Influenza viruses, although common, cause thousands of deaths worldwide and remain a prominent public health issue, especially with the growing population of elderly and immune-compromised individuals. Currently, the influenza vaccine is the best tool available at protecting against infection, but the correct strains are hard to predict and the vaccines do not always work. Therefore, it is necessary to explore more effective antiviral drugs. New antivirals like these are of public health importance because they can help reduce morbidity and mortality related to influenza infection. Our collaborators from the University of Washington have computationally designed a small protein, HB36.6, which interferes with influenza infection by binding the virus' hemagglutinin surface protein. This thesis has tested the novel antiviral using the influenza A/California/07/09 (H1N1) strain in a ferret model by looking at the effects of low and high doses of HB36.6, and comparing it to untreated controls or against the current standard antiviral, Tamiflu. Antiviral effectiveness was evaluated using a combination of clinical and viral parameters. First, the animals were monitored and scored using a detailed clinical scoring system for onset of clinical signs of disease, as well as tracked through daily measurements of weights and temperatures. Second, viral titers were quantitated using RT-PCR in tissue samples obtained at necropsy and the untreated controls were compared to HB36.6-treated animals or those treated with Tamiflu. The overall hypothesis for this study was that HB36.6 will be effective in reducing viral loads and limiting disease following aerosolized influenza infection in the ferret model, and this reduction in viral loads/disease would be more effective than the currently used antiviral, Tamiflu. The results of these studies show that HB36.6-treated animals display fewer clinical symptoms when a low dose of the treatment is used, but there appears to be no reduction in viral loads. Higher doses appear to be toxic to the animals, especially when taken over multiple days throughout the course of infection. These studies have yielded important information on a new class of influenza therapeutics that should be further evaluated using larger sample sizes.


Objectives: Uterine myomas are benign disease observed in 2 to 3% of all normal pregnancies. The aim of this study is to assess the influence of large uterine myomas on obstetric outcome. Methods: Sixty nine pregnant women with large uterine myoma (8 cm or greater) identified by second trimester ultrasound scans (Accuvix XQ, Medison Co., Seoul, Korea) who delivered at Yonsei University Health System between January 2005 and March 2011 were enrolled. If more than one myoma was detected, the largest one was considered to be representative. The number, size, position, and location of the uterine myomas and the perinatal complications were analyzed. Results: The women were 33.1 ± 3.9 years of age and delivered infants, weighing 3098 ± 600 g at 36.6 ± 5.6 weeks of gestation. Intrauterine fetal deaths at second trimester were noted in two cases. Three pregnancies terminated between 16 and 20 weeks due to preterm premature rupture of membranes, incompetent cervix, and intrauterine fetal death resulted in postpartum hemorrhage caused by retaind placenta. Acute pain localized at myoma site requiring analgesics occurred in 9 (13%) of the women at 17–22 weeks. The fibroids located at uterine fundus were highly associated with the pain symptom (P < 0.05). Preterm labor showed in 12 (17.4%) cases, 50% of which led to preterm delivery. A Cesarean section was performed in 65% of the pregnancies with vertical uterine incision in 11% thereof. Intraoperative bleeding amount was 726 ± 289 ml. The size of the fibroids remained unchanged during pregnancy in most cases. Conclusions: Large uterine myoma may cause abdominal pain, preterm delivery, high rate of cesarean section, intrauterine fetal death and postpartum hemorrhage. However, the neonatal outcome was not adversely affected by large myoma during pregnancy.


Previous research has found that people frequently provide incorrect predictions about the path of moving objects when given an idealised physics problem to solve. The aim of this research was to explore whether these incorrect predictions are due to the application of an incorrect naïve physics theory, whether incorrect perceptions generated from past experiences lead to misconceptions of how moving objects behave, or whether it is a combination of both. Thirty-one participants volunteered to take part in the experiment which followed a two (experience congruent/incongruent with naïve physics theory) by two (carried versus free-moving object) within-subject design. The dependent variable was participant response (straight down or curved forwards). Results of the study revealed that participants provided answers both consistent and inconsistent with the naïve physics theory. This suggests that responses were primarily elicited through the retrieval of associatively-mediated memories of similar scenarios some of which contain perceptual illusions. Possible methodological limitations and alternative theoretical explanations are discussed, along with practical and theoretical implications for education and learning.


In this study, an adaptive equalization algorithm is proposed to recover a discrete-time chaotic signal, which is transmitted through a Finite Impuls Response (FIR) channel. Equalizer is modelled as an adaptive FIR filter and the filter coefficents are updated by the proposed algorithm. The short term predictability of a chaotic signal is exploited to derive and formulate the algorithm.


The relationship between the drug industry, academia, healthcare professionals, and patients has reached an all time low and few doubt that it is in the interests of all parties to improve it. A recent report from the Royal College of Physicians attempts to define a path towards achieving a more productive relationship. Here we set out five contrasting views on what the ideal relationship between industry and prescribers and patients should be and what steps need to be taken to achieve it (doi:10.1136/bmj.b222, doi:10.1136/bmj.b211, doi:10.1136/bmj.b252, doi:10.1136/bmj.b232)


Nowadays more patients need to receive medical treatments at home. Sequencing home care nurses visits shows similarities with the multiple vehicle routing problem with time windows (MVRPTW). Additional constraints make this problem much more complex. These refer to medical requirements and to the importance of continuity of care. In this paper, we present a mathematical model describing the problem of determining routes for home care nurses which takes into account constraints from the MVRPTW along with medical and continuity of care constraints. We also provide some numerical results.


The goal of this paper is to examine the role of taxes and productivity growth as forces influencing market hours. To achieve this goal, the paper considers a calibrated growth model extended to include home production and subsistence consumption, both of which are found to be key features influencing market hours. The model is simulated for 15 OECD countries. The primary force driving changes in market hours is found to be changing labor income tax rates. Productivity catch-up relative to the United States is found to be an important secondary force. (JEL E24, H24, H31, J22, J24)


Nominalization refers both to the process by which complex nouns are created and to the complex nouns that are derived by that process. Nominalizations common in the languages of the world include event/result nouns, personal or participant nouns (agent, patient, location, etc.), as well as collectives and abstracts. It is common for nominalizations to be highly polysemous. Theoretical issues concerning nominalization typically stem from the question of how to account for this pervasive polysemy. Within generative grammar, both syntactic and lexicalist approaches have been proposed. The issue of polysemy in nominalization has also been of interest within cognitive and functional frameworks. The article considers, finally, the extent to which nominalization is subject to competition and blocking.


This book features super heroes from the Atom to Zatara: 75 years of DC Comics. In 1935, DC Comics founder Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, published "New Fun No. 1", the first comic book with all-new, all-original comic material-at a time when comic books were mere repositories for the cast-offs of the newspaper strips. What was initially considered to be disposable media for children was well on its way to becoming the mythology of our time - the 20th century's answer to "Atlas" or "Zorro". Over 40,000 comic books later, in honor of the publisher's 75th Anniversary, and from Batman and Wonder Woman to The Sandman and Watchmen, TASCHEN has produced the single most comprehensive book on DC Comics in an XL edition even Superman might have trouble lifting. Over 2000 images-covers and interiors, original illustrations (including Wonder Woman's invisible jet!), photographs, film stills, and collectibles-are reproduced using the latest technology in digital reproduction to bring the storylines, the characters, and their creators to vibrant life as they've never been seen before. Telling the tales behind the tomes is 35-year DC veteran Paul Levitz, whose in-depth essays trace the company's history, from its pulp origins through to the future of digital publishing. Massive foldout timelines and an in-depth appendix including biographies of the artists, writers, editors, publishers, and actors who cast the spell make this an invaluable reference for any comic book fan. You'll find them all here.


The Colonic Mucosal Barrier (CMB) is the site of interaction between the human body and the colonic microbiota. The mucus is the outer part of the CMB and is considered as the front-line defense of the colon. It separates the host epithelial lining from the colonic content, and it has previously been linked to health and diseases. In this study, we assessed the relationship between red meat and whole-grain intake and (1) the thickness of the colonic mucus (2) the expression of the predominant mucin gene in the human colon (MUC2). Patients referred to colonoscopy at the University Hospital of Southern Denmark- Sonderjylland were enrolled between June 2017 and December 2018, and lifestyle data was collected in a cross-sectional study design. Colonic biopsies, blood, urine, and fecal samples were collected. The colonic mucus and bacteria were visualized by immunostaining and fluorescence in situ hybridization techniques. We found a thinner mucus was associated with high red meat intake. Similarly, the results suggested a thinner mucus was associated with high whole-grain intake, albeit to a lesser extent than red meat. This is the first study assessing the association between red meat and whole-grain intake and the colonic mucus in humans. This study is approved by the Danish Ethics Committee (S-20160124) and the Danish Data Protecting Agency (2008-58-035). A study protocol was registered at clinical trials.gov under NCT04235348.


Newspapers need to attract readers with headlines, anticipating their readers' preferences. These preferences rely on topical, structural, and lexical factors. We model each of these factors in a multi-task GRU network to predict headline popularity. We find that pre-trained word embeddings provide significant improvements over untrained embeddings, as do the combination of two auxiliary tasks, newssection prediction and part-of-speech tagging. However, we also find that performance is very similar to that of a simple Logistic Regression model over character n-grams. Feature analysis reveals structural patterns of headline popularity, including the use of forward-looking deictic expressions and second person pronouns.


