Objective: Functional improvement after acute myocardial ischaemia (MI) has been achieved by transplantation of different adult stem and progenitor cell types. It is controversial whether these cell types are able to form novel functional myocardium. Alternatively, graft-related or immune-related paracrine mechanisms may preserve existing myocardium, improve neovascularisation, affect tissue remodelling or induce endogenous de novo formation of functional myocardium. We have applied an alternative somatic cell type, human cord-blood-derived unrestricted somatic stem cells (USSCs) in a porcine model of acute MI. Methods: USSCs were transplanted into the acutely ischaemic lateral wall of the left ventricle (LV). LV dimension and function were assessed by transoesophageal echocardiography (TEE) pre-MI, immediately post-MI, 48 hours and 8 weeks after USSC injection. Additionally, apoptosis, mitosis and recruitment of macrophages were examined 48 hours post-engraftment. Results: Gender-specific and species-specific FISH/immunostaining failed to detect engrafted donor cells 8 weeks post-MI. Nevertheless, cell treatment effectively preserved natural myocardial architecture. Global left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) before MI was 60% (7%). Post-MI, LVEF decreased to 34% (8%). After 8 weeks, LVEF had further decreased to 27% (6%) in the control group and recovered to 52% (2%) in the USSC group (p<0.01). Left-ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV) before MI was 28 (2) ml. 8 weeks post-MI, LVEDV had increased to 77 (4) ml in the control group. No LV dilation was detected in the USSC group (LVEDV: 26 (2) ml, p<0.01). Neither apoptosis nor recruitment of macrophages and mitosis were different in either groups. Conclusions: Transplantation of USSCs significantly improved LV function and prevented scar formation as well as LV dilation. Since differentiation, apoptosis and macrophage mobilisation at infarct site were excluded as underlying mechanisms, paracrine effects are most likely to account for the observed effects of USSC treatment.


We present a set of CNN-based end-to-end models for controls of a Formula SAE racecar, along with various benchmarking and visualization tools to understand model performance. We tackled three main problems in the context of cone-delineated racetrack driving: (1) discretized steering, which translates a first-person frame along to the track to a predicted steering direction. (2) real-value steering, which translates a frame view to a real-value steering angle, and (3) a network design for predicting brake and throttle. We demonstrate high accuracy on our discretization task, low theoretical testing errors with our model for real-value steering, and a starting point for future work regarding a controller for our vehicle's brake and throttle. Timing benchmarks suggests that the networks we propose have the latency and throughput required for real-time controllers, when run on GPU-enabled hardware.


Compulsive smartphone use has attracted extensive social attention because of serious and even fatal outcomes associated with it. However, there has been little theory-driven research systematically investigating the mechanism of compulsive behavior in smartphone use. Although a significant line of literature exists in the area of personal-computer based technology addiction, the mechanism underpinning compulsive smartphone use differs significantly because the unique and specific characteristics of smartphones have given rise to a fundamentally different usage context with new usage behavioral patterns. In order to comprehensively theorize this issue, we first defined compulsive behavior in smartphone use, focusing on mobile social networking services (SNSs) in particular, and then extended the stimulus-response-reinforcement framework to investigate the theoretical network of compulsive use of mobile SNSs. We used online survey data from 368 active mobile SNS users in China to empirically test and validate the proposed model and hypotheses. Our results indicate that both positive and negative reinforcements, as well as the compensatory component, invoke the feeling of urge that leads to compulsive mobile SNS use. The positive effects of interactivity as an incentive stimulus on those reinforcements and compulsive mobile SNS use were also found to be significant.


Business development or renovation is to introduce newer, more efficient routines and processes through redesign or re-engineering of businesses, which form a set of business patterns. Business patterns encapsulate the best solutions for business practices and tasks confirming business strategies of the enterprise. Nowadays, services with SOA (Service oriented-Architecture) become more and more important in implementing and supporting business routines and processes. An enterprise that can encapsulate their SOA solutions into patterns will make the business more agile and effective. However, with the SOA solutions to automation of locating relevant instance services for its business patterns with minimum human intervention one has to look into the semantic and operational difference between the description of a business pattern and that of an instance service—a gap between the two levels of semantic descriptions. In this paper, we propose a conceptual modeling method to address how to bridge the gap, by a semantic service description for usage contextual approach formalized with the conceptual graphs formalism.


The high instantaneous powers associated with femtosecond lasers can color many nominally transparent materials. Although the excitations responsible for this defect formation occur on subpicosecond time scales, subsequent interactions between the resulting electronic and lattice defects complicate the evolution of color center formation and decay. These interactions must be understood in order to account for the long term behavior of coloration. In this work, we probe the evolution of color centers produced by femtosecond laser radiation in soda lime glass and single crystal sodium chloride on time scales from microseconds to hundreds of seconds. By using an appropriately chosen probe laser focused through the femtosecond laser spot, we can follow the changes in coloration due to individual or multiple femtosecond pulses, and follow the evolution of that coloration for long times after femtosecond laser radiation is terminated. For the soda lime glass, the decay of color centers is well described in terms of bimolecular annihilation reactions between electron and hole centers. Similar processes are also occurring in single crystal sodium chloride. Finally, we report fabrication of permanent periodic patterns in soda lime glass by two time coincident femtosecond laser pulses.


Detection and management of a breast mass requires an optimal environment for interpretation, relevant use of clinical information, technically excellent imaging procedures, proper interpretation of the findings, and pertinent recommendations. Masses suspicious for malignancy by only a single modality ideally should undergo some form of biopsy, as the consequences of delayed diagnosis of breast cancer can be devastating. Early invasive breast cancer can be identified and treated if the appropriate evaluation is performed.


Chronic kidney disease can arise from the misappropriation of processes that normally promote tissue homeostasis in health. Such is the case when certain Ig light chains use megalin-cubilin receptors to enter proximal tubular epithelial cells. These receptors, apically located on the proximal tubule, form complexes with any one of a number of plasma proteins that escape into the urinary space.1 After endocytosis, the receptors disengage from the complexes and cycle back to the apical surface, whereas the ligands are processed and catabolized by lysosomes. In health, the function of such receptor-mediated endocytosis in the kidney is truly substantial: This endocytotic process restrains urinary loss of proteins, reclaims amino acids and nutrients derived from protein catabolism, recovers filtered vitamins, and influences the fate of hormones by either degrading them or activating their precursors.1

The incorporation and catabolism of Ig light chains by the proximal tubule would seem, at first glance, a beneficial renal response in myeloma and light-chain proteinuria. Clearance of light chains by the proximal tubule would reduce their downstream delivery and their interaction with Tamm-Horsfall protein, thereby decreasing the risk for cast nephropathy; however, as made clear by a number of studies,2–5 the uptake of light chains by the proximal tubule triggers a vigorous inflammatory response. The studies of Basnayake et al.6 in this issue of JASN examine the basis for this inflammatory behavior by exposing human proximal tubular epithelial cells to pathophysiologically relevant concentrations of light chains derived from patients with myeloma and kidney disease. Their findings demonstrate that light-chain uptake by megalin-cubilin receptors increases cellular generation of hydrogen peroxide, the latter activating c-Src, which in turn induces the chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1).

The activation of c-Src by nephrotoxic light chains is a significant observation, because c-Src, a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase family member, is a critical hub in cell signaling networks.7 Not only is c-Src activated upon receptor binding of certain growth factors, but also c-Src itself can facilitate the transactivation of growth factor receptors; c-Src recruits such signaling species as mitogen-activated protein kinase members, Akt, Stat3, and PGC-1α. c-Src can also activate transcription factors such as NF-κB and AP-1. In view of these broad effects of c-Src on cell signaling, it is not surprising that c-Src is increasingly implicated in renal processes, including those that are physiologic (e.g., acid-base homeostasis,8 renal hypertrophy9) and those that are pathophysiologic (e.g., podocyte proliferation and dedifferentiation,10 cystic kidney disease,11 albumin-induced cytokine expression12). The findings of Basnayake et al.6 are important for several reasons: First, they identify another disease instigated by the activation of c-Src; second, they provide an explanation for the recruitment of mitogen-activated protein kinase–dependent signaling and activation of NF-κB described in previous studies of light-chain–exposed renal epithelial cells2,3; and third, they direct attention to c-Src as an inducer of MCP-1, a chemokine strongly upregulated and broadly implicated in kidney injury.

Previous studies by Sanders' laboratory demonstrated that Ig light chains, quite remarkably, generate substantial amounts of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in cell-free solutions.4 In the study by Basnayake et al.,6 the addition of catalase, a scavenger of H2O2, to the light-chain–containing medium did not reduce the cellular production of MCP-1. These findings led to the plausible conclusion that H2O2, accounting for the induction of MCP-1, originates in the intracellular, not the extracellular, compartment.6 It would be of interest to determine the specific intracellular site and biochemical mechanism accounting for increased production of H2O2, because such oxidant generation links cellular uptake of light chains and activation of c-Src. The role of the hydroxyl radical and labile cellular iron would also be of interest: DMTU, used as a trap for H2O2 in the study by Basnayake et al.,6 is also a hydroxyl radical scavenger, and H2O2 can generate the hydroxyl radical in the presence of iron.13 Defining the role of labile cellular iron is clinically relevant, because such involvement can be blocked by iron chelators. Finally, the failure of extracellular catalase to reduce cellular production of MCP-1 suggests that extracellular catalase did not scavenge intracellular H2O2, an oxidant that diffuses across cell membranes. This raises the intriguing possibility that in the extracellular medium, nephrotoxic light chains, either directly or in concert with the H2O2 they generate therein, denature catalase; if so, then this would indicate that light chains impose oxidative stress not only by generating oxidants but also by disabling mechanisms that scavenge them.

