The paper is concerned with the action of the osmium techniques for the 'Golgi apparatus' on the intestinal epithelial cell of the mouse. It is shown that, when the fixative has acted, there are many separate lipide spheres in the 'Golgi' region. During postosmication the spaces between these spheres are filled up with a black precipitate. This black precipitate does not represent the distribution of lipide material.


This paper introduces a new algorithm for attitude motion planning, Constrained Attitude Guidance (CAG) problem, in the presence of angular rate constraints and conic exclusion regions (pointing constraints). The CAG problem is solved by considering only the quaternion kinematics in the formulation and using constraints on quaternions and its time derivatives to indirectly apply bounds on the angular rates and accelerations. The CAG formulation makes use of Mixed Integer Convex Programming (MICP) in order to impose, approximately, the unity constraint on the quaternion magnitude, where the approximation accuracy can be set to a desired accuracy. The solution complexity of the MICP formulation increases exponentially with the number of binary variables that are used to impose the unit norm constraint on the quaternion. Since this number is independent of the number of exclusion pointing constraints, the solution approach has favorable complexity in terms of the number of pointing constraints. The paper also provides a numerical example that incorporates both angular rate and pointing constraints.


Choriocarcinoma following scar pregnancy is a very rare entity. Here we present such a unique case. The index pregnancy was a sterilization failure which developed in the scar of previous caesarean. The scar pregnancy was evacuated through a hysterotomy incision and she was re sterilized. The histopathology report of the evacuated products showed normal villi. Two and a half months later she presented with bleeding per vaginum. Her beta HCG was raised and she had a vascular mass in the lower uterine myometrium. Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia was suspected and three courses of methotrexate folinic acid regime were administered. But the fall in beta HCG was inappropriate. She had no desire for future fertility and was not willing for combination chemo therapy. So hysterectomy was done. Histopathology revealed choriocarcinoma. Chest x-ray was apparently normal but CT chest showed micro metastasis. She had three courses of EMA-CO and is under follow up. She is asymptomatic and her beta HCG is less than 5 IU/l.


Recent technological and institutional changes in journalism are believed to have dragged cultural journalism into a crisis. This article looks closely at one thing that makes the job of cultural journalists, in particular critics, distinct from other journalistic beats – the openly acknowledged importance of emotionality and subjectivity in these media workers' professional practices – and explores the role of emotions in dealing with the crisis in the profession. Based on 14 semi-structured interviews with film and food critics, this article addresses the following questions: What emotional labour do the cultural critics perform? How does professional cultural criticism legitimize itself in the digital era? I suggest that both the film and food critics cherish the fact that their work processes draw heavily on their subjectivity: emotional experiences, political opinions and personal memories. However, to be able do their job, the critics cannot allow such elements of subjectivity to take the reins, and therefore, they perform emotional labour for the successful objectivization of their emotionality: making use of their emotions to better recognize what moments or aspects are significant for the assessment of the quality of the cultural object being reviewed. Furthermore, I suggest that in the context where digitalization has threatened the exceptional position of the professional cultural critic, emotional labour together with some other strategies of handling one's subjectivity can help them to construct boundaries of professional cultural criticism and thus to reclaim professional legitimacy.


This thesis describes the use of different MR contrast agent platforms for the direct detection of pathology-induced upregulation of intraluminally-expressed vascular entities by molecular MRI. We particularly focused on the in vivo target specificity and MR sensitivity of the agents. The biological targets of our molecular MRI approaches were associated with two types of vascular events that are critically involved in many pathologies; i.e., angiogenesis and neurovascular inflammation. In Chapter 2, we reported on the successful application of iron oxide-containing nanoemulsions targeted to angiogenesis-upregulated ανβ3-integrin to monitor the angiogenic activity of two different tumors. In the case of highly vascularized tumors, the accumulation was more confined to the periphery of the tumors, where angiogenesis is predominantly occurring. This in contrast to less vascularized tumors, where contrast was found throughout the tumor. This demonstrated that this targeted MR contrast agent platform can serve as an in vivo biomarker for anti-angiogenesis treatment and angiogenesis phenotyping. Chapter 3 also reported on molecular MRI of stroke-induced angiogenesis. In this study, PECAM-1-targeted MPIO were assessed for their use as contrast agent for molecular MRI of vascular remodeling after experimental stroke. Even though elevated levels of PECAM-1 were present in the infarcted tissue and in vitro essays showed effective labeling by αPECAM-1-MPIO, in vivo molecular MRI after stroke revealed no αPECAM-1-MPIO-based contrast enhancement and αPECAM-1-MPIO were absent in post mortem brain tissue. This indicated that this molecular MRI approach is not invariably effective for MRI-based assessment of stroke-induced alterations in expression of cerebrovascular markers. Assessment of the suitability of two ICAM-1-targeted MR contrast agents, i.e., based on Gd-liposomes or MPIO, for molecular MRI of upregulation of ICAM-1 after stroke, was described in Chapter 4. Both ICAM-1-targeted agents bound effectively to activated cerebrovascular cells in vitro, generating significant MRI contrast-enhancing effects. Direct in vivo MRI-based detection after stroke was only achieved with ICAM-1-targeted MPIO, although both contrast agents showed similar target-specific vascular accumulation. This study demonstrated the potential of in vivo MRI of post-stroke ICAM-1 upregulation, and signified target-specific MPIO as most suitable contrast agent for molecular MRI of cerebrovascular inflammation. In Chapter 5, these ICAM-1-targeted MPIO were administrated at different time points post-stroke in mice to determine to what extent different stages of endothelial activation and leukocyte infiltration could be visualized. αICAM-1-MPIO were shown to be suitable for in vivo MRI of stroke-induced ICAM-1 expression on vascular endothelium and leukocytes at different stages after stroke in mice. However, contrast effects from endogenous blood remains significantly hampered the detection of co-localized MPIO at later time points. Chapter 6 explored if ICAM-1-targeted MPIO were able to detect EAE-induced ICAM-1 upregulation with in vivo molecular MRI. ICAM-1-targeted MPIO-induced MR contrast was particularly detected in the subarachnoid space between the temporal lobe and the midbrain. These locations of ICAM-1-induced MR contrast were not necessarily associated with physical disruption of the BBB, which is clinically used for detection of MS lesions. This indicated its suitability as a new contrast agent to detect ongoing disease activity and the evaluation of treatment efficacy.


A multi-well aquifer test was conducted to determine the hydraulic characteristics of and vertical connection within the Upper Floridan aquifer in the Albany, Ga., area as part of a hydrogeologic investigation being conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Albany Water, Gas, and Light Commission. The test site consisted of a production well and five clusters of observation wells (one deep, intermediate, and shallow well in each cluster). Flow-meter tests conducted in the production well between the depth interval of 110 to 140 feet (ft) below land surface show that the interval between 118 and 124 ft contributes the largest portion of the total yield to the well A 49-hour aquifer test was conducted in February 1995, at a constant rate of 3,300 gallons per minute (gal/min). The maximum drawdown measured in any observation well was about 2.4 ft at a distance of 330 ft from the pumped well Measurable drawdown was not observed at distances greater than about one mile from the pumped well The hydraulic characteristics of the Upper Floridan aquifer were evaluated using the Hantush-Jacob curve-matching and Jacob straight-line methods. Using the Haiatush-Jacob method, values for transmissivity (T) ranged from about 108,000 to 460,000 feet squared per day (ft 2/d), values for storage coefficient (S) ranged from 1.4x10" 4 to 6.3x10-4, and values for vertical hydraulic conductivity of the overlying confining unit (K') ranged from 4.9 to 11.4 feet per day (ft/d). Geometric averages for these values of T, S, and K' were calculated to be 211,000 ft2/d, 2.7x104, and 73 ft/d, respectively. If dual porosity (fracture flow plus matrix flow) is assumed instead of leakage, and the Jacob straight-line method is used with late time-drawdown data the calculated T of the fractures ranged from about 222,000 to 462,000 ft2/d and S of the fractures plus the matrix ranged from 2x10 -5 to 3x10-2 .


Executive summary
The UK population is ageing rapidly and the extent of comorbidities will continue to increase. This greater demand for support and care will need to be met within an environment of continued economic restraint. One policy response to mitigate such demand has been the reinvigorated focus on prevention and early intervention in health, social and third sector care. Prevention is broadly defined to include a wide range of services that promote independence; prevent or delay the deterioration of health and well-being resulting from ageing, illness or disability; and delay the need for more costly and intensive services. In exploring the existing evidence base around effective and cost-effective preventative services, our typology of prevention includes the accepted discourse of primary, second and tertiary prevention, while placing those 'upstream' well-being interventions at the core of any prevention strategy.

