Float system is a less-intensive and low-cost technology that enables efficient control of the nutrition of the growing plants. The findings of experiments carried out under float system in various crops with or without organic fertilization need to be reviewed. The importance of float system for growing plants without inorganic fertilization and chemical pesticide use needs also to be pointed out. Float system can enhance root development of growing plants and control the height of produced transplants. This can result in increased yields and improved transplant quality, not only in tobacco transplant production systems but also in the case of vegetable crops such as tomato or lettuce. In the case of crops like tobacco and for the success of float system alkalinity and oxygen content of the water in the nutrient solution and selection of the growing media are crucial. Regarding vegetable crops, the combination of float system and organic fertilization can enhance root development in tomato as compared to the combination and lettuce resulting in high-quality products. Several aromatic and medicinal plants, including basil and spearmint, provide high yields and good product quality in floating systems especially along with organic fertilization. Conclusively, float system is a major method for producing high quality products or transplants. Further investigation is needed regarding the combined effects of organic fertilization and float system on more crops and under different climatic conditions.


We report a new time series of stable isotopic values for the past 12 ka measured in two species of shallow-water marine bivalves collected from raised marine deposits along the coast of Arctic Canada. Each sample ( n = 60) had been radiocarbon dated previously. The results indicate that between 11.8 and 10 ka the δ 18 O of the shells ranged between 0.25???? and -6????, but values increased after 9 ka as the flux of meltwater to the Arctic Ocean decreased and as the Canadian Arctic channels opened to allow the present surface circulation to become established. Prior to about 9 ka, glacial meltwaters from the northern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet must have been entrained in the surface waters of the Arctic Ocean and directed southward to the North Atlantic through Fram Strait. This source of meltwater must be included in late Quaternary models of forcing of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Glacial isostatic uplift of the sills within the Canadian Arctic channels implies that outflow through Fram Strait increased during the Holocene.


WW scattering is dominated at high energies by their longitudinal components, which are the most sensitive to the nature of the electroweak symmetry breaking. Prior to the discovery at the LHC of a Higgs-like particle, unitarization tools were extensively used to show that, in the absence of a light Higgs boson, new resonances resulting from the would-be strongly-interacting electroweak sector would appear, and furthermore these techniques would approximately predict their masses, widths, and signal strengths. With the discovery of a Higgs-like particle now firmly established, we re-investigate these techniques assuming this particle couples exactly as in the SM, but still being open to the possibility of an extended symmetry breaking sector. While the SM itself is free from problems with perturbative unitarity in the electroweak sector, "anomalous" self-couplings of the vector bosons -- low-energy remnants of such higher-energy symmetry breaking sectors -- are easily shown to re-introduce them. We demonstrate how new resonances should still appear in the scattering of EW vector bosons after imposing constraints from unitarity, and we discuss their ability to be probed with current and future LHC data.


Author(s): Sikka, Karan | Advisor(s): Ngyuen, Truong | Abstract: Enabling machines to understand non-verbal facial behavior from visual data is crucial for building smart interactive systems. This thesis focusses on human behavior analysis in videos. Previous state-of-the-art methods generally employed global temporal pooling approaches that, (i) assume presence of a single uniform event spanning the sequence, and (ii) discard temporal ordering by squashing all information along the temporal dimension. In this dissertation we focus on two specific modeling challenges unaddressed by previous approaches. First issue is training with weak labels that only provide video-level annotations and are much cheaper to obtain than fine (frame-level) annotations. The second concerns modeling temporal dynamics during prediction, as facial expressions are dynamic actions with sub-events. We propose to tackle these issues by proposing methods based on Weakly Supervised Latent Variable Models (WSLVM) and evaluate them on real-world spontaneous expressions. We begin with addressing these challenges by combining Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) framework and Multiple Segment representation (MS-MIL). MS-MIL can simultaneously classify and localize target behavior in videos despite training with weak annotations. However, this method lacks the capability to explicitly model multiple latent concepts or global temporal order. We address this issue in the next chapter by explicitly modeling temporal orderings by learning an exemplar Hidden Markov Model for each sequence. This algorithm models dependencies between segments but is limited in its modeling capacity due to the use of generative modeling. Chapter~4 extends MIL to learn multiple discriminative concepts in a novel formulation for joint clustering and classification. This algorithm shows consistent performance improvement but does not capture temporal structure. We finally present a unified learning framework that combines the strengths of the previously proposed algorithms in that it (i) addresses weakly labeled data (ii) learns multiple discriminative concepts, and (iii) models the temporal ordering structure of the concepts. This method is a novel WSLVM that models a video as a sequence of automatically mined, multiple discriminative sub-events with a loose temporal structure. We show both qualitative and quantitative results highlighting improvements over state-of-the-art algorithms by jointly addressing weak labels and temporal dynamics.


The actions of endothelin on the contractile and twitch configuration characteristics of rat and rabbit papillary muscles were evaluated before and after endocardial endothelium removal. In rabbit papillary muscles, endothelin produced a dose-dependent (10(-11) to 10(-7) M) increase in tension (T) (from 2.7 +/- 0.2 to 8.9 +/- 0.7 g/mm2, p less than 0.01), dT/dt, and Vmax (from 1.14 +/- 0.03 to 3.0 +/- 0.13 Lmax/sec, p less than 0.01), a decrease in time to peak tension (from 251 +/- 9 to 216 +/- 7 msec, p less than 0.05), and an increase in time to half relaxation (from 168 +/- 9 to 293 +/- 14 msec, p less than 0.01). Increasing calcium concentration in the bath from 1.25 to 15 mM greatly attenuated these changes. In the presence of propranolol (10(-5) M), endothelin increased all indexes of contractility but to a lesser extent (T = 2.6 +/- 0.3 to 6.5 +/- 0.2 g/mm2, p less than 0.01; Vmax = 1.16 +/- 0.10 to 2.06 +/- 0.10 Lmax/sec, p less than 0.01). Myocardial catecholamine depletion with reserpine had effects similar to those of propranolol. The myocardial contractile and twitch configuration characteristics of endothelin were similar to those of phenylephrine (10(-4) M), a strong stimulator of the phosphatidylinositol pathway and a moderate beta-adrenergic stimulator. The effects of phenylephrine and endothelin were modified in a similar manner by propranolol (10(-5) M). The presence of nicardipine (3 X 10(-7) M) decreased the absolute increase in contractility caused by endothelin but did not alter the percent change or shift the dose-response curve of endothelin. The actions of endothelin in rat papillary muscles studied at physiological calcium concentrations (Ca2+ = 1.25 mM) were less marked than those of rabbit studied at physiological calcium (Ca2+ = 1.25 mM) but similar to those of rabbit studied at high calcium concentrations (Ca2+ = 15 mM). Removing the endocardial endothelial layer of rabbit papillary muscles did not alter the absolute changes in contractility caused by endothelin but shifted the dose-response curve to the left and markedly altered the effects of endothelin on twitch configuration characteristics. Thus, it would appear that endothelin increases contractility and modifies twitch configuration. It does so more at lower rather than higher extracellular calcium concentrations and in a species, such as rabbit, that responds more to interventions that increase intracellular calcium.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


In this paper, an ultra wideband (UWB) receiver is proposed based on optimally combining of multiple minimum mean square error (MMSE) detector outputs. These outputs are obtained by applying shifted observation windows. On one hand, each MMSE detector uses smaller number of taps and can be trained separately. This makes the combined structure suitable for adaptive filter bank implementation and for parallel processing. On the other hand, the system performance is effectively improved by diversity combining. The analysis and simulation results show that the combined MMSE receiver is capable of very high data rate transmission based on IEEE 802.15.3a channel model recommendation (J. Foerster)


: Analysis of morbidity with temporary disability (MTD) was performed among 833 reindeer-breeders in the Koryak region in Kamchatka, basing on the sick-leave certificate data for 1987-1989. Provided is an assessment of the climate factors peculiar of Kamchatka and influencing MTD among reindeer-breeders.


The original and improved versions of the Hardy Cross iterative method with related modifications are today widely used for the calculation of fluid flow through conduits in loop-like distribution networks of pipes with known node fluid consumptions. Fluid in these networks is usually natural gas for distribution in municipalities, water in waterworks or hot water in district heating systems, air in ventilation systems in buildings and mines, etc. Since the resistances in these networks depend on flow, the problem is not linear like in electrical circuits, and an iterative procedure must be used. In both versions of the Hardy Cross method, in the original and in the improved one, the initial result of calculations in the iteration procedure is not flow, but rather a correction of flow. Unfortunately, these corrections should be added to or subtracted from flow calculated in the previous iteration according to complicated algebraic rules. Unlike the Hardy Cross method, which requires complicated formulas for flow corrections, the new Node-loop method does not need these corrections, as flow is computed directly. This is the main advantage of the new Node-loop method, as the number of iterations is the same as in the modified Hardy Cross method. Consequently, a complex algebraic scheme for the sign of the flow correction is avoided, while the final results remain accurate.


The possibility of using a monocot (maize) derived ubiquitin (Ubi) promoter to express a fully modified insecticidal cry gene of Bacillus thuringiensis in dicot plant, tobacco was studied. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv. xanthi) plants were transformed with Bt gene Cry-1Ac driven by Ubi promoter. Transgenic plants were confirmed for transformation, gene expression and insecticidal activity through PCR, GUS assays, Southern blot, Western blot analyses and insect bioassays. Bioassays with cry-1Ac transformed T and T transgenic plants showed high level of toxicity o 1 towards American bollworm (Heliothis armigera) giving 100% mortality of the larvae. This paper reported that monocot derived Ubi promoter expresses a Bt gene in a dicot plant in an effective manner to render the transformed plants highly resistant against Heliothis armigera.


