The syntheses of six thiol-exhibiting monosaccharides towards suicide inhibition of Helicobacter pylori are reported. Blood group Antigen Binding Adhesin (BabA), a bacterial membrane-bound lectin, binds to human ABO and Lewis b blood group structures displayed on the surface of host epithelial cells. Crystal structures of the carbohydrate-recognition domain revealed a conserved disulfide bonded loop that anchors a critical fucose residue in these blood group structures. Disruption of this loop by N-acetylcysteine results in reduced BabA-mediated adherence to human gastric tissue sections and attenuated virulence in Lewis b-expressing transgenic mice. With a view of creating specific inhibitors of the lectin, we designed and successfully synthesised six fucose-derived compounds with thiol motifs to engage in a thiol-disulfide exchange with this disulfide bond of BabA and form a glycan-lectin disulfide linkage. Branching and extending the fucose backbone with 2- and 3-carbon thiol motifs delivered a range of candidates to be tested for biological activity against BabA.


Promoter DNA methylation of CpG islands is an important epigenetic mechanism in cancer development. We have characterized the promoter methylation profile of 82 genes in three prostate cancer cell lines (LNCaP, PC3, and DU145) and two normal prostate cell lines (RWPE1 and RWPE2). The methylation pattern was analyzed using a Panomics gene array system that consists of immobilized probes of known gene promoters on a nitrocellulose membrane. Methylation binding protein–purified methylated DNA was hybridized on the membrane and detected by the chemiluminescence method. We analyzed methylation profile in normal (RWPE1) versus cancerous cells and androgen receptor (AR)–sensitive (LNCaP) versus AR-negative cells (DU145 and PC3). Our study shows that >50% of the genes were hypermethylated in prostate cancer cells compared with 13% in normal cell lines. Among these were the tumor suppressor (RB, TMS1, DAPK, RBL1, PAX6, and FHIT), cell cycle (p27KIP1 and CDKN2A), transporters (MDR1, MLC1, and IGRP), and transcription factor (STAT1, CIITA, MYOD, and NPAT) genes. Relative methylation pattern shows that most of these genes were methylated from 5-fold to >10-fold compared with the normal prostate cells. In addition, promoter methylation was detected for the first time in target genes such as RIOK3, STAT5, CASP8, SRBC, GAGE1, and NPAT. A significant difference in methylation pattern was observed between AR-sensitive versus AR-negative cancer cells for the following genes: CASP8, GPC3, CD14, MGMT, IGRP, MDR1, CDKN2A, GATA3, and IFN. In summary, our study identified candidate genes that are methylated in prostate cancer. Mol Cancer Ther; 9(1); 33–45


Cyclic AMP production was studied in isolated canine fundic gastric mucosal cells. Histamine, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and secretin increased cyclic AMP production by unenriched mucosal cells. In separated cell fractions, histamine stimulation of cyclic AMP production correlated with the parietal cell content of the fractions. Secretin in concentrations above 1 nM stimulated cyclic AMP production, and this effect correlated with the pepsinogen content of the separated cell fractions. At concentrations above 1 microM, PGE2 stimulated cyclic AMP production; this effect was found in all separated cell fractions and was not associated with any of the available cell markers. PGE2 stimulation of cyclic AMP production was, however, negatively correlated with the parietal cell content. Thus, histamine stimulated cyclic AMP production by parietal cells and secretin stimulated production of cyclic AMP by chief cells. PGE2 stimulation of cyclic AMP production could not be localized to a single cell type but occurred primarily in nonparietal cells.


Since the 1960s, rapid development of institutional investors is a prominent feature of global financial market. In china, full circulation of stock will realize after the completion of Split Share Structure Reform. Under the circumstance of institutional investors holding a large scale of stock, will they change their invest style? Whether they place more emphasis on value investment and concerning about long-term development of their enterprises or utilize their advantage of controlling large scale of capital, continue to use "dominate" and "speculation" methods to seek short-term interests? In this paper, we focus on institutional investor's preference for stocks, trying to find certain evidence from their stock preference to judge whether the institutional investors were intended to make long-term investment or short-term investment when they invested in stocks. Here we used the stocks holding by institutional investors at the end of the fourth quarter from 2003 to 2007 to perform empirical analysis. The regression results of non-equilibrium panel data model indicate that there is a definite positive correlation between market value of negotiable shares and the rate of shareholdings by institutional investors. Our conclusion support the statement that institutional investors were preferred to holding large capitalization stocks. The volatility of large capitalization stocks are less than small capitalization stocks, and the information disclosure degree of large capitalization stocks is higher than small capitalization stocks. Therefore, the actions of institutional investors prefer large capitalization stocks indicates that when they were selecting the stock, they didn't intended to perform short-term "speculation", but to long-term investment.


Deep neural networks are traditionally trained using humandesigned stochastic optimization algorithms, such as SGD and Adam. Recently, the approach of learning to optimize network parameters has emerged as a promising research topic. However, these learned black-box optimizers sometimes do not fully utilize the experience in human-designed optimizers, therefore have limitation in generalization ability. In this paper, a new optimizer, dubbed as HyperAdam, is proposed that combines the idea of "learning to optimize" and traditional Adam optimizer. Given a network for training, its parameter update in each iteration generated by HyperAdam is an adaptive combination of multiple updates generated by Adam with varying decay rates . The combination weights and decay rates in HyperAdam are adaptively learned depending on the task. HyperAdam is modeled as a recurrent neural network with AdamCell, WeightCell and StateCell. It is justified to be state-of-the-art for various network training, such as multilayer perceptron, CNN and LSTM.


The effort to streamline management after the oil crisis: Great changes have occurred in the Japanese economy in the way firms are managed and in the way industry is structured. In what follows, I shall attempt to describe two phenomena. One is the important roles that Japanese firms' adaptive management practices and the existence of a competitive industrial system in Japan have played in enabling the Japanese economy to overcome the effects of the rising yen value. The other is the way some of the unique features that have heretofore been characteristic of Japanese management and industrial structure are changing to meet the needs of a changing economic environment.


This paper concerns multivalued multithreshold functions, {0, 1, . . . , k}-valued functions on Rn that may be considered as generalizations of (linear) threshold functions, or as discretized versions of artificial neurons. Such functions have arisen in the context of multiple-valued logic and artificial neural networks. For any fixed k, we present two procedures which, given a set of points labelled with the values of some (unknown) multivalued multithreshold function, will produce such a function that achieves the same classifications on the points. (That is, we present 'consistent hypothesis finders'.) One of these is based on linear programming, and the other on an 'incremental' procedure suggested by Obradovi´c and Parberry. In standard probabilistic models of learning, it is natural to ask for some information about how many labelled data points should be used as the basis for valid inference about the function that is labelling the data. We investigate this question for the class of multivalued multithreshold functions. Finally, we examine multithreshold functions, a class of {0, 1}-valued functions related to the multivalued multithreshold functions. We give a simple description of an algorithm based on a procedure suggested by Takiyama, and we raise some open questions on the effectiveness of this algorithm, and, generally, on the complexity of finding consistent hypotheses for samples of multithreshold functions.


PURPOSE
Gas embolization is a well documented complication of laparoscopic surgery. We evaluated the association of gas embolization with increased intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) in the porcine model during laparoscopic partial nephrectomy with real-time transesophageal echocardiography.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Eight domestic pigs weighing 143 to 162 pounds underwent unilateral transperitoneal laparoscopic heminephrectomy with renal artery clamping with varied IAPs. The renal vein was not clamped, allowing the exposure of venous tributaries to the pneumoperitoneum. IAP was increased in 5 mm Hg increments in 4 pigs each by 1) insufflation pressure adjustment to a maximum of 30 mm Hg and 2) intermittent application of an argon beam coagulator (ABC) to the cut kidney surface. Transesophageal echocardiography was used to monitor embolism.

RESULTS
None of the 4 animals subjected to increased CO2 insufflation pressure (maximum 30 mm Hg) demonstrated gas embolization during partial nephrectomy. The ABC caused gas embolization during partial nephrectomy at an IAP of 30 to 50 mm Hg in 4 animals. The volume of embolized gas was 4 to 20 ml. None of the animals showed intraoperative hemodynamic compromise.

CONCLUSIONS
Gas embolization was not seen during laparoscopic partial nephrectomy with typical insufflation pressures. The ABC can rapidly increase IAP and cause argon embolization at IAPs greater than 30 mm Hg. Prophylactic maneuvers to prevent gas embolization, such as intra-abdominal venting or renal vein clamping, should be considered when applying the ABC.


This thesis identifies and examines a conjunction between white postcolonial cultural and species concerns within recent novels from South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The argument takes as a starting point a suggestion by Philip Armstrong that postcolonial and animal studies discourses might form an alliance based on a common antagonist: humanism. Here, this idea is applied in the context of literature by white postcolonial writers. I explore the extent and nature of the alliance and the degree to which it can be called successful within the selected novels.
Each of the five chapters concerns a different text, and the thesis is also divided into two sections. The first addresses the contrasting approaches to humanism and to animals offered by J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999) and Yann Martel's Life of Pi (2001). The second addresses the representation of these themes in Fiona Farrell's Mr Allbones' Ferrets (2007), Julia Leigh's The Hunter (1999), and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2003), set in the past, present and future respectively, to illustrate the temporal dimension of the white postcolonial-animal alliance in question.
Overall, the thesis emphasises the relevance of species concerns within white postcolonial culture, and posits the existence of a thread running through contemporary white postcolonial novels in which animals are a priority. All of the novels examined here, I argue, represent animals as more than victims in relation to humanist discourse: they emphasise animals' potential to disrupt that discourse by affecting the attitudes of individual humans or by resisting humanist endeavours by their own actions. The result of this, I suggest, is that animals appear as allies in white postcolonial cultures' attempts at self-definition against historical colonialism and contemporary globalisation, while white postcolonial literature portrays animals in ways that promote positive human perceptions of them.