Well-being preventative services across the continuum
• In mitigating social isolation and loneliness, there is relatively good evidence that befriending interventions, social prescribing services, group activities and volunteer schemes can reduce loneliness and depressive symptomology, improve physical health, and result in differences in mortality.
• A range of exercise provision is able to improve balance, cognition, well-being, mobility, core strength and cardio-metabolic health, and reduce fall or fracture risk, depressive symptomology and cognitive decline. Physical activity can be supported through community-based interventions (e.g. walking for health groups, peer-supported exercise programmes), resulting in improved health-related quality of life and reductions in the use of secondary health care.
• Information, advice and signposting are seen as fundamental by individuals, as well as their families or carers, who need (or in the future may need), care and support to maintain independence. However, few studies concentrate on what works for older people, or whether timely and appropriate advice is able to maintain independence or improve quality of life. There is emerging evidence that care navigators (CNs) can provide effective practical and social support to older people, ensuring timely signposting to interventions and acting as a 'link' between community and statutory services.
• There is a range of low-level practical interventions that can support older people to remain at home, e.g. minor housing repairs, assisted gardening and shopping. While the link between such services and the use of higher-intensity provision is little discussed in the literature, a timely and trusted response can improve quality of life and reduce service use. Gardening has been shown to improve physical strength, fitness and cognitive ability and to reduce depression and anxiety.

Primary, secondary and tertiary prevention
Available primary and secondary preventative services (e.g. health screening, vaccinations, care management, day services, reablement) should be delivered holistically, i.e. 'making every contact count'.
• Two national population health screening programmes – breast and bowel screening – demonstrate efficacy. In contrast, the level of uptake of the NHS Health Check has been lower than expected. While older people are more likely to attend, older individuals most likely to benefit (e.g. smokers, minority ethnic groups and those living in more deprived areas) seem less keen to engage.
• Day services for older people are a contested area, often perceived as part of the 'one-size-fits-all' welfarist agenda. Where the evidence is available, day services improve social care and quality of life for users and carers, reduce social isolation, may delay institutionalisation for people with dementia, and provide a sense of purpose for the individual, but are unlikely to reduce health service use.
• Care management, essential in supporting the individual to 'age in place', can reduce hospital admissions, lengths of stay and Accident and Emergency (A&E) attendances, although outcomes are dependent on the structure and processes adopted. Improved outcomes can be achieved by delivering well-being services alongside statutory provision.
• While reablement improves independence, health-related quality of life and service use, there are continuing process difficulties in appropriately involving or transferring older people to further service provision.
• In exploring tertiary prevention (minimising disability and deterioration from established diseases), the evidence base remains fragmented, with little clarity on the processes, structures or outcomes of, for example, rapid response teams (RRTs) or ambulatory emergency care (AEC) units.

Fragmented evidence base?
There is a wide range of available and effective well-being preventative services that can support older people to live independent and healthy lives. However, there are still gaps in the evidence base. Few evaluations explore whether reported changes in quality of life, service use, morbidity or mortality are maintained long term, with even fewer reporting cost-effectiveness. There is also little evidence that identifies the types of package of early interventions that should be provided, when these need to be offered, and to whom they would make the most difference. The evidence is non-existent on the structures and processes of effective preventative pathways.

The future role of services to 2030
If appropriate management of future pressures on the health and social care environment is to be delivered, the system needs to be rebalanced toward well-being interventions, and primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. However, the budget for such care is continually under threat. There is an urgent need to apply a single health and social care budget, incorporating housing and transport and delivered through a single commissioning point. Perhaps the main challenge in reorienting provision toward preventative care is that there first needs to be an accepted clarity from all partners across the health and social care environment as to what is being prevented – unnecessary hospital admissions or morbidity (ill health). The rhetoric of prevention needs to be embedded into service provision with appropriate care strategies, processes and structures able to support the promotion of well-being and health, rather than the management of disease.


Fibre diameter can vary dramatically along a wool staple, especially in the Mediterranean environment of southern Australia with its dry summers and abundance of green feed in spring. Other research results have shown a very low phenotypic correlation between fibre diameter grown between seasons. Many breeders use short staples to measure fibre diameter for breeding purposes and also to promote animals for sale. The effectiveness of this practice is determined by the relative response to selection by measuring fibre traits on a full 12 months wool staple as compared to measuring them only on part of a staple. If a high genetic correlation exists between the part record and the full record, then using part records may be acceptable to identify genetically superior animals. No information is available on the effectiveness of part records. This paper investigated whether wool growth and fibre diameter traits of Merino wool grown at different times of the year in a Mediterranean environment, are genetically the same trait, respectively. The work was carried out on about 7 dyebanded wool sections/animal.year, on ewes from weaning to hogget age, in the Katanning Merino resource flocks over 6 years. Relative clean wool growth of the different sections had very low heritability estimates of less than 0.10, and they were phenotypically and genetically poorly correlated with 6 or 12 months wool growth. This indicates that part record measurement of clean wool growth of these sections will be ineffective as indirect selection criteria to improve wool growth genetically. Staple length growth as measured by the length between dyebands, would be more effective with heritability estimates of between 0.20 and 0.30. However, these measurements were shown to have a low genetic correlation with wool grown for 12 months which implies that these staple length measurements would only be half as efficient as the wool weight for 6 or 12 months to improve total clean wool weight. Heritability estimates of fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature were relatively high and were genetically and phenotypically highly correlated across sections. High positive phenotypic and genetic correlations were also found between fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature of the different sections and similar measurements for wool grown over 6 or 12 months. Coefficient of variation of fibre diameter of the sections also had a moderate negative phenotypic and genetic correlation with staple strength of wool staples grown over 6 months indicating that coefficient of variation of fibre diameter of any section would be as good an indirect selection criterion to improve stable strength as coefficient of variation of fibre diameter for wool grown over 6 or 12 months. The results indicate that fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature of wool grown over short periods of time have virtually the same heritability as that of wool grown over 12 months, and that the genetic correlation between fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature on part and on full records is very high (rg > 0.85). This indicates that fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature on part records can be used as selection criteria to improve these traits. However, part records of greasy and clean wool growth would be much less efficient than fleece weight for wool grown over 6 or 12 months because of the low heritability of part records and the low genetic correlation between these traits on part records and on wool grown for 12 months.


Semantic Bootstrapping in Frames: A Computational Model of Syntactic Category Acquisition According to the semantic bootstrapping hypothesis, children map certain (prototypical) semantic concepts to syntactic categories (e.g., objects as nouns, actions as verbs), which are then used to learn other elements of language. We report a computational model of syntactic category acquisition that combines semantic bootstrapping with the distributional learning of language. The model has access to a small set of "seed" words, with labeled categories. It then iteratively constructs syntactic frames from the seeds; sufficiently frequent frames are used to categorize non-seeded words which then contribute to the construction of additional frames, including frames that incorporate category information. The model is online and effective. Simulation on child-directed English corpus shows that with only 100 seed words, classification precision exceeds 70%.


The study was intended to investigate the effect of ambient air pollution on four legumes species. The investigated legumes species were Pisum sativum L. (green pea), Vicia faba L. (broad bean), Glycine max (soya bean) and Vigna sinensis (cow pea). The four types of legumes were grown during the summer season, in four sites affected by the high traffic intensity and industrial activities in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The results depict an increase in air pollution (O3, NO2 and SO2); as traffic density and industrial activities increased. Mostly free amino acids contents gradually increased in the plant's leaves as pollutants increased. This study concludes that the changes in free amino acids contents indicate the high levels of air pollution in three sites. Accumulation of free amino acids may act as a protective mechanism to air pollution stress.


This work deals with the deposition and characterization of (Ti-Si-N) coatings. A series of Ti-Si-N thin films with different silicon content were deposited on Si (100) substrate by RF magnetron sputtering in an Ar-N2 gas mixture. The influence of Si content on the microstructural and mechanical properties of the as deposited. The as deposited films were studied by using different characterization techniques such as SEM equipped with Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) for determining the composition of the films, XRD was used to determine microstructural composition and nano-indentation with MTS XP system for mechanical properties. Scherer's formula was used to determine the grain size, from the full width at half maximum of (111) experimental peaks, residual stresses of the films were measured by an optical interference apparatus using Newton's ring method
           Results reveal that the film deposited with Si content of 20 at. % has a dense nanostructure and the surface morphology of the Ti-Si-N coatings show neither holes nor column headings. The film deposited with Si content of 33 at. % shows a surface morphology of damaged surface. The X-ray spectra show that Ti-Si-N coatings deposited with Si content of 0 at.%, 27 at.%, 33 at.%, 40 at.% possess a preferential orientation in the direction of (111) and this orientation peak disappears for films with low of Si content. The residual stress built in the coating is compressive and they increase with increase in Si content and reach a maximum of 2.22 GPa. The hardness of the Ti-Si-N films also increases to a maximum with increase in Si content beyond which further addition of the Si decrease the hardness. The TiN grain size as calculated from the XRD diffraction peak decreases with increase in the Si content to saturation value of around 12.8nm for films without addition of silicon to 3.8nm for films with 40at. % of Si

Keywords:   hard coating, magnetron sputtering, residual stress; grain size, Ti-Si-N


Korean credit unions (CUs) are considered to be a hidden contributor to the "Korean miracle", characterized by remarkable economic growth and relatively low income inequality. The Korean miracle not only generated wealth in an economically strapped and socially under-privileged people, but also contributed to regional community development and the democratization of Korean society. In this study, we analyzed how Korean CUs contributed to the Korean economy and society, and we identified the challenges now facing Korean CUs. We investigated how Korean CUs were established and how they have developed, and we present their remarkable achievements. We analyzed their present characteristics as well as the difficulties they experienced during the recent global financial crises, and we discuss the many challenges they face going forward.


