Background : Ibrutinib (ibr), a first-in-class, once-daily inhibitor of Bruton's tyrosine kinase, is approved in the US and EU for patients (pts) with CLL and allows for treatment without chemotherapy. Standard of care for first-line CLL in older pts or those with comorbidities includes single-agent ibr and chemoimmunotherapy (CIT) with chlorambucil (clb) plus anti-CD20 therapy. As the addition of obinutuzumab (G) to clb provides superior efficacy over clb alone or rituximab-G, we investigated the potential for improved efficacy with addition of G to single-agent ibr vs clb-G in an international, open-label, randomized phase 3 study (PCYC-1130; iLLUMINATE) in first-line CLL/SLL.
 Methods : Eligible pts had previously untreated CLL/SLL requiring treatment per iwCLL criteria and were ≥65 years of age or were <65 years old with coexisting conditions (Cumulative Illness Rating Scale score >6, creatinine clearance <70 mL/min, and/or del(17p) or TP53 mutation). Pts were randomized 1:1 to receive ibr (420 mg once daily continuously) combined with G (1000 mg on days 1/2, 8, and 15 of cycle 1, and day 1 of subsequent 28-day cycles, for a total of 6 cycles), or clb (0.5 mg/kg on days 1 and 15 of each 28-day cycle for 6 cycles) combined with G (as above). Primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS) assessed by independent review committee (IRC). Secondary endpoints included PFS in high-risk population (del(17p)/TP53 mutation, del(11q), and/or unmutated IGHV), rate of undetectable minimal residual disease (MRD), overall response rate (ORR), overall survival (OS), and safety. Pts with IRC-confirmed progression on clb-G could cross over to next-line therapy with single-agent ibr.
 Results : A total of 229 pts were randomized to ibr-G (n=113) or clb-G (n=116). Median age was 71 years (range, 40-87) and 65% of pts had high-risk genomic features. At a median follow-up of 31.3 mo, ibr-G significantly prolonged IRC-assessed PFS compared with clb-G (median not reached [NR] vs 19.0 mo; HR 0.231; 95% CI, 0.145-0.367; P<0.0001), with a 77% reduction in risk of progression or death (Figure 1). PFS rates at 30 mo were 79% and 31% with ibr-G and clb-G, respectively. Investigator (INV)-assessed PFS was also significantly improved with ibr-G vs clb-G (median NR vs 21.9 mo; HR 0.260; 95% CI, 0.163 to 0.415; P<0.0001). PFS benefit with ibr-G was consistent across subgroups examined. Superior PFS with ibr-G vs clb-G was also seen in the high-risk population (median NR vs 14.7 mo; HR 0.154; 95% CI, 0.087-0.270; P<0.0001), with an 85% reduction in risk of progression or death in this population (Figure 2). IRC-assessed ORR was 88% with ibr-G vs 73% with clb-G; complete response (CR/CRi) rate was also higher with ibr-G (19% vs 8%). INV-assessed ORR was 91% with ibr-G vs 81% with clb-G; CR/CRi rates were 41% and 16%, respectively. MRD was undetectable in blood and/or bone marrow (<10-4 by flow cytometry) for 35% of pts with ibr-G and 25% with clb-G. 30-mo OS rates were 86% and 85% in the ibr-G and clb-G arms, respectively, with 40% of pts randomized to clb-G receiving single-agent ibr as second-line therapy. Over a median follow-up of 31.3 mo, 4% in the ibr-G arm and 44% in the clb-G arm initiated subsequent therapy. Median treatment duration was 29.3 mo with ibr-G and 5.1 mo with clb-G. Most common (≥3%) serious adverse events (AEs) were pneumonia (5%), atrial fibrillation (4%), febrile neutropenia (4%), and pyrexia (4%) with ibr-G, and infusion-related reactions (IRRs; 7%), febrile neutropenia (6%), pneumonia (4%), tumor lysis syndrome (4%), and pyrexia (3%) with clb-G. IRRs were less frequent with ibr-G vs clb-G for both any grade (25% vs 58%) or grade ≥3 or serious IRRs (3% vs 9%). No pt discontinued G due to IRRs with ibr-G vs 7 pts (6%) with clb-G. AEs leading to discontinuation of ibr or clb occurred in 18 (16%) and 11 pts (9%), respectively; AEs leading to discontinuation of G occurred in 10 pts (9%) in ibr-G arm and 15 (13%) in clb-G arm. With ~3 yrs of follow-up, 70% of pts in the ibr-G arm remain on single-agent ibr.
 Conclusions : Ibr-G resulted in superior PFS regardless of high-risk genomic features, compared with clb-G, a standard CIT regimen. Response rates and depth of remission (CR and undetectable MRD) were also higher with ibr-G. Combination therapy with ibr-G was tolerable with no new safety signals identified and represents an effective chemotherapy-free treatment option for first-line CLL/SLL including the high-risk population.

 Moreno: Janssen: Consultancy; AbbVie: Consultancy; Pharmacyclics LLC, an AbbVie Company: Consultancy. Greil:Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Roche: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Abbvie: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; MSD: Honoraria, Research Funding; Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Amgen: Honoraria, Other: TRAVEL, ACCOMMODATIONS, EXPENSES, Research Funding; Takeda: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Astra Zeneca: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Merck: Honoraria, Research Funding; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Sandoz: Honoraria, Research Funding; Janssen: Other: TRAVEL, ACCOMMODATIONS, EXPENSES. Demirkan:Amgen: Consultancy, Research Funding; AbbVie: Consultancy, Other: TRAVEL, ACCOMMODATIONS, EXPENSES, Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy, Other: TRAVEL, ACCOMMODATIONS, EXPENSES, Research Funding. Tedeschi:Gilead: Consultancy; AbbVie: Consultancy; Janssen: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau. Larratt:Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Honoraria, Research Funding. Simkovic:Roche/Genentech: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Janssen: Honoraria, Research Funding; Gilead: Honoraria, Research Funding. Novak:Amgen: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy; Roche: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy. Strugov:Beigene Ltd: Equity Ownership; Kite Pharma: Equity Ownership; Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc: Equity Ownership; Juno Therapeutics: Equity Ownership; TG Therapeutics Inc: Equity Ownership; Loxo Oncology Inc: Equity Ownership; Crispr Therapeutics AG: Equity Ownership; Intellia Therapeutics Inc: Equity Ownership; Editas Medicine Inc.: Equity Ownership; Ignyta Inc.: Equity Ownership; Astellas: Honoraria; AbbVie: Equity Ownership, Honoraria, Other: TRAVEL, ACCOMODATIONS, EXPENSES; Janssen: Honoraria; ECO-SAFETY Medical Center: Employment; Aptose Biosciences Inc: Equity Ownership; Esperion Therapeutics Inc: Equity Ownership; Merck & Company: Other: TRAVEL, ACCOMODATIONS, EXPENSES. Gill:Janssen: Other: TRAVEL, ACCOMMODATIONS, EXPENSES, Speakers Bureau. Gribben:Roche: Honoraria; Abbvie: Honoraria; Kite: Honoraria; NIH: Research Funding; Wellcome Trust: Research Funding; Unum: Equity Ownership; Pharmacyclics: Honoraria; Acerta Pharma: Honoraria, Research Funding; Novartis: Honoraria; TG Therapeutics: Honoraria; Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Janssen: Honoraria, Research Funding; Cancer Research UK: Research Funding; Medical Research Council: Research Funding. Hsu:Pharmacyclics LLC, an AbbVie Company: Employment; AbbVie: Equity Ownership. Zhou:Pharmacyclics LLC, an AbbVie Company: Employment; AbbVie: Equity Ownership. Clow:AbbVie: Equity Ownership; Pharmacyclics LLC, an AbbVie Company: Employment, Other: LEADERSHIP; TRAVEL, ACCOMODATIONS, EXPENSES. James:AbbVie: Equity Ownership, Other: Spouse's employment and stocks, Patents & Royalties: AbbVie Patent Applications; Pharmacyclics LLC, an AbbVie Company: Employment. Styles:Pharmacyclics LLC, an AbbVie Company: Employment; AbbVie: Equity Ownership. Flinn:Genentech: Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Research Funding; Trillium: Research Funding; Curis: Research Funding; Agios: Research Funding; Forty Seven: Research Funding; Kite: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding; ArQule: Research Funding; Gilead: Research Funding; Calithera: Research Funding; Incyte: Research Funding; Takeda: Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding; Seattle Genetics: Research Funding; Verastem: Consultancy, Research Funding; TG Therapeutics: Research Funding; Verastem: Research Funding; Celgene: Research Funding; Infinity: Research Funding; Constellation: Research Funding; Pfizer: Research Funding; Forma: Research Funding; BeiGene: Research Funding; Merck: Research Funding; Portola: Research Funding.