Among the icy satellites in the outer solar system, several objects have been identified that may contain substantial amounts of liquid water in their interiors. In particular the large satellites, e.g., Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and Titan may contain subsurface oceans until the present day. However, the example of Enceladus shows that also smaller satellites can have sufficient internal heat sources to maintain liquid water layers. Also Pluto and Triton are potential ocean candidates. The available heat sources differ considerably among the icy moons depending on their initial composition, and thus the amount of radiogenic heating, the tidal interaction with the primary planet, their rheological states and -in some cases- their interaction with other satellites due to orbital resonances. In this talk the current knowledge on the ice-ocean systems in the outer solar system will be summarized. Prospects for their investigation with future planetary missions will be discussed.


The technique is based on the assumption that a selected physical property of a 3D object can be represented by a series of thin 2D-sheets. The authors have applied this approach for imaging of radioactive objects, with, and "without" disturbing effects from photon scattering and attenuation. Experimental SPECT-images, built-up, essentially by primary photons, have been obtained by stacking sheets of radioactivity distributions into 3D structures with air or low density material (/spl mu/=0.0068 cm/sup -1/ for 140 keV photons) in between. Digitized sections of the 3D Hoffman rCBF-, the Jaszczak hot-rod and a cylindrical phantom were printed out on 0.1 mm thick paper sheets using radioactive ink. These sheets were stacked in air, low-density material or between polystyrene plates to form sampled 3D versions of each phantom. SPECT was performed with the sheets perpendicular to the central axis of the camera. The scatter contribution was negligible when the sheets were stacked in air or in low-density material. The attenuation losses with low-density material stacking were about 14%. The technique is extremely flexible and allows accurate experimental validation of scatter and attenuation correction methods in objects with arbitrary activity distributions. It may also be applied for absolute calibration of SPECT (and possibly PET) data.


Four experiments examined the role of verbal processing at different stages of face recognition memory. In Experiment 1 participants learned faces with or without articulatory suppression, then engaged in an old/new recognition task. Using the same procedure, Experiment 2 examined performance under single and dual encoding conditions, using articulatory suppression and face verbalisation. In Experiment 3 performance deriving from these conditions was compared with a tapping control. The results were consistent; articulatory suppression impaired performance in comparison to the other conditions, which themselves did not differ. Experiment 4 examined the effects of postencoding verbalisation on performance, and showed some evidence for a standard verbal overshadowing effect. These results suggest that the role of verbal processing in face memory is complex, depending on the time when such processes occur. The results are discussed with reference to theories of verbal overshadowing.


Early forays into identifying virulence genes used the basic tools of bacterial genetics: mutation and complementation. The fundamental biology of some host-pathogen interactions can limit the ability to apply signature-tagged mutagenesis (STM) and related approaches. One of the most versatile tools to probe host-pathogen interactions is the green fluorescent protein (GFP). Differential fluorescence induction (DFI)-based screens have yielded a high proportion of virulence genes relative to housekeeping genes. Part of this success results not from any particular advantage of the DFI technique per se but from a principle that is important when designing any screen based on analysis of differential expression, be it DNA microarrays or in vivo expression technology (IVET). Caenorhabditis elegans is one of the prevalent model systems used to study the development of multicellular organisms. The availability of whole genomic sequences presents another method of virulence gene discovery: bioinformatics. This chapter outlines a variety of approaches used to identify candidate virulence genes. The genome sequence of every major pathogen (and most minor ones) is or will soon be available. These genomic sequences, augmented by the gene discovery methods described in the chapter, should permit the discovery of novel virulence genes at an unprecedented pace.


Service Oriented Architecture, which builds on distributed computing platforms, is increasingly being adopted by organizations in both public and private sectors. Migration from traditional monolithic systems to services, in particular web services, characterizes much of systems evolution today. This paper analyzes some of the performance and modularization problems involved in current service-oriented computing. It investigates under which circumstances the communication between service providers and service consumers can be made more efficient by eliminating certain steps from traditional Remote Procedure Call (RPC) methods. After discussing traditional service invocation and its drawbacks, this paper proposes an alternative approach called Distributed Service Delegates (DSD). DSD is based on emphasizing client-side or local computations. An experiment is designed and implemented to measure the trade offs between traditional methods, in this case Web services, and the proposed DSD. The results of this experiment are discussed and its implications for future research are indicated.


Genome sequencing of the genus Fusarium has revealed a great capacity for discovery of new natural products of potential economical and therapeutic importance. Several of these are unknown. In this study, we investigated the product of the PKS8 gene in Fusarium graminearum, which was recently linked to gibepyrones in F. fujikuroi. Genomic analyses showed that PKS8 constitutes a stand-alone gene in F. graminearum and related species. Overexpression of PKS8 resulted in production of gibepyrones A, B, D, G and prolipyrone B, which could not be detected in the wild type strain. Our results suggest that PKS8 produces the entry compound gibepyrone A, which is subsequently oxidized by one or several non-clustering cytochrome P450 monooxygenases ending with prolipyrone B.


Organic/inorganic hybrid materials synthesized from acrylic resin and silane-terminated colloidal silica(CS). The silane-terminated CS was prepared in variation with the kind of silane to CS. The CS treated with methyltrimethoxysilane(MTMS) and then treated with vinyl trimethoxysilane(VTMS), 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane(ATMS) or 3-methacyloxypropyl trimethoxysialne(ETMS) by sol-gel method, respectively. The variation of silane-terminated CS and acrylic resin were hybridized by thermal-polymerization. Thin films of organic/inorganic hybrid materials were prepared using spin coater on the glass and aluminum sheets. Their contact angle, surface electric resistivity and thermal resistance improved with the amount of silaneterminated CS. The contact angle and surface electric resistivity of hybrid thin film with VTMS were enhanced. The surface of hybrid thin film with VTMS was homogeneous through FE-SEM.


Tissue typing applied to the Russian population was used to study distribution of HLA antigens, classes I and II, in patients with essential hypertension (EH), coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCMP), dilated cardiomyopathy (DCMP) and virus myocarditis (VM). As control use was made of the data on HLA antigen distribution in 267 healthy persons (donors) of the Russian nationality. The genetic markers of the predisposition to the indicated diseases were revealed: in EH, DR 1 (RR-3.56), DR 4 (RR-2.17); in CHD, B 12 (RR-2.91), DR 1 (RR-3.41), DR 4 (RR-3.14); in HCMP, DR 1 (RR-2.25), DR 4 (RR-3.29); in DCMP, DR 4 (RR-3.90); in VM, DR 3 (RR-5.26), DR 4 (RR-3.51). DR 4 turned out to be the common marker of the predisposition to cardiac diseases. Besides, DR 1 was discovered to be the marker of the predisposition to EH and DR 3 to VM. The data obtained may be of importance for the clinical practice in forming risk groups.


The landscape of AI safety is frequently explored differently by contrasting specialised AI versus general AI (or AGI), by analysing the short-term hazards of systems with limited capabilities against those more long-term risks posed by 'superintelligence', and by conceptualising sophisticated ways of bounding control an AI system has over its environment and itself (impact, harm to humans, self-harm, containment, etc.). In this position paper we reconsider these three aspects of AI safety as quantitative factors –generality, capability and control–, suggesting that by defining metrics for these dimensions, AI risks can be characterised and analysed more precisely. As an example, we illustrate how to define these metrics and their values for some simple agents in a toy scenario within a reinforcement learning setting.


Conducting polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber mats were prepared by dipping non-woven nanofiber mats of PAN in the solution of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT/PSS). PAN nanofiber mats were fabricated via the electrospinning process. The solvent used for PEDOT/PSS was ethylene glycol and isopropanol. The morphology of the resulting PAN nanofibers and the coating layers was investigated using SEM analysis. The electrical conductivity of PEDOT/PSS coated PAN nanofiber mats was measured by the four-point probe method, for different concentrations of solvent in the PEDOT/PSS solution. An addition of ethylene glycol resulted in higher electrical conductivity of the coated mats than that of isopropanol. The resistive humidity sensing properties were also investigated. The device reproducibility was presented by vapor adsorption/desorption dynamic cycles. The reproducibility of the PEDOT/PSS coated mats was superior to that of neat PEDOT/PSS films. The response sensitivity of coated mats using isopropanol as solvent was higher than that using ethylene glycol.


Recently, in Washington D.C., National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) officials decided pursuing a mission to study Jupiter and its moons, and another to visit the largest moons of Saturn. These initiatives represent important actions that set the future of the planetary science and could answer questions concerning how our Solar System formed and whether habitable conditions exist elsewhere in it. Those missions need a robust, efficient and flexible communication infrastructure. This opens the doors to new communications and networking challenges, which are the ones of the so called InterPlaNetary (IPN) Internet and they are the objects of the survey presented in this work.


A family with a pronounced history of venous thrombotic disease is described. Several members were found to have reduced antithrombin III levels. Heparin cofactor activity was reduced in the antithrombin III-deficient plasma. The proposita, who presented with bilateral iliofemoral vein thrombosis early in pregnancy, was treated initially with heparin, and after the 12th week of pregnancy was maintained on oral anticoagulants until she was 38 weeks pregnant. Heparin was then given and continued throughout the delivery period and for 10 days postpartum with no evidence of recurrent thrombosis. The effect of infusing 5 units of fresh frozen plasma on the antithrombin III level and the response to heparin were minimal and short-lived. Oral anticoagulatns produced a rise in the antithrombin III level. These results demonstrate the importance of maintaining antithrombin III-deficient subjects on long-term oral anticoagulant therapy.


