2.2 mm (12.4 +/- 2.9% fat). Players (n = 34) reported a mean daily energy intake of 17,708 +/- 3,688 kJ (carbohydrate 51%, protein 18%, fat 25%, alcohol 4%) with 6 and 2.0 g x kg(-1) x d(-1) from carbohydrate and protein respectively. Micronutrient intake was adequate but alcohol consumption was high relative to health standards. The dietary records provided a plausible estimate of energy intake however further research is required to evaluate statistical techniques for assessing dietary validity in athlete groups.


In 86 patients with histologically proven oesophageal carcinoma endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) and computerised tomography (CT) were performed during TN-staging (UICC 1987). 44 patients were operated on and the histological findings were compared with the results of preoperative staging. The T-stage was correctly determined with EUS and CT in 35 (80%) and 24 (55%) patients, respectively. The accuracy of EUS was 75%, 71%, 91% and 67% in stages T1 to T4. The sensitivity of EUS in the diagnosis of lymph node metastases was 91%, that of CT 42%. The specificity of EUS and CT was 64% and 100%, respectively. The accuracy for pN staging (N0/N1) was 84% with EUS and 57% with CT. The presence of local lymph node metastases was closely correlated to the pT-stage (1 patient [14%] with pT1-, 5 patients [71%] with pT2-, 21 patients [95%] with pT3- and 6 patients [100%] with pT4-stage). In 12 out of 34 patients (28%) tumour induced stenosis prevented a complete oesophageal passage of the EUS probe. This fact, however, did not compromise TN-staging significantly. Our study demonstrates that EUS is an efficient method in the locoregional staging of oesophageal carcinoma. Especially in the early tumour stages T1 and T2 and in the demonstration of local lymph node metastases EUS is superior to CT.


Results of planting density effects on production of nursery plants type 1/2 of three black poplar clones section Aigeiros (Duby) grown on sandy fluvisol are shown in this paper. The clone PE 19/66, B-229 (Populus deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh.), and clone Pannonia (Populus × euramericana (Dode) Guinier) were studied, while applied planting densities for production of nursery plants type 1/2 ranged from dense to scarce: 0,80×0,20 m, 0,80×0,25 m, 0,80×0,30 m, 0,80×0,40 m, 0,80×0,50 m. The results of investigation showed that there were differences in survival rate and average height of nursery plant type 1/2 between clones, while effect of planting density was manifested only on average height of nursery plants. Studied clones exhibited different height structure of nursery plants depending on planting density, which was confirmed by numerical parameters and non-parametric Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Applied different criteria relating to minimal nursery plant height of 2,0 m, 2,5 m, 3,0 m and 3,5 m showed that in so called 'low' criterion (2,0 m) the percentage of unusable nursery plants was minimum for all planting densities and in all three poplar clones, and thus the planting density should be based on the quantity of produced nursery plants per hectare. In so called 'high' criterion (3,5 m) differences in number of produced nursery plants per hectare between different planting densities were diminishing, and the percentage of unusable nursery plants remained high even at the lowest planting densities, shifting the choice from high towards lower planting densities. In so called 'mean' criterion relating to minimum nursery plant height (2,0 and 2,5 m), which is the most often encountered in nursery production, the optimal density (which is found within applied planting densities) can be chosen taking the quantity of nursery plants per hectare into account. .


For time‐to‐event outcomes, a rich literature exists on the bias introduced by covariate measurement error in regression models, such as the Cox model, and methods of analysis to address this bias. By comparison, less attention has been given to understanding the impact or addressing errors in the failure time outcome. For many diseases, the timing of an event of interest (such as progression‐free survival or time to AIDS progression) can be difficult to assess or reliant on self‐report and therefore prone to measurement error. For linear models, it is well known that random errors in the outcome variable do not bias regression estimates. With nonlinear models, however, even random error or misclassification can introduce bias into estimated parameters. We compare the performance of 2 common regression models, the Cox and Weibull models, in the setting of measurement error in the failure time outcome. We introduce an extension of the SIMEX method to correct for bias in hazard ratio estimates from the Cox model and discuss other analysis options to address measurement error in the response. A formula to estimate the bias induced into the hazard ratio by classical measurement error in the event time for a log‐linear survival model is presented. Detailed numerical studies are presented to examine the performance of the proposed SIMEX method under varying levels and parametric forms of the error in the outcome. We further illustrate the method with observational data on HIV outcomes from the Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic.


The onset of gas entrainment in a single downward discharge, from a stratified gas-liquid region, was modeled. The discharge was modeled as a point-sink and Kelvin-Laplace's equation was used to incorporate surface tension effects. Consequently, a criterion to characterize the dip radius of curvature, at the onset of gas entrainment, was required. The dip geometry was experimentally investigated and a correlation was developed relating the dip radius of curvature to the discharge Froude number. The correlation was used in conjunction with the theoretical model. It was found that the predicted critical height demonstrated good agreement with experimental data with the three-dimensional point-sink approach, while poor agreement using the two-dimensional finite-branch approach was found. The inclusion of surface tension improved the model's capability to predict the critical height, particularly at discharge Froude numbers below 1.


Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) has several characteristics of a neurotrophic factor for sensory neurons. Here we have investigated whether LIF also supports the survival of axotomised sensory neurons in vivo. Newborn rat pups received a unilateral sciatic nerve transection and the injury site was treated with gelfoam soaked in phosphate buffered saline (PBS), nerve growth factor (NGF), or LIF. Neuronal nucleoli in the L5 dorsal root ganglia were counted, appropriate corrections applied, and the resultant neuronal loss expressed as a percentage of the contralateral intact side. In animals where LIF was administered neuronal loss was significantly reduced: 2 days after LIF treatment neuronal loss was 19.5% compared to 43% in PBS‐treated animals; 3 days after LIF treatment neuronal loss was 20.4% compared to 40.2% in PBS‐treated animals; however, 7 days after LIF treatment there was no significant reduction in the number of neurons lost. The degree of rescue of sensory neurons in vivo by LIF was found to be similar to NGF, which was not surprising as both factors supported the survival of a similar population of sensory neurons in vitro. Rescue was not observed when LIF‐containing gelfoam was placed away from the axotomised nerve, suggesting that LIF's action may be associated with its retrograde transport or direct signalling at the site of nerve injury. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Problem statement: There is a consensus in the history of art that Peter Bruegel's works are allegorical reflecting contradictory semantic implications. Bruegel's the Tower of Babel, while being a visual representation of the mythological-religious narrative of the painting, has multiple and contradictory readings. Jacques Derrida, one of the poststructuralist theorists, has analyzed this narrative using a deconstructive approach and in contrast with the philosophical tradition of the originality and unity of meaning. Research method: Using Derrida's poststructuralist approach, this study attempts to examine the different aspects of the Tower of Babel Bruegel in its historical context. To this purpose, we analyzed and interpreted the existing documents and sources using structural analysis. Research objective: This study aims to provide a polyphonic and fluid interpretation in line with the developments of contemporary criticism and aesthetics. By rejecting the definite meaning of the work, this research seeks to answer these questions: What is the relationship between the painting structure of the Tower of Babel and extra-textual factors? What semantic aspects do emerge in the deconstructive critique of the work? How does the interpretive reading of the work relate to the orientation of contemporary criticism? Conclusion: By revealing multiple contradictions and layers of meaning, deconstructive critique of the work shows that painting is at the same time a metaphorical image of the failure, inability, and decline of the political power of the contemporary government in the time of the painter in the historical context. At the same time, it reflects a positive embodiment of the construction of a utopia developed by human activity and effort aligned with the cultural and social context of the work. By rejecting holistic and absolute interpretations, the polyphonic interpretation can be considered as a manifestation of the pluralistic nature of contemporary critical action in the field of art.


The use of music in teaching-learning is helpful and is not only for teachers but also students. For teachers, this music to know if the application of Islamic music in the listening class will help students improve their listening will help them to transfer their knowledge easily and in a pleasant way. While for the students, they will enjoy learning even more. The usage of the music is the use of Islamic music in listening activities. This study aims skills. This study is Classroom Action Research conducted on seventh grade high school student Pare located in Surowono Village Pare-Kediri. The research goes through the four steps, they are planning, acting, planning, and planning in one cycle. Also, three kinds of instruments are used in the study: observation, interview, and documentation. The theory used in this study is Charlotte's theory that claims that listening is one of the skills that can help students develop in learning and have basic function in communicating. This process allows for a greater measure of litigation. The result of the study pointed out that the use of Islamic music did have a positive effect on the students in that it increased their vocabulary skills and pronunciation.


� Background and Aims Brassicaceae is one of the most diversified families in the angiosperms. However, most species from this family exhibit a very similar floral bauplan. In this study, we explore the Brassicaceae floral morphospace, examining how corolla shape variation (an estimation of developmental robustness), integration and disparity vary among phylogenetically related species. Our aim is to check whether these floral attributes have evolved in this family despite its apparent morphological conservation, and to test the role of pollinators in driving this evolution. � Methods Using geometric morphometric tools, we calculated the phenotypic variation, disparity and integration of the corolla shape of 111 Brassicaceae taxa. We subsequently inferred the phylogenetic relationships of these taxa and explored the evolutionary lability of corolla shape. Finally, we sampled the pollinator assemblages of every taxon included in this study, and determined their pollination niches using a modularity algorithm. We explore the relationship between pollination niche and the attributes of corolla shape. � Key Results Phylogenetic signal was weak for all corolla shape attributes. All taxa had generalized pollination systems. Nevertheless, they belong to different pollination niches. There were significant differences in corolla shape among pollination niches even after controlling for the phylogenetic relationship of the plant taxa. Corolla shape variation and disparity was significantly higher in those taxa visited mostly by nocturnal moths, indicating that this pollination niche is associated with a lack of developmental robustness. Corolla integration was higher in those taxa visited mostly by hovering long-tongued flies and long-tongued large bees. � Conclusions Corolla variation, integration and disparity were evolutionarily labile and evolved very recently in the evolutionary history of the Brassicaceae. These floral attributes were strongly related to the pollination niche. Even in a plant clade having a very generalized pollination system and exhibiting a conserved floral bauplan, pollinators can drive the evolution of important developmental attributes of corolla shape.


