Research Findings: This study utilized a large sample (N = 750) of 2-parent families from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort to examine the contributions of African American fathers' home literacy involvement, play activities, and caregiving at 24 months to children's reading and math achievement in preschool. After family characteristics and child characteristics were controlled for, both mother and father characteristics predicted child achievement. Mother age predicted math achievement but not reading. Furthermore, even after mother predictors were entered into the hierarchical regressions, fathers' education and home literacy involvement also significantly predicted achievement. African American fathers who engaged in more frequent shared book reading, telling stories, singing songs, and provided more children's books in their homes at 24 months had children with better reading and math scores in preschool. Practice or Policy: These findings support growing evidence that fathers contribute to child development. Implications for research on early academic achievement in ethnically diverse samples are discussed.


Abstract Background: This study aimed to assess the ventricular anatomy, function of the right ventricle, and the haemodynamic findings of pulmonary artery in children with cystic fibrosis using cardiac MRI. Patients: This prospective study consisted of 32 children with mild cystic fibrosis and 30 age-matched healthy control participants. Methods: Cardiac MRI was used to assess right ventricular volumes, anatomy, and function and to assessment of haemodynamic findings of pulmonary artery in the control and study groups. Haemodynamic findings of pulmonary arteries were determined using pulmonary arteries peak velocity (cm/s), and pulmonary arteries time-to-peak velocity (ms) and pulmonary artery systolic pressure. All data of children with mild cystic fibrosis were compared with those of 30 age-matched healthy control group participants. Results: Our patients and their age-matched controls were aged from 6 to 17 years and from 7 to 15 years, respectively. We found that ejection fraction (%), cardiac output (L/ml), cardiac output (L/ml/m2), and systolic volume (ml/m2) were significantly lower in children with cystic fibrosis (p < 0.01). Right ventricular anterior wall thickness (mm) was significantly higher in children with cystic fibrosis (p = 0.01). No significant difference was observed between the haemodynamic parameters of pulmonary artery in the patient group. Conclusion: In our study, cardiac MRI was used to investigate whether the right ventricle was affected functionally and anatomically in children with mild cystic fibrosis. We detected a significant decrease in right ventricular systolic functions and notable alterations in the right ventricular geometry of children with mild cystic fibrosis. These alterations usually manifest themselves as hypertrophy of the right ventricle. Our study's results demonstrate no relationship between the development of pulmonary hypertension in mild cystic fibrosis children.


Introduction Process evaluations accompanying complex interventions examine the implementation process of the underlying intervention, identify mechanisms of impact and assess contextual factors. This paper presents the protocol for a process evaluation conducted alongside the randomised controlled trial POWER@MS2. The trial comprises the evaluation of a web-based complex intervention on relapse management in 188 people with multiple sclerosis conducted in 20 centres. The web-based intervention programme focuses on relapse treatment decision making and includes a decision aid, a nurse-led webinar and an online chat. With the process evaluation presented here, we aim to assess participants' responses to and interactions with the intervention to understand how and why the intervention produces change. Methods and analysis A mixed methods design is used to explore the acceptance of the intervention as well as its use and impact on participants. Participants are people with multiple sclerosis, neurologists, nurses and stakeholders. Quantitative semistandardised evaluation forms will be collected throughout the study. Qualitative semistructured telephone interviews will be conducted at the end of the study with selected participants, especially people with multiple sclerosis and neurologists. Quantitative data will be collected and analysed descriptively. Based on the results, the qualitative interviews will be conducted and analysed thematically, and the results will be merged in a joint display table. Ethics and dissemination The process evaluation has received ethical approval from the Ethical Committee of the University of Lübeck (reference 19–024). Findings will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals, at conferences, meetings and on relevant patient websites. Trial registration number NCT04233970.


How to promote employees to be proactive behaviourally is a significant issue in the literature because it would benefit organisations in several ways. Drawing on the acceptance and commitment model, we proposed a new antecedent, psychological flexibility that might contribute to employees proactive work behaviour. Furthermore, we investigated how the contextual role of supervisor need for structure exhibits a cross-level moderating effect on the relationship between employee psychological flexibility at work and proactive work behaviour based on interactionism. Data from 241 full-time employees and their corresponding 45 managers indicated that employee psychological flexibility was positively associated with proactive work behaviour. More importantly, the supervisor need for structure played a moderating role, suggesting that employees would demonstrate greater proactive work behaviour especially when the supervisors have a high need for structure. Implications for psychological flexibility, proactivity, and personsituation interactional research are discussed.


Introduction: The peak incidence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection occurs among young people aged 15-24 years. University students are vulnerable to HIV because of their age, living arrangement and lack of family supervision. However, there is scarcity of data on prevalence of HIV infection among university students in different parts of Ethiopia.

Objective: This study was conducted to determine the prevalence and risk factors of HIV infection among regular undergraduate students at Bahir Dar University.

Methods: A cross- sectional study was conducted on 817 students in Bahir Dar University from January to March 2013. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on socio-demographic variables and behavioral factors. Whole blood samples were tested for the presence of antibody to HIV infection using National HIV rapid diagnostic tests algorithm. Regression analysis was computed to identify the independent risk factors.

Results: Overall, the sero-prevalence of HIV was 10 (1.2%) (95%CI:0.7-2.24%) where four of them were females (1.5%). The point prevalence was 4 (2%) and 5 (6.9%) among third year students and students who begun sex at the age of 10-17 years, respectively. Having sex after alcohol drinking (AOR=8.7, CI=1.26-60) and khat chewing (AOR=8.2, CI=1.1-62), watching pornography (AOR=13.5, CI=1.56 -117) and inconsistent use of condom (P=0.02) were the risk factors for HIV infection.

Conclusions: The prevalence of HIV infection among Bahir Dar University students is high. New infection among young people suggested that the disease is not under control yet in the country. Therefore, planning strategy to prevent the spread of HIV infection at university is critical. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2014;28(3):170-177]


This paper compares worker-owned firms and mainstream capital-owned enterprises over the business cycle. Specifically, I study whether conventional employees in worker-owned firms enjoy greater employment stability than similar workers in traditional enterprises over the business cycle, and investigate whether this stability is associated with greater volatility of working-time or wages. Unlike the literature that has compared partners of cooperatives to wage-earners of mainstream firms, I compare wage-earners across both type of organizations along the three margins of adjustment. To perform the econometric analysis, I rely on rich Spanish administrative data and panel data methods to account for composition differences between the two types of organizations. The results show that worker-owned firms offer higher job security because they do not adjust employment levels over the business cycle as much as mainstream enterprises. Wages and working-time, instead, are equally responsive across the two types of firms. The findings can be rationalized by the presence of similar labor regulations and differences in the objectives of the two type of organizations. Namely, both types of firms are constrained by regulations, such as the national Labor Code and collective bargaining, on the adjustments they can impose on wages and working-time. However, the social nature of worker-owned firms mitigates employment volatility in these organizations.


In the post‐genomic era, academic and biotechnological research is increasingly shifting its attention from single proteins to the analysis of complex protein networks. This change in experimental design requires the use of simple and experimentally tractable organisms, such as the unicellular eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and a range of new high‐throughput techniques. The Gateway® system has emerged as a powerful high‐throughput cloning method that allows for the in vitro recombination of DNA with high speed, accuracy and reliability. Two Gateway‐based libraries of overexpression plasmids containing the entire complement of yeast open reading frames (ORFs) have recently been completed. In order to make use of these powerful resources, we adapted the widely used pRS series of yeast shuttle vectors for use in Gateway‐based cloning. The resulting suite of 288 yeast Gateway vectors is based upon the two commonly used GPD and GAL1 promoter expression systems that enable expression of ORFs, either constitutively or under galactose‐inducible conditions. In addition, proteins of interest can be fused to a choice of frequently used N‐ or C‐terminal tags, such as EGFP, ECFP, EYFP, Cerulean, monomeric DsRed, HA or TAP. We have made this yeast Gateway® vector kit available to the research community via the non‐profit Addgene Plasmid Repository (http://www.addgene.org/yeast_gateway). Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Families with children are one of the fastest growing homeless populations in the United States, but are often left out of public library discussions of services to the homeless. This article will explore the demographics and educational issues surrounding children and teens who are experiencing homelessness in order to make the case that library services specifically for them are necessary. It will also look at the role library programs and services for their parents can play in improving literacy skills within the family unit. In addition, the article will examine model library services to children, teens and families experiencing homeless gathered from librarians engaged in this work throughout the US.


Avionics networks have a set of stringent reliability and safety requirements. In existing deployments, most of these networks are based on wired technology which provides a high degree of reliability and safety. Furthermore, it simplifies the security management of the network since certain assumptions, including an inability for an attacker to access the network, can be safely made. The proposal for having an Avionics Wireless Network (AWN), currently being developed by multiple aerospace working groups, promises reduction in the complexity of electrical wiring harness design and fabrication, reduction in wiring weight, increased configurability, and potential monitoring of otherwise inaccessible moving or rotating aircraft parts. While providing these benefits, the AWN must ensure that it provides, at a minimum, equivalent levels of safety to those offered by the wired network. Substituting the wired network with a wireless network, even for a specific set of well-defined and non-critical tasks, brings a whole set of new challenges related to assurance, reliability, and security. In this paper, we discuss the security and trust challenges an AWN deployment might face, along with highlighting potential directions for solutions. Furthermore, as a case study we will elaborate on AWN deployment variants especially the wireless as a comm-link. Finally, the paper makes suggestions that set the agenda for security, reliability and trust work that could, if successful, provide an AWN system meeting the required safety standards.