Starting from a person-environment fit framework, this study investigates whether ethnic congruence—the percentage of co-ethnics in a school—relates to school misconduct, and whether congruence effects differ between ethnic minority and majority students. Moreover, we investigate whether eventual associations are mediated by friendship attachment, perceived teacher support and general school belonging. Multilevel analyses of data from 11,759 students across 83 Flemish secondary schools show that higher ethnic congruence is associated with lower levels of school misconduct, but only for ethnic minority students. This effect was not mediated by friendship attachment, nor by teacher support, but it was mediated by general school belonging. We conclude that ethnic minority students in schools with a higher percentage of peers of co-ethnic descent are less likely to break the school rules because they feel more contented in the school context, which is congruent with the person-environment fit framework.


While scholars and practitioners agree that preparation plays a crucial role for achieving successful negotiation outcomes, there is little empirical research on the topic. In the present research we examine the effect of engaging in a concentration exercise in preparation to an upcoming negotiation on negotiation outcomes. Traditional approaches to negotiation preparation emphasize rational planning and analysis. However, these activities are unlikely to address all challenges of negotiating, especially those associated with a lack of attentional focus on the task at hand. In two experiments we found that engaging in a concentration exercise significantly improved performance in a distributive negotiation task vis-a-vis a control group that engaged in an unrelated filler task or that did "traditional" planning for the same amount of time. This effect was observed for both objective and subjective outcome measures. Mediation analyses suggest that the effect works through increased negotiator concentration and reduced anxiety.


The use of bed rest in medicine dates back to Hippocrates, who first recommended bed rest as a restorative measure for pain. With the formalization of prenatal care in the early 1900s, maternal bed rest became a standard of care, especially toward the end of pregnancy. Antepartum bed rest is a common obstetric management tool, with up to 95% of obstetricians utilizing maternal activity restriction in some way in their practice. Bed rest is prescribed for a variety of complications of pregnancy, from threatened abortion and multiple gestations to preeclampsia and preterm labor. Although the use of bed rest is pervasive, there is a paucity of data to support its use. Additionally, many well-documented adverse physical, psychological, familial, societal, and financial effects have been discussed in the literature. There have been no complications of pregnancy for which the literature consistently demonstrates a benefit to antepartum bed rest. Given the well-documented adverse effects of bed rest, disruption of social relationships, and financial implications of this intervention, there is a real need for scientific investigation to establish whether this is an appropriate therapeutic modality. Well-designed randomized, controlled trials of bed rest versus normal activity for various complications of pregnancy are required to lay this debate to rest once and for all.


This paper investigated the accessibility of microfinance for small businesses in Mogadishu. Since, the accessibility of microfinance for small businesses considered difficult due to heavy collateral requirements. The main objective of the study was to examine the challenges facing by small businesses in accessing microfinance services in Mogadishu. Purposive sampling technique was employed in selecting the 100 Small businesses that constituted the sample size of the research. To achieve the objectives of this study, data was collected through questionnaire instrument. Data analysis, the researchers employed descriptive analysis also used Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS). the main findings of this study identifies that Small businesses in Mogadishu are facing challenges to access loan from MFIs and this results many small business to demise soon or may not be started due to lack of ability to overcome the challenges. Moreover, the findings of this study will be helpful for the academicians, businesses, practitioners, researchers, planners, and policy makers who are involved in the concerned area. The researchers recommended microfinance institution are required to set more flexible, affordable and attractive requirements in financing Small businesses, their role need to be felt by the Small enterprises in terms of growth and development.


Diaspora networks (DNs) are an important resource for global entrepreneurs. Discusses several features of DNs, combining both academic and practitioner perspectives. Describes the history and prevalence of DNs in many ethnicities, documents the broad resources DNs can provide to founders, and specifies potential pitfalls or traps from working through DNs. Closes with some practical advice for entrepreneurs accessing and utilizing their DNs


impressions, however skilled and experienced the observer, cannot answer the sort of questions posed by Dr. Davies. Spirometry provides the only proven tests that have been used on a large scale for measuring changes in respiratory function over a prolonged period. In common with other research groups we are now using tests which have been suggested as possibly more appropriate for the study of diseases of the small airways, but the results will not be available for some time. Dr. Davies restates the interesting hypothesis that chronic bronchitis may protect men from developing pneumoconiosis. He cites recent work showing that relatively large particles (> 3 ,um) have a reduced probability of reaching the alveoli. Effects on smaller particles which form the bulk of the dust in miners' lungs (mostly 1 ,um diameter) are unknown. These speculative ideas are being kept under review and may help to explain future findings, but they cannot be used as serious evidence at present. Neither the medical service of the National Coal Board nor the Institute of Occupational Medicine is responsible for the administration and operation of the compensation machinery. These are managed by the Department of Health and Social Security. Our function is to engage in research on diseases of coalminers and to publish the facts. This we have done and will continue to do.-We are, etc., J. S. MOLINTOCK National Coal Board, London D. C. F. MUIR M. JACOBSEN W. H. WALTON Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh


Abstract
Peer review is almost universally seen as the crux of scientific journal publishing. The role of peer reviewers is (1) to help avoid unnecessary errors in the published article, and (2) to judge publication-worthiness (in the journal that arranges for the review). This happens. Sometimes. But the notion of peer review is rather vague, and since most of it is anonymous, it is very difficult – arguably impossible – for researchers to know if the articles they read have been reliably peer reviewed and which criteria have been used to come to the decision to accept for publication. On top of that, peer review is very expensive. Not the peer review itself, as it is mostly done by researchers without being paid for it, but the process as arranged by publishers. This has several underlying causes, but it is clear that the actual cost of technically publishing an article is but a fraction of the average APC (Article Processing Charge) income or per-article subscription revenues publishers routinely realize. Some (e.g. Richard Smith, ex-Editor of the British Medical Journal) advocate abolishing peer review altogether. This is certainly not without merit, but even without abolishing it, there are ways to make peer review more reliable and transparent, and much cheaper to the scientific community.


This paper explores the contribution that palaeoenvironmental evidence, and in particular palynology, is making to our understanding of landscape evolution in Britain during the 1st millennium A.D. This was a period of profound social and economic change including a series of invasions, some associated with a mass folk migration. Archaeologists and historians continue to debate the significance of these events, and palaeoenvironmental evidence is now starting to provide an additional perspective. Key to this has been obtaining pollen sequences, although there remains a need for more evidence from lowland areas, alongside higher resolution sampling and improved dating. It is suggested that although the 1st millennium A.D. saw some significant long-term shifts in climate, these are unlikely to have had a significant causal effect on landscape change in lowland areas (both in areas with and without significant Anglo-Saxon immigration). The analysis of pollen data from across Britain shows very marked regional variations in the major land-use types (arable, woodland, improved pasture, and unimproved pasture) throughout the Roman and Early Medieval periods. While Britain ceasing to be part of the Roman empire appears to have led to a decline in the intensity of agriculture, it was the 'long 8th c.' (the later 7th to early 9th c.) that saw a more profound change, with a period of investment, innovation, and intensification, including an expansion in arable cultivation.


A numerical model for the analysis of uncertainty propagation in flow through unsaturated soils is developed. This model is based on a first‐order Taylor series expansion of the discretized Richards equation. Soil hydrologic properties (the saturated hydraulic conductivity and the pore size distribution parameter) are assumed to be stochastic processes in space. The surface boundary conditions can be considered as deterministic variables in time or stochastic time series. Spectral analysis and Monte Carlo simulations were used to verify this numerical model for flow under both steady and transient conditions. The model is then used to examine the effect of uncertainty in boundary conditions and the effect of heterogeneity on the pressure head and flux variance profiles at various times for one‐dimensional vertical flow cases. Dependence of pressure head variance on the flow conditions (drying or wetting) is examined. On the basis of the analysis it is found that the propagation of the head variance is similar to that of the concentration variance for solute transport in saturated aquifers. The head variance is proportional to the mean pressure gradient, and thus large head variances are associated with the wetting and the drying front of a moisture pulse. The peak head variance is smaller at the wetting front than it is at the drying front. This difference is attributed to the difference in the magnitude of mean hydraulic gradient and should not necessarily be interpreted as a hysteresis effect. In addition, it is shown how the variance of the flux of a moisture pulse increases with depth.


In this study, total phenolic and flavonoid contents as well as antioxidant properties of methanolic extracts of rhizomes and stems of four Zingiberaceae (Etlingera belalongensis, Etlingera uelutina, Zingiber uinosum and Zingiber pseudopungens) were investigated. Evaluation of antioxidant activity was conducted using l,l-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl free radical-scavenging (DPPH) assay, 2-2'-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothioazaline-6-sulphonate radical scavenging (ABTS) assay and Ferric-Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP). The results showed the total phenolic and total flavanoid contents were in the range of 5.3-41.7 mg gallic acid equivalent/g and 1.09-5.86 mg catechin equivalent/g of dry sample, respectively. The antioxidant activities of the extracts as assessed by using DPPH and FRAP assays were strongly correlated with all phytochemical tested (p<0.05). As a conclusion, selected tropical gingers found in Sabah investigated in this study can be developed as natural antioxidant agents.


The capacity of mast cell products to mediate T-cell adhesion to fibroblasts was explored using heterotypic coculture systems or by exposing fibroblasts to mast-cell-conditioned media (MCCM), prepared by degranulating mast cells with calcium ionophore. Experimental results indicated that fibroblasts exposed to MCCM for 24 h bound fivefold more T cells than control fibroblasts. Binding was inhibited with intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) or vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) neutralizing antibodies. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and fluorescence-activated cell sorter analysis revealed that fibroblasts exposed to MCCM markedly increased ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 surface expression by 4 h, with levels maximal at 16 h and returning toward baseline by 48 h. A dose-dependent response of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression was noted using serial dilutions of MCCM or by altering the ratio of degranulated mast cells cocultured with fibroblasts. Similar results were obtained using human fibroblasts derived from the dermis, synovium, and lung, although lung fibroblasts were generally less responsive. Northern analysis confirmed that MCCM regulated ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression at the mRNA level. In summary, mast cell products stimulated fibroblast surface expression, steady-state mRNA levels, and functional expression of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1. Experimental data suggest that mast-cell-derived tumor necrosis factor-alpha may be in large part responsible for these observations, although further studies using human mast cells will be required. Using a skin-equivalent organotypic coculture model with fibroblasts admixed with mast cells, we observed increased ICAM-1 expression in both keratinocytes and fibroblasts after activation of the mast cells.