The aim of this study was to develop a method for the determination of the Val-Leu-Pro-Val-Pro-Arg (VLPVPR) antihypertensive peptide in human plasma based on a carrier-mediated three-phase solvent bar microextraction (SBME) coupled with a high performance liquid chromatography diode array detector (HPLC-DAD). For this purpose, the SBME was performed under various operating conditions to optimize the parameters including the pH of the donor and receiving phases, sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration in the receiving phase, carrier concentration, agitation rate, and extraction time. A high enrichment effect was achieved when the pH of the donor phase (i.e., sample solution) was 12, the pH of the receiving phase was 2, the NaCl concentration in the receiving phase was 2 mol L−1, the carrier concentration was 15% (w/v), the agitation rate was 700 rpm, and the extraction time was 60 min. Furthermore, the analytical characteristics of the SBME-HPLC method including the linear range (0.2–20 μg mL−1), the detection limit (68.5 ng mL−1), the precision (RSD = 1.1%, n = 5), and the enrichment factor (27.5 ± 0.65) were evaluated in human plasma. The results showed that the method was suitable for the determination of VLPVPR antihypertensive peptide in bio-fluid samples.


The aim of this study was to review the studies on the Internet of Things. Various databases were searched for keywords like 'Internet of Things', and 'Internet of Things & Smart Cities' etc. The results were shortlisted as per the year of publication and a few of the studies were selected for a review. The review found that Internet has become ubiquitous and that in the future, the Internet of Things will be the predominant trend. There have been studies which have been carried out on the efficacy of the Internet of Things and its application is various fields such as healthcare. The Internet of Things has also been used in concepts such as smart homes and smart cities.


The urea cycle converts ammonia, a waste product of protein catabolism, into urea. Because fish dispose ammonia directly into water, the role of the urea cycle in fish remains unknown. Six enzymes, N-acetylglutamate synthase (NAGS), carbamylphosphate synthetase III, ornithine transcarbamylase, argininosuccinate synthase, argininosuccinate lyase and arginase 1, and two membrane transporters, ornithine transporter and aralar, comprise the urea cycle. The genes for all six enzymes and both transporters are present in the zebrafish genome. NAGS (EC 126.96.36.199) catalyzes the formation of N-acetylglutamate from glutamate and acetyl coenzyme A and in zebrafish is partially inhibited by L-arginine. NAGS and other urea cycle genes are highly expressed during the first four days of zebrafish development. Sequence alignment of NAGS proteins from six fish species revealed three regions of sequence conservation: the mitochondrial targeting signal (MTS) at the N-terminus, followed by the variable and conserved segments. Removal of the MTS yields mature zebrafish NAGS (zfNAGS-M) while removal of the variable segment from zfNAGS-M results in conserved NAGS (zfNAGS-C). Both zfNAGS-M and zfNAGS-C are tetramers in the absence of L-arginine; addition of L-arginine decreased partition coefficients of both proteins. The zfNAGS-C unfolds over a broader temperature range and has higher specific activity than zfNAGS-M. In the presence of L-arginine the apparent Vmax of zfNAGS-M and zfNAGS-C decreased, their Km app for acetyl coenzyme A increased while the Km app for glutamate remained unchanged. The expression pattern of NAGS and other urea cycle genes in developing zebrafish suggests that they may have a role in citrulline and/or arginine biosynthesis during the first day of development and in ammonia detoxification thereafter. Biophysical and biochemical properties of zebrafish NAGS suggest that the variable segment may stabilize a tetrameric state of zfNAGS-M and that under physiological conditions zebrafish NAGS catalyzes formation of N-acetylglutamate at the maximal rate.


Supercritical CO2 (ScCO2) has been used to prepare molecularly imprinted polymers of poly(styrene-co-maleic acid) (PSMA) for targeted uracil (URA). The condition of ScCO2 was on 16 MPa between 35 and 50°C. The resultant imprinted membranes prepared at 35 and 50°C bound URA with 9.2 ± 0.10 and 12.6 ± 0.06 μmol g−1, respectively. Competitive binding studies were undertaken in binary substrate solution containing each of URA/DMURA, URA/Thymine, and URA/Cytosine with 2 μM. The URA imprinted membrane showed high separation factor (α) with 17 for both URA/DMURA and URA/Thymine and for URA/Cytosine, α = 13. Results strongly suggested that the URA imprinted membrane had effective selectivity hydrogen bonding to separately bind in the binary components to the template. Effect of organic solvents on the URA imprinting in ScCO2 was also studied, in addition to comparison of properties with those obtained in both ScCO2 and water. Evidence presented that ScCO2 medium was effective to prepare the URA imprinted membrane. We discussed that ScCO2 fluid was efficient to fix the shape of URA template into the PSMA membrane through hydrogen bonding. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008


To date, surgery remains the only option for the treatment of chondrosarcoma, which is radio- and chemoresistant due in part to its large extracellular matrix (ECM) and poor vascularity. In case of unresectable locally advanced or metastatic diseases with a poor prognosis, improving the management of chondrosarcoma still remains a challenge. Our team developed an attractive approach of improvement of the therapeutic index of chemotherapy by targeting proteoglycan (PG)-rich tissues using a quaternary ammonium (QA) function conjugated to melphalan (Mel). First of all, we demonstrated the crucial role of the QA carrier for binding to aggrecan by surface plasmon resonance. In the orthotopic model of Swarm rat chondrosarcoma, an in vivo biodistribution study of Mel and its QA derivative (Mel-QA), radiolabeled with tritium, showed rapid radioactivity accumulation in healthy cartilaginous tissues and tumor after [3H]-Mel-QA injection. The higher T/M ratio of the QA derivative suggests some advantage of QA-active targeting of chondrosarcoma. The antitumoral effects were characterized by tumor volume assessment, in vivo 99mTc-NTP 15-5 scintigraphic imaging of PGs, 1H-HRMAS NMR spectroscopy, and histology. The conjugation of a QA function to Mel did not hamper its in vivo efficiency and strongly improved the tolerability of Mel leading to a significant decrease of side effects (hematologic analyses and body weight monitoring). Thus, QA conjugation leads to a significant improvement of the therapeutic index, which is essential in oncology and enable repeated cycles of chemotherapy in patients with chondrosarcoma. Mol Cancer Ther; 15(11); 2575–85. ©2016 AACR.