Previous research shows that keyphrases are useful tools in document retrieval and navigation. While these point to a relation between keyphrases and document retrieval performance, no other work uses this relationship to identify keyphrases of a given document. This work aims to establish a link between the problems of query performance prediction (QPP) and keyphrase extraction. To this end, features used in QPP are evaluated in keyphrase extraction using a naïve Bayes classifier. Our experiments indicate that these features improve the effectiveness of keyphrase extraction in documents of different length. More importantly, commonly used features of frequency and first position in text perform poorly on shorter documents, whereas QPP features are more robust and achieve better results.


The existence and uniqueness of a mild solution to nonlinear fuzzy differential equation constrained by initial value were proven. Initial value constraint was then replaced by delay function constraint and the existence of a solution to this type of problem was also proven. Furthermore, the existence of a solution to optimal control problem of the latter type of equation was proven.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are vulnerable to Node Replication attacks or Clone attacks. Among all the existing clone detection protocols in WSNs, RAWL shows the most promising results by employing Simple Random Walk (SRW). More recently, RAND outperforms RAWL by incorporating Network Division with SRW. Both RAND and RAWL have used SRW for random selection of witness nodes which is problematic because of frequently revisiting the previously passed nodes that leads to longer delays, high expenditures of energy with lower probability that witness nodes intersect. To circumvent this problem, we propose to employ a new kind of constrained random walk, namely Single Stage Memory Random Walk and present a distributed technique called SSRWND (Single Stage Memory Random Walk with Network Division). In SSRWND, single stage memory random walk is combined with network division aiming to decrease the communication and memory costs while keeping the detection probability higher. Through intensive simulations it is verified that SSRWND guarantees higher witness node security with moderate communication and memory overheads. SSRWND is expedient for security oriented application fields of WSNs like military and medical.


The implementation of information technologies in the United Kingdom health sector is a relatively recent phenomenon. Many of the developments have followed the patterns in the United States. One such example is that of Case Mix, introduced strategically as part of the Resource Management Initiative and aimed at the facilitation of both clinical and financial audit. Moreover, Case Mix was implemented alongside significant changes in hospital structure and culture, requiring clinicians to get involved in management tasks and decision making within the structure of the hospital, supported by a new information infrastructure. The success of such systems has varied significantly. A number of lessons can be learned from the way that the implementation was approached. This article stems from a research project focusing longitudinally on the implementation of Case Mix in four UK hospitals. It draws a number of findings from the cases, and importantly, explicates a framework for strategic information systems implementation, as generated from the cases and supported by the extant literature. Such a framework has implications for both theory and practice, and assists in the understanding of what is often a dynamic and poorly understood situation.


The sapwood fibers in green softwood are normally filled – or nearly filled – with free water. This water forms a continuous phase through the narrow bordered pits between fiber lumens. In a drying process water evaporates from the menisci formed at these narrow throats and initially located close to the surface of the wood. As the amount of free water decreases in this way, a retraction of the meniscus will happen in the widest throat, which can be located anywhere, not necessarily close to the surface. As the individual size of these narrow throats is a stochastic variable, this process will produce complicated water phase structures that gradually fragmentize. If this drying behavior is viewed as such an invasion percolation process it is obvious that the result differs from normal diffusion, which however most often is used as the basis for wood drying modeling. A computer based simulation model that utilizes the above principle has been developed. This model has been used for the simulation of a few situations of practical and theoretical importance. It has been found that this invasion percolation approach can reproduce some previously unexplained features seen in softwood drying processes. Some detailed examples are presented in this paper


This letter studies the performance of a low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite communication system where the locations of the LEO satellites are modeled as a binomial point process (BPP) on a spherical surface. In particular, we study the user coverage probability for a scenario where satellite gateways (GWs) are deployed on the ground to act as a relay between the users and the LEO satellites. We use tools from stochastic geometry to derive the coverage probability for the described setup assuming that LEO satellites are placed at <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> different altitudes, given that the number of satellites at each altitude <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$a_{k}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N_{k}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> where <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1\leq k\leq n$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. To resemble practical scenarios where satellite communication can play an important role in coverage enhancement, we compare the performance of the considered setup with a scenario where the users are solely covered by a fiber-connected base station (referred to as anchored base station or ABS in the rest of the letter) at a relatively far distance, which is a common challenge in rural and remote areas. Using numerical results, we show the performance gain, in terms of coverage probability, at rural and remote areas when LEO satellite communication systems are adopted. Finally, we draw multiple system-level insights regarding the density of GWs required to outperform the ABS, as well as the number of LEO satellites and their altitudes.


CONTEXT
Patients on investigational clinical trials and their caregivers experience poor quality of life (QOL), which declines as the disease progresses.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the effect of a standardized cognitive-behavioral problem-solving educational intervention on the QOL of patients enrolled on investigational clinical trials and their caregivers.

DESIGN
Prospective, multi-institution, randomized trial. QOL was measured repeatedly over 6 months.

PARTICIPANTS
Patients were simultaneously enrolled onto phase 1, 2, or 3 Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved cancer clinical trials.

INTERVENTION
Intervention arm dyads participated in three conjoint educational sessions during the first month, learning the COPE problem solving model. Nonintervention arm dyads received usual care.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Global QOL was measured by the City of Hope Quality of Life Instruments for Patients or Caregivers; problem solving skills were measured by the Social Problem Solving Inventory-Revised.

RESULTS
The results are reported using the CONSORT statement. The analytic data set included 476 dyads including 1596 patient data points and 1576 care giver data points. Patient QOL showed no significant difference in the rate of change between the intervention and usual care arms (p = 0.70). Caregiver QOL scores in the intervention arm declined, but at less than half the rate in the control arm (p = 0.02).

CONCLUSIONS
The COPE intervention enabled the average caregiver to come much closer to stable QOL over the 6-month follow-up. Future studies should enroll subjects much earlier in the cancer illness trajectory, a common patient/caregiver theme. The maximum effect was seen in caregivers who completed the 6-month follow-up, suggesting that the impact may increase over time.


BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to validate a nutrition screening tool for use in South Manchester University Hospitals Trust.

METHOD
A sample of 100 patients was selected from medical, surgical and elderly care wards. To test the reliability of the screening tool, nurses and dietitians completed the screening tool on the same patient. These results were compared for interobserver error to determine whether the screening tool was reproducible with different observers. To ascertain if the screening tool identified malnutrition at ward level, four markers commonly used to assess nutritional status were collected. These included body mass index (BMI), mid upper arm circumference MUAC, percentage weight loss, and energy intake calculated from the patient's first full day in hospital and expressed as a percentage of their estimated average requirements (EAR).

RESULTS
There was a 95% level of agreement between nurses and dietitians within +/-3. The screening tool had a sensitivity level of 78% and a specificity of 52% when compared to all patients who had one or more markers indicating malnutrition. This association was found to be statistically significant (P < 0.005).

CONCLUSION
The screening tool is reliable when completed by different observers and is valid for wide scale nutritional assessment. The screening tool identifies an acceptable number of patients who are malnourished but overestimates patients at moderate risk.


PURPOSE Low-grade serous ovarian carcinomas (LGSOCs) have historically low chemotherapy responses. Alterations affecting the MAPK pathway, most commonly KRAS/BRAF, are present in 30%-60% of LGSOCs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate binimetinib, a potent MEK1/2 inhibitor with demonstrated activity across multiple cancers, in LGSOC. METHODS This was a 2:1 randomized study of binimetinib (45 mg twice daily) versus physician's choice chemotherapy (PCC). Eligible patients had recurrent measurable LGSOC after ≥ 1 prior platinum-based chemotherapy but ≤ 3 prior chemotherapy lines. The primary end point was progression-free survival (PFS) by blinded independent central review (BICR); additional assessments included overall survival (OS), overall response rate (ORR), duration of response (DOR), clinical-benefit rate, biomarkers, and safety. RESULTS A total of 303 patients were randomly assigned to an arm of the study at the time of interim analysis (January 20, 2016). Median PFS by BICR was 9.1 months (95% CI, 7.3 to 11.3) for binimetinib and 10.6 months (95% CI, 9.2 to 14.5) for PCC (hazard ratio,1.21; 95%CI, 0.79 to 1.86), resulting in early study closure according to a prespecified futility boundary after 341 patients had enrolled. Secondary efficacy end points were similar in the two groups: ORR 16% (complete response [CR]/partial responses[PRs], 32) versus 13% (CR/PRs, 13); median DOR, 8.1 months (range, 0.03 to ≥ 12.0 months) versus 6.7 months (0.03 to ≥ 9.7 months); and median OS, 25.3 versus 20.8 months for binimetinib and PCC, respectively. Safety results were consistent with the known safety profile of binimetinib; the most common grade ≥ 3 event was increased blood creatine kinase level (26%). Post hoc analysis suggests a possible association between KRAS mutation and response to binimetinib. Results from an updated analysis (n = 341; January 2019) were consistent. CONCLUSION Although the MEK Inhibitor in Low-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer Study did not meet its primary end point, binimetinib showed activity in LGSOC across the efficacy end points evaluated. A higher response to chemotherapy than expected was observed and KRAS mutation might predict response to binimetinib.