Introduction: Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a safe Motherhood intervention proposed by the Government of India to decrease the neo-natal and maternal deaths by promoting institutional delivery of babies. About 56,000 women in India die every year due to pregnancy related complications. Similarly, every year more than 13 lakh infants die within 1year of the birth. MP classified under low performing states & JSY has completed more than seven years. So, there is a need of evaluation of demographic profile of the JSY beneficiaries and antenatal services under JSY. Materials and Methods: It is a Health Care Institute based observational cross-sectional study including randomly selected 200 JSY beneficiary mothers from the different health care delivery System i.e. PHC,CHC, District Hospital & Medical College Hospital; of Rewa district, Madhya Pradesh. JSY beneficiary mothers were interviewed and data collected and analyzed using epi info 2000. Chi square test was applied to assess the association between different levels of health care and quality of services. Results: Age at marriage of JSY beneficiary mothers was seen to be gradually increasing from rural to urban area. ASHA provided ANC, TT & IFA tablets in majority of study subjects as 39 (78%) in PHC & 44 (88%) in CHC while in urban areas, 'other than ASHA' were also arranging such services. Increasing the level of health care system the number of ANC provided to the JSY beneficiary mothers were improved and it was statistically significant (x=24.46, p=0.0001). It was seen that the number of ANC, number of TT & IFA tabs were provided more as shifting towards PHC Health care settings to Medical College Hospital Settings. Conclusion: JSY has definitely impacted upon the maternal and child health by providing health care to pregnant mother during ANC at different levels of Health Care Settings but uptake of JSY services are comparatively less at rural area.


A numerical method for computing Stokes flows in the presence of immersed boundaries and obstacles is presented. The method is based on the smoothing of the forces, leading to regularized Stokeslets. The resulting expressions provide the pressure and velocity field as functions of the forcing. The latter expression can also be inverted to find the forces that impose a given velocity boundary condition. The numerical examples presented demonstrate the wide applicability of the method and its properties. Solutions converge with second-order accuracy when forces are exerted along smooth boundaries. Examples of segmented boundaries and forcing at random points are also presented.


BACKGROUND-Software Process Improvement (SPI) is a systematic approach to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of a software development organization and to enhance software products. OBJECTIVE-This paper aims to identify and characterize evaluation strategies and measurements used to assess the impact of different SPI initiatives. METHOD-The systematic literature review includes 148 papers published between 1991 and 2008. The selected papers were classified according to SPI initiative, applied evaluation strategies, and measurement perspectives. Potential confounding factors interfering with the evaluation of the improvement effort were assessed. RESULTS-Seven distinct evaluation strategies were identified, wherein the most common one, "Pre-Post Comparison," was applied in 49 percent of the inspected papers. Quality was the most measured attribute (62 percent), followed by Cost (41 percent), and Schedule (18 percent). Looking at measurement perspectives, "Project" represents the majority with 66 percent. CONCLUSION-The evaluation validity of SPI initiatives is challenged by the scarce consideration of potential confounding factors, particularly given that "Pre-Post Comparison" was identified as the most common evaluation strategy, and the inaccurate descriptions of the evaluation context. Measurements to assess the short and mid-term impact of SPI initiatives prevail, whereas long-term measurements in terms of customer satisfaction and return on investment tend to be less used.


Measuring retirement security — or retirement income adequacy — is an extremely important topic. In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on the retirement income adequacy of widows and single women. EBRI's Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM) can assess the size of households' retirement deficit by modeling Retirement Savings Shortfalls (RSS). In this Issue Brief, an RSPM® module classifies households by the following gender and marital statuses: single female, widow, single male, and widower. Key findings are:

The retirement deficit — or additional savings required to meet basic needs in retirement — is higher for both widows and single females:

- The average RSS is $18,476 per individual for married households where the female dies first (widowers).

- The average RSS is $22,783 for married households where the male dies first (widows).

- The average RSS is $37,690 for single males.

- The average RSS is $72,883 for single females.

- When households for which no shortfall is projected are excluded from the analysis, the average size of the shortfall is $76,896 for widows vs. $82,937 for widowers. Single females in the lowest pre-retirement wage quartile have an average RSS of $110,412 vs. those in the highest quartile with an average RSS of only $28,951. For single males, the gender discrepancy in average RSS goes from $29,736 for those in the lowest wage quartile to $12,465 for those in the highest quartile.

Not only are single females more likely to have retirement deficits, their retirement deficits are likely to be significantly larger than those of other cohorts.

- Single females are the only cohort with at least 50 percent of households having a deficit.

- The median RSS for this group is $19,900.

- 10 percent of single females have an RSS of at least $222,592.

Nearly half (48 percent) of single females at the lowest income quartile have at least a $100,000 RSS (connoting serious potential financial complications in retirement).

- This compares to a third (33 percent) of single males and 42 percent of widows.

- Even in the highest income quartile 13 percent of single females have an RSS of at least $100,000, vs. 7 percent for single males, 4 percent for widows, and 3 percent for widowers.

Lack of eligibility for participation in a defined contribution (DC) plan significantly increases savings shortfalls.

- Single females with no future eligibility in a DC plan have an average RSS of $97,325 vs. the $24,486 average RSS of those with at least 21–30 years of future eligibility. o - DC plan eligibility.

- The discrepancy in average RSS between widows and widowers with no future DC plan eligibility is $6,529.

In contrast, future eligibility in DC plans can dramatically reduce serious potential financial complications in retirement.

- 42 percent of female households with no future DC plan eligibility have an RSS of at least $100,000 compared with 11 percent of those with 21–30 years of future eligibility.

- 13 percent of widows with no future DC plan eligibility have an RSS of at least $100,000, vs. 3 percent with 21–30 years of future eligibility.

Auto portability — where a participant's account from a former employer's retirement plan would be automatically combined with their active account in a new employer's plan — can also have a large impact.

- For those with 21–30 years of future DC eligibility, auto portability.


The workfunction is an important parameter that governs several electronic phenomena occurring at the surfaces and interfaces of materials. Here, we study MXenes, which are two dimensional metal carbides and nitrides. The workfunction is strongly dependent on the terminating functional groups which induce surface dipoles and Fermi level shifts. Here, we establish a correlation between the workfunction and the adsorbate's 2p band centres. Focusing on the OH terminated MXenes which have intrinsically low workfunctions, we show that a rigid relation between the 2p band centres and workfunctions exists which resembles a volcano plot. This imposes a limit on the lowest possible workfunctions of ∼1.2 eV and sets an optimum value of the 2p band centres at which this low workfunction can occur which we determined to be ∼-5.45 eV relative to the Fermi level. We demonstrate that neither strain modulation nor doping can achieve workfunctions lower than this.


This guide is intended to help faculty navigate the use and reproduction of copyright protected works in the classroom and on online course platforms.


The maintenance of homeostasis in normal tissues reflects a balance between cell proliferation and cell death. The importance of both positive and negative regulators of cell growth has been well documented in neoplasia. Bcl-2 argues for the existence of a new category of oncogenes, regulators of cell death. The bcl-2 gene was identified at the chromosomal breakpoint of t(14; 18) bearing B cell lymphomas. Bcl-2 has proved to be unique among protooncogenes in blocking programmed cell death rather than promoting proliferation. In adults, bcl-2 is topographically restricted to progenitor cells and longlived cells but is much more widespread in the developing embryo. Transgenic mice that overexpress bcl-2 in the B cell lineage demonstrate extended cell survival, and progress to high grade lymphomas. Bcl-2 has been localized to mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum and nuclear membranes, also the sites of reactive oxygen species generation. Bcl-2 does not appear to influence the generation of oxygen free radicals but does prevent oxidative damage to cellular constituents including lipid membranes. Bcl-2 deficient mice complete embryonic development and display relatively normal haematopoietic differentiation but undergo fulminant lymphoid apoptosis of thymus and spleen. Moreover, they demonstrate two potentially oxidation related pathologies: polycystic kidney disease and hair hypopigmentation. A family of bcl-2 related genes is emerging that includes Bax, a conserved homolog that heterodimerizes in vivo with bcl-2. A pre-set ratio of Bcl-2/Bax appears to determine the survival or death of cells following an apoptotic stimulus.


Nearly every middle-aged and older worker, at some time during his or her career, will suffer age discrimination in the workplace. Employers too often use early-retirement plans, restructurings, and downsizings to dismiss older workers. Many of these individuals are unwillingly ushered into earlier-than-planned retirements, are denied promotions, or are terminated. The baby-boomer generation now accounts for just under 50 percent of the entire workforce. A vast army of workers now stands ready to contest employer acts of age discrimination. Attorney Raymond Gregory addresses himself to the millions of workers who think they might be facing age discrimination and traces the history of the federal measures enacted to assist workers in contesting unlawful employer conduct. He explains how the law works and presents actual court cases to demonstrate the ways that workers have challenged their employers. The cases help to illustrate legal principles in real-life experiences and many of the cases relate compelling stories of workers caught up in a web of employer discriminatory conduct. Gregory has eliminated all legal jargon, ensuring that all concepts are clear to his readers. Individuals will turn to this book again and again to obtain authoritative background on this important topic.