This paper presents a formative measurement model for Social CRM performance in order to achieve and assess company objectives. The current literature for measuring Social CRM performance does not provide a holistic approach and is operationalized with reflective indicators. To address this gap, the article follows the procedure of Moore and Benbasat (1991), including the creation and assessment of new constructs with new developed and evaluated formative indicators. To evaluate the impact of single indicators on their corresponding constructs, the data is analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis using SmartPLS with a surveying sample of 126 marketing, communication and IT decision makers. The results show that the constructs of infrastructure performance, process performance, customer performance and organizational performance measure Social CRM performance. Especially the first-order constructs of indirect customer performance and department-specific processes are important aspects in this context. Generally, the developed formative indicators and new evaluated first- and second-order constructs generate deeper insights through a control system for Social CRM activities, in order to achieve organizational objectives and track them over time.


ABSTRACT Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) receptor-associated factors (TRAFs) play important roles in TNF-α signaling by interacting with downstream signaling molecules, e.g., mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). However, TNF-α also signals through reactive oxygen species (ROS)-dependent pathways. The interrelationship between these pathways is unclear; however, a recent study suggested that TRAF4 could bind to the NADPH oxidase subunit p47phox. Here, we investigated the potential interaction between p47phox phosphorylation and TRAF4 binding and their relative roles in acute TNF-α signaling. Exposure of human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC-1) to TNF-α (100 U/ml; 1 to 60 min) induced rapid (within 5 min) p47phox phosphorylation. This was paralleled by a 2.7- ± 0.5-fold increase in p47phox-TRAF4 association, membrane translocation of p47phox-TRAF4, a 2.3- ± 0.4-fold increase in p47phox-p22phox complex formation, and a 3.2- ± 0.2-fold increase in NADPH-dependent O2 − production (all P < 0.05). TRAF4-p47phox binding was accompanied by a progressive increase in extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) and p38MAPK activation, which was inhibited by an O2 − scavenger, tiron. TRAF4 predominantly bound the phosphorylated form of p47phox, in a protein kinase C-dependent process. Knockdown of TRAF4 expression using siRNA had no effect on p47phox phosphorylation or binding to p22phox but inhibited TNF-α-induced ERK1/2 activation. In coronary microvascular EC from p47phox−/− mice, TNF-α-induced NADPH oxidase activation, ERK1/2 activation, and cell surface intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) expression were all inhibited. Thus, both p47phox phosphorylation and TRAF4 are required for acute TNF-α signaling. The increased binding between p47phox and TRAF4 that occurs after p47phox phosphorylation could serve to spatially confine ROS generation from NADPH oxidase and subsequent MAPK activation and cell surface ICAM-1 expression in EC.


Background
Previous studies have found associations between oral health and mortality, but the majority of previous studies have been conducted in high-income countries.

Methods
We used data from the Golestan Cohort Study, a study of 50 045 people aged 40 to 75 years in north eastern Iran, recruited from January 2004 to June 2008. Tooth loss and decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT) were assessed by trained physicians. Frequency of tooth brushing and use of dentures were self-reported. Cause-specific mortality was ascertained through March 2014. We calculated hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for the associations between the oral health variables, overall mortality and cause-specific mortality.

Results
Participants with the greatest tooth loss had increased overall mortality (HR 1.43; 95% CI: 1.28, 1.61) compared with those with the least tooth loss; similar estimates were observed for DMFT score. For cause-specific mortality, an increased risk of death was found for tooth loss and mortality from cardiovascular disease (HR 1.33; 95% CI: 1.13, 1.56), cancer (HR 1.30; 95% CI: 1.03, 1.65) and injuries (HR 1.99; 95% CI: 1.28, 3.09). The associations between oral health and injury mortality were strongly attenuated after exclusion of participants with comorbid conditions at baseline. No statistical interaction was found between denture use and tooth loss or DMFT on mortality.

Conclusions
Poor oral health appears to predict overall and cause-specific mortality in populations in economic transition. Investigation of the underlying mechanisms might provide an important contribution to reducing mortality.


OBJECTIVES: To develop a new patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) assessing TENDINopathy Severity of the Achilles (TENDINS-Achilles) and evaluate its content validity. DESIGN: Mixed-methods, modified Delphi. METHODS: We performed one round of semi-structured, one-on-one interview responses with professionals and patients, for initial item generation. This was followed by one round of survey responses for professionals and a final round of semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with patients. The work culminated in a PROM to quantify Achilles tendinopathy severity under the core health domain of disability. Participants identified three sub-domains contributing to the severity of disability of Achilles tendinopathy: pain, symptoms, and functional capacity. RESULTS: All eight patient participants invited to participate were enrolled. Forty professional participants (50% women, six different continents) were invited to participate and 30 were enrolled (75% response rate). Therefore, a total of 30 professionals and eight patients were included within this study. Following three rounds of qualitative or quantitative feedback, this study has established the content validity of TENDINS-A (good relevance, comprehensibility and comprehensiveness) as a new PROM to assess the severity of Achilles tendinopathy, which assesses aspects of pain, symptoms and functional capacity. CONCLUSION: TENDINS-A has established content validity and is appropriate for use with clinical and research populations. We recommend users interpret TENDINS-A results cautiously, until further testing evaluates the most appropriate scoring scale, reliability, construct validity, criterion validity and responsiveness of TENDINS-A. Until these psychometric properties are established, we suggest using TENDINS-A alongside existing tools.


This thesis examines collaborative relationships between university scientists and private biotechnology firms. Using the concepts of modularity, boundary objects, and articulation, I demonstrate that these relationships are structured in a modular fashion. How knowledge is used, reused, and valued in an alliance is dependent upon the structure of that alliance. Knowledge is seen to exist in two forms – migratory, being mobile and combinable, and ingrained, being personally idiosyncratic and intertwined with specialization. In examining these forms of knowledge and the way that they are used by members of a collaboration, I use an interpretive methodology to analyze the data derived from four case studies of university-industry collaboration. One case study is based on an alliance in the United States and the other three cases present evidence from collaborations in Australia. I explore the appropriateness of applying the concepts of modular design to interorganizational collaborations, the production and use of knowledge within the boundaries of these structural arrangements, and the role of the university and firm scientists in the endeavour to develop therapeutics through the application of biotechnology. I argue that the movement of knowledge is dependent upon the structure through which knowledge processes are operationalized. In addition, I submit that knowledge based collaborations in biotechnology must be analyzed with respect to the larger contextual framework of the biopharmaceutical industry, with consideration of both the competitors of an alliance and the ill patients who stand to benefit from the work within an alliance.


This paper presents a new approach for precision estimation for algebraic ellipse fitting based on combined least squares method. Our approach is based on coordinate description of the ellipse geometry to determine the error distances of the fitting method. Since it is an effective fitting algorithm the well-known Direct Ellipse Fitting method was selected as an algebraic method for precision estimation. Once an ellipse fitted to the given data points, algebraic distance residuals for each data point and fitting accuracy can be computed. Generally, the adopted approach has revealed geometrical aspect of precision estimation for algebraic ellipse fitting. The experimental results revealed that our approach might be a good choice for precision estimation of the ellipse fitting method.


The traditional frequent pattern mining algorithms generate an exponentially large number of patterns of which a substantial proportion are not much significant for many data analysis endeavors. Discovery of a small number of personalized interesting patterns from the large output set according to a particular user's interest is an important as well as challenging task. Existing works on pattern summarization do not solve this problem from the personalization viewpoint. In this work, we propose an interactive pattern discovery framework named PRIIME which identifies a set of interesting patterns for a specific user without requiring any prior input on the interestingness measure of patterns from the user. The proposed framework is generic to support discovery of the interesting set, sequence and graph type patterns. We develop a softmax classification based iterative learning algorithm that uses a limited number of interactive feedback from the user to learn her interestingness profile, and use this profile for pattern recommendation. To handle sequence and graph type patterns PRIIME adopts a neural net (NN) based unsupervised feature construction approach. We also develop a strategy that combines exploration and exploitation to select patterns for feedback. We show experimental results on several real-life datasets to validate the performance of the proposed method. We also compare with the existing methods of interactive pattern discovery to show that our method is substantially superior in performance. To portray the applicability of the framework, we present a case study from the real-estate domain.


PURPOSE
The pharmacology, clinical efficacy, safety, dosage and administration, and place in therapy of fidaxomicin for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) are reviewed.

SUMMARY
Fidaxomicin, a macrocyclic antibiotic, has a narrow spectrum of activity against gram-positive anaerobes and is bactericidal against C. difficile. It has no activity against gram-negative bacteria. Fidaxomicin has minimal activity against Bacteroides species, which may be advantageous in maintaining colonization resistance and protecting the gastrointestinal tract from colonization by C. difficile. The minimum inhibitory concentration for 90% of organisms for fidaxomicin against C. difficile ranged from 0.0078 to 2 μg/mL in in vitro studies. After oral administration, fecal concentrations are detected and are directly proportional to the dose administered. Fidaxomicin resistance in vivo has not been reported. In clinical trials, fidaxomicin has been shown to be noninferior to vancomycin in the management of mild-to-moderately severe CDI. The adverse-effect profile of fidaxomicin is comparable to that of vancomycin. The recommended dosage for treatment of CDI is fidaxomicin 200 mg orally twice daily for 10 days. Fidaxomicin should be considered for patients who previously received treatment with metronidazole or vancomycin for CDI and who are diagnosed with recurrent CDI in which a non-NAP1/BI/027 strain is isolated. At institutions where strain typing is not available, fidaxomicin may be considered in patients with recurrent CDI who have not responded to treatment with the regimen used for the first episode of CDI.