Controlling droplet and fluid transport in a directional manner represents an important form of liquid manipulation and has tremendous application potential in fields involving intelligent liquid management. We have shown theoretically that a hydrophilic/hydrophobic Janus membrane with a transmembrane chemical gradient can induce directional liquid gating due to its anisotropic liquid critical breakthrough pressure. We further experimentally prepare hydrophilic/hydrophobic Janus membranes by facile vapor diffusion method. The resultant Janus membrane evidences directional water droplet gating behavior in air-water systems. Moreover, membrane-based directional gating of continuous water flow is demonstrated, enabling Janus membranes to act as facile fluid diodes for one-way flow regulation. Additionally, in oil-water systems, the Janus membranes show directional gating of droplets with integrated selectivity for either oil or water. The remarkable gating properties of the Janus membranes open new perspectives for fluid rectifying, advanced separation, biomedical materials and smart textiles.


Privacy preservation is an important issue in today's context of extreme penetration of Internet and mobile technologies. It is more important in the case of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) where collected data often requires in-network processing and collaborative computing. Researches in this area are mostly concentrated in applying data mining techniques to preserve the privacy content of the data. These techniques are mostly computationally expensive and not suitable for resource limited WSN nodes. In this paper, a scheme is developed to provide privacy preservation in a much simpler way with the help of a secure key management scheme and randomized data perturbation technique. We consider a scenario in which two or more parties owning confidential data need to share only for aggregation purpose to a third party, without revealing the content of the data. Through simulation results the efficacy of our scheme is shown by comparing the results with one of the established schemes.


: The review contains data on the present state of the perinatal viral hepatitis problem. The risk of transmission to the infants depends on the etiology and infectious forms of the infectious process in mothers. Approaches to prevent vertical transmission of viral hepatitis are presented.


The development of Czech media during the last 25 years has been influenced by commercialisation, which has characterised its transformation from that of a communist regime to its current globalised context. The commercialisation of local media has manifested itself through the notable erosion of its particular local characteristics (delocalization). The main aim of the article is to find the answer to the question of how has the content of the particular local press changed in terms of localization or delocalization due to the commercialization development trends. This text uses a case study approach (content analysis and in-depth interviews) to analyse the Vltava-Labe-Press (VLP) publishing house that largely dominates the Czech local press market. In the first phase I conducted a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews with editors-in-chief in the VLP's newsrooms and managers in the VLP publishing house. This was followed by a quantitative content analysis of two newspapers between 1989 and 2009 focused on changes in editorial content and changes in the formal presentation of content. The main question of the case study is, how did the local press content published by Vltava-Labe-Press change between 1989 and 2009 in terms of localization and delocalization. The premise was that commercialisation leads to delocalization, diminishing local character and production of the content, and hence between 1989 and 2009 the share of converged and centrally produced contents increased in selected Czech local dailies. The analysis demonstrates an inverse relationship between management localization efforts and the manifestation of local content in the press. Consequently, the delocalized character of the Czech local press is likely to have an adverse effect on the democratic and political empowerment of local communities.


Modern solutions for implicit discourse relation recognition largely build universal models to classify all of the different types of discourse relations. In contrast to such learning models, we build our model from first principles, analyzing the linguistic properties of the individual top-level Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB) styled implicit discourse relations: Comparison, Contingency and Expansion. We find semantic characteristics of each relation type and two cohesion devices---topic continuity and attribution---work together to contribute such linguistic properties. We encode those properties as complex features and feed them into a NaiveBayes classifier, bettering baselines(including deep neural network ones) to achieve a new state-of-the-art performance level. Over a strong, feature-based baseline, our system outperforms one-versus-other binary classification by 4.83% for Comparison relation, 3.94% for Contingency and 2.22% for four-way classification.


Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. There is always a huge demand for novel anticancer drugs and scientists explore various natural and artificial compounds to overcome this. Gallic acid (GA) is one of the phenolic acids found in many dietary substances and herbs used in ancient medicine. It possesses antiinflammatory, antioxidant, antiviral and antibacterial properties. The present review summarizes the anticancer activity of GA and its derivatives. Various in vitro and in vivo experiments of GA against a variety of cancer cell lines were reported. The previous studies show that the anticancer activity of GA is related to the induction of apoptosis through different mechanisms like generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), regulation of apoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins, suppression and promotion of oncogenes, inhibition of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and cell cycle arrest depending upon the type of cancer investigated. Conclusively, GA and its derivatives may be considered as a potent drug for cancer treatment alone as well as in combination with other anticancer drugs to increase the efficiency of chemotherapy. However, there is still a need for more experimentation in knock-out animal models and human clinical trials to promote and place GA and its derivatives on the commercial market.


Resistance estimation of the PMSM allows both optimum PMSM control and temperature monitoring of the PMSM. In this study, resistance estimation of the PMSM in real time is examined. FOC is selected as the PMSM control method and resistance estimation method. Effects of the PMSM state variables on the FOC flux component are investigated. A resistance estimation approach based on the PMSM state variables is obtained. The obtained method is simulated in MATLAB.


The use of batteries as a backup in case of power outages is a common practice adopted by telecommunications companies that need to keep their services always active. Besides, those batteries can also be used for other purposes such as participating in the energy market in order to reduce the electricity bill, as long as the safety usage rules are respected. In this context, batteries can be used when the energy costs more and recharged when the energy costs less, which is known as the demand-response mechanism. Our focus in this work is to optimize the use of batteries installed for backup to participate in the demand-response mechanism, in order to reduce the total energy cost for the company. We formally state the related optimization problem and propose two solving approaches to address it: a mixed-integer program and a heuristic to solve large instances. Simulations based on real data of a French telecommunications operator prove the relevance of using batteries to reduce the energy cost for the company by participating in the demand-response mechanism. The proposed heuristic proves to be economically relevant and computationally efficient, being a good alternative to a mixed-integer program for large-scale problems.


Ghana's economic and political past and present show that foreign aid has provided support for infrastructural development, budget financing, macroeconomic policy reforms, institutional restructuring and political reforms. Existing literature and pronouncements by leading aid advocates and development practitioners also indicate that aid is a potential catalyst to development.
Using the case of Ghana's trajectory of economic and political transformation from 1957 to 2013 (categorised into three phases), the thesis postulates that aid can be a catalyst to development in so far as endogenous drivers in the recipient country are predisposed to react positively to it; otherwise there are little returns to development.
The study metaphorically applies five attributes of a catalyst from industrial chemistry, and three analytical approaches, including process-tracing, to construct a chain of causal mechanisms and effects between foreign aid and Ghana's endogenous resources, institutions, structures and actors. Inferring from the outcomes of Ghana's transformation, the thesis shows that foreign aid was least catalytic to economic and political transformation in phase I (1957–82); most catalytic in phase II (1983–92) and largely ineffectual in phase III (1993–2013) especially the later part of that period.
Reflecting on the findings of the case study to draw larger theoretical and policy implications, the thesis suggests that aid can be a catalyst to development when (i) a substantial part of it is invested in the recipient's economically productive sectors with the objective of promoting structural transformation; (ii) the recipient country's political settlement is led by a dominant political party with visionary and disciplinary leadership; (iii) the recipient country has exportable value-added products; and (iv) a professional and technocratic bureaucracy. The findings imply that long-term economic transformation and a best-fit political system should become an important goal to be facilitated through aid in developing countries.


Ted Neward, Manning Publications Co, Greenwich, CT, 2000, 558 pp. ISBN: 1-88477-771-6, $49.95 Target Audience Building server based application for the future. The reader is supposed to have a good understanding of programming in Java and should also have a brief knowledge of database techniques and know the basis of communications with sockets. The author's goal is to tell the basics of application server development techniques, let you be inspired by the concepts introduced and to let you use the code that comes with the book. Another goal is to tell you how to prepare you for coming changes in technology as well. Server-Based Java Programming is a good reference book for your starting up project. Organization and Content In the forewords the author gives the background of Java and sets the language in its environment comparing it to other languages. Given this you read the book with the aim of learning on how to implement techniques and concepts presented with Java as a tool, more than from learning the Java language from scratch. Each chapter of the book is summarized in the end and the references are kept in each chapter. Neward is starting with covering Java's class loading techniques in depth and how your programs could be upgraded and extended on the fly and anywhere when using these. The following parts covering different aspects of threading are well written and not only gives a description of how Java's interface for threading works but as well tells you some idioms usable, such as active objects and polling techniques. When having these concepts Neward is moving into control and configuration issues and then into socket-based communication. The basics and background are settled and then some source code is given, as example on a simple HTTP-server. Servlets are introduced and a description how you could keep content and logic separated by using them in an n-tier application. Middleware, the chapters are covering the wide spectrum of distributed object technologies existing today such as RPC remote procedure calling, RMI remote method invocation, CORBA, RMI/IIOP and some words about message-oriented middleware as Java Messaging Service. JNI, using Java's Native Interface on the server and how you could use it is told in detail. Monitoring server application from remote application by heartbeat procedures and several simple and useful techniques notifying techniques that can be used are described in the last chapters of the book. Inconsistencies The author is also using a reference implementation GJAS to let the user understand the concepts better. This GJAS could be introduced better or would be left out I think. As with giving URL web addresses in a textbook they tend to get invalid with the time. For example the author's own website has moved. Summary The way this book is structured is excellent. The chapters come in a natural order. As the book is covering only server based programming techniques there are no page-consuming GUI pictures to be found here which makes the book compact and concise although it covers a lot. One drawback with the broad coverage of the book is that you may need some extra literature to get the job done . But if you are aware of that and need some inspiration for your startup project this is recommended. Mikael Omma Umea University