This study proposed an automatic positioning technology for the precision special fiducial mark(SFM). It divided the precision SFM into the fiducial mark of double circle and the fiducial mark of corner before positioning according to SFM. First, a standard fiducial mark (FM) known as reference fiducial mark (RFM) was selected. Then, according to RFM, the FM of other fiducial mark images was compared before locating the coordinates of the FM in the image. the double circle detection was to first cut the external circle and then cut the internal circle according to the relationship between the external circle and the internal circle. the corner detection determined the intersection of the two contour straight lines of the object. the experimental results proved that the proposed automatic positioning technology for special FMs can accurately locate the special FMs to save labor and avoid artificial measurement misjudgment and unnecessary harms to the operational personnel.


schizophrenic reactions, although catatonic>; show a high incidence of electroencephalographic abnormalities of epileptic type. In the process of maturation the prefrontal areas are the last to 10He the slow wave activity of under eight cycles pel' second. Grey Walter discusses the electrocardiograph as an Instt-ument of research in psychiatry and points out that the dominant theme in present-day work is that the brain Is an organ for the handling of signals. The editor of the volume, Derek Richter, in "T'he Biochemistry of Cerebral Function", refers to manic and schtzophrenic reactions due to "Atebrtn" intoxication. Eliot Slater believes that present tendencies are dysgenic and that to alter this a reorientation of the general attitude towards reproduction will be necessary.


· Copyright © 2004 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 49 Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, writes that we should always devote ourselves to defending a true and dignified view of human liberty. The purpose of human life remains the same, but the threats to human liberty change from time to time. And liberal education should always aim, first of all, at freeing us from the partisanship underlying the chief threat of our time. Today, liberal or genuinely liberating education begins by alerting students to the creeping libertarianism and equipping them to resist its charms. Not very long ago, the chief threat to human liberty was communism or socialism or collectivism. Thinkers from Tocqueville to Hayek nobly warned us about going too far down the road to serfdom, about surrendering our liberty, our concern for our individual futures, to a schoolmaster or nanny state. Defenders of personal or individual liberty from a variety of perspectives — political, economic, religious, familial, and individual, among others — allied against those who denied the goodness and even the reality of the free human being. But now the communist evil empire — the Soviet Union — has disappeared; all that remains is a bad but fading memory. Tocqueville's fear that people in a democracy would lapse into an apathetic indifference about everything turns out not to have been that prescient. Nobody really believes we are slouching toward socialism any more. Not only that, sophisticated Americans are more anxiously obsessed with their individual futures than ever before. The "safety nets" that once protected each of us to some extent from bad decisions and bad luck — the welfare state, the family, the churches, neighborhoods, friendship, and so forth — all seem to be deteriorating. What remains of the welfare state will fall victim to demographic realities eventually, as we anxious individuals prove too self-obsessive to procreate enough replacements to help secure our futures. The downside of the perfection of the American meritocracy is that, more than ever, we have no one to blame but ourselves if we're not doing well, and the result is compassion is fading as a virtue. The good and bad news is that each of us is, more than ever, on his or her own. That the news about our situation is, as usual, both good and bad is demonstrated quite effectively in Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox. Americans are more wealthy, powerful, and free than ever. It turns out that many of the problems associated with rapid technological progress — even its effect on the environment — have unexpected but real technological solutions. Despite all this undeniable success in pursuit of happiness, the paradox is that there is no evidence that we're actually more happy. Instead of contentment and fulfillment, we increasingly describe ourselves in terms of restlessness and anxiety. Easterbrook's astute observations are nothing new: Tocqueville noticed the Americans restless and even melancholic in the midst of their prosperity. Once again, Tocqueville's book turns out to be more true now than when he wrote it. Easterbrook suggests that we are whiners: Things are objectively much better, but we feel worse. So why can't we just be grateful for all the good things we have acquired? We have trouble with gratitude, as Easterbrook admits, because the source of our unprecedented success is in experiencing ourselves as individuals more than ever before. To be an individual, as John Locke explains, is to regard everything we have been given by God, nature, tradition, and so forth as almost worthless. Our natural condition is poverty, insecurity, ignorance, dependence, and misery. There is no reason for gratitude. And so we work to transform what we have been given to satisfy our desires, as individuals, to free ourselves from the cruel tyranny of an indifferent nature. We work to make individual existences more secure and more happy. The individual, as such, is suspicious about all forms of dependence as barriers to happiness. So nature must be conquered, and all human connections, as Locke explains, must be reconfigured in terms of contract and consent. Even or especially love is for suckers. It is an illusion that veils misery and oppression. Friendship all but unrecognizably must be reinvented as "networking." Locke and other classical liberal thinkers, in fact, invented the individual by abstracting it from the complex reality characteristic of real human beings. Locke wanted his abstraction to become real, to be the basis for the redescription of all human life, of even religion, marriage, and the family. Locke seems to have been almost as optimistic as Richard Rorty that human life could be improved — could be made more free and less cruel — through the right kind of redescription. S Y M P O S I U M


The author gives the clinical records of 20 patients, 14 of which were treated during 17 months, and the rest much less. The method used for treatment was the ecclectical - preferred by the A. since many years -, in which he associates electricity with minor surgery, chaulmestrol (pure or with 0.5 p. c. iodine or 4 p. c. creosote) and other auxilliary curative agents. The chaulmoogra derivatives were used daily as nostrils tamponage (2 p.c. mentholated or thymolated ester), periodically by injections inside the enlarged lymph nodes and nerve abscesses, and twice weekly by subcutaneous infiltrations (MUIR method) 5 c.c. each, and chaulmoogra soap tablets per os. The galvanocauterisation session was once per week, on active leprotic lesions, followed by painting with 30 p. c. trichloracetic acid solution. All 20 patients were bacilliferous before treatment, and became stronger positive after some months treatment. At the end 14 negativated and 6 remained positive and sometimes bacilli being very scanty. 16 out of 20 gave interesting serological reactions, viz.: Wassermann, Stern, Kahn. Rubino, Witebsky and Gate (Formol-gel) positive in 5; Stern, Rubino. Witebsky and Gate positive and Wassermann and Kahn negative in 2; Stern. Kahn, Witebsky and Gate positive and Wassermann anticomplementary in 1; Wassermann. Stern, Kahn, Rubino and Gate negative in 1. in the beginning, and a few months later Stern. Witebsky and Gate becoming positive; Stern. Rubino. Witebsky and Gate positive and anticomplementary W. in 1; Stern, Witebsky and Gate positive and Wassermann. Kahn and Rubino negative in 1; Witebsky and Gate positive and Wassermann, Stern, Kahn and Rubino negative in 1; Witebsky 3 times anticomplemantary and strongly positive Gate in 1; Wassermann and Gate positive in 1; Stern and Rubino positive in 1 and Stern test negative in one. In 7 cases high Formol-gel were associated with a high sedimentation index. Many cases had very high S.I. being a false measure of the severity of the disease; others remained very high notwithstanding the great improvement of the disease. All patients with more than 12 months treatment became practically symptom free. Lepra reaction amongst them was rare and always started by embolic rash, being controlled by destruction of such skin lesions by galvanocauterisation. In a few cases the lepromata infiltrated with "Subintrol" (a 3 p. c. special chaulmoogra soap prepared by Dr. ASTROGILDO MACHADO) were completely destroyd and never relapsed. In October 1946 Dr. ERNEST MUIR saw here a few cases treated by the author's method and suggested the combination of Diasone with galvanocauterisation which is being done now with satifactory results. The second part of this paper, reporting many leprosy cases treated by the so-called ecclectical method, which are symptom free and negativated since five to ten years, will be published as soon as the sulfone-therapy be summarised in some reliable scientific report to be compared with.


There are numerous reflecting optical system designs that call for oblate spheroidal surfaces. Yet there is reluctance to build such systems out of concern over the means of testing such surfaces. This short paper outlines several simple null tests for aspheric surfaces that lack conjugate foci.