CONCLUSION
Fidaxomicin is a well-tolerated agent for the treatment of CDI and has been shown to be noninferior to vancomycin in the management of mild-to-moderately severe CDI.


Electronic document handling was first used in the automotive industry in the early 1970's, the way of communicating electronic at the time was concerned with the communication way of EDI (Hsieh, 2004). In the beginning of 2000 a new way of communicating electronic documents was introduced with the emergence of VAN-operators (Hsieh, 2004). This technology of communicating electronic invoices has shown to be less complex for the businesses than the previous EDI connections. The VAN-operators enable companies regardless of size, ERP, also known as Enterprise Resource Planning, system, formats or transaction volume to send and receive electronic invoices.The subject of electronic invoice handling have become increasingly debated, mainly because of the legislations taking place all over Europe, and as well as the environmental impact by business transactions being sent by paper. The objective of this thesis is to examine the challenges, solutions and outcomes for companies switching to electronic invoice handling.The data collected for the thesis is divided into two parts. The first part consist of information retrieved by previous literature as well as internet sources. The second part concerns the case studies conducted for the thesis in respect to our research questions. For this reason Scandinavian companies have been interviewed, with different precondition as in size, industry, transaction volume and IT structure.The findings from the first and second part have been analyzed and conclusion have been made, we suggest using a VAN-operators, which have shown to be the most appropriate alternative for companies that are implementing electronic invoice handling. The result of this thesis can be used as a guideline for companies when considering a switch from manual to electronic invoice handling.


Abstract Recent research has attempted to examine the proportion of interviewer variance that is due to interviewers systematically varying in their success in obtaining cooperation from respondents with varying characteristics (i.e., nonresponse error variance), rather than variance among interviewers in systematic measurement difficulties (i.e., measurement error variance) - that is, whether correlated responses within interviewers arise due to variance among interviewers in the pools of respondents recruited, or variance in interviewer-specific mean response biases. Unfortunately, work to date has only considered data from a CATI survey, and thus suffers from two limitations: Interviewer effects are commonly much smaller in CATI surveys, and, more importantly, sample units are often contacted by several CATI interviewers before a final outcome (response or final refusal) is achieved. The latter introduces difficulties in assigning nonrespondents to interviewers, and thus interviewer variance components are only estimable under strong assumptions. This study aims to replicate this initial work, analyzing data from a national CAPI survey in Germany where CAPI interviewers were responsible for working a fixed subset of cases.


A series of carbon nanofiber (CNF)/ polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based nanocomposites was prepared using in situ polymerization technique by critical manipulation of factors, such as method of preparation and chemical modification of filler. Quantification of the degree of dispersion was done by introducing a dispersion degree parameter. Ceria-based composites are developed as potential electrolytes for intermediate solid oxide fuel cell applications and a better understanding of the ionic conduction mechanism serves this purpose. Ceria based composites were produced by several processing routes using a ceria-based ceramic host (Sm, Gddoped ceria) and various Na and Li carbonates. Simple ceria/carbonate two-phase nanocomposites were synthesized by the carbonate precipitation method followed by a thermal treatment.


Precession electron diffraction (PED) is a new promising technique for electron diffraction pattern collection under quasi-kinematical conditions (as in X-ray Diffraction), which enables "ab-initio" solving of crystalline structures of nanocrystals. The PED technique may be used in TEM instruments of voltages 100 to 400 kV and is an effective upgrade of the TEM instrument to a true electron diffractometer. The PED technique, when combined with fast electron diffraction acquisition and pattern matching software techniques, may also be used for the high magnification ultra-fast mapping of variable crystal orientations and phases, similarly to what is achieved with the Electron Backscattered Diffraction (EBSD) technique in Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM) at lower magnifications and longer acquisition times.


In bringing economic analysis to bear on the settlement of legal disputes, it is commonly presumed that the parties to the dispute are governed by the principles of private property and so are residual claimants to their legal expenses. This institutional framework promotes a substantive rationality that is often conducive to the settlement of disputes without trial. In contemporary mixed economies, however, a political agency is often party to a dispute. These agencies operate under a different substantive rationality because the framework of collective property under which they operate means they do not have residual claims on their legal expenses. They can, however, convert those expenses into investments in politically preferred activity. What results is a conflict between rationalities that generates societal tectonics that often are misidentified as market failures when they are really systemic properties of the conflicting rationalities.


A new Schiff-base triazine-derived ligand and its cobalt (II), copper (II), nickel (II) and zinc (II) metal complexes have been synthesised and characterised on the basis of elemental analysis, molar conductance, infrared, HNMR and electronic spectral, and magnetic susceptibility data. In order to asssess the effect of metal ions on the antibacterial activity, the ligand and its complexes have been screened against bacterial species Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. In all cases the activity/potency has substantially increased on complexation against one or more bacterial species.


The near parity between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator is bringing what had been merely a developers' annoyance firmly into the realm of disaster. The problem is a relatively familiar one: nonconformance or incomplete implementation of standards makes building sophisticated Web pages that work across browsers a difficult and expensive job. Because Web developers have to spend extra time and effort working around quirks in different implementations, they almost always have to privilege general functionality over technological enhancements. Just trying to get pages to look the same across browsers by following the Cascading Style Sheet Level 1 (CSS1) standard-a W3C recommendation finished nearly two years ago (1996)-requires intimate knowledge of the peculiarities of each version of each browser on each platform. IE 4 on Windows, for example, supports about 80 percent of CSS1 and about the same amount on Macintosh, but not the same 80 percent. Navigator 4 supports a little less of CSS1 on both Windows and Macintosh, but again not the same subset and not in the same way. And CSS is just the tip of the iceberg.


A recent nationwide survey in the UK has revealed that student-induced collaboration problems exist widely in web-based collaborative group work undertaken by undergraduate computing students who are using asynchronous collaboration tools. Assessing these collaboration problems can assist teachers or moderators to understand and evaluate how individual students perform in collaborative groups as well as help students to reflect on their own learning actions. A number of studies have indicated that quantitative data resulting from student interactions with an asynchronous collaboration tool, such as a forum, can account for the behaviours of individual students and collaborative groups. This poses a question on which aspects of student usage of such a tool predict group collaboration problems. This paper investigates the roles of various student interactions with a learning forum in order to ascertain the existence of different group collaboration problems. A particular focus of interest has been learning forums, since forums have become broadly adopted tools to support online group collaboration. The types of collaboration problems were drawn from previous research that identified the main student-induced collaboration problems. A data set was collected for 87 undergraduates who participated in a web-based computer science group project. It consists of two kinds of data. The first comprises student interaction data which were collected from a learning forum system on which the group project was undertaken. The second set of data relates to assessment of group collaboration problems, and was gathered through a questionnaire delivered to the students who participated in the group project. Multinomial logistic regression analysis has been applied for modelling the relationship between a response variable corresponding to the existence of a group collaboration problem and several predictor variables representing various student interactions with a learning forum. A set of predictive models were produced by the regression analysis, each representing a statistically significant combination of student interactions that predict the existence of one of the collaboration problems in question. The findings reveal that indicators including the number of posts that were created and replied to by individual students, and the number of times that a student viewed a discussion on a learning forum, contribute significantly in predicting the collaboration problems which were identified. The results also demonstrate how the existence of a problem fluctuates with the alterations in the value of an indicator variable. The goodness-of-fit of the identified predictive models was measured by the Pearson chi-square test and the results of this test indicate that the models fit the sample data well. The average rate of correct classification by the models was approximately 80%, which means the regression method performed well on the sample data set. The outcomes of this research can help teachers to assess problems in web-based collaborative group work and also can be used to develop tools for automatically diagnosing group collaboration problems in web-based collaborative learning environments.


The significance of national differences in family formations has been addressed through the social policy debate over women's position in different welfare state regimes. However, the nature and effects of sub–national family geographies remains under–researched. In this paper we use census mapping to describe regional and local differences in partnering and parenting within Britain. We develop an index of the 'Motherhood Employment Effect' to indicate different geographical levels of adherence to the 'traditional' male breadwinner/female homemaker family, and use a 'Family Conventionality' index to describe geographical differences in the social evaluation of marriage. The geography of family formations thus described does not follow the better known 'north–south' or 'urban–rural' geographies of economic performance and prosperity. We use the example of Lancashire and Yorkshire to explore further the socio–economic associations of this family geography, employing additional indicators of 'household conventionality' and 'family restructuring'. Finally, we speculate as to how this relatively unfamiliar family geography may be related to the existence of regional gender cultures, and briefly outline some implications for social policy.


The study was carried out during 2015-16 in Gwalior district (M.P.) having 120 GPS based surface soil samples (0-15 cm) collected from twenty three villages of four blocks (Dabra, Bhitarwar, Ghatigoan and Morar) of Gwalior district. The samples were prepared and analyzed for physico-chemical properties and different forms of potassium. The average shares of lattice potassium, non-exchangeable, exchangeable and water soluble potassium in the 'total' potassium were more than 90% (94.67%), 3.70%, 1.55% and 0.102% respectively. The results showed that the average values for water soluble-K, exchangeable-K, non-exchangeable-K, lattice-K and total K were: 15.1, 230.5, 548.4 mg /kg, 1.403% and 1.482%, respectively. Soils were neutral to slight alkaline with normal EC and CaCO3, having texture sandy clay loam to clay loam. The Correlation of different forms of potassium was positively correlated with OC, EC, and clay content. Similarly highly significant and positive relationship was observed between different forms of K.