Further exploration of the elegant in vitro analyses of Basnayake et al.6 would be facilitated by the availability of a relevant in vivo model of light-chain–induced kidney disease; however, the absence of such a model is a challenging issue in this field. Approximately 20 years ago, it was shown that administration of certain Bence Jones proteins to mice induced renal lesions resembling those observed in patients from whom these Bence Jones proteins were obtained.14 More recently, systemic infusion of nephrotoxic light chains over 3 days to rats increased renal production of TNF-α, but it is uncertain whether structural and functional effects accompany such TNF-α production.15 Although a transgenic light-chain–overexpressing mouse has been described, the renal lesions that develop are those of crystalline light-chain deposits in tubules.16 Nonetheless, the observations of Basnayake et al.6 can be readily pursued by translational analyses in patients with monoclonal gammopathies. For example, expression of oxidant stress markers, c-Src, and MCP-1 can be assessed in kidney biopsies. Urine normally contains micromolar amounts of H2O2,17 and it would be of interest to determine whether increased urinary excretion of H2O2 and MCP-1 antedates the appearance of paraproteinemic kidney disease, or a decrease in such excretory rates predicts the remission of such kidney disease. Urinary content of H2O2 and MCP-1 thus may serve as biomarkers for light-chain–induced kidney disease.

By defining the concatenation of steps that culminate in Ig light-chain–induced renal production of MCP-1 and the particular role of c-Src activation in this process, the findings of Basnayake et al.6 are of therapeutic significance. There is a substantial need for new therapies for kidney disease caused by monoclonal gammopathies,18 and germane to the findings of Basnayake et al.6 is that inhibitors of c-Src are under considerable investigation as a therapy for cancer.7 Such targeting of c-Src may mitigate Ig light-chain–induced kidney disease and thus offers a novel therapeutic approach in this disorder.


Local government in advanced economies is undergoing a period of rapid reform aimed at enhancing its efficiency and effectiveness. Accordingly, the definition, measurement and improvement of organisational performance is crucial. Despite the importance of efficiency measurement in local government it is only relatively recently that econometric and mathematical frontier techniques have been applied to local public services. This paper attempts to provide a synoptic survey of the comparatively few empirical analyses of efficiency measurement in local government. We examine both the measurement of inefficiency in local public services and the determinants of local public sector efficiency. The implications of efficiency measurement for practitioners in local government are examined by way of conclusion.


In the face of challengers in his second letter, the apostle Peter makes it clear in 1:16-21 that God's word is his source of authority and spiritual knowledge. In doing this, he shows that the knowledge gained in God's written revelation prevails over that gained anywhere else. Because of its superiority, Scripture deserves concentrated attention. All other conceivable sources of knowledge must bow the knee to God's Word.


Investigation of vascular dynamics is a new direction for optical tomography. In this report we discuss the physiological basis of vascular reactivity and the types of information that may be derived by applying time-series analysis methods to image data. By example, we also present an overview of results from physiological studies reported in more detail in accompanying reports. These include the real-time vascular response of the forearm to local and centrally mediated stimuli examined in a cross-sectional view.


A 59-year-old man with a 6-year history of erectile dysfunction presented to the andrology outpatient clinic. Multimodality assessment with ultrasound, MRI venography and fluoroscopic venography demonstrated an aberrant emissary vein arising from the corporal bodies causing venogenic erectile dysfunction. Selective coil embolisation of the collateral vein resulted in an almost immediate and sustained improvement in his erections.


Although Kiranti languages generally show verb agreement with both arguments of a transitive verb, object agreement can also be suspended, resulting in the intransitive inflection of lexically transitive verbs. This paper analyzes suspended object agreement in Puma (Southern Kiranti). Suspended object agreement in this language is accompanied by either (i) the obligatory realization of a caseless object NP, or (ii), limited to human object referents, the prefixation of a morpheme kha-. Semantically, both constructions contrast with transitively inflected forms by entailing that the cardinality of object referents is unknown; they are thus generally used for non-enumerable or generic reference. The construction with an obligatory NP is similar to incorporation but differs from better known instances of incorporation by the fact that the object is an NP rather than a noun stem, that the NP keeps positional freedom, and that it can be relativized on. The construction also bears similarity to optional agreement patterns in other languages but differs from other known cases of optional agreement by the fact that the object looses core NP properties: the properties that are lost in Puma are case marking and optionality in discourse. The construction with kha- is similar to antipassivization but differs from many known instances of antipassivization by the fact that the object cannot be overtly realized, not even as an adjunct.


Ultrastructural studies were made of the types of alveolar epithelial cells in fibrotic lungs from 34 patients, including 20 with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, five with collagen-vascular diseases, six with sarcoidosis, one with lymphangioleiomyomatosis, one with histiocytosis X, and one with chronic eosinophilic pneumonia. In 28 patients, proliferation of type II alveolar epithelial cells was recognized on the basis of lamellar bodies in the cytoplasm, microvilli in the luminal surface, focal microfoldings of the basal plasma membrane, close interaction with underlying mesenchymal cells, and unilayered arrangement. Two types of cuboidal epithelial cells were recognized and were considered to be derived from bronchiolar basal cells (type A cuboidal cells) and from cuboidal cells in respiratory bronchioles (type B cuboidal cells). Type A cuboidal cells frequently contained large numbers of cytoskeletal filaments, and their basal plasma membranes possessed hemidesmosomes in close association with anchoring fibrils. Type B cells lacked hemidesmosomes and anchoring fibrils, Proliferation of either or both types of cuboidal cells was found in 30 patients. In 10 patients (average degree of fibrosis = 3.5 on a scale of 0 to +4), the proliferation involved type A cells; in 10 other patients (average degree of fibrosis = 2.5), type B cells in nine patients (average degree of fibrosis = 3.4), both type A and type B cells; in one patient cuboidal cells were identified only by light microscopy. In 17 patients, proliferating cuboidal cells formed foci of epithelial pseudostratification. Type II alveolar epithelial cells did not participate in the process of multilayering. Thus, type II alveolar epithelial cells and two types of cuboidal epithelial cells are sources of epithelial renewal in damaged alveoli in fibrotic lungs. Type II cells proliferate mainly in areas of less severe degrees of fibrosis; cuboidal cells become the main source of epithelial renewal in areas of very severe lung damage.


In this paper, we consider the problem of designing incentive compatible auctions for multiple (homogeneous) units of a good, when bidders have private valuations and private budget constraints. When only the valuations are private and the budgets are public, Dobzinski et al [8] show that the adaptive clinching auction is the unique incentive-compatible auction achieving Pareto-optimality. They further show that this auction is not truthful with private budgets, so that there is no deterministic Pareto-optimal auction with private budgets. Our main contribution is to show the following Budget Monotonicity property of this auction: When there is only one infinitely divisible good, a bidder cannot improve her utility by reporting a budget smaller than the truth. This implies that the adaptive clinching auction is incentive compatible when over-reporting the budget is not possible (for instance, when funds must be shown upfront). We can also make reporting larger budgets suboptimal with a small randomized modification to the auction. In either case, this makes the modified auction Pareto-optimal with private budgets. We also show that the Budget Monotonicity property does not hold for auctioning indivisible units of the good, showing a sharp contrast between the divisible and indivisible cases. The Budget Monotonicity property also implies other improved results in this context. For revenue maximization, the same auction improves the best-known competitive ratio due to Abrams [1] by a factor of 4, and asymptotically approaches the performance of the optimal single-price auction. Finally, we consider the problem of revenue maximization (or social welfare) in a Bayesian setting. We allow the bidders have public size constraints (on the amount of good they are willing to buy) in addition to private budget constraints. We show a simple poly-time computable 5.83-approximation to the optimal Bayesian incentive compatible mechanism, that is implementable in dominant strategies. Our technique again crucially needs the ability to prevent bidders from over-reporting budgets via randomization. We show the approximation result via designing a rounding scheme for an LP relaxation of the problem, which may be of independent interest.


Grouping people into clusters based on the items they have purchased allows accurate recommendations of new items for purchase: If you and I have liked many of the same movies, then I will probably enjoy other movies that you like. Recommending items based on similarity of interest (a.k.a. collaborative ltering) is attractive for many domains: books, CDs, movies, etc., but does not always work well. Because data are always sparse { any given person has seen only a small fraction of all movies { much more accurate predictions can be made by grouping people into clusters with similar taste in movies and grouping movies into clusters which tend to be liked by the same people. Finding optimal clusters is tricky because the movie groups should be used to help determine the people groups and visa versa. We present a formal statistical model of collaborative ltering, and compare di erent algorithms for estimating the model parameters including variations of K-means clustering and Gibbs Sampling. This formal model is easily extended to handle clustering of objects with multiple attributes.


Older carers of adults with intellectual disabilities experience unique challenges. Outreach initiatives identify a high number who are unknown to support services and a case is made to proactively engage them to assist in future planning for their adult children. An earlier study by the authors suggested that, in Victoria, specialist case management programs for older carers occupied a unique place within the service system. The present paper discusses a study that further explored the functions of specialist programs for this group through a comparsion with a mainstream disability case-management program. Few differences were found, although mainstream programs did not undertake outreach and community education functions. Models that build on the capacity of mainstream case management or carer support programs to work with older carers and target outreach more effectively are discussed.


Among female rats and dogs which were fed excess salt for periods of about 1 and 4 years, respectively, elevations in plasma cholesterol concentrations were frequent and in some cases, quite marked. Rats on a similar regimen for only 2 and 6 months had less frequent and significantly lesser elevations of cholesterol. The lipid changes did not appear to be related primarily to increased blood pressure, kidney disease, differences in body weight or food consumption. There is no present evidence which suggests that this phenomenon is related to atherogenesis although it was speculated that this was possible.


San Francisco made history by becoming the first major city to ban law enforcement from using facial recognition technology. It is understandable that people want to set limits on police surveillance and address racial bias in policing, but as Daniel Castro writes for RealClearPolicy, a blanket ban on facial recognition technology does nothing to address those underlying issues and only makes it more difficult for police to investigate crimes and improve public safety. Instead of bans, policymakers should focus on a balanced approach that would allow law enforcement to use facial recognition technology to make communities safer while also providing additional oversight, testing, and guidance to protect the rights of all Americans.