Understanding the issue of Governance goes beyond having political entities running an organization in other to maximize shareholders wealth to including the corporate players of that entity whose goal is to maximization profit. Corporate players are the major drivers of today's global economy, so much so that some organizations in developed countries have achieved turnovers that are higher than some countries GDP. However, the fundamental of corporate governance is to promote fairness, transparency, accountability as well as guide corporate bodies in their action and deed. This study therefore examines the relationship between corporate governance and banks profitability in Nigeria. The study discovered that good corporate governance and not assets value determine the profitability of banks in Nigeria. The study made four (4) recommendations, one of which is to encourage banks to have small but qualitative board size that is made up of financial and legal professionals .


Chemotherapy is an effective treatment for cancer. However, it causes some side effects which include nausea and vomiting. More than 70% of patients experience nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of ginger aromatherapy in nausea, and vomiting patients on post cervical cancer chemotherapy. We used a pretest-posttest control group design, using purposive sampling of 60 respondents. We used anti-emetics measurement tool according to Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) to assessed patient's complaints. The result showed significant difference in nausea and vomiting group before and after given aromatherapy (p = 0.000); nausea score (p = 0.005) and vomiting score (p= 0.013) from intervention and control group. No significant difference was observed in nausea (p = 0.279), and vomiting (p = 0.276) on control group. Ginger aromatherapy can be used as alternative medication to reduce post-chemotherapy nausea and vomiting.


The paper presents results on the current environmental conditions in Lake Victoria in order to improve understanding on the limnological changes that have taken place over the last four decades and their impacts on fish stocks. Results show that in last four decades, Secchi disc visibility decreased by about 75% (range: 0.5m in the shallow bays around Nyanza Gulf to 5.7m in deep waters). Oxycline depth decreased by 50% indicating that a large body of the lake water in the deeper waters cannot support life. Chlorophyll a has increased three times compared to historical values. Results also show that the redfield ratio has decreased to 8.2:1 (N: P)  indicating more P and less N in the lake water. Low oxygen conditions in the deep water causes rapid denitrification with subsequent loss of nitrogen. In addition, primary productivity has doubled over the period and algal biomass increased by 8-10 folds. The algal biomass is currently dominated by Cyanophyta. Zooplankton communities have also changed to smaller sized species and a dominance of rotifers while the micro-invertebrate Caridina nilotica has a higher abundance in inshore waters compared to offshore waters. Changes in phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass and species composition following eutrophication has influenced changes in herbivorous fish species as well as zooplanktivorous resulting in increase of zooplankton fish species such as "Dagaa" Rastrineobola argentea, and decline of other species. Changes in other ecological interactions due to species introduction and predation accelerated by the environmental changes and increased fishing pressure have further complicated the ecosystem dynamics of Lake Victoria and pose serious uncertainties about its future stability and sustainability of the fisheries resources. Lake Victoria's future sustainability requires effective management of fishing effort and phosphorous loading. Future research should endeavour to determine an acceptable nutrient loading rate that will sustain/ improve the fishery. Key words : Deoxygenation, Phosphorous, NP ratios, Eutrophication, Fishery


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I do not understand painting very well, and especially not Australian Indigenous painting, the dot painting of Western and Central Desert artists such as Kathleen Petyarre. I grew up without art on the wall, among gum trees, red dirt, dying wattle, and 'two thirds (blue) sky'. While this might suggest that I inhabit the same landscape as Petyarre, I also grew up without 'the Dreaming', the meaning that this dot painting is said to be about. How and why then can this painting have the impact on me that it does? And, given the history of colonisation in Australia, including the colonisation of Indigenous meanings, what is the politics of the impact of that painting?


In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), food security can be influenced by many factors including farmer productivity, access to soil amendments, labor availability, and family incomes (just to name a few). In this paper, we suggest that an additional issue contributes to food insecurity and has been historically absent from the discussion, namely access to cooking energy, particularly for very low income, food insecure individuals. This paper examines the most recent literature that describes the central role played by wood fuels, in particular firewood and charcoal, as a vital, though controversial, source of fuel used by the vast majority of rural and urban sub-Saharan Africans. We explore the reality that although the health risks of collecting and using firewood and charcoal in traditional manners are real, policy makers, researchers, and donors need to address the sustainability and viability of the current fuel types used by the majority of people. We end the paper with a series of practical suggestions for improving the wood fuel systems as they currently exist in the region.


Electric spring (ES) along with the smart load (SL) have recently been used as a smart technology for stabilising distribution networks. ESs are embedded on non-critical (NC) loads in order to protect critical loads against voltage fluctuations. Three different generations of ES have been developed in recent years. A comprehensive control scheme is proposed for the third generation of ES, through which the SL power factor and line voltage can be controlled. In order to control the power factor in steady-state condition, the radial-chordal decomposition (RCD) method, which has been previously used for the second generation, is employed in the closed-loop manner. The proposed controller has also the capability to mitigate the voltage fluctuation in over/under voltage condition. Simulation results show the superiority of this method in voltage control over RCD method. In addition, for a bunch of NC loads, the desired power factor will be reached at the point of common coupling.


Silicon-on-insulator technology has been used to fabricate 2×2 thermo-optic switches. The switch shows crosstalk of -23.4 dB and extinction ratio of 18.1 dB in the bar-state. The switching speed is less than 30 μs and the power consumption is about 420 mW. The measured excess loss is 1.8 dB. These merits make the switch more attractive for applications in wavelength division multiplexing.


Neurologists are often the first medical providers to evaluate patients with possible infectious meningitis. Knowledge of the clinical presentations and cerebrospinal fluid, microbiologic, and neuroimaging findings for different etiologies is essential to make a prompt diagnosis and initiate appropriate treatment. Tuberculosis is a common cause of meningitis in developing countries with a high prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis. However, tuberculosis affects populations in every country and all neurologists need to be vigilant for possible cases of tuberculous meningitis presenting to their medical facilities. This article discusses the challenges of diagnosing and treating tuberculous meningitis and highlights recent advances in diagnostic technology.


The fungal biocontrol agent, Paecilomyces lilacinus strain 251 (PL251), was evaluated for its potential to control the root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita on tomato at varying application rates and inoculum densities. Conversely to previous studies, significant dose-response relationships could not be established. However, we demonstrated that a preplanting soil treatment with the lowest dose of commercially formulated PL251 (2 × 10(5) CFU/g soil) was already sufficient to reduce root galling by 45% and number of egg masses by 69% when averaged over inoculum densities of 100 to 1,600 eggs and infective juveniles per 100 cm(3) of soil. To determine the role of colonization of M. incognita egg masses by PL251 for biocontrol efficacy, a real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay with a detection limit of 10 CFU/egg mass was used. Real-time PCR revealed a significant relationship between egg mass colonization by PL251 and the dose of product applied to soil but no correlation was found between fungal density and biocontrol efficacy or nematode inoculum level. These results demonstrate that rhizosphere competence is not the key mode of action for PL251 in controlling M. incognita on tomato.


As a traditional disinfection method, chlorination disinfection is used generally in the plants ,however, disinfection by-products (DBPs) during chlorination process generate accordingly. Nitrogenous organic compounds is a kind of important precursors of DBPs. Haloacetic acids (HAAs) is one kind of the main DBPs. Aspartic acid (Asp) is one kind of elementary amino acids,which are typical nitrogenous organic compounds.In this paper, the formation characteristics of HAAs by Asp under different chlorination disinfection conditions have been researched, such as reaction time, chlorine dosage, pH, temperature and Br- . The results show that the yields of dichloroacetic acid(DCAA) and trichloroacetic acid(TCAA) are both increased with the reaction time increasing,and the formation rates is accelerated at the initial period; With the increase of chlorine dosage, the yields of DCAA and TCAA increased; The yield of DCAA and TCAA are both low in the acidic condition and high in the conditions of neutral and alkaline conditions. The yield of DCAA and TCAA increased with the increase of temperature. When there is Br- in water, bromided-HAAs can be formed.The total HAAs yield and BIF both increase with the increase of Br- concentration. The HAAs constituents contain DCAA,TCAA,BCAA,DBCAA, DCBAA, DBAA and TBAA. At low Br- concentration,the order of HAAs constituents yields is DCAA>BCAA>DCBAA>TCAA>DBCAA> DBAA>TBAA.


The present invention is excellent in formability to enable the flat hem processing, and an object thereof is to provide an aluminum alloy sheet and a method of manufacturing the same having excellent paint bake hardening is also dent resistant. Si and Mg as a rolled sheet of 6000 series aluminum alloy as the main alloying element, the rank is the Cube intensity ratio of 20 or more characteristics of the orientation of the anisotropy of the pod exceeds the value 0.4, or texture. After the homogenization process the ingot, cooling by more than 100 ℃ / h cooling rate up to, or more cooling to a temperature of less than 350 ℃ room temperature, reheated to a temperature of 300~500 ℃ do the hot rolling, a cold rolled one more then, is produced by carrying out a solution treatment at above 450 ℃ temperature, quenching, this also, the limit bending radius is 0.5 mm or less characteristic in the 180 ° bending in the concentration exceeding the 140 MPa yield strength by the room temperature aging have.