Influenza is a serious health problem worldwide due to the epidemics and pandemics that it periodically causes. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the United States of America recently published updated recommendations for influenza prevention and control for the 2005-2006 season. Many of these guidelines are of interest to the countries of the Region of the Americas, particularly those related to vaccination, which is the mainstay for preventing and controlling this disease. Various changes have been made in the recommendations that were published in 2004. First, the ACIP recommends vaccination against influenza for persons with any condition (e.g., cognitive dysfunction, spinal cord injury, seizure disorder, or other neuromuscular disorder) that can compromise respiratory function or make eliminating respiratory secretions difficult or that can increase the risk for aspiration. Second, the ACIP strongly recommends that all health care workers be vaccinated against influenza annually and encourages facilities that employ health care workers to vaccinate them by using approaches that maximize immunization rates. Third, the ACIP encourages the use of both available vaccines (inactivated and live, attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV)) for eligible persons every influenza season, especially persons in recommended target groups. When inactivated virus vaccine is in short supply, the use of LAIV is especially encouraged, if feasible, for eligible persons (including health care workers) because such use might considerably increase the availability of inactivated virus vaccine for persons in high-risk groups. Fourth, the 2005-06 trivalent vaccine virus strains are A/California/7/2004 (H3N2)-like, A/New Caledonia/20/99 (H1N1)-like, and B/Shanghai/361/2002-like antigens. For the A/California/7/2004 (H3N2)-like antigen, manufacturers may use the antigenically equivalent A/ New York/55/2004 virus, and for the B/Shanghai/361/2002-like antigen, manufacturers may use the antigenically equivalent B/Jilin/20/2003 virus or B/Jiangsu/10/2003 virus.


PURPOSE
Conjunctiva-associated lymphoid tissue (CALT) plays an important role in ocular surface immunity. No study until now has been able to show its in vivo aspects, and few have demonstrated its reactions after pathologic patterns. The authors investigated in rabbit eyes the cell reactions occurring in the organized CALT during conjunctival inflammation models.

METHODS
Using in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM), the authors analyzed, for the first time in vivo inflammatory cell infiltration and circulation inside the lymph vessels in rabbit CALT after inflammatory stimuli (LPS, TNFalpha, LPS+/-anti-TNF). Cresyl violet staining was performed to observe the morphology of CALT, and immunohistology was performed in whole mount conjunctiva and cryosections for detecting CD45(+) lymphocytes. Human CALT in vivo aspects were also explored in a patient with vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC).

RESULTS
The conjunctivitis model induced by LPS was characterized by inflammatory cell infiltration in the dome and intrafollicular layers of CALT and cell circulation inside the lymph vessels. TNF alone induced moderate inflammatory infiltration in CALT. However anti-TNF antibodies could significantly decrease LPS/TNFalpha-induced inflammation. CD45(+) lymphocytes were strongly expressed in the CALT after injection of LPS or TNFalpha at 4 hours and decreased with injection of anti-TNFalpha. The authors also showed the presence of the CALT pattern in VKC.

CONCLUSIONS
The authors showed for the first time the in vivo aspects of normal and pathologic cell reactions in rabbit CALT after inflammatory stimuli. IVCM-CALT could be a pertinent tool in the future for the comprehension of ocular surface defense mechanisms, and inflammatory cell analysis in CALT could constitute a new criterion for evaluating ocular surface inflammation.


Introduces a method for automatic extraction of buildings in aerial images. We first present a method based on rectangular buildings, which are the most common constructions. After a rough segmentation, we estimate a criterion of similarity of each region with the best matching rectangle. For buildings of complex shapes, we introduce an iterative way to divide a region in order to optimize its approximation by a set of rectangles. We use a parametric deformable model for refining rectangle size and positions. These rectangles are then used to enhance a 3D realistic reconstruction of the scene including building models.


the past 25 years by my colleagues at the National Hospital and myself. Long-term follow-up of patients treated for facial spasm by the various forms of surgery of the facial nerve alone has in our experience shown that unless its continuity is interrupted the spasm returns to its former or a more severe state in most patients after a varying period of time, at times as much as 2-3 years, usually much less. Selective division of the terminal branches of the facial nerve by the method advocated by Reynolds,' Nosik,2 and McCabe3 has the advantage of producing relief of the spasm for, in most cases, a longer period than after partial division of the nerve trunk, and if a palsy results it is usually limited to the muscles supplied by the nerve branches. In many of the patients the spasms are so severe and widespread that operations such as these are not practical. In the past 3-4 years several patients with severe unilateral spasm have been treated by section of the seventh nerve close to its division in the parotid gland and anastomosing the distal portion to the hypoglossal nerve. Though the anastomosis was successful in restoring facial movement, in the first two cases the spasm returned within a year of operation owing to growth of the seventh nerve fibres into the anastomosis. This was easily remedied by a short second operation to evulse the facial nerve fibres from the facio-hypoglossal anastomosis and ligate the proximal section of the facial nerve with silk thread.-I am, etc., M. SPENCER HARRISON


