The paper approaches the study of the thesis genre from a functional and structural perspective. The aim of this research is to identify communicative purposes and to describe the superstructure of linguistics and philosophy thesis, written by undergraduate and master students. The methodology consisted in the application of existing, as well emergent categories to a corpus made up of 20 theses collected from the TFGPUCV-2010 Corpus (5 theses from each discipline and level). According to the findings, there are differences regarding the superstructure depending on the discipline. In respect to the communicative purposes there differences between discipline and level can be observed. The explicitness of the communicative purpose of each section of the superstructure varies. According to our results, we conclude that the thesis genre is not homogeneous and varies according to the disciplines more than the academic degree, responding to the necessities of particular discourse communities.


Abstract Treatment with the classic antipsychotic drugs (APDs), such as haloperidol (HAL), is associated with both acute and chronic motor side effects. Acutely, these drugs may induce extrapyramidal symptoms, whereas a prolonged treatment may result in tardive dyskinesia (TD). Atypical antipsychotics have a lower incidence of motor side effects, which have been partially ascribed to the antagonism of serotonin (5-HT) receptors. Although there is currently no satisfactory pharmacotherapy for TD, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has emerged as a promising therapy. However, the mechanisms underlying its effects remain largely unknown. DBS has been shown to affect several neurotransmitter systems, including 5-HT. In this review, we outline the involvement of 5-HT in the development of HAL-induced catalepsy and TD. We also discuss the evidence for DBS-induced alterations in 5-HT function and the relevance of serotonergic alterations to the antidyskinetic effects of DBS. The evidence suggests that the serotonergic mechanisms may be involved in the acute and chronic motor side effects of APDs as well as in adverse psychiatric effects that have been reported following DBS. However, the current evidence suggests that 5-HT alterations do not play an important role in the effectiveness of DBS in models of dyskinesias induced by chronic APDs.


With the possibility of new medications for neurodegenerative diseases on the horizon, it is becoming more important than ever to reliably diagnose patients. Currently, there is an unmet need for reliable biomarker assays to support evaluation of patients with neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). In collaboration with academia and industry experts, a panel of robust prototype assays have been selected to recognize patients with AD and other neurodegenerative diseases, termed the NeuroToolKit (NTK) immunoassays. In order to assess clinical utility of the NTK, patient cohorts from both academic and industry studies are being investigated with the NTK immunoassays and the data will be analyzed across  all cohorts. Preliminary evaluation of the data generated from the Wisconsin ADRC cohort and ALFA+ cohort shows promising results. Subsequently, NTK immunoassays were selected for further evaluation    of analytical performance, reproducibility, lot-to-lot comparability and method comparisons with commercially available assays, as was recently performed for the Elecsys® β-Amyloid (1-42), Total-Tau and PhosphoTau (181P) CSF immunoassays. The Elecsys® β-Amyloid (1-42) assay was linear over the measuring range (200–1700 pg/mL) and showed low between-laboratory and lot-to-lot variability. Coefficients of variation (CVs) were: repeatability ≤1.6%; intermediate precision ≤3.6%; between-laboratory variability

≤3.5%; and total reproducibility ≤5.1%. The Elecsys® Total-Tau and Phospho-Tau (181P) assays showed high sensitivity with measuring ranges of 80-1300 pg/mL and 8-120 pg/mL, respectively. Multicenter evaluation demonstrated good overall performance. Coefficients of variation (CVs) were as follows: repeatability <1.8%; intermediate precision <2.8%; between-laboratory variability <2.7% (both assays); and total reproducibility <6.7% for tTau and <4.7% for pTau. Evaluating patient cohorts with NTK assays in addition to using the Elecsys® β-Amyloid (1-42), Total-Tau and PhosphoTau (181P) CSF immunoassays may help elucidate the complex etiology of neurodegenerative diseases by aiding in initial clinical diagnosis and monitoring progression.


The separation of lanthanides from minor actinides such as americium and curium is an important step during the recycling process in the treatment of nuclear waste. However, the similar chemistry and ionic size of lanthanide and actinide ions make the separation challenging. Here, we report that a peptide-based reagent can selectively bind trivalent actinides over trivalent lanthanides by means of introducing soft-donor atoms into a peptide known as a lanthanide-binding tag (LBT). Fluorescence spectroscopy has been used to measure the dissociation constant of each metal/peptide complex. A 10-fold selectivity was obtained for Am(3+) over the similarly sized lanthanide cation, Nd(3+), when the asparagine on the fifth position of a LBT was mutated to a cysteine and further functionalized by a pyridine moiety.


Background Low engagement in prenatal home visiting may limit programme effectiveness to improve birth outcomes. Multiple factors may influence engagement. Methods A retrospective cohort study of first-time mothers enrolled in home visiting prenatally in southwest Ohio from 2007 to 2010. The primary outcome was enrolment by 20weeks' gestation; a secondary outcome included home visit frequency. Two multilevel assessments were conducted using random intercept multilevel modelling; maternal covariates were nested first within the home visiting agency and then within the ZIP code. In the first model, variations attributable to individual agency and agency volume were assessed. In the second model nested within the ZIP code, violence rates by ZIP code and interaction terms between violence rates and maternal factors were evaluated. Results Of 837 women, 25.3% enrolled ≤20 weeks and 7.4% enrolled early and received ≥75% of expected visits. The first model demonstrated a significant variation in early enrolment based on clustering by agency (p<0.001), however, agency volume was not a significant predictor. In the second model, violence rate was not associated with early enrolment (AOR 0.92, p=0.08), but an interaction term with maternal race was significant (p=0.02). The effect of increasing community violence disproportionately affected early enrolment among white women (AOR 0.80, p=0.005) compared with black women (AOR 0.95, p=0.30). In both the random intercept multilevel models, teenagers demonstrated a decreased likelihood of enrolling early (AOR 0.58, p=0.046 and AOR 0.49, p=0.004). Conclusions Prenatal home visiting engagement is related to maternal, agency and community factors, presenting multiple opportunities to optimise programme implementation.


Serum levels of beta 2-microglobulin (beta 2-M) have been assayed in 50 patients with multiple myeloma (MM) (stage 1-8, stage II-25. stage III - II and remission - 6). Smoldering MM was registered in 11 cases, active - 22 and aggressive - 17. Said level was significantly higher in MM patients than in healthy donors (p < 0,01) and correlated with stage and course in most cases: blood concentration of beta 2-M at stage I and in remission was found to be significantly lower than at stage II and III (p < 0,05, p < 0,05) while at stage III - higher than at stage II (p < 0,01). Serum level of beta 2-M was significantly higher in smoldering course than in healthy donors (p < 0,05) and lower than in active (p < 0,05) and aggressive MM (p < 0.01). Said concentration in blood proved significantly higher in aggressive course than in active MM (p < 0,05). Since some cases of active and aggressive MM revealed a low level of serum beta 2-M, reliance on this index as a sole prognostic test seems doubtful.


Background/Aims The dialysis delivered dose is limited by the rate at which urea can be transferred from the different body compartments. The time needed to clear the peripheral compartments of the body has been called the patient clearance time (tp). The aim of the study was to compare delivered dialysis dose using the tp index between patients dialyzed through a permanent central venous catheter (CVC) and patients with an arteriovenous fistula (AVF). Methods The study included 48 stable hemodialyzed patients. Patients were classified into two groups according to their vascular access type. The first group included 24 patients dialyzed through a permanent CVC and the second group consisted of 24 patients with a mature AVF. The following parameters were calculated twice for each patient: tp, Kt/V adjusted for the tp. Results tp was lower in the AVF dialysis modality than in CVC (26 ± 7 vs. 42 ± 14 min, p<0.001) while the (eqKt/V)tp was higher in AVF than in CVC dialysis (1.36 ± 0.11 vs. 1.19 ± 0.13, p<0.001). Conclusions The patient clearance time is lower in AVF than in CVC dialysis, and this is accompanied by a higher delivered dialysis dose.


While explanations provide the power to understand the world around us, people are often overconfident about their own understanding. We explored how people's perceptions of their understanding of phenomena is related to endorsement of conspiracy theories. We first tested people's perceptions of their understanding of the 2016 Presidential electoral process and then measured their beliefs that the election itself was illegitimate, a form of conspiratorial belief. We found that participants who still endorsed high levels of understanding after generating an explanation for the 2016 election were also more likely to endorse the election was illegitimate. However, this finding only obtained for participants who voted for the losing candidate. These results suggest interesting avenues for exploring individual differences that may be related to the illusion of explanatory depth.


Spectrophotometric determination of ruthenium using 1,10-phenanthroline was modified and used for quantification of the ruthenium content in complexes. Complexes were decomposed by using aqua regia and a full recovery of ruthenium from thus obtained solutions was observed at pH 6 after three hours of heating at 90 °C with a hundredfold excess of phenanthroline. The modified procedure has several important advantages compared to the originally reported procedure. It is faster and more accessible for laboratory practice since it does not require tedious RuO4 distillation. Also it has much wider linearity range (20 μg L−1 to 12 mg L−1 compared to 162 μg L−1 to 1.62 mg L−1) and lower limit of quantification (30.4 μg L−1 compared to 100 μg L−1). Moreover, recoveries of ruthenium are practically quantitative and the single standard addition method, instead of the calibration curve method, can be successfully used for accurate analysis.


Maximum entropy models have become popular statistical models in neuroscience and other areas in biology, and can be useful tools for obtaining estimates of mutual information in biological systems. However, maximum entropy models fit to small data sets can be subject to sampling bias; i.e. the true entropy of the data can be severely underestimated. Here we study the sampling properties of estimates of the entropy obtained from maximum entropy models. We show that if the data is generated by a distribution that lies in the model class, the bias is equal to the number of parameters divided by twice the number of observations. However, in practice, the true distribution is usually outside the model class, and we show here that this misspecification can lead to much larger bias. We provide a perturbative approximation of the maximally expected bias when the true model is out of model class, and we illustrate our results using numerical simulations of an Ising model; i.e. the second-order maximum entropy distribution on binary data.