Purpose The present study evaluates the intra- and inter-unit variability of the GlobalSat® DG100 GPS data logger/receiver (DG100) when estimating outdoor walking distances and speeds. Methods Two experiments were performed using healthy subjects walking on a 400 m outdoor synthetic track. The two experiments consisted of two different outdoor prescribed walking protocols with distances ranging from 50 to 400 m. Experiment 1 examined the intra-unit variability of the DG100 (test-retest reproducibility) when estimating walking distances. Experiment 2 examined the inter-unit variability of four DG100 devices (unit to unit variability) when estimating walking distances and speeds. Results The coefficient of variation [95% confidence interval], for the reliability of estimating walking distances, was 2.8 [2.5–3.2] %. The inter-unit variability among the four DG100 units tested ranged from 2.8 [2.5–3.2] % to 3.9 [3.5–4.4] % when estimating distances and from 2.7 [2.4–3.0] % to 3.8 [3.4–4.2] % when estimating speeds. Conclusion The present study indicates that the DG100, an economical and convenient GPS data logger/receiver, can be reliably used to study human outdoor walking activities in unobstructed conditions. This device let facilitate the use of GPS in studies of health and disease.


Access to limited resources may be achieved by dominance as well as by high rates of aggressive and affiliative behaviour. We investigated the relative effectiveness of dominance rank and aggressive and affiliative behaviour in accessing three material and three social resources. Aggressive and affiliative behaviour of 24 female long-tailed macaques was scored along with their success in resource access. Path models revealed that high-ranking individuals have more access to resources than low-ranking ones through their employment of both aggressive and affiliative behaviour. Physical aggression was effective in accessing two material resources (food and enrichment). Affiliative behaviour was effective in accessing one material (co-drinking) and one social (tolerance) resource. In conclusion, since aggressive behaviour was effective in accessing two material resources, while affiliative behaviour increased access to both a material and a social resource, affiliative behaviour is at least as important as aggressive behaviour for high-ranking individuals to access resources.


Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is one of the most important factors for angiogenesis in various malignant tumors. However, the biological significance of VEGF in lung adenocarcinoma remains unclear. We stained intratumoral microvessels immunohistochemically using anti-CD34 antibody and analyzed VEGF expression using anti-VEGF antibody in 44 cases of stage I lung adenocarcinoma. Of the 44 patients studied, 14 patients had a postoperative relapse, and 30 patients did not. The mean microvessel count (MVC) in stage I lung adenocarcinoma was 79.5 +/- 26.9 per x200 microscopic field. Immunohistochemical expression of VEGF was found in 27 of 44 cases of stage I lung adenocarcinoma. The mean MVC in cases of VEGF-positive lung adenocarcinoma (86.4 +/- 28.2) was significantly higher than that in cases of VEGF-negative lung adenocarcinoma (68.6 +/- 21.4; P < 0.05). The high-MVC group patients (MVC > 80) had significantly worse survival rates than those in the low-MVC group (MVC < or = 80; P < 0.01), and patients with VEGF-negative tumors had significantly better survival rates than those with VEGF-positive tumors (P < 0.05). We conclude that angiogenesis, as assessed by intratumoral MVCs, is a significant prognostic factor in stage I lung adenocarcinoma, and that VEGF is an important angiogenic factor in stage I lung adenocarcinoma.


Ultra-high reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) is envisaged to support emerging applications with strict latency and reliability requirements. Critical industrial control is among the most important URLLC applications where the stringent requirements make the deployment of wireless networks critical, especially as far as latency is concerned. Since the amount of data exchanged in critical industrial communications is generally small, an effective way to reduce the latency is to minimize the packet's synchronization overhead, starting from the physical layer (PHY). This paper proposes to use a short one-symbol PHY preamble for critical wireless industrial communications, reducing significantly the transmission latency with respect to other wireless standards. Dedicated packet detection and synchronization algorithms are discussed, analyzed, and tuned to ensure that the required reliability level is achieved with such extremely short preamble. Theoretical analysis, simulations, and experiments show that detection error rates smaller than  $10^{-6}$  can be achieved with the proposed preamble while minimizing the latencies.


In the advanced stages of dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT), affected persons present body language and various behaviours expressing discomfort: shouting, agitation, irritability, aggressiveness, tense movements. Nursing, up until now, has had few available means to ease this discomfort. The authors of the following article have conducted an experimental study measuring the alleviating effects of therapeutic touch on the discomfort of persons in the advanced stages of DAT. Experimental group subjects (n = 16) received 5 sessions of therapeutic touch lasting 12.4 minutes. Control group subjects (n = 11) received 5 sessions of simple presence lasting 10.3 minutes. The authors measured subject discomfort levels using the Discomfort Scale for Dementias of the Alzheimer's Type (DS-DAT). Results show that discomfort levels of persons in the advanced stages of DAT decreased significantly after 5 therapeutic touch sessions, becoming significantly lower than levels in the control group. If care was focused on the whole person and his or her comfort, tools like therapeutic touch would become available to nurses, allowing them to enhance the quality of life of the people in their care.


MMPI-2 validity scales of two groups of parents going through child custody evaluations, parents who engage in parental alienation syndrome (PAS) behaviors and parents who do not, were compared. It was hypothesized that PAS parents would have significantly higher L and K scales and a significantly lower F scale than parents who do not engage in these behaviors. Using female subjects, since few males were available, the hypothesis was confirmed for K and F scales, indicating that PAS parents are more likely to complete MMPI-2 questions in a defensive manner, striving to appear as flawless as possible. It was concluded that parents who engage in alienating behaviors are more likely than other parents to use the psychological defenses of denial and projection, which are associated with this validity scale pattern. Implications of this finding regarding possible personality disorders in PAS parents are discussed.


If women in many parts of the world are smoking in greater numbers than ever before, it is probably no coincidence. Women represent a fresh and lucrative target group for the tobacco industry, which has learned to tailor its products and promotion to women's presumed tastes. The promotion images, themes and devices used are analysed in the following article, which also suggests some healthy ground rules for women's magazines to consider adopting.


Protection of coastal ecosystems from deforestation may be the best way to protect coral reefs from sediment runoff. However, given the importance of generating economic activities for coastal livelihoods, the prohibition of development is often not feasible. In light of this, logging codes of practice have been developed to mitigate the impacts of logging on downstream ecosystems. However, no studies have assessed whether managed land‐clearing can occur in tandem with coral reef conservation goals.
This study quantifies the impacts of current land use and the risk of potential logging activities on downstream coral reef condition and fisheries using a novel suite of linked land‐sea models, using Kolombangara Island in the Solomon Islands as a case study. Further, we examine the ability of erosion reduction strategies stipulated in logging codes of practice to reduce these impacts as clearing extent increases.
We found that with present‐day land use, reductions in live and branching coral cover and increases in turf algae were associated with exposure to sediment runoff from catchments and log ponds. Critically, reductions in fish grazer abundance and biomass were associated with increasing sediment runoff, a functional group that accounts for ~25% of subsistence fishing. At low clearing extents, although best management practices minimize the exposure of coral reefs to increased runoff, it would still result in 32% of the reef experiencing an increase in sediment exposure. If clearing extent increased, best management practices would have no impact, with a staggering 89% of coral reef area at risk compared to logging with no management.
Synthesis and applications. Assessing trade‐offs between coastal development and protection of marine resources is a challenge for decision makers globally. Although development activities requiring clearing can be important for livelihoods, our results demonstrate that new logging in intact forest risks downstream resources important for both food and livelihood security. Importantly, our approach allows for spatially explicit recommendations for where terrestrial management might best complement marine management. Finally, given the critical degradation feedback loops that increased sediment runoff can reinforce on coral reefs, minimizing sediment runoff could play an important role in helping coral reefs recover from climate‐related disturbances.


This paper presents an analysis of returns from major groundwater irrigation technologies-deep tubewells and shallow tubewells-on the basis of a number of recent studies conducted in different areas of Bangladesh. The inter-year comparisons revealed that the returns of tubewell owners/managers as well as water users from irrigated HYV paddy production have significantly declined over the years, and the current level of returns are too low to provide incentives for improving performance of Irrigation or production. The major factors associated with the decline in returns from irrigation appeared to be a decline in yields, an increase in production costs and operation and maintenance costs, and very low harvest prices of paddy. Some areas of government interventions are suggested.


The purpose of this research is that students can read simple words and sentences fluently and accurately through letter card games. The research conducted was a Classroom Action Research (PTK) in three cycles. The stages of each cycle are planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. Each meeting is carried out a pre test and post test to determine the progress of students. In the first cycle, the students who completed after carrying out the post test were 70,65%. In cycle II students who completed after carrying out the post test were 84,25%. These results indicate that reading fluently through the letter card game can improve student learning outcomes, especially Indonesian language muple at SDN 02 Kebagusan.