SIR,-Mr John M Scott and his colleagues (29 May, p 1594) report a wound infection rate of 21% for patients undergoing nail plate fixation of femoral neck fractures and imply that the main problem is due mainly to the physical circumstances under which the patients are nursed. Our unit is housed in Victorian buildings with open wards and none of the modern facilities, the lack of which Mr Scott laments. In a recent study of 137 patients undergoing nail plate fixation for intertrochanteric fractures we had two significant wound infections as defined by Mr Scott, a rate of 1.5%. However undesirable ancient hospitals may be for other reasons, they are not necessarily responsible for the reported very high wound infection rates. The question of whether the device described is effective remains, to our minds, unproved. It is not clear from the paper why patients were paired in the first place; neither are the criteria for pairing stated. Given that pairing was necessary, why were only some pairs withdrawn from the trial ? The patients who died, those allergic to the wound isolator, and the patient who was hepatitis B positive were withdrawn, but the patients with whom they were paired were not. The conclusion that the wound rate is reduced from 210% to 18% makes remarkable reading. However, of the original 21% of infections, nearly one-half were clinically insignificant and the reduction in significant wound infections was from 11% to 1 8%. Of the seven infected controls, three were shown to have autogenous infection. Exogenous infection was implicated in four controls and one study patientnumbers which are insignificant in the small number of patients studied. J A FAIRCLOUGH W J MINTOWT-CZYZ


The graft copolymerization of methyl acrylate (MA) onto sago starch was
performed by free radical initiating process in which ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN)
was used as an initiator. It was found that the optimum yield of grafting, grafting
efficiency and rate of graft polymerization were all dependent upon the
concentration of CAN, MA, sago starch (AGU) and mineral acid (H2S04) as well as
reaction temperature and period. A new equation rate of polymerization was derived
from the proposed reaction mechanism. A new kinetic model for graft fraction was
proposed and the validity of the model was tested by the plot of l/(l-GF)ll2 as a
function of sago starch concentration and reciprocal monomer (MA) concentration.
The required straight line and ordinate intercept unity was obtained and the predicted
kinetic model was satisfactory supported by the experimental results until a certain
limit of monomer (MA) concentration.
A chelating polymeric resin containing hydroxamic acid was synthesized
from poly(methyl acrylate) (PMA) grafted sago starch. The binding capacity of the poly(hydroxamic acid) resin with copper is high and other metal ions also show
significant binding capacity. This chelating resin has the advantage of faster rate of
equilibrium and negligible affinity for alkali metal ions. The sorption capacities of
metal ions were pH dependent and its selectivity towards these metal ions is in the
following order: Cu2+ > Fe3+ > Cr3+ > Ni2+ > Co2+ > Zn2+ > Cd2+ > As3+> Pb2+. These paration of Cu2+ from Co2+ and Cd2+, and Fe3+ from Co2+ and Cd2+ were carried
out by column technique.


We present our approach on combining modelbased testing with the continuous integration process. The main benefits of this combination lie in the ability to automatically check the conformance of the implementation with respect to its specification, while shortening the feedback cycles and providing increased test coverage. A case study on developing an in-house academic tool is presented in which the online model-based testing approach is used with the continuous integration process. Keywords—Continuous Integration; Model-Based Testing; UPPAAL Timed Automata


Global software development (GSD) is in a booming stage from the last decade with the advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Despite of the benefits gained from GSD, the developer organizations still face a lot of difficulties in integrating the software components, developed by various GSD teams, into a final product. The objective of the study presented in this paper is to find out critical success factors (CSFs) for vendors that can play a positive role at any stage of the software integration process. To achieve the purpose we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) for the identifications of the factors that can be adapted to assist the integration process at various stages i.e. before integration, during integration and after the integration. We have found a total of fourteen success factors among which nine factors are ranked as CSFs. Some of the top ranked CSFs are "Consistency in Requirements and Architecture Design", "Intra and inter team Communication and Coordination" and "Component/Unit Testing prior to integration".


This authoritative and comprehensive Handbook showcases the nature and benefits of the new wave in entrepreneurship education emerging as a result of revised academic programmes developed to reflect new forms of entrepreneurship.


Introduction:
 The incidence of sentinel headache (SH) in the days or weeks prior to a aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) has been reported to be as high as 10-43% and SH has been linked with early re-bleeding risk.

 Hypothesis:
 We evaluated whether ED visits for headache were more common in the month preceding a hospitalization for SAH and if this was associated with increased mortality after SAH.

 Methods:
 We identified all hospital discharges for SAH at all licensed nonfederal hospitals in California from 2008 -11 using comprehensive data from the Office of Statewide Healthcare Planning and Development. Encounters with invalid or missing record linkage numbers (based on social security number) or for non-California residents, and those with concurrent trauma diagnoses or external injury codes were excluded. We identified the first hospitalization for SAH during the study period for each distinct patient. We then identified any ED encounters for headache without SAH during the month prior to the admission for SAH and during a one-month period exactly one year prior to the index admission for SAH.

 Results:
 A total of 7,723 patients that were hospitalized for non-traumatic SAH during the study period met study eligibility criteria (mean age 59 years [SD 16], 62% female). A majority were white (62%) and non-Hispanic (73%), and 14% were Asian/Pacific Islander and 9% were black. Just 33 (0.4%) SAH patients had had an ED visit for headache in the preceding month compared to 2 ED visits (0.03%) for headache during a month-long period one-year prior to the hospitalization for SAH (RR 16.5, 95% CI 4.0-68, p<0.0001). SAH patients with a recent ED visit for headache had a similar length of hospital stay (10 vs 9.1 days, p=0.27), but were younger (59 vs 49 years, p=0.0002) had lower 30-day mortality (3.0% vs. 22%, p= 0.005), and were more likely to be discharged directly home (81% vs. 44%, p<0.001).

 Conclusion:
 We identified very few ED visits for headache in the month prior to a hospitalization for aneurysmal SAH, and SAH patients who had visited the ED for headache had lower mortality and better outcomes, though SAH patients with sentinel headache who did not visit the ED were not captured in our analysis.


There are a great number of abandoned mine shafts in the US as well as other countries. Taking the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) in Michigan for example, abandoned copper mine shafts are widely distributed in the area and about nighty percent of them are filled with water. This study presents preliminary results on the use of abandoned mine shafts for geothermal applications, which include a field study, a theoretical framework, and preliminary simulations results. The field study involved measurements of temperatures and chemicals in the mine water, which are of major concern in recovering geothermal energy from mine water. The theoretical framework provided a mathematical description for studying the scientific issue. It is the first time such a framework is established for holistically formulating the coupled physical processes in the mine water-surrounding porous material system. Preliminary simulations were conducted to test a critical part of the theoretical framework. The simulation results provided interesting insights into the phenomena observed in the data measured in the field study.


Mass screening for gastric cancer originated in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, in 1960. This review summarizes studies assessing the efficacy of screening using data from a population-based cancer registry in the prefecture that was started in 1959. Sensitivity and specificity of screening photofluorography (indirect radiography) is 81.1% and 88.8%, respectively. Ten-year survival rates are 30-40% better in screen-detected cases than in symptom-diagnosed cases. No randomized controlled trials have reported the efficacy of the screening in the country. In a 18-year follow-up study of 7,008 residents in the prefecture, incidence from gastric cancer did not differ between screened and unscreened subjects, but mortality decreased significantly in screened subjects compared with unscreened subjects for men (61.9 vs. 137.2 per 100,000 person-years, P<0.005) and women (28.1 vs. 53.8 per 100,00 person-years, P<0.01). In a population-based case-control study with 198 cases and 577 controls, odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of gastric cancer mortality was 0.41 (0.28-0.61) for ever vs. never screened within 5 years. Studies conducted in other regions have provided similar findings. Substantial evidence indicates that the Japanese screening program is effective in reducing the mortality from gastric cancer. Population-based cancer registries play a crucial role in assessing the efficacy of cancer screening programs.


This paper studies the robustness of spreading sequences designed for random code-division multiple-access (CDMA) schemes with continuous-time constant envelope (CE) against transmitter impairments. It is shown that by taking into account the impairments of a real implementation the investigated design algorithm finds a set of spreading waveforms with exactly constant envelope which would even satisfy the transmit signal spectrum requirements of the 3rd generation Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) standard. This shows that CE CDMA is compatible with linear CDMA while achieving higher power efficiency and supporting the usage of standard linear multiuser detection algorithms.


Sampling-based motion planning has been successful in planning the motion for a wide variety of robot types. An important primitive of these methods involves connecting nodes by selecting candidate neighbors and checking the path between them. Recently, an approach called Adaptive Neighbor Connection (ANC) was proposed to automate neighbor selection using machine learning techniques. It adaptively selects a neighbor connection strategy from a candidate set of options and learns which strategy to use by examining their success rates and costs. In this work, we extend ANC's reward function by characterizing the types of nodes added (including information about their connectivity) after each connection attempt. In doing so, we gain insight into the nature of these nodes and their ability to improve roadmap quality. We also refine ANC's cost function by considering the computation time spent during each connection attempt so as to potentially learn faster and more efficient connectors. We show improved performance over selecting a single connection strategy and over ignoring node characterization during learning. We present results in a variety of 2D and 3D environments and are able to solve queries in half the time on average compared to the best single connection strategy and to the original ANC work.