Abstract Background Human rights provide fundamental conditions for people to maintain dignity and self-determination and protect a nation's most vulnerable citizens. In South Africa, children with intellectual disability who experience socioeconomic disadvantage may be particularly vulnerable due to their cognitive impairments and inability to garner needed resources. Method The perceptions of children with intellectual disability regarding their access to basic amenities in their home environments were examined to determine whether their positive human rights were met. Risk factors were examined in relation to these perceptions. Results The results suggested that participants generally reported high degrees of access to basic resources. Logistic regressions suggested socioeconomic risk factors (e.g., income, education, household size, relationship status) were negatively related to children's reports of access to food and their own beds and positively related to having someone available to explain confusing concepts to them. Conclusions The positive human rights of children living in high-risk environments should be monitored to ensure all South Africans have their rights met.


There is much confusion about the most effective malaria chemoprophylactic regimen for travellers to chloroquine-resistant areas. For residents, the problem is even more confused. A prospective, multicentre trial was performed between 1987 and 1989 to assess the efficacy of three different malaria chemoprophylactic regimens (chloroquine 300 mg weekly combined with proguanil 100 mg daily, chloroquine 300 mg weekly combined with proguanil 200 mg daily and proguanil 200 mg daily only) in Dutch expatriates, who were departing for a stay of more than one year in East, Central or Southern Africa. Prophylaxis failures (defined as Plasmodium falciparum present in the blood film) were distinguished from failures of compliance by measuring whole-blood drug levels, taken at the same time as the blood slide and sent as filterpaper blood spots. The data of 200 expatriates could be analysed; the overall response rate was 52%. Twenty-six (13%) suffered from a fever; in two of them the blood slide contained P. falciparum. One subject took chloroquine 300 mg weekly with proguanil 200 mg daily, the other 200 mg proguanil daily. Assessment of compliance was possible in 10 of the 26 subjects with a fever; five (50%) were below and five (50%) were above the limit of 0.19 mumol/l. Due to the low incidence of prophylaxis failures, calculation of risks is unreliable. There were strong indications that compliance decreased with time. The ultimate cooperation needed for confirmation of prophylaxis failures and breakthroughs failed. Several factors which could have contributed to this lack of cooperation are discussed.


An investigation was carried out to determine the stage-discharge characteristics of a meandering compound channel with vegetated floodplains. The fundamental interaction mechanism between a main channel and its floodplain was also investigated. Field and model studies provided the data for this thesis. A stretch of the River Roding in Essex was monitored for the field study and a scale model of a short reach of the river was reproduced in the laboratory. A Froudian model was constructed with vertical and horizontal scales of 16: 1 and 50: 1 respectively. Field date over a two year period were used to match the model to the river. The response of the river to proposed changes was then predicted by varying roughness and shaped parameters within the model. To do this, stage discharge curves were determined for the model and scaled up to prototype conditions. Detailed velocity traverses were carried out across selected sections of the model to determine discharge proportions between floodplain and main channel for different depths of floodplain flow. A computerised data collection facility was developed to assist the model study. Vegetation density and distribution on the floodbanks of compound rivers, such as the River Roding investigated here, can have a significant effect on total discharge capacity. Over 40% increase in maximum discharge capacity was realised in the abovementioned scheme between heavily vegetated and cleared floodplains. Sever meanders of the floodplain boundaries produced large form roughness, resulting in flow separation on sonie bends and a reduction in the effective width of the floodplain. Removal of these, requiring relatively small excavation of the floodbanks, could significantly improve the carrying capacity of the river. The discharge in the main channel was reduced at overbank conditions due to the shear interaction between floodplain flow and main channel flow. Manning roughness coefficients were calculated for particular vegetative conditions of the river. A proposal was made to incorporate a correction factor into calculations of discharge in compound rivers with meandering main channels. The correction factor would be applied to the discharge calculated for an equivalent compound channel without meander. It depended on the degree of meander, or sinuosity, of the main channel, roughness ratio between main channel and floodplain, and depth of flow.


Understanding differences between women and men's career development and promoting equality is important in today's society. "A growing body of evidence shows that utilizing the skills and talent of both men and women is beneficial for enterprises and for society in general" (Guy Ryder, Director General, International Labour Organization ILO, 2015, p.3). Women are under-represented in management level and measures that can be taken to advance women in business should be analyzed and taken into focus for the future. Especially interesting is banking industry, which is dominated by women in terms of employees but men are the majority in management level.The study offers a perspective from female middle managers point of view. The purpose is to contribute to the understanding of what causes women's under-representation in management level in the banking industry. Moreover, the aim is to demonstrate women's career path as well as factors that influence on women's career development. The data was analyzed by using White's (1995) age-linked stage model of women's career development, Super's (1963) self-concepts and Super's (1980) life roles.The study shows that there has been much progress to reduce inequality between women and men, and special programs have been developed in order to increase the number of women in management level in banks. However, there are some negative factors influencing women's career development that remain the same through the time. The findings emphasize that women still have to deal with a number of challenges and for instance fight against stereotypes. Thus, seven suggestions how to increase the number of women in management level in the banking industry are made.


SUMMARY: The frequency of appearance of mutant pleomorphic patches on the surface growth of granular strains of Trichophyton mentagrophytes was markedly increased by incubation at 36° as compared to the number seen at 26°. A minimum of 8–9 days of incubation at the higher temperature was required to induce the higher frequency of pleomorphic mutants and, as the number of days at 36° increased, the number and relative size of the pleomorphic patches also increased. Typical mutants could be isolated whether the granular culture was incubated for 8–9 or 14 days at 36°. Visual scoring was relatively accurate since most of those patches visually scored as pleomorphic were found on isolation to be typical or atypical mutants. Three phenotypic characters were used here to define pleomorphism: type of surface mycelium, pigmentation on reverse side of colony, and effect of methionine. These characters could change independently of one another. Thus, pleomorphism may be the result of alterations in more than one closely linked chromosome-borne locus.


Greek people consume a limited amount of rabbit meat, with the exception of the island of Crete. In Crete rabbit meat is a traditional dish. A large number of farmer or shepherding families grow rabbits. This study focuses on the traditional rabbitries that serve mainly as a source of meat for the needs of the family, thus become good examples of farming priorities of low-income families. The study focused on rabbitries located at the villages of Krousonas, Sarchos, Korfes and Loutraki in the county of lraklion, Crete. A total of 70 traditional rabbitries were observed for the duration of four months (July to October 2000). The facilities of the rabbitries were of low cost materials, mostly homemade, with the exception of 15 rabbitries, which used commercial cages. The diet of the rabbits was mainly from garden plants supplemented with grains or other kinds of feed materials, such as leftover dry bread. Some characteristics of the production-system were: Maximum total rabbits number/farm 22.2±13.0 (n=70); Reproductive does number/farm 3.3±1.3 (n=70); Parturition number/year/doe 7.7±0.8 (n=230); Litter size in birth 8.0± 2.6 (n=105); Litter size in weaning 7.2±2.4 (n=97); Litter size in slaughter 6.5±2.4 (n=95); Slaughter age of fattening (months) 2.8± 0.9 (n=84); Body weight at slaughter 1.7±0.4 (n=84); In respect to health problems, there were not any serious pathological conditions observed other than some cases with ear mange lesions (18.7% in reproductive does, 28.6% in reproductive bucks, 15.2% in fryer rabbits) and a small percentage (8%) of slaughtered rabbits were observed with liver abnormalities believed to be due to coccidial infection. At the end of the paper, the different medications in use in the observed farms are refereed. The recommendation and the application mode of the used medications were entirely empiric, thus without a prescription from a veterinarian. In 39 farms no medication was used.


Over the years there have been significant advances in automotive engineering thanks to recent development of electronics. Antilock brake system (ABS) technology with modern electronic components has shown superior braking performance to conventional vehicles on highways. The brake-by-wire (BBW) system equipped with powerful electronic devices also allows us to arbitrarily tailor the force feel at brake pedal. Conventionally, however, the brake system has been developed through trial and error on test tracks, which necessitates a great amount of time and cost. This study attempts to establish an analytical tool to evaluate braking feel to help design optimal brake systems. First, mathematical models of brake systems are developed and are confirmed through computer simulations. Second, mechanical impedance at brake pedal is modelled based on the developed brake system models. The brake pedal feel is represented in the form of impedance surface. Third, to provide a guideline to design optimal braking feel, relations between pedal force, pedal stroke and vehicle deceleration are investigated. An expert test driver's evaluation process is modelled based on his subjective ratings of brake systems.