Growth curve models (GCMs), with their ability to directly investigate within-subject change over time and between-subject differences in change for longitudinal data, are widely used in social and behavioral sciences. While GCMs are typically studied with the normal distribution assumption, empirical data often violate the normality assumption in applications. Failure to account for the deviation from normality in data distribution may lead to unreliable model estimation and misleading statistical inferences. A robust GCM based on conditional medians was recently proposed and outperformed traditional growth curve modeling when outliers are present resulting in nonnormality. However, this robust approach was shown to perform less satisfactorily when leverage observations existed. In this work, we propose a robust double medians growth curve modeling approach (DOME GCM) to thoroughly disentangle the influence of data contamination on model estimation and inferences, where two conditional medians are employed for the distributions of the within-subject measurement errors and of random effects, respectively. Model estimation and inferences are conducted in the Bayesian framework, and Laplace distributions are used to convert the optimization problem of median estimation into a problem of obtaining the maximum likelihood estimator for a transformed model. A Monte Carlo simulation study has been conducted to evaluate the numerical performance of the proposed approach, and showed that the proposed approach yields more accurate and efficient parameter estimates when data contain outliers or leverage observations. The application of the developed robust approach is illustrated using a real dataset from the Virginia Cognitive Aging Project to study the change of memory ability.


A recently proposed complex valued division algorithm designed for efficient hardware implementations requires a prescaling step by a constant factor. Techniques for obtaining this prescaling factor have been mentioned by the authors, which serves to justify the feasibility of the algorithm but is inadequate for obtaining efficient implementations. Table based solutions are formulated in this paper for obtaining the prescaling factor, a low precision reciprocal approximation for a complex value, using techniques adopted from univariate function approximations. Two separate designs are proposed, one using a single table (a reference design) and another using generalized multipartite tables. The main contribution of this work is the extension of generalized multipartite table methods to a function of two variables. The multipartite tables derived were up to 67% more memory efficient than their single table counterparts.


AIM
To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of supportive periodontal care (SPC) provided in generalist and periodontal specialist practices under publicly subsidized or private dental care.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
SPC cost data and the costs of replacing teeth were synthesized with estimates of the effectiveness of SPC in preventing attachment and tooth loss and adjusted for differences in clinician's time. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were calculated for both outcomes assuming a time horizon of 30 years.

RESULTS
SPC in specialist periodontal practice provides improved outcomes but at higher costs than SPC provided by publicly subsidized or private systems. SPC in specialist periodontal practice is usually more cost-effective than in private dental practice. For private dental practices in Spain, United Kingdom and Australia, specialist SPC is cost-effective at modest values of attachment loss averted. Variation in the threshold arises primarily from clinician's time.

CONCLUSION
SPC in specialist periodontal practice represents good value for money for patients (publicly subsidized or private) in the United Kingdom and Australia and in Spain if they place relatively modest values on avoiding attachment loss. For patients in Ireland, Germany, Japan and the United State, a higher valuation on avoiding attachment loss is needed to justify SPC in private or specialist practices.


This paper explores the phenomenological lived experience of what it is like to participate in a polyamorous relationship. The question proposed is how do polyamorous individuals use communication to negotiate rules and boundaries as well as manage and prevent feeling of jealousy and betrayal? The objective is to assist polyamorous individuals, and the clinicians working alongside them, specifically in negotiating their relationship through communication. The design in a semi-structured interview of 12 individuals residing in Vancouver, Canada, and surrounding areas. Major themes that emerged were the process of working through jealousy, the dual nature of rules, as well as suggestions for clinicians in helpful ways to work with the population. It appears that polyamory has led to an increase in relationship and overall satisfaction for these participants. They attribute this to their ability to learn and improve their ability to communicate their own feelings, needs and desires to their partner. This helped them maneuver and work though challenging experiences of opening up and feelings of jealousy and betrayal. COMMUNICATION IN POLYAMOROUS RELATIONSHIPS 5


Purpose Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a mental health disorder commonly in children. This study aimed to examine the prevalence of ADHD and risk factors among first-year pupils in Vietnam's urban city. Patients and Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in four randomly selected primary schools. Information on 525 pupils in grade 1 (ages 6 to 7 years) was collected from 525 parents/caregivers and 28 teachers. We used the Vanderbilt Assessment Scales with two separate versions for parents and teachers to screen children with ADHD symptoms. Results Among the total of 525 pupils, 24 (4.6%) were found to have ADHD symptom types (boy: 6.5%; girl: 2.1%). The combined ADHD type accounted for the highest proportion of 3.4%, followed by predominantly inattentive and predominantly hyperactivity type. ADHD prevalence rated by teachers was higher than those rated by parents. High agreement between parents and teachers was reported (κ > 0.6). The risk of ADHD increased in male participants (aOR=4.90, 95% CI 1.51–15.85), those having a first-degree relative with ADHD (aOR=85.2, 95% CI 1.66–4371.8), in-utero exposure to tobacco smoke (aOR=4.78, 95% CI 1.31–17.44), and prenatal alcohol drinking (aOR=8.87, 95% CI 2.29–34.42). Conclusion These findings suggest the importance of ADHD screening for pupils attending elementary schools, particularly those with a family history of ADHD. Public health programs should reduce prenatal exposure to the potential risk factors of ADHD (smoking and alcohol consumption).


This thesis describes research on gene expression profiles from different embryonic stages and cell types to identify genes involved in pluripotency or differentiation in bovine and porcine cells. The results are compared with data from other mammals. RNA expression profiles of morula and blastocyst stage embryos were compared which resulted in a list of more than 3000 genes differentially expressed between these two embryonic stages. Since the blastocyst is composed of the pluripotent ICM and the extraembryonic trophectoderm (TE), transcriptomes of these cell types were compared. Indeed, the expression levels of core pluripotency genes (NANOG, SOX2 and POU5F1) were higher in the ICM than in the TE and a number of other transcription factors were found to be expressed at higher levels in the ICM. To increase expression levels of NANOG in the ICM, MAPK expression was inhibited during embryo culture and the expression profile compared with control ICM not exposed to MAPK inhibition. The results of these experiments identified the bovine ICM as pluripotent and this pluripotency cannot be maintained by MAPK-inhibition alone. Culture media reported to keep human pluripotent cells in a naive state or rewind primed human ES cells towards the naive state, could also be used to maintain naive pluripotency in mouse ES cells. This suggests that the state of the embryo is less relevant and the medium is suitable to maintain pluripotency in embryonic cells from multiple species. Therefore, bovine embryos were cultured in three of these media from the morula stage to the blastocyst stage and expression profiles compared to farther identify genes involved in bovine pluripotency. X-chromosome inactivation, initiated by the long non coding RNA XIST, is an indication for the primed state opposed to the active state of both X chromosomes in female embryonic stem cell lines. In the "naive" media, XIST expression levels were reduced. Expression levels of genes involved in early differentiation were also found to be reduced but also expression levels of genes indicative of a naive state were reduced. The culture of dissected ICM or whole blastocysts from bovine or porcine embryos in these media did however not result in the generation of true ES cell lines, indicating that self-renewal was not initiated. Other strategies such as Wnt inhibition remained unsuccessful as well. The protein Dickkopf 3 (DKK3) has been reported to increase MYF5 expression in zebra fish myogenic stem cells. MYF5 is involved in myogenesis leading to the formation of myofibres and muscle. We cultured porcine muscle satellite cells in the presence of several concentrations of the DKK3 protein. A small expression level increase of skeletal muscle differentiation markers was observed and also the expression levels of genes involved in the myoblast fusion process were elevated. During 5 days of culture in the presence of DKK3 fibre formation improved and myotube diameter increased as compared with cultures without DKK3.


Multi-actor governance is considered necessary when the complexity of an issue transcends the knowledge base, decisional power and resources of a single actor. The challenges related to the massive degradation of the natural environment stimulate the recent interest in this approach. One main goal of the collective decision processes in multi-actor governance is the development of common aims that are aligned to local conditions, and that integrate scientific facts and expert opinions with local knowledge. Deciding collectively, as proposed by multi-actor governance, has profound implications for how ambiguous issues are handled, because different actors hold different frames of what is at stake. In this paper we argue for accepting and dealing adequately with ambiguity, instead of trying to eliminate it, as it is an expression of complexity itself. When we conceive knowledge as resulting from embodied interaction processes in and between communities, then ambiguity is the result of different ways of being in and dealing with the world. Such a relational view directs the attention to boundary crossing practices between different communities that are able to connect and mutually enrich scientific and other ways of knowing. This results in "generative" propositions that open up new interaction possibilities between scientists and other actors to co-create knowledge for sustainability.


The typical New Zealand dwelling, which is built in timber and often lightly anchored to site, arguably appears impermanent. This research reviews the idea and relevance of permanence in architecture. It considers symbolic persistence, the durability of architecture on thought and memory, permanence of function and space, architecture as event, reification and sustainability as they relate to permanence.  Permanence is related to durability and durability is explored in terms of resistance to decay, and also its value to the user. It looks in particular at mass, materials and detail; and additionally at the requirement for flexibility in design to achieve durability of use.  Case studies of buildings displaying differing aspirations to permanence are reviewed in terms of durability and analysed using the three components of durability - mass, material and detail. This thesis tests permanence through the design of a dwelling to last and be relevant for 400 years. It finds constructing dwellings for relative permanence as a relevant, sustainable and entirely possible option.


Background: Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is an organochlorine pesticide still used in areas of the world where malaria vector control is needed. Few studies have examined in utero exposures to DDT in relation to fetal and early childhood growth in populations with substantial exposure to DDT. Furthermore, only a portion of these studies have investigated in utero exposures and growth during childhood. Methods: To assess the role of in utero exposures to DDT on fetal and early childhood growth, we analyzed data from mothers and children who participated in the Child Health and Development Study (CHDS), a cohort study of 20,754 women and their pregnancies conducted in the San Francisco Bay area during the 1960s. We measured p,p′-DDE, o,p′-DDT, and p,p′-DDT concentrations from the stored sera of 399 women collected during pregnancy. Outcomes were measured at the child's birth and at 5 years of age. Results: Maternal p,p′-DDE concentrations were considerable in this study, averaging 6.9 micrograms per gram lipid. After covariate adjustment, a small increase in gestational age was observed with increases in p,p′-DDT and o,p′-DDT, but there was no association with p,p′-DDE. At 5 years of age, an increase from the 25th to the 75th percentile in p,p′-DDE was related to a 2-mm increase in head circumference (95% confidence interval = 0 to 4). Overall effect sizes were small and imprecise. Furthermore, there was little evidence of specificity for a given outcome or exposure at either age. Conclusions: At the concentrations studied in this sample, DDT compounds did not appear to impair fetal or 5-year growth.