This paper concerns computer applications for the management of archaeological data through GIS software, as related to the 2008 excavation campaign at "Mura Bastia", Onigo (Treviso), Italy. The approach allows for the correlation of data previously acquired with those collected more recently using newer technologies. The shift from the traditional way of drawing archaeological records to the new digital technique began during the excavation of 2007. All of the walls and the layers were documented using a total station and a digital camera (photo-mosaic method). The elaboration of raw data was obtained using Free and Open Source Software only (GRASS, E-FOTO, GIMP, OPENJUMP, gvSIG). All of the new information levels (bi-dimensional raster and vector layers) were connected with the digitized plan of the old excavation into a GIS project that became the final product of the whole work. 3D terrestrial laser scanning surveys, integrated with classical topography and digital photogrammetric methodologies, allowed us to extract an accurate and photorealistic digital model of the Onigo castle. Moreover, a partial 3D virtual anastylosis of the tower was completed thanks to the reallocation of two missing elements in their correct position.


In the first half of 2001 the US Department of State, following a request from the National Security Archive (a US non-governmental organisation), declassified documents relating to the Round Table negotiations, the presidential elections, the crisis over choice of a prime minister and the creation of government (coalition) in Poland in 1989. Those documents, highly confidential until their release, allow us to look at the most important events in the transformation in Poland from a different perspective, which has not yet been extensively analysed. In essence, they indicate the role of external factors which have influenced the political situation of Poland – the transformation and actual decomposition of communism. They include cables detailing the US embassy's participation in, and its analysis of the events during Poland's 'revolution'.


Aims Increased epicardial adipose tissue (EAT), pericardial adipose tissue (PAT), periaortic adipose tissue (PaAT), and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) are mediators of metabolic risk, and are associated with the severity of coronary artery calcium (CAC). Aged garlic extract (AGE) has been shown to reduce the progression of coronary atherosclerosis. This study evaluates the effect of AGE with supplements (AGE+S) on EAT, PAT, SAT, and PaAT. Methods Sixty asymptomatic participants participated in a randomized trial evaluating the effect of AGE+S versus placebo on coronary atherosclerosis progression, and underwent CAC at baseline and after 12 months of treatment. EAT, PAT, PaAT, and SAT volumes were measured on CAC scans. PAT was calculated as: intrathoracic adipose tissue–EAT. SAT was defined as the volume of fat depot anterior to the sternum and posterior to the vertebra. PaAT was defined as fat depot around the descending aorta. Results At 1 year, the increase in EAT, PAT, PaAT, and SAT was significantly lower in the AGE+S as compared with the placebo group (P<0.05). The odds ratios of increase in EAT, PAT, PaAT, and SAT were 0.63 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.43–0.90], 0.72 (95% CI: 0.45–0.93), 0.81 (95% CI: 0.65–0.98), and 0.87 (CI: 0.52–0.98), respectively, compared with the placebo group, which even remained significant (all P<0.05) after adjustment for cardiovascular risk factors and statin therapy and BMI. Conclusion This study shows that AGE+S is associated with favorable effects on reducing the progression rate of adipose tissue volumes.


Altered temperatures affect insects' life history traits, such as development period and fecundity, which ultimately determine population growth rates. Understanding insects' thermal biology is therefore integral to population forecasting and pest management decision‐making such as when to utilise crop spraying or biological control. Aphids are important crop pests in temperate regions, causing considerable yield losses. The aphid thermal‐biology literature is, however, heavily biased towards the effects of rising mean temperatures, whereas the effects of fluctuating, extreme climatic events (e.g., heat waves and sub‐zero cold periods) are largely overlooked. This study assessed the effects of laboratory‐simulated heat waves and sub‐zero cold periods on the survival, development period, and fecundity of the grain aphid, Sitobion avenae (Fabricius) (Hemiptera: Aphididae: Microsiphini), in addition to assessing maternal effects on the birth weight and development period of the offspring of exposed individuals. Exposure to heat stress periods (total of 16 h at 30 °C) significantly reduced aphid fecundity and increased physiological development period (in day‐degrees) resulting in a reduced population growth rate. Cold exposure (total of 1.33 h at −15 °C) reduced population growth rate due to an elongated development period (in days), but did not affect fecundity or physiological development period (in day‐degrees). Both cold and heat stress significantly reduced aphid survival. Maternal experience of heat stress reduced nymphal birth weight although nymphal development period was not affected by either cold or heat stress. The results suggest that including the effects of fluctuating, extreme temperature events on aphid life history in population forecast models is likely to be of great importance to pest management decision‐making. The demonstration of maternal effects on birth weight also suggests that cross‐generational effects of heat waves on population growth rates could occur.


Objective: To investigate the genetic and physiologic basis of the neuromuscular symptoms of hypotonia-cystinuria syndrome (HCS) and isolated PREPL deficiency, and their response to therapy. Methods: We performed molecular genetic, histochemical, immunoblot, and ultrastructural studies, investigated neuromuscular transmission in vitro in a patient with isolated PREPL deficiency, and evaluated the effect of pyridostigmine in this patient and in 3 patients with the HCS. Results: HCS is caused by recessive deletions involving the SLC3A1 and PREPL genes. The major clinical features of HCS are type A cystinuria, growth hormone deficiency, muscle weakness, ptosis, and feeding problems. The proband with isolated PREPL deficiency had myasthenic symptoms since birth and a positive edrophonium test but no cystinuria. She and 1 of 3 patients with HCS responded transiently to pyridostigmine during infancy. The proband harbors a paternally inherited nonsense mutation in PREPL and a maternally inherited deletion involving both PREPL and SLC3A1; therefore, the PREPL deficiency determines the phenotype. We detected no PREPL expression in the patient's muscle and endplates. Electrophysiology studies revealed decreased quantal content of the endplate potential and reduced amplitude of the miniature endplate potential without endplate acetylcholine receptor deficiency or altered endplate geometry. Conclusion: Isolated PREPL deficiency is a novel monogenic disorder that causes a congenital myasthenic syndrome with pre- and postsynaptic features and growth hormone deficiency. The myasthenic symptoms in PREPL deficiency with or without cystinuria may respond to pyridostigmine in early life. We attribute the myasthenia to abrogated interaction of PREPL with adaptor protein 1.


The objective of the paper is to suggest a different procedure for selecting materials and processes within the product development work. The procedure includes using product examples in order to increase the number of alternative materials and processes that is considered. Product examples can communicate information about materials and processes in a very concentrated and effective way. The product examples represent desired material properties but also includes information that can not be associated directly to the material, e.g. functional or perceived attributes. Previous studies suggest that designers often limit their selection of materials and processes to a few well-known ones. Designers need to expand the solution space by considering more materials and processes. But they have to be convinced that the materials and processes are likely candidates that are worth investing time in exploring. A database that support the selection procedure has been compiled. It contains uniform descriptions of a wide range of materials and processes. For each of those, good product examples have been identified, described and associated with keywords. Product examples matching the requirements can be found using a search engine, and through hyperlinks can relevant materials and processes be explored. Realising that designers are very sensitive to user interfaces do all descriptions of materials, processes and products include graphical descriptions, i.e. pictures or computer graphics.


The influence of a radial temperature gradient on the stability of Couette-Taylor flow has been investigated by direct numerical simulation. The cavity is characterized by a narrow gap η=Ri/Ro=0.8 and a high aspect ratio Γ = H/(Ro−Ri) = 80, Ri and Ro being the radii of the inner and outer cylinders and H their height. The flow depends on two physical parameters: the Taylor number Ta = Ω Ri d/ν(d/Ri)^1/2 and the Rayleigh number Ra = α∆T d 3 /(νκ), with d = Ro−Ri and Ω the rotation rate of the inner cylinder. 15 cases have been computed for Ta = [11 − 150] and Ra = [1166 − 13228] to enable comparisons with the experiments of Guillerm. The numerical method is based on the 2D compact fourth-order projection de-composition method of Abide and Viazzo, extended to cylindrical coordinates on non-staggered grids. The time advancement is second-order accurate. The deriva-tives are approximated using fourth-order compact formula in the radial and axial directions and Fourier series in the azimuthal direction. Due to the large aspect ra-tio, the domain is axially decomposed into 8 subdomains using the influence matrix technique. The thermal effects are considered using the Boussinesq approximation. The aim of this work is to characterize all the flow patterns occuring in the system for various Rayleigh and Taylor numbers. At low Ra, the first instability appears in the form of regular spirals (Fig.1a). For higher values of Ra, dislocations may occur (Fig.1b) and when one increases T a, spirals coexist with a wavy vortex flow (Fig.1c) and finally only the wavy vortex flow subsists at high T a (Fig.1d). The spatiotem-poral properties of these patterns have been fully determined and compared to the work of Guillerm.


Introduction The interaction between advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) and its receptors for AGEs (RAGEs) elicits oxidative stress and mediates the development of erectile dysfunction (ED). ALT-711, an AGE cross-link breaker, has the therapeutic potential for ED but has been less intensively investigated. Aim The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of an AGEs breaker 3-phenacyl-4, 5-dimethylthiazolium chloride (ALT-711) plus insulin on erectile function in streptozocin (STZ)-induced type 1 diabetic rats. Methods: Fifty 8-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly distributed into five groups: normal control (C), diabetic (D), insulin-treated diabetic (D + I), ALT-711-treated diabetic (D + ALT-711) and insulin plus ALT-711- treated diabetic (D + I + ALT-711) rats. Diabetes was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of STZ. Eight weeks after induction of diabetes, ALT-711 was administered by intraperitoneal injection. Two to six units of intermediate-acting insulin were utilized to achieve normal levels of glycemic control. After treatment for 6 weeks, erectile function was determined via measurement of intracavernous pressures (ICPs) following electrostimulation of the cavernous nerve. The deposition of AGEs, expression of RAGEs, superoxide dismutase activity, and lipid peroxidation were measured. We also evaluated penile histological changes such as smooth muscle contents, endothelial cells contents, and apoptotic activity. Main outcome measures The main outcome measures were the ratio of ICP/mean arterial pressure (MAP), penile endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, AGE and RAGE expression, malondialdehyde concentration, SOD activity, and apoptosis index. Results Diabetic rats demonstrated significantly reduced ICP/MAP ratio, penile endothelial cells, smooth muscles cells, increased AGEs and RAGE expression, and increased apoptosis. Insulin and ALT-711 monotherapy partially restored erectile function and histological changes. However, the combination therapy group showed erectile parameters and components similar to those in C. ALT-711-treated group demonstrated less deposition of AGEs and lower expression of RAGE than those in insulin-treated group. Conclusion These results suggest that although insulin can effectively control glycemic levels, it does not completely alter the pathological changes in erectile tissues. Better efficacy could be expected with tight glycemic control plus ALT-711, an AGEs cross-link breaker. The combination therapy might have the potential to eliminate metabolic memory by down-regulating the AGEs–RAGE oxidative stress axis.