The main objective of the present study was qualitative assessment of Caspian kutum (Rutilus frisii kutum Kamensky 1901) stocks by using indicators of overfishing, condition factor and relative weight in Iranian waters of the Caspian Sea during a long period (19912011). Three fisheries indicators in catch were: 1) percentage of mature fish, with 100% as target; 2) percent of specimens with optimum length, with 100% as target; and 3) percentage of mega-spawners, with 0% as target, and if no upper size limit exists, 30-40% as representative of reasonable stock structure. Over this period, the condition factor and relative weight had a decreasing trend. The range of length with optimum yield was between 40 and 48 cm. The mega-spawner measured as fish a size larger than 48 cm. According to these three indicators, the percentage of mature (fork length>40cm), optimum size and mega-spawners were 62.0, 40.9 and 12.5% in 1991-92 which decreased less than 50, 38.2 and 8%, in the years 1992-2011, respectively. The length structure is a matter of concern. Therefore, for reservation and rebuilt of kutum in the Caspian Sea, the target was to let all (100%) fish spawn at least once, using bigger mesh size in cod end (e.g. 35mm, during whole fishing season). The aim was also to implement a fishing strategy that result no (0%) mega-spawners being caught, and the main catch focus on optimum length. *Corresponding author D ow nl oa de d fr om is fj. ir at 1 5: 47 + 04 30 o n W ed ne sd ay A pr il 15 th 2 02 0 [ D O I: 10 .2 20 92 /IS F J. 20 17 .1 10 05 5 ]


Abstract Corporate social responsibility (CSR) emphasises that the entire supply chain of a company should protect natural environment and contribute to social well-being in a tangible way. This study aims to clarify the effects of supplier development practices on supply chain social responsibility. The investigation uses a qualitative case study approach and empirically explores how to develop supplier's CSR capabilities in a pharmaceutical supply chain. The results indicate that manufacturers can apply supplier development practices, including standard operating procedures (SOPs), audits, collaboration and training, to develop supply chain social responsibility. SOPs and audits are indirect supplier development practices that are designed in response to institutional pressures, and collaboration and training are direct supplier development practices that provide resources for bridging supplier's CSR capability gaps. In addition, the indirect and direct supplier development practices positively influence each other and they are complementary in enhancing supply chain social responsibility.


Twenty-nine patients with cluster headache have been examined with the pupillometer and the evaporimeter. Pupils were dilated by sympathicomimetic drugs instilled into the conjunctival sacs, and responses of the two sides were compared. Forehead sweating was stimulated by body heating and by pilocarpine injection, and sweat evaporation on the two sides was compared. Most patients demonstrated the known patterns of hyposecretion on heating, of pilocarpine supersensitivity, and of deficient pupillary dilatation on OH-amphetamine stimulation on the symptomatic side and a supersensitivity of this pupil to phenylephrine. There were deviations from the rule for all methods of testing. Sixteen patients demonstrated a typical supersensitivity response of the pupil and of the sweat glands on the symptomatic side. Six patients had no such response, and seven patients had a discrepancy between the pupillary and the sweat gland response to stimulation, supersensitivity being present in one system only. There was a high degree of concordance between the results of the various methods of examination.


THIS report is based on a study of severely injured patients admitted to a large general hospital overseas. Of these, 166 had orthopedic injuries of severe degree; 98 others were patients in wards for general surgery. Hemoglobin, hematocrit and plasma protein values were measured before and after surgical treatment, which included particularly the use of large transfusions of whole blood and plasma. The observations indicate that: ( a ) a simple method for measuring hemoconcentration and hemodilution by the copper sulfate specific gravity technic is of great clinical value, ( b ) large amounts of whole blood are needed in the treatment of the severely injured, ( c ) several interesting correlations exist between hematocrit values and changes in plasma protein in these cases. MATERIAL STUDIED One hundred and sixty-six patients with severe orthopedic injuries were studied carefully, and for 91 of these detailed records of all fluids and blood transfusions were recorded. Of these, 45


The functional response of a predator describes the change in per capita kill rate to changes in prey density. This response can be influenced by predator densities, giving a predator-dependent functional response. In social carnivores which defend a territory, kill rates also depend on the individual energetic requirements of group members and their contribution to the kill rate. This study aims to provide empirical data for the functional response of wolves Canis lupus to the highly managed moose Alces alces population in Scandinavia. We explored prey and predator dependence, and how the functional response relates to the energetic requirements of wolf packs. Winter kill rates of GPS-collared wolves and densities of cervids were estimated for a total of 22 study periods in 15 wolf territories. The adult wolves were identified as the individuals responsible for providing kills to the wolf pack, while pups could be described as inept hunters. The predator-dependent, asymptotic functional response models (i.e. Hassell-Varley type II and Crowley-Martin) performed best among a set of 23 competing linear, asymptotic and sigmoid models. Small wolf packs acquired >3 times as much moose biomass as required to sustain their field metabolic rate (FMR), even at relatively low moose abundances. Large packs (6-9 wolves) acquired less biomass than required in territories with low moose abundance. We suggest the surplus killing by small packs is a result of an optimal foraging strategy to consume only the most nutritious parts of easy accessible prey while avoiding the risk of being detected by humans. Food limitation may have a stabilizing effect on pack size in wolves, as supported by the observed negative relationship between body weight of pups and pack size.


A structural model with stochastic volatility and jumps implies specific relationships between observed equity returns and credit spreads. This paper explores such effects in the credit default swap (CDS) market. We use a novel approach to identify the realized jumps of individual equities from high frequency data. Our empirical results suggest that volatility risk alone predicts 50 percent of the variation in CDS spreads, while jump risk alone forecasts 19 percent. After controlling for credit ratings, macroeconomic conditions, and firms' balance sheet information, we can explain 77 percent of the total variation. Moreover, the pricing effects of volatility and jump measures vary consistently across investment-grade and high-yield entities. The estimated nonlinear effects of volatility and jumps are in line with the model-implied relationships between equity returns and credit spreads. JEL Classification Numbers: G12, G13, C14.


The understanding of cutting mechanism is important for the improvement of machinability of difficult-to-cut materials. Finite element method (FEM) is an effective way to study the metal cutting process. This paper establishes a finite element model of cylindrical turning of titanium alloys, and then simulates cutting force and tool temperature distribution under different cutting parameters. The simulation results show that in the high-speed cylindrical turning of titanium alloys, depth of cut has a greater influence on principal cutting force than feed rate, while the effect of feed rate on the maximum tool temperature is more distinct than that of depth of cut.


This paper examines the trajectory of the multidivisional structure in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s - i.e. after "the American challenge". As an American import, the multinational structure's continued success is doubted by both "national institutionalists", stressing the idiosyncracy of national management models, and "international institutionalists", stressing the transitory influence of American mangement models. The paper finds that in fact the American multinational has become an enduring model for big business in France, Germany and Britain, even if adoption has been slower than originally predicted by its proponents. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for institutional theory and the role of consulting firms and similar in the international transfer of mangement models.


Protective measures in emergencies during railway transportation of radioactive cargoes must be planned in advance, by obligatorily taking into account many factors that influence the scope, nature, specific features and consequences of radiation transport accidents. Of great importance are radiation monitoring, protective regimens, and requirements for decontamination of various objects in liquidating the consequences of a radiation transport accident.


How does effort respond to being graded and ranked? This paper examines the effects of non-financial incentives on test performance. We conduct a randomized field experiment on more than a thousand sixth graders in Swedish primary schools. Extrinsic non-financial incentives play an important role in motivating highly skilled students to exert more effort. We find significant differences in test scores between the intrinsically motivated control group and three of four extrinsically motivated treatment groups. The only treatment not increasing test performance is criterion-based grading on an A–F scale, which is the typical grading method. Test performance is significantly higher if employing rank-based grading or giving students a symbolic reward. The motivational strengths of the non-financial incentives differ across the test score distribution, across the skill distribution, with peer familiarity, and with respect to gender. Boys are only motivated by rank-based incentives, while girls are also motivated by receiving a symbolic reward. Rank-based grading and symbolic rewards tend to crowd out intrinsic motivation for students with low skills, while girls also respond less to rank-based incentives if tested with less familiar peers.