Selective sequestration of sulfate (SO42−) in the form of barite (BaSO4) from alkaline solutions of high ionic strength containing carbonate is problematic due to the preferential formation of BaCO3. Incorporation of sulfate into the insoluble and thermally stable BaSO4 phase can potentially benefit radioactive waste processing by reducing operational challenges and suppressing volatilization of other waste components such as technetium-99. To enhance selectivity of SO42− sequestration, a series of Ba–Sn nanocomposite materials was prepared using simple hydrothermal synthesis from different Sn(II) and Sn(IV) precursors. Structural characterization indicated that all obtained products predominantly contained BaSn(OH)6 and Ba2SnO2(OH)4·10H2O nanocrystalline phases which were disrupted upon exposure to SO42− due to formation of BaSO4. Performance of the Ba–Sn materials was tested using complex alkaline solutions simulating radioactive waste containing 0.094 M SO42− and 0.5 M CO32− among other constituents. About 54–66% of SO42− was converted to BaSO4 when a quantity of Ba–Sn material containing approximately a stoichiometric amount of Ba2+ relative to SO42− was used. In comparison, previous studies indicate negligible BaSO4 formation under similar conditions when a simple Ba2+ salt is used. This improvement is attributed to the selective replacement of the stannate by SO42−. Thermal stability of the sulfate-loaded product material up to 1100 °C was demonstrated. The obtained materials promise a convenient and economical option for the selective sequestration or removal of SO42− from complex carbonate containing solutions.


An analytical method for the determination of free amino acids in ciders is reported. It is based on high-performance liquid chromatography with an automatic precolumn derivatization with o-phthaldehyde and 3-mercaptopropionic acid and diode array detection. The method was applied to monitor the amino acids during second fermentation of sparkling ciders. This paper reports the influence of yeast strains and aging time on the amino acid composition of sparkling ciders. The application of principal component analysis enables the ciders to be differentiated on the basis of the two factors considered (yeast strain and aging time). The first principal component, which accounts for 58% of the total variance, achieved the separation according to aging time with serine, glycine, alanine, valine, ornithine, leucine, and lysine as the most important variables. The second principal component, accounting for 28% of the explained variance, is closely related to aspartic acid and asparagine and separates the samples ac...


Background Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative pathology induced by cell toxicity caused by polyglutamine (polyQ) expansion in the N terminal end of huntingtin (htt). Using C elegans transgenics that express expanded polyQs in neurons, we identified a gene network that is centred onto FoxO and that protects neurons from expanded polyQs screen for genes that modulate the early phases of expanded polyQ neurotoxicity. Among these genes, we identified AMPK, a well known energy sensor involved in lifespan and health span extension in worms and mammals. Aims AMPK is amenable to be regulated by different drugs. Some of these drugs, like metformin, are approved for human use, hence AMPK may be of therapeutic interest in HD. Therefore, we sought to characterise AMPK in the context of neuronal vulnerability caused by expanded htt in different models. Methods First, we investigated the function of AMPK in C elegans and its potential interaction with well established neuroprotective genes by using mutants and drugs, such as metformin. We then validated our results in an in vitro model of HD: striatal cells from HdhQ111 knock-in mice, carrying the expanded (109Q) or wild-type (7Q) alleles of htt. Finally, we tested the potential of AMPK activation in mice, by overexpressing a gain of function allele of AMPK-γ, which activates AMPK function. Results By doing epistatic analysis in worms, we show that AMPK is required for neuroprotection through the FOXO/daf-16 signalling pathway. The depletion of AMPK enhances neuronal impairment, and activation by metformin induces neuroprotection, suggesting that this enzyme may be of therapeutic interest in HD. Similar findings were obtained in striatal cells from HdhQ111. Finally, preliminary results suggest that activation of AMPK protects from the neuropathological effects of N terminal expanded htt in a lentivirius based model of HD in mice. Conclusion These results strongly suggest that AMPK is of therapeutic interest in HD and warrant further investigation of AMPK activity in HD neurons.


Palladium-catalyzed alkoxycarbonylative 1,5-substitution of conjugated enyne oxiranes provides a diastereoselective route to (E)-configured 7-hydroxy-2,3,5-trienoates. The reactions proceeded in a highly stereoselective manner, possibly through sequential formation of π-allylpalladium and σ-vinylallenyl palladium complexes. The major diastereomeric form of the product is determined by the configuration of the alkenyl moiety of the substrate.


Background: Bidirectional nucleocytoplasmic transport unique for eukaryotic cells is a tightly regulated process carried out by specific transport machinery. Its defects result in incorrect localization of proteins that might subsequently lead to diversity of diseases including cancer. Karyopherin alpha 7 (KPNA7) is the newest karyopherin alpha nuclear importer family member, mainly expressed in early embryogenesis and oocytes. However, its expression is reactivated in some cancer cells. We previously showed that KPNA7 promotes the malignant properties of pancreatic cancer cells overexpressing the gene. Here, we identified KPNA7 cargo proteins and further explored the functional consequences of KPNA7 expression for cell proliferation, cell cycle distributions and maintenance of proper nuclear morphology in a panel of pancreatic and breast cancer cell lines with varying KPNA7 expression levels. Methods: To isolate KPNA7 cargo proteins, an affinity-based protein pull-down was performed from stable, tagged KPNA7-overexpressing pancreatic cancer cell lines and the KPNA7 binding partners were identified with mass spectrometry. For functional studies, KPNA7 was silenced in pancreatic and breast cancer cells using siRNAs. Cell numbers and cell cycle distributions were determined 72 to 96 h after transfection and compared to those in corresponding controls. To study mitotic spindle assembly and nuclear morphology, immunofluorescent labeling of γ-tubulin and different nuclear envelope proteins was performed 96 h after transfections. Results: The protein pull-down and mass spectrometry yielded multiple proteins co-purifying with KPNA7. Two cargos, zinc finger protein 414 and major vault protein were successfully validated to bind KPNA7 in vitro and shown to be transported into the nucleus by KPNA7. Additionally, these cargos were shown to possess growth regulatory roles in pancreatic cancer cells. The silencing of KPNA7 in six pancreatic and breast cell lines decreased cell proliferation in all cell lines expressing the gene, whereas both cancer and normal cell lines without endogenous KPNA7 expression were not affected. Also, a decrease in the fraction of proliferating S-phase cells was detected. KPNA7 depletion led to aberrant mitotic spindle assembly and abnormal number of centrosomes. Interestingly, a reorganization of nuclear envelope proteins was observed, resulting in distinct change from round to lobular nuclear morphology. Conclusions: The present results indicate KPNA7 as a central regulator of cancer cell growth and cell cycle, and identify KPNA7 cargo proteins participating in this regulation. We also show that KPNA7, probably via its cargos, has roles beyond nuclear transfer. Our results suggest that KPNA7 functions in the regulation of proper mitosis and organization of the mitotic spindle and acts in the maintenance of nuclear envelope structure and nuclear morphology. This study provides additional evidence on the role of altered nuclear transfer in cancer pathogenesis. Citation Format: Elisa M. Vuorinen, Nina Rajala, Teemu Ihalainen, Hanna E. Rauhala, Anssi Nurminen, Vesa P. Hytonen, Anne Kallioniemi. KPNA7 nuclear import protein - a key regulator of cancer cell growth and nuclear morphology [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-272. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-LB-272


Background : Previous reports showed that nucleus accumbens involved in the etiology and pathophysiology of major depression, anxiety and addiction. It is not clear that how these mechanisms occur in the brain. In the present study, the influence of direct nicotine injection in the nucleus accumbens in rats' anxiety-related behavior was investigated. Methods : Wistar rats were used in this study. Male Wistar rats bred in an animal house, in a temperature-controlled (22±2 ◦C) room with a 12 hour light/darkcycle. Rats were anesthetized using intraperitoneal injection of ketamine hydrochloride and xylazine, then placed in an stereotactic instrument for microinjection cannula implantation The stainless steel guide cannula was implanted bilaterally in the right and left dorsal the nucleus accumbens shell according to Paxinos and Watson atlas. After recovery, anxiety behavior and locomotor activity were tested. We used the elevated plus maze to test anxiety. This apparatus has widely been employed to test parameters of anxiety-related behaviors including the open armtime percentage (%OAT), open arm entries percentage (%OAE), locomotor activity and we record effect of drugs after injection directly in the nucleus accumbens on anxiety-related behavior. Results : Experiments showed that bilateral injections into the nucleus accumbens Nicotine, acetylcholine receptor agonist, dose 0.1 of the dose (0.05 and 0.1, 0.25, 0.5) microgram per rat caused a significant increase in the percentage of time spent in the open arms (%OAT), compared to the control group. We did not record any significant change locomotor activity and open arm entries percentage (%OAE) in rats. Conclusion : Nicotinic receptors in the nucleus accumbens shell involved to anxiety-like behavior in male rats.