The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it has simultaneously filed suit against Negotiated Data Solutions LLC (N-Data) and settled the case by entering into a consent order with N-Data. The FTC charged N-Data with violating section 5 of the FTC Act by violating a commitment to the IEEE to license NWay Ethernet patents on royalty terms agreed upon with the IEEE, which caused higher prices due to higher royalties to be passed on to consumers of electronic products. Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits unfair methods of competition and unfair commercial acts and practices.


1. The influence of ethanol administration on the metabolism of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and on the utilization of blood-borne substrates and stored glycogen by leg muscles was examined in nine young healthy subjects at rest and during 40 min bicycle ergometer exercise at 50% of maximal capacity. Ethanol was administered by a constant-rate intravenous infusion (6 mmol/min), giving an arterial concentration within the range of 9·3–15·6 mmol/l. Turnover of NEFA and regional exchange were evaluated with [ 14 C]oleic acid, and muscle metabolites were analysed from needle biopsy samples. 2. Leg blood flow was not altered by ethanol. Alanine in arterial blood was reduced by approximately 25% after ethanol administration during exercise. A slight decrease in the concentration of NEFA in arterial plasma was observed after ethanol, associated with an increase in the fractional turnover of oleic acid, indicating an increased removal of NEFA from the plasma. The rate of uptake of NEFA in the leg was only slightly decreased. 3. The total glycogen depletion in leg muscle during exercise was not influenced by ethanol. The pattern of glycogen utilization in different muscle fibres was changed by ethanol and found to be dependent on the fibre composition of the respective subject. In the control experiments, but not after ethanol administration, a negative correlation was observed between glycogen utilization during exercise and the fraction of type I fibres. 4. It is concluded that ethanol administration during exercise (a) decreases leg uptake of NEFA due to a lower concentration of NEFA in plasma, although this lower uptake is compensated by an increased fractional oxidation, (b) does not influence total glycogen depletion in leg muscle, (c) changes the pattern of glycogen utilization in different muscle fibres, (d) influences only to a small extent the energy supply to working muscles, the most predominant isolated effect being on inhibition of the lactate release.


The study of the behaviour and ecology of marsupials has been a
neglected area of research for a long time and few quantitative studies
of this subject have been undertaken to date. However, recently (particularly
during the past twenty years), there has been a recrudescence
of interest in these spheres of investigation as the ensuing review of
the relevant literature shall demonstrate, although the amount of this
research-effort is still meagre in comparison with the volume of information
published about many species of eutherian mammals.
This neglect of research on marsupials is both surprising and unfortunate,
as marsupials are widely distributed, occupy all of the major
habitats occurring in Australia and have adapted diverse modes of life
almost, if not precisely comparable in variety to that of analogous
eutherian mammals occupying comparable ecological niches. Earlier
studies on marsupials were of a comparative nature often specifically
dealing with differences between metatherian and eutherian mammals.
In addition, these investigations mainly concentrated on only a few
species, particularly the larger members of the family Macropodidae
(the kangaroos and wallabies) and the Virginia opossum, Didelphis
marsupialis. Research-activities were further limited by the fact that
these studies were largely centred on reproduction, a process of considerable
importance in view of its uniqueness in marsupials.
It is the above factors and the fact that the majority of other
marsupials are nocturnal, timid and cryptic, (rendering investigations
difficult, particularly in the field) that have resulted in the paucity
of behavioural and ecological information available on the numerous
diverse groups of the sub-class Metatheria.
As previously mentioned, D. marsupialis has received considerable
attention, being the only specie of marsupial endemic to North America.
Investigations have covered behavioural characteristics and seasonal changes in behaviour (McManus 1970, 1971), the daily activity cycle
(Bombardieri and Johnson 1969) and population density and movement
patterns (Holmes and Sanderson 1965; Shirer and Fitch 1970).
Studies on the family Macropodidae have included observations on
daily activities and social behaviour of Macropus rufus (Frith 1964;
Russell 1970a; Croft 1981a), agonistic encounters and social behaviour
in M. giganteus (Grant 1973; Kaufmann 1975) and locomotion in several
species of the larger macropods (Windsor and Dagg 1971; Alexander and
Vernon 1975). Locomotion has also been observed in the genus Potorous
by Buchmann and Guiler (1974). Russell and Pearce (1971) studied the
investigation of novel objects by selected species of four marsupial
families, of which two species belonged to the family Macropodidae and
2
one to the family Peramelidae. Observations have been made in captivity
on the quokka (Setonix brachyurus), the pademelon (Thylogale billardierii)
and the burrowing bettong (Bettongia lesueuri) by Packer (1969),
Morton and Burton (1973) and Stodart (1966), respectively and Kitchener
(1973) has investigated the home ranges and movements of S. brachyurus
and P. apicalis.
By comparison, all of the other families of marsupials have received
scant attention. Studies on the family Dasyuridae have been mainly
concerned with prey-killing and feeding behaviour in Dasycercus cristicauda
(Ewer 1969) and in Sarcophilus harrisii (Buchmann and Guiler 1977).
Hutson (1975) investigated sequences of prey-catching in Dasyuroides
byrnei and in 1976 he also presented an account of maintenance activities
in the same species, as did Moss (unpubl.) in a study of Dasyurus viverrinus.
The ecology of S. harrisii was described by Green (1967) and
its home range and movements by Guiler (1970a). The smaller representatives
of the family have received some attention in that investigations
of certain aspects of the behaviour and ecology of Antechinus
stuartii, A. minimus and A. swainsonii have been conducted by Marlow (1961), Braithwaite (1974, 1979), Hocking (unpubl.) and Haynes (in
press). Hall (1980) studied the diets of two sympatric species of
Antechinus.
Finally, the family Peramelidae (bandicoots), forming the subject
of the present investigation, has received a small amount of attention
with respect to their behaviour and ecology. Lyne (1964a) and Stodart
(1966a) studied the breeding of Perameles nasuta in captivity. Heinsohn
(1966) and Braithwaite and Gullan (1978) investigated the ecology
of P. gunnii and Isoodon obesulus. Reproduction was also studied in
I. macrourus (Mackerras and Smith 1960; Lyne 1974) and observations on
the behaviour of the same species were undertaken by Day, Kirkby and
Stenhouse (1974) using an open field arena. Activity-patterns and
social behaviour were analysed in I. obesulus (Watts 1974, O'Callaghan,
unpubl.) as were ranging movements in I. macrourus (Gordon 1974).
Discrimination-reversal learning in I. obesulus was investigated by
Buchmann and Grecian (1974) and studies of other behavioural and ecological
aspects undertaken included burrowing in I. obesulus (Kirsch
1968), feeding and foraging in I. macrourus (Anon. 1970), the status of
P. gunnii in Victoria (Seebeck 1979) and grooming in I. macrourus
(Clarke and Clarke 1969). Lyne (1951, 1952) described the external
characters (particularly of pouch young) of P. gunnii and four other
species of bandicoots and Stoddart and Braithwaite (1979) made a study
of the utilization of regenerating heathland habitats by I. obesulus.
In view of the relative lack of detailed information on members
of the family Peramelidae the present investigation was undertaken to
examine two distinctive but comparable species of the family. Heinsohn
(1966) described the same two species, Isoodon obesulus and Perameles
gunnii as being sympatric. Consequently this study is an attempt to
provide quantitative data on four specific aspects of their behaviour
and ecology, in order to acquire a general appreciation of the relationship of the two species to their environment and to each other. The
aspects investigated were maintenance activities (Chapter 3), feeding
behaviour and diet (Chapter 4), home ranges and habitat utilization
(Chapter 5) and intra- and inter-specific interactions (Chapter 6) .
It was hoped and is the avowed aim of this study, that a comparison of
these aspects may assist in explaining why these two species are able
to co-exist in the same habitat while presumably utilizing somewhat
similar resources.


L-cells prelabelled with [14C]leucine and [3H]thymidine were placed in either fresh growth medium (minimal essential medium with 10% serum) or stepdown medium (minimal essential medium) for 3 days. The 14C/3H ratio remained constant in the growing cultures and decreased in the stationary-phase cultures, indicating no protein turnover in growing cultures and a degradative rate of 0.6%/h in the stationary-phase cultures. Media analysis, however, indicated that 14C-labelled proteins were being degraded at approx. 1.2%/h in growing cultures and 1.7%/h in stationary-phase cultures. Additional studies indicated that a subpopulation of L-cells in the monolayer, comprising approx. 20--30% of the total, were lost in the original processing procedure. Experiments in which recoveries approached 100% by fixation of the monolayer in situ indicated that a protein-degrading subpopulation accounted for all the observed proteolysis in the growing cultures. Proteolysis in these cultures was only partially inhibited with NH4Cl, indicating that only a small part of the protein degradation was occurring in an activated lysosomal-autophagic system. NaF produced a more effective inhibition of proteolysis, but we were not able to distinguish whether this effect was on an ATP-requiring basal-turnover mechanism or a direct effect on unregulated activity of proteinases in the cell hyaloplasm. However, NH4Cl inhibited the proteolysis induced when cells were placed in stepdown medium, suggesting that the induced proteolysis was occurring via the autophagic system. We conclude that L-cells exist in at least two states with respect to protein degradation: (a) a subpopulation that is actively replicating and does not degrade cellular proteins, and (b) a second subpopulation of cells, derived from the preceding one, which degraded most of their labelled proteins, are not capable of further replication, and are not sedimented in an iso-osmotic EDTA buffer solution. In addition, proliferating L-cells, when placed in stepdown medium, begin to degrade cell protein through a mechanism involving autophagolysosomes.