The Bush administration's decision last March to impose tariffs of 8-30 percent on steel has been called everything from hypocrisy and stupidity to Machiavellian political brilliance. The reaction has been a remarkable demonstration of the strength of free-trade opinion in the United States but it has also been a bit puzzling. The steel tariffs, even if one believes they are bad policy, are just temporary aberrations from the norm; they will be lifted in a couple of years. But for dozens of other products-sneakers, spoons, bicycles, underwear, suitcases, drinking glasses, T-shirts, plates, and more-tariffs of 8-30 percent are neither aberrant nor temporary. In fact, they are normal and permanent parts of U.S. trade policy. Barring a deliberate change in policy, they will never be lifted-and no one seems to care. The reason is not simply that people care more about steel than about under wear. Rather, it is that the tariff system has become an obscure, little-studied topic. Those who debate trade and globalization view tariff policy as boring and out of date. Career trade negotiators who set tariff rates have little contact with the customs officers who collect the money. Journalists cover political debate and international disputes rather than the functioning of permanent policy. And government officials, aware that tariffs are generally low and raise little money compared to domestic taxes, rarely think about the system as a whole. But if these groups were to look more closely, they would find a remark able situation. Tariff policy, without any deliberate intent, has evolved into something astonishingly tough on the poor. Young single mothers buying cheap clothes and shoes now pay tariff rates five to ten times higher than middle-class or rich families pay in elite stores. Very poor countries such as Cambodia or Bangladesh face tariffs 15 times those applied to wealthy nations and oil exporters. Despite this dismal situation, however, fixing the system would be easier than many imagine.


A reciprocal relationship is needed between humans and the environment so that there is a balance and harmony between nature and humans. Therefore it is necessary to implement environmental integrated education, so that the concepts and principles of various kinds of natural phenomena can easily be developed in learning materials and these understandings can be used in everyday life. This development research aims to produce a physics module of global warming symptoms based on the SETS approach. This type of research is research and development with the ADDIE model contains five stages, namely: (1) analyze; (2) design; (3) development; (4) implement; (5) evaluate (assessment). From the research results, it was found that the physics module based on the SETS approach had met the very valid criteria with a percentage of 92%. In terms of practicality, the SETS-based physics module has met the very practical criteria with the percentage of teacher and student response questionnaires being 93% and 90.56%, respectively. In addition, the SETS-based physics module has also met the effective criteria with an N-gain value of 0.76


Exploitation of coal seams in Upper Silesia (Poland), which has been going on for several centuries, produces ecological disturbances of different types. One of them is constituted by developing 'sinking' holes. In mining areas, the latter change the elastic properties of the surroundings while moving upwards. When reaching the earth's surface, they may give rise to large changes in the industrial infrastructure, by producing e.g. the collapsing of roads, railroads, or houses. In order to prevent such catastrophic events, a location map of weak zones must be established. GPR methods seem to be best suited to obtain such a map. The GPR measurements and their interpretation over the sinking holes can also be used for the assessment and mapping of changes in rock properties, particularly those caused by the contamination of the soil. We are presently investigating the possibilities to locate the areas where the soil is polluted. We find that there is a number of parameters which influence the GPR results. In this case, the GPR measurements over the sinking holes help to understand the time processes recognizable on the GPR recordings.


Abstract Background: T-cell lymphomas with anaplastic morphology typically comprise of anaplastic lymphoma kinase positive, anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALK+ ALCL), ALK-negative ALCL (ALK- ALCL), and primary cutaneous ALCL (PC-ALCL). However, other entities such as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, peripheral T-cell lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, and undifferentiated carcinoma can also show similar anaplastic features. Aims: To study the clinical features and histological spectrum of ALCL and emphasize the role of immunohistochemistry (IHC) in their diagnosis and categorization. Setting and Design: Eight cases of ALCL diagnosed over a period of 4 years were selected for the study. Materials and Methods: Histopathological review and IHC was performed on all cases. Two ALK+ ALCL cases were tested by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) for t(2;5)(p23;q35). Results: There were four cases of ALK+ ALCL and two each of ALK- ALCL and PC-ALCL. Histologically, all the subtypes showed pleomorphic and "hallmark" cells with strong CD30 expression and variable loss of T-cell antigens. One case of PC-ALCL was leukocyte common antigen (LCA) negative. Epithelial membrane antigen was positive in all the six systemic ALCL cases. Two cases tested for t(2;5)(p23;q35) by FISH were positive. Conclusions: Diagnosis of ALCL is based on recognizing the key morphological features, especially the presence of "hallmark" cells. IHC is essential for confirmation of diagnosis and excluding other malignancies with anaplastic morphology. The inclusion of CD30 in the initial IHC panel will help identify LCA negative cases and avoid misdiagnosis.


Health is wealth", is a statement that reverberates the importance of health in an individual's life. But it is ignored that, health is dependent on multiple factors associated with life. Ayurveda explains three Upastambhas, which is to be observed for leading a healthy life. They are Ahara, Nidra and Brahmacharya, among which Ahara stands the first. Adequate nutrition through diet is very much needed for the maintenance of life, but, health comes up with following of systematic rules and regulations in diet. For this there is a unique approach that is explained in Ayurveda, which is Ashta Ahara Vidhi Vishesha Ayatana. In this we find the guidelines for healthy dietary habits like choosing of appropriate food, the right processing, the different combination with food, the right quantity etc. Likewise there are a total of eight dietetic rules and conducts that are explained in this context. With the current scenario, it is noticed that, there is a huge spike in GIT disorders and lifestyle related diseases. It is also undoubtedly established fact that, altered diet habits of the modern world are a leading causative factor for it. The necessity for a scientific and stable dietetic regimen for encountering these issues is in great demand. Taking these into account it is wise to look into the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda. Here, following Ashta Ahara Vidhi Vishesha Ayatana, which have a huge potential in bringing back the normal health of an individual can be taken into account as a solution.


According to application of thermal insulation materials in the practical construction of electrical heat tracing in viscous oil pipeline, impact factors of rigid polyurethane foam widely used as new insulation material are systemically analyzed by Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) in the theory of Grey System to find out priorities among those factors. To further study their performances and to improve the quality of constructions, ten field experiments were carried out in Tanggula Mountain. The foaming conditions and the performances of the rigid polyurethane foam were recorded to be analyzed by GRA. The analysis results, acting as scientific guidance for construction, show that the insulation quality of rigid polyurethane foam is mainly determined by the ratio of components, thus the priority is to control such dominant factor and overall consideration of other factors should be taken to ensure insulation quality in the foaming process. More field experiments prove that the ratio should be controlled between 1.15 and 1.18 to ensure the thermal insulation.


Phylogenetic relationships among taxa can be estimated in a number of ways. Given known fossil records, phylogenetic estimates implicitly hypothesise the latest possible origination times of taxa. One can use these inferences as models to evaluate the quality of the fossil record. Originally, it was hoped that these metrics would obviate the need for probabilistic models. However, subsequent research shows that all these metrics are affected by the same factors affecting probabilistic models while also being highly sensitive to the accuracy of the model phylogeny. Alternatively, one can treat these inferences as hypotheses to be tested by stratigraphic distribution data. Given the sensitivity of phylogenetic inference to ideas about character evolution and levels of convergence, this offers a promising avenue for reducing untested assumptions yielding initial phylogenetic estimates.

Key Concepts:

Particular ideas about phylogenetic relationships have implications about both macroevolutionary models and preservation models.

There are several ways to describe gaps implied by inferred phylogenies, but all reflect factors other than simple preservation rate, especially the accuracy of the phylogeny.

Using stratigraphic data to test phylogenetic inferences as hypotheses might help assess the assumptions underlying phylogenetic inference.

Keywords:

palaeontology;
phylogeny;
stratigraphy


A new correction instrument of pectus excavatum is introduced which is designed for a minimally invasive technique (Nuss procedure). The instrument was made of pure titanium plates, and finished by machining, surface treatment and so on. The instrument was made up of correcting bar and fixing bar. The mechanical properties of the instrument was measured with electron universal material testing machine, the safety and validity was verified by clinical doctors after being implanted into the patient. Results showed that the mechanical properties of the instrument keep constantly after implantation for two years. It is lighter than the like product, and can lighten the patent's and the doctor's operation bearing. It had been applied in national hospitals, and results showed that it was of better biocompatibility, and few complications were found. Clinical treatment effects were satisfactory.


AIM AND OBJECTIVES
We sought to identify the feasibility and predictive validity of an easy and quick self-reported measure of medication adherence and to identify characteristics of people with hypertension that may warrant increase attentiveness by nurses to address hypertensive self-management needs.

BACKGROUND
Current control rates of hypertension are approximately 50%. Effective blood pressure control can be achieved in most people with hypertension through antihypertensive medication. However, hypertension control can only be achieved if the patient is adherent with their medication regimen. Patients who are non-adherent may be in need of additional intervention.

DESIGN
This secondary analysis evaluated the systolic blood pressure of patients who received usual hypertension management across 24 months at six-month intervals.

METHODS
A longitudinal study of 159 hypertensive patients in two primary care clinics.

RESULTS
In a sample of 159 patients receiving care in a primary care facility, baseline medication non-adherence was associated with a 6·3 mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure (p < 0·05) at baseline, a 8·4 mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure (p < 0·05) at 12 months and a 7·5 increase in systolic blood pressure at 24 months (p < 0·05) compared with adherent patients, respectively. Results also indicate a significant increase in systolic blood pressure across 24 months among people who identified as minority and of low financial status.

CONCLUSIONS
Non-adherence with antihypertensive medication at baseline was predictive of increased systolic blood pressure up to 24 months postbaseline.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
This study demonstrates the use of an easy-to-use questionnaire to identify patients who are non-adherent. We recommend assessing medication adherence to identify patients who are non-adherent with their anti-hypertensive medication and to be especially vigilant with patients who are minority or are considered low income.