Mixed lead–tin hybrid perovskite alloy CH3NH3(Pb1–x Sn x )I3 attracted significant attention lately because of the reduction of its band gap below both end compounds, which makes it a promising bottom cell material in all-perovskite tandem solar cells. The effect is a consequence of a strongly nonlinear dependence of the alloy band gap on chemical composition. Here, we use electronic structure calculations at different levels of theory (density functional theory (DFT), hybrid DFT, and QSGW, with and without spin–orbit interactions) to investigate the presently elusive origin of this effect. Contrary to current conflicting studies, our results show that neither spin–orbit interactions nor the composition induced changes of the crystal structure and ordering of atoms contributes to the nonlinearity of the band gap. We find that the strong nonlinearity is primarily a consequence of chemical effects, i.e., the mismatch in energy between s and p atomic orbitals of Pb and Sn, which form the band edges of the al...


Excellence service is a service that satisfies customer, a service that overshots service standard or equal to standard, and a best service. This research aims to see the depiction of behavior of the health officers to the excellence service in Puskesmas Tomuan in 2012. This research is descriptive with quantitative approach. The results were analyzed descriptively and quantitatively described as a percentage. Number of samples to be interviewed were 25 respondents. Results showed most respondents are female as much as 92,0%. The majority of repondents' age are 31-36 years old. Most respondents' education are D3 and the majority of respondents work for 1-4, 5-8, and 17-20 years each as much as 24,0%. The knowledge of health officers are moderate category as much as 76,0%. The attitudes of health officers are good category as much as 96,0% and the action of all health officers are good. Expected to puskesmas management need by undertaking been increased management which well to equipment and available facility at puskesmas. Besides on duty local health needs to arrange training and excellence service socialization to puskesmas officer to upgrade service to puskesmas visitor.


Sarcopenia – the progressive loss of muscle mass with advancing age is characterised by a deterioration of muscle quantity and quality leading to a gradual slowing of movement and a decline in strength and power. Sarcopenia is a highly significant public health problem. Frail elders often require assistance for accomplishing even basic tasks of independent living, and they are also at increased risk of serious injury from sudden falls and subsequent fractures. Since these age-related changes are largely attributed to the complex interaction of factors affecting neuromuscular transmission, muscle architecture, fibre composition, excitation-contraction coupling, and metabolism, the mechanisms responsible for these deleterious changes present numerous therapeutic targets for novel drug discovery. Objective: This review provides an update on some of the emerging drugs for sarcopenia that have been in development during 2005 – 2008. Methods: This is a review of the current status of emerging therapies and novel approaches for sarcopenia. Results: Considerable research and development in academic and research institutions and in large and small pharma is being directed to sarcopenia and related health issues; specifically the development and evaluation of novel therapeutic strategies to attenuate, prevent, or ultimately reverse age-related muscle wasting and weakness. Conclusions: Few, if any, drugs have been developed for sarcopenia specifically, but there are many existing and emerging drugs that have potential application for tackling age-related muscle wasting, particularly drugs for neurodegenerative diseases.


An elastic sheet that deforms near a solid substrate in a viscous fluid is a situation relevant to various dynamical processes in biology, geophysics and engineering. Here, we study the relaxation dynamics of an elastic plate resting on a thin viscous film that is supported by a solid substrate. By combining scaling analysis, numerical simulations and experiments, we identify asymptotic regimes for the elastohydrodynamic leveling of a surface perturbation of the form of a bump, when the flow is driven by either the elastic bending of the plate or thermal fluctuations. In both cases, two distinct regimes are identified when the bump height is either much larger or much smaller than the thickness of the pre-wetted viscous film. Our analysis reveals a distinct crossover between the similarity exponents with the ratio of the perturbation height to the film height.


An activity-based introduction to stylistics, this textbook explains some of the topics in literary linguistics and helps students in analysing written texts. How can you tell good writing the excellent, the brilliant and the ingenious from bad writing the weak, the banal and the confusing? By looking at the technique and the craft of writing, Language in Literature examines the ways in which language is organised to create particular meanings or effects. Covering a range of topics naming patterns, modality and evaluation, the structure of simple narratives, the recording of character speech and thought, the dynamics of dialogue, presuppositions and textual revision the book presents the structuring principles within the English language. Activities and end-of-chapter commentaries encourage a 'learning by doing' approach and equips the reader with the main linguistic terms necessary for the analysis of literary and nonliterary texts.


This article explores the rise and fall of the "underclass" as an ideological construct between roughly 1980 and the present. The emergent understanding of the 10-12% of the population living in impoverished center-cities as an "underclass" carried with it a pronounced sympathy for the urban poor and also a preference for welfare and job programs that could aid them. Not surprisingly, the overall ideological construct made its presence felt in the legal arena, a discursive setting in which the organizational force of ideology is especially evident. In particular, some courts attempted to stop exclusionary zoning, a practice especially common in new, outlying suburbs. As the twentieth century drew to a close, meanwhile, attention to the "underclass" declined precipitously, and notions of an "underclass" virtually vanished from policy-making, political discourse, and the legal arena. The courts concomitantly lost interest in condemning exclusionary zoning, and the urban poor were denied a potentially valuable conceptualization which might have contributed to their political self-awareness and strengthened demands for an end to their debilitating oppression.


Providing quality health care to all is a policy commitment India made by becoming a signatory in the Alma Ata declaration. India is working towards providing Universal Health Coverage through its National Health Policy.However, to achieve this goal; it needs to reach out to the poorest and the mostvulnerable sections of the society, andmake available affordable health care to them. Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) is a step in this direction that insures these families for a minimum sum, to increase their access to health care and protect against catastrophic health expenses. This paper has tried to analyse if the insurance instrumentsincluding RSBY have been able to increase health service utilization in the country, especially by the poorest quintiles of the population. The findings from NSSO data,for the states which have completed minimum three years of RSBY implementation, compared for the year 2011-12 against year 2007-08, the baseline year, shows no change in the health service utilization pattern.On the contrary, in some states, it is showing a negative trend. The analysis also shows that the expenditure for outpatient treatment has a substantially high share of the overall household expenditure, and could actually be catastrophic for resource poor families. Such expenditures being left out of the ambit of RSBY is a matter of concern. in change in utilisation pattern using NSSO Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) data of the 2011-12 against the year 2007-08of Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI),


Worldwide, an increasing number of people are diversifying their income sources through migration. This mobility in most cases involves only parts of the family migrating, and this results in people's livelihoods taking on a multi‐local dimension. Scholars have been studying this increasing mobility and multi‐locality by applying either a livelihoods approach or one of transnational migration, but they rarely combine the two. However, one major criticism of both approaches is that they do not make the link to other existing social theories and do not therefore permit any fundamental analysis of the relationship between the subject and society, the power relations within a society and the changes human mobility effects to power relations. To address this criticism, I shall discuss existing innovative research and propose Bourdieu's Theory of Practice as a means to fill this theoretical gap.


This paper develops the first operational tests of portfolio efficiency based on the general stochastic dominance (SD) criteria that account for an infinite set of diversification strategies. The main insight is to preserve the cross-sectional dependence of asset returns when forming portfolios by reexpressing the SD criteria inT-dimensional Euclidean space, with elements representing rates of return inT different states of nature. We characterize subsets of this state-space that dominate a given evaluated return vector by first- and second-order SD. This allows us to derive simple SD efficiency measures and test statistics, computable by standard mathematical programming algorithms. The SD tests and efficiency measures are illustrated by an empirical application that analyzes industrial diversification of the market portfolio.


Nitrogen alloying in steel may greatly increase the strength and corrosion resistance of the material. This paper introduced some research results of high nitrogen stainless steel (HNS) investigation via PM process. Nickel free high nitrogen stainless steels (17Cr12Mn2MoN) and superaustenitic high nitrogen stainless steels (28Cr6Mn2/6Mo10/20NiN) were investigated via gas atomization and HIP processes. Nitrogen alloying behavior during atomization and consolidation processes was investigated. Powders with nitrogen content up to 1% were manufactured by gas atomization process. Nickel free high nitrogen stainless steels with nitrogen up to 0.6% exhibits high strength and ductility at as-HIPed and solution annealed state, and superaustenitic HNS with nitrogen content up to 1% showed very high strength and good ductility at solution annealed state, with b at 1100 MPa, s at 810 MPa and elongation of 43%. PM HNS exhibited excellent corrosion resistance.