The present study has examined the possibility that the positional distribution of fatty acids on dietary triacylglycerol (TAG) influences the postprandial response to a liquid meal in adult subjects. Postprandial TAG, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), ketones, glucose, insulin and gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP) responses were monitored in sixteen normal adult male subjects over 6 h following consumption of test meals containing dietary TAG in which palmitic acid was predominantly on the sn-1 (Control) or sn-2 positions (Betapol). Plasma total TAG, chylomicron-rich TAG and chylomicron-poor TAG concentrations were identical in response to the two test meals. The peak increase (mean (sd)) in chylomicron TAG was 0 85 (0 46) mmol/l after the Control meal and 0 85 (0 42) mmol/l after the Betapol meal. Plasma glucose, insulin, GIP, NEFA and ketone concentrations were also very similar following the two meals. It is concluded that dietary TAG containing saturated fatty acids on the sn-2 position appear in plasma at a similar level and over a similar timescale to TAG in which saturated fatty acids are predominantly located on sn-1 or sn-3 positions. The results reported in the present study demonstrate that the positional distribution of fatty acids on dietary TAG is not an important determinant of postprandial lipaemia in adult male subjects, but do not exclude the possibility that different responses may occur when these dietary TAG are given long term.


We have imaged the complex crustal and upper mantle structure beneath central Costa Rica using P -wave arrival times from locally recorded earthquakes. Thurber's (1983) iterative inversion method is used to simultaneously estimate velocities along a three-dimensional grid and hypocentral parameters of local earthquakes. Our data consist of over 12,000 arrival times from more than 1300 earthquakes recorded by stations of a permanent seismographic network in Costa Rica. Our resulting velocity model correlates well with mapped geologic units at very shallow depth and with tectonic features at greater depth. We find low velocities (4.0 to 4.8 km/sec) in the shallow crust (above 10 km) near the active volcanoes and associated with a NW-SE trending late Cretaceous to late Tertiary sedimentary basin southeast of Herradura peninsula. High velocities (5.4 to 5.7 km/sec) in the shallow crust correlate with outcrops of late Jurassic to early Tertiary ultramafic ophiolitic units and with basic Tertiary volcanic units. At depths between 20 and 30 km, high velocities (6.8 to 7.2 km/sec) are associated with the subducting Cocos plate under Costa Rica and two prominent low-velocity bodies (6.3 to 6.5 km/sec) are present about 30 km trenchward of the volcanic arc and along the projection of the aseismic Cocos Ridge as it subducts beneath Costa Rica. The thickened oceanic crust of the Cocos Ridge is most likely responsible for its low velocities. The deep low-velocity anomaly located trenchward of the axis of the volcanoes may indicate the presence of a low-density intrusive resulting from an earlier phase of magmatism, possibly the late Miocene episode that produced the Talamanca intrusive complex.


Counterfactual Explanation (CE) is a post-hoc explanation method that provides a perturbation for altering the prediction result of a classifier. An individual can interpret the perturbation as an "action" to obtain the desired decision results. Existing CE methods focus on providing an action, which is optimized for a given single instance. However, these CE methods do not address the case where we have to assign actions to multiple instances simultaneously. In such a case, we need a framework of CE that assigns actions to multiple instances in a transparent and consistent way. In this study, we propose Counterfactual Explanation Tree (CET) that assigns effective actions with decision trees. Due to the properties of decision trees, our CET has two advantages: (1) Transparency: the reasons for assigning actions are summarized in an interpretable structure, and (2) Consistency: these reasons do not conflict with each other. We learn a CET in two steps: (i) compute one effective action for multiple instances and (ii) partition the instances to balance the effectiveness and interpretability. Numerical experiments and user studies demonstrated the efficacy of our CET in comparison with existing methods.


SUMMARY This paper is concerned with algorithmic techniques for the incremental generation of continuous curves that can efficiently cover an abstract surface. We introduce the notion of low-discrepancy curves as an extension of the notion of low-discrepancy sequences—such that sufficiently smooth curves with low-discrepancy properties can be defined and generated. We then devise a procedure for lifting these curves, that efficiently cover the unit cube, to abstract surfaces, such as nonlinear manifolds. We present algorithms that yield suitable fair mappings between the unit cube and the abstract surface. We demonstrate the application of these ideas using some concrete examples of interest in robotics.


The astrocytic cell responses to injury have been extensively studied in a variety of experimental models, and the term "astrogliosis" is often used to describe the astrocyte reactions to injury. Cells responding in these ways to injury are often referred to as "reactive astrocytes." Glial scarring appears to be a critical feature of wound healing in the central nervous system (CNS), since elimination of the mitotically active contingent of reactive astrocytes leads to increase in the size of the wound. Reactive astrogliosis is a term coined for the morphological and functional events seen in astrocytes responding to CNS injury. The concept of reactive astrogliosis and its molecular and cellular definition in spinal cord injury (SCI) is still incomplete. Producing several inhibitory molecules discourages regeneration of axons in the injured spinal cord. This inhibition is compounded by the poor regenerative ability of most CNS axons. This is probably a more achievable therapeutic target than axon regeneration, and an effective treatment would be of assistance to the majority of patients with partial cord injuries. Of course, understanding about astrogliosis and producing mediators and inhibitory molecules such as signaling pathways help us to develop new treatment strategies for SCI.


BACKGROUND
In a phase I study, afatinib (30 mg/body daily) plus bevacizumab (15 mg/kg every 3 weeks) was well tolerated and showed favourable outcomes in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutant advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Herein, we report the 2-year progression-free survival, overall survival and safety profile of these patients.

METHODS
Chemo-naïve patients with EGFR-mutant advanced non-small-cell lung cancer were enrolled. One group of patients received 40 mg afatinib daily and 15 mg/kg bevacizumab every 3 weeks (level 0) until disease progression or severe toxicity. Another group of patients received 30 mg afatinib daily and the same dose of bevacizumab (level 1). Dose-limiting toxicity was the primary endpoint, whereas long-term progression-free survival, overall survival and tolerability were secondary endpoints. Survival rates were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method.

RESULTS
The study included 19 patients (level 0: 5; level - 1: 14). Until the data cut-off date, seven patients continued the treatment, whereas 12 discontinued due to disease progression (n = 5) or toxicity (n = 7). The median PFS was 24.2 months, while the median overall survival was not reached. All patients developed adverse effects. Diarrhoea and skin rash were frequently observed as severe adverse events (grade 3). A secondary EGFR mutation (T790M) was detected in two patients after progression.

CONCLUSIONS
Prolonged follow-up revealed that combination therapy with afatinib and bevacizumab might improve survival outcomes in EGFR-mutant advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients and seems to be promising.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
UMIN000015944.


The goal of our project was to assess public perceptions of sea level rise in Wellington in order to provide recommendations to our sponsor, the Antarctic Research Center of Victoria University, for developing outreach initiatives to communicate their research to the public. Using convenience surveys administered to the pubic and expert interviews administered to science communication experts and local public officials, we found three areas to target for future outreach and five practices to communicate them effectively. Our recommendations for potential outreach strategies ranged from computer simulations to art installations.


This paper describes a combination of direct torque control (DTC) and space vector modulation (SVM) for an adjustable speed sensorless induction motor (IM) drive. The motor drive is supplied by a two-level SVPWM inverter. The inverter reference voltage is obtained based on input-output feedback linearization control, using the IM model in the stator D-Q axes reference frame with stator current and flux vectors components as state variables. Moreover, a robust full-order adaptive stator flux observer is designed for a speed sensorless DTC-SVM system and a new speed-adaptive law is given. By designing the observer gain matrix based on state feedback H∞ control theory, the stability and robustness of the observer systems is ensured. Finally, the effectiveness and validity of the proposed control approach is verified by simulation results. Index Terms—Adaptive stator flux observer, direct torque control, feedback linearization, robust, space vector modulation.


This collection of twelve articles presents a selection of papers delivered in the course of a seminar 1994-95 and its concluding international symposium at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The common theme is the interrelation between magic and religion, focussing particularly on the Mediterranean world in Antiquity - Egyptian, Graeco-Roman and Jewish beliefs and customs - but also treating the early modern period in Northern Europe (the Netherlands and Germany) as well as offering more general reflections on elements of magic in language and Jewish mysticism. The volume is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach and the use of varied methodologies, emphasizing the dynamic nature of the often contradictory forces shaping religious beliefs and practices, while dismissing the idea of a linear development from magic to religion or vice versa. The contributors are outstanding scholars in their fields: Ancient, Medieval and Modern History, Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, Classical Studies, Early Christianity, Islamic Studies, Anthropology, Egyptology and Comparative Literature. Without a doubt this re-evaluation of a fascinating age-old subject will stimulate scholarly discussion and appeal to educated non-specialist readers as well.


Objective: Age-disparate sexual relationships with older men may drive high rates of HIV acquisition in young women in sub-Saharan Africa, but evidence is limited. We investigate the association between age-disparate relationships and HIV incidence in Manicaland, Zimbabwe. Design: A general-population open-cohort study (six surveys) (1998–2013). Methods: A total of 3746 young women aged 15–24 years participated in consecutive surveys and were HIV-negative at the beginning of intersurvey periods. Last sexual partner age difference and age-disparate relationships [intergenerational (≥10 years age difference) and intragenerational (5–9 years) versus age-homogeneous (0–4 years)] were tested for associations with HIV incidence in Cox regressions. A proximate determinants framework was used to explore factors possibly explaining variations in the contribution of age-disparate relationships to HIV incidence between populations and over time. Results: About 126 HIV infections occurred over 8777 person-years (1.43 per 100 person-years; 95% confidence interval = 1.17–1.68). Sixty-five percent of women reported partner age differences of at least 5 years. Increasing partner age differences were associated with higher HIV incidence [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 1.05 (1.01–1.09)]. Intergenerational relationships tended to increase HIV incidence [aHR = 1.78 (0.96–3.29)] but not intragenerational relationships [aHR = 0.91 (0.47–1.76)]. Secondary education was associated with reductions in intergenerational relationships [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 0.49 (0.36–0.68)]. Intergenerational relationships were associated with partners having concurrent relationships [aOR = 2.59 (1.81–3.70)], which tended to increase HIV incidence [aHR = 1.74 (0.96–3.17)]. Associations between age disparity and HIV incidence did not change over time. Conclusion: Sexual relationships with older men expose young women to increased risk of HIV acquisition in Manicaland, which did not change over time, even with introduction of antiretroviral therapy.