There is an increasing need for monitoring schemes that help understand the evolution of the global biodiversity crisis and propose solutions for the future. Indicators, including temporal baselines, are crucial to measure the change in biodiversity over time, to evaluate progress towards its conservation and sustainable use and to set conservation priorities. They help design and monitor national and regional policies on biodiversity; they also feed into national reporting on international agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Sustainable Development Goals. We analyse the methodological approach of five small African projects resulting from a call to promote indicator development, improve monitoring capacity and strengthen the science-policy interface in the field of biodiversity. We compared their approach to existing guidance provided by the international community, specifically the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership. To this end, we assess whether internationally recommended steps are effectively applied to national/local biodiversity monitoring in selected developing countries. We also present lessons learnt from workshop interactions between partners involved in these projects. Through our pilot projects we identified data availability and data accessibility, together with the involvement of stakeholders, as critical steps in indicator development. Moreover, there is a need for a better awareness and a wider application of the indicator concept itself. Hence, training of key actors both in the policy and science spheres is needed to operationalize indicators and ensure their continuity and sustainability. We hope that these case studies and lessons learnt can stimulate and support countries in the Global South to formulate policy-relevant biodiversity indicators.


The healthcare industry has developed a dependence on information technology (IT) for maintaining and improving both clinical and business operations. Whether IT is used for office automation or for reducing medical errors, there are five constants that routinely influence the successful integration of IT in healthcare. These constants are the proper use and maintenance of the IT budget, the role of supportive leadership, the use of project management, the process of implementation, and the significance of end user involvement. These constants challenge healthcare organizations to efficiently and effectively use their financial and human resources when adopting new IT. These constants also shape how the healthcare industry approaches the adoption and utilization of new IT. A collective understanding of these constants and their interrelationships will enable healthcare organizations to better integrate new IT and achieve organizational goals of developing a solid technological infrastructure to truly enhance the delivery of quality healthcare.


In this work, we describe an effective video communication for wireless transmission of H.264/AVC medical ultrasound video over mobile WiMAX networks. Medical ultrasound is encoded using error resilient encoding in which, the quantization levels are varied according to the function of the diagnostic significance of image region. We explain how our proposed system allows for the transmission of high-resolution clinical video which is being encoded at the clinical acquisition resolution and then decoded with low delay. We perform this functional concept by using OPNET simulations of the mobile WiMAX medium and also considering some of the physical layer characteristics also such as service prioritization classes, different types of modulation being performed, fading channel's conditions, coding schemes and their types and mobility.We are encoding the ultrasound videos at 4CIF(704×576)resolution to provide high level of clarity. The video quality assessment is being done based on both of their evaluations in objective and subjective manner. Index Terms: WiMAX, Long Term Evolution(LTE), High Efficiency Video Coding(HEVC), Flexible Macroblock Ordering (FMO), Diagnostically Relevant Encoding, 4G, mobile health care.


This study was conducted to determine animal health constraints for dairy goats kept by small-scale farmers in Kongwa and Mvomero districts, Tanzania. A total of 129 dairy goats belonging to 108 farmers were screened for gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) infection, coccidiosis, haemoparasites, brucellosis and contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP) over a period of 11 months. Other clinical diseases and mortalities were recorded. The goats used were Norwegian crosses and Toggenburg crosses. The mean prevalence of GIN infection and coccidiosis in all goats were 54.8 and 57.4%, respectively. Prevalence of GIN infection was higher (P ≤ 0.05) during the rainy months than in the dry months, but the prevalence of coccidiosis did not differ (P > 0.05) between the dry and rainy seasons. The EPG in goats did not differ (P > 0.05) between Kongwa (169.79 ± 0.03 EPG) and Mvomero (171.51 ± 0.04 EPG) districts, but the OPG differed significantly (P ≤ 0.05) with values of 793.15 ± 0.04 (Kongwa) and 364.02 ± 0.05 (Mvomero). The prevalence of CCPP in the goats was 26.4%. Other clinical diseases included respiratory diseases, infectious keratoconjunctivitis and orf (scabby lesions around mouth and nostrils). Both tests for haemoparasites and brucellosis indicated negative results for all goats tested. Mortality rate during the study period was 15.5% and the major causes of deaths were respiratory diseases, bloat and food poisoning. In conclusion, gastrointestinal nematodes are prevalent in both districts, but the burdens are relatively low to justify mass treatment. The Norwegian goats are more susceptible to GIN infection and coccidiosis compared to Toggenburg goats.


Endometrial cancer is by no means a benign disease. While many adequate treatment plans now exist for early endometrial cancer, the best method of treadtment of this disease has yet to be defined. The prognostic factors need further study and definition. Pelvic and aortic nodes are of more than passing significance in certain subsets of Stage 1 endometrial cancer, and there is much to be learned about the biologic behavior of apparent early endometrial cancer. Prospective studies may yield sufficient data to provide a solid base for further clinical therapeutic trials.


Sarkar and Zangwill (1991) showed by numerical examples that reduction in setup times can, surprisingly, actually increase work in process in some cyclic production systems (that is, reduction in switchover times can increase waiting times in some polling models). We present, for polling models with exhaustive and gated service disciplines, some explicit formulas that provide additional insight and characterization of this anomaly. More specifically, we show that, for both of these models, there exist simple formulas that define for each queue a critical value z* of the mean total setup time z per cycle such that, if z < z*, then the expected waiting time at that queue will be minimized if the server is forced to idle for a constant length of time z*- z every cycle; also, for the symmetric polling model, we give a simple explicit formula for the expected waiting time and the critical value z* that minimizes it.


Previous studies have shown that the activation of murine macrophages to a fully tumoricidal state requires that specific environmental signals be delivered to the macrophage in a step-wise manner: a "priming" signal first renders the macrophage stimulated, but not cytolytic. The addition of a second or "trigger" signal to the primed macrophage results in tumoricidal activity. One potent priming signal has been identified as IFN-gamma and one often used trigger signal for endotoxin-responsive (Lpsn) macrophages is LPS. In contrast to LPS-responsive macrophage, rIFN-gamma-primed C3H/HeJ (Lpsd) macrophages fail to become cytolytic in response to protein-free, phenol-water-extracted LPS preparations, but become tumoricidal when exposed in vitro to protein-rich butanol-extracted LPS or purified lipid A-associated proteins. Further characterization of the activation requirements of the C3H/HeJ macrophages revealed that for optimal elaboration of TNF in vitro, two signals were also required: rIFN-gamma and a second signal that contained LAP. C3H/HeJ macrophages macrophages primed with rIFN-gamma failed to produce TNF in response to any concentration of protein-free phenol-water extracted LPS, even when supernatants were concentrated before assaying for functional activity in a standard TNF L929 fibroblast assay. Although exposure of rIFN-gamma-primed C3H/HeJ macrophages to LAP resulted in a fully tumoricidal state equivalent to that exhibited by C3H/OuJ macrophages, the levels of TNF produced remained discrepant. Under identical conditions, C3H/OuJ macrophages produced approximately fivefold more TNF (11,776 U/ml) than C3H/HeJ macrophages (2,399 U/ml). This suggests that although C3H/HeJ macrophages can respond functionally in a "normal" manner given the correct signals, they remain quantitatively deficient in the production of certain proteins. In this system, the elaboration of TNF and macrophage-mediated tumor cell lysis were shown to be dissociable events. The tumor target used in these studies (P815) was shown to be resistant to as much as 40,000 U/ml of purified rTNF. In addition, C3H/OuJ macrophage cultures exposed to LPS only (which resulted in the production of high levels of TNF), failed to lyse these targets. Lastly, anti-mouse TNF antibody added to macrophage cultures had no effect on the induction of tumor cell lysis.


Purpose To investigate the efficacy and predictability of wavefront-guided laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) treatments using the iris registration (IR) technology for the correction of refractive errors in patients with large pupils. Setting Horus Vision Correction Center, Alexandria, Egypt. Methods Prospective noncomparative study including a total of 52 eyes of 30 consecutive laser refractive correction candidates with large mesopic pupil diameters and myopia or myopic astigmatism. Wavefront-guided LASIK was performed in all cases using the VISX STAR S4 IR excimer laser platform. Visual, refractive, aberrometric and mesopic contrast sensitivity (CS) outcomes were evaluated during a 6-month follow-up. Results Mean mesopic pupil diameter ranged from 8.0 mm to 9.4 mm. A significant improvement in uncorrected distance visual acuity (UCDVA) (P < 0.01) was found postoperatively, which was consistent with a significant refractive correction (P < 0.01). No significant change was detected in corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA) (P = 0.11). Efficacy index (the ratio of postoperative UCDVA to preoperative CDVA) and safety index (the ratio of postoperative CDVA to preoperative CDVA) were calculated. Mean efficacy and safety indices were 1.06 ± 0.33 and 1.05 ± 0.18, respectively, and 92.31% of eyes had a postoperative spherical equivalent within ±0.50 diopters (D). Manifest refractive spherical equivalent improved significantly (P < 0.05) from a preoperative level of −3.1 ± 1.6 D (range −6.6 to 0 D) to −0.1 ± 0.2 D (range −1.3 to 0.1 D) at 6 months postoperative. No significant changes were found in mesopic CS (P ≥ 0.08), except CS for three cycles/degree, which improved significantly (P = 0.02). Magnitudes of primary coma and trefoil did not change significantly (P ≥ 0.34), with a small but statistically significant increase in primary spherical aberration. Conclusion Wavefront-guided LASIK provides an effective correction of low to moderate myopia or myopic astigmatism in large pupil patients without deterioration of visual quality.