Various applications for the purposes of event detection, localization, and monitoring can benefit from the use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Wireless sensor networks are generally easy to deploy, with flexible topology and can support diversity of tasks thanks to the large variety of sensors that can be attached to the wireless sensor nodes. To guarantee the efficient operation of such a heterogeneous wireless sensor networks during its lifetime an appropriate management is necessary. Typically, there are three management tasks, namely monitoring, (re) configuration, and code updating. On the one hand, status information, such as battery state and node connectivity, of both the wireless sensor network and the sensor nodes has to be monitored. And on the other hand, sensor nodes have to be (re)configured, e.g., setting the sensing interval. Most importantly, new applications have to be deployed as well as bug fixes have to be applied during the network lifetime. All management tasks have to be performed in a reliable, time- and energy-efficient manner. The ability to disseminate data from one sender to multiple receivers in a reliable, time- and energy-efficient manner is critical for the execution of the management tasks, especially for code updating. Using multicast communication in wireless sensor networks is an efficient way to handle such traffic pattern. Due to the nature of code updates a multicast protocol has to support bulky traffic and endto-end reliability. Further, the limited resources of wireless sensor nodes demand an energy-efficient operation of the multicast protocol. Current data dissemination schemes do not fulfil all of the above requirements. In order to close the gap, we designed the Sensor Node Overlay Multicast (SNOMC) protocol such that to support a reliable, time-efficient and energy-efficient dissemination of data from one sender node to multiple receivers. In contrast to other multicast transport protocols, which do not support reliability mechanisms, SNOMC supports end-to-end reliability using a NACK-based reliability mechanism. The mechanism is simple and easy to implement and can significantly reduce the number of transmissions. It is complemented by a data acknowledgement after successful reception of all data fragments by the receiver nodes. In SNOMC three different caching strategies are integrated for an efficient handling of necessary retransmissions, namely, caching on each intermediate node, caching on branching nodes, or caching only on the sender node. Moreover, an option was included to pro-actively request missing fragments. SNOMC was evaluated both in the OMNeT++ simulator and in our in-house real-world testbed and compared to a number of common data dissemination protocols, such as Flooding, MPR, TinyCubus, PSFQ, and both UDP and TCP. The results showed that SNOMC outperforms the selected protocols in terms of transmission time, number of transmitted packets, and energy-consumption. Moreover, we showed that SNOMC performs well with different underlying MAC protocols, which support different levels of reliability and energy-efficiency. Thus, SNOMC can offer a robust, high-performing solution for the efficient distribution of code updates and management information in a wireless sensor network. To address the three management tasks, in this thesis we developed the Management Architecture for Wireless Sensor Networks (MARWIS). MARWIS is specifically designed for the management of heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. A distinguished feature of its design is the use of wireless mesh nodes as backbone, which enables diverse communication platforms and offloading functionality from the sensor nodes to the mesh nodes. This hierarchical architecture allows for efficient operation of the management tasks, due to the organisation of the sensor nodes into small sub-networks each managed by a mesh node. Furthermore, we developed a intuitive -based graphical user interface, which allows non-expert users to easily perform management tasks in the network. In contrast to other management frameworks, such as Mate, MANNA, TinyCubus, or code dissemination protocols, such as Impala, Trickle, and Deluge, MARWIS offers an integrated solution monitoring, configuration and code updating of sensor nodes. Integration of SNOMC into MARWIS further increases performance efficiency of the management tasks. To our knowledge, our approach is the first one, which offers a combination of a management architecture with an efficient overlay multicast transport protocol. This combination of SNOMC and MARWIS supports reliably, time- and energy-efficient operation of a heterogeneous wireless sensor network.


While agent-based models (ABM) are increasingly used to study overall system behaviour of various systems, they can also be hard to use by people and organisations that are not familiar with this modelling paradigm. Creating usable agent-based models is thus an important aspect to consider while constructing agent-based models. However, an ABM modelling approach that explicitly addresses usability does until this point not exist. This thesis proposes an ABM usability modelling approach, which is designed and applied for an ABM of gas desulphurization technologies that is developed in collaboration with Shell P&T. The approach is based on dividing usability for ABM into three aspects: (1) experience, (2) functionality and (3) interaction. By defining layers of usability and put them into perspective, an actionable ABM usability modelling approach is obtained. Continued use of this modelling approach would enable the development of this approach into a generic usability modelling approach. Besides future research for the usability modelling approach, future research is defined for modelling process technology in socio-technical systems using ABM.


OBJECTIVE: To study the efficacy of Asparagus racemosus in reducing the cholesterol levels and as an antioxidant in hypercholesteremic rats.
 MATERIALS AND METHODS: Hypercholesteremia was induced in normal rats by including 0.75 g% cholesterol and 1.5 g% bile salt in normal diet and were used for the experiments. Dried root powder of Asparagus racemosus was administered as feed supplement at 5 g% and 10 gm% dose levels to the hypercholesteremic rats. Plasma and liver lipid profiles, hepatic HMG-CoA reductase, bile acid, malondialdehyde, ascorbic acid, catalase and SOD, fecal bile acid, cholesterol and neutral sterols were estimated using standard methods.
 RESULTS: Feed supplementation with 5 g% and 10 g% Asparagus racemosus resulted in a significant decline in plasma and hepatic lipid profiles. The feed supplementation increased the HMG-CoA reductase activity and bile acid production in both groups (5 and 10 g% supplemented groups) with concomitant increase in fecal bile acid and fecal cholesterol excretion. The activities of catalase, SOD and ascorbic acid content increased significantly in both the experimental groups (5 and 10 g% supplemented groups). On the other hand, the concentration of malondialdehyde in these groups (5 and 10 g% supplemented groups) decreased significantly, indicating decreased lipid peroxidation.
 CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrates that addition of Asparagus racemosus root powder at 5 g% and 10 g% level as feed supplement reduces the plasma and hepatic lipid (cholesterol) levels and also decreases lipid peroxidation.


Using a multiple-core paleoecological approach, we studied the development of a small kettle-hole wetland (informal name Spiraea wetland) in southern Ontario. The sedimentary record begins at around 11 700 BP, when Picea and herbs characteristic of a disturbed environment were the principal components of the upland vegetation. These were replaced by ca. 9500 BP by Pinus dominance, which persisted until at least 6300 BP. Mixed deciduous forest communities then developed and were only disturbed by Euro-Canadian settlement in the last few hundred years. Initially, the basin contained an open lake, which was progressively colonized by a range of aquatic plants, becoming a shallow open water wetland community by 9500 BP. A marsh community spread rapidly from the edge of the basin, and a mat of aquatic mosses filled the central area of open water before marsh vegetation became established there. Between 6300 and 1500 BP, there is a marked decrease in sedimentation rates, and the paleoecological data imply that ...


We have developed the advanced ALIVH interconnection technology using the new functional materials. The ALIVH (Any Layer Interstitial Via Hole) substrate was developed and introduced into the market in 1996. The ALIVH substrate is a multi layered organic substrate with interstitial via holes in any layers. This substrate has a higher density and performance. The ALIVH substrate is constituted with the key technologies of the non-woven aramid-epoxy prepreg as the insulator material, the via hole drilling process using CO/sub 2/ laser and the interconnection technology using conductive copper paste. For the interconnection using the conductive paste, to compress the interstitial via hole and preserve its shape effectively is essential. We reported the interconnection technology mainly using aramid-epoxy prepreg in the previous papers. In addition, in order to realize the high performance of the PCBs, we have studied the interconnection technology using the new functional materials. As a result, by controlling the thickness of the resin layer and the viscosity of the resin, the electric interconnections were completed. Now, we are progressing with the ALIVH interconnection technology using the various functional materials in order to reply the several demands on electronic equipment. In this paper, we will introduce the interconnection technology of the advanced ALIVH substrate.


Ischemia in the immature brain is an important cause of neonatal seizures. The exact timing of neonatal stroke onset is usually unclear and the diagnosis delayed until presentation with seizures a few to several hours later. Optimal seizure treatment in neonates remains uncharacterized and the widely used drug phenobarbital has limited clinical efficacy. Developmental profiles of chloride co-transporter expression and function in immature brains have been proposed to dictate the age dependent anti-seizure efficacy of GABA-agonists and this switch is known to occur in P8-9 mouse pups. To investigate the anti-seizure efficacy of the first line anticonvulsant and GABA A -agonist phenobarbital (PB) and NKCC1 antagonist bumetanide (BTN) as adjunct treatment on neonatal ischemic-seizures, we utilized synchronous video-EEG and unilateral carotid-ligation to produce acute ischemic-seizures in postnatal day 7 and 10 CD1 mice. Quantitative analyses of pre- and post-treatment EEGs were done using Pinnacle (Pinnacle technology Inc., KS) seizure scoring and Insight software (Persyst development corp., AZ) for evaluation of seizure grades (clinical vs. subclinical or electrographic) and treatment efficacy. Severity of acute ischemic seizures and incidence of subclinical seizures was higher at P7 and a gender-specific susceptibility was detected in males that correlated with a lag in KCC2 expression levels in naive males compared to age-matched females, not detected at P10. However, the P7 brains were comparatively more resistant to infarcts unlike at P10 when they occurred frequently. PB showed a better efficacy at P10. BTN treatment 1h following PB however failed to act as an efficacious adjunct therapy and aggravated subclinical seizures in P10 females. At P7, both PB and add-on BTN treatment failed to stop seizures. EEG power (0.5-32 Hz) was lowered after PB treatment at both ages. Post-ischemic down-regulation of KCC2 expression was detected at both ages tested compared to age-matched naive brains. This study showed that 1. Quantification of subclinical ictal events better evaluate anti-seizure efficacy of treatments and 2. The down-regulation of KCC2 in ischemia may further decrease the efficacy of drug actions that are dependent on a hyperpolarizing chloride gradient for their anticonvulsant action. This decrease in efficacy failed to be rescued by blocking the immature chloride co-transporter NKCC1.


Background Overexpression of type I IFN-stimulated genes has been demonstrated in both SLE and SS, and induction of IFNα production in plasmacytoid dendritic cells by immune complexes containing RNA and autoantibodies, including Ro/SSA and La/SSB autoantibodies, has also been shown. During pregnancy, these autoantibodies pass over the placenta to the fetus, but it is not know if an IFN-activation takes place also in the fetus. In the present study, we therefore investigated if the type I IFN system is activated in newborns exposed to anti-Ro/SSA autoantibodies in utero. Materials and methods Anti-Ro/SSA positive mothers and their babies as well as healthy controls were included in the study. Maternal and cord blood drawn at birth was immediately separated into plasma and PBMC. mRNA expression was analysed by microarrays, cell surface markers were assessed by flow cytometry and circulating IFNα levels by DELFIA. Results We observed increased expression of IFN-regulated genes and elevated plasma IFNα levels not only in anti-Ro/SSA positive women but also in their newborns, with maternal and fetal IFN scores showing a significant positive correlation (r=0.74, p=0.005). Increased expression of MHC class II was observed on CD14+ monocytes of anti-Ro/SSA antibody-exposed babies, suggesting cellular activation. Notably, the IFN score of babies born to mothers receiving immunomodulatory treatment was similar to that of controls. Conclusions We demonstrate for the first time that anti-Ro/SSA antibody-exposed babies at risk for neonatal lupus have a pre-activated immune system with an IFN signature, elevated plasma IFNα, and increased MHC class II expression on circulating monocytes. Our data also suggest that maternal immunomodulatory treatment may modulate the IFN activity in the baby.