Visualization has been a part of computing for a long time, however with the growth in data produced by researchers and the computing resources available visualization capability has not developed in a way that provides researchers with the ability to include visualization as part of their standard analysis of these very large datasets. To address this issue and to understand how visualization systems must adapt to meet the new needs the eResearch brings we examine the past, present and begin to look into the future at visualization systems and architectures, to aid in understanding how visualization may be used or wish to be used a scenario involving a variety of Earth Science researchers working at a variety of locations to collect data and conduct analysis is presented. Reviewing traditional visualization systems, in particular, Modular Visualization Environments and Visualization Toolkits, to understand the heritage of visualization systems and the challenges that researchers have identified face. We look at current visualization systems that begin to take advantage of grid computing technologies, including those that modify traditional systems, those that a new architectures and those that have been developed in a bespoke manner for particular eResearch projects. Whilst these current visualization systems address some of the challenges of visualization for eResearch several challenges still exist and we examine ways in which these systems need to develop into the future to meet these challenges relating to use of multiple datasets, display devices, variation in bandwidth availability, the need for interaction and the role that predictive rendering can play in this, the need for new and revised algorithms, a focus on the end to end performance of visualization pipelines and the ability to integrate in to a researchers workflow rather than be an additional activity.


The changes in lactate dehydrogenase isoenzyme fractions in various tissues from human foetuses were studied at different stages of development. The isoenzyme pattern changes with the gestation period. The adult pattern is attained at birth in heart, liver, muscle and kidney. Brain shows predominance of cathodic fractions even at birth, but becomes aerobic after 6-12 months. LDH1/LDH5 ratio shows a similar trend. It appears that the adult pattern of LDH isoenzymes consists of predominantly either the faster (aerobic tissues) or slower (anaerobic tissue moving isoenzymes resulting from a gradual shift during foetal and neonatal life.


To research the effects of vector quantity and competence on the positive cloning rate, with a known gene sequence but in the absence of DNA template, we artificially designed 26 primers to synthesize a target gene of 835 bp in vitro using overlapping PCR technique. The whole experiment design with two factors and six levels (36 combinations) was applied to study the effects of the vector density and competent cells on the macromolecular vector transformation efficiency. Based on the 1 500 ng target gene, the vector density grades were designed (50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 ng), and then the recombinant plasmids were transformed into Top10F', DH5, Stbl3, Epi400, JM108, SCSI. Results showed that the positive cloning rates of different vector amount from big to small were in the order of 200,250,300,150,100 and 50 ng. The maximum positive cloning rate of 200 ng reached 75%; and the average value was 28. 5%. The positive cloning rates of different competent cells from big to small were in the order of stbl3, Top10F', DH5, JM108, Epi400 and SCSI. Stbl3 was higher than other competent cells under any vector density, and its average positive cloning rate was 42.4%. Both the vector density and competent cells had significant effects on the macromolecular vector transformation efficiency. The optimal combination was C4 with 200 ng vector density and Stbl3, the positive cloning rate of which could reach 75%.


Abstract Engineering is currently expanding its conceptual boundaries by accepting the challenge of interdisciplinarity, while often adopting social and biological concepts in developing tools (e.g. evolutionary optimization or interactive autonomous agents) or even world views (e.g. co-evolution, resilience, adaptation). The emerging socio-technical knowledge domain is still very much restricted by partial knowledge associated with the lack of long-term transdisciplinary research effort and the unavailability of robust, integrated tools able to cover both the technical and the socio-economic domains and to act as 'thinking platforms' for long-term scenario planning and strategic decision making under (high-order) uncertainties. Here we present an example of a toolkit that attempts to bridge this gap focusing on urban water (UW) systems and their management. The toolkit consists of three tools: the UW Optioneering Tool (UWOT); the UW Agent Based Modelling Platform (UWABM); and the UW System Dynamic Environment (UWSDE). The tools are briefly presented and discussed, focusing on interactions and data flows between them and their typical results are illustrated through a case study example. A further tool (a Cellular Automata Based Urban Growth Model) is currently under development and an early coupling with the other tools is also discussed. It is argued that this type of extended model fusion, beyond what has traditionally been thought of as 'integrated modelling' in the engineering domain is a new frontier in the understanding of environmental systems and presents a promising, emerging field in modelling interactions between our societies and cities, and our environment.


Dehydration of Natural Gas to controlled water content is necessary in order to avoid gas hydrates and minimize corrosion.This study describes the dehydration on liquid desiccant dehydration unit.The key task was to identify the optimum parameters used in Triethylene Glycol dehydration unit.Absorption dehydration involves the use of Triethylene Glycol to remove water vapor from the gas stream.Water was removed to meet a water dew point requirement of sale gas contract specification range from 32.8 to 117 kg/106 standard m3.The evaluation of effectiveness parameters on gas dehydration plant was carried out by using ASPEN HYSYS simulation.ASPEN HYSYS was used for steady state simulation, design, performance monitoring and optimization of oil and gas production,gas processing and petroleum refining industries.Peng-Robinson equation of state was chosen in the system.The simulation was carried out to determine the effect of important parameters such as column operating pressure, number of theoretical stages of column and gas flow rate.A technically optimized dehydration process has been proposed based on the simulated data.Results showed that, when the gas flow rate increases, the water absorption rate will decrease. Same condition obtained as increasing pressure.However,water absorption rate increases with the increasing number of theoretical stages.The optimum condition of gas dehydration was at 2000kPa with 1000m3/h gas flow rate and 4 column theoretical stages.


Introduction: Library information science has traditionally existed in libraries but with evolution of digital online literacy the traditional role of a librarian can be expanded to healthcare through trained patient-information-managers or E-health-librarians delivering information and knowledge to rural and urban patients unable to access traditional health-care resources in hospitals or health centres. Methods: LN Medical College, Bhopal, E-Health libraries are managed by interested and trained library and information science as well as other background volunteers designated, 'patient information communication managers.' These E-health library volunteers typically reside in the same community drained by the E-health library and their job is to create detailed electronic health records of de-identified patients (after signed informed consent), share the records across an online-global, participatory-healthcare, learning-ecosystem, contact the 'local-doctors' in their area and share inputs from the Global doctors on each patient thus obtaining conversational and evidence based clinical decision support input to benefit those patients with the records. Results: This is a pilot intervention of an open-online-health-record system, de-identified as per HIPAA guidelines, that has enabled one hospital unit managed by a physician team to regularly engage in informational continuity of their patients, through a patient-information-manager (aka E-health-librarian) supported online-network of 1500+ physicians and patient-information-communication managers working both in the hospital as well as rural and urban communities. A qualitative thematic analysis of insights from selected cases over one year of starting this system was assessed. Almost all the online-records shared over the physician's social network received multidisciplinary inputs from multiple specialists and generalists toward facilitation of a valuable informational support for the physicians managing the patients in the online-records. Most of the patients with online-records generated during hospital stay were able to maintain better continuity of care with their hospital physicians through the patient-information managers. Conclusion: A gratifying response from the pilot users of the system indicates that this model can be scaled by many more physicians in hospitals globally through larger in-hospital pilots and also utilized for continuing evaluation of patient-care not only in the hospitals but also in the community through patient-information managers (aka E-health librarians) working both in the hospital as well as E-health libraries in rural and urban communities.


A new multi-spectral line scanner CMOS image sensor is reported. The backside illuminated (BSI) image sensor was designed for continuous scanning Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space applications including A custom high quality CMOS Active Pixels, Time Delayed Integration (TDI) mechanism that increases the SNR, 2-phase exposure mechanism that increases the dynamic Modulation Transfer Function (MTF), very low power internal Analog to Digital Converters (ADC) with resolution of 12 bit per pixel and on chip controller. The sensor has 4 independent arrays of pixels where each array is arranged in 2600 TDI columns with controllable TDI depth from 8 up to 64 TDI levels. A multispectral optical filter with specific spectral response per array is assembled at the package level. In this paper we briefly describe the sensor design and present some electrical and electro-optical recent measurements of the first prototypes including high Quantum Efficiency (QE), high MTF, wide range selectable Full Well Capacity (FWC), excellent linearity of approximately 1.3% in a signal range of 5-85% and approximately 1.75% in a signal range of 2-95% out of the signal span, readout noise of approximately 95 electrons with 64 TDI levels, negligible dark current and power consumption of less than 1.5W total for 4 bands sensor at all operation conditions .


In a cross case analysis of six specialized STEM schools across the United States selected on the basis of varied geographic location and school model type, the authors explore the ways in which classroom discursvive strutures established by teachers impact students' perceptions of their own agency and authority as relates to their science learning within specialized STEM schools. As national interest in specialized STEM schools grows, a deep need to understand the instructional practices that impact students motivation and interest has arisen. By better understanding how teachers drive classroom discourse through questioning techniques, student responses and reflections can be understood within the unique culture of these schools.