The dramatic form known as the passion play is often associated exclusively with Western, and specifically, Christian theatrical tradition. However, one of the most highly developed and powerful examples of this genre is, in fact, the ta ziyeh—the passion play of the Shiite Muslims performed in Iran, and recently adapted in South Lebanon—which recounts the tragedy of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. It is the only serious drama ever developed in the Islamic world, except for contemporary theatre, which was introduced into Islamic countries along with other Western influences in the mid-th century. In an extraordinary development, the Lincoln Center Summer Festival  included three ta ziyehs, performed in July by Iran's foremost actors. The production was staged for only the third time in a Western country, after receiving critical acclaim and playing to packed houses in Avignon and Paris in France, and in Parma, Italy. It was later staged again in Italy in July  in an innovative, interactive format that mixed videos of a ta ziyeh audience in Iran with a live performance in an abandoned factory in Rome. The famous film director, Abbas Kiarostami, arranged this spectacle. The tragedy reenacts the death of Hussein and his male children and companions in a brutal massacre on the plain of Karbala (about  miles south/southwest of modern day Baghdad), in the year  .., year  of the Muslim calendar. Hussein's murder was the outcome of a protracted power struggle for control of the nascent Muslim community following the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Two factions arose with competing views on the process for determining the new head of the community, or caliph. The Sunnites believed that the caliph should be elected according to ancient Arabian tribal tradition, while the Shiites advocated for the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad—through his daughter Fatemeh Zahra—called Imams, who they claimed possessed a divine right to authority in both spiritual and temporal matters. Hussein became the head of the Shiites after religio-political opponents assassinated his father and elder brother. His refusal to swear allegiance to Yazid, the Sunnite caliph in Damascus, made it necessary for Hussein to leave Medina and seek refuge in Mecca. Eventually with his family and a group of supporters, he set out for Kufa, a city in southern Iraq where he had numerous partisans. On the journey to Kufa, Hussein and his party were ambushed by Yazid's troops and forced to swear an oath of allegiance to the Sunnite leader as the price of their freedom. Tradition has it that this took place on the first day of the month of


Critical Infrastructure Protection is one of the main challenges of last years. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems are widely used for coping with this challenge. However, they currently present several limitations that have to be overcome. In this paper we propose an enhanced SIEM system in which we have introduced novel components to i) enable multiple layer data analysis; ii) resolve conflicts among security policies, and discover unauthorized data paths in such a way to be able to reconfigure network devices. Furthermore, the system is enriched by a Resilient Event Storage that ensures integrity and unforgeability of events stored.


Conceptual modelling  is a technique which  is essential for building enterprise  information systems. The reason  is  not  only  because  software  systems  have  to  be  built,  but  also  since  domain  specific requirements  coming  from  the  application  area  should  be  represented  adequately.  For  this  reason different  modelling  languages  for  data  modelling,  process  modelling  and  systems  modelling  are developed. In this case study we deal with the fundamental conceptual modelling languages, like BPMN, EPC, ER, UML and Petri Nets. A tool support through Bee‐Up  is also given (www.omilab.org). This case study  focuses on  the domain of beekeeping  throughout different areas,  like  the production of honey, bees in general and beekeepers (called Imker in German).


In a real separable Hilbert space, we consider nonautonomous evolution equations including time-dependent subdifferentials and their nonmonotone multivalued perturbations. In this paper, we treat the multivalued dynamical systems associated with time-dependent subdifferentials, in which the solution is not unique for a given initial state. In particular, we discuss the asymptotic behaviour of our multivalued semiflows from the viewpoint of attractors. In fact, assuming that the time-dependent subdifferential converges asymptotically to a timeindependent one (in a sense) as time goes to infinity, we construct global attractors for nonautonomous multivalued dynamical systems and its limiting autonomous multivalued dynamical system. Moreover, we discuss the relationship between them.


Fig. 1. Dressing', manufactured by Viggo-Spectramed and marketed by Ohmeda. In the centre of the dressing is a small piece, approximately 15 mm square, of (99.998% purity) aluminium, with a 100% polyester covering film which locates over the site of the venepuncture. A small rectangular piece of gauze is supplied for placement under the flange of the cannula. Correspondence with Ohmeda ascertained that neither they nor the manufacturer were aware of any similar reactions occurring following application of this particular dressing. Although no specific sensitivity tests were subsequently carried out, in view of the patient's history of metal sensitivity and the previous local, although less severe, reaction at an intravenous infusion site (probably a similar dressing and plastic cannula were also used on that occasion), the strong inference is that the small aluminium patch was the causative factor; so much for my pre-operative assurance to the patient!!! Although the incidence of such a reaction when using this dressing must be exceedingly low, its use has now been discontinued at that hospital to avoid the risk to other patients who my exhibit a metal sensitivity.


August Wilson's major concern is to sympathetically put on stage the black experience and thus to arouse the community's awareness for such experience. His black characters are always in constant quest for self-realization and for an authentic identity. Consequently, focuses on encouraging the blacks to rediscover their identities and to maintain self-authentication. He believes that the only way for the African Americans to transcend the limited existence in white racist America is by recovering their Africanness; by recognizing and accepting their African roots. He is keen on reminding the African Americans of their cultural heritage and their identity that has been maintained for ages despite their painful sense of alienation and their separation from their African culture. To Wilson, the African culture and heritage should not be an element of inferiority; rather it must be an evidence of pride because Afro-Americans have their own cultural distinctions: they have their own customs, music, food, clothing, language, rituals of marriage and funerals which are different from the whites'. Thus, he gives a complete record of the black world and culture, and urges, moreover, blacks to be proud of their distinct cultural heritage.


With the aid of the distributed biosphere hydrological model WEB-DHM, this study investigates the ENSO influence on the 1982-2000 hydrological properties of the Pantabangan-Carranglan Watershed, Philippines. First, the model is evaluated with the 19-year monthly observed discharges. Second, time-series trends of five hydrological properties (observed rainfall and discharge as well as simulated evapotranspiration, surface and root zone soil wetness) are considered focusing on the influences of El Niño and La Niña phenomena on these properties. Reversals in the anomalies of the hydrological properties occur for El Niño and La Niña.


A total of 28 strains, representing 10 species of Legionella and including strains belonging to most of the known serogroups of each species, were examined for location, content, and composition of cellular nonhydroxy, monohydroxy, and dihydroxy fatty acids. The nonhydroxy fatty acid profiles were in agreement with previously published values. All species contained 5 to 15 mol% (depending on species) monohydroxy fatty acid, the profile of each species being readily distinguishable from the profiles of the other species. Only two species, Legionella pneumophila and Legionella micdadei, contained detectable levels of dihydroxy fatty acids, which comprised 1 to 5 mol% of the total fatty acids. The dihydroxy fatty acid profiles of these two species were significantly different. In all species, the nonhydroxy fatty acids were readily extractable by lipid solvents and were labile when subjected to mild alkaline methanolysis (lipid associated, ester linked), whereas the hydroxylated components were not extractable, were stable when subjected to alkaline methanolysis, and were labile when subjected to acid hydrolysis (bound, amide linked). The monohydroxy fatty acids were shown to be acids of the 3-hydroxy family. The dihydroxy fatty acids were shown to be members of the 2,3-dihydroxy family. The profiles of the hydroxylated fatty acids provide a powerful method for differentiating the Legionella species, particularly those species whose nonhydroxy fatty acid profiles are quite similar.


This is the first comprehensive text on the theory and practice of aquatic organic matter fluorescence analysis, written by the experts who pioneered the research area. This book covers the topic in the broadest possible terms, providing a common reference for making measurements that are comparable across disciplines, and allowing consistent interpretation of data and results. The book includes the fundamental physics and chemistry of organic matter fluorescence, as well as the effects of environmental factors. All aspects of sample handling, data processing, and the operation of both field and laboratory instrumentation are included, providing the practical advice required for successful fluorescence analyses. Advanced methods for data interpretation and modeling, including parallel factor analysis, are also discussed. The book will interest those establishing field, laboratory, or industrial applications of fluorescence, including advanced students and researchers in environmental chemistry, marine science, environmental geosciences, environmental engineering, soil science, and physical geography.


Aim: The use of bevacizumab in combination therapy is an emerging trend in metastatic colorectal cancer treatment. However, the clinical value of different combination types remains under debate. Thus, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing bevacizumab-based combination therapy with monotherapy (therapy that uses one type of treatment, such as chemotherapy or surgery alone, to treat metastatic colorectal cancer) was performed, aiming to evaluate the safety and efficacy of bevacizumab-based combination therapy and to find a more beneficial combination. Methods: We searched for clinical studies that evaluated bevacizumab-based combination therapy in metastatic colorectal cancer. We extracted data from these studies to evaluate the relative risk (RR) of overall response rate (ORR) and grade 3/4 treatment-related adverse events (AEs), HRs of overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS). Results: Eight RCTs were identified (n = 3,424). Treatments included combinations of bevacizumab and oxaliplatin, fluorouracil, and leucovorin (FOLFOX4), combinations of bevacizumab and capecitabine and oxaliplatin, combinations of bevacizumab and fluorouracil/leucovorin, combinations of bevacizumab and irinotecan, fluorouracil, and leucovorin (IFL), and combinations of bevacizumab and capecitabine. Bevacizumab-based combination therapy showed higher ORR (RR: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.10–1.78; P = 0.005), PFS (HR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.55–0.73; P = 0.000), and OS (HR: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.73–0.92; P = 0.001) values than monotherapy. However, higher grade 3/4 treatment-related AEs (RR: 1.27; 95% CI: 1.15–1.41; P = 0.000) were observed in combination therapy than in monotherapy. Conclusion: This meta-analysis showed that the addition of IFL to bevacizumab better benefits PFS and safety. Adding FOLFOX4 was associated with better ORR and OS. The efficacy and safety of an IFL–bevacizumab–FOLFOX4 combination should be given greater weight in future clinical trials, guidelines, and clinical practice.