In this article, we investigate which ideational variables influence the propensity of cohabiting couples to transform their union into marriage, separation or continued cohabitation. The question is particularly relevant in the Swedish context of considerable social acceptance of unmarried cohabitation even among parents. A two-wave panel study including 705 never-married respondents cohabiting at the time of the first survey shows that ideational factors influence subsequent behaviour, even when different sets of control variables are included in the model. Familistic attitudes, work-related values and reflections about the quality of the relationship prove to be predictors of the transition to either marriage or separation even when intentions are taken into account.


The purpose of this study is to establish strategic responses employed by DT Dobie towards the challenges of liberalization. Since the liberalization of the automotive industry in Kenya, a lot has happened to the industry. There is intense competition in the distribution and marketing of motor vehicles and parts. Some concerns have been raised about the implications of the deregulation of the industry and there is need to find out the effects and how firms in the industry have responded to the challenges of liberalization. The market structure has become more competitive and there are many players, all competing for the same consumers. The study was a case study and the informants were senior staff of DT Dobie. The researcher chose DT Dobie since it has remained competitive and vibrant even after liberalization meaning that it has employed successful strategic responses to competition and other challenges brought about by liberalization. The study used primary data which was collected using interview guides and the data analyzed using content analysis. The study found out that DT Dobie and Company Ltd has responded to challenges of liberalization by turning to massive advertisement of products and services, introducing, developing and pricing their products competitively, beefing up the companies standards both managerial and physical standards, undertaking cost minimization by outsourcing noncore business, pricing the products based on foreign currency to contain foreign currency fluctuation, diversifying into sales of parts accessories to augment sales revenue and establishment of field sale. The study, however, recommends that DT Dobie should also target the lower market niche with their products and use pricing techniques that will favor the same.


This treatise provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive overview of the doctrine, policy, and theory of civil rights and constitutional litigation under § 1983 and its Bivens federal counterpart. The book is written to function as an assigned or recommended supplement to a casebook or case materials, as a statutory supplement to a casebook or case materials, and as an additional study guide for students wanting additional background, context, and synthesis in courses on Civil Rights Litigation and Federal Courts.The book covers all aspects of civil rights and constitutional litigation under Bivens and § 1983. It also includes short problems drawn from lower-court decisions for use in class discussions or student study and review. And it can function as a statutory supplement, with appendices containing the Constitution of the United States and selected federal statutes.


The purpose of the study was to determine the distribution and abundance of cetaceans in areas potentially affected by future oil and gas activities along the continental slope of the north-central and western Gulf of Mexico. This 3.75 year project commenced 1 October 1991 and finished 15 July 1995. The study area was bounded by the Florida-Alabama border, the Texas-Mexico border, and the 100 m and 2,000 m isobaths. Cetacean distribution and abundance were determined from seasonal aerial and shipboard visual surveys and shipboard acoustic surveys. In addition, hydrographic data were collected in situ and by satellite remote sensing to characterize cetacean habitat. Finally, tagging and tracking of sperm whales using satellite telemetry was attempted. This volume summarizes the results of the study. Cetaceans were observed throughout the study area during all four seasons. Nineteen species were identified, including two species (melon-headed whales and Fraser`s dolphins) previously thought to be rare in the Gulf. Pantropical spotted dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, clymene dolphins, striped dolphins, Atlantic spotted dolphins, and melon-headed whales were the most common small cetaceans and the sperm whale was the most common large cetacean. The mean annual abundance for all cetaceans was estimated to be 19,198. Although the studymore » area had complex and dynamic oceanography, bottom depth was the only environmental variable which correlated to cetacean distribution.« less


AIMS
Inadvertent puncture of the aortic root (AR) is a well-known complication of transseptal puncture (TSP). Strategies for handling of this potentially lethal complication have not been identified yet. In this study, we present typical anatomical locations and clinical management of aortic root puncture (ARP) due to TSP.

METHODS AND RESULTS
All patients with ARP were retrospectively collected from seven hospitals. Aortic root puncture was identified and classified regarding angiographical and intraoperative findings in cardiac surgery: (i) TSP from the right atrium (RA) to the non-coronary sinus (NCS), (ii) TSP from RA to the non-coronary sinutubular junction (STJ), and (iii) TSP from RA to the ascending aorta (AA). A total of 24 patients with inadvertent ARP were identified. In 19 patients, penetration of the aorta was accomplished by the inner dilator, in 5 patients by the complete sheath. Previous cardiac surgery had been performed in six patients. There were 13 RA-to-NCS punctures, 2 RA-to-STJ punctures, and 9 RA-to-AA punctures. No cardiac tamponade (CT) occurred in patients with RA-to-NCS and RA-to-STJ punctures. In 8 of 9 patients with RA-to-AA puncture, CT occurred immediately requiring urgent pericardiocentesis and surgical repair. Two patients died after surgical repair. In the 16 patients without surgical therapy, no shunt from the AR to the RA was observed 3 months after the procedure.

CONCLUSION
Aortic root puncture due to mislead TSP via NCS or STJ is usually not associated with a severe clinical course while ARP into the AA via the epicardial space generally leads to CT requiring surgical repair.


ADVANCES IN APPLIED MECHANICS. Vol. IV. Edited by H. L. Dryden and T. von Kdrmdn. Academic Books, London, 1956. 413 pp. Illustrated. $10. This is the fourth volume in a series initiated by Richard von Mises, who died in 1954. The present Editors are H. L. Dryden and Th. von Karman, while the Managing Editor is G. Kuerti and the Associate Editors are F. H. van den Dungen, L. Howarth and J. Peres. The editorial team is thus strong and international. Nine authors, of whom eight appear to be American and one Swiss, contribute articles on a greatly diversified set of topics. No review of a book such as this would be adequate without a list of the titles and authors of the contributions. These are: The Turbulent Boundary Layer, F. H. Clauser; Non-Linear Elasticity, T. C. Doyle and J. L. Ericksen; Physical and Statistical Aspects of Fatigue, A. M. Freudenthal and E. J. Gumbel; ThreeDimensional Boundary Layer Theory, F. K. Moore; Dislocation Theory of Plasticity of Metals, G. Schoeck; The Poincare-Lighthill-Kuo Method, H. S. Tsien; On the Concept of Elastic Stability, H. Ziegler. It will be seen that the range of topics is very wide but every one is certainly important and the subject of contemporary research. A review authoritative in all the fields of investigation covered could not be provided by anyone, except possibly the Editors themselves and one or two others: the present reviewer certainly makes no claim to comprehensive competence and must content himself with giving his general impressions of the book. In general, then, this is a collection of interesting and stimulating essays by contributors who are themselves in the thick of the action. The book should certainly be consulted by investigators concerned with the particular topics discussed but it will not make easy reading for the non-expert.— w. j . DUNCAN.


ABSTRACT Bacillus anthracis is a gram-positive spore-forming bacterium that causes the disease anthrax. The anthrax toxin contains three components, including the protective antigen (PA), which binds to eucaryotic cell surface receptors and mediates the transport of toxins into the cell. In this study, the entire 2,294-nucleotide protective antigen gene (pag) was sequenced from 26 of the most diverse B. anthracis strains to identify potential variation in the toxin and to further our understanding of B. anthracis evolution. Five point mutations, three synonymous and two missense, were identified. These differences correspond to six different haploid types, which translate into three different amino acid sequences. The two amino acid changes were shown to be located in an area near a highly antigenic region critical to lethal factor binding. Nested primers were used to amplify and sequence this same region of pag from necropsy samples taken from victims of the 1979 Sverdlovsk incident. This investigation uncovered five different alleles among the strains present in the tissues, including two not seen in the 26-sample survey. One of these two alleles included a novel missense mutation, again located just adjacent to the highly antigenic region. Phylogenetic (cladistic) analysis of thepag corresponded with previous strain grouping based on chromosomal variation, suggesting that plasmid evolution in B. anthracis has occurred with little or no horizontal transfer between the different strains.


Stellate ganglion neural blockade reverses within seconds anoxemia and edema by release of catecholamine vasoconstriction of the small arteries. The factor XII enzyme cascade is controlled by increased oxygenated arterial blood flow and a normal pH. My patient's rapid recovery reflects the effectiveness of this approach for treatment of traumatic cerebral edema. Continuing edema with its scar-forming process injures brain neuron function. A patient's level of recovery or survival requires such immediate and effective control of edema.


Celiac disease (CeD) is an autoimmune disorder in which ingestion of dietary gluten triggers an immune reaction in the small intestine1,2. The CeD lesion is characterized by crypt hyperplasia, villous atrophy and chronic inflammation with accumulation of leukocytes both in the lamina propria (LP) and in the epithelium3, which eventually leads to destruction of the intestinal epithelium1 and subsequent digestive complications and higher risk of non-hodgkin lymphoma4. A lifetime gluten-free diet is currently the only available treatment5. Gluten-specific LP CD4 T cells and cytotoxic intraepithelial CD8+ T cells are thought to be central in disease pathology1,6-8, however, CeD is a complex immune-mediated disorder and to date the findings are mostly based on analysis of heterogeneous cell populations and on animal models. Here, we comprehensively explore the cellular heterogeneity of CD45+ immune cells in human small intestine using index-sorting single-cell RNA-sequencing9,10. We find that myeloid and mast cell transcriptomes are reshaped in CeD. We observe extensive changes in the proportion and transcriptomes of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and define a CD3zeta expressing NK-T-like cell population present in the control LP and epithelial layers that is absent and replaced in CeD. Our findings show that the immune landscape is dramatically changed in active CeD which provide new insights and considerably extend the current knowledge of CeD immunopathology.