We examine the effects of authentic leadership on subordinates in the Chinese context. Drawing on attribution processes of self-disclosure, we propose that authentic leaders engaging in self-disclosure practices cultivate subordinates' positive feelings that their leaders like and trust them. We further explain how and why authentic leadership particularly influences highly traditional Chinese subordinates. We propose that Chinese traditionality strengthens the positive effects of authentic leadership on subordinates' perceptions that their leader practices interactional justice, which in turn positively relates to their in-role performance, creativity, and organizational citizenship behaviour. In Study 1, we surveyed 199 employees in 47 work units from nine high-technology organizations in China. The results support the hypothesized relationships. In Study 2, we surveyed 170 employees in 46 work units from various organizations in China. The results show that authentic leadership effects remain unchanged after controlling for the effects of transformational leadership. We discuss the implications for leadership effectiveness in the Chinese context.


Purpose Previous studies show that some visual field (VF) defects are detectable from visual search behavior; for example, when watching video. Here, we developed and tested a VF testing approach that measures the number of fixations to find targets on a background with spatial frequency content similar to natural scenes. Methods Twenty-one older controls and 20 people with glaucoma participated. Participants searched for a Gabor (6 c/°) that appeared in one of 25 possible locations within a 15° (visual angle) 1/f noise background (RMS contrast: 0.20). Procedure performance was assessed by calculating sensitivity and specificity for different combinations of control performance limits (p = 95%, 98%, 99%), number of target locations with fixations outside control performance limits (k = 0 to 25) and number of repeated target presentations (n = 1 to 20). Results Controls made a median of two to three fixations (twenty-fifth to seventy-fifth percentile: two to four) to locate the target depending on location. A VF was flagged "abnormal" when the number of fixations was greater than the p = 99% for k = 3 or more locations with n = 2 repeated presentations, giving 85% sensitivity and 95.2% specificity. The median test time for controls was 85.71 (twenty-fifth to seventy-fifth percentile: 66.49–113.53) seconds. Conclusion Our prototype test demonstrated effective and efficient screening of abnormal areas in central vision. Translational Relevance Visual search behavior can be used to detect central vision loss and may produce results that relate well to performance in natural visual environments.


ABSTRACT:Small or low-vigor species can be susceptible to being planted at depths that prevent seedling emergence. As an example, sagebrush (Artemisia spp. L. [Anthemideae]) seed is often prone to being planted at depths where the seedlings cannot emerge from the soil. We evaluated a potential solution to this problem that incorporates seed within an extruded pellet that is designed to enhance seedling emergence through the swelling action of the pellet creating conduits for the emerging seedlings to follow. We quantified the swelling capacity of the extruded pellet and evaluated how the technology improves seedling emergence and plant growth of Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentate Nutt. ssp. wyomingensis Beetle & Young), over a range of seeding depths (5, 10, and 15 mm [0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 in]), within silt-loam and sandy-loam soils. Swelling capacity of the pellets in the silt-loam soil was approximately twice that of the sandy-loam soil. At all planting depths, pellets improved seedling emergence between 2.3- to 10.0-fold in the silt-loam soil. In the sandy-loam soil, no treatment effect occurred for seedling emergence at the 5 mm and 15 mm depths, but pellets enhanced emergence at the 10 mm depth by 3.1-fold. Some indications suggest that seedlings produced from the extruded pellets had greater growth than untreated seed. This technology opens up the possibility for sagebrush (and potentially other smallseeded species) to be seeded at deeper soil depths where soil water potential levels are more conducive for seed germination and seedling survival. Future development and field testing are merited.


While Jacob Riis has long been situated in the secular wing of turn-of-the-century reform, this study locates the aesthetic and narrative devices of his work within a neglected tradition of Protestant homiletics.
 Linking his stereopticon presentations to the allegories and interactive strategies of eighteenthand nineteenth-century sermons, Jackson demonstrates how Riis used modern technology to make traditional
 modes of religious pedagogy newly relevant to Progressive Era campaigns for social reform. Rather than distancing viewers from the plight of the indigent, as many critics have argued, Riis9s photographs
 sought to convert audiences to the cause of reform by offering new means of spiritual and social identification.


We describe a PCR-based method for the generation of plasmid multimers that can be directly transformed into Bacillus subtilis with very high efficiency. This technique is particularly useful for the generation of large libraries of randomly mutagenized genes, which are required for the optimization of enzymes by directed evolution. We subjected the gene coding for the protease subtilisin to six consecutive rounds of PCR at three different levels of mutagenicity. The resulting 18 populations were cloned using our PCR multimerization protocol, and the mutation frequencies were determined by DNA sequencing. The resulting data demonstrate that the mutation frequency during PCR can be controlled by adding varying concentrations of manganese chloride to the reaction mixture. We observed a bias in the type of base pair changes with A and T being mutated much more frequently than C and G. We determined the fraction of active clones in all populations and found that its natural logarithm is proportional to the average mutation frequency of the populations. These data reveal that a fraction of about 0.27 of all possible mutations leads to the inactivation of the subtilisin gene, which provides a measure for its structural plasticity.


In this paper, we present a hybrid asymmetrically clipped optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. This system uses a combination of asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) and pulse amplitude modulated discrete multitone (PAM-DMT) techniques, which can be used in intensity modulated direct detection (IM/DD) optical wireless (OW) systems. In this hybrid scheme, ACO-OFDM and PAM-DMT signals are transmitted together. Clipping noise is estimated at the receiver and canceled to recover the PAM-DMT symbols. This scheme does not require any DC bias for transmission, which makes the transmitter less complex and very power efficient. With this system, we can increase the data rate of the ACO-OFDM system by almost twice. In addition, no bandwidth penalty is incurred. Extensive computer simulations show that the bit-error rate (BER) performance of ACO-OFDM in the additive white Gaussian noise environment is not affected by any kind of interference, but only due to half of the available transmit power, we see a 3 dB degradation. However, the BER performance of PAM-DMT shows some degradation at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) but is identical to the conventional scheme at higher SNR. We also see a slight improvement in peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the output combined signal. Therefore, advantages such as increased data rate, DC-bias elimination, no bandwidth, and PAPR penalty make this scheme very attractive for OW systems using IM/DD.


Scalability is said to be one of the major advantages brought by the cloud paradigm and, more specifically, the one that makes it different to an "advanced outsourcing" solution. However, there are some important pending issues before making the dreamed automated scaling for applications come true. In this paper, the most notable initiatives towards whole application scalability in cloud environments are presented. We present relevant efforts at the edge of state of the art technology, providing an encompassing overview of the trends they each follow. We also highlight pending challenges that will likely be addressed in new research efforts and present an ideal scalable cloud system.


Background: Activating V600E in BRAF is a common driver mutation in cancers of multiple tissue origins, including melanoma and glioma. BRAF V600E has also been implicated in neurodegeneration. The present study aims to characterize BRAF V600E on cell death and survival in three major cell types of the CNS: neurons, astrocytes, and microglia.

Methods : Multiple primary cultures and cell lines of glial cells and neurons were employed. BRAF V600E as well as BRAF WT expression was mediated by lentivirus or retrovirus. Blockage of downstream effectors were achieved by siRNA. Gene expression data from patients with Parkinson's disease was analyzed.

Results : In astrocytes and microglia, BRAF V600E induces cell proliferation, and the proliferative effect in microglia is mediated by activated ERK but not JNK. Conditioned medium from BRAF V600E -expressing microglia induced neuronal cell death. In neuronal cells, BRAF V600E directly induces cell death, through JNK but not ERK. We further show that BRAF-related genes are enriched in pathways in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Conclusions : Our study identifies distinct consequences mediated by distinct downstream effectors in dividing glial cells and in neurons following the same BRAF mutational activation and a causal link between BRAF-activated microglia and neuronal cell death that does not require physical proximity. It provides insight into a possibly important role of BRAF in neurodegeneration as a result of either dysregulated BRAF in neurons or its impact on glial cells.


The baseline approach for optimal path finding in 4-connected grids is A* with Manhattan Distance. Nevertheless, a large number of enhancements were suggested over the years, usually requiring a preprocessing phase and/or additional memory to store smart lookup tables. In this paper we introduce an enhancement to A* (called BOXA*) on grids which does not need any preprocessing and only needs negligible additional memory. The main idea is to treat the closed-list as a dynamic obstacle. We maintain a list of rectangles which surround CLOSED nodes and calculate an admissible heuristic using the fact that an optimal path from a given node must go around these rectangles. We experimentally show the benefits of this approach on a variety of grid domains.


This paper grounds on the SAPERE project (SelfAware PERvasive Service Ecosystems), which aims at proposing a multi-agent framework for pervasive computing, based on the idea of making each agent (service, device, human) manifest its existence in the ecosystem by a Live Semantic Annotation (LSA), and of coordinating agent activities by a small and fixed set of so-called eco-laws—sort of chemical-like reactions over patterns of LSAs. System dynamics in SAPERE is complex because of opennes and due to the self-* requirements imposed by the pervasive computing setting: a simulation framework is hence needed for what-if analysis prior to deployment. In this paper we present a prototype simulator we are developing, tested on a crowd steering scenario. Due to the role of chemicallike dynamics, this is based on a variation of an existing SSA (Stochastic Simulation Algorithm), suitable tailored to the specific features of SAPERE, including dynamicity of network topology, pattern-based application of eco-laws, and temporal triggers.