Background As infectious diseases have well controlled and become less common, death due to injury has become the leading cause of mortality among children aged between one and 18 years in China. Every year, more than 80,000 Chinese children die due to unintentional injury, and at least 10 million under the age of 18 are injured, of whom 8 million are treated in hospitals. Methods In recognition of this, UNICEF has developed country program on child injury prevention (CIP) and strategic support on advocating government policy and implementation of CIP. The evidence of child injury issues has been presented to the government through population based child injury survey in Beijing City (2003) and Jiangxi Province (2005), and it has been confirmed that injury is the leading cause of death for children in China. As requested by government, the CIP project in China aiming on policy advocacy and CIP intervention have been developed in UNICEF cooperated project with government of China. Results National policy on CIP developed by National Working Committee for Children and Women through China National Program for Child Development (2011–2020). One sixth reduction of child injury mortality target goal set up in this national plan. Child injury prevention pilots supported by UNICEF developed through implementation safe home, safe school, and safe community activities. The CIP implementation sites has increased from beginning 3 counties supported by UNICEF to 29 counties by both government and UNICEF so far. Conclusions The results of CIP project show that it is feasible to implementing child injury prevention through established government service system from health, education, community, and public security and safety etc. The evidence for advocating CIP development, demonstration of CIP implementation, and technical support on guidance of safe home, safe school, safe community, and monitoring system needed to help government building CIP system.


Background: Multiple Myeloma (MM) is currently incurable, with a median survival of 5-7 years post diagnosis. MM-associated bone disease (MM-OBD), represents a major cause of morbidity and mortality in MM patients. Despite current therapies for MM-OBD exhibiting significant potential (e.g. Zoledronate), their clinical use has been restricted due to severe treatment associated toxicities. Safe novel therapies for MM-OBD are therefore crucially required. Molecular crosstalk between receptor activator of nuclear factor Kappa B ligand (RANKL), present on and secreted by MM plasma cells, and its corresponding receptor (RANK) on osteoclast precursors (OCPs), represents a key mechanism driving osteoclastogenesis and subsequent bone pathology in MM. Our previous studies have demonstrated that Fc receptor (FcR)-mediated signals can inhibit RANKL induced osteoclastogenesis in vitro1. In addition, findings from preliminary studies show that FcR-mediated signalling in pre-osteoclasts can reduce MM plasma cell driven osteoclastogenesis in vitro. Further interrogation of the underlying molecular mechanisms show that FcR-mediated signals profoundly reduce RANK transcript, and subsequent protein expression, in pre-osteoclasts. However, the effects of FcR engagement on MM-OBD in vivo, and the FcR elicited signalling pathways responsible for inhibition of RANK expression have still to be elucidated. Aims: This study aimed to determine the in vivo potential of FcR engagement to treat bone disease in a pre-clinical model of MM. Additionally, the mechanisms underlyingFcR-mediated down-regulation of RANK expression in OCPs were interrogated. Methods: The well-characterised 5TGM1 murine model of MM, together with micro-computed topography (micro-CT), were used to evaluate the effect of FcR engagement on MM-OBD. FcR stimulation was achieved by I.P. injecting mice (every other day, following 5TGM1 I.V. cell injection), with 100 μg/ml of Protein A derived from Staphylococcus aureus (SpA). SpA has been shown to form small immune complexes (SICs) through its affinity for endogenous IgG, which in turn binds to FcγR1 receptors on monocytes and pre-OCs1. Additionally, the potential involvement of FcR signalling pathways in the down-regulation of RANK in healthy and MM-derived human OCPs was determined via immunoblotting and the use of signalling pathway inhibitors. Results: Twenty six days post-myeloma cell injection, micro-CT analysis of femurs revealed that mice receiving PBS (vehicle control, n=5) exhibited a significant decrease in bone morphmetric parameters consistent with bone erosion compared to non-myeloma bearing mice (n=3); trabecullar bone volume [BV/TV] = 2.673 vs. 3.449, p=0.034; trabecullar number [Tb.N] = 0.0035 vs. 0.0042, p=0.0041; trabecullar pattern factor [Tb.Pf] = 0.2329 vs. 0.2033, p=0.0393. Importantly, myeloma bearing mice (n=5) receiving SpA, were protected from MM-OBD. In human OCPs (sourced from healthy individuals and MM patients), FcR engagement substantially activated SyK, MEK-ERK1/2, and PI3K signaling cascades. However, inhibition of these pathways failed to restore RANK transcript levels. Discussion: These findings demonstrate novel mechanisms of RANK gene expression regulation in healthy and MM OCPs, with Fc receptors representing a potential therapeutic strategy for MM-OBD. Further studies will aim to elucidate the molecular mechanisms responsible for FcR-mediated regulation of RANK gene expression. 1. MacLellan, L. M. et al. Co-opting endogenous immunoglobulin for the regulation of inflammation and osteoclastogenesis in humans and mice. Arthritis Rheum.63, 3897-3907 (2011). Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Abstract Young migrants – particularly refugees – are commonly the object of stereotypical visual media representations and often have no choice but to position themselves in response to them. This article explores whether making young migrants aware of the politics of representation through media literacy education contributes to strengthening their participation and resilience. We reflect on a media literacy program developed with teachers and 100 students at a Dutch "International Transition Classes" school. The educational program focuses on visual media production using smartphones, raising critical consciousness and promoting civic engagement. Ethnographic data analyzed include field notes, a focus group with teachers, in-depth and informal interviews, student-produced footage, and a 10-minute ethnographic film. In our increasingly polarized mediatized world, better recognition of how the needs of certain young people diverge depending on how they are situated in racialized, gendered, and classed structures of power is needed to work towards inclusive media literacy education.


Presently, nearly 26,000 MW gas power plant and nearly 16,000 MW of combined cycle has been installed in the country. But their power output in summer reduces to a minimum, where most demand is required, compared to the winter season. The main reason for that is gas turbine dependence on the ambient air temperature. Since most of our country has warm and dry climates, cooling down the input air to the compressor by means of water evaporation is the simplest method.In this paper, attempts have been made to investigate the thermos-dynamical and economical behavior of fog system on four units of GE-F5 applied in Shahid Zanbagh power plant. The results show that application of this method, causes increase in mass flow rate of the air input and reduces consuming work of compressor, where power production increases by 2.64 MW and the required water for each unit is equal to 0.761 kg/s, also the payback time for this system was calculated to be less than 3 years.


This article provides a review of selected literature of nonhuman primates in the subsistence and symbolism of indigenous lowland South American groups. While few works have focused specifically on the relationship between human and nonhuman primates in Amazonia and the surrounding areas, a number of ethnographic works do incorporate information about the roles of monkeys in varied groups. The section on subsistence focuses on the use of primates as food, including preferences, avoidances, and taboos. The section on symbolism focuses on the role of monkeys in myths, folklore, and in delineating the humanity/animality divide.


We use theNorthern Hemisphere Tree-RingNetwork Development (NTREND) tree-ring database to examine the effects of using a small, highly-sensitive proxy network for paleotemperature data assimilation over the last millennium. We first evaluate our methods using pseudo-proxy experiments. These indicate that spatial assimilations using this network are skillful in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere and improve on previous NTREND reconstructions based on Point-by-Point regression. We also find our method is sensitive to climate model biases when the number of sites becomes small. Based on these experiments, we then assimilate the real NTREND network. To quantify model prior uncertainty, we produce 10 separate reconstructions, each assimilating a different climate model. These reconstructions are most dissimilar prior to 1100 CE, when the network becomes sparse, but show greater consistency as the network grows. Temporal variability is also underestimated before 1100 CE. Our assimilation method produces spatial uncertainty estimates and these identify treeline North America and eastern Siberia as regions that would most benefit from development of new millennial-length temperature-sensitive tree-ring records. We compare our multi-model mean reconstruction to five existing paleo-temperature products to examine the range of reconstructed responses to radiative forcing. We find substantial differences in the spatial patterns and magnitudes of reconstructed responses to volcanic eruptions and in the transition between the Medieval epoch and Little Ice Age. These extant uncertainties call for the development of a paleoclimate reconstruction intercomparison framework for systematically examining the consequences of proxy network composition and reconstruction methodology and for continued expansion of tree-ring proxy networks.


The Bern Day Treatment Programme offers cognitive-behavioural treatment to patients suffering from depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and personality disorders. Treatment duration ranges from 12 to 20 weeks. Its concept is described in comparison to other similar institutions. To evaluate the programme the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Symptom Check List (SCL-90-R), and the Change in Life Areas (VLB) were administered to 89 patients at admission and discharge. Their analyses revealed high symptom levels at admission and a significant improvement during treatment. Patients with personality disorders show less improvement in the VLB than patients without personality disorders. The results of the SCL-90-R indicate that the symptom levels at admission and the symptom reductions during treatment are similar to those of patients treated in inpatient units or in diagnostically specialised day treatment programmes. The Bern Day Treatment Programme seems to be feasible for highly impacted patients with non-psychotic disorders and might be a useful model for areas with low population density.