ABSTRACT This study aims to define the main determinants of employment in Turkish manufacturing industry and to analyse foreign trade-employment relationship. Turkey's employment equation is estimated using panel data covering quarterly data for the period 2005–2015 and NACE Rev. 2. three digit manufacturing industry sectors. For this purpose Augmented Mean Group method is modified using instrumental variable techniques. Augmented Mean Group (AMG) method is a newly developed panel estimation method that takes into consideration cross-sectional dependency and parameter heterogeneity. However, the method does not take into consideration endogeneities. We offer a new estimation method 'Instrumental Variables Augmented Mean Group (IV-AMG)' to extent AMG to account for endogeneities and compare the results obtained by the two estimators. Regression analyses show that, when there are endogeneities, AMG method gives implausible results.


Objectives: To evaluate the feasibility and safety of the MIRUS system (Pall International, Sarl, Fribourg, Switzerland) for sedation with sevoflurane for postsurgical ICU patients and to evaluate atmospheric pollution during sedation. Design: Prospective interventional study. Setting: Surgical ICU. February 2016 to December 2016. Patients: Postsurgical patients requiring ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, and sedation. Interventions: Sevoflurane was administered with the MIRUS system targeted to a Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale from –3 to –5 by adaptation of minimum alveolar concentration. Measurements and Main Results: Data collected included Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale, minimum alveolar concentration, inspired and expired sevoflurane fraction, wake-up times, duration of sedation, sevoflurane consumption, respiratory and hemodynamic data, Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment, and laboratory data and biomarkers of organ injury. Atmospheric pollution was monitored at different sites: before sevoflurane delivery (baseline) and during sedation with the probe 15 cm up to the MIRUS system (S1) and 15 cm from the filter-Reflector group (S2). Sixty-two patients were enrolled in the study. No technical failure occurred. Median Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale was –4.5 (interquartile range, –5 to –3.6) with sevoflurane delivered at a median minimum alveolar concentration of 0.45% (interquartile range, 0.4–0.53) yielding a mean inspiratory and expiratory concentrations of 0.79% (SD, 0.24) and 0.76% (SD, 0.18), respectively. Median awakening time was 4 minutes (2.2–5 min). Median duration of sevoflurane administration was 3.33 hours (2.33–5.75 hr), range 1–19 hours with a mean consumption of 7.89 mL/hr (SD, 2.99). Hemodynamics remained stable over the study period, and no laboratory data indicated liver or kidney injury or dysfunction. Median sevoflurane room air concentration was 0.10 parts per million (interquartile range, 0.07–0.15), 0.17 parts per million (interquartile range, 0.14–0.27), and 0.15 parts per million (interquartile range, 0.07–0.19) at baseline, S1, and S2, respectively. Conclusions: The MIRUS system is a promising and safe alternative for short-term sedation with sevoflurane of ICU patients. Atmospheric pollution is largely below the recommended thresholds (< 5 parts per million). Studies extended to more heterogeneous population of patients undergoing longer duration of sedation are needed to confirm these observations.


Eucalyptus perriniana F.Muell. ex Rodway is distributed over a wide geographic range in south-eastern Australia as a series of small and isolated populations. In Tasmania, there are only three known populations that are separated by 511 km from the closest population on mainland Australia, which is one of the largest disjunctions observed for any eucalypt species. This project utilised eight nuclear microsatellites and one chloroplast DNA marker to study the genetic diversity in E. perriniana and determine the affinities between the populations. In all, 302 individuals in nine populations across the whole range of the species were sampled. The overall nuclear microsatellite diversity in E. perriniana (Ht = 0.85), as well as the diversity in each population (He = 0.73), was comparable to that found in widespread eucalypt species that have much larger population sizes. The microsatellites revealed that the isolated Tasmanian populations were significantly differentiated from mainland populations (FST between regions = 0.08), although the mainland Baw Baw population was the most differentiated. Most populations harboured different chloroplast DNA haplotypes, but in general, there were more mutational differences among haplotypes found in Tasmania than between Tasmanian and mainland populations. The Tasmanian populations often shared chloroplast DNA haplotypes with other eucalypts from south-eastern Tasmania. In conclusion, the populations of E. perriniana are genetically variable and significantly differentiated, with geographic separation being a poor predictor of the amount of genetic divergence. The most divergent populations are those in Tasmania and on Mt Baw Baw and their conservation is important to capture the genetic diversity in the species.


Family influence on a person is greater than other institutions. Hence, family is akey determinant of students" education too. Family type, parental style, familymembers" life style, family members" education level and occupation status, rural/urbanliving pattern, demographic structure and parental problems etc are some facets offamilies that determine its members" socialization process. The way of socialization offamily members and their personality types ultimately influence on how they face theirlife challenges. Accordingly, the main objective of this study is to investigate theuniversity students" problems and relationship with their family backgrounds. This wasachieved through examining students" personal backgrounds, university environment,and students" family backgrounds. This paper, however, discusses only the familyrelated problems. A stratified sample was selected from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura,including 1000 undergraduates from all faculties. Questionnaire survey, groupdiscussions, in-depth interviews, and experts" interviews were used for data collection.It was descriptively analyzed using elementary statistics. SPSS software was used fordata tabulation and analysis. While deeply investigating major problems faced by the students as personal,social, psychological, and economic and education problems, it could be clearlyidentified that the root causes of many problems were based on their familybackgrounds. It was also revealed that 1/5th of students have to face various types offamily problems frequently. Some prominent family problems identified are "economicdifficulties", "broken families/single parent families", "fathers" addiction todrugs/alcohol", "parental conflicts", "illnesses", "problems of looking after youngersiblings". However, most of students" problems were directly related with economicbackground of families. Key words: Education, Family, Relationship, Students" Problems, University Students


In the deep seated gravity-driven deformation systems of the Gulf of Mexico contemporaneous extension and contraction of the overburden is favored by mechanical decoupling from the basement along thick salt sequences (up to 4 km). The updip extension is located inland, on the continental shelf of northeast Mexico, and is characterized by extensional listric faults and roll-overs; the downdip shortening zone is located at the deep waters and is characterized by a fold and thrust belt detached above the salt layer. Two physical experiments are used to discuss some aspects of these gravity-driven systems. The experimental setup includes a motor-driven experimental table, an inclined brittle basement (1°), a silicone layer simulating the salt sequences, and sand layers simulating the pre-kinematic Jurassic-Cretaceous strata before Laramide shortening. Deformation resulted in further tilting of the basement (3° to 4°). After the onset of deformation, thin sand layers were added at regular time intervals simulating the syntectonic sedimentation. The experiments reproduced the geometry of the deformation at the frontal ramp characterized by a seaward vergent thrust and its associated deformed region (the Perdido fold belt). The fold and thrust belt localization was favored by the change in basement inclination (a built-in slope change). Key elements interpreted in one available section of the area were reproduced in the model: a) the presence of an antithethic roll-over in the extensional zone and, b) the basinward vergence of folds and thrusts observed in the downdip shortening zone in the mexican Perdido fold belt.


This article investigates the clinical utility of the parallel process in the context of supervision. By examining trainees' transference reactions toward their supervisor, the client's psychological processes can be illuminated and clinical outcomes can be improved. However, exploring these transference reactions may touch upon the trainees' wounds, as psychological material of both trainee and client may appear in the transference. Through supportive exploration, supervisors can help trainees to become aware of how their wounds may negatively—or positively—influence their work with clients. However, supervisors must be careful to offer their trainees support without functioning as a therapist.


Techniques are described for managing execution of programs, including using excess program execution capacity of one or more computing systems. For example, a private pool of excess computing capacity may be maintained for a user based on unused dedicated program execution capacity allocated for that user, with the private pool of excess capacity being available for priority use by that user. Such private excess capacity pools may further in some embodiments be provided in addition to a general, non-private excess computing capacity pool that is available for use by multiple users, optionally including users who are associated with the private excess capacity pools. In some such situations, excess computing capacity may be made available to execute programs on a temporary basis, such that the programs executing using the excess capacity may be terminated at any time if other preferred use for the excess capacity arises.


Background Individuals with chronic ankle instability (CAI) have been documented to have altered motor control strategies. However, most studies evaluate subjects when they are either starting in the testing position or while performing a planned dynamic task. Objective To determine if there are differences in plantar pressure between those with established CAI compared to healthy controls during an unplanned transition from a double-leg stance to a single-leg stance. Design Cross-sectional. Setting University laboratory. Participants Eight subjects with CAI as determined by a score >12 on the Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI) questionnaire (mean IdFAI: 19.0 ± 4.93) and ten healthy control subjects without a history of ever spraining an ankle participated. Interventions Plantar pressure data were collected using an in-shoe pressure system. Subjects stood in a double-leg stance facing a screen. At a random time an arrow appeared on the screen. Subjects transitioned to the leg in which the arrow pointed to and maintained single-leg stance for 10-seconds. Subjects performed the unplanned transition task on both a firm surface as well as a foam surface. Main outcome measurements Trials in which the subjects transitioned to their involved ankle were analysed. The plantar foot was divided into 9 regions. For each region, peak plantar pressure and time to peak pressure from 100 ms pre-transition to 2-seconds post-transition were analysed. Results Overall, during the transition task, individuals with CAI presented with higher peak pressures on the lateral aspect of the foot and healthy controls had higher peak pressures on the medial aspect of the foot. Specifically, the CAI group had significantly less peak pressure in the middle forefoot during both the firm and foam conditions. There were no differences in time to peak pressure. Conclusion During unplanned movements, those with CAI utilise different movement patterns compared to healthy controls.