This article explores the law and economics of brand bidding restraints which constitute the most novel type of vertical restraints imposed by brand owners on their distributors in digital markets. The article tests and critically reflects on the restrictive approach European competition watchdogs have recently adopted towards these brand bidding restraints. It contends that this harsh antitrust treatment of brand bidding restraints is not sufficiently grounded in the economic analysis of vertical restraints. In proposing a comprehensive framework for the legal and economic analysis of brand bidding restraints, the article makes three principal contributions. First, it asserts that brand bidding restraints can have a number of procompetitive effects by internalising advertising-related externalities, addressing free-riding on display and traditional advertising and facilitating fixed cost recovery through price discrimination. Second, the paper considers different ways through which brand bidding restraints may harm competition and consumer welfare when they disproportionately affect infra-marginal consumers, prevent meaningful intra - and inter -brand comparisons or result in price discrimination on the basis of search costs rather than brand preferences. Moreover, brand bidding restraints are of particular concern when adopted in the context of dual distribution systems where vertically-integrated brand owners have an incentive to raise their retailers' costs to prevent them from cannibalising on their own sales channel. Third, the article considers various filters that may inform an effects-based analysis of brand bidding restraints. In this respect, the article makes a number of policy recommendations for the future antitrust analysis of brand bidding restraints. These proposals could also inform the ongoing revision of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation and Vertical Guidelines in the EU and in the UK.


Evidence is presented for two populations of Ia-like molecules on the human B cell line Raji. Two monoclonal antibodies, L203 and L227, are described. Both recognize nonpolymorphic determinants on B cell antigens. Both immunoprecipitate 34,000- and 28,000-dalton material from 125I-labeled extracts of Raji, but L227 precipitates 25,000-dalton material as well. Immunodepletion experiments confirm that the antibodies react with two different populations of molecules.


This paper compares two views on the status of indices in syntactic and logical representations. On a structural view, indices are syntactic formants on a par with node labels and phrase bracketings, and are thus a part of the logical forms that are derived from syntactic representations. On the process view, an index is not a syntactic object at all, but rather, an indication of the output of a resolution process. In this paper we argue that a recent body of data provides a clear empirical basis for distinguishing between these two views of indices. We argue that cases of sloppy VP ellipsis pose insurmountable problems for the structural view of indices, while these problems do not arise for the process view. Furthermore, we show that this resolution process is constrained by the semantics of various discourse relations.


Tuberculosis (TB) is globally one of the most common causes of death, and a quarter of the world's population is estimated to have TB infection. The risk of active TB is increased in connection to pregnancy, a phenomenon that could be due to physiological immune changes. ABSTRACT The immune control of tuberculosis (TB) infection could be influenced by pregnancy. To elucidate this, we longitudinally characterized Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb)-specific and nonspecific immune responses in women during pregnancy and postpartum. HIV-uninfected women without past or current active TB, and with blood samples available from the 1st/2nd trimester, 3rd trimester, and 9 months postpartum, were identified at Ethiopian antenatal care clinics. Twenty-two TB+ women and 10 TB− women, defined according to Mtb-stimulated interferon-γ levels (≥0.35 and <0.20 IU/mL, respectively, in the Quantiferon-TB Gold-Plus assay), were included in the study. Longitudinal dynamics of six cytokines (IL-1ra, IL-2, IP-10, MCP-2, MCP-3, and TGF-β1) were analyzed in supernatants from Mtb-stimulated and unstimulated whole blood. In TB+ women, Mtb-specific expression of IL-2 and IP-10 was higher at 3rd compared to 1st/2nd trimester (median 139 pg/mL versus 62 pg/mL, P = 0.006; 4,999 pg/mL versus 2,310 pg/mL, P = 0.031, respectively), whereas level of Mtb-triggered TGF-β1 was lower at 3rd compared to 1st/2nd trimester (−6.8 ng/mL versus 2.3 ng/mL, P = 0.020). Unstimulated IL-2, IP-10, and MCP-2 levels were increased postpartum, compared with those noted during pregnancy, in TB+ women. Additionally, postpartum levels of proinflammatory cytokines in unstimulated blood were higher in TB+ women, than in TB− women. None of the women developed active TB during follow-up. Taken together, dynamic changes of Mtb-specific cytokine expression revealed during the 3rd trimester in TB+ women indicate increased Mtb-antigen stimulation at later stages of pregnancy. This could reflect elevated bacterial activity, albeit without transition to active TB, during pregnancy. IMPORTANCE Tuberculosis (TB) is globally one of the most common causes of death, and a quarter of the world's population is estimated to have TB infection. The risk of active TB is increased in connection to pregnancy, a phenomenon that could be due to physiological immune changes. Here, we studied the effect of pregnancy on immune responses triggered in HIV-uninfected women with TB infection, by analyzing blood samples obtained longitudinally during pregnancy and after childbirth. We found that the dynamics of Mtb-specific and nonspecific immune responses changed during pregnancy, especially in later stages of pregnancy, although none of the women followed in this study developed active TB. This suggests that incipient TB, with elevated bacterial activity, occurs during pregnancy, but progression of infection appears to be counteracted by Mtb-specific immune responses. Thus, this study sheds light on immune control of TB during pregnancy, which could be of importance for future intervention strategies.


The force of gravity has been inescapable until only the last few decades. Space programs conducted by several nations now make possible the study of hypergravity and hypogravity in a variety of scientific areas. Although much work has focused on the physiological aspects of gravity, its effects on the immune system are only beginning to be appreciated. An understanding of these effects is not only of theoretical interest, but important in predicting the health of astronauts exposed to hypergravity and hypogravity. These studies may also help to answer the larger question of how stress affects the immune response.


The viscosity of diluted guar gum solutions and the viscosity of xanthan and guar gum mixture solutions have been studied. Guar gum solutions showed pseudoplastic behaviour. Apparent viscosity increased with gum concentration and decreased with the temperature at which viscosity was measured. A maximum in the plot of viscosity versus increasing dissolution temperature was observed at 60 °C. This behaviour was related to differences in molecular structure of the polymers solved at different temperatures. Mixtures of xanthan and guar gum showed a higher combined viscosity than that occurring in each separate gum. This synergistic interaction was affected by the gum ratio in the mixture and dissolution temperature of both gums. The effect of polysaccharide concentration (1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 kg m−3), xanthan/guar gum ratio (1/5, 4/2, 3/3, 4/2 and 5/1) and dissolution temperature (25, 40, 60 and 80 °C for both gums) on the viscosity of solutions of mixtures were studied. The highest viscosities were observed when 2.0 kg m−3 gum concentration was used together with a ratio of xanthan/guar gum of 3/3 (w/w) and dissolution temperature of 40 and 80 °C for xanthan and guar gum, respectively.

© 2000 Society of Chemical Industry


Numerical analysis by influence function method (IFM) is demonstrated in this study in order to investigate the fretting wear problems on the secondary side of the steam generator, caused by flow induced vibration. Two-dimensional numerical contact model is developed in terms of Cauchy integral equation. The distributions of normal pressures, shear stresses and displacement fields are derived between two contact bodies which have similar elastic properties. The work rate model is adopted to find the wear amounts between two materials. The results are compared with the solutions by finite element analyses, which validates the application of the present method to fretting wear problems.


The global financial crisis and shrinking aid flows have led to decreased availability of long-term debt finance for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), particularly for infrastructure. On the other hand, resource-related foreign direct investment (FDI) in those countries has remained substantial. This note presents two models in which the natural resource wealth of LDCs has been used as a means to overcome the dearth of finance sources necessary for non-resource-related investments, and outlines country-specific factors that can tilt the balance between risks and opportunities to the latter.


The Artic polar deep-sea is one of the least explored ecosystems of the world. With the help of camera surveys, more information is being collected on the composition of megafauna, as well as the environmental factors on the deep-sea floor. The megafauna play an important role in contributing to the benthic biomass and the environmental factors shape this habitat, e.g. through large stones or other hard substrate which animals can settle on. In this thesis, two stations, which are influenced by different water masses, are compared to see how different the communities are.
The first station is HAUSGARTEN IV, which is influenced through the warmer West Spitsbergen Current. The second station is east Greenland IV, which is influenced through the colder East Greenland current. Both are 2.500 m deep and run at comparable latitude. HAUSGARTEN is part of a Long-Term-Ecological Research project in the eastern Fram Strait run by the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Bremerhaven. The east Greenland station was established in the western Fram Strait in 2014. This is also the year the images from this thesis were taken during a research cruise of the ice breaker Polarstern.
At east Greenland IV the megafauna densities (20.67 ±0.011 individuals/m²) were significantly higher than at HAUSGARTEN IV (15.67 ± 0.040 individuals/m²). This study also focused more closely on the composition at east Greenland IV, as it was the first time this transect was analysed. No significant differences were found between the three sub-sections at east Greenland. While comparing both the stations among each other as well as comparing the three sub-sections, the key species, which caused differences in composition were determined as well as the composition of the megafauna on the deep-sea floor. Environmental factors as well as ice-coverage and the biogeochemistry data of the sea floor were analysed, to see if they influenced the species composition.