: We chose as a research topic for our study one of the most important components of society and the legal order: the "norm" and we propose an interdisciplinary analysis. For this reason, we stopped at the analysis of the legal norm in the period of ancient Rome and at the connection between jus (law), lex (law, legal norm), mos (custom, morality, morav) and fas (religious norm). The structure of our paper begins with the presentation of the meaning of legal norms in Roman law, the elements of the legal norm, their significance, and the effects that a legal norm (written or unwritten) produced in the ancient Roman world. Then we continued to analyze the classification of law (jus) and the connection between ius / jus and justice, respectively, the connection between law and justice, finding that the Romans never separated the right from morality, from what they considered to be just. Continuing the idea of the norm, our paper analyzes the oldest source of law, the custom (consuetudo or mos maiorum - the custom of the ancestors). During the Empire, more precisely, during the Principality (classical era), the custom or custom appears as the will of the people, which was considered to come from the gods. In terms of these perceptions, the rules were designated by the term fas, which meant the relationship between man and divinity, but also what people could do or what was forbidden by the supreme will of Jupiter (jus).


Biologists are required to integrate large amounts of data to construct a working model of the system under investigation. This model is often informal and stored mentally or textually, making it prone to contain undetected inconsistencies, inaccuracies, or even contradictions, not much less than a representation in free natural language. Using Object-Process Methodology (OPM), a formal yet visual and humanly accessible conceptual modeling language, we have created an executable working model of the mRNA decay process in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as well as the import of its components to the nucleus following mRNA decay. We show how our model, which incorporates knowledge from 43 articles, can reproduce outcomes that match the experimental findings, evaluate hypotheses, and predict new possible outcomes. Moreover, we were able to analyze the effects of the mRNA decay model perturbations related to gene and interaction deletions, and predict the nuclear import of certain decay factors, which we then verified experimentally. In particular, we verified experimentally the hypothesis that Rpb4p, Lsm1p, and Pan2p remain bound to the RNA 3′-untralslated region during the entire process of the 5′ to 3′ degradation of the RNA open reading frame. The model has also highlighted erroneous hypotheses that indeed were not in line with the experimental outcomes. Beyond the scientific value of these specific findings, this work demonstrates the value of the conceptual model as an in silico vehicle for hypotheses generation and testing, which can reinforce, and often even replace, risky, costlier wet lab experiments.


The relationship between coffee consumption and the prevalence of bronchial asthma has been evaluated using data from the 1983 Italian National Health Survey, based on 72,284 individuals aged over 15 years randomly selected within strata of geographic area, size of the place of residence and of the household in order to be representative of the whole Italian population. The prevalence of bronchial asthma was inversely related with the level of coffee intake. Compared with subjects who did not drink coffee, the age- and sex-adjusted relative risks were 0.95 for one cup, 0.77 for two and 0.72 for three or more cups per day. This inverse relation was of comparable magnitude at younger and older ages, not explainable through selection, since the sample was representative of the general Italian population and the participation rate was 93.4 percent, or through confounding by several identified potential distorting factors. Thus, the results of this survey provide epidemiologic confirmation of previous clinical observations that caffeine intake has a bronchodilator effect in asthma, and indirectly suggest that long-term moderate coffee consumption may not only reduce symptoms, but also prevent the clinical manifestation of bronchial asthma. An alternative explanation of these findings is that subjects receiving treatment for asthma might tend to reduce their coffee consumption, in consequence of the side effects shared by sympathomimetics, theophylline and caffeine. Thus, further studies taking simultaneously into account methylxanthine intake from beverages and drug treatments are required before considering causal the apparent protection which emerged.


Monoclonal antibodies were raised to the anaerobic curved rods, Mobiluncus curtisii subsp. curtisii NCTC 11656, M. curtisii subsp. holmesii NCTC 11657 and M. mulieris NCTC 11658. Three antibodies reacted with the two subspecies of M. curtisii and, when used in combination against clinical isolates, showed 100% sensitivity and specificity in immunofluorescence studies. Immunoblotting showed that two of these antibodies reacted with an epitope on a protein which had an electrophoretic mobility corresponding to a Mr of 75 Kda in the absence of a reducing agent and 82 Kda in its presence in both type strains and in clinical isolates. The third antibody reacted with an epitope in type strains which had a mobility corresponding to 75 Kda and was unaffected by a reducing agent. However, in clinical isolates the epitope was present on a protein of 75 Kda or 71 Kda, or on both. A fourth antibody showed reactivity with M. mulieris NCTC 11658 alone, but only 6 (24%) of 25 clinical isolates gave positive results by immunofluorescence. The epitope is believed to be present on a protein of greater than 90 Kda. All four antibodies were shown by immunogold staining to be directed against epitopes exposed on the cell surface.


Coordination models and languages are relatively new methods in modeling component-based software systems. These models and languages separate the communication aspect of systems from their computation aspect, and hence enable the modeling of concurrent, distributed, and heterogeneous systems. In this thesis, our goal is to show that Reo, a channel-based exogenous coordination language, is powerful enough to be used in the area of workflow management. In order to achieve this goal, we consider a set of workflow control patterns. We implement each of these patterns in terms of a Reo circuit and show that these Reo circuits capture the behavior of the corresponding workflow control patterns. We believe that the patterns we choose in this thesis are enough to show the strength of Reo as a workflow language. We explain our approach in four steps. In the first step, we specify the general definition of workflow control patterns in terms of some Point Interval Temporal Logic formulas. In the second step, we convert each PITL formula to a constraint automaton. In the third step, we implement each workflow control pattern by a Reo circuit; each Reo circuit consists of a set of components and a set of connectors that connect and coordinate those components and provide its behavior as a relation on timed data streams; a timed data stream is a twin pair of a data stream and a time stream. In the forth step, we compositionally derive the constraint automata of that Reo circuit and finally, in the fifth step, we show the equivalence of the two constraint automata.


Latin American development strategies have historically been inextricably linked with trade theory and policy. The author's main argument is that the old infant industry and the new strategic trade arguments are fundamentally similar. Among their similarities is the justification of selective protection of certain economic sectors. Among their differences, the infant industry argument justifies temporary protection, while the argument in favour of strategic protection of certain industries justifies their protection on an indefinite basis. Yet, in the context of turning inward-oriented into outward-oriented economies, the difference between trade policy and industrial policy becomes nebulous. This is due to the theoretical conclusion drawn by both arguments -both of which favour protectionism- that the best, most welfare- enhancing policy choice, even for strategic sectors, is the use of subsidies. After examining the theoretical rationale of both arguments, this essay concludes with a set of observations and prescriptions concerning the economic, political and institutional implications which should be taken into account by policy-makers when attempting to design a viable, long-term strategic development plan.


Purpose: To investigate choroidal thickness in healthy pregnant women during different trimesters using enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT ). Methods: This prospective study included 90 healthy pregnant women in their first, second, or third trimester (groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively) and 30 non-pregnant healthy women (group 4). The age range for all groups was 18-40 years. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography scans were obtained to estimate the average choroidal thickness. Using EDI-OCT, we measured choroidal thickness manually from the outer border of the retinal pigment epithelium to the inner scleral border at the subfovea, 3 mm temporal, and 3 mm nasal to the fovea. Differences among groups were analyzed by one-way ANOVA. results: We found a statistically significant difference between groups 2 and group 4 for subfoveal, temporal, and nasal mean choroidal thickness (p=0.007, p<0.001, p=0.026, respectively). The mean choroidal thickness for group 2 was 395 ± 80 µm, 338 ± 74 µm, and 233 ± 61 µm at the regions subfoveal, temporal, and nasal to the fovea, respectively. In comparison, the mean choroidal thickness for group 4 was 335 ± 86 µm, 274 ± 54 µm, and 200 ± 53 μm at the regions subfoveal, temporal, and nasal to the fovea, respectively. No statistically significant differences were found for choroidal thickness among groups 1-4 (p=0.214, p=0.177, p=0.094, respectively) and between groups 3-4 (p=0.105, p=0.261, p=0.695, respectively) for all measured points. conclusion: Our results suggest that choroidal thickening can occur at the regions subfoveal, temporal, and nasal to the fovea in the second trimester.


This study was conducted to determine the effects of serum levels of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) on antibody titers of stocker calves administered Leptospirosis sp. vaccine that were given a balanced oral mineral drench.  A total of 111 head of stocker calves were injected with Leptospirosis sp. vaccine and blood samples were taken from each calf to determine initial serum levels of Cu and Zn.  Calves were blocked according to breed (Limousin or Angus based crossbred) and sex (steers or heifers) and allotted to one of two treatments.  Treatments were allotted and worked on Day 0 (D 0), treatment one (Trt.-1) received a balanced mineral drench containing chelated forms of Cu and Zn, while treatment two (Trt.-2) did not receive mineral drench and served as control.  Blood was obtained via jugular venipuncture on D 14 and D 28 for determination of serum Cu, Zn and titer strength to Leptospirosis. Data analysis revealed no differences (P>0.05) in mineral levels between control and drench treated calves on D 14 or D28.  Pooling calves on breed revealed a higher level (P<0.05) of serum Cu levels in Limousin calves, while crossbred calves had higher (P<0.05) circulating Zn levels.  These results are indicative of previous trials showing substantial breed differences in mineral metabolism and also suggest that a short-term treatment of Zn and Cu will not positively affect a calf's ability to respond to Leptospirosis vaccines.


The study was basically dealing with the rights to legal representation with a prospect to the examinations irregularity proceedings in the higher learning institution in Tanzania. The specific objectives of the study included: To explore the accessibility of the right to legal representation, to examine how due process of the law is uphold and to scrutinize how "fair hearing" is conducted at the examinations irregularities proceedings in higher learning institutions in Tanzania. The research methodology employed in the study was both doctrinal legal research and field research where interview was used as a research tool to supplement information which was otherwise unavailable under doctrinal research. The analysis was done via legal reasoning tactics of analogy, deductive and inductive techniques, explaining areas of difficulties and weaknesses thereby necessary recommendations were made for future developments. The study found that most of the institutions do not grant right to legal representation to alleged students and those students are unfairly treated during the examination irregularities proceedings thus the study recommended among other things that the right to legal representation to be granted to students and that such right should be expressly incorporated in the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania to provide a constitutional bench mark for all agencies vested with powers to determine the rights of citizen whether judicial or quasi-judicial bodies.