The Huayna Potosi, Zongo and Taquesi are Triassic plutons located at the core of the Real Cordillera of Bolivia. In this paper, several Rb-Sr and K-Ar ages obtained in the past at the Sao Paulo Geochronology Laboratory, yet unpublished, will be presented, along with newer U-Pb Sensitive High-Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) determinations made in the same laboratory, allowing us to redefine the geologic history of this part of the Central Andes. Rb/Sr analyses of some low grade metapelitic country rocks of the early Paleozoic (Amutara and Cancaniri Formations) yielded a Rb-Sr isochron age of 344 ± 38 Ma, indicating the action of an early Gondwanide regional event. A five-point Rb-Sr isochron from a granite outcrop of the Huayna Potosi pluton yielded an age of 224 ± 28 Ma. In addition, an important Ar loss in micas was detected in the Zongo granitoids and their country rocks, recording a thermal event that opened this isotopic system in the Oligocene. Newer U-Pb SHRIMP zircon ages of ca. 221 Ma were obtained in two other granitic outcrops of the Huayna Potosi granite. They confirmed its Triassic crystallization age, and a similar U-Pb SHRIMP age of 221.9 ± 1.5 Ma was obtained for one sample of the Taquesi pluton. For the Zongo pluton, many of the zircon grains obtained from one sample of its Kuticucho facies yielded extremely high uranium content, which produced reverse discordant apparent ages. However, due to the fair alignment of the analytical points in the Concordia diagram, possibly corresponding to a linear correlation, we made a regression calculation and the interception of the Concordia curve resulted in a rather imprecise age of 220 ± 20 Ma. Our conclusion was that the final magmatic crystallization and the intrusion of plutons in the central part of the Cordillera Real of Bolivia have occurred close to 221.5 ± 2.0 Ma, in late Triassic times. Finally, the U-Pb SHRIMP ages obtained in inherited zircon xenocrysts from the four available granitic rocks yielded very different ages, and many of them are related to previous magmatic episodes of the Andean Tectonic System. A few other age measurements indicated sources related to much older Proterozoic magmatic events associated with rocks from the Andean basement.


In online combinatorial auctions m indivisible items are to be allocated to n agents who arrive online. Agents have random valuations for the different subsets of items and the goal is to allocate the items on the fly so as to maximize the total value of the assignment. A prophet inequality in this setting refers to the existence of an online algorithm guaranteed to obtain, in expectation, a certain fraction of the expected value obtained by an optimal solution in hindsight. The study of prophet inequalities for online combinatorial auctions has been an intensive area of research in recent years, and constant factor prophet inequalities are known when the agents' valuation functions are submodular or fractionally subadditive. Despite many efforts, for the more general case of subadditive valuations, the best known prophet inequality has an approximation guarantee of O(loglogm). In this paper, we prove the existence of a constant factor prophet inequality for the subadditive case, resolving a central open problem in the area. Our prophet inequality is achieved by a novel, but elementary, sampling idea which we call the Mirror Lemma. This lemma is essentially concerned with understanding online algorithms for which the set of items that are allocated and those that are not, distribute equally. The other main ingredient is a nonstandard application of Kakutani's fixed point theorem. Finally, we note that our prophet inequality works against an almighty adversary and even can be implemented in an incentive compatible way.


This paper summarizes results obtained from time-domain full-bandwidth emissions measurements of selected ultra wideband (UWB) transmitting devices. Brief descriptions of two NIST-developed measurement systems are provided. High-fidelity time-domain waveforms are shown, along with associated amplitude spectra for several devices. Results are shown for both conducted and radiated emissions from UWB devices.


Background Biocontrol strategies are the best possible and eco-friendly solution to develop resistance against O furnacalis and improve the maize yield. However, the knowledge about underlying molecular mechanisms, metabolic shifts, and hormonal signaling is limited. Methods Here, we used an axenic and a consortium of entomopathogenic Beauveria bassiana OFDH1-5 and a pathogen-antagonistic Trichoderma asperellum GDFS1009 in maize and observed that consortium applications resulted in higher chlorophyll contents and antioxidants activities [superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), proline, protease, and polyphenol oxidase (PPO)] with a decrease in O. furnacalis survival. We performed a comprehensive transcriptome and an untargeted metabolome profiling for the first time at a vegetative stage in fungal inoculated maize leaves at 0-, 12-, 24-, 48-, and 72-h post insect infestation. Results The consortium of B. bassiana and T. asperellum leads to 80–95% of O. furnacalis mortality. A total of 13,156 differentially expressed genes were used for weighted gene coexpression network analysis. We identified the six significant modules containing thirteen candidate genes [protein kinase (GRMZM2G025459), acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (GRMZM5G864319), thioredoxin gene (GRMZM2G091481), glutathione S-transferase (GRMZM2G116273), patatin-like phospholipase gene (GRMZM2G154523), cytochrome P450 (GRMZM2G139874), protease inhibitor (GRMZM2G004466), (AC233926.1_FG002), chitinase (GRMZM2G453805), defensin (GRMZM2G392863), peroxidase (GRMZM2G144153), GDSL- like lipase (AC212068.4_FG005), and Beta-glucosidase (GRMZM2G031660)], which are not previously reported that are highly correlated with Jasmonic acid - Ethylene (JA-ET) signaling pathway and antioxidants. We detected a total of 130 negative and 491 positive metabolomic features using a ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography ion trap time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS). Intramodular significance and real time-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) expressions showed that these genes are the true candidate genes. Consortium treated maize had higher jasmonic acid (JA), salicylic acid (SA), and ethylene (ET) levels. Conclusion Our results provide insights into the genetics, biochemicals, and metabolic diversity and are useful for future biocontrol strategies against ACB attacks.


John Dewey's theory of inquiry, or instrumentalism, was conceived in response to certain orthodox philosophies. Dewey claims the knowledge we attain from inquiry is a tool for further inquiry. As such, philosophy is inquiry into the cultural conditions of how instruments are derived. John Dewey's philosophy as a history of technology, as well as a tool for critiquing culture, is evidenced by his theory of inquiry. He finds artificial distinctions, as instruments to inquiry, to become necessary components to experience in several philosophies. Likewise, inquiries into the conditions of education, utilizing artificial models, corrupt the full potential within experience. Such inquiries, such as recent education reformations as motivated by a culture of efficiency, becomes ever more distant from the actual conditions in schools and the pressing concerns of the students, teachers, parents. This paper argues John Dewey, as the philosopher with an unfaltering faith in the potential for growth of every person, considers control of the environment to be the human interaction within inquiry. As will be presented, technē is direction via instruments and erōs is authenticity to one's self. Therefore, the realization of conditions proper for flourishing of one and all becomes the standard of action. The purpose in Dewey's conceptualizing his theory of instrumentalism to eliminate the obstacles to inquiry present in his culture can be similarly utilized to clarify the impositions from our culture hindering the inquiry into the proper conditions for education. The product of controlling the transformation of the conditions of education with erōs and technē is the creating and imagining of democratic solutions.


Copepod faecal pellets (FP) are considered important contributors to vertical carbon flux, but investigations comparing FP production with FP export using sediment traps conclude that vertical export is not their only fate. FP are degraded to a large extent in the upper 60 m, and even among large, fast-sinking FP, only a fraction reaches sediment traps deeper than 200 m. Retention mechanisms for copepod FP are still not well understood. In order to investigate the relative importance of the small (<180 μm) compartment of the plankton community versus larger filter-feeding copepods for degradation of large, fast-sinking FP, we incubated FP produced by Calanus finmarchicus (Gunnerus) in 180 μm-filtered water from the chlorophyll a maximum. From a series of experiments, we found that the degradation of large FP is time-dependent, as no degradation was apparent after 20 or 48 h of incubation, but after 72 h FP volume was reduced by 32%. We also found that large filter-feeding copepods may facilitate the degradation process, since FP degradation increased from 0 to 75% after 48 h of incubation in the presence of 5 C. finmarchicus. We conclude that ciliates and dinoflagellates are able to degrade large copepod FP, but that this process is too slow to explain observed retention of large FP in the upper 200 m of the water column due to fast sinking of large particles. Rather than looking for single-factor explanations for flux-regulating processes, we stress the importance of investigating combined effects in relevant time frames to understand the complexity of carbon flux regulation in natural systems.


We examine whether the Colombian trade reform can explain any of Colombia's decline in urban poverty between 1984 and 1995. Our approach focuses on shortand mediumrun channels through which trade reform could affect poverty. Despite the chronological coincidence of the poverty reduction with the trade reforms over this period, we do not observe any evidence of a link between poverty and tariff reductions operating through the labor income channel. Our descriptive analysis suggests that although poverty is predominately concentrated among individuals living in households with unemployed head, it is non-negligible among the employed and especially those working in the informal sector and those paid below minimum wage. Industry affiliation also plays a role. However, we find no evidence that the trade reforms reduced poverty via any of the above variables in a significant way. We cannot rule out the possibility that trade liberalization has contributed to the poverty reduction through general equilibrium effects, and in particular through its potential role in lowering the prices of goods consumed primarily by the poor. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg Department of Economics Yale University 37 Hillhouse Avenue P.O. Box 208264 New Haven, CT 06520-8264 and NBER email@example.com Nina Pavcnik Department of Economics 6106 Rockefeller Center Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755 and NBER email@example.com


Hemicellulose isolated from DmM was converted to novel functional biopolymers by maleylation using maleic anhydride as reactant and LiOH as catalyst. The reaction was performed under various temperatures, times, and the amounts of catalyst and maleic anhydride on the degree substitution (DS) of products were discussed. Comparison of the reaction in different media was discussed in detail. The product had the maximum degree of substitution (DS) of 0.75. Novel functional polymers containing with carbon-carbon double bond and carboxyl groups could be confirmed by 13C NMR spectroscopy. The behavior of novel hemicellulosic derivatives was monitored by means of thermogravimetry (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). It was found that the products with a high DS had a lower thermal stability than the native hemicelluloses.