Abstract Recently, the Australian Government has provided significant support for the expansion of Nurse Practitioner services in the community. As a result, the emerging role and ongoing retention of these professionals is an area for policy investigation. However, there is also a broader significance in the Nurse Practitioner role for which sociological perspectives can provide insight. Sociologists identify two key characteristics of late-modernism as the rise in service work and the emphasis on service worker knowledge as a commodity. This paper argues that the Nurse Practitioner role is an embodiment of these trends. Specifically, the paper considers the expanding Nurse Practitioner role as an example of the shifting boundaries between human care professionals. The paper argues that these changes point to a need for renewed consideration of identity, interaction, negotiation and emotion in relation to professional human care work. It concludes by considering conceptual resources that could support new sociological understandings of the Nurse Practitioner role in the future.


AIM
To evaluate the direct effects of periodontal therapy in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients with chronic periodontitis (CP).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In a pilot randomized controlled trial, 60 COPD patients with CP were randomly assigned to receive scaling and root planing (SRP) treatment, supragingival scaling treatment, or oral hygiene instructions only with no periodontal treatment. We evaluated their periodontal indexes, respiratory function, and COPD exacerbations at baseline, 6 months, 1, and 2 years.

RESULTS
Compared with the control group, measurements of periodontal indexes were significantly improved in patients in two treatment groups at 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year follow-up (all p < 0.05). Overall, the means of forced expiratory volume in the first second/forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC) and FEV1 were significantly higher in the two therapy groups compared with the control group during the follow-up (p < 0.05). In addition, the frequencies of COPD exacerbation were significantly lower in the two therapy groups than in the control group at 2-year follow-up (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Our preliminary results from this pilot trial suggest that periodontal therapy in COPD patients with CP may improve lung function and decrease the frequency of COPD exacerbation.


: The role of residual nuclear structures (structures persisting upon the treatment of nuclei with a non-ionic detergent, nucleases and 2 M NaCl) in the spatial organization of DNA in the interphase nucleus has been considered. Experimental works that have engendered the concept of loop level of DNA organization in the nucleus are discussed. A comparison is made of the loop-domain and rosette-like patterns of DNA organization in the interphase nucleus.


Environmental heterogeneity is ubiquitous in nature and generates different ecological niches. Plants require evolving plastic responses over time and space to cope with the variable environment. Indeed, the ecological interactions between environmental factors and the plant depend largely on their temporal and spatial characteristics. It may be important to maintain the function under heterogeneous environments by having temporal plastic responses. However, the functional consequences of the plant temporal and spatial plastic responses in nature are largely unknown. In my dissertation, I have investigated the plant strategies to generate the plasticity and their functional consequences.


The homeostatic regulation of sleep manifests as a relative constancy of its daily amount and intensity. Theoretical descriptions of this phenomenon define "Process S", a variable with dynamics dependent only on sleep-wake history, whose levels are reflected in electroencephalogram (EEG) slow wave activity (0.5 – 4 Hz) during sleep. Here we developed novel mathematical models of Process S in mice, assuming that its dynamics are a function of the deviation of cortical neuronal firing rates from a locally defined set-point, crucially without explicit knowledge of sleep-wake state. Our results suggest that Process S tracks global sleep-wake history through an integration of local cortical neuronal activity levels over time. We posit that, instead of reflecting sleep-wake-dependent changes in specific variables and serving their homeostatic regulation, Process S may be a time-keeping mechanism which enables individuals to obtain a species-specific and ecologically-relevant quantity of sleep, even in the absence of external temporal information.


The heat treatment of γ-TiAl alloy (Ti-47Al-2Cr-2Nb (at.%)) diffusion brazed joints was investigated. Joining was performed using a Ti/Ni/Ti clad-laminated braze alloy foil at 1050 and 1150°C with a dwell time of 10 minutes. The joints were subsequently heat treated at 1250 and 1350°C for 240 and 30 minutes, respectively. The microstructure and the chemical composition of the interfaces were analysed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), respectively. Microhardness tests performed across the interface were used to roughly predict the mechanical behaviour of the as-diffusion brazed and of the heat treated joints. Diffusion brazing produced interfaces with two distinct layers essentially composed of α2-Ti3Al and of TiNiAl; γ-TiAl was also detected for joining at 1150°C. After heat treating, the as-diffusion brazed microstructure of the interface was completely replaced by a mixture essentially composed of γ-TiAl and α2–Ti3Al single phase grains and of (α2 + γ) lamellar grains. Microhardness tests showed that the hardness of the as-diffusion brazed interfaces, which ranges from 567 to 844 HV (15 gf), is significantly higher than that of the titanium aluminide alloy (272 HV). All post-joining heat treatments lowered substantially the hardness of the interface, as the hardness of the main phases detected at the interfacial zone after heat treating the joints is comprised between 296 and 414 HV.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of organic fertilizers (urban solid waste and swine manure) as a source of nutrients and residue from bauxite processing as a corrective of soil acidity, in area cultivated with sugar cane irrigated with potable water and served in the availability of phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and sulfur (S) levels in the soil and plants. For this experiment was carried out in pots, using a Alfisol, assessing the availability of the elements in the 0-20 cm layer and the concentration of these nutrients in the leaves of sugarcane. The data showed that the residues increased the concentrations of Ca and Mg in soil, as the concentration of K was not changed and S was not detected, due to the low concentration in the soil. In the leave +1 of sugarcane the residue of bauxite increased levels of N, P, K, Ca and Mg (15.68, 1.73, 10.43, 3.50 and 1.08 g kg -1 , respectively). The application of urban solid waste and swine manure also increased the levels of N, K and Ca (11.56, 9.18 and 2.81 g kg -1 , respectively). The quality of irrigation water did not alter the availability of P, K, Ca, Mg and S in the soil as well as the levels of these macronutrients in the plant.


Introduction: Hybrids from species and subspecies of Mexican triatomines have shown outstanding biological and behavioral characteristics as compared with their parental groups. This could lead to an increasing risk of transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi to human and animal reservoir hosts. Objective: To describe and compare biological parameters related to the life cycle of Triatoma recurva , Meccus phyllosomus phyllosomus and their laboratory hybrids and estimate their risk as transmitters of T. cruzi to humans. Materials and methods: We kept a cohort of each one of the three groups ( T. recurva , M. p. phyllosomus and their hybrids) under similar laboratory conditions and then compared them to record the data related to their life cycles, number of blood meals to molt, mortality rates, egg eclosion rates and female fecundity. Results: The hybrid cohort showed the lowest mean time from first-instar nymph to adult (136.6 ± 17.5 days). The number of blood meals from molt to next instar (13.4 ± 1.7; 15.6 ± 5.2) was higher in the hybrid and T. recurva cohorts. The hybrid cohort showed the lowest mortality rate (29.5%) and the highest rate (70%) of adult females at the end of the biological cycle. Fecundity per day per female (range: 1.1 ± 0.6– 1.6 ± 0.7 eggs) was similar in the three cohorts. Egg hatching rate was higher than 70% in both hybrid and M. p. phyllosomus cohorts. Conclusion: The hybrid cohort showed some outstanding biological characteristics, which would entail a higher risk of transmission of T. cruzi to hosts than their parentals.


s 13th World Congress for Disaster and Emergency Medicine S83 master's degree in EMS management/education/research or disaster management/medicine, and a doctorate in disaster management/medicine. The purpose of the study was to identify whether a need exists for these proposed educational programs and what course content should be included. Method: A questionnaire was sent to all ambulance services licensed at the paramedic level and to Wisconsinapproved paramedic training centers. Questions included current academic degrees, age, years in EMS, job title, training, degree interests, personal and organizational benefits, barriers, and existing/new skills. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlations. Results: The questionnaire was completed by 288 respondents, a 42% return rate. One hundred seventy-three responses expressed interest in an undergraduate (bachelor's) degree with a major in EMS, 116 in a graduate (master's) degree in EMS, 82 in a master's in disaster management, and 56 in pursuing a doctorate. The principal reasons cited for pursing higher education were self-satisfaction and promotion. The major barrier was available time. Desired course content included computer-based learning, communication, and EMS management. Conclusions: There is a need and a desire for higher-level education in EMS and disaster management. Due to limited resources, multiple universities should develop collaborative programs; and distance learning courses should be considered.


The nozzle are currently presenting the most promising optimisation possibilities to supply the increasing needs of the aerospace industry. The dual bell nozzles allow the altitude
adaptation of the flow. The inflection forces the flow to a stable and symmetrical separation, generating an optimised thrust for sea level operation. During the flight, when the ambient pressure decreases under a certain value, the flow suddenly attaches the nozzle wall down to the nozzle end, generating a higher expansion for higher performance.
The study presented in this document was made at the DLR (German Aerospace Center) as part of a PhD. This fundamental study has for objective the understanding of the flow behaviour in a dual bell nozzle, in order to define the various parameters of influence. A cold flow test series has been conducted on various nozzle geometries. Pressure measurements have been made and the flow has been observed with schlieren optics in order to determine the influence of the geometry on the evolution of the flow transition from one operating mode to the other, its duration and stability toward pressure variations. Temperature and pressure measurements were also made during a test series under warm gas conditions to investigate the thermal load in the vicinity of the wall inflection.