Energetic acetone cations decay by methane or methyl radical loss. Although the methane-loss barrier to form the ketene cation is higher and the activation entropy is lower, it has a significant branching ratio at low energies thanks to quantum tunnelling. H-atom tunnelling can be selectively quenched and the methane-loss channel suppressed quantitatively by deuteration.


Resonance Raman spectroscopy is a powerful analytical tool for detecting and identifying analytes, but the associated strong fluorescence background severely limits the use of the technique. Here, we show that by attaching β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) cavities to reduced graphene-oxide (rGO) sheets we obtain a water dispersible material (β-CD: rGO) that combines the hydrophobicity associated with rGO with that of the cyclodextrin cavities and provides a versatile platform for resonance Raman detection. Planar aromatic and dye molecules that adsorb on the rGO domains and nonplanar molecules included within the tethered β-CD cavities have their fluorescence effectively quenched. We show that it is possible using the water dispersible β-CD: rGO sheets to record the resonance Raman spectra of adsorbed and included organic chromophores directly in aqueous media without having to extract or deposit on a substrate. This is significant, as it allows us to identify and estimate organic analytes present in water by resonance Raman spectroscopy.


Purpose: Ventriculo Peritoneal shunt (VP shunt) is the one of the most common and remains the gold standard treatment for infants and adults with congenital or acquired hydrocephalus, such as that due to a tumor. Complications include infection, obstruction of the shunt itself, and failure of a valve, or over-and under drainage of a ventricle. Intra-abdominal complications of a VP shunt are rare. Here, we report 3 abdominal complications of VP shunt, 2 obstruction and 1 perforation. Case report 1: presented with complaint of not passing motion and flatus since 3 days and abdominal distension since 2 days. X-ray showed multiple air fluid levels and Patient was explored, there were multiple adhesions in the bowel loops which were causing obstruction. Case Report 2: 1 year male operated case of VP Shunt for hydrocephalus 1 year back c/o VP shunt coming out per rectally since 1 day and pain in abdomen. O/e: VP shunt was coming out of anus and per abdominally patient was guarding X-ray showed: VP shunt was piercing colon and coming out from anus. Case report 3: 4 months male not passing motion associated with abdominal distension since 2 days. Patient was operated for VP shunt 2 months back. OE: Per abdomen was distended and PR was roomy and empty. X-ray and suggestive of Intestinal obstruction. Patient was explored and it was found multiple adhesions in between the bowel loops. Discussion and Conclusion: Although complications of a VP shunt are common, abdominal complications, especially intestinal obstruction and perforation are rare. Regardless of the cause, management of bowel obstruction is the same.


Full-thickness mucosal grafts were placed over Proplast-augmented alveolar ridges in six mongrel dogs. Five of the six grafts were successful, indicating that properly prepared recipient sites over Proplast provide adequate blood supply to support free grafts. A thicker keratinizing graft such as palatal mucosa may provide greater protection for the implant under the stress of a prosthesis.


Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a magnetic resonance imaging modality that provides useful in vivo information about the microstructure of human brain tissue, particularly the white matter structures that comprise the 'wiring' of the brain. DTI holds great promise for enhancing our understanding of white matter disorders, which comprise public health burdens in a variety of medical domains. Due to its relatively complex structure, however, extracting useful information from DTI data presents a number of statistical challenges. More effective statistical methodologies will improve the sensitivity of DTI data analyses and increases their clinical relevance, a goal of substantial public health significance. In this dissertation, I propose a series of analytic approaches to DTI data analysis based on linear mixed effects models (LMEs). These models provide a number of advantages over several expedient DTI data analyses in current use. I demonstrate the applicability and advantages of my LME-based approaches in an analysis that compares white matter microstructure in a group of children and young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) to typically developing controls.I first identify a class of LMEs for DTI data analyses for which closed-form maximum likelihood estimators of all parameters exist. By avoiding iteration, these models enable practitioners to perform exploratory and confirmatory analyses of large DTI datasets in clinically feasible time. This family of models incorporates group heterogeneity in variance-covariance structure. I then compare the results of my approach with other approaches currently in practice in an analysis of white matter abnormalities associated with ASDs. I also introduce a data analytic framework that incorporates the entire multivariate tensor in a single analysis. I last describe a unified likelihood-based approach to addressing reliability with a new estimator of a generalized intraclass correlation coefficient. I establish the robustness of this approach to model perturbations with a series of theoretical and simulation results and apply it to quantify local spatial reliability in the ASDs example.


Abstract. The Internet of Things is a multi-sensor technology with the unique advantage of supporting non-intrusive and non-device occupancy detection, while also allowing us to explore new forecasting occupancy models. However, forecasting occupancy presence is not a trivial task, since it is still unknown the main criteria in selecting a forecasting modelling approach according to a non-intrusive sensing strategy. Towards this challenge, this paper proposes an analytical workflow developed to support the Prophet model for forecasting occupancy presence in indoor spaces throughout the tasks of sensing, processing, and analysing event triggered data generated from ten non-intrusive sensors, including motion, temperature, luminosity, CO2, TVOC, sound, pressure, accelerometer, gyroscope, and humidity sensors. The usefulness of this analytical workflow is demonstrated with the implementation of an IoT platform for an experiment operating non-intrusive sensing in a classroom. The assessment is made at different time intervals and the results confirm that there is a relationship between the event-count and occupancy presence in such a way that the larger the number of events triggered in an indoor space, the higher the probability of an indoor space being occupied.


[ANGLES]Lately, the emerging paradigm of Software-Defined Networking has grown in presence and claims to simplify future networking. The decoupling of network control and forwarding plane proposed by this architecture allows the control of the entire network behavior by means of a logically centralized software program (controller). Such separation of planes opens the way to Network Virtualization, which provides users a logical abstraction of underlying network resources. However, network virtualization requires a mapping phase of the virtual resources over the physical resources, which is not trivial, formally known as the virtual network embedding problem. The present document focuses in the development of a variant of one of the proposed strategies to solve this critical step, prioritizing the real-time response. The proposed algorithm uses the properties offered by the Paths Algebra mathematical framework to provide a flexible environment where it is possible to combine any number of both linear and non-linear metrics. In addition, it is also used the multi-lexical ordination, a criterion to better distinguish paths that may be considered equal by other approaches. Such algorithm has been implemented as a software application that provides a simulation environment where the virtual network embedding process can be tested for any given topology. Subsequently, all the algorithm features have been checked in a set of performance tests, focusing on those oriented to the commitment among the real-time response and the quality of the embedding solutions. In general, testing results are very promising even in densely populated backbone topologies, where the number of alternative paths among each possible pair of origin and destination nodes grows exponentially.


Different communities, organizations, and people hold different views on their own and others wellbeing. It is often challenging to balance different perspectives during the design process when the truth of medicine is competing with the truth of social media and the everyday experience of wellbeing of patients, caregivers, family and friends. In the context of the Masters of Health Design at OCAD University, we develop students' competency in working with truth through challenging students to engage with multiple 'truths' in the design process, engaging deliberately in identifying and working with multiple truth regimes as part of a problem based learning approach. This includes how truth regimes impact the understanding of a challenge area, techniques for engaging with stakeholders, communicating and developing concepts, and the process of seeking and working with feedback for refining and iterating, and finally in communicating project solutions. By engaging in problem based learning, students are exposed to the real challenges of different stakeholder perspectives and in particular how different truth regimes serve to impact what counts as legitimate knowledge and legitimate knowledge representation.


Learner corpora serve as one of the most valuable sources of statistical data on learners' errors. For instance, data from foreign-language learners' corpora can be used for the Second Language Acquisition research. However, corpora representativity strongly depends on the quality of its error markup, which is most frequently carried out manually and thus presents a time-consuming and painstaking routine for the annotators. To make annotation process easier, addi-tional tools, such as spellcheckers, are usually used. This paper focuses on developing a program for automatic correction of derivational errors made by learners of Russian as a foreign language. Derivational errors, which are not com-mon for adult Russian native speakers (L1), but occur quite often in written texts or speech of Russian as foreign language learners (L2) [Chernigovskaya, Gor, 2000], were chosen as scope of our research because correction of such mistakes presents a formidable challenge for existing spellcheckers. Using the data from the Russian Learner Corpus (http://www.web-corpora.net/RLC/), we tested two already existing approaches to solve such kind of problems. The first one is based on a finite state automaton principle developed by Dickinson and Herring 2008, and it was tested as algorithm for derivational errors detection. The second one which relies on the Noisy Channel model by Brill and Moore, 2000, was used for studying errors correction. After we analyzed effectiveness of these tests, we developed our own system for autocorrection of derivational errors. In our program the algorithm of Dickinson and Herring was used as word-formation error detection module. The Noisy Channel model has been rejected, and we decided to use instead the Continuous Bag of Words FastText model, based on Harris distributional semantics theory [1954]. In addition, filtering rules have been developed for correcting frequent errors that the model is unable to handle. To restore automatically the correct grammatical word form, dictionary of word paradigms is used. Model results were validated on the data of Russian Learner Corpus.