Large infrastructure projects are often financed through limited-recourse project finance (PF) vehicles with a high proportion of senior debt. PF is a unique form of corporate governance that creates extensive creditor rights when certain covenants are broken, most notably the option to "step in" upon a credit event, and to restructure the firm to maximize either expected recovery or expected payoff, depending on the nature of the credit event. These options significantly impact the outcome of credit events, and credit rating agencies report anecdotal evidence of very high recovery rates in project finance debt compared to comparable corporate debt. However, data paucity forbids robust reduced-form modeling of expected recovery rates. In this article, we extend the structural credit risk model of illiquid debt developed by Blanc-Brude and Hasan [2016] to incorporate the step-in option of senior creditors in PF, and model its impact on the valuation and risk profile of senior unsecured project debt, taking into account the bargaining power of creditors and borrowers in investment projects that are relationship-specific. Step-in options also can be understood as trading off credit risk and duration, depending on creditor risk preferences.


This paper addresses the intersection of coalition formation, judicial strategies, and regulatory politics. Coalitions are a low-cost means for assembling minority interests into more powerful blocs. However, in most cases in regulatory politics, judicial strategies are high cost efforts. I argue that coalitions among interests form one basis for judicial participation, but that participation manifests in an array of coalition "microstructures." For any one event, the microstructure of the interest group coalition varies, but across events the coalitions take on general forms. The paper offers evidence for a variety of coalition microstructures in interest group participation as amici curiae ("friends of the court") in cases before the United States Supreme Court. The evidence is drawn from the case of the Group of Ten, a stable, long-term coalition of environmental interest groups that operated from 1981 to 1991.


Purpose Approximately 50% to 70% of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have some degree of insulin resistance, and obesity is known to worsen insulin resistance. Many metabolic consequences of PCOS are similar to those of obesity; therefore, defining the cause of insulin resistance in women can be difficult. Our objective was to clarify the factors contributing to insulin resistance in PCOS. Materials and Methods We consecutively recruited 144 women with PCOS [age: 26±5 yr, body mass index, body mass index (BMI): 24.4±4.0 kg/m2] and 145 controls (age: 25±5 yr, BMI: 23.0±3.6 kg/m2), and divided them into overweight/obese (ow/ob, BMI ≥23 kg/m2) and lean (BMI <23 kg/m2) groups. Anthropometric measures and a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test were performed, and insulin sensitivity index (ISI) was calculated as an index of insulin sensitivity. Factors predictive of ISI were determined using regression analysis. Results ISI was significantly lower in both lean and ow/ob women with PCOS compared to BMI-matched controls (p<0.05). Increasing BMI by 1 kg/m2 decreased ISI by 0.169 in PCOS patients (p<0.05) and by 0.238 in controls (p<0.05); there was no significant difference between these groups. In lean PCOS patients and lean controls, BMI had no effect on ISI. Multiple regression analysis revealed that PCOS status (β=-0.423, p<0.001) and BMI (β=-0.375, p<0.001) were significantly associated with ISI. Conclusion Insulin resistance is an intrinsic defect of PCOS, and a high BMI could exacerbate insulin resistance in all women, irrespective of whether they have PCOS.


The impasse in the World Trade Organization over the appointment of new members of the Appellate Body is just one symptom of crisis in cooperation on trade. Driven by scepticism about multilateralism and binding dispute settlement, and a growing rivalry with China, the current US administration has elevated longstanding concerns about WTO dispute settlement to new heights. The collective inability of WTO members to exercise their authority to interpret the meaning of WTO commitments has meant that the Appellate Body is not subject to any checks and balances. As other WTO members blocked US efforts to negotiate more member control led nowhere, it turned to unpopular unilateral mechanisms, culminating in the current block on new appointments.   Restoring the dispute settlement system and enhancing its legitimacy will now require some changes. This might include improving mechanisms for political oversight, diverting sensitive issues from adjudication, narrowing the scope of adjudication, improving institutional support and providing members more say over certain procedures. Preserving compulsory, binding and impartial dispute settlement in the WTO will require an accommodation of different perspectives on how that system should function. Achieving this, in whatever form, will contribute to maintaining and even strengthening multilateral cooperation on trade.


Stock data in the form of multiple time series are difficult to process, analyze and mine. However, when they can be transformed into meaningful symbols like technical patterns, it becomes easier. Most recent work on time series queries concentrates only on how to identify a given pattern from a time series. Researchers do not consider the problem of identifying a suitable set of time points for segmenting the time series in accordance with a given set of pattern templates (e.g., a set of technical patterns for stock analysis). On the other hand, using fixed length segmentation is a primitive approach to this problem; hence, a dynamic approach (with high controllability) is preferred so that the time series can be segmented flexibly and effectively according to the needs of users and applications. In view of the fact that such a segmentation problem is an optimization problem and evolutionary computation is an appropriate tool to solve it, we propose an evolutionary time series segmentation algorithm. This approach allows a sizeable set of stock patterns to be generated for mining or query. In addition, defining the similarity between time series (or time series segments) is of fundamental importance in fitness computation. By identifying perceptually important points directly from the time domain, time series segments and templates of different lengths can be compared and intuitive pattern matching can be carried out in an effective and efficient manner. Encouraging experimental results are reported from tests that segment the time series of selected Hong Kong stocks.


This Master Thesis has first of all given an explanation of the mobility incompatibility with internet and how this problem is being handled. Different proposals have been described of which objective is providing mobility support to an internet which was designed without it. Their features and its possible weakness have been pointed out. After this state of the art description, the Thesis has tackled one of its main objectives, developed one proposal to provide mobility to internet, "Fast Routing Mobility" scheme. As it has been explained, FRM is a scheme that avoids the use of CoA or tunnels, one of the major causes of excessive delay in some mobility proposals. In FRM, MNs have an invariable IP address which they keep wherever they are located. This feature allows identify the MN easier and achieve a faster handoff. Other of the objectives of this proposal was reducing the charge of signalling and the overload of the routers (in the networks and in internet). Two features helps to achieve this: - The use of a hierarchical structure in each Network, favours routing the packets across the network. This mechanism is provided by the IPv6's addressing features. - Use of IPv6's Routing header to handle the mobility embedding the mobility information in data packets. FRM is one of the schemes which consume less routers' resources across the network. For the normal functionality of FRM, the protocol only needs routers direct the packets with routing headers. A common router with IPv6's support will have this feature. Only in the handoff, a router needs to carry out a packets forwarding during some seconds, but only a router is involve in each handoff. The handoff delay obtained by FRM is very competitive and considerably under the highest delay supported by the real-time applications, which has been proved. This is possible because FRM limit the amount of messages to the minimal and it makes independent functionality from the handoff the most possible. Whereas other schemes, like MIPv6, carry out the updating of the CoA in the middle of the handoff and this does not finish until the HA is update, FRM does the updating of the LM independently of the handoff process. The MN only needs to interrupt some milliseconds the communication during the handoff, immediately when it is attached to the new Access Router it can start to receive packets from the CNs. FRM allows the mobility of the nodes in macro-mobility scenarios without any variation or attachment. The simplicity of its design makes it possible to direct extrapolation to the macro-mobility case. Furthermore FRM have the lowest handoff delay between the proposals analyzed in a macro-mobility scenario.


Numerical methods such as the finite element method (FEM) have been used to evaluate the reliability of electronic packages. The accuracy of the analyses should be verified by some experimental measurements. In this study, we evaluated the thermal strain of a test chip for three-dimensional stacked integrated circuits (3D SIC) with both measurement and an analysis. First, the distribution of thermal strain on the cross-section of a test chip was measured using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the digital image correlation. Then, the distribution of strain of the test chip was also analyzed by the FEM considering the viscoelastic material properties of underfill (UF) resin measured with the stress relaxation test and the elastic-plastic material properties of components measured with the nano-indentation tests. The accuracy of the nonlinear finite element analysis was verified using the strain measurements with the SEM-DICM.A test specimen for the 3D SIC packages was built and cut out a part of the test specimen and polished its cross-section. We took digital images using a SEM (FEI Quanta 200) to measure the strain distributions on the cross-section of a specimen by the DICM. The specimen was subjected to thermal loading in a heat chamber. The temperature in the chamber was raised from 30° C to 130°C.The FE analyses were carried out using MSC.Marc™. We assumed the initial temperature of the analysis to be 150°C, which was the curing temperature of the UF resin, and decreased the temperature to 30°C during 100 seconds. Then, the temperature was raised up to 130°C, which is the same with the experiment. We compared the numerical result with the measurement and modified the model of the FE analyses.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Single-stranded phage DNAs containing thymine glycols were prepared by oxidation with osmium tetroxide (OsO4) and were used as templates for DNA synthesis by E. coli DNA polymerase I. The induction of thymine glycol lesions in DNA, as measured by immunoassay, quantitatively accounted for an inhibition of in vitro DNA synthesis on modified templates. Analysis of termination sites for synthesis by DNA polymerase I (Klenow fragment) showed that DNA synthesis terminated at most template thymine sites in OsO4-treated DNA, indicating that incorporation occurred opposite putative thymine glycols in DNA. Nucleotides 5' and 3' to putative thymine glycol sites affect the reaction, however, since termination was not observed at thymines in the sequence 5'-CTPur-3'. Conversion of thymine glycols to urea residues in DNA by alkali treatment caused termination of DNA synthesis one nucleotide 3' to template thymine sites, including thymines in the 5'-CTPur-3' sequence, showing that the effect of surrounding sequence is on the elongation reaction by DNA polymerase rather than differential damage induction by OsO4.