. Previous studies have reported wide ranges in the prevalence of post-donation anxiety, depression, and regret in living kidney donors (LKDs), with uncertain risk factors. We performed a cross-sectional study on the psychological status of former kidney donors. We aimed to determine the psychological characteristics of kidney donors compared to healthy controls. Methods. Various tests were applied to 92 living kidney donors and a control group with similar characteristics. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale Short Form (WHOQOL-BREF) forms used to collect data on the psychological status and quality of life (QL) of the donors. Results. Donors had a higher General QL score (p=0.020). There were no significant differences between donors and control groups in terms of depression, anxiety, mood, Physical QL, Psychological QL and Environment QL scale. Female donors had higher trait anxiety compared to male donors (p=0.027). Level of State Anxiety, Positive Affect, Social Relations QL, and Environment QL was higher in females. There were no statistically significant differences between female and male donors. Positive affect scores ( β = -0.221 (-0.403 – -0.040)) and Psychological QL ( β = -0.131 (-0.250 -0.011)) were associated with lower depression scores, while negative affect scores associated with higher depression scores( β =0.201 (0.022 -0.381). Conclusions. As the psychological status of former kidney donors was no worse than controls, carefully selected donors may not be associated with the psychological burden.


Type 2 allergen‐specific T cells are essential for the induction and maintenance of allergies to foods, and Tregs specific for these allergens are assumed to be involved in their resolution. However, it has not been convincingly demonstrated whether allergen‐specific Treg responses are responsible for the generation of oral tolerance in humans. We observed that sustained food allergen exposure in the form of oral immunotherapy resulted in increased frequency of Tregs only in individuals with lasting clinical tolerance. We sought to identify regulatory components of the CD4+ T‐cell response to food allergens by studying their functional activation over time in vitro and in vivo. Two subsets of Tregs expressing CD137 or CD25/OX40 were identified with a delayed kinetics of activation compared with clonally enriched pathogenic effector Th2 cells. Treg activation was dependent on IL‐2 derived from effector T cells. In vivo exposure to peanut in the form of an oral food challenge of allergic subjects induced a delayed and persistent activation of Tregs after initiation of the allergen‐specific Th2 response. The novel finding of our work is that a sustained wave of Treg activation is induced by the release of IL‐2 from Th2 effector cells, with the implication that therapeutic administration of IL‐2 could improve current OIT approaches.


Increased molecular weight epoxy resins (EP zcc ) were synthesized by polyaddition of bisphenol A and low molecular weight epoxy resin, in the presence of 2-methylimidazole (2-MI) as a catalyst. Reaction mixture was heated either conventionally or by microwave radiation. EP zcc preparation carried out using three various amounts of a catalyst (Table 1). The products obtained differed in epoxide equivalent value (LE) and secondary OH groups' (LOH) contents. The resins were cured with dicyandiamide (DCDA). The course of the process was monitored using DSC method (Table 2, Fig. 1 and 2). Investigations of EP zcc by thermogravimetry (Table 4 and 5, Fig. 3) showed that even though the initial temperature of resin decomposition slightly increased after curing, the thermal stability at elevated temperature was significantly worse than that characterizing the initial uncured resin.


Since Sweden became a member of the European Union (EU) several constitutional reforms has been taking place. During this time, Sweden has also changed its view on democracy,from a collective to an individual perspective of democracy in the politics. A reasonable hypothesis and the purpose of this essay is to investigate if the Swedish government has beendeveloped towards an Europeanization. The Swedish state audit changed in a pioneering way after the EU- entry, with the formation of Riksrevisionen. Another constitutional change is that the Swedish EU- membership is being instituted in the Swedish constitution. The role of Swedish courts has also changed since the EU- entry. The obvious incitement element for judicial review has been abolished. The question is if this constitutional change has resulted in an Europeanization of the Swedish government and public administration, or if there is sustained evidence in a traditional Swedish government in the constitutional changes that has occurred. To investigate this supposed Europeanization, a normative theory and a traditional European government has been used. The descriptions of a Swedish and European government consist primarily of public pressure. There is nothing that indicates a European change in the Swedish management tradition, with the formation of Riksrevisionen. Riksrevisionens constitutional structure reminds of a traditional Swedish democratic administration. However a broad political majority has agreed on the EU- cooperation and on strengthens of the judiciary. This is in line with the Europeanization.


This paper presents the experimental results of a robust control scheme to suppress the vibration of a flexible structure. The feedback controller is designed using the H/sub /spl infin//-based robust control theory. For this purpose, a flexible bridge tower connected with a crane structure is considered to control its first five vibration modes using a static state feedback controller. A five-degrees-of-freedom reduced-order lumped parameter mass model is derived by neglecting high-frequency vibration modes. The neglected vibration modes constitute the unstructured system uncertainties. An attempt has been made to reduce the unmodeled uncertainties by placing actuators and/or sensors at the node points of a neglected mode. The H/sub /spl infin//-based control law is able to suppress the low-order vibration modes without any spillover instability due to neglected modes. The proposed control scheme is also shown to be robust against parameter variations. The performance of the control scheme is verified both by simulation and experimental studies.


: Post-operative colonic ischemia represents a major complication of aorto-iliac surgery. The cause is a low output with a variable combination of a systemic low output and loco-regional low output secondary to atherosclerotic or surgical lesions of the inferior mesenteric artery. The pre-operative angiographic work-up, evaluation of the colonic ischemic risk, per-operatively, revascularization of the inferior mesenteric artery, preservation of the hypogastric flow, control of stable systemic hemodynamics, have significantly diminished the incidence of severe colonic ischemia while systematic colonoscopy at the slightest evocative symptom has permitted an effective treatment. The mortality is therefore greatly reduced. When the colonic ischemia is part of an acute circulatory failure, it is only one factor among other visceral ischemias, and it is the same for pelvic ischemias. In these 2 eventualities, the prognosis remains latent.


Objective:Implementation of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) programs for populations with highest incidence is critical to reducing new infections in the United States. Black and Latino men who have sex with men (BLMSM) are disproportionately burdened by HIV. We examined differences in perceived barriers and facilitators to PrEP access for BLMSM compared with other men who have sex with men (MSM). Method:MSM who met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for PrEP (n = 491) completed measures of barriers and facilitators to PrEP at the systems, provider, and individual levels. Multivariate analyses examined differences by race/ethnicity, adjusting for other sociodemographic factors. Results:Compared with other MSM, BLMSM (56% of the sample) were more likely to have public insurance and to access health care via public clinics [adjusted odds ratio(aOR) 3.2, P < 0.001; aOR 2.4, P < 0.01]. BLMSM were more likely to regard having to talk to their doctor about their sex life as a barrier to PrEP (aOR 3.7, P < 0.001) and were less likely to endorse agency in medical decision making (aOR 0.58, P < 0.001). BLMSM were more likely to report PrEP stigma (aOR 2.3, P < 0.001) and concerns regarding PrEP efficacy (aOR 1.6, P < 0.05). BLMSM were more likely to consider access to free sexual health care (aOR 2.1, P < 0.01) and additional supportive services, eg, counseling (aOR 3.1, P < 0.001) or text-based support (aOR 2.9, P < 0.001) to be significant facilitators of PrEP use. Conclusions:Findings suggest specific points of multilevel intervention to increase PrEP access for BLMSM and increase representation of BLMSM along the PrEP continuum of care.


A great interest has been shown for self-assembled organic nano-structures that can be used in a variety of optoelectronic applications, from element detection to home electronics. It is known from experimental research that sexiphenyl (6P) grown on muscovite mica substrate form uniaxially self-assembled nanofibers which together with sexithiophene (6T) deposited on top gives the possibility to tune their polarized emission. A key to continue develop and explore the full potential of this technique is to understand the mechanisms behind the growth. This thesis investigate the initial growth of 6P and 6T on a 6Pˆ nanofiber substrate through Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. The adsorption of the molecules has been simulated with Simulated Annealing (SA) where 6P align perfectly with the substrate for all coverage while 6T starts to align after a certain amount of coverage. Both molecules show a monotonic increase in the adsorption energy per molecule with an increasing coverage. The surface diffusion of the molecules has been studied and shows a higher movement for both in the direction of the longmolecular axis.


Background We explored syringe service program (SSP) perspectives on barriers, readiness, and programmatic needs to support coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine uptake among people who use drugs. Methods We conducted an exploratory qualitative study, leveraging an existing sample of SSPs in the United States. Semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with SSP staff between February and April 2021. Interviews were analyzed using a Rapid Assessment Process, an intensive, iterative process that allows for rapid analysis of time-sensitive qualitative data. Results Twenty-seven SSPs completed a qualitative interview. Many SSP respondents discussed that COVID-19 vaccination was not a priority for their participants because of competing survival priorities, and respondents shared concerns that COVID-19 had deepened participant mistrust of health care. Most SSPs wanted to participate in COVID-19 vaccination efforts; however, they identified needed resources, including adequate space, personnel, and training, to implement successful vaccine programs. Conclusions Although SSPs are trusted resources for people who use drugs, many require additional structural and personnel support to address barriers to COVID-19 vaccination among their participants. Funding and supporting SSPs in the provision of COVID-19 prevention education and direct vaccine services should be a top public health priority.