It is well known that networks generated by common mechanisms such as preferential attachment and homophily can disadvantage the minority group by limiting their ability to establish links with the majority group. This has the effect of limiting minority nodes' access to information. We present the results of an empirical study on the equality of information access in network models with different growth mechanisms and spreading processes. For growth mechanisms, we focus on the majority/minority dichotomy, homophily, preferential attachment, and diversity. For spreading processes, we investigate simple vs. complex contagions, different transmission rates within and between groups, and various seeding conditions. We observe two phenomena. First, information access equality is a complex interplay between network structures and the spreading processes. Second, there is a trade-off between equality and efficiency of information access under certain circumstances (e.g., when inter-group edges are low and information transmits asymmetrically). Our findings can be used to make recommendations for mechanistic design of social networks with information access equality.


We consider a complex-valued L times L square matrix whose diagonal elements are unity, and lower and upper diagonal elements are the same, each lower diagonal element being equal to a (a ne 1) and each upper diagonal element being equal to b (b ne 1). We call this matrix the generalized semiuniform matrix, and denote it as M(a, b,L). For this matrix, we derive closed-form expressions for the characteristic polynomial, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and inverse. Treating the non-real-valued uniform correlation matrix M(a, a*, L), where (middot)* denotes the complex conjugate and a ne a*, as a Hermitian generalized semiuniform matrix, we obtain the eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and inverse of M(a, a*, L) in closed form. We present applications of these results to the analysis of communication systems using diversity under correlated fading conditions


Existing literature emphasizes skills-based explanations for executive-firm matching, namely in the context of financial expertise. In contrast, our paper argues that informational concerns may also be relevant. We model a public firm with a project opportunity of uncertain quality, where long-run shareholders choose between hiring an operational manager or a financial expert. These managers are equally myopic, however financial experts are also privy to stock-market beliefs. Financial experts invest sub-optimally due to catering incentives, while operational managers tend to engage in signaling-driven overinvestment. We show that operational managers are preferred for low-NPV projects or when stock markets are well informed.


Convex relaxations are a key component of training and certifying provably safe neural networks. However, despite substantial progress, a wide and poorly understood accuracy gap to standard networks remains, raising the question of whether this is due to fundamental limitations of convex relaxations. Initial work investigating this question focused on the simple and widely used IBP relaxation. It revealed that some univariate, convex, continuous piecewise linear (CPWL) functions cannot be encoded by any ReLU network such that its IBP-analysis is precise. To explore whether this limitation is shared by more advanced convex relaxations, we conduct the first in-depth study on the expressive power of ReLU networks across all commonly used convex relaxations. We show that: (i) more advanced relaxations allow a larger class of univariate functions to be expressed as precisely analyzable ReLU networks, (ii) more precise relaxations can allow exponentially larger solution spaces of ReLU networks encoding the same functions, and (iii) even using the most precise single-neuron relaxations, it is impossible to construct precisely analyzable ReLU networks that express multivariate, convex, monotone CPWL functions.


Generalizing causal effects from a controlled experiment to settings beyond the particular study population is arguably one of the central tasks found in empirical circles. While a proper design and careful execution of the experiment would support, under mild conditions, the validity of inferences about the population in which the experiment was conducted, two challenges make the extrapolation step to different populations somewhat involved, namely, transportability and sampling selection bias. The former is concerned with disparities in the distributions and causal mechanisms between the domain (i.e., settings, population, environment) where the experiment is conducted and where the inferences are intended; the latter with distortions in the sample's proportions due to preferential selection of units into the study. In this paper, we investigate the assumptions and machinery necessary for using covariate adjustment to correct for the biases generated by both of these problems, and generalize experimental data to infer causal effects in a new domain. We derive complete graphical conditions to determine if a set of covariates is admissible for adjustment in this new setting. Building on the graphical characterization, we develop an efficient algorithm that enumerates all possible admissible sets with polytime delay guarantee; this can be useful for when some variables are preferred over the others due to different costs or amenability to measurement.


There exists a strong correlation between the extent of minority protection conferred by law upon investors and the state of the capital markets in an economy. The tools employed to protect minority investors include disclosure and transparency rules, corporate governance norms and the enforcement of shareholder rights. In several jurisdictions, as in India, the role of securities regulation is performed by a regulatory body that is conferred the power to prescribe substantive rules of engagement and enforce them through the power to impose sanctions on perpetrators of non-compliance.

My goal in this paper is to analyze the regulatory apparatus governing the capital markets in India, and to explore the role and performance of India's regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). After examining the evolution of SEBI as a capital markets regulator and the gradual expansion of its role, I will highlight and discuss the key issues and controversies that have surrounded its functioning, and conclude with some critical analysis and normative observations.