This article explores the responses of the Poor Law authorities, asylum superintendents and Lunacy Commissioners to the huge influx of Irish patients into the Lancashire public asylum system, a system facing intense pressure in terms of numbers and costs, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In particular, it examines the ways in which patients were passed, bartered and exchanged between two sets of institution—workhouses and asylums. In the mid-nineteenth century removal to asylums was advocated for all cases of mental disorder by asylum medical superintendents and the Lunacy Commissioners; by its end, asylum doctors were resisting the attempts of Poor Law officials to 'dump' increasing numbers of chronic cases into their wards. The article situates the Irish patient at the centre of tussles between those with a stake in lunacy provision as a group recognised as numerous, disruptive and isolated.


The Flood of Fire is the last of the 'ibis trilogy' published in 2015 by Amitav Ghosh. The novel is set against the First Anglo Chinese Opium War of 1839-1841. The incidents in the novel move through a meandering zig-zag setting of India and China. The novel is a stark critique of colonial history of imperialism. Amitav Ghosh paints a broad canvas between Rangpur, Assam to Canton, Bombay, Calcutta, Nayanpur, Bihar, Barrackpore, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Chusan, Guangzhou which finally ends in Mauritius. The novel deals with the lives of all the escapees of ibis and how do they find themselves again together grappling with their passions, desires, ambitions, insecurities, sexualities, destinies. Mostly all the characters sketched by Ghosh embark on a voyage which epitomizes their psychological journey unravelling their ups and downs, their transformation from being to becoming. In order to create a diverse and multicultural flavour to the novel, Ghosh spices the narrative with Bangla, Bhojpuri, Chinese, Urdu, Pidgin, Gujrati. The novel is written on an epical scale length of 605 pages with 21 chapters and 37 characters. Amitav Ghosh is using the historical material in ibis trilogy, The Hungry Tides, The River of Smoke, and The Flood of Fire. The method he employs is using the neglected events from national story in a concession to subaltern practice. He gives a new fictional framework to subaltern characters. His characters were ignored/ voiceless in the Grand Narrative –History.


The work presented in this paper is framed within the context of the BigMed project, aproject funded by the Norwegian Research Council. One of the objectives of BigMed isto enhance the phenotype acquisition process in newborns with a monogenetic disorder,one of the four patient groups studied in the project. The use of the Human PhenotypeOntology (HPO) [1] to tag phenotypes and systems like PhenoTips have substantiallycontributed to the overall phenotype acquisition workflow. PhenoTips [2] is a systemfor the acquisition of phenotypic information in patients with a genetic disease. Phe-noTips also suggests, given a selected set of HPO terms, candidate diagnoses usingOMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man) codes, and related genes for a subse-quent genetic test. Although PhenoTips represents a fantastic effort, we believe it couldbe extended with suitable Semantic Web solutions. In this paper, we present the firststeps to adopt ontology alignment techniques to contribute to the diagnostic process.


This paper describes a new intelligent control and diagnostic system for public air transport. System operation modes and diagnostic methods were studied during hard/ and software development of public air transport. To provide safe operation of equipment, the most important functions are rapid pinpointing of faults and evaluation of defective systems, devices and components.


This work dealsa contribution to ductile damageof High-Strength Low-Alloy (HSLA) steel under low stress triaxiality. This work is based on micrographics observations and in-situ shear tests to examine the evolution of microstructure in this kind of loading and to identify the damage process associated. Numerical simulations by finites elements has been performed to simulate the material behavior of nucleation mechanism and the interaction between cavities during the coalescence phase, as well as the effect of the relative position of the inclusions in the shear plane.The model used as a reference in this work is the Gurson-Tvergaard- Needleman (GTN) model. It has been recently improved in order to take into account the effects of low triaxiality during shearing. A new modelisunderdevelopmentto takeintoaccounttheeffects oflowtriaxiality stresses (or loading) during shearing.


Here, we demonstrate the transduction of macroscopic quantum entanglement by independent, distant plasmonic structures embedded in separate thin silver films. In particular, we show that the plasmon-mediated transmission through each film conserves spatially dependent, entangled quantum images, opening the door for the implementation of parallel quantum protocols, super-resolution imaging, and quantum plasmonic sensing geometries at the nanoscale level. The conservation of quantum information by the transduction process shows that continuous variable multi-mode entanglement is momentarily transferred from entangled beams of light to the space-like separated, completely independent plasmonic structures, thus providing a first important step toward establishing a multichannel quantum network across separate solid-state substrates.


The approach to problems of arterial insufficiency in the lower extremity due to arteriosclerosis has shifted toward direct surgical attack on the involved vessels whenever possible. Case selection has largely been based on the demonstration of the pathologic anatomy by arteriography. Usually only cases showing a segmental occlusion have been felt suitable for arterial reconstructive procedures. Unfortunately, the highest failure rate in such reconstructions is in the commonest type of case, superficial femoral artery obstruction. Many of the cases which have resulted in dramatic angiographic and clinical success have come from the rather rare group of segmental distal aortic or iliac occlusions. In an attempt to determine whether there were measurable changes in pressure relationships which might be called pathologic physiology accompanying the pathologic anatomy, the following study was carried out. Method Intra-arterial pressure recordings were made on five patients at the time of an arterial reconstructive procedure for segmental


According to Descartes, it is possible to doubt successfully that there is external world, all around us, yet still to have language, in place, without any complication. According to Wittgenstein, to doubt everything about the external world except language means nothing more than to doubt everything about the external world including language. Why? No speaker is more certain about the meaning of his words than about the external things he believes to be unassailable (for example, that he has two hands and two legs). Without this constitutive connection there would be no communication of a definite sense. Wittgenstein suggests that, after the author of the Meditations on First Philosophy adopts the hypothesis of evil deceiver, we are only under the impression that we deal with language (or that we read a text). We instead deal with symptoms of something rather different. The objective of this paper is to critically reassess Wittgenstein's criticism of the possibility of holding such a radical sceptical position.


Background: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the commonest renal malignancy, comprising 85-90% of all malignant renal tumours and represents 3% of all adult malignancies. The prognosis of RCC depends on the size, stage, and grade of the tumor. CT has proved to be the most important imaging technique for the evaluation of renal lesions and the preoperative staging of renal cell carcinomas. Objective:The aim of our study was to evaluate the accuracy of spiral CT in the preoperative assessment of patients with renal cell carcinoma correlated with histopathological findings. Patients and methods: Between February 2008 and September 2009, a prospective study included 40 patients (age range, 36–66 years; 28 men, 12 women) with solid renal masses. All the patients were diagnosed by CT as having renal cell carcinoma, underwent total nephrectomy & proved to be renal cell carcinoma at histopathlogical examination. In all patients, initial CT images were obtained without administration of contrast Material, 100ml of Intravenous contrast material was administered, a repeated scan was done 120 seconds after contrast injection, both scans should covered the entire volume of the abdomen. Percentage of the parameters used in the study was calculated. Diagnostic accuracy of CT in staging renal cell carcinoma was calculated. Results: The study included 40 patients (28 men, 12 women) with solid renal masses. Tumor size ranged from 1.7 to 6.5 cm (mean size, 3.1 cm). All the patients showed evidence of contrast enhancement by about 47HU. Thirty seven patients (92.5%) show heterogeneous enhancement while only 3 patients (7.5%) show homogenous enhancement. Calcification was seen in 10 patients (25%). A pseudocapsule was present in 16 patients. Lymph node (LN) involvement with adenopathies larger than 1 cm in diameter was found in 7 patients (17.5%), only one patient (2.5%) show false negative diagnosis, the over all diagnostic accuracy of LN detection was 83%. Renal vein or inferior vena cava thrombosis was detected in 8 patients (20%), diagnostic accuracy was 87.5%. The overall diagnostic accuracy of CT in staging renal cell carcinoma was 90% (36 out of 40). Conclusions: CT is an excellent imaging technique for the evaluation of solid renal masses and the preoperative staging of renal cell carcinomas. CT has some difficulty in differentiating T3a from T2. CT has a limited ability to identify lymph node involvement by malignancy because it is still based on only size criteria, with 10 mm as the limiting size for normal nodes.


A polysaccharide named GSP-2 with a molecular size of 32 kDa was isolated from the fruiting bodies of Ganoderma sinense. Its structure was well elucidated, by a combined utilization of chemical and spectroscopic techniques, to be a β-glucan with a backbone of (1→4)– and (1→6)–Glcp, bearing terminal- and (1→3)–Glcp side-chains at O-3 position of (1→6)–Glcp. Immunological assay exhibited that GSP-2 significantly induced the proliferation of BALB/c mice splenocytes with target on only B cells, and enhanced the production of several cytokines in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and derived dendritic cells. Besides, the fluorescent labeled GSP-2 was phagocytosed by the RAW 264.7 cells and induced the nitric oxide secretion from the cells.