With the evolution of threats and attacks and the speed of automation, new modern training and learning environments are needed to support the challenges of digital organizations and societies. In recent years, cyber ranges, i.e., virtual environments that support the simulation of diverse infrastructures, have emerged and are often utilized for cyber security exercises or training. With these environments, organizations or individuals can increase their preparedness and dexterity, for example, by training to identify and mitigate incidents and attacks. In this paper, we present the AIT Cyber Range which was designed based on several principles such as scalability, flexibility and the utilization of Open Source technologies. This paper outlines the building blocks of the architecture and implementation: computing platform, infrastructure provisioning, software provisioning and scenario engine. Furthermore, the implementation is demonstrated by three use cases: cyber exercises, training as well as security research and development. For future work, we aim to further extend the building blocks and to address federation and interoperability with other cyber ranges.


It was found in 1998 that potassium chlorate was able to induce the flower in longan trees (Dimocarpus longan L.). Since then potassium chlorate has been used in most longan orchards in Thailand. The recommended application rate in the early years was 500 g for a medium size tree. However, after repeated application many farmers have experienced satisfactory flower induction. The farmers have responded to this phenomenon by increasing the application rate, up to 2,000 g in certain cases. This practice did not solve the problem, and may create more problems on environment. This research was aimed at studying the factors affecting longan flower induction by chlorate. The factors studied were concentration of KClO 3 , plant nutrients, time of application, shade and the number of times that the plants subjected to chlorate. The study was done with 2-year-old longan trees grown in pots with sand culturing technique in a plastic house at Maejo University, Chiang Mai, Thailand. The results indicate that a concentration of 200 mg of potassium chlorate per liter of standard nutrient solution was appropriate for inducing flower in the rainy and cool seasons and 400 mg/L for the hot season. Toxic symptoms of over chlorate concentration varied with the concentration, ranging from less flowering with extended flowering, to no flowering with leaf burn. Over concentration of nitrate induced leaf flush and inhibited flowering. Shading for 7 days after the application of chlorate significantly reduced flowering. Increasing of chlorate concentration was not able to compensate for the effect of shading. Repeatedly exposing to chlorate diminished the response. Split application of several low concentrations of chlorate resulted in the comparable flowering as that of the single application of appropriate concentration. The obtained result was able to explain existing phenomena on longan flowering after several years of repeated application of chlorate in orchards.


The Yunnan Province has one of the most serious outbreaks of the plague epidemic in China. Small mammals and fleas are risk factors for the occurrence of plague in commensal plague foci. Understanding the relationship between parasitic fleas and small mammals will help control fleas and prevent the onset of the plague. Four hundred and twenty-one small mammals, belonging to 9 species, were captured. Of these, 170 small mammals (40.4%) were infested with fleas. A total of 992 parasitic fleas (including 5 species) was collected. The number of Leptopsylla Segnis and Xenopsylla Cheopis was 91.0%. The final multiple hurdle negative binomial regression model showed that when compared with Rattus Tanezumi, the probability of flea infestation on Mus musculus and other host species decreased from 58% to 99%, while the infestation with fleas from other host species increased 4.7 fold. The probability of flea prevalence in adult hosts increased by 74%, while the number of fleas decreased by 76%. The number of flea infestations in small male mammals increased by 62%. The number of fleas in small mammals weighing more than 59 grams has been multiplied by about 4. Rattus Tanezumi is the predominant species in households in West Yunnan Province, while Leptopsylla Segnis and Xenopsylla Cheopis are dominant parasitic fleas. There is a strong relationship between the abundance of parasitic fleas and the characteristics of small mammals (e.g. Species, age, sex, and body weight).


The aim of this study was to assess the induction of structural chromosomal aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes of malnourished and eutrophic children with bacterial infections. Thirty-six infants concurrent to the Hospital Interzonal de Agudos y Crónicos Dr. Alejandro Korn, La Plata, Argentina were included in this analysis; 11 infected and malnourished (IM), 7 infected and eutrophic (IE) and 18 non-infected and eutrophic (NE). Children aged 1-60 months. Anthropometric and clinic evaluation were performed to assess nutritional condition. We scored structural chromosome aberrations (SCA) in 100 metaphases per individual. Statistical analysis was performed by the Epi Dat 3.0 (OPS-OMS, 2003), through «Test de Diferencias entre dos proporciones muestrales» (p<0.05). Total SCE frequency was five times higher in IM children than that of IE ones (15,1% vs. 3,33% p<0,001) and two times greater in IE than in NE children (3,33% vs. 1,88% p<0.05). Results presented here showed an increase frequency of SCA not only in relation with malnutrition but also with the presence of bacterial infections. It is difficult to discern whether structural chromosome aberrations are due to malnutrition per se, bacterial or viral infections, antibiotics or all of these factors acting on malnourished tissues. In conclusion, mutagenic factors cause chromosomal changes more easily in an altered environment.


Poly(vinyl acetate-co-butyl acrylate) latexes with N-methylol acrylamide were prepared by semi-continuous emulsion polymerization. The influence of the different initiators and various monomer ratios was studied to relate its physicochemical and colloidal properties. The changes in the copolymer latexes with the use of ammonium persulfate and potassium persulfate initiators were investigated by monitoring viscosity, molecular weights, molecular weight distribution and particle size. It was found that almost all physicochemical and colloidal properties of the latexes followed the same trends for both initiators. Potassium persulfate gave slightly higher results for number- and weight-average molecular weights than ammonium persulfate. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Rich Wiles, editor, Generation Palestine (London: Pluto Press, 2013), 256 pages, $24, paperback.When in March 2012, Barack Obama paused briefly from approving orders for drone killings of Pakistani and Yemeni villagers, in order to reassure the attendees at the annual gala of the AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) that, "when there are efforts to boycott or divest from Israel, we will stand against them," the real target of his declaration was elsewhere: the myriad grassroots organizers across the world who have made the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns unignorable. Their mounting influence has provoked efforts to declare them anti-Semitic or illegal from London to Long Beach. In fact, the series of victories across the University of California system has so annoyed its managers that they have hauled in the Caesar of domestic repression, Janet Napolitano, to deal with campus activists. Obama's declaration of support for Israeli colonialism had a simple message to those many activists: back down, because Washington will not.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Aims The purpose of this population-based study was to explore the relationship between gambling and violent behaviour and attitudes towards violence among 14- and 16-year-old adolescents. Design A national survey was conducted in Finland in 2011. The main measures in our study were gambling frequency and number of reported gambling-related harms. Their associations with violent behaviours and attitudes towards violence were studied using multinomial logistic regression and negative binomial regression. Results 47.1% of adolescents had gambled during the past six months and 13.2% of them had experienced gambling-related harms. Both gambling frequency and the number of gambling-related harms were linked to violent behaviour as well as to positive attitudes towards violence. Adolescents who engaged in gambling on a daily basis and/or experienced gambling harms had the highest risk. Conclusions Health promotion efforts among gamblers should take into account their increased risk for violent behaviour.


Basically, effective moral education which concerns with affective aspect can prevent the immoral culture that occur around the community. The Education implemented in domiciliary, school, and society can influence and form one's morality. The immoral culture, nowadays, that has spreaded in young generation, reflects to people's live. The parents, the expert of education and those who concern with religion and social skill, lately, are confused with teenagers' behaviour. They are uncontrollable, naughty, stubborn, trouble maker, immoral, brawls, drug, even piracy, rape, murder, and other abandoned acts. These problems need to be solved immediately. While theoritical moral education is not enough  to overcome these such actions, but the teenagers require model as sample in their real life. This research in the form of content analysis is a series of activities relating to library data collection methods. A series of activities relating to the method of collecting library data, reading and recording and processing research materials. Data analysis in this study was carried out through a process of systematically searching and compiling data obtained. It reflects moral education is very crucial to be encouraged especially for early childhood


s worldwide networks impacted global understandings of politics, race, and religion. Our readings examine a series of comparative case studies, including the Dalit Panther Party in India, the Mizrahi Black Panther Party in Israel, and the Polynesian Panthers in New Zealand. We analyze primary sources, such as the various Panther Parties' publications, their mainstream press coverage, and their pop cultural representations, like Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Panther graphic novel and the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In this course, students learn the global Black Panther Parties' roles in reshaping worldwide conceptions of race, caste, and religion through their encounters with the Nation of Islam, Hindu Nationalism, Zionism, and Indigenous rights. No prior knowledge or coursework is required.


Phosphorus is an essential source with significance use in agriculture. Phosphorus is lost in the human intensified global cycle and it is important to remove phosphorus from water body. However, important and potential sources for phosphorus product which is suitable and effective for fertilizer use may be ignored due to over emphasize on the pollution prevention. This work aims to identify the potential of phosphorus recovery from solid organic waste in Sweden. Based on the result of Material Flow Analysis of phosphorus, solid food waste is identified the main solid waste fractions containing phosphorus substances of phosphorus in Sweden. From the case study and comparison of three alternatives, the possibility of recovery of phosphorus from household solid food waste is analyzed. A SWOT analyst is applied to provide a best solution for phosphorus recovery from food waste. The key drivers, the system boundaries for the phosphorus recovery and collection, storage, transport and use of the phosphorus are also discussed.