Surface characterisation system needs to be updated constantly with the emergence of new
algorithms and methods in the field of surface metrology. As function modules in current surface
characterisation system are tightly coupled together, it is not conducive to the reuse of function modules and innovation of overall system. A lot of redundant and duplicate works have been done in present characterisation systems, and they will be done again when building a new characterisation system. In order to improve the reusability of function modules and facilitate system extension, this paper presents a flexible architecture for such surface characterisation systems by employing component based development technologies. Function components will be separated from system
framework and implemented independently, so that the overall system is constructed by gluing these
function components together.


In September and October 2005, an archaeological excavation was undertaken on the site of the former Empire Cinema on Dunbar High Street. In addition to late medieval and post-medieval remains, a cist grave of pre-Roman or Roman Iron Age date was excavated and recorded. Two adult males occupied the cist grave, one of whom was equipped with a sword and a spear, representing a rare example of an Iron Age burial with weapons in Scotland. Partial skeletal remains of two further individuals were also present. This paper describes the cist grave and its contents, and places these in the context of similar remains in Scotland and wider afield, as well as considering the medieval and post-medieval remains, which included a north/south-aligned ditch that may have marked a boundary line to the west of Dunbar's High Street. Rubble walls forming a corner of a structure to the west of this ditch may mark the remains of a building of late medieval date, while a relatively homogeneous deposit of considerable depth, built up over a relatively short period, may represent intentional levelling of the Empire site between the late medieval and early post-medieval periods.


William Clark, co-captain of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition, devoted his adult life to describing the American West. But this task raised a daunting challenge: how best to bring an unknown continent to life for the young republic? Through Clark's life and career, this book explores how the West entered the American imagination. While he never called himself a writer or an artist, Clark nonetheless drew maps, produced books, drafted reports, surveyed landscapes, and wrote journals that made sense of the West for a new nation fascinated by the region's potential but also fearful of its dangers. William Clark's World presents a new take on the manifest destiny narrative and on the way the West took shape in the national imagination in the early nineteenth century.


Malaysia is known as one of the countries in the world to have a megadiversity status
of flora and fauna. Its' tropical forest has been formed for thousands of years until it
reaches the current stability. The changes in the environment will alter the diversity of
vertebrate populations including birds. Reports have highlighted that a combination of
busy airports with large flocks and the proclivity of many birds to use airports for
feeding, roosting and nesting activities has resulted in a risk of bird strike and creates
an important safety issue for any airport (e.g., Cleary et al., 1999, Linnell et al.,
1996). Therefore, a study of the bird composition in the buffer zone around KLIA was
carried out. A total of 57 bird species from 28 families were identified. There were 38
species of birds that can be classified as resident species, 12 species of migratory
birds and the remaining seven species were classified as resident and migrant. In
general, bird population and diversity of birds was low compared to other type of
forest around Malaysia. From the total bird species, 58% are fully protected and 12%
are protected under Malaysian Wildlife Protection Act (1972). The remaining 30% are
not under protection of the act. In terms of bird guilds, insectivores were dominant
guild group with about 38% of the total 57 species observed, followed by piscivores (21%), grainivores (14%), omnivores (14%), carnivores (9%), nectarivores (2%) and
frugivores (2%). In terms of the feeding habitats, 40% bird species were found to
utilize the ground, 26% of bird species were found to use the water courses, 18%
capture foods in the air, 9% found below canopy and the remaining 7% utilized the
top canopy area. ANOVA showed there was a significant difference in number of bird
individuals with respect to transects, daytime intervals and month groups respectively
(P<0.05). The studies of total number of bird individuals and species richness showed
both properties were higher in the morning (peak: 0930 hours observation period) and
evening (peak: 1730 hours observation period) sessions. Lowest bird individuals and
species richness can be detected at 1430 hours of the afternoon session. In terms of
seasonal factor, bird individual and species richness were observed more in Mar-Apr
03 month group and the least was in Jul-Aug 02 and Jul-Aug 03 month groups. Most
bird species were abundant in transect T11, T12, T1 and T7, however they were less
abundant in transect T9 and T6. The Shannon –Wiener diversity index, H', indicated
that the buffer zone has a moderate status of bird diversity. The evenness, J', study
indicated that birds were most evenly distributed in transect T1 of May-Jun 03 month
group, where as in transect T9 of Sep-Oct 02 month group, the J' value was at the
lowest point. The study also found 66 species of plants, which was expected to grow
naturally in the wild, where as more than 25 species of plants were the man – planted.
There were also 31 families and two suborders of insects had been sampled and
identified. Coleoptera had the highest number of families. 19 species of insect were
able to be identified up to the species level. There were two main groups existed in
the buffer zone according to the number of bird individuals and species. Transect T11
and T12, T2 and T3, and T4 and T5 have the closest similarity distance between each
pair. It can be concluded that at the moment, bird's population, behaviour, distribution and habitat selection do not posses any serious threats to aircraft services at KLIA.
Further and continuous studies are suggested in order to produce an effective
guideline for tropical bird strike prevention strategies.


S&OP is a set of business processes and technologies that enable an enterprise to respond effectively to demand and supply variability, with insight into the optimal market deployment of resources and most profitable supply chain mix. S&OP can also be described as a means for internal coordination in which a cross-functional team reaches consensus on sales forecasts, capacity and/or production plans. This thesis aims to develop a deeper understanding of S&OP and in turn the specific means through which supply chain performance is impacted, via a combination of the case study and survey methods. The results from the first phase of this study show that in the case studies of the two separate companies, both cases show significant quantifiable improvements in supply chain performance from implementing S&OP. In the second phase of this study, a large-scale survey was conducted to test the efficacy of six coordination mechanisms of S&OP and the effect of contingency factors. Results based on 568 respondents indicate that Strategic Alignment and Information Acquisition/Processing are the mechanisms that most significantly enable superior S&OP outcomes. However, the survey dataset strongly suggests that a highly formalised S&OP Procedure inhibits supply chain performance. Furthermore, from a contingency theory perspective, increasing firm size and increasing experience in S&OP amplify the negative effect of a standardised S&OP Procedure upon supply chain performance. In the final phase of this study, the effect of organisational culture as an antecedent to S&OP coordination mechanisms is explored. Results show that a strong S&OP culture leads to better overall coordination outcomes, but a strong S&OP culture may concurrently suppress Supply Chain Performance via the S&OP Procedure/Schedule pathway due to competitive mediation.


Objectives Systematic reviews and meta-analysis of high quality offer combined results from epidemiological studies which can be very helpful for decision making in occupational safety and health (OSH). The Clearinghouse of Systematic Reviews, a joint project of seven European research institutes, aims to make high quality reviews available that have been conducted in the field of OSH. Methods The Clearinghouse developed a standard method for searching and selecting systematic reviews based on current research results for literature search, experience and practical application of the members of the Clearinghouse. A quality assessment for critical appraisal of the reviews was developed by adapting the established SIGN Checklist for systematic reviews and meta-analyses for OSH. Results In 2010 the Clearinghouse published a standard method guide for searching and evaluating systematic reviews in OSH. The first lists of high-quality reviews on OSH-topics are presented in a systematic way on the PEROSH platform in the internet. Conclusions The Clearinghouse supports knowledge transfer of OSH studies, promotes the quality of reviews and increases collaboration between research partners for joint research on OSH topics.


Recent studies have demonstrated that, during infection of macrophages by mycobacteria, phospholipids (PLs) are released from the mycobacterial cell wall within infected macrophages and transported out of this compartment into intracellular vesicles. The release of these PLs may have functions that influence the outcome of mycobacterial infections. Despite their important role, little is known about the biosynthesis of PLs in mycobacteria. In all organisms, PL biosynthesis begins with acylation of sn -glycerol 3-phosphate to form phosphatidic acid (PA), which is then converted to the central liponucleotide intermediate, cytidine diphosphate-diacylglycerol (CDP-DAG) via the CDP-DAG synthase (CDS). The present work examines CDS activity in Mycobacterium smegmatis extracts, with regard to subcellular localization, pH dependence, bivalent and univalent cation requirement, substrate specificity and regulation by nucleotides. We show that CDS activity, which is mainly found within the cytoplasmic membrane, is Mg(2+)-dependent and activated by K(+) ions. Among PAs containing saturated fatty acids, dipalmitoyl-PA is the preferred substrate [ K (m)=0.23+/-0.03 mM for Triton X-100 (v/v)/PA in the ratio 5:1]. Moreover, CDS activity is inhibited by the reaction products PP(i) (IC(50)=1.5 mM), CDP-DAG (IC(50)=0.3 mM) and the nucleotides ATP, UTP and GTP. This study contributes to the delineation of PL biosynthesis in mycobacteria.


In Spain, apart from statistical sources such as population censuses or surveys, the Estadística de Variaciones Residenciales is also used to study migration among the population residing, legally or illegally, in the country. The advantage of using this source – which is linked to the Municipal Population Registers – is that it provides a constantly updated record of inter-municipal migrations among the whole population, through which individual migratory trajectories can be constructed. Despite recent attempts to improve its quality, however, it may provide a distorted perspective of migration, as there is no guarantee that all its registrations are associated with real migrations.Through the reconstruction of the "migratory lives" of the resident population, this study covers the extent of the false migration phenomenon in Spain in the period 2003-2005.


Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) is one of Japan's most famous literary suicides, known as the earliest postwar manifestation of the genuinely alienated writer in Japan. In this first deconstructive reading of a modern Japanese novelist, Alan Wolfe draws on contemporary Western literary and cultural theories and on a knowledge of Dazai's work in the context of Japanese literary history to provide a fresh view of major texts by this important literary figure. In the process, Wolfe revises Japanese as well as Western scholarship on Dazai and discovers new connections among suicide, autobiography, alienation, and modernization. As shown here, Dazai's writings resist narrative and historical closure; while he may be said to serve the Japanese literary establishment as both romantic decadent and representative scapegoat, his texts reveal a deconstructive edge through which his posthumous status as a monument of negativity is already perceived and undone. Wolfe maintains that cultural modernization pits a Western concept of the individual as realized self and coherent subject against an Eastern absent self--and that a felt need to overcome this tension inspires the autobiographical fiction so prevalent in Japanese novels. Suicidal Narrative in Modern Japan shows that Dazai's texts also resist readings that would resolve the gaps (East/West, self/other, modern/premodern) still prevalent in Japanese intellectual life.


Cyclic extrusion is a new bulk deformation method. It consists of two steps. In the first step a part of the work piece will be indirectly extruded. In the second step the extruded part will be backwards pressed into the bulk again so that the original shape of the work piece is retained. Similar to ECAP, cyclic extrusion can be repeated many times without shape change. On the other hand, cyclic extrusion can be applied locally on a work piece so that local grain refining or work hardening is possible. Magnesium alloy AZ31 was cyclically extruded at 400 °C with different tools. The grain size was refined from 800 +m to 15 +m. The local grain refining in the surface zone with cyclic extrusion improved the rollability of cast AZ31. Pure aluminium specimens were cyclically extruded up to 2.5 times, which corresponds to a deformation degree of -7. The microstructure changes were examined with EBSD.


The electromechanical response of a chemical gas sensor based on a TFBAR (Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator) structure coated with a sensitive polymer layer was simulated with a FEM (Finite Elements Method) software (COMSOL Multiphysics ® ). The principle of sensing is based on the change of the mechanical properties of the polymer due to the gas adsorption. This will cause an additional mechanical load inducing a shift in the electrical input admittance curve of the resonator which decreases the resonance frequency of the fundamental thickness mode. This work presents a comparison between two adsorption models describing non swelling and swelling mechanisms by using FEM simulation. The presented structure is a piezoelectric capacitance Al/ZnO/Al with thicknesses of 0.2 μm /6 μm /0.2μm respectively above which a thin film (0.4 μm) of CH2Cl2-sensitive Polyisobutylene (PIB) polymer is coated. The structure vibrates at a resonance frequency of 491.2 MHz with a maximum mechanical displacement of 2.3 nm in the fundamental thickness mode. The FEM simulation has shown a sensor sensitivity of 3 Hz/ppm. The comparison between the two models shows that the model which considerates the swelling effect is more appropriate for describing the real sensitivity of the device.


From a mathematical viewpoint, the frequency domain analysis of vessel motion responses due to wave actions incorporates the integration of system dynamics idealized in terms of response amplitude operators (RAOs) for 6 DOF rigid body motions and an input wave spectrum to yield the response spectrum. Various quantities of interest can be deduced from the response spectrum and further used for decision support in marine operations, extreme value and fatigue analysis. The variation of such quantities, owing to the uncertainties associated with the vessel system parameters, can be quantified by performing uncertainty propagation (UP) and consequent sensitivity analysis (SA). This study, emphasizes and proposes a computational-efficient way of assessing the sensitivity of the system model output with respect to the uncertainties residing in the input parameters by operating on a surrogate model representation. In this respect, the global sensitivity analysis is effectively carried out by deploying an efficient non-intrusive polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) surrogate model built using a point collocation strategy. Successively, the coherent and effective Sobol' indices are obtained from the analytical decomposition of the polynomial coefficients. The indices, eventually, are employed to quantitatively gauge the effects of input uncertainties on the output 6 DOF vessel responses.


Boiler is one of the most important equipment in any power plants which require continuous monitoring and inspection at frequent intervals. There are possibilities of errors at measuring and various stages involved with human workers. So a reliable monitoring system is necessary to avoid catastrophic failure, which is achieved by Programmable Logic Controller & Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system. This synopsis outlines the design and development of boiler automation system using SCADA and sensors. PLC and SCADA interfaced via communication cables. The initial phase of the Synopsis focuses on passing the inputs to the boiler at a required temperature, so as to constantly maintain a particular temperature in the boiler. SCADA is used to monitor the boiler temperature, pressure and water level using different sensors and the corresponding output is given to the PLC which controls the boiler temperature, pressure and water level. If the temperature and pressure inside the boiler exceeds the predefined value, then the entire system is shut down. In case of emergency different automated check valves are used to release pressure, steam and inform the concerned authority through alarm. Boiler automation SCADA design is done by wonderware Intouch.


Recall that a ring R is called strongly pi-regular if, for every a in R,
there is a positive integer n, depending on a, such that a^n belongs to the
intersection of a^{n+1}R and Ra^{n+1}. In this paper we give a further study of
the notion of a strongly pi-star-regular ring, which is the star-version of
strongly pi-regular rings and which was originally introduced by Cui-Wang in J.
Korean Math. Soc. (2015). We also establish various properties of these rings
and give several new characterizations in terms of (strong) pi-regularity and
involution. Our results also considerably extend recent ones in the subject due
to Cui-Yin in Algebra Colloq. (2018) proved for pi-star-regular rings and due
to Cui-Danchev in J. Algebra Appl. (2020) proved for star-periodic rings.


It was the day Egypt's security forces used automatic weapons, armored personal carriers and military bulldozers to raid and crush a month-long sit-in protest by thousands of supporters of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy. According to a yearlong Human Rights Watch investigation released this week, at least 817 people were killed. Six weeks earlier, Morsy had been removed from power in a popular military coup led by his then-defense secretary, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Morsy's supporters immediately took to the streets, protesting the removal of Egypt's first democratically elected president. The heart of the demonstrations was Rabaa Al-Adawiya, a mosque in eastern Cairo where tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered, occupying the building and an adjacent square. For weeks, Egyptian authorities ordered demonstrators to leave, then threatened to raid the massive sit-in that had mushroomed into a small town; it included a makeshift barbershop and a kitchen that prepared thousands of ready-to-eat meals. But Morsy supporters wouldn't budge. Many had brought their families, even their children. This was their Tahrir Square.


A study was made to determine the average monthly and seasonally yields of seven native grasses as they grew in pure stands in an ungrazed mixed prairie near Hays, Kansas. The study was conducted for two growing seasons (1952-1953) on the upland, gentle hillside, steep hillside, and lowland. The study area consisted of 320 acres with gently rolling hills and steep hillsides broadening at their based to form ravines and a broad lowland. Grasses which were studied on the upland were blue grama (Boutelous gracilis (H.B.K.) Lab.), buffalo grass (Buchloe dactyloides (Nutt.) Englem.), side-oats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.) Torr.), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardi, Vitaman), and western wheatgrass (Agropyron smithii, Rydb.). On the gentle hillside, yields were ascertained for buffalo grass, blue grama, side-oats grama, big bluestem, and little bluestem (Andropogon scoparius, Michx.). Grasses on the steep hillsides form which yields were taken were side-oats gram, big bluestem, and little bluestem. On the lowland yields were obtained from big bluestem, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), and western wheatgrass. Randomly located square-foot quadrats were used to determine basal cover and yields. Fifteen or more square-foot quadrats were clipped each month (June to September) at the top of underlying mulch to determine yields of each species of grass on each site. The clipped forage was air dried, weighed and computed to pounds per acre. Average basal cover was determined for each species by many individual measurements. Height of growth was determined at each clipping period. Measurements were made of new growth prior to clipping the quadrats and also of unclipped growth outside the quadrats. Soul moisture was determined every 2 weeks to a depth of 4 feet on the upland and lowland. Samples were taken in duplicate and an average percent moisture for the two samples was recorded for each depth. Climate for the two seasons was characterized by low, uneven distribution of rainfall, deficiency of soil moisture and accompanying high temperatures and wind velocities. The two growing season were abnormally dry, each received about 11 inches of rainfall. Climate for the two seasons was characterized by low, uneven distribution of rainfall, deficiency of soil moisture and accompanying high temperatures and wind velocities. The two growing season were abnormally dry, each receiving about 11 inches of rainfall. Production of grasses usually reached a peak in late spring or early summer and then declined during the latter part of the growing season. Generally more forage was produced by June 15 than thereafter. Height of growth and yield were greatest when soil moisture became deficient. During the latter part of both seasons, except for sporadic greening, most grasses were in semi-dormancy with their leaves either rolled or folded. Generally the amount of forage produced was greatest from species which occupied the mesic areas and lowest form those of more xeric ones. The tall-grasses, while occupying less surface area than the short grasses, produced larger amount of forage due to their greater height and coarser growth. On the upland habitat about 1,000 pounds of forage was produced by the short grasses each season, while the yield of side-oats grama was somewhat higher. Big bluestem which occurred only in isolated bunches produced slightly more than 3,500 pounds per acre. The yield of western wheatgrass was slightly more than 1,500 pounds the first season and somewhat less the second season. On the gentle hillside habitat the two short grasses were again low producers. However, buffalo grass produced slightly more forage than blue grama and side-oats grama each season. The yield of little bluestem and big bluestem was somewhat comparable each season, each producing more than 2,000 pounds. Big bluestem produced the greatest yield followed by little bluestem and side-oats grama in that order on the steep hillside habitat. Big bluestem produced less forage on this habitat than on other sites while the yields of side-oats grama and little bluestem were somewhat higher. On the lowland habitat big bluestem produced about 6,013 pounds in 1952 followed by switchgrass (5,872 pounds) and western wheatgrass (4,940 pounds). 1953 yields were considerably less for each species. The amount of forage produced by each species generally increased with an increase with an increase in basal area.