This paper describes ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys that were conducted to characterize the ice and shallow subsurface of a frozen lagoon at Bowness Park, Calgary. We used Sensors and Software Inc.'s 250 MHz NOGGIN® and SmartCart® system as well as a Pulse EKKO 4 system with a 100 MHz antenna to acquire GPR surveys over the frozen lagoon in two consecutive years (2003 and 2004). Hyperbolic velocity analysis gave ice velocities of about 0.15 m/ns with velocities decreasing in the sediments to about 0.11 m/ns. We interpret the ice thickness to be about 0.4 meters from the GPR profiles, which is consistent with augur holes drilled through the ice. Channel sediments and stratigraphy beneath the ice are interpretable from the 3D radar reflectivity. We located and mapped a paleochannel with a NW-SE orientation and a thickness of about 0.5 meters. Penetration of the 250 MHz data reached about 2 meters at several locations in the area.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of color Doppler-ultrasonography (CDU) compared with biopsy for the diagnosis of temporal arteritis (TA). PATIENTS AND METHOD: Twenty-three patients with suspected TA on the basis of clinical criteria were evaluated with CDU prior to temporal artery biopsy. The presence of a hypoechoic halo, suggesting edema of the inflamed vessel, and inflammatory stenoses were registered. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and eficiency or global test value (GTV) were evaluated. RESULTS: All patients completed a bilateral CDU examination of temporal arteries, and in 72% of patients the biopsy was negative for TA. When the presence of an halo in CDU examination was regarded as determinant for disease, sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and GTV compared with TA histologic confirmation were 80%, 92%, 80%, 92% and 88%, respectively. When the criteria used was presence of the halo sign with or without inflammatory stenosis, the values were 100%, 77%, 62.5%, 100% and 83% respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Because of the high sensitivity and NPV, we consider CDU as a good screening test for the diagnosis of TA.


The annual cycles of phytoplanktonic and microphytobenthic biomasses as food sources for intertidal bivalves were investigated in a temperate estuarine muddy sandflat of Kwangyang Bay (Korea) from January to December 2002. Seasonal patterns in growth and reproductive activity of a suspension-feeder Laternula marilina and a deposit-feeder Moerella rutila were examined in order to assess their relationship with the annual cycles of pelagic and benthic microalgae, and were com- bined with analyses of δ 13 C and δ 15 N of bivalve tissues and their potential food resources. Biomasses of phytoplankton and microphytobenthos peaked in late spring-summer, and demonstrated a uni- modal pattern of seasonal variation. Photosynthetic pigment composition showed a predominance of diatom marker pigment, fucoxanthin, in the water and the sediments throughout the year. Similar patterns of annual cycles in pelagic and benthic microalgal biomasses and similarities in taxonomic composition indicated that resuspended microphytobenthos is an important contributor to the bay's phytoplankton component. This was supported by the δ 13 C values of suspended particulate organic matter (POM) and physical characteristics of the bay. Synchrony in growth and reproductive activity was observed for both bivalves: their shell and tissue growth and gonadal development were achieved together during late spring and summer when chlorophyll a (chl a) concentrations were highest. This temporal coupling of macrofaunal and microalgal processes indicated that the activities of intertidal bivalves might depend largely on microphytobenthos seasonality. The isotopic signa- tures of the bivalve tissues demonstrated their dependence on organic matter of microphytobenthic source irrespective of season, despite a comparable contribution of phytoplankton to the diet of the suspension-feeding bivalve. These results highlight the importance of seasonal development of microphytobenthos as an available food source during the critical period of gamete production and growth for both suspension- and deposit-feeding bivalves.


The reliability of a hydrological model (HydM) highly depends on how well the model parameters are estimated through the history matching (HisM) process. Direct HisM (DHisM) that calibrate input parameters by iteratively executing a model is widely applied in water resource estimation. The computational time of DHisM is prohibitive, as a single run on the model may take several hours. In practice calibration accuracy is compromised to arrive at a solution. Therefore, it is desirable to develop a proxy model that can replace hydrological model in the HisM process. In this study, we propose a two stage HisM, wherein we first develop a proxy model for HydM using artificial neural network techniques. Next we apply, ant colony optimisation (ACOR) and robust parameter estimation (ROPE) methods for calibrating the parameter of HydM. This methodology is illustrated for the Dandalups catchment of Western Australia to calibrate five global parameters of Land Use Change Incorporated Catchment (LUCICAT) by matching 33 annual daily streamflow peaks. The results reveal that the replacing the LUCICAT by proxy model reduces the computational time by more than 90% with similar accuracy to DHisM and show higher consistency (via standard deviation of RMSE) and reduction of parameter uncertainty compared to DHisM.


In this study, a comparison study between two recent extraction methods, namely ultrasound-assisted molecularly imprinted polymeric nanoparticles solid-phase extraction (US-MIPNPs-SPE) and the solidification of floating organic drop-assisted dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (SFOD-DLLME), for the preconcentration and separation of morin is presented. The morin-MIP NPs, with an average particle size of 57 nm, were synthesized using a precipitation polymerization strategy using methacrylic acid (MAA) and ethyleneglycoldimethacrylate (EGDMA) as functional and cross-linking monomers, respectively. After the synthesis and characterization, the prepared MIP was used as an efficient nano-scale sorbent in the ultrasound-SPE procedure. The effects of various parameters on the extraction efficiency of the morin, including the pH of the sample solution, adsorption and desorption times, initial sample volume, and volume and type of eluent, were investigated in batch experiments. After optimization, isotherm and kinetic models for the adsorption of morin onto morin-MIP NPs were evaluated and fitted. In the SFOD-DLLME procedure, the affecting parameters on morin recovery, such as the type, the volume of extraction and dispersive solvents, pH of the initial sample solution, extraction time, and ionic strength, were studied too.


Abstract Among those artists who define 1970s glam rock, David Bowie holds a unique place. Together with a handful of other glam artists (including Roxy Music and Marc Bolan), Bowie successfully straddle the pop singles and AOR markets. Such a position enabled Bowie to explore key characteristics of glam, including its emphasis on nostalgia. Moreover, Bowie's sophisticated understanding of glam as an ephemeral assemblage of stylistic fragments also set him apart from others in the glam rock scene. Whereas many glam artists later struggled with the legacy that glam imposed on them, Bowie's ability to read it in a broader context of pop fads and fashions meant he could exploit the aesthetics of glam to his advantage. This article considers how Bowie tactically used glam to raise his profile as a pop icon while subsequently applying it as a conceptual blueprint for the performative identities he assumed later in his career.


In primary rodent cells transformed by the E1A region of the highly oncogenic adenovirus type 12, repression of transcription mediated by the far upstream TATA-like element was observed only in conjunction with either possible juxtaposition of a CAA repeated element in the presence of E1A and was dependent upon the relative arrangement of both the TATA-like and CAA repeated motifs in both homologous and heterologous promoter constructs. A gel shift competition study demonstrated that the TATA-binding protein (TBP) or a TBP-like protein can bind to both the upstream TATA-like sequence and the regular TATA box on the H-2Kb basal promoter. Moreover, employing immunoselection and cyclic amplification and selection of targets (CASTing) methods with nuclear extracts derived from Ad12-E1A transformants, we have identified a high affinity binding site in the H-2Kb class I promoter for E1A-associated DNA-binding proteins. The sequences of the binding sites were identified and were found to contain both the upstream TATA-like motif and the CAA repeated motifs. Our results suggest that the TATA-like sequence in the far upstream region of the H-2Kb gene is one of the elements that is required for Ad12-E1A-mediated negative repression.


This paper describes the design, simulation and testing of a piezoelectric spool valve. An actuator has been connected to the valve and tested under closed loop control. A mathematical model of the valve was produced and a prototype of the valve was tested. The mathematical model is validated against the experimental data. Step and frequency responses for both the valve and actuator are presented. It was found that displacement of the hydraulic fluid by the ring bender had an impact on the valve performance. To reduce the effect of the piezoelectric hysteresis, closed loop spool position control was evaluated. A noticeable difference can be observed between open loop and closed loop performance.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


High-speed Pockels modulation and second-order nonlinearities are key components in optical systems, but CMOS-compatible platforms like silicon and silicon nitride lack these capabilities. Micro-transfer printing of thin-film lithium niobate offers a solution, but suspending large areas of thin films for long interaction lengths and high-Q resonators is challenging, resulting in a low transfer yield. We present a new source preparation method that enables reliable transfer printing of thin-film lithium niobate. We demonstrate its versatility by successfully applying it to gallium phosphide and silicon, and provide an estimate of the transfer yield by subsequently printing 25 lithium niobate films without fail.


Abstract A high premature ventricular contractions (PVC) burden can disturb the patient's condition through fatigue during exercise or palpitations. Hence, researchers started to look for treatment options that decrease PVC burden without the side effects of antiarrhythmic drugs, and vitamin D could be a valuable solution and safe alternative to drugs or catheter ablation for high-burden PVCs. We present the case of a 24-year-old patient with high-burden PVC of >25,500/24 hours referred for urgent catheter ablation. Treatment with beta-blockers and calcium blockers did not reduce PVC burden. Under propafenone, there was a slight reduction in the number of PVCs to 21,200/24 hours, therefore the patient was referred for catheter ablation. As there was a vitamin D deficiency of 10.1 ng/mL, an attempt of vitamin D supplementation was done, with increase of vitamin D to 32.1 ng/mL and decrease of PVC burden to 9,600/24 hours. Further dietary supplementation increased 25-OH vitamin D to 50.2 ng/mL and decreased the PVC burden to 119/24 hours. Consequently, catheter ablation was canceled, and the patient remained free of antiarrhythmic drugs.