On 17 November 1992, after a brief (t<30 min) but very heavy rainfall, the small torrents (four in all) flowing across the community of Eleftheres, Kavala, Northern Greece, flooded and caused extensive and intense flood disasters. It should be stressed that a few months earlier (August 1992), a ravaging fire had totally deforested the area of the drainage basins of the above torrents. The largest torrent, with a surface area of only 0.91 km, formed a huge debris flow which moved in waves downwards, at first in the bed and then out of it, flooding the village of Eleftheres and, sweeping everything away, it demolished houses and almost buried the village in mud. As a result of this activity, three people were killed, dozens of others were injured and all the local activities were suspended for a period of several months. The torrent in question had never before operated as a debris flow torrent, nor had any landslides or similar geological phenomena causing debris flow occurred in its basin. The present paper studies the causes and the mechanism of the formation of debris flow of peculiar origin in this particular torrent and attempts to provide an interpretation of the phenomenon of the formation of debris flow in a torrent bed without an obvious cause, such as pre-flood feeding of the bed.


Human trafficking is a significant public health and human rights problem with negative physical, mental, and social outcomes that transcend age, sex, gender, and race and ethnicity; these outcomes have immediate and long-term effects for individuals involved. It manifests itself in a number of forms, including the domestic sex trafficking of minors, and involves a wide variety of actors. This paper presents a general overview of human trafficking. The various forms of human trafficking are defined, with particular emphasis on the domestic sex trafficking of minors. Additionally, the perpetration, risk factors, and health outcomes of the domestic sex trafficking of minors are explored in order to provide a working framework for the remainder of the paper. The role of technologies and their relations to sex trafficking follows the background. In particular, key concepts related to the Internet have been explained to further understand how the Internet can be used as a tool for and against sex trafficking. Future work should continue to include the voices of the LGBTQ+ population and consider applying a community based participatory research (CBPR) approach.


This research examined the role of humour in power-differentiated wage bargaining conversations. We collected transcripts of wage bargaining between the local labour union and management negotiators of a multinational beverage company operating in the Philippines. Through conversation analysis, we determined how both parties utilised humor to challenge or maintain power relations even as both labour and management worked towards a wage bargaining agreement. Findings show that humour was used to maintain intergroup harmony, subvert authority and control the negotiation. Our findings may be useful for labour organisations and multinational corporations that operate in Southeast Asian countries with historically tumultuous labour relations such as the Philippines. Studies have shown how humour can play a significant role in various social interactions, such as business meetings (Rogerson-Revell, 2007), conversations between friends (Hay, 2000) and co-workers (Holmes, 2000), problem solving (Dunbar, Banas, Rodriguez, Liu, & Abra, 2012), conflict negotiations (Maemura & Horita, 2012) and price haggling (O'Quin & Aronoff, 1981). We note, however, that humour analysis rarely considers asymmetric features of social interactions occurring within the context of negotiation.


Legal regulations against the crime of child sexual abuse are related to the determination of the penalties to be imposed on the perpetrators and the organization of the way the child protection systems function, which is of critical importance for the victims. It is possible to assert that in Turkey, public sensitivity towards child sexual abuse has recently increased. In 2018, numerous amendments were proposed in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey concerning the issue. In this study, all of the amendment proposals regarding child sexual abuse debated at the National Assembly in the recent legislative years have been examined, with the aim being to understand the perspectives of the victims and perpetrators of such crimes. In this context, the content of the 22 amendment proposals submitted at the National Assembly between the dates of 02.07.2018 and 16.05.2019 has been analysed. Categories have been developed on the basis of the subject and amendments required in these proposals and these categories have been discussed in the light of public debates. Using this method, the aim has been to scrutinize, from the perspective of social services, the approach contained in these amendment proposals, the articles of Turkish Criminal Code and other legislation regarding child sexual abuse. It has been observed that in the recent legislative years, amendment proposals were brought to the General Assembly about four laws considering child sexual abuse. Three of these laws (Turkish Criminal Code No. 5237, Code of Criminal Procedure No. 5271, Law No. 5275 on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures) are related to the criminal justice system and one (National Education Basic Law No. 1739) is related to the education system. It has been observed that the amendment proposals submitted to the General Assembly are heavily focused on the penalties to be imposed on the perpetrators of child sexual abuse and the regulations regarding the child protection system, which is of critical importance for the victims and the education system were voiced to a less extent. Although regulation of sexual abuse in the criminal law and imposing the required penalties to the perpetrators is of great importance, considering from a social services perspective, legal regulations for the development of a system protecting the rights of children are also highly important. This study can be expected to contribute to the literature by improving our understanding of the child sexual abuse approaches in Turkey to the victims and perpetrators of child sexual abuse.


This study tested between two interpretations of confidence in diagnostic hypotheses: expected probability of being correct and conflict experienced during the diagnostic process. Physicians generated hypotheses for case histories with two plausible diagnoses, one having a higher population base rate but less severe clinical consequences than the other. Case information indicative of the two diagnoses was varied. Generation proportions for the two diagnoses and confidence judgments both deviated from the predictions of a Bayesian belief model, but in different ways. Generation of a hypothesis increased with diagnosis-consistent information and diagnosis base rates, but was not reduced by diagnosis-inconsistent information. Confidence was sensitive to both consistent and inconsistent information, but was not very sensitive to diagnosis base rates. Physician characteristics also affected hypothesis generation and confidence differentially. Female doctors had lower confidence in their diagnoses than male doctors, yet there were no gender differences in hypothesis generation. Experience affected hypothesis generation monotonically via the increased availability of previously diagnosed cases, while confidence first increased and then decreased with doctors' experience. The results are consistent with an interpretation of confidence judgments as an expression of decision conflict rather than an indication of likely diagnosis accuracy.


The effectiveness and safety of midazolam in induction of anaesthesia was studied in 15 ASA class II or III patients who required emergency surgery. In each case a slower and smoother transition at induction of anaesthesia was desired, as well as cardiovascular stability. All patients received 0.5 mg atropine and midazolam premedication (10-12.5 mg i.m) 20 to 30 minutes before induction. Anaesthesia was induced with 0.2 mg/kg of midazolam administered intravenously over 30 seconds. The induction time, degree of anterograde amnesia and incidence of local tolerance were evaluated. The pulse rate, blood pressure and ECG were monitored and recorded throughout the duration of surgery. The recovery time was also assessed. The mean induction time was 82.73 seconds and transition was smooth in all cases. Tolerability was good as well as the amnestic effect. Outcome was rated as very good in terms of cardiovascular stability and all the patients recovered rapidly.


Glyphosate (GBH) is a worldwide consumption pesticide and is used in the formulation of Roundup®, one of the most commercialized herbicides in the world. Maternal exposure to this herbicide can promote changes and adaptations in the offspring; however, the effects on skeletal muscle are poorly understood. In this sense, the present study sought to evaluate the effect of exposure to GBH on the characteristics of the soleus (SOL) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles. C57BL/6 pregnant female mice were divided into two groups: control (CTL) receiving water and glyphosate (GBH; n = 6) receiving 0.5% glyphosate. Male puppies were designated according to the group to which the mothers belonged, such as CTL‐F1 and GBH‐F1 and then euthanized at 150 days of age. There was a reduction in body weight and nasoanal length of animals exposed to GBH, while there was an increase in EDL weight, reduction in the proportion of fibers and number of nuclei, and an increase in the connective tissue of the SOL. The animals exposed to GBH presented higher values of body characteristics, mainly adiposity gain, while they presented a reduction in neuromuscular junctions (NMJ), and an increase in fibrosis in the SOL muscle, while there was a reduction in the number of nuclei, and an increase in the weight of the EDL muscle. These findings indicate that glyphosate can promote changes in the offspring's body growth, the deposition of adipose panicles and its effects on muscle can lead to changes in the structure and functioning of this tissue.


This case study describes how the production of specialty cheese evolved in northern Peru, in a context of high competition and product imitation. It shows how the development of this cheese relied on individual and collective innovations in processing, marketing and organizational arrangements. The local cheese production system has been able to mobilize resources to protect the image of its product and to strengthen its market competitiveness. Mantecoso is a semi-fresh cheese produced by small dairies in the Department of Cajamarca. It is a typical cheese of this region - a local identity symbol. It has a strong reputation throughout the country, so might benefit markedly if it were registered as a geographical indication. Mantecoso cheese involves: - The use of specific local know-how in milk production and processing, and, - A cluster of many small firms, which cooperate in some aspects and compete in others. These firms are urged to develop better coordination to address common interests such as quality and market development (Boucher, 2004). (Resume d'auteur)


The effects of growth promoting activity (GPA) on sympathetic neurone development were investigated in vitro and compared with the effects of ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF). GPA interfered with sympathetic neurone proliferation and induced the expression of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) in neurones from 7-day-old (E7) chick embryos. The biological effects observed with saturating levels of GPA are indistinguishable from the effects of CNTF. The effects on VIP expression suggest that GPA may be involved in the specification of sympathetic neurone phenotypes. Whereas half maximal effects are achieved at lower concentrations of GPA than CNTF, GPA competes less efficiently than CNTF for the binding of 125I-labelled CNTF. This suggests similar, but not identical interactions of CNTF and GPA with receptors on chick sympathetic neurones.