We investigated the role of caveolae in the mechanism of increased pulmonary vascular permeability and edema formation induced by the activation of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs). We observed that the increase in lung vascular permeability induced by the activation of PMNs required caveolin-1, the caveolae scaffold protein. The permeability increase induced by PMN activation was blocked in caveolin-1 knockout mice and by suppressing caveolin-1 expression in rats. The response was also dependent on Src phosphorylation of caveolin-1 known to activate caveolae-mediated endocytosis in endothelial cells. To address the role of PMN interaction with endothelial cells, we used an intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 blocking monoclonal antibody. Preventing the ICAM-1–mediated PMN binding to endothelial cells abrogated Src phosphorylation of caveolin-1, as well as the increase in endothelial permeability. Direct ICAM-1 activation by crosslinking recapitulated these responses, suggesting that ICAM-1 activates caveolin-1 signaling responsible for caveolae-mediated endothelial hyperpermeability. Our results provide support for the novel concept that a large component of pulmonary vascular hyperpermeability induced by activation of PMNs adherent to the vessel wall is dependent on signaling via caveolin-1 and increased caveolae-mediated transcytosis. Thus, it is important to consider the role of the transendothelial vesicular permeability pathway that contributes to edema formation in developing therapeutic interventions against PMN-mediated inflammatory diseases such as acute lung injury.


Fuzzy rule based models have a capability to approximate any continuous function to any degree of accuracy on a compact domain. The majority of FLC design process relies on heuristic knowledge of experience operators. In order to make the design process automatic we present a genetic approach to learn fuzzy rules as well as membership function parameters. Moreover, several statistical information criteria such as the Akaike information criterion (AIC), the Bhansali-Downham information criterion (BDIC), and the Schwarz-Rissanen information criterion (SRIC) are used to construct optimal fuzzy models by reducing fuzzy rules. A genetic scheme is used to design Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) model for identification of the antecedent rule parameters and the identification of the consequent parameters. Computer simulations are presented confirming the performance of the constructed fuzzy logic controller.


Static collision checking amounts to testing a given configuration of objects for overlaps. In contrast, the goal of dynamic checking is to determine whether all configurations along a continuous path are collision-free. While there exist effective methods for static collision detection, dynamic checking still lacks methods that are both reliable and efficient. A common approach is to sample paths at some fixed, prespecified resolution and statically test each sampled configuration. But this approach is not guaranteed to detect collision whenever one occurs, and trying to increase its reliability by refining the sampling resolution along the entire path results in slow checking. This paper introduces a new method for testing path segments in c-space or collections of such segments, that is both reliable and efficient. This method locally adjusts the sampling resolution by comparing lower bounds on distances between objects in relative motion with upper bounds on lengths of curves traced by points of these moving objects. Several additional techniques and heuristics increase the checker's efficiency in scenarios with many moving objects (e.g., articulated arms and/or multiple robots) and high geometric complexity. The new method is general, but particularly well suited for use in probabilistic roadmap (PRM) planners, where it is critical to determine as quickly as possible whether given path segments collide, or not. Extensive tests, in particular on randomly generated path segments and on multisegment paths produced by PRM planners, show that the new method compares favorably with a fixed-resolution approach at "suitable" resolution, with the enormous advantage that it never fails to detect collision.


Organisations working with HIV and AIDS are showing a growing understanding of the importance of involving young people in projects. Their participation as full, active and competent partners in program design, decisions, implementation, monitoring and evaluation is valued and sought. JOHAP undertook a case study project in order to understand better and to share successes and challenges of engaging young people in HIV and AIDS related work. This involved documenting and sharing the ways in which four partner organisations engaged young people from their communities in their HIV and AIDS work.   The study focuses on the work of the following partner organisations: KwaZulu-Natal Progressive Primary Health Care based in KwaZulu-Natal, Lamontville AIDS Service Centre based in KwaZulu-Natal, Targeted AIDS Interventions based in KwaZulu-Natal and Moletsi Community Radio Station based in Limpopo. This document is one of a number of publications highlighting learning during the third phase of Joint Oxfam HIV and AIDS Program (JOHAP) (July 2006–June 2008).


Plasma DBH activity was studied in patients with affective illness (unipolar or bipolar) and in their families. We found diagnosis, mood state or lithium treatment did not modify plasma DBH activity. In family studies we found same-sex siblings to show significant correlations for plasma DBH activity regardless of diagnosis. Monozygotic twins had almost identical DBH activities; 4 pairs of monozygotic twins discordant for affective illness were concordant for DHB activity. The heritability estimate for plasma DBH activity is greater than 0.90, indicating a strong genetic influence. These studies reveal that affective illness does not modify plasma DBH activity and that familial factors play an important role in controlling plasma DBH activity.


Information technologies may contribute in many effective ways to total quality management. Their supporting capacity concerns areas such as clinical documentation and quality control as well as problem analysis, quality assurance and improvement and knowledge management. Here however, a great deficit of the available departmental information systems must be stated.


This paper reflects our R&D results in the field of functionally graded coating processes. For industrial applications a special architecture for coatings is necessary: because the surface has to withstand environmental attacks, specific physical and mechanical functions and characteristics are required. In the interface region to the substrate additional stresses and strains occur due to the different materials combined. Consequently, the coatings have to be chemically and mechanically adjusted to the substrates. For this challenging problem, a concept named Materials Adapter has been developed within the frame of different research programs at MPA. For optimisation of the interface region an ion bombardment-activated inter-diffusion process ("ion mixing") was employed by using ion assisted electron beam PVD (IA EB PVD). Several Cr, Ti, Al and Zr coatings have been produced. An automated precursor inlet has been installed for CVD processes to obtain preset composition profiles for graded systems. Especially multilayer stacks of PyC-SixCy-SiC-Si3N4-Al2O3 have been deposited in a single growth process. The structure and composition of the coatings and interfaces were investigated by XRD, AFM, SEM, EDX, EPMA, ESCA and the micro-Raman spectroscopy. The characterisation confirms the gradual transition between Si and Cr, as well as between Cr and Al deposited by IA EB PVD and between C and Si grown by CVD.


Of 11 patients with eruptive vellus hair cysts, seven were between ages 17 and 24 years when the dermatosis first appeared. The sites of predilection were mainly the anterior part of the chest and the extremities, though the lesions were also seen on the face, neck, axilla, and groin. In some lesions that regressed spontaneously, the cysts were connected to the surface, forming an opening pore. In other lesions, the cystic material formed foreign-body granulomas by degradation of the cyst walls.


I read with interest the study on long-term outcome of silicone metacarpophalangeal implant surgery published recently in Arthritis Care & Research (Chung KC, Burns PB, Kim HM, Burke FD, Wilgis EF, Fox DA. Long-term followup for rheumatoid arthritis patients in a multicenter outcomes study of silicone metacarpophalangeal joint arthroplasty. Arthritis Care Res [Hoboken] 2012;64:1292– 300). The study was large, had a long-term followup period, and included a comparator group. However, I have some issues with the analysis strategy used by the authors and their subsequent conclusions. Because this study is not a randomized trial, the comparison between the groups must be made with great caution. Clearly at baseline, the patients who elected to have surgery had much worse hand function (in all aspects measured) than patients who declined surgery. The improvement in the surgery group is notable and contrasts with the stable course in the control group. However, in my view, the key finding is not (as reported) the difference in change between the groups, but the fact that the surgery group was able to improve to the level of the control group. It would be interesting to learn the results of surgery performed in the subgroup of patients with hand function as good as the nonsurgery group at baseline. Did the patients in this subgroup show as much improvement as the patients with worse hand function? Also, the decrease in improvement over time suggests that a stable state was not reached and the surgery group needed to be followed up for even longer. Finally, the analysis comparing the outcomes of the study (surgical) hand with the contralateral (nonsurgical) hand was unfortunately only briefly described and shown in a supplementary table. I think this analysis has greater validity than the main analysis because the variability between the hands of one patient is likely to be less than the variability between the hands of separate patients. For instance, the contralateral hand is more likely to also show poor function and thus more resemble the surgical hand. Also, the influences working at the patient level are likely the same in both hands. Supplementary Table 1 of the article did not show the baseline data for the nonsurgical hand; however, it did show that the surgical hand improved or maintained function better than the control hand, confirming the main study findings. Interestingly, the supplementary table also confirmed a finding not highlighted by the authors. In the main analysis, grip strength was, not unexpectedly, less at baseline in the hands of the surgical group compared to the hands of the control group. However, grip strength increased more in the control group than in the surgical group, and this was mirrored in the within-patient analysis; namely, grip strength increased in both hands, but more in the nonsurgical hands than in the surgical hands (P 0.06). In conclusion, this study adds to our knowledge of the pros and cons of silicone implant surgery. Readers should certainly look at Supplementary Table 1. Overall, I think there is enough equipoise to perform a randomized trial on the balance of benefit and harm of this procedure.


Background The lack of organized caretaking for persons with HD and their families in our part of Sweden was the reason for us to start our project "Network for people with HD in Western part of Sweden". There was hardly any continues cooperation between the different medical professions, which is necessary if the persons with HD should be able to have a descent quality of life. Aims To create guidance for professionals/users and relatives in purpose to know what is needed, when and who is going to execute the needs. Our goal was to create easy, accessible and comprehensive guidelines. Another aim was that it should be easy to use for everyone. Methods/technique We started with collecting facts; we took part of experiences from professionals in multidisciplinary team from all parts of Sweden. In working groups we got opinions from persons with HD from their relatives/families/friends and care-suppliers. Our method was interviews, searching for facts from our working-groups during creative discussions. In the end we processed our text material into a CD production. To visualize different parts of the material we also created short film sequences. Results/outcome A CD, 'Huntington's disease - a practical guidance', concerning all the needs throughout the different stages of Huntington's disease. Conclusions Collaboration between all the participants is a necessity for building up the frames for the best possible quality of life and standard of care, concerning people with HD and their families. Vision To translate the CD into English and other languages and make it accessible to people with HD and their families, professionals and care suppliers world wide.