Abstract The feasibility of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) combined with intratumoral injection of cisplatin as treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma. 30 cases receiving TACE were denoted the TACE group, another 30 cases receiving TACE combined with an intratumoral multi-point injection of cisplatin were denoted the TACE/cisplatin group. Cases with partial remission/complete remission (PR/CR) were analyzed using 2 tests; alpha fetoprotein (AFP), aspartate amino transferase (AST), total bilirubin (TBIL), erythrocyte, and platelet levels were detected and the differences between two groups were analyzed using the Student's t-test; cases with complications, including intrahepatic metastasis (IM), upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGB), and liver failure were also counted. The correlation of clinical parameters with PR/CR was analyzed using multifactorial correlation analysis. Cases with PR/CR in the TACE/cisplatin group were significantly more than in TACE group, accompanied by significant declination in FAP. There were no significant differences of AST, ALT, TBIL, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), white blood cells (WBC), red blood cells (RBC), and platelets (PLT) between two groups; 3 cases with IM, one case with UGB and one case with LF were found in the TACE group, but only 1 case with IM was found in the TACE/cisplatin group. In addition, tumor stage was correlated with PR/CR. We concluded that TACE combined with intratumoral injection of cisplatin was more effective than TACE, and with fewer complications and side effects.


We study the dynamical behavior of multifractals in typhoons. A significant and fascinating feature of this behavior is that it provides a proper interpretation for the pattern of a typhoon in terms of the numerical values of its generalized dimension and scaling exponent. For our case, these statistical quantities can be estimated numerically from four meteorological factors, i.e., the moving speed, the central pressure, the strong wind radius, and the maximum wind speed, before and after the landing of a typhoon. We perform a computer simulation by using a 5-year typhoon data covering 2008 to 2012 in the East Asian region. The result from the multifractal structure allows us to calculate a definite and reliable fractal dimension. In particular, we discover the strength of the multifractal structures from the four meteorological factors obtained from five years of typhoon data. The multifractal strength in the moving speed is a relatively larger value compared to the other meteorological factors in three time intervals.


In tropical regions the production of ornamentals is developed exclusively in naturally ventilated plastic greenhouses, which sometimes leads to inappropriate microclimates with high temperatures and humidity that limit the productive development of plants. The aim of this work was to study air flows, temperature distribution and relative humidity inside an alternative greenhouse designed to produce rose (Rosa spp.). Three configurations of ventilation, side ventilation (SV), roof ventilation (RC) and combined roof and side ventilation (RSV) were analyzed. The methodological development was based on the use of a previously validated CFD-2D numerical simulation model, which showed an adequate fit between the measured and simulated data, obtaining MAE and RMSE values for temperature and relative humidity of 0.44 and 0.47 °C, 3.99% and 4.04% respectively. The results obtained for the predominant climatic conditions of the study region showed that the highest ventilation rates were obtained for RSV, with values of 0.044 and 0.182 m3 m-2s-1, this ventilation efficiency propitiated the generation of a homogeneous microclimate, with temperature and relative humidity values adequate to produce rose (Rosa spp).


When electronic musicians compose collaboratively, they typically use their own single-user musical controllers. It may, therefore, be useful to develop novel controllers that support collaborative workflows and democratic principles. After describing the design principles for developing such controllers, we present TOUCHtr4ck, a prototype multitouch system designed to facilitate such democratic relationships. Informal testing has revealed that this approach does facilitate democratic and collaborative music making, and can produce creative musical results.


Ayurveda describe the organization of the body in term of Doshas, Dhatus and Malas. Twacha is one among the Upadhatus which provide protective layer over the body that protect from the heat, cold and external infection. The union of Shukra (spermatozoa) and Shonita (ovum) while being cooked (processed by heat) give rise to the formation of seven Twak (skin) just like formation of cream when milk is boiled. Acharya Sushrut and other Acharyas are described Twak Shareeram in detail. Acharya Sushrut defined Twacha as Upadhatu of Mamsadhatu. Twacha is one among the Panchjyanendriya, which carry sensation of touch and it covers external part as well as internal part of body. "Kitibha" is one among the type of Ksudrakustha which is common and chronic disorder of Twacha. Acharyas describe symptoms of Kitibha like red, with dry and silvery white scale which may be obvious only after scrapping the surface, skin is not sweating, resemble the scale of fish, producing sound (while scratching) rough, itching course and black in colour. So it becomes essential to know the structural and anatomical changes occur in the Kitibha. Now a days Kitibha disease largely spread in the human being. While diagnosing the patients of Kitibha Kustha, there is difficulty regarding the identification of structural deformity, hence need is felt to study the Kitibha and Twak Sharira.


In chronic kidney disease (CKD), increased plasma phosphate concentrations cause vascular calcification which substantially contribute to cardiovascular events and increased mortality of CKD patients. Similar to CKD patients, klotho-hypomorphic mice (kl/kl) also suffer from excessive vascular calcification leading to growth deficit, rapid ageing and early death. The hyperphosphataemia of kl/kl mice results from excessive formation of 1,25(OH)2D3 causing excessive intestinal phosphate absorption. Further, kl/kl mice further suffer from hyperaldosteronism and compelling evidence points to an active role of mineralocorticoids in triggering osteoinductive programmes in the vasculature, thus further contributing to the development of vascular calcification. Conversely, in kl/kl mice, the mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist spironolactone decreased the vascular osteoinductive processes and reversed the excessive expression of osteogenic programmes, i.e. type III sodium-dependent phosphate transporter Pit1, tumour necrosis factor α (Tnfα), transcription factors Msx2, Cbfa1/Runx2 and osterix as well as alkaline phosphatase (Alp). In human aortic vascular smooth muscle cells (HAoSMCs), aldosterone alone similarly triggered an 'osteogenic' programme, thus increasing PIT1, TNFα, MSX2, CBFA1/RUNX2 and ALP expression as well as ALP activity and potentiated the effects of phosphate treatment. These effects were again reversed by spironolactone and in addition by PIT1 silencing. The above observations reveal that the severe vascular calcification is not only the result of high plasma phosphate concentrations, but also promoted by aldosterone-driven osteoinductive signalling. Future studies in CKD patients will be required to define the role of aldosterone and the potential impact of its inhibition by spironolactone in the pathophysiology of vascular calcification.


A series of novel complexes of transition metal (Co, Fe and Mn) with imidaloze have been synthesized and characterized by Elemental Analysis, FT-IR and UV-Vis Absorption spectroscopy. Based on elemental and spectral data, the complexes were found to be of Co(C3H4N2)4(ClO4)2 (1), Fe(C3H4N2)3(ClO4)3 (2) and Mn(C3H4N2)4(Ac)2 (3) (C3H4N2= imidazole). The three complexes and the ligand (imidazole) display DNA binding ability, ascertained by UV-Vis titration.


A common strategy of copycats companies is to imitate the trade dress of a leading to try to
gain consumers. When a copycat brand imitates the visual appearance of a leading brand is
because he wants to exploit the positive associations related to the leading brand [23][27].
This leads to the critical question of what conditions determine the perceived similarity
between a copycat and a leading brand.
The current research examines whether different evaluation modes influence "confusion"
measures; in particular, it compares the new procedure (non-comparative) with a "classical"
side-by-side presentation of similar product designs (comparative).
This thesis is focusing in three areas of study: packaging, using a can of a beer as model,
the Smartphone's, taking the iPhone and Galaxy II as examples, and cars, focusing on the
Smart and the Noble a Chinese car.
For the first two cases the results were as expected and my assumptions were confirmed:
people recognize accurately in a comparative way and they identify copycats as original in a
non-comparative evaluation mode. For the study: the recognition of the Noble as a piracy,
the results have been interesting and worthy of further reasoning, for example how people
get to know the new car. A lot of people identify the original as a copy when they are in the
comparative mode, because they didn't know the new car and then they were in trouble to
accurately recognize the original, or maybe they doubted when they had to tell if the copycat
is an older or further version of the original.


An acoustic similarity due to two geometrically similar structures which are vibrating in heavy flow, such as in water, is investigated. The acoustic similarity states that for two geometrically similar structures, if a group of dimensionless similarity numbers are constant, the dimensionless acoustic pressure coefficient keep constant at the corresponding acoustic field points for the two flow–loaded vibrating structure systems. Numerical simulations and experiment results are presented to validate the acoustic similarity. This acoustic similarity may be useful when a small structure is employed to investigate the acoustic performance of large scale structure.


Nasal biopsy findings in malignant histiocytosis presenting clinically as lethal midline granuloma are characterised by necrosis and infiltration of atypical histiocytic cells with a diffuse positive reaction for non-specific esterase. This cellular character was common to midline malignant reticulosis, and midline malignant reticulosis and malignant histiocytosis are thought to be the same disease. Patterns of histiocytic infiltration in the nasal lesions of 19 cases are reported in this paper. Polymorphic and monomorphic patterns were observed in 11 and four cases respectively, on the initial biopsy, but subsequently the infiltrates frequently became monomorphic on serial biopsy. The reverse was not observed. Surface marker and cytochemical studies showed the true histiocytic nature of the proliferating cells, and necropsy findings justified the diagnosis of malignant histiocytosis.