The ultimate goal of this study was to provide the scientific framework for using narrow band hyperspectral instruments to assess early hemlock decline and susceptibility to the introduced hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA). To this end, spectral data from an ASD FieldSpec Pro was used to develop a 6-term linear regression equation, which predicted a detailed decline rating (0--10) with an R2 of 0.71 and RMSE of 0.591. To scale up this method to a remote sensing platform, NASA's Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) was used to create a hemlock abundance map, correctly identifying hemlock dominated pixels (>40% basal area) with 88% accuracy. Reflectance at a chlorophyll sensitive wavelength (683nm), coupled with a water band index (R970/900), was able to predict decline with 85% accuracy. The extreme accuracy at the low (0--4) end of the range indicated that these wavelengths might be used to assess early decline, before visual symptoms are apparent. Because instruments like AVIRIS have the capability to map foliar chemistry, the identification of links between HWA dynamics and foliar chemistry may be used to map relative susceptibility. To this end, we employed a three-tiered approach examining resistant vs. susceptible hemlock species, foliar chemistry vs. colonization success and regional foliar chemistry vs. HWA population levels. We found that HWA resistant hemlock species demonstrated higher concentrations of Ca and P, and lower concentrations of N and K. Regardless of host species, successful colonization of uninfested hemlocks was associated with higher N, and lower Ca and P concentrations. Regionally, higher concentrations of Ca, Mn, N and P were correlated with higher HWA densities. We hypothesize that higher N and K concentrations may have a palatability effect, driving HWA population levels, while higher concentrations of Ca and P may act as deterrents to more severe infestations. These results indicate that by using hyperspectral remote sensing instruments, it is possible to identify the very early stages of hemlock decline and map relative susceptibility to HWA on a landscape scale. Such tools are instrumental in targeting management activities and ultimately controlling the HWA outbreak.


Recent research on external-memory search has shown that disks can be effectively used as secondary storage when performing large breadth-first searches. We introduce the Write-Minimizing Breadth-First Search (WMBFS) algorithm which is designed to minimize the number of writes performed in an external-memory BFS. WMBFS is also designed to store the results of the BFS for later use. We present the results of a BFS on a single-agent version of Chinese Checkers and the Rubik's Cube edge cubes, state spaces with about 1 trillion states each. In evaluating against a comparable approach, WMBFS reduces the I/O for the Chinese Checkers domain by over an order of magnitude. In Rubik's cube, in addition to reducing I/O, the search is also 3.5 times faster. Analysis of the results suggests the machine and state-space properties necessary for WMBFS to perform well.


The incidence of melanoma has increased continuously during the last decade. Surgery is the mainstay of therapy but, for patients with thick lesions or regional metastatic lymph nodes, there is a high risk of relapse. For this group of patients, there is no standard therapy or general agreement amongst oncologists. In this article, we review the current management of melanoma with regard to past completed adjuvant trials and open trials. Moreover, we discuss the role of chemotherapy in metastatic melanoma, in particular with attention to the use of fotemustine.


Infrastructure managers require timely and accurate state information to diagnose, prioritize, and repair the substantial infrastructure assets supporting modern society.  Challenges in obtaining sufficient information can often be attributed to inadequate data collection procedures (phone calls, paper reports, etc.) or a general lack of knowledge or ability on the part of the reporting individual to accurately convey what is actually wrong with the facility.  Fortunately, modern smart-phone technology offers the potential to improve maintenance work requests by providing better geolocation and problem description accuracy.  An experiment simulating real-world maintenance requests was conducted comparing smart-phones with traditional verbal work order request systems.  Usefulness and description accuracy ratios revealed smartphone systems generated more useful information regardless of submitter background or experience.  However, interestingly the smart-phone applications did not improve asset geolocation and actually negatively impacted the ability of maintenance personnel to accurately relocate the asset needing service.  Given the ubiquitous nature of smartphone technology, the potential exists to turn any citizen into an infrastructure sensor.  This study takes a step toward understanding the benefits, as well as the limitations, of the smart-phone based work order submission systems.


McArdle's disease or glycogen storage disease type V is a rare, inherited myopathy characterised by a deficiency of muscle phosphorylase which results in the inability to break down glycogen to lactate. Patients exhibit muscle cramps and stiffness after moderate exercise. Severe exercise may precipitate myoglobinuria and renal failure. In relation to anaesthesia suxamethonium should be avoided since it may also cause myoglobinuria. Alcuroniuml and atracurium* were shown to be safe in this condition. A 64-year-old man presented for a right hemicolectomy for carcinoma of the colon. He had a history of muscle cramps on exertion which limited him to walking 30 yards a t a time. McArdle's disease was diagnosed in 1971 by muscle biopsy and phosphorylase assay. He also suffered from angina and from peptic ulcer. Premedication was with lorazepam 2 mg, metoclopramide 10 mg, glycopyrronium 0.2 mg and application of a glyceryl trinitrate skin patch ( 5 mg). Anaesthesia was induced, after pre-oxygenation with alfentanil 0.5 mg, glycopyrronium 0.1 mg and propofol 100 mg. Cricoid pressure was applied and vecuronium 6 mg was then administered. After tracheal intubation, anaesthesia was maintained with nitrous oxide 70%, isoflurane 1 YO in oxygen, and intermittent papaveretum (1 5 mg total). Muscle relaxation was maintained with an infusion of vecuronium a t 3 mg/hour. Blood loss was approximately 350 ml. Intra-operative fluid was 1000 ml of compound sodium lactate solution. Cardiovascular variables were stable throughout. Two hours later, a t the end of the procedure neuromuscular blockade was reversed with pyridostigmine 15 mg and glycopyrronium 0.6 mg. The patient made an uneventful recovery and was discharged 7 days later. Serum potassium remained within the reference range throughout the postoperative period. Vecuronium would appear to be a safe choice to produce muscle relaxation for abdominal surgery in patients with McArdle's disease.


The method of combined videothoracoscopic atypical pulmonary resection, permitting to apply endostaplers and standard staplers in one intervention procedure, was elaborated. The method was applied in 47 patients in various pulmonary diseases without severe complications, all the patients are alive. Economic expedience of the method application, permitting to reduce usage of endostaplers, was shown.


OBJECTIVE
To describe outcomes in patients with cor triatriatum sinister (CTS).

DESIGN
Retrospective review of patients with CTS followed at Mayo Clinic Rochester from 1990 to 2016. Clinical notes, operative reports, and baseline imaging studies were reviewed including echocardiogram, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, and cardiac catheterization.

RESULTS
Fifty-seven patients (median age 34 years; men 32 (56%)) were enrolled. Definitive or suspected CTS diagnosis was made by transthoracic echocardiogram in 41 (72%) patients, and additional multimodality imaging was required in 39 (68%) patients. Of these 57 patients, initial diagnosis was made in adulthood in 35 (61%) patients, and 33 of 57 (58%) patients had additional congenital heart disease (CHD) diagnosis. A total of 27 (47%) patients required surgical resection of CTS membrane during median follow-up of 76 months, and these patients were younger at the time of CTS diagnosis (26 vs 41, P = 0.01) and more likely to have associated CHD (55% vs 45%, P = 0.02). There was one perioperative mortality and no late mortality. There was no recurrence of CTS membrane obstruction in the patients that underwent surgery. Similarly there was no significant increase in CTS membrane gradient in the patients that were managed conservatively.

CONCLUSIONS
The natural history of CTS is stability without progressive left atrial obstruction, especially in patients with isolated CTS and in those with initial CTS diagnosis made in adulthood. In patients requiring surgical membrane resection due to flow obstruction, surgery is safe and effective with very low risk of recurrence.


Abstract This article examines the Soviet system of territorial autonomy by studying its impact on the Jewish population of Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s. While the new Soviet state created national republics, districts, and village councils for its non-Russian nationalities, Ukraine's Jewish population was faced with a dilemma: Ukrainian Jews lived predominantly in cities, but urban space could not be claimed for Jewish territorial autonomy because the Soviet government hoped that peasant immigration would produce a Ukrainian working class. Without an autonomous status, many Jews felt threatened by the increasing influx of Ukrainians and the spread of Ukrainian-language institutions. Offered as a consolation prize, the Soviet Yiddishization initiative failed to cater to the needs of many Jews who preferred the Russian language as a means for social mobility. Attempts to resettle urban Jews in compact agricultural colonies suitable for territorial autonomy never reached the necessary scale. In conclusion, this article argues that the incompatibility of Soviet territorial autonomy with Ukrainian Jewish needs anticipated the Soviet state's inability to accommodate the increasingly urban, heterogeneous, transnational, multilingual, and mobile society that emerged in the postwar Soviet Union.


Since reform and opening, China's economic growth was mainly extensive economic growth, enterprises achieved scale expansion rely on the advantages of human resources and large consumption of resources, they had few pressure in cost control. At the same time, traditional costing management also had some flexibility at that time, and its drawback is not completely exposed. At present, China's economic development has reached a certain scale and level, and the social and economic environment has change dramatically. It is impossible to continue to achieve business objectives rely on the extensive mode of growth, and the advantage of human capital is gradually reducing or losing, the constraint of the consumption of resources has become a hard bound one. So along with the intensification of international competition, the pressure of cost control is bigger and bigger, the shortcomings of traditional costing management are more and more obvious.


This article presents estimates of capital flight from 25 low-income sub-Saharan African countries in the period 1970 to 1996. Capital flight totaled more than $193 billion (in 1996 dollars); with imputed interest earnings, the accumulated stock of flight capital amounts to $285 billion. The combined external debt of these countries stood at $178 billion in 1996. Taking capital flight as a measure of private external assets, and calculating net external assets as private external assets minus public external debts, sub-Saharan Africa thus appears to be a net creditor vis-à-vis the rest of the world.