: Ninety-four infants of allergic mothers were studied from birth to age 24 months. If the father was also allergic, the family history was termed bilateral (36 infants); if the father was not allergic, the family history was termed unilateral (58 infants). Data concerning family history, methods of feeding (bottle versus breast) and allergic skin reactivity were obtained. Significantly, more infants developed allergy if they were from a bilateral allergic parentage (P = less than 0.044). When skin test negative, bottle-fed infants with a bilateral family history were compared to breast-fed infants with a unilateral family history, there was significantly less asthma in the latter group (P = less than 0.047). During the first three months of life there was significantly less atopic dermatitis in the breast-fed infants with an unilateral family history than in the breast-fed infants with a bilateral family history (P = less than 0.027). In this study it remained unclear why infants with positive allergy skin tests demonstrated a different incidence of allergic disease from those who were skin-test negative when the variables of family history were the same.


Air Force Installation Contracting Agency manages nearly 18 percent of total Air Force spend, equating to approximately 57 billion dollars. To improve strategic sourcing, the organization is beginning to categorize installation-support spend and assign accountable portfolio managers to respective spend categories. A critical task in this new strategic environment includes the appropriate categorization of Air Force contracts into newly created, manageable spend categories. It has been recognized that current composite categories have the opportunity to be further distinguished into sub-categories leveraging text analytics on the contract descriptions. Furthermore, upon establishing newly constructed categories, future contracts must be classified into these newly constructed categories in order to be strategically managed. This research proposes a methodological framework for using Latent Dirichlet Allocation to sculpt categories from the natural distribution of contract topics, and assesses the appropriateness of supervised learning classification algorithms such as Support Vector Machines, Random Forests, and Weighted K-Nearest Neighbors models to classify future unseen contracts. The results suggest a significant improvement in modeled spend categories over the existing categories, facilitating more accurate classification of unseen contracts into their respective sub-categories.


Summary

Surface-ship gravity measurements were used to obtain 5 times 5° average free–air gravity anomalies over much of the world's oceans. Comparison of the surface data with the recent GEM 6 'combination' field shows the combination solution to be in reasonable agreement with the surface data in most areas in the general location and amplitude of major features of the Earth's gravity field. There is, however, significant disagreement on the location of extrema and on the exact values at specific points. It is thus necessary to use surface data to make detailed studies of the relationship of the gravity field to surface features at wavelengths of less than 4000 km. Mid-ocean ridges are consistently characterized by a gravity maximum. The gravity anomaly across mid-ocean ridges can be described by an empirical 1°× 1° average gravity–age relationship which shows a positive gravity anomaly of about 25 mgal falling off to zero by about 40 my. The observed gravity–age relationship is generally compatible with current thermal models of the lithosphere. The empirical gravity–age curve was removed from the free–air anomalies to produce residual gravity anomalies which can be compared to similarly obtained residual depth anomalies. A correlation between the two is found over some features. The most prominent of these are intermediate wavelength positive features associated with areas of extensive off-ridge volcanism. This applies not only to recently active areas but also to inactive areas such as Bermuda and aseismic ridges. On the other hand, areas of unusual elevation and volcanic activity located at a mid-ocean ridge crest such as Iceland and the Azores do not have a corresponding gravity amomaly at intermediate wavelengths. The long-wavelength component of the Earth's gravity field is characterized by large areas in which significant anomalies of constant sign are found. There is no apparent relationship between the long-wavelength gravity anomalies and oceanic depths. If the gravity anomalies have their origin within the asthenosphere, the lithosphere must in effect be decoupled from the main body of the asthenosphere. This could result from the effects of a strongly depth-dependent viscosity on the convection pattern under the elastic plates.


A Dynamic Approach to Semantic Computation: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials and Connectionist Attractor Networks Ben D. Amsel University of Toronto Scarborough George S. Cree University of Toronto Scarborough Abstract: What factors determine speed of word meaning computation, and what is the time course of each factors influence? Implicated factors include correlations among, and distinctiveness of, semantic features, semantic richness, and the structural organization of features into cortical regions (by modality and/or object domain). Event- related potentials and connectionist attractor networks are well suited for this problem because they provide near- continuous measurement during word meaning computation. We explored the dynamics of a recurrent attractor network trained with verbal feature-based representations of concepts and show how feature-based statistical structure (e.g., correlations among features) affects concept settling dynamically through time. We also analyzed ERPs during a mental image-generation task using the identical items, incorporating measures of feature-based statistical structure, semantic richness (e.g., imageability), and modality-specific knowledge types (e.g., number of visual features). Using polynomial mixed-effects models, we demonstrate overlapping dynamic spatiotemporal effects of these measures, and discuss implications for theories of knowledge representation.


The spinodal instability and thermal nucleation mechanisms successfully describe the dewetting of metallic thin films. The previous research mainly focuses on homogeneous and continuous films. However, less attention is paid to the effect of random vacancy defects that frequently appear in actual situations on the film dewetting. In this work, the thermally-induced dewetting of a 0.4 nm thick ultrathin Ag film with different vacancy rate (f) ranging from 0.01 to 0.5 on a SiO2 substrate is investigated by the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Thermal nucleation and growth of holes appear in the dewetting process. The characteristic dewetting time (t) decreases dramatically with the increase of vacancy rate (f) of the Ag film. This is possibly because the presence of vacancy defects effectively reduce the incubation period of the initial holes, which is significant even for a very small vacancy rate less than 0.05.


The correlation of psychosis and the experience of traumatic events is widely recognised in the literature and by NICE guidelines. Research suggests that around two-thirds of patients are not asked about trauma, and guidance for treatment is limited. The aim of the current study was to improve adherence to evidence-based practice by identifying, and reducing, barriers to the assessment and treatment of complex trauma in early intervention (EI) patients. The Plan Do Study Act model of service improvement was employed to guide the intervention delivered to an EI staff team. This included completing a focus group to identify staff needs and the development and delivery of a training programme which met these needs. A questionnaire was developed to assess the impact of the intervention at reducing barriers to assessing and treating trauma. The training package significantly improved staff members' confidence and knowledge in assessing and treating trauma, and marginally reduced worries. Improvement was maintained after 6 months of implementing skills despite team restructuring. Consideration of the impact for service users, relevance of this intervention for similar services and directions for future progression are discussed.


According to conventional wisdom, insider control of businesses is detrimental to the interests of non-controlling investors. Family-run businesses, in particular, are seen as nepotistic and inefficient. Yet, commentators have overestimated the dangers of insider control and overlooked its potential benefits for all stakeholders. Controlling owners have a personal stake that gives them reason to identify with their business and to adopt responsible business practices capable of creating lasting value. A stewardship model of insider control helps explain the continuing vitality of family businesses as well as the success of recent public offerings by Facebook, Google, and Snapchat involving low-vote or no-vote stock. Consequently, this Article criticizes efforts to limit insider control categorically — for example, recent moves by stock exchanges to block companies that issue stock with unequal voting rights. To the extent controlling shareholders are tempted to abuse their control in particular cases, this Article contends that the fiduciary duties of care and loyalty provide an appropriate basis for judicial monitoring.


Serum LH and FSH concentrations were examined by radioimmunoassay in 41 women with polycystic ovary syndrome before and after ovarian wedge resection. Serum LH level was nearly threefold that of normal control patients, while that of FSH was decreased. Serum LH value decreased. Serum LH value decreased significantly after ovarian wedge resection, but remained elevated in comparison to that of healthy women. Serum FSH concentration increased after operation to normal values. LH : FSH ratio of polycystic ovary patients was elevated in comparison to that of normal patients. After ovarian wedge resection it decreased significantly, but remained twofold that of normal healthy women. The alterations in gonadotropin secretion were related to the alterations in the steroid milieu and feedback.


The concept of Transfer College Credit Programs (TCCP) has spread to the far corners of the Earth. There are two types of TCCPs: 1) high school students around the globe planning on attending American colleges or universities enroll in college-level courses while still in high school in their home country and earn American college credits which are later transferred to their American institutions, and 2) currently enrolled international undergraduate students taking courses offered during summer break in their home countries and transferring the credits back to their university. This study investigates the popularity of these programs in China, and illustrates a typology of TCCPs offered in China.


Background: Usage of herbal drugs in traditional medicine is quite well known but largely empirical. Hence the present study was designed to screen the in vitro antifilarial effect of Butea monosperma L. plant leaves against Setaria cervi. Methods: Antifilarial activity of Methanol/Hexane-ethanol extracts of Butea monosperma L. (leaves) and Ciprofloxacin was explored against adult of Setaria cervi after incubation for 24 hrs with concentration range of 0.25 to 20 mg/ml for possible antifilarial effect by comparing with suitable control, in terms of motility inhibition assay and MTT reduction assay. Results: Butea monosperma L. plant leaves showed significant antifillarial activity against adult as compared to controls whereas activity demonstrated by Ciprofloxacin was comparatively less significant. Inhibitory concentrations (IC50) for the plant extracts with significant antifilarial activity against Setaria cervi adult in vitro system have been derived to be 1.25, 3.6 and 7.5 mg/ml Methanol, Hexane-ethanol extracts and Ciprofloxacin respectively. Conclusion: The present research investigation proved to be an additional frame in recording the plant extract's antifilarial activity. Methanol and Hexane-ethanol extracts of Butea monosperma L. plant leaves which shown significant antifilarial activity. The present research data highlights the importance of further depth research in this area.