I will begin by highlighting the importance of securities regulation to the capital markets and in turn the economy of a country, and analyze the various models of securities regulation that are prevalent. I do so by focusing on SEBI, whose establishment represents a watershed moment in India's capital markets. Second, while the independence of SEBI has not been in doubt, the role of interest groups in SEBI's functioning, at least in the sphere of rulemaking, deserves further study, which I undertake in the paper. Third, in its functioning SEBI has encountered several regulatory turf wars, which are worthy of analysis in this paper. The paper will conclude with proposals for reform to address the above issues, within the broader framework of the Indian administrative and regulatory state.


The "Digital Library" is - above all - a very favourable opportunity to enrich, in different ways, the knowledge and professional skills: librarians should not miss this chance. In fact, the digitization projects ask for project management skills, awareness of new technologies and related costs, interaction with professionals belonging to different fields, and, last but not least, ability to attract adequate funds. Furthemore, the partnership with some dynamic companies belonging to the information technology area can deeply change the working style and practices in the libraries. On the descriptive ground, the article does not survey some momentous subjects of digital libraries (e.g. copyright and digital resources preservation) because it focuses only on a specific topic: the comparative analysis between technologies, costs and outcomes of capture of digital images and capture (or creation) of digital texts. When the collection is made up of textual documents rich of informative contents, it should be endeavoured to get an electronic text, because it's a good investment in the long term. At present, satisfactory results are achievable through ICR and fuzzy searching software. But the final aim of a digitization project, for such collections, should be to get a structured text, and the structure should be a logical and permanent one. The article explains the main features of SGML standard and the more recent advances, especially the innovative attributes of XML. This new metalanguage, born in the middle of Web explosion, drag into the Web the SGML ability to transport information. This feature should arise the interest of information professionals and librarians. XML electronic documents can suit very well preservation and access requirements. Furthemore, they hold a cardinal position in the Web of the future: in this forthcoming environment, structured texts, jontly with metadata, will play a key-role in the exploitation of searching functions. HTML and PDF are probably bound to fall into decline in the "semantic Web". This tendencies can be surveyed into the documents of the web standards community , especially the W3C metadata activity. The author refers about experiences and research in the field of SGML/XML application to digitization projects. In particular, he refers about the Electronic Text Centers activity, underlining the role of library community within an interdisciplinary model. In some countries like US, UK, and Canada text encoding already is a part of librarians skills. But it is important to remark that this is a natural evolution (and enrichment) of cataloging skills and methodology. What should be required is the accurate knowledge of the markup languages and the ability to write DTDs (Document Type Definitions), not only a generic awareness of the subject. The ability to typify is quite similar to cataloguing skills, and a good typification cannot lack the experience of the information intermediaries. The computer programmers need the interaction with information specialists to capture the logical structure of the text and therefore to give a better design to the whole information system. XML, together with metadata, represents the ground of an interdisciplinary activity, and a chance for librarians to play a dynamic role into the digital environment.


© 2017 ASHRAE (www.ashrae.org). Published in ASHRAE Conference Papers, Winter Conference, Las Vegas, NV. For personal use only. Additional reproduction, distribution, or transmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE's prior written permission.


MIMO techniques promise a significant boost in the capacity of wireless systems. In this paper, MIMO system is designed using a compact double-sided printed antenna having ultra-wideband and band-notched characteristic. The UWB antennas are designed on CST Microwave studio simulation software with return loss less than -10dB, and further using the results from CST, performance analysis of different PSK modulation schemes including BPSK, QPSK, 8 PSK and 16 PSK is done on MATLAB software. The MIMO UWB antennas are designed using polarization diversity of the individual antennas. The transmitting bandwidth is UWB (i.e. 3.1-10.6GHz) and the receiving bandwidth is notch UWB (notch bandwidth 5-5.9GHz) are chosen to reduce the interference at the receiver side. The MIMO UWB system is designed for frequency of 9-10 GHz that is used for micro power radar application in the ultra wideband removing the interference from WLAN band.


Bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), pathognomonic for chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) of the lung, is a progressive and often fatal complication after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Biomarkers for the prediction and diagnosis of BOS are urgently needed to improve patients' prognosis. We prospectively evaluated B-cell subpopulations and B-cell activating factor (BAFF) in 136 patients (46 BOS, 41 no cGVHD, 49 cutaneous cGVHD) to define novel biomarkers for early diagnosis of National Institutes of Health-defined BOS diagnosed a median of 11 mo after HCT. Patients with newly diagnosed BOS had significantly higher percentages of CD19(+)CD21(low) B cells (25.5 versus 6.6%, P < .0001), BAFF (7.3 versus 3.5 ng/mL, P = .02), and BAFF/CD19(+) ratio (0.18 versus 0.02 ng/10(3) CD19(+) B cells, P 5 .007) compared with patients without cGVHD. The area under the receiver operating curve for CD19(+)CD21(low) B cells was 0.97 (95% confidence interval, 0.94-0.99) and a cutoff point >9% was optimal for diagnosing BOS in patients with first drop of pulmonary function tests with a sensitivity of 96% and a negative predictive value of 94%. Thus, elevated levels of CD19(+)CD21(low) B cells are a potential novel biomarker for HCT patients at risk for developing BOS at an early stage and could allow improvement of patient outcome.