Obesity is a health problem associated with many metabolic disorders. Weight reduction can effectively alleviate obesity-associated complications. Sleeve gastrectomy is a commonly used bariatric surgery and is considered safe and effective for improving outcomes. Glutamine (GLN) is an amino acid with anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties. This study used a mouse model of sleeve gastrectomy to investigate the impacts of intravenous GLN administration on glucose tolerance and adipocyte inflammation short-term after surgery. C57BL6 male mice were divided into normal control (NC) and high-fat diet groups. The high-fat diet provided 60% of energy from fat for 10 weeks to induce obesity. Mice fed the high-fat diet were then assigned to a sham (SH) or sleeve gastrectomy with saline (S) or GLN (G) groups. The S group was intravenously injected with saline, while the G group was administered GLN (0.75 g/kg body weight) via a tail vein postoperatively. Mice in the experimental groups were sacrificed on day 1 or 3 after the surgery. Results showed that obesity resulted in fat accumulation, elevated glucose levels, and adipokines production. Sleeve gastrectomy aggravated expressions of inflammatory cytokine and macrophage infiltration markers, cluster of differentiation 68 (CD68), epidermal growth factor-like module-containing mucin-like hormone receptor-like 1 (EMR-1), and macrophage chemoattractant protein-1, in adipose tissues. Treatment of obese mice with GLN downregulated hepatic proteomic profiles associated with the gluconeogenesis pathway and improved glucose tolerance. Moreover, macrophage infiltration and adipose tissue inflammation were attenuated after the sleeve gastrectomy. These findings imply that postoperative intravenous GLN administration may improve glucose tolerance and attenuate inflammation shortly after the bariatric surgery in subjects with obesity.


Although data is scarce, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) seems to be increasing in incidence in newly industrialised countries.(1) The environmental factors driving this change are not entirely clear, although it seems likely that changing diet and improving hygiene and sanitation are involved. In China, incidence of IBD is positively associated with gross domestic product.(2)
 Environmental enteropathy (EE) is a lesion of the small bowel with villous blunting, chronic inflammation and increased gut permeability seen in people living in insanitary conditions in resource-limited settings. We set out to examine whether EE would be present in patients with IBD in Zambia, as these individuals are likely to come from higher socioeconomic strata hence would be expected to live in more sanitised environments. Here we report preliminary data.

 IBD cases were recruited at time of diagnosis or follow-up. Two groups of controls were recruited: individuals of higher socioeconomic status attending the GI clinic for investigation of symptoms of dyspepsia who had normal upper GI endoscopy were recruited to control group A, and healthy individuals from Misisi compound where studies on EE have been conducted over the past two decades to control group B (low socioeconomic status). All participants gave informed consent and underwent upper GI endoscopy and collection of duodenal biopsies. Haematoxylin- and eosin-stained sections of paraffin-embedded formalin-fixed biopsies were imaged on an Olympus VS120 scanning microscope then assessed for villous height, crypt depth, and epithelial surface area. Demographic information was collected via questionnaire.

 Biopsies were collected from 13 cases, 7 controls in group A and 10 controls in group B. Demographics are shown in Table 1. Cases and controls in group A had a higher number of rooms in the house than controls in group B but there was no significant difference in other environmental factors. Other than crypt depth, which was greater in controls from the lower socioeconomic group, there was no significant difference in morphometric parameters between IBD cases and controls (Table 2). The most severe enteropathy is seen in the biopsy from control group B (Figure 1c) which is made up of participants recruited a socioeconomically deprived district of Lusaka.

 Figure 1

 EE can coexist alongside IBD, suggesting that immunological drivers of these conditions are not distinct, and do not support the hygiene hypothesis. There is evidence of some degree of EE in small bowel biopsies from all cases and controls. Normal villous height to crypt depth ratio is likely to be between 3 and 5 (3) whereas medians for villous height:crypt depth in all groups in this study were less than 2.


This paper reports our recent exploration of the layer-by-layer learning strategy for training a multi-layer generative model of patches of speech spectrograms. The top layer of the generative model learns binary codes that can be used for efficient compression of speech and could also be used for scalable speech recognition or rapid speech content retrieval. Each layer of the generative model is fully connected to the layer below and the weights on these connections are pretrained efficiently by using the contrastive divergence approximation to the log likelihood gradient. After layer-bylayer pre-training we "unroll" the generative model to form a deep auto-encoder, whose parameters are then fine-tuned using back-propagation. To reconstruct the full-length speech spectrogram, individual spectrogram segments predicted by their respective binary codes are combined using an overlapand-add method. Experimental results on speech spectrogram coding demonstrate that the binary codes produce a logspectral distortion that is approximately 2 dB lower than a subband vector quantization technique over the entire frequency range of wide-band speech. Index Terms: deep learning, speech feature extraction, neural networks, auto-encoder, binary codes, Boltzmann machine


The present study was undertaken to develop a cost effective biosorbent and to study the biosorption process involved in the adsorption of heavy metal-contaminated textile wastewater using the developed biosorbent. Biomass chicken feathers was activated by Na 2 S 0.1 N to produce adsorbent for lead in aqueous solution. This study focuses on the effectiveness of lead removal by batch adsorption method. The feather samples both activated and non-activated with adsorbed Pb (II) ions were analyzed by spectroscopic methods (Surface Area Analyzer, Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy). Particularly, the effect of pH, agitation time, adsorbent concentration, and particle size were considered. Optimum adsorption pH values of Pb (II) for activated and non-activated feathers were 8 whereas optimum adsorption contact time of Pb (II) for activated and non-activated feathers were 60 minutes and 90 minutes respectively. At the optimal adsorption conditions, adsorption ratio could get to 97.52% for activated feathers and 98.67% for non-activated feathers. The higher concentration of lead has a greater adsorption as well as high adsorption capability of feathers. The Freundlich adsorption model agrees well with experimental data , because of the high correlation coefficient that the former exhibited, thus, indicating to the applicability of multilayer coverage of the Pb (II) on the pores of adsorbent surface. The applicability of the Ho and Lagegren kinetic model has also investigated. Lead ions from the sample of textile wastewater were adsorbed on activated feathers with efficiency up to 90%. Laboratory tested and proven more effective and efficient in removing Pb (II) ions from aqueous solution by using activated feathers. The low cost and simplicity of the technique hold great potential applications in environmental protection. Keywords: Adsorption; Biomass of chicken feather; Heavy metals; Pb (II) ions; Textile wastewater


A 45-year-old female was brought with sudden loss of consciousness and mental confusion. Clinical background revealed obesity and hypertension. She presented with acute respiratory failures, hypertense and comatose without focal deficits. Serial ECGs disclosed dynamic ST segment changes and neurogenic T waves. Cranial CT evinced extensive intraparenchymal hemorrhage in left cerebral hemisphere (Figure). ST segment changes, QT prolongation and neurogenic or cerebral T waves are described in cerebrovascular events, generally related to subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhages, originated from central dysautonomia. ECG changes may help differentiating causes of decreased level of consciouness without focal deficits, if cerebrovascular disorders are considered.


Comments concerning Meta analysis for relationship between peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ Pro12Ala polymorphism and type 2 diabetes susceptibility in different cohorts in this mini review were given.The comments pointed out existent problems and presented suggestions for genetic analysis of diseases in Chinese populations.


This paper is a summary with some added thoughts of the closing plenary address at the American Theological Library Association meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 16, 2018. The talk explores issues of productivity in the library context and how libraries need to explore, discover, and invent in order to remain vital. It also considers what has changed, most notably the unrelenting pace of increases in the capacity of computer technology as expressed in Moore's Law. It considers the fundamental shift libraries need to make from an outside-in to an inside-out approach and how this requires investing in open content and infrastructure. Finally, a challenge was issued to the group to create the open scholarly commons for theology and religion.


This paper presents a generalization technique for the formulation of simulated municipal solid waste. This technique is used for the elimination of the inconsistency in the municipal solid waste (MSW) characteristics due to its heterogeneous nature. The compositions of simulated municipal solid waste were formulated from four major municipal waste streams components in Malaysia namely paper, plastic, food and yard waste. The technique produced four simplified waste generalization categories with composition of paper (19%), plastic (25%), food (27%) and green waste (29%) respectively. Comparative study was conducted for proximate analysis for the determination of volatile matter, fixed carbon and ash content. Ultimate analysis was performed for carbon and hydrogen content. The heat content for simulated and actual municipal solid waste showed good agreement. The moisture content of the simulated municipal solid waste and actual municipal solid waste were established at 52.34% and 61.71% respectively. Overall results were considered to be representative of the actual compositions of municipal solid waste in Malaysia.


Drawing on recent debates about Burns and Scottish romanticism, particularly comments by Murray Pittock, Nigel Leask, and Ian Duncan, discusses the pivotal scene in Robert Burns's poem "Tam o' Shanter," in which Tam's vision of the witches' carnival is framed by the window of Alloway Kirk, and argues that this can be read as a framing and aestheticization not only of folk heritage, but of a national self-image, a recalibration of nationhood.


A new computational paradigm is described which o ers the possibility of superlinear (and sometimes unbounded) speedup, when parallel computation is used. The computations involved are subject only to given mathematical constraints and hence do not depend on external circumstances to achieve superlinear performance. The focus here is on geometric transformations. Given a geometric object A with some property, it is required to transform A into another object B which enjoys the same property. If the transformation requires several steps, each resulting in an intermediate object, then each of these intermediate objects must also obey the same property. We show that in transforming one triangulation of a polygon into another, a parallel algorithm achieves a superlinear speedup. In the case where a convex decomposition of a set of points is to be transformed, the improvement in performance is unbounded, meaning that a parallel algorithm succeeds in solving the problem as posed, while all sequential algorithms fail.