Background: Epidemic diseases are hazardous in terms of a rapid outbreak. Rapid control of these diseases by finding patients and quarantine and treatment can be the only tool to reduce the number of cases and mortality at the beginning of the outbreak, in the absence of therapy and vaccines. COVID-19 (coronavirus) is a deadly viral disease that causes severe respiratory illness and spreads through the air. Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have played an essential role in solving complex problems. The use of these technologies in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic can reduce the effects of epidemics in various contexts.Objective: The purpose of this article is to review the applications of artificial intelligence in cases of contagious disease. In this work, COVID-19 disease has been used as an example of dangerous infectious diseases (while the studied methods can be used for all contagious diseases), and a systematic review of the literature on the role of artificial intelligence as COVID-19 has become a comprehensive and critical technology for combating epidemiology, diagnosis, and disease progression.Methods: A complete search of the literature has been done using the databases of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, and other sources. In this work, the aim is to review articles that the authors believe can be helpful in the prevention of infectious diseases in the event of an outbreak of artificial intelligence in the prevention of more casualties. The first steps needed in a flurry of a disease (including coronavirus) include identifying the primary sufferers and isolating them from the public and examining the illness and how the disease has progressed. In these stages, artificial intelligence can very effectively help the medical community and even the government prevent an epidemic. In this study, the keywords COVID-19 and artificial intelligence and infectious diseases have been used.Results: During our literature search, we came across 73 papers. Researchers analyzed studies examining the diagnostic roles and imaging features of patients with COVID-19. The latter were scanned using CT or ultrasound scans, chest radiographs, or positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) scans. Chest x-ray and CT scan are the imaging modalities that are most widely utilized for the diagnosis and management of COVID-19 patients, with chest CT scan being more accurate and sensitive in diagnosing COVID-19 at an early stage. Only a handful of studies have looked into the roles of ultrasonography and PET/CT scans in diagnosing COVID-19 infection.Conclusions: We gathered research from the existing COVID-19 literature that employed artificial intelligence-based methodologies to give insights into various domains of COVID-19 in this systematic review. Our findings indicate critical variables, data formats, and COVID-19 sources to help with clinical research and translation. Findings from this study may also assist in reducing the harm caused by the pandemic in the case of such epidemic diseases in the future.


High resolution images obtained with the Arecibo radar system at a wavelength of 12.6 centimeters reveal numerous parallel 10- to 20-kilometer-wide bands of high radar backscatter situated on and oriented parallel to the major mountain ranges of the Ishtar Terra region of Venus. Geometric and morphological characteristics suggest that the bands represent Earth-like tectonic deformational features, such as folds and faults.


Type 4 pili (T4P) are filamentous structures found on the surfaces of many Gram-negative bacteria, including Vibrio cholerae. The V. cholerae T4P are the toxin-coregulated pili (TCP), which mediate bacterial aggregation and exoprotein secretion, critical functions in colonization of the human intestine to cause the diarrheal disease cholera. TCP assemble at the inner membrane (IM), grow through a multiprotein conduit in the periplasm and through a secretin channel in the outer membrane (OM). The multimeric secretin channel is formed by secretin subunits, which are translocated across the IM by the Sec apparatus, and in most T4P systems, are transported to the OM with the help of a lipoprotein co-chaperone. In the V. cholerae TCP the secretin subunit itself, TcpC, is a lipoprotein, and its putative co-chaperone, TcpQ, is nonlipidated. Here we use mutagenesis, cellular fractionation and functional assays to investigate secretin channel assembly in V. cholerae. TcpC must be co-expressed with TcpQ to complement a ΔtcpC mutant in an assay of pilus functions, but the reciprocal is not true. TcpQ is necessary for pilus assembly but not for localization of TcpC to the outer membrane, demonstrating that TcpQ is not a co-chaperone for TcpC. The periplasmic domain of TcpC can be expressed on its own, localizes to the outer membrane, and localizes TcpQ at the outer membrane as well, provided TcpC is lipidated. When the periplasmic domain of TcpC is unlipidated it gets degraded and TcpQ accumulates in the periplasm, suggesting that the periplasmic domain of TcpC interacts with TcpQ and localizes it to the outer membrane via its lipid moiety. Our results lead to a model whereby TcpC Cys1 is lipidated at the IM by the Lgt machinery and transported to the OM in complex with TcpQ. TcpC inserts into the OM at two points: via its C-terminal portion, which forms a β-barrel channel with TcpC C-terminal domains of other secretin subunits, and via lipid moiety in its N-terminal domain, which interacts with TcpQ to link the OM channel to periplasmic pilus conduit.


Examines how external corporate venturing can enhance organizational renewal, and a practical guide to help management apply it within their own organizations. Keil's succinct, readable study shows how major players in the information and communication technology industries have used corporate venture capital, alliances, acquisitions or spin-offs to achieve remarkable strategic self-renewal. Based on indepth empirical research, Keil clarifies and emphasizes the role that external corporate venturing plays as a mechanism to acquire new knowledge and to advance corporate strategic capabilities. It supports the creation of new business opportunities in other ways too. It creates new entry options, it opens access to other complementary means of renewal, it helps to control critical resources, and it accelerates the growth of organizations generally. For corporate executives, scholars, researchers, and graduate students, Keil's book is a major contribution to our understanding of external corporate venturing, and a highly practical guide to help management use it in the strategic renewal of their own organizations. Keil argues that an ability to do external venturing is an important factor in the successful development and growth of any organization. He conceptualizes the process into two main elements. One is the creation of what he sees as a shared context that bridges the gap between the corporation and the community in which it resides. Bridging supports knowledge transfer and the formation of new cognitive intra-corporate frameworks. The second element is the process of executing relationships efficiently, to make possible the rapid development of venturing opportunities. With case studies and lucid explanations, Keil shows how other corporations create and use a variety of connected learning processes to build their own venturing capabilities as well.


Studies of diversity permit conclusions about the genetic structure of species. Systematically developed core collections are a particularly good tool for such purposes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic structure between and within gene pools of a core collection of wild Phaseolus vulgaris L. using the technique of amplified restriction polymorphism (AFLP) analysis. DNA fingerprint patterns of 114 genotypes were analyzed by the NTSYS program. Major groups or gene pools were recognized in Mesoamerica, Colombia, the northern Andes of Ecuador and northern Peru, and the southern Andes, although the separation among gene pools was not wide. A unique segment of germplasm from northern Peru showed greater genetic distance than the other gene pools. Although most Mexican wild beans formed a rather homogenous group, a small number of accessions clustered with the Andean gene pool, and accessions from Guatemala tended to cluster apart from Mexican accessions. In the southern Andean gene pool, more discrete groups were formed which were associated with certain regions such as Argentina, possibly reflecting greater geographic and genetic isolation. Colombian accessions appeared to be highly introgressed with germplasm from other areas. AFLP analysis produced a large amount of data in a short period, thus permitting greater insights into the genetic structure of wild beans than had been possible with other methods of analysis.


Purpose

This paper aims to outline campus management process dynamics that are affected by glocalization, changing funding structures and digitalization, and answer: How do glocalization, changing funding structures and digitalization challenge university campus management? and What implications do the challenges have on campus management processes?

Design/methodology/approach

Literature overview discusses how glocalization, changing funding structures and digitalization affect campus management. Empirical part explores how these forces affect management processes through 36 interviews on multiple embedded cases in the main campuses of Aalto University in Finland and the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Findings

Major challenges include future foresight, institutional sharing, economical paucity and functional flexibility. Heterogeneous user behaviors challenge absolute spatial measures as bases for designing learning and working environments. Finding a balance between long-haul portfolio maintenance for the university and future users and short-haul flexible pilots for the current user communities is crucial.

Research limitations/implications

The results derive from interviews of 36 campus management professionals from two campus management organizations limiting the validity and the reliability of the study. Further studies should be conducted by replicating the study in another context, by interviewing end users and clients and by investigating case investments and impacts over time.

Practical implications

Campus managers can answer the challenges through practical applications such as big data collection and sharing in physical environments, integrated service provision to thematic communities, cross-pollination of user communities and open access to information and infrastructure services.

Originality/value

This paper provides insights and tools to strategic alignment by comparing campus management of two fundamentally different systems in the context of higher education and on-going digitalization.