Automotive systems have always been designed with safety in mind. In this regard, the functional safety standard, ISO 26262, was drafted with the intention of minimizing risk due to random hardware faults or systematic failure in design of electrical and electronic components of an automobile. However, growing complexity of a modern car has added another potential point of failure in the form of cyber or sensor attacks. Recently, researchers have demonstrated that vulnerability in vehicle's software or sensing units could enable them to remotely alter the intended operation of the vehicle. As such, in addition to safety, security should be considered as an important design goal. However, designing security solutions without the consideration of safety objectives could result in potential hazards. Consequently, in this paper we propose the notion of security for safety and show that by integrating safety conditions with our system-level security solution, which comprises of a modified Kalman filter and a Chi-squared detector, we can prevent potential hazards that could occur due to violation of safety objectives during an attack. Furthermore, with the help of a car-following case study, where the follower car is equipped with an adaptive-cruise control unit, we show that our proposed system-level security solution preserves the safety constraints and prevent collision between vehicle while under sensor attack.


In property-casualty insurance ratemaking, insurers often have access to external information which could be manual rates from a rating bureau or scores from a commercial predictive model. Such collateral information could be valuable because the insurer might either not have sufficient rating information nor the predictive modeling expertise to produce an effective score. This article shows how to blend collateral information with an insurer's own experience for ratemaking in a predictive modeling framework. Bayesian methods are employed to allow analysts to incorporate their personal knowledge about the precision of the external score. Using conjugate priors, we show that closed-form credibility predictions exist for a variety of distributions including the Tweedie family. A simulation study is performed to demonstrate the prediction with collateral information in a variety of hypothetical scenarios. We further apply the proposed approach to an automobile insurance dataset from Massachusetts. Both the simulation and empirical studies demonstrate situations where combining external information with internal company information provides lift in the prediction of out-of-sample policies.


ABSTRACT In mammals with binocular vision, retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons from each eye project to eye-specific domains in the contralateral and ipsilateral dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN), underpinning disparity-based stereopsis. Although domain-specific axon guidance cues that discriminate contralateral and ipsilateral RGC axons have long been postulated as a key mechanism for development of the eye-specific retinogeniculate projection, the molecular nature of such cues has remained elusive. Here, we show that the extracellular glycoprotein Nell2 (neural epidermal growth factor-like-like 2) is expressed in the dorsomedial region of the dLGN, which ipsilateral RGC axons terminate in and contralateral axons avoid. In Nell2 mutant mice, contralateral RGC axons abnormally invaded the ipsilateral domain of the dLGN, and ipsilateral axons terminated in partially fragmented patches, forming a mosaic pattern of contralateral and ipsilateral axon-termination zones. In vitro, Nell2 exerted inhibitory effects on contralateral, but not ipsilateral, RGC axons. These results provide evidence that Nell2 acts as a domain-specific positional label in the dLGN that discriminates contralateral and ipsilateral RGC axons, and that it plays essential roles in the establishment of the eye-specific retinogeniculate projection. Summary: Nell2 is expressed in the domain of the visual thalamus, where ipsilateral retinal axons terminate, and contributes to establishment of the eye-specific visual projection by specifically inhibiting contralateral retinal axons.


The principles of jet electrodeposition orientated by rapid prototyping were introduced. The nanocrystalline nickel parts with simple shape were fabricated using jet electrodeposition. The microstructure and phase transformation of nanocrystalline nickel were observed under the scanning microscope and X-ray diffraction instrument. The results show that the jet electrodeposition can greatly enhance the limited current density, fine crystalline particles and improve deposition quality. The nickel parts prepared by jet electrodeposition own a fine-grained structure (average grain size 25.6nm) with a smooth surface and high dimensional accuracy under the optimum processing parameters.


The graptolite succession of the YD‐1 drill core provides a new view into the lower Silurian (Llandovery) biostratigraphy of the Yichang region on the Yangtze platform of China. A thick succession of black to greenish, fine to silty shales and siltstones with a variable amount of poorly to well‐preserved graptolite faunas ranges from the upper Ordovician Dicellograptus ornatus Biozone (upper Katian) to the lower Silurian Lituigraptus convolutus Biozone (mid Aeronian). The Metabolograptus extraordinarius/Metabolograptus persculptus and Akidograptus ascensus/Parakidograptus acuminatus Biozone intervals are strongly condensed and bear poorly preserved graptolite faunas. A considerable gap can be detected above the Cystograptus vesiculosus Biozone, as the succeeding graptolite fauna indicates the upper Pribylograptus leptotheca Biozone. The interval of the upper Rhuddanian Coronograptus cyphus Biozone to the Lower Aeronian Coronograptus gregarius Biozone is missing. Lituigraptus convolutus was found from 1322.85 to 950.20 m, indicating a thickness of the Lituigraptus convolutus Biozone of at least 378.47 m. The age of the highest available graptolite faunas from the 729.40–750.70 m is inconclusive, but the level may still belong to the Lituigraptus convolutus Biozone. The correlation of the succession with other successions on the Yangtze platform of China indicates the need for a considerable modification of the graptolite biostratigraphy of the Yangtze platform in the Yichang region and revision of the described faunas. The Llandovery appears to be highly incomplete in the eastern flank of the Huangling anticline and the age of the biostratigraphically younger part of the succession cannot be dated precisely with graptolite faunas.