Many applications generate and consume temporal data and retrieval of time series is a key processing step in many application domains. Dynamic time warping (DTW) distance between time series of size N and M is computed relying on a dynamic programming approach which creates and fills an N x M grid to search for an optimal warp path. Since this can be costly, various heuristics have been proposed to cut away the potentially unproductive portions of the DTW grid. In this paper, we argue that time series often carry structural features that can be used for identifying locally relevant constraints to eliminate redundant work. Relying on this observation, we propose salient feature based sDTW algorithms which first identify robust salient features in the given time series and then find a consistent alignment of these to establish the boundaries for the warp path search. More specifically, we propose alternative fixed core&adaptive width, adaptive core&fixed width, and adaptive core&adaptive width strategies which enforce different constraints reflecting the high level structural characteristics of the series in the data set. Experiment results show that the proposed sDTW algorithms help achieve much higher accuracy in DTW computation and time series retrieval than fixed core & fixed width algorithms that do not leverage local features of the given time series.


Region is now on the political agenda. In fact, much regional science is available and made more accessible to policymakers in their quest for global regional economic and political agendas. Words like cluster analysis, regional advantage, along with forward and backward linkages are now common speak in many civic meetings, even in city halls. The race to regional is now well entrenched. In Australia, six regional strategy plans have been produced in the last year. The Australian regional plans have been initiated in large measure because state governments recognise they are no longer just in competition with internal economic regions but international localities as well. As a result, the rush to region in Australia focuses on building regional plans, but regional science is not an important ingredient in this planning process. The reason for this is that the new emphasis in regional tools by policymakers is on more fashionable soft-structure aspects of regional development than on economic models of regional scientists. This paper discusses the shift in paradigm from regional hard economics to institutional drivers for regional economic development and urges regional scientist to find new tools, techniques and strategies to meet the needs of policymakers. It is argued that if regional science cannot meet the challenge of crafting new ways to identify, measure and create new institutional tools it will be marginalised from the important policy directions of global regionalism.


Abstract:A reading community of adolescent boys who evidenced psychosocial disabilities identified two books as influential in contemplating the issue of teen suicide. Through the lens of Disability Studies, this critical inquiry not only reveals literature's role in supporting readers' self-awareness and agency, despite marginalization by social and historical constructs, but also offers opportunities for the adolescents to critique the status quo, create personal insights on the issue of teen suicide, and share the realities of their lives with the teacher facilitating their discussions. The article points to the potential of young adult (YA) literature, shared strategically with attention to bibliotherapy principles, to impact both how youth situate themselves in society and how others support their identity development.


A network of ontologies is a distributed system, whose components (constituent ontologies) are interacting and interoperating, the result of this interaction being, either the extension of local assertions, valid within each individual ontology, to global assertions holding between remote ontology entities, or to remote induced local assertions holding between local entities of an ontology, but induced by remote ontologies. The mechanism for this interaction is entailment and a crucial issue is to characterize the global, network induced entailments and propagate local knowledge through the network, in order to retain the consistency of the whole network and, thus, to extract meaningful results from the global knowledge emerged from a particular network of aligned ontologies. In this paper, we focus only on the first step of this research direction, that is, the ontology representation as a path category upon which operations will be defined in the future, in order to formalize the characterization of entailments in a network of aligned ontologies.


Q&A social media have gained a lot of attention during the recent years. People rely on these sites to obtain information due to a number of advantages they offer as compared to conventional sources of knowledge (e.g., asynchronous and convenient access). However, for the same question one may find highly contradicting answers, causing an ambiguity with respect to the correct information. This can be attributed to the presence of unreliable and/or non-expert users. These two attributes (reliability and expertise) significantly affect the quality of the answer/information provided. We present a novel approach for estimating these user's characteristics relying on human cognitive traits. In brief, we propose each user to monitor the activity of her peers (on the basis of responses to questions asked by her) and observe their compliance with predefined cognitive models. These observations lead to local assessments that can be further fused to obtain a reliability and expertise consensus for every other user in the social network (SN). For the aggregation part we use subjective logic. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study of this kind in the context of Q&A SN. Our proposed approach is highly distributed; each user can individually estimate the expertise and the reliability of her peers using her direct interactions with them and our framework. The online SN (OSN), which can be considered as a distributed database, performs continuous data aggregation for users expertise and reliability assessment in order to reach a consensus. We emulate a Q&A SN to examine various performance aspects of our algorithm (e.g., convergence time, responsiveness etc.). Our evaluations indicate that it can accurately assess the reliability and the expertise of a user with a small number of samples and can successfully react to the latter's behavior change, provided that the cognitive traits hold in practice.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Nowadays ultrasonic endoscopy is accepted as the most accurate method in the preoperative TNM staging of oesophageal tumour. At the time a diagnosis of oesophageal is made, 25-62% of patients have marked oesophageal stricture due to an advanced stage of the tumour. As a result, it is often impossible to pass a conventional endoscope and the examination is incomplete or a dilator has to be introduced at high risk of perforation or other complications. An ultrasonic oesophagoprobe (Olympus MH 908) with a diameter of 7.9 mm, its tip acting as a dilator has been developed so that even in high-grade oesophageal stricture a complete and low-risk investigation can be undertaken. The value of this instrument has been compared prospectively with that of a standard ultrasonic endoscope in patients with oesophageal stricture due to carcinoma and in relation to the postoperative histology.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Between May 1996 and February 1997, 62 patients (55 men, 7 women; average age 55.8 [41-82] years) with suspected or histologically confirmed oesophageal carcinoma were examined with the standard ultrasonic endoscope and the new oesophagoprobe. The two independent results were related to the postoperative histology.

RESULTS
It was possible to compare the endoscopic results with the postoperative histology in 47 patients. In 55.8% it was not possible to pass the stricture with the standard ultrasonic endoscope (SE) so that an accuracy of only 41% was obtained in the T stage and 56.4% in the N stage. But with the oesophagoprobe (OP) an accuracy of 74.5% in the T stage and of 63% in the N stage were achieved. The difference in the findings between the two instruments was highly significant (p < 0.001) in those patients in whom the SE could not be passed through the stricture. For the T stage the accuracy was 14.3% vs. 76.2% (SE vs. OP); in the N stage it was 38.1% and 57.2%, respectively. When both instruments could be passed the results were comparable.

CONCLUSIONS
Examination with the ultrasonic oesophagoprobe is a reliable and accurate method free of complications for the preoperative assessment of oesophageal carcinoma with stricture.


The general purpose of the study is to determine pre-service teachers' views on the use of social networking sites. In line with the general purpose, answers to the research questions were sought. The answers to the following questions have been sought for to reach the general purpose. 1. Is there a significant difference in the intentions of pre-service teachers to use online social networks in their future professions between their departments? 2. Is there a significant difference in the effort expectancy of pre-service teachers for online social networks between their departments? The study was carried out in the spring term of 2016-2017. The study is conducted with a quantitative methodology and designed to determine pre-service teachers' intentions and effort expectancy on the use of online social networking sites for instructional purposes. In the study, Demir & Akbulut (2017) developed 5-point Likert type pre-service teachers' scale was used. A total of 108 volunteer pre-service teachers studying at the Faculty of Education participated in the study. The study was conducted during the spring term of 2016-2017. All students of the faculty of education participated in the study. The result of the study reveals that pre-service teachers' views on the use of social networking sites were high. It is also important to provide pre-service teachers with seminars on the use of technological platforms and smart devices; teachers should be supported by means of technology regarding the situations that may assist them in their daily lives and their education


INTRODUCTION
Hyperhidrosis (HH) is a condition characterized by excessive sweating or perspiration. General population, especially in developing countries like India are seldom aware of this condition and sparsely seek medical attention. The tropical climate and the environment also influence this condition to a greater extent. This can be a hindrance in their professional and social life. Though, it is a widely explored topic, studies on hyperhidrosis from India are rare.

AIM
The current study was aimed at estimating the prevalence of hyperhidrosis among college students subjectively and to assess the quality of life using Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Five hundred students with age ranging from 17 to 21 years of both genders were included in this study using convenient sampling method. After explaining the study and getting written consent, the students were requested to respond to two questionnaires, one for the subjective diagnosis of hyperhidrosis using a standardized questionnaire developed by North Jersey Thoracic Surgical Associates and the other to assess the quality of life using DLQI. Based on the subjective prevalence scores, the students were divided into 3 groups as "Not bothersome" group, "Somewhat bothersome group" and "Extremely bothersome" group. The DLQI scores of these three groups were compared by ANOVA using SPSS 21.0.

RESULTS
The study revealed that overall, 38% of the students were suffering from somewhat bothersome to extremely bothersome hyperhidrosis. Gender analysis showed that male students were affected more (58%), especially with palmar hyperhidrosis and were significantly requiring treatment when compared to female students. Analysis of DLQI scores using ANOVA revealed the fact that overall quality of life was significantly affected in almost 35% of students to the extent that they require appropriate treatment and care.

CONCLUSION
This study brings into light the higher prevalence of hyperhidrosis and also its impact on the quality of life among college students in this tropical region.