Understanding atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) processes is a key aspect in improving parameterizations in weather forecast and climate prediction models, but also for renewable energy and air quality studies. The ABL, as the lowest part of the atmosphere, can be directly affected by heterogeneities in land surface properties like soil, vegetation and topography, creating patterns at different temporal and spatial scales. In this context, turbulent mixing plays an important role in connecting the atmosphere to the Earth's surface. The turbulent motions are responsible for the thermodynamic structure of the ABL by redistributing heat and moisture and the transport of constituents like aerosols and pollutants away from the surface. These processes are the main drivers for the development of ABL clouds, which in turn feed back to the ABL and surface through interaction with solar radiation, coupling to the large-scale circulation and precipitation formation. This links back to the aim of model improvement, since clouds are one of the largest source of uncertainty in global models. Therefore interdisciplinary research is required to capture the interplay between the different compartments of the Earth.

The Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 32 (TR32) in its third phase is dedicated to find these patterns in the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system by a monitoring, modelling and data assimilation approach. Within the TR32 project D2 special emphasis is on measuring, modelling and understanding the spatio-temporal structures in land surface-atmosphere exchange at the Julich ObservatorY for Cloud Evolution (JOYCE). For the typical ABL process scales of seconds to hours and meters to kilometers, ground-based remote sensing observations are well suited to continuously gather comprehensive information on the atmospheric state in a long-term perspective. With additional model simulations the conceptual process understanding can be improved.

This study focuses on the long-term characterisation of the cloudy boundary layer to identify patterns that can be further linked to surface properties at JOYCE. For this purpose, a classification for characterizing ABL turbulence is developed (Publication I). The classification, based on Doppler wind lidar (DWL) data, identifies turbulence regions in the ABL and assigns a mixing source using multiple DWL quantities. In this way, convective, wind shear and cloud driven turbulence can be distinguished under most atmospheric conditions. The method is applied at two research sites, showing a distinct behavior for different climate regimes in terms of the diurnal and seasonal cycle of ABL development. In the analysis of the long-term data sets, nocturnal low-level jets (LLJ) are identified as an important source of shear generated mixing. Therefore, a long-term record of LLJ periods, compiled with DWL observations, is investigated in Publication II. The high frequency of occurrence and wind speeds, associated with significant turbulence close to the surface, reveal the relevance of LLJs for wind energy applications. In addition, a strong interaction of the wind field with the surrounding topography can be seen in the DWL measurements, as well as in the results of a high-resolution large-eddy simulation (LES). Also during the day, when the buoyancy production represents the main factor of convective ABL mixing, the interaction between the land surface and the atmosphere is strongly influenced by surface properties. In particular, the local transport of water vapor in moist thermals is a key mechanism for the coupling of clouds to the underlying land surface and a spatially heterogeneous distribution of land use types can lead to patterns in atmospheric water vapor fields (Publication III). Besides a scanning microwave radiometer (MWR), also satellite and LES data are taken into account, showing a good agreement in identifying the direction of water vapor sources. Convective clouds, that are frequently forming in the ABL due to this convective humidity transport, often contain small amounts of liquid water. These thin liquid water clouds, with a low liquid water path (LWP), are important in terms of their interaction with radiation. In the range of low LWP values, the radiative fluxes are very sensitive to small changes in the amount liquid water contained in the clouds. For a correct representation of the cloud microphysical and optical properties, statistical retrievals using a neural network approach are developed in Publication IV. The retrievals with low computational demand are derived from ground-based observations and make use of the distinct sensitivities in different spectral regimes. While the microwave regime suffers from high uncertainties in low LWP situations, the infrared regime reveals saturation effects for higher LWP. A combination of both spectral regimes yields the best results for the whole range of LWP values.


Two classes of fracture zones are distinguished on the basis of their orientations with respect to a spreading axis and length of associated ridge-ridge transform offset. (1) Minor fracture zones associated with transform faults of short offset ( 50 km); the major fracture zones exhibit a symmetric configuration with respect to a spreading axis following small circles about poles of plate rotation. Recognition of the coexistence of the two classes of fracture zones with different orientations on a slow-spreading oceanic ridge raises questions regarding the significance of the different orientations and nature of the intervening structural transition.

A systematic narrow-beam bathymetric and magnetic investigation was performed to answer these questions in an area encompassing the change from minor fracture zones asymmetric with respect to the axis of the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at lat 26°N between major fracture zones, and a major fracture zone, the Kane, symmetric with respect to the axis of the rift valley at lat 24°N. The investigation delineated an intervening transitional region where structural features have continuously undergone geometric adjustments that have accommodated the discrepancy in orientation between the two classes of fracture zones for at least the past 6 m.y.

A hypothesis of differential structural stability determined by thickness of lithosphere within transform offsets is advanced to explain the observed differences in behavior of the two classes of fracture zones. The orientation of a major fracture zone is constrained to follow small circles along a trajectory of relative plate motion by a long section of thick lithosphere in the associated transform fault. The orientation of a minor fracture zone is susceptible to reorientation in the short section of thin lithosphere in the associated transform fault; the reorientation reflects response to intra-plate and interplate stresses. The geometric adjustments that occur as a consequence of differential structural stability continuously accommodate any discrepancy in orientation that may develop between coexistent major and minor fracture zones, so that an ocean basin such as the Atlantic can open symmetrically.


In this study, the authors address a challenging problem of aesthetic image classification, which is to label an input image as high- or low-aesthetic quality. We take both the local and global features of images into consideration. A novel deep convolutional neural network named ILGNet is proposed, which combines both the inception modules and a connected layer of both local and global features. The ILGnet is based on GoogLeNet. Thus, it is easy to use a pre-trained GoogLeNet for large-scale image classification problem and fine tune their connected layers on a large-scale database of aesthetic-related images: AVA, i.e. domain adaptation
. The experiments reveal that their model achieves the state of the arts in AVA database. Both the training and testing speeds of their model are higher than those of the original GoogLeNet.


AbstractThe focus of this study was to examine four characteristics for successful and unsuccessful students enrolled in basic mathematics courses at a technical college. The characteristics, considered to be in part effects of human factors in engineering and design, examined the preferred learning styles, computer information systems competency, on-screen reading ability, and keyboarding proficiency. Students self-selected one of two course delivery formats, online and face-to-face, for a basic mathematics class. The measures of the four characteristics were collected for each combination of class format and success. The study found that the class format and success status relative to the measured characteristics individually did not produce significant differences. There was a significant interaction of the factors noted for the social preferred learning style suggesting that successful face-to-face students had a weaker preference for a social learning style than non-successful students did. Two hundred eighty-eight students participated in the study.Abbreviations: Georgia Virtual Technical College (GVTC), Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), Multiple Intelligences (MI), Readiness for Education at a Distance Indicator (READI), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), face-to-face (ff), online (ol)1. Introduction1.1 DemographicsStudents enrolled In the course MATH 1012: Foundations of Mathematics participated In this study. The course emphasizes the "...application of basic mathematical skills used In the solution of occupational and technical prob- lems. Topics Include fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios and proportions, measurement and conversion, formula manipulation, technical applications, and basic statistics."There are five math prerequisites with the last one prior to this course being elementary algebra. A third of participants In the study were male and two-thirds were female (figure 1 ). A majority of the participants were enrolled In health-related majors (figure 2). Although most majors were popu- lated with female students, there were certain male-dominated majors such as firefighting, welding and automotive related areas as depicted In table 1.1.2 BackgroundAlthough no short catch phrase can adequately char- acterize the scope of the human factors field, such expression as designing for human use and optimizing working and living condi- tions would give partial Impression of what human factors Is about (Sanders & McCormick, 1993). In this study, the effects of learning styles, computer Informa- tion systems competency, on-screen reading ability, and keyboarding proficiency are partly Influenced by the design of the medium used. The medium here Includes the on-line devices and face-to-face devices or tools that make learning acces- sible. Although the words 'human factors'or'engineer- ing design'will not be used throughout the paper, It should be noted that they do have a significant contribution towards Improv- ing learning.The Georgia Virtual Technical College (GVTC) has Identified three categories of Internet use In connection with classes: online, hybrid, and Web-enhanced (GVTC, 2002). The online category courses are delivered entirely over the In- ternet while the hybrid and web-enhanced categories use predominantly the traditional face-to-face format for Instruction. While hybrid courses use a face-to-face format with some class sessions conducted online, the web- enhanced courses on the other hand are face-to-face for every contact hour but use online resources to enhance learning.There are two schools of thought on how students learn over the Inter- net. One maintains that no difference exists In student learning whether set In an online-type class or a face-to-face type class, while the other suggests student learning In online classes differs from that of face-to-face. Regardless of the approach taken, the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommuni- cations (WCET) found most studies to date reflected no significant difference In constructs being analyzed between face-to-face and online classes (2006). …


In this paper we present a partial dependency parser for Irish, in which Constraint Grammar (CG) rules are used to annotate dependency relations and grammatical functions in unrestricted Irish text. Chunking is performed using a regular-expression grammar which operates on the dependency tagged sentences. As this is the first implementation of a parser for unrestricted Irish text (to our knowledge), there were no guidelines or precedents available. Therefore deciding what constitutes a syntactic unit, and how it should be annotated, accounts for a major part of the early development effort. Currently, all tokens in a sentence are tagged for grammatical function and local dependency. Long-distance dependencies, prepositional attachments or coordination are not handled, resulting in a partial dependency analysis. Evaluations show that the partial dependency analysis achieves an f-score of 93.60% on development data and 94.28% on unseen test data, while the chunker achieves an f-score of 97.20% on development data and 93.50% on unseen test data.