Valuation-based market timing demonstrates strong potential to improve risk-adjusted returns for conservative long-term investors. Such timing strategies based on the cyclically-adjusted price-earnings ratio provide comparable returns as a 100% stocks buy-and-hold strategy but with substantially less risk. Meanwhile, market timing provides comparable risks and the same average asset allocation as a 50/50 fixed allocation strategy, but with much higher returns. Also, it is important to consider less extreme timing strategies as well, as defining market timing as either all stocks or all cash does not provide a hedge against the possibility that valuations may depart from their historical averages for extended periods. Finally, comparing the strategies over shorter rolling sub-periods reveals that a valuation-based market timing approach fairly consistently provides risk-adjusted returns superior to a fixed asset allocation strategy.


This study aims to determine the condition of education in the province of North Borneo. The focus of research on tracking the state of education in the area of land which is characterized by plantations and production forests, archipelago, coastal areas, border areas with other countries, as well as remote and underdeveloped regions. This study used a quantitative and qualitative research method of data collection and documentation of data search "focus group discussion". Location of the research conducted in the province of North Borneo. Data collection technique used: (1) secondary data such as documents on the state of education in the Central Bureau of Statistics of North Borneo Province; (2) The primary data in a way that uses the technique of guided interview focus group discussion. Data were analyzed with a table percentage, especially for secondary data and qualitative matrix is mainly the result of "focus group discussion". The study found the mapping area as follows: (1) The condition of education in the urban areas the average tends to be better than other areas; (2) The condition of education in mountainous areas or hilly averages tend to be pretty good; (3) The condition of education plains region or regions the average rice paddies and fields tend to be pretty good; (4) The condition of education mean coastal areas tend to be moderate; (5) The condition of education in the region of islands tend to moderate and scattered character; (6) The condition of education in the isolated areas tend to have lower average and lagging; (7) The condition of education in the border areas Malysia averages tend to be low until quite characterless learners consists of children of foreign workers, namely the State Malaisia. Key w ords : mapping of education, the diversity of natural conditions, North Borneo


Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB), is one of the deadliest human pathogens, with one third of the world's population presently infected, resulting in 1.3 million deaths in 2012. The emergence of multiple drug resistant strains of M. tuberculosis has resulted in an inability to control and treat this pathogen. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for the development of new anti- TB therapeutics. Structural genomics has played a pivotal role in the characterization of the M. tuberculosis proteome to gain functional insight into pathogenesis, with applications for future rational drug design. While TB structural genomics has generated data on a number of mycobacterial targets, structural data is missing for up to 90% of the M. tuberculosis proteome. To gain a global understanding of mycobacterial pathogenesis, an in-depth structural characterization of the M. tuberculosis proteome is required. My work described here explores the structural characteristics of three novel proteins essential for mycobacterial growth and host survival. Utilizing applications of x-ray crystallography, crystal structures of each target were determined, and have been utilized to characterise drug inhibition mechanisms, as well as provide functional insight into the biological role of the targets. The key first line anti-TB drug, isoniazid, exhibits inhibition against multiple M. tuberculosis targets, where resistance is readily developed. Rv2971, an essential aldo-keto reductase, is a recently identified target of isoniazid. To gain structural insight into isoniazid inhibition mechanisms, the crystal structure of Rv2971 was determined to 1.6 A, revealing the structural architecture of the isoniazid and NADPH binding sites, paving the way for future structural characterization of inhibition. A recently characterized drug, tetrahydrolipstatin (THL), has been found to strongly inhibit Rv3802c, an essential lipase involved in mycolic acid biosynthesis. To characterise mechanisms of THL inhibition, the crystal structure of Rv3802c in complex with THL was determined to 2.9 A. The crystal structure reveals the binding mechanisms of THL against an essential mycobacterial protein. Identification and structural characterization of addition THL drug targets will allow for future THL based drug design. A high percentage of the M. tuberculosis proteome is annotated as "hypothetical" proteins. To truly understand the mechanism of mycobacterial pathogenesis, further characterisation of hypothetical proteins is required. Rv0807, and its M. smegmatis orthologue, MSMEG_5817, have recently been identified as essential for mycobacterial survival within macrophages. The gene is annotated as a hypothetical protein, with little known on its functionality. The crystal structure of MSMEG_5817 was, via Se-MAD approach, successfully determined to 1.7A. The structure shares similarities with sterol carrier proteins (SCP), which bind and transport biologically relevant lipids. The lipid binding capabilities of MSMEG_5817 was probed, revealing binding to a number of phospholipids in a differing binding mechanism to the SCPs. The crystal structure determined structurally represents this new class of mycobacterial proteins, providing further insight into mechanisms of host survival. The three crystal structures provide insight into the drug binding mechanisms and functional characteristics of each target, allowing for further characterization of the novel mechanisms of mycobacterial pathogenesis, with potential for development of new anti-TB therapeutics.


Mintz has discovered a new sub-genre of fiction: the novel of vocation. In the nineteenth century, he maintains, work ceased to be merely what one did for a living or out of a sense of duty and became a vehicle for self-definition and self-realization. The change was prepared for by the growth of professions and the increase in middle-class career opportunities, He shows how George Eliot, in particular, linked these new social possibilities to the older Puritan doctrine of calling or vocation, achieving in her late novels a fictional structure that could encompass the conflicting energies of the age. In the idea of vocation she found a way to explore how far it is possible to be ambitious both for oneself and for a large cause, and a way to probe the contradictions between ambitious, self-defining work and the older institutions; of family, community, and religion. The book is solidly grounded in cultural and historical reality. Although Mintz concentrate on George Eliot and especially Middlemarch, he also examines the conceptions of self and work in Victorian biographies and autobiographies and the emergence in late-nineteenth-century fiction of the idea of the vocation of art.


Abstract Experiments were conducted to evaluate the nitrogen (N) balance in forage rice cultivation using animal manure in 1/2,000a Wagner pots in a greenhouse. The cattle manure and poultry manure were applied at 3 levels of N (0, 14, 28 g available N m–2) without additional chemical fertilizer application. The pots were designed to simulate the fluid percolation in the paddy field. The results indicated increasing levels of N input improved plant height, tiller number, SPAD value and biomass (straw, grain and root) production, however, N leaching from soil (Andosols) due to percolating water also increased. The planting of rice plants proved to reduce 30% of the N leaching loss. N use efficiency, the ratio of N uptake by plant per unit N application, decreased in higher N application. The N uptake by the above-ground parts occupied about 66% of the whole plants.


Blood transfusion therapy plays an important role in the care and management of ill newborns, yet the indications for blood product administration remain controversial. The article reviews basic definitions, indications for blood product transfusion, and risks and difficulties involved in transfusion therapy. Descriptions, indications, ABO/Rh compatibility, shelf life, necessary equipment, dose, rate, and general considerations for various blood product components are included.


Paul Feyerabend once suggested that his pragmatic theory of observation can be traced back to proposals put forward by leading Logical Empiricists during the height of the protocol sentence debate. In this article, I want to vindicate the systematic side of Feyerabend's remark and show that a pragmatic theory of observation can in fact be found in Rudolf Carnap's writings of 1932. I first proceed to dispel a misunderstanding concerning the term "pragmatic" raised by Thomas Oberdan. Following Charles William Morris's and Carnap's documented usage, I show that the intended meaning of "pragmatic" refers to a specific semiotic relation between users of a language and their environment describable by empirical means (specifically, the causal relation between the verbal behavior of language users and their environment). I reconstruct such a pragmatic theory in terms of a detector model that interprets observation sentences as bodily dispositions indicating physical events in the surroundings of the detector. I then proceed to show how Feyerabend's later theory of observation picks up central features of Carnap's account and also shares some of the motivations. I conclude by noting how an empirical theory of observation sentences offers a bootstrapping solution to the "basis problem."


Telomerase synthesizes tandem repeats of the sequence d(TTGGGG) onto input d(TTGGGG)n primer oligonucleotides (C. W. Greider and E. H. Blackburn, Cell 43:405-413). An intrinsic RNA component of the enzyme provides the template for d(TTGGGG)n repeat synthesis [C. W. Greider and E. H. Blackburn, Nature (London) 337:331-337, 1989; G.-L. Lu, J. D. Bradley, L. D. Attardi, and E. H. Blackburn, Nature (London) 344:126-132, 1990]. In a typical reaction, products greater than 2,000 nucleotides were synthesized in 60 min. Dilution and primer challenge experiments showed that these long products were synthesized processively. The apparent processivity was not due to a higher affinity of the enzyme for long d(TTGGGG) products over the shorter competitors. The degree of processivity was quantitated; telomerase synthesized approximately 520 nucleotides before half of the enzyme had dissociated. After dissociating, telomerase reinitiated d(TTGGGG)n synthesis on new primer oligonucleotides. The products from a telomerase reaction have a characteristic 6-nucleotide banding pattern (C. W. Greider and E. H. Blackburn, Cell 51:887-898, 1987). A strong pause in the reaction occurs after the addition of the first G in the sequence d(TTGGGG). Both the processivity and the banding pattern analysis imply that in the elongation mechanism there must be a translocation step after the 9 nucleotides of internal template RNA have been copied to the extreme 5' end.