Food insecurity, sadly still remains a concern with Nepal. The remote settlement of communities, harsh terrains, inequity in income generation have left millions of Nepalese experiencing some level of food insecurity mostly among marginalized population in both urban and rural settings. A pilot study was conducted within ninety households of four different locations with the purpose to assess various dimensions of food and nutritional security of the landless people living in undocumented land by purposive selection of Chitwan District of Nepal. Semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain primary data and secondary data was obtained from Bharatpur Municipality and Madi Agriculture Service Centre, Chitwan. Analysis revealed 57.77% household expressed themselves as food secured in terms of their production and source of income while 42.23% were food insecure. The most food insecure ethnic group was Janajatis (indigenous) (34.21%) followed by Dalits and Brahmins (15.78%).  Similarly, 79.99% (36.66% male, 43.33% female) respondents were under-nutrition and 20.01% (5.56% male and 14.45% female) were nutritionally secured from calculation using Harris-Benedict principle based on net calories they obtained from their daily meal. Females were more insecure in terms of population size, education, skill, nutrition and diseases followed by males. Of those interviewed, 57.77% households lack production activity and were also food insufficient. Main source of income was off-farm work (40%) followed by remittance (35.56%). Various natural calamities were also the reason behind being landless in case of some households and they reportedly migrated from elsewhere. Still, peoples are involved in foraging and traditional farming activities with low output. Addressing agricultural production, nutrition awareness, climate change monitoring, livelihoods strengthening and disaster preparedness to ensure access to food is urgent need even in urban areas like Chitwan. Dependence on food import, shying from production activities, traditional food sources has to be addressed for Nepal's struggle against food insecurity.
Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 6(4): 351-358


The application of high-density polymorphic single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) markers derived from high-throughput sequencing methods has heralded plenty of biological questions about the linkages of processes operating at micro- and macroevolutionary scales. However, the effects of SNP filtering practices on population genetic inference have received much less attention. By performing sensitivity analyses, we empirically investigated how decisions about the percentage of missing data (MD) and the minor allele frequency (MAF) set in bioinformatic processing of genomic data affect direct (i.e., parentage analysis) and indirect (i.e., fine-scale spatial genetic structure – SGS) gene flow estimates. We focus specifically on these manifestations in small plant populations, and particularly, in the rare tropical plant species Dinizia jueirana-facao, where assumptions implicit to analytical procedures for accurate estimates of gene flow may not hold. Avoiding biases in dispersal estimates are essential given this species is facing extinction risks due to habitat loss, and so we also investigate the effects of forest fragmentation on the accuracy of dispersal estimates under different filtering criteria by testing for recent decrease in the scale of gene flow. Our sensitivity analyses demonstrate that gene flow estimates are robust to different setting of MAF (0.05–0.35) and MD (0–20%). Comparing the direct and indirect estimates of dispersal, we find that contemporary estimates of gene dispersal distance (σrt = 41.8 m) was ∼ fourfold smaller than the historical estimates, supporting the hypothesis of a temporal shift in the scale of gene flow in D. jueirana-facao, which is consistent with predictions based on recent, dramatic forest fragmentation process. While we identified settings for filtering genomic data to avoid biases in gene flow estimates, we stress that there is no 'rule of thumb' for bioinformatic filtering and that relying on default program settings is not advisable. Instead, we suggest that the approach implemented here be applied independently in each separate empirical study to confirm appropriate settings to obtain unbiased population genetics estimates.


After preliminary screening, Mortierella alpina and Mortierella elongata were compared with respect to arachidonic acid content. M. alpina ATCC 16266 produced 2.1 g of arachidonic acid per liter in media containing 10% glucose while the highest percentage of arachidonic acid in lipid (43.3%) was observed at a glucose concentration of 2%. Arachidonic acid content in lipids increased to 66% during storage.


Intermetallic TiAl alloys with a significant volume fraction of the body-centered cubic β-phase at elevated temperatures have proven to exhibit good processing characteristics during hot-working. Being a strong β stabilizer, Mo has gained importance as an alloying element for so-called β/γ-TiAl alloys. Unfortunately, the effect of Mo on the appearing phases and their temperature dependence is not well known. In this work, two sections of the Ti-Al-Mo ternary phase diagram derived from experimental data are shown. These diagrams are compared with the results of in-situ high-temperature diffraction experiments using high-energy synchrotron radiation.


Urban settlements and their connectivity will be the dominant driver of global change during the twenty-first century. In an attempt to assess the effects of urban growth on available land for other uses and its associated impacts on environmental parameters, we modeled the change in the extent of Gorgan City, the capital of the Golestan Province of Iran. We used Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery of the area and evaluated possible scenarios of future urban sprawl using the SLEUTH method. The SLEUTH is a cellular automaton dynamic urban-growth model that uses geospatial data themes to simulate and forecast change in the extent of urban areas. We successfully modeled and forecasted the likely change in extent of the Gorgan City using slope, land use, exclusion zone, transportation network, and hillshade predictor variables. The results illustrated the utility of modeling in explaining the spatial pattern of urban growth. We also showed the method to be useful in providing timely information to decision makers for adopting preventive measures against unwanted change in extent and location of the built-up areas within in the city limits.


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Lasting leadership:
what you can learn from top business leaders
18 Management Today May 2005
Prof Tersia Brevis is research editor of Management Today and professor of management
in the College of Economic and Business Science at Unisa.
The Nightly Business Report (the number
one daily TV business news programme
in the US) and Knowledge@Wharton (the
Wharton School's online Journal of Research
and Business Analysis) came together
to select and profile the 25 most
influential business people of the past quarter
century.
NRB's viewers nominated more than
700 business people from around the
world and a panel of ..