Conventional wisdom states that genetic variation reduces disease levels in plant populations. Nevertheless, crop species have been subject to a gradual loss of genetic variation through selection for specific traits during breeding, thereby increasing their vulnerability to biotic stresses such as pathogens. We explored how genetic variation in Arabica coffee sites in southwestern Ethiopia was related to the incidence of four major fungal diseases. Sixty sites were selected along a gradient of management intensity, ranging from nearly wild to intensively managed coffee stands. We used genotyping‐by‐sequencing of pooled leaf samples (pool‐GBS) derived from 16 individual coffee shrubs in each of the 60 sites to assess the variation in genetic composition (multivariate: reference allele frequency) and genetic diversity (univariate: mean expected heterozygosity) between sites. We found that genetic composition had a clear spatial pattern and that genetic diversity was higher in less managed sites. The incidence of the four fungal diseases was related to the genetic composition of the coffee stands, but in a specific way for each disease. In contrast, genetic diversity was only related to the within‐site variation of coffee berry disease, but not to the mean incidence of any of the four diseases across sites. Given that fungal diseases are major challenges of Arabica coffee in its native range, our findings that genetic composition of coffee sites impacted the major fungal diseases may serve as baseline information to study the molecular basis of disease resistance in coffee. Overall, our study illustrates the need to consider both host genetic composition and genetic diversity when investigating the genetic basis for variation in disease levels.


The British Empire is treated as a historical phenomenon, but it enjoys a residual existence in the form of the various Overseas Territories of the UK. This paper considers the constitutional position of those territories. It shows that they are mostly excluded from what is called here the 'domestic' constitution, having no representation in its institutions and, when acknowledged, if at all, conceived of as foreign entities. Instead, the Overseas Territories are governed mostly via a distinct (post-)imperial constitution, primarily via the mechanism of the Privy Council. That institution, which does little work within the domestic constitution, creates a formal divide between the domestic and the imperial. This formal divide both masks the substantive continuities between the domestic and the imperial constitutions and facilitates, as regards the Overseas Territories, forms of governance which would not be tolerated in the imperial centre.


Wood anatomy of Flueggea anatolica Gemici, a relictual endemic from southern Turkey, is described and compared with wood of its presumed relatives in Phyllanthaceae (formerly Euphorbiaceae subfamily Phyllanthoideae). Wood of this critically endangered species may be characterized as semi-ring porous with mostly solitary vessels bearing simple perforations, alternate intervessel pits and helical thickenings; imperforate tracheary elements include helically thickened vascular tracheids and septate libriform fibers; axial parenchyma consists of a few scanty paratracheal cells; rays are heterocellular, 1 to 6 cells wide, with some perforated cells present. Anatomically, Flueggea anatolica possesses a syndrome of features common in Phyllanthaceae known in previous literature as Glochidion-type wood structure; as such, it is a good match for woods from other species of the genus Flueggea.


Recent technological advancements have led to the development of new methods for managing organ donation systems, which aim to overcome the limitations of traditional centralized systems. To achieve increased transparency, security, and efficiency in the organ donation process, blockchain technology is being proposed as a replacement for these centralized systems. However, most previous works on organ donation systems have focused on using Ethereum-based blockchain solutions, which offer limited control, a fixed set of consensus protocols, and no support for concurrent executions. In contrast, our work has utilized the Hyperledger Fabric framework to develop a network model of the organ donation system. We have designed and deployed a prototype system with smart contracts using Amazon Managed Blockchain Service. Additionally, we have built a client application that uses the Fabric SDK to interact with the network and perform various actions. To evaluate the performance of our system, we conducted extensive testing using the Hyperledger Caliper benchmarking tool. In our test bench, the system achieved a peak actual send rate of 389.1 transactions per second (TPS) for creating new records and 508.4 TPS for reading records. At a send rate of 800 TPS, the system took an average of 12.16 seconds to serve a request for creating a record and an average of 3.71 seconds to serve a request for reading a record. Future work is required to extend the functionalities of the system and identify potential endorsers and managers for this type of controlled blockchain network.


This article analyzes party responses to European integration in Finland and Sweden. We argue that such responses are shaped by seven explanatory factors: basic ideology, public opinion, factionalism, leadership influence, party competition, transnational links, and the development of integration. Each factor can lead to a positive or a negative evaluation of the European Union. In the empirical analysis, the sample includes all parties represented in the respective national parliaments, and the research material consists of party documents, parliamentary votes, statements by leading party figures, public opinion surveys, direct observation and interviews. Party competition and leadership influence are the strongest factors in the Finnish case, while public opinion and factionalism are the strongest factors in Sweden. Issue avoidance combined with the secondary importance of the EU in party politics explain why parties have been relatively successful in containing internal factionalism and discord, especially in Finland.


Investigations at the DNA level were performed in order to characterise the molecular basis forthree genetic disorders:Sjogren-Larsson syndrome (SLS) is characterised by congenital ichthyosis and severeneurological symptoms. Linkage analysis and allelic association of 24 Swedish families affectedby SLS showed linkage between the disease and the marker D17S805 on chromosome 17. The distance between the marker D17S805 and the SLS gene was calculated to 0.6 cM or approximately 600 kb.Glutathione synthetase (GS) deficiency may be characterised by 5-oxoprolinuria,metabolic acidosis, haemolytic anaemia and sometimes central nervous system damage. Ninepatients with severe GS deficiency were sequenced for mutations in the GS gene onchromosome 20. Thirteen different missense mutations were found, of which 10 are novel.Expression studies of four engineered mutations confirmed the pathogenicity.Congenital ichthyosis (IC) is a heterogeneous group of recessive skin disorders includinglamellar ichthyosis (LI) & congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma (CIE). LI and CIE patientsfrom 43 Norwegian families were investigated for mutations in the TGM1 gene. A single splicesite mutation (2526A→G) in intron 5 was found on 80% of LI and CIE alleles of IC type I andII. Prenatal diagnosis based on chromosome 14q11 haplotyping were performed in twoNorwegian LI/CIE families and revealed one disease associated and one normal haplotype in thefoetuses of both families. Subsequent mutation analysis confirmed the results. We analysed LIand CIE patients from 28 Swedish families for mutations in the TGM1 gene. A missensemutation resulting in Ser358Arg and the splice site mutation 2526A→G were found on 52% ofalleles. Thirteen additional mutations were found of which nine are novel. Three individualsaffected by non-lamellar, non-erythrodermic ichthyosis were characterised for mutations in theTGM1 gene. Three mutations were found of which two are novel. The corresponding aminoacid substitutions result in a relatively mild IC phenotype.


The power transmission conductor system consists of: the aluminum conductor, the steel-core supporting material, and the splice connector. The splice connector connects the aluminum conductor to form a continuing current transmission line. The splice connector region of a conductor system is more sensitive to material aging during service. This is due to the material discontinuity and the crimped connector's forming mechanism. The objective of this project is to develop a protocol to evaluate the integrity of a full tension single-stage splice connector (SSC) assembly operated at high temperature. The project focuses on thermal mechanical testing, thermal cycling simulation and the effective lifetime of the SSC system. The investigation indicates that thermal cycling temperature and frequency, conductor cable tension loading, and the compressive residual stress field within a SSC system have significant impact on SSC integrity and its associated effective lifetime. The developed governing equation and its application to assure the adequate service life of transmission lines are also discussed in the paper.


We study social choice rules under the utilitarian distortion framework, with an additional metric assumption on the agents' costs over the alternatives. In this approach, these costs are given by an underlying metric on the set of all agents plus alternatives. Social choice rules have access to only the ordinal preferences of agents but not the latent cardinal costs that induce them. Distortion is then defined as the ratio between the social cost (typically the sum of agent costs) of the alternative chosen by the mechanism at hand, and that of the optimal alternative chosen by an omniscient algorithm. The worst-case distortion of a social choice rule is, therefore, a measure of how close it always gets to the optimal alternative without any knowledge of the underlying costs. Under this model, it has been conjectured that Ranked Pairs, the well-known weighted-tournament rule, achieves a distortion of at most 3 (Anshelevich et al. 2015). We disprove this conjecture by constructing a sequence of instances which shows that the worst-case distortion of Ranked Pairs is at least 5. Our lower bound on the worst-case distortion of Ranked Pairs matches a previously known upper bound for the Copeland rule, proving that in the worst case, the simpler Copeland rule is at least as good as Ranked Pairs. And as long as we are limited to (weighted or unweighted) tournament rules, we demonstrate that randomization cannot help achieve an expected worst-case distortion of less than 3. Using the concept of approximate majorization within the distortion framework, we prove that Copeland and Randomized Dictatorship achieve low constant factor fairness-ratios (5 and 3 respectively), which is a considerable generalization of similar results for the sum of costs and single largest cost objectives. In addition to all of the above, we outline several interesting directions for further research in this space.


Background / Aims / Objectives
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the discrete facets of personality and dispositional, or trait-like, Mindfulness.

Methodology / Methods
The study employed a factoral quantitative design and 229 participants completed two online measures, the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the NEO-PI-R Personality Questionnaire. The latter measured the 'Big Five' factors of personality (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) and their 30 associated facets. Participant data was analysed via Principal Components Analysis with Varimax rotation utilising scores across all 35 variables, that is, the 5 dispositional Mindfulness domains plus the 30 personality facets.

Results / Findings
Analysis resulted in the emergence of a 5-factor model. These 5 'new' factors aligned closely with the 'Big Five' personality factors. Hence, dispositional Mindfulness domains were statistically indistinct from established factors of personality. Notably, 3 out of the 5 FFMQ dispositional Mindfulness domains (namely, Non-Judging of Inner Experience, Non-Reactivity to Inner Experience, and Acting with Awareness) loaded inversely on to the 'Neuroticism' factor. Additionally, 2 FFMQ domains (Acting with Awareness and Describing) loaded positively on to 'Conscientiousness', while 1 FFMQ domain (Observe) loaded positively on to 'Openness'. These results align with previous studies conducted at factor level while deepening understanding of facet-level relationships.

Discussion / Conclusions
Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention is now utilised extensively, often within the context of a broader therapeutic approach. The results of this study suggest that tailoring such interventions more to the client's particular personality may maximise benefit and negate the possibility of harmful consequences. For example, accentuating self-compassion, perhaps by setting the work in the context of a richer compassion-based approach, could be beneficial for a self-critical client scoring highly on trait Neuroticism.