This volume takes stock of the current status of the comparatively new discipline of `Anthropological Demography', and discusses its major methods, its main strengths, and its chief limitations. It includes contributions from both mainstream demographers and foremost anthropologists, all stressing the necessity of a shared agenda for each discipline to progress successfully and avoid marginalization. While the unique research and personal satisfaction afforded by `participant observation' is described, the book also highlights the potential contribution to the understanding of demographic events of much more than the field methods of traditional anthropology. In particular, it stresses the insights possible from qualitative focus group interviews, from longitudinal studies and from a greater interest in `armchair' anthropology, in which demographers complement their quantitative findings with qualitative information and understanding gleaned from a careful reading of the anthropological literature, in the form of both ethnographies and anthropological theories. In addition, it stresses the larger world of the ideal anthropological demographer: a world that includes the cultural context of course, but also takes into account the historical and political forces that condition so much individual behaviour. But the book is also a critical venture. It includes therefore considerable discussion of the common limits of the purely anthropological approach for understanding demographic events and processes, especially from a larger policy perspective, at the same time as it emphasizes the crucial role of the anthropological approach to designing policy that is potentially effective as well as socially and culturally sensitive. It reiterates the often complementary role of anthropological demography and also discusses some specific questions in demographic research which it does not as yet seem to have the capacity to illuminate. The book is aimed primarily at demographers wishing to broaden their research agenda and deepen their understanding of demographic behaviour, but it also hopes to convert mainstream anthropologists to take a more active interest in demographic issues. Both disciplines, after all, have a common intense interest in the kind of life and death issues that they can fruitfully explore together or by using one another's research methods.


The relevance of the homochirality of proteinogenic amino acids for life is undisputed, but also to their D-enantiomers a growing number of biological functions could be assigned. When it comes to D-amino acids in plants, information was relatively scarce for a long time. Nowadays, also in this field, knowledge is growing which will be presented and discussed in this review. In this respect, it was shown that D-amino acids are taken up by plants from soil but could also be synthesized de novo. Investigations of plant D-amino acid metabolism as well as other studies revealed a central function of D-Ala in plants, which await further elucidation. Also other D-amino acids are shown to cause physiological effects in plants, ranging from nitrogen utilization over stress adaptation to chloroplast division, and indicate that D-amino acids are responsible for a variety of yet poorly understood or even undiscovered functions in plants.


Our earlier studies have demonstrated that atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) can produce hypotensive, natriuretic and diuretic effects and that changes in the renal nerve activity can alter the renal excretory function. A few previous studies suggested that ANF could change the renal nerve activity. Thus, the present study was designed to assess the role of the renal nerve in the natriuretic and diuretic effect of ANF. Experiments were conducted on four groups of anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats: normal control rats, unilateral acute renal denervated rats with and without ANF administration and chronic renal denervated rats. The arterial blood pressure and the renal function responses to intravenous infusion of graded doses of ANF (atriopeptin III. 0.15, 0.30 and 0.45 microgram/kg.min) were studied. In normal rats, infusion of ANF significantly decreased the mean arterial blood pressure in a dose-related pattern (from 109 +/- 2 to 107 +/- 3, 102 +/- 4 and 89 +/- 5 mmHg, respectively). The glomerular filtration rate (GFR) did not change significantly whereas the urine flow and the absolute and the fractional excretion rates of sodium and potassium were significantly increased. Renal denervation alone did not change the blood pressure and GFR, but produced ipsilateral diuresis and saluresis without changing the function of the contralateral kidney. Subsequent administration of ANF decreased the blood pressure but did not affect bilateral GFR. There were significant increments in the urine flow and the excretions of sodium and potassium in both the denervated and the contralateral kidneys. Infusion of ANF into chronic renal denervated rats also reduced the blood pressure and increased the renal excretion of water and sodium. These results indicate that the diuretic and the natriuretic effects of ANF is not resulted from a decreased activity of the renal efferent nerve and that the hypotensive and the renal effects of ANF are independent of renal innervation.


"Dumpster" is often linked with "fire" in current vernacular to connote chaos - crumbling infrastructure posing public safety threats due to its underfunding and poor regulation by the federal government, for example. Similarly, the phrase "dumpster fire" also seems apt to describe the state of our criminal justice system, which systematically locks up vulnerable young men of color. It could also describe the struggle public schools face today to provide students with equal access to education, despite the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education. Unfortunately, post Brown v. Board of Education, segregation in the public school system will still exist until our government confronts its systematic bias and provides schools with the resources needed to set all students up for success.


Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world's premier student technology competition. Every year students from all over the world compete to solve the world toughest problems in different categories. In ten years, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real-world problems. Since 2003, over 1.4 million students have participated in the Imagine Cup with 358,000 students representing 183 countries and regions registering for the Imagine Cup 2011 competition [7]. In this paper, we present our experience in integrating imagine cup (IC) with computer science (CS) capstone courses at the American University of Kuwait (AUK). In the past four years, we coached four different teams in three consecutive years (2009-2012) to win Microsoft Imagine cup in the Gulf region (GCC region includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE) and qualify to the world finals. We present our best practices and three case studies of winning projects in the region (one of the three teams was totally formed of girls). We will also present the lessons learned and guidelines on how to integrate such design competitions with computer science capstone.


A growing literature exists on neural correlates of treatment outcome. However, different types—or components of—treatment have distinct theorized mechanisms of action. And it is not yet known how changes in neural activity across treatment relate to engagement in different treatment components. Participants with cocaine use disorders in a randomized clinical trial received cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) plus, in a 2 × 2 design, contingency management (CM) or no CM, and disulfiram or placebo. Participants performed a functional MRI Stroop task, a measure of cognitive control, at the beginning of and after the 12-week treatment. Analyses assessed changes in Stroop-related neural activity within the sample overall and assessed how changes in Stroop-related activity correlated with measures of treatment process specific to each form of treatment (i.e., participation in CBT sessions, receipt of CM prizes, administration of disulfiram pills). Within the sample overall, compared with beginning of treatment, posttreatment Stroop-related neural activity was diminished in the hippocampus, thalamus, cingulate, precentral, post- and precentral gyrus, and precuneus and culmen regions (pFWE < .05). In separate whole-brain correlation analyses, greater reductions in Stroop-related activity were associated with more treatment engagement—"CBT sessions" with the precentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and middle and medial frontal gyrus; "CM prizes" with the postcentral frontal gyrus. Disulfiram "medication days" were not associated with changes in Stroop-related activity. Findings suggest that key process indicators of CBT and CM may be associated with functional changes in cognitive-control-related neurocircuitry.


In vitro studies have indicated the importance of Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling in response to the fungal pathogens Candida albicans and Aspergillus fumigatus. However, the functional consequences of the complex interplay between fungal morphogenesis and TLR signaling in vivo remain largely undefined. In this study we evaluate the impact of the IL-1R/TLR/myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88 (MyD88)-dependent signaling pathway on the innate and adaptive Th immunities to C. albicans and A. fumigatus in vivo. It was found that 1) the MyD88-dependent pathway is required for resistance to both fungi; 2) the involvement of the MyD88 adapter may occur through signaling by distinct members of the IL-1R/TLR superfamily, including IL-1R, TLR2, TLR4, and TLR9, with the proportional role of the individual receptors varying depending on fungal species, fungal morphotypes, and route of infection; 3) individual TLRs and IL-1R activate specialized antifungal effector functions on neutrophils, which correlates with susceptibility to infection; and 4) MyD88-dependent signaling on dendritic cells is crucial for priming antifungal Th1 responses. Thus, the finding that the innate and adaptive immunities to C. albicans and A. fumigatus require the coordinated action of distinct members of the IL-1R/TLR superfamily acting through MyD88 makes TLR manipulation amenable to the induction of host resistance to fungi.


The paper presents a comprehensive data set of all bonds issued by the sixteen German states (L¨ander) since 1992. It thus provides a complete picture of a capital market comparable in size to funds raised in the German fixed income market for corporations. The quantitative analysis reveals that L¨ander follow different issuing strategies: while some concentrate to a greater extend on large issues or issue joint bonds with other L¨ander (Jumbos), others rely more on comparatively small but frequent issues. Moreover, some L¨ander issue a significant volume-share of their bonds in foreign currencies. Suitable bonds are used to compute yields for the respective L¨ander at a daily frequency. In addition, we construct a measure of liquidity based on the standard deviation of yields of those bonds that are used to compute the average yield.


Patent knowledge mining and reusing have become one of the shortcuts during the conceptual design. However, in fact, it is difficult to obtain the deep function and principle knowledge which are the most important part for conceptual design through the existing knowledge mining method. Therefore, this paper established a method of knowledge mining and visualization of patents based on the "Flow", through which the designer can improve the efficiency of knowledge acquisition, find the hidden principle of innovation, and promote innovation finally.


This research aims to assess some geotechnical properties and aquifer parameters and consequently the applicability of predicting its properties from surface electrical resistivity. The main output is to get several geotechnical properties particularly those concerned with groundwater studies (such as porosity, and permeability) and aquifer properties (such as resistivity, hydraulic conductivity and transmissivity). To achieve this goal, interpretations of 50 Schlumberger VES points distributed along 5 profiles, located in Salah Al-Din Governorate in central Iraq, have been carried out. Sounding curve types obtained in the area are mostly QQ and HK types. The application of VES technique has provided detailed information on the thickness and hydrogeoelectrical characteristics of the aquifers in the study area. Based on VES interpretation and their correlation with available geotechnical data, four geoelectric layers were identified; these are topsoil, unsaturated zone, saturated zone and the conductive layer. In addition, two aquifers have been identified in the area under study. The upper is unconfined appeared mainly in eastern side of Tigris River, whereas the lower is semiconfined-confined appeared mainly in the western side of the River. Different target zones for groundwater potential have been recognized on the basis of geoelectric parameters that range between poor-good groundwater potential. Generally, the quality of ground water is considered to be brackish with respect to their total dissolved solids (TDS). Several discontinuities (probably faults) have been delineated according to the form of resistivity curves and geoelectrical sections. The study states that the resistivity values increase with increasing gypsum content in dry condition. But for saturated soil with high water content, the conductivity increases and hence the resistivity decreases. Besides, the increase in gypsum content leads to increase the porosity, then the resistivity increases too. A remarkable correlation is found among topsoil gypsum content, surface resistivity and porosity with Landsat image.