This research aimed to determine the stress level of parents facing children study from home at the early time of the enactment of COVID-19 social distance policy in Indonesia. The method was conducted using a survey through social media that was filled in by parents who had school-age children and were studying from home. The distribution and filling of questionnaires were conducted from March 31, 2020, to April 6, 2020. 236 respondents filled out the questionnaire, but after data cleaning processed only 223 respondents' data could be analyzed. The instrument used was the Perceived Stress Scale from Sheldon Cohen. The survey results indicate that the stress level of parents facing children study from home in the initial three weeks of social distance policy is 75.34 percent in the medium category, however there are 10.31 percent of respondents who have high-stress levels and 71.88 percent among them are women or mothers. High-stress levels are influenced, among others, by the inability of parents to guide learning, family health concerns, and family economic problems. This condition is likely to continue with the extension of the study from home period. For this reason, it is recommended that child social workers can provide online psychosocial services for parents who accompany children at home, such as family counseling, family therapy that parents and children can do, and increase family resiliency during the pandemic.


This study provides real-time support for the hypothesis, previously inferred from apparent time studies, that stable sociolinguistic variables are age-graded. Stable variables have been shown to exhibit a curvilinear pattern with age in which adolescents use nonstandard variants at a higher rate than adults do. An analysis of the morphophonological variable (ing) was carried out using recordings and ethnographic observations of 13 young American women during and after their final years of high school. Offering a detailed look at the late adolescent life stage, the study also explores speakers' motivations for retaining or retreating from nonstandard variants as they prepare to enter adulthood. These are examined at both the group and the individual level. The results indicate that the degree of retreat from nonstandard variants is socially differentiated, in line with apparent time findings. Future enrollment in a locally oriented college, and alignment to a local ethnic network (Irish or Italian)—not social class—were the predictors of retention in high school.


: Migraine is a prevalent syndrome, clinically, however, only few pathological materials about this item were available. Since 1980, partial section of extracranial arteries has been performed in patients with intractable migraine, and the cure rate was 91 percent in 46 cases in which 62 arteries were examined pathologically. All of the cases showed pathological findings of fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD). It was considered that FMD is the morphological basis of migraine. The causes of FMD in extracranial arteries may be related with physical damage of vessel wall due to repeated dilation.


Abstract : The Department of Defense (DoD) is implementing distance learning to augment and replace current military education and training program, Distance Learning (DL) methods using technology such as video teleconferencing (VTC) and the Internet are expected to provide immense cost and time savings when properly implemented and supported. Implementing a successful DL program requires a clear understanding of the unique interactions and characteristics of the technology, the environment, the roles of the instructor and students, and the appropriate instructional methods. Gaining a clear understanding of a successful program necessitates a framework to assess the effectiveness of distance learning programs. This research proposes a learning effectiveness model for distance learning. Model constructs include the learning effectiveness of instructor/students, interactivity, organizational characteristics, goals and technology. These constructs form the basis for the distance learning model. Three Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) DL courses are analyzed using the model to illustrate its flexibility and predictive nature. This analysis showed that the model's constructs interact to produce a system that supports a complex relationship. Interactions between technology, the environment, instructional techniques, student effectiveness combine to produce different outcomes. Feedback is an important system mechanism that allows verification that the course learning objectives are being achieved.


 Personalized Video Krishnan Ramanathan, Yogesh Sankarasubramaniam, Vidhya Govindaraju HP Laboratories HPL-2011-176 Personalization; Online Video; Multimedia retrieval Despite the tremendous growth in online video, the consumption interfaces are still modeled on search-and-browse. We propose a solution to create a much richer online video experience modeled on the television channel metaphor. This is especially useful in the emerging market context where people are more likely to consume the video web compared to the text web. Our solution allows users to consume online videos from multiple sources in a personalized manner. We have implemented a number of interactions to facilitate easy consumption such as personalized recommendations, query assistance, similar videos, documents related to videos and video annotations. We believe our solution enables a differentiating online video experience. External Posting Date: October 6, 2011 [Fulltext] Approved for External Publication Internal Posting Date: October 6, 2011 [Fulltext] Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


Modern communication is containing different types of networks depending on the behavior of users. Cloud network and services are one of the mostly used networks. Security in the cloud service architecture is always a big concern for the vendor as well as users. In this paper distributed cloud service architecture is considered which is used as network detection system for outer attacks to the cloud architecture. Outer attacks can be prevented by security services such as McAfee, Imperva etc. but insider attacks are very difficult to detect and to avoid them, different resources consuming processes are considered. So to provide solution for security without spending many resources, encryption of messages is a good option. Hash function encryption is easy and light encryption process which will challenge the odds and can be suitable for cloud computing structures.


The survival of Escherichia coli in bottom sediment (Lake Onalaska, navigation pool no. 7, Mississippi River) was studied by using in situ dialysis culture of sterile (autoclaved) and unsterile sediment samples. Bags made from dialysis tubing were filled with either course sand sediment (28.8% fine) or organic, silty clay sediment (77.2% fine) and placed at the sediment-water interface. Bags representing sterile controls, unsterile uninoculated controls, autoclaved inoculated sediment, and unsterile inoculated sediment were studied during a 5-day period for each sediment type. Daily most-probable-number determinations indicated that E. coli populations in unsterile inoculated sediment fluctuated between 5.3 X 10(2) and 2.2 X 10(3) bacteria per g of silty clay and between 3.0 X 10(3) and 1.4 X 10(4) bacteria per g of sand. Autoclaved silty clay sediment inoculated with 1.0 X 10(6) bacteria per g increased to 2.2 X 10(8) bacteria per g in 3 days. During the same period, autoclaved sand sediment inoculated with 1.2 X 10(5) cells per g increased to 5.4 X 10(7) bacteria per g. By day 5, populations in both cultures had decreased by 1 log. The ability of E. coli to survive for several days in aquatic sediment in situ suggests that fecal coliforms in water may not always indicate recent fecal contamination of that water but rather resuspension of viable sediment-bound bacteria.


This article reports the results of a further extension of a quasi-longitudinal survey among top corporate executives in Russian industry, presenting a snapshot of current innovation actions and innovation capabilities of Russian enterprises. Through comparison of the responses from the 2004 and 2010 surveys, changes in the business and management of Russian companies are examined. The perceived abilities to perform particular stages of innovation projects have significantly increased and Russian companies successfully use contractors for various types of innovation activity. However, the intensity of innovations remains low and the resources that can be utilised to create innovations at Russian CEOs' disposal remain limited as few actual innovation projects satisfy the criteria imposed by Russian owners to improve the overall profitability of the firm. The owner's criteria for evaluating innovation effectiveness particularly impede radical product innovations and breakthrough innovations in production technologies. The results of this study indicate that the relationship between the perception of innovative capabilities by CEOs and the intensity of innovations proved to be a valuable research construct and this suggests that comparative study of innovation capabilities of firms in emerging and developed economies would be a profitable extension of this research.


Quantum walks have been investigated as they have remarkably different features in contrast to classical random walks. We present a quantum walk in a one-dimensional architecture, consisting of two coins and a walker whose evolution is in both position and phase spaces alternately controlled by the two coins respectively. By analyzing the dynamics evolution of the walker in both the position and phase spaces, we observe an influence on the quantum walk in one space from that in the other space, which behaves like decoherence. We propose an implementation of the two-coin quantum walk in both position and phase spaces via cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED).


This article presents a critical review of the existing methodologies for process mathematical modelling in the area of wastewater engineering. It is argued that model identifiability is not a major issue in mathematical modelling. Model verifiability is a very demanding criterion that can be replaced by a less stringent one: model observability. The issue of 'complex models versus reduced-order models' is to be resolved by introducing a new concept: optimal model complexity. The traditional procedures of model validation are not adequate and a mathematical framework for model quality evaluation is needed.


Up to now, in general, the safety of food that is sold at any canteens in the campuses, the eating utensils are handled and the food stalls are managed are still uncertain. This research was aimed to understand the correlation between the eating utensils handling and the contamination of Escherichia coli ( E. coli ) in the food sold by the food vendors in the campus. The cross-sectional design research applied on the food stalls in the university campus in Depok with a total number of 173 consumers as respondents. The variables observed as independent variables were the sanitation of the eating utensils and the sanitation of the dining place. The examination method of the Most Probable Number (MPN) for E. coli was conducted to assess the food's hygiene . The data analyzed using the chi-square test and followed by the logistic regression. The result showed that more than half of the food samples (59.54%) were contaminated by E. coli . The storage place of the eating utensils was most significantly correlated with the E. coli contamination of the served food with an OR=0.45 (0.21-0.87). Therefore, it is necessary to promote the awareness of this risk and reinforce supervision by the Health Authorities and by the management of the place of sales to provide guidance to the food vendors and to the consumers as well. Further research is recommended to observe the E. coli contamination through clean water, eating utensils, the hands of the consumers and the napkins used to wipe dry the eating utensils.


This paper discussing about the issue of corruption in India, specifically look on the links between media and corruption. This study discuss about the freedom limitation and importance of media in democracy like fourth pillar. Major issue of this paper is discussing about the role of media to fight against corruption. This paper provides an overview over the basic principles of media effects and illustrates these with a few case studies before presenting specific techniques of involving the media in the fight against grand corruption and every-day corruption.