Although traditional databases and data warehouses have been exploited widely to manage persistent data, a large number of applications from sensor network need functional supports for transient data in the continuous data stream. One of the crucial functions is to summarize the data items within a sliding window. A sliding window contains a fixed width span of data elements. The data items are implicitly deleted from the sliding window, when it moves out of the window scope. Several one-dimensional histograms have been proposed to store the succinct time information in a sliding window. Such histograms, however, only handle the data items with attribute values in unary domains. In this paper, we explore the problem of extending the value to a multi-valued domain. A two-dimensional histogram, the hybrid histogram, is proposed to support sliding window queries on a practical multi-valued domain. The basic building block of the hybrid histogram is the exponential histogram. The hybrid histogram is maintained to capture the changes of data distribution. To further compress the exponential histograms, we propose a condensed exponential histogram without losing the error bound. Results of an extensive experimental study are included to evaluate the benefits of the proposed technique.


Objectives
Elevated serum uric acid (HUA) levels have been shown to have a positive correlation with metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk factors. In countries where rates of MetS continue to increase, such as Mexico, it is important to identify reliable and inexpensive markers that will aid in predicting the development of MetS. Our aim was to evaluate the association between serum uric acid (UA) and MetS risk factors in young Mexican adults. Risk factors include glucose (GLU), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), waist circumference (WC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and body mass index (BMI).

Methods
Mexican college applicants involved in the Universities of San Luis Potosí and Illinois: Multidisciplinary Investigation on Obesity, Genetics and Socio-environment (UP AMIGOS) cohort (ages 18-25, n = 747, 56% female) underwent a health screening following an overnight fast. Fasting blood samples, anthropometric measurements, and blood pressure were collected. According to the literature, HUA levels are defined as ≥7 and ≥6 mg/dL for males and females, respectively. T-tests were conducted to compare mean differences of MetS risk components between individuals with and without HUA levels. Analyses were conducted separately by sex.

Results
The mean ± SD of UA was 5.73 ± 1.32 mg/dL and 4.39 ± 1.19 mg/dL for males and females, respectively. Males and females with HUA had significantly higher TG, and WC, and lower HDL (all P < 0.001). HUA was positively correlated with WC (R2 = 0.331, SBP (R2 = 0.151), DBP (R2 = 0.176), GLU (R2 = 0.863), TG (R2 = 0.424) and BMI (R2 = 0.363). In contrast, HDL was negatively correlated with HUA (R2 = -0.277), as hypothesized. All Pearson correlations were adjusted for age and sex and statistically significant (P < 0.05).

Conclusions
Serum UA has a strong correlation with MetS risk factors in young Mexican adults. Routine monitoring of serum UA could be utilized as an inexpensive early predictor of MetS, which would allow for early interventions to aid in preventing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Funding Sources
This study was funded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hath Projects to M.T.-G. Funding was also provided by the Univerdidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosí to support C.A.-G.


The Extreme Ultraviolet Normal Incidence Spectrograph (EUNIS) sounding rocket instrument is a two-channel imaging spectrograph that observes the solar corona with high spectral resolution and a rapid cadence made possible by unprecedented sensitivity. EUNIS flew for the first time on 2006 April 12 (EUNIS-06), returning over 140 science exposures at a cadence of 2.1 s; each exposure comprises six 1K x 1K active pixel sensor (APS) images, three for each wavelength channel (170-205 $\AA$ and 300-370 $\AA$). Analysis of EUNIS-06 data has so far shed new light on the nature of coronal bright points, cool transients, and coronal loop arcades and has enabled calibration updates for TRACE and SOHO's CDS and EIT. EUNIS flew successfully again on 2007 November 6 (EUNIS-07). Because the APS's were operated in video rather than snapshot mode, a faster cadence of 1.3 s was possible (97% duty cycle), resulting in 276 science exposures. We present an overview of the EUNIS-07 spectra and describe the coordinated observing program executed by the Hinode Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (EIS) that will, in conjunction with the absolute radiometric calibration of EUNIS-07, result in the first on-orbit radiometric calibration of EIS. EUNIS data are freely available to the solar physics community. EUNIS is supported by the NASA Heliophysics Division through its Low Cost Access to Space Program in Solar and Heliospheric Physics.


Fourteen children with disordered breathing during sleep (obstructive apnea, obstructive hypopnea, or snoring) and anatomic obstruction of the upper airway were studied. Twelve children had hypertrophied tonsils and adenoids, and two had a deviated nasal septum. No child had sequelae of severe sleep apnea--that is, cor pulmonale, pulmonary hypertension, or alveolar hypoventilation. Results of polysomnographic studies were abnormal in all and revealed that obstructive hypopnea (increased respiratory effort with decreased airflow) was more common than obstructive apnea (increased respiratory effort without airflow). Surgical removal or correction of the upper airway obstructive lesion in 12 children resulted in normal nocturnal respiration. Surgical intervention was declined in two patients, and their symptoms persist. We conclude that surgical removal of upper airway obstructive lesions in children with disturbed nocturnal sleep should not be reserved only for those with serious sequelae of obstructive sleep apnea; considerable benefit is gained in selected patients with mild obstructive sleep apnea or hypopnea.


The threshold of the phytotoxic effect (PTE) of ammonia at a concentration of 10 to 20 mg/m3 on 28-day lettuce plants was evaluated during a single 2-hour exposure. The rate of Hill's reaction, level of energization of chloroplast membranes during leaf illumination as well as visible photosynthesis of lettuce plants from the beginning of fumigation to vegetation day 31 were recorded. Similar changes in the above parameters induced by ammonia were seen. This suggests that photosynthesis was inhibited already at light stages. As a measure of PTE, 10 per cent decrease of the photosynthetic productivity of plants exposed to fumigation was recommended in comparison with controls during the vegetation period. According to this measure, the PTE of ammonia amounted to 20 mg/m3 in the above experimental conditions.


Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is one of a number of diseases associated with a prominent inflammatory cell infiltrate and local destruction of structural matrix macromolecules. This chronic infiltrate is predominately composed of macrophages and T lymphocytes. Activated macrophages produce a variety of cytokines, including TNF-α. Elevated levels of TNF-α were observed in patients with AAA, suggesting that TNF-α may play a role in the pathogenic mechanisms of AAA. In the present study, we investigated the role of TNF-α in AAA formation. By studying a murine aneurysm model, we found that both mRNA and protein levels of TNF-α were increased in aneurysm tissue compared with normal aortic tissues. Therefore, we tested the response of mice lacking expression of TNF-α. These mice were resistant to aneurysm formation. Our results show that TNF-α deficiency attenuates matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 2 and MMP-9 expression and macrophage infiltration into the aortic tissue. These data suggest that TNF-α plays a central role in regulating matrix remodeling and inflammation in the aortic wall leading to AAA. In addition, we investigated the pharmacological inhibition of AAA. A Food and Drug Administration-approved TNF-α antagonist, infliximab, inhibited aneurysm growth. Our data also show that infliximab treatment attenuated elastic fiber disruption, macrophage infiltration, and MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression in aortic tissue. This study confirms that a strategy of TNF-α antagonism may be an important therapeutic strategy for treating AAA.


In this paper, we investigate the tendencies of target candidate companies to manage earnings, which affects financial reporting quality, in order to increase transaction value, and the withdrawal of deals as a result of low financial reporting quality in M&A in a sample of 316 mergers and acquisitions in South Korea between 2002 and 2011. Using the accruals quality measure developed by Dechow and Dichev (2002) as a proxy for financial reporting quality, we find the following. First, the financial reporting quality of target candidate firms is lower than that of non-target candidate firms because target candidate firms engage in earnings management prior to M&A. Second, low-quality financial reporting of target firms is positively related to the likelihood of deal withdrawal as a result of poor financial reporting quality.


The analysis of natural hydraulic networks over a wide range of scales, allowed by modern digital mapping technology, reveals extraordinary diversity of natural forms, and yet deep regularity and symmetry, regardless of geology, climate, vegetation or exposed lithology. River networks are indeed a paradigm of scale-invariant, or fractal, forms ubiquitous in nature, whereas tidal networks bear the both the signatures of scaling processes and of different dynamic origin and susceptibility to environmental factors. Here I review a subjective choice of linked results, suggesting that the dynamic origin of the recurrence of similar network forms in nature relates to a common mechanism of growth and stabilization of open, dissipative systems with many degrees of freedom.


On the basis of literature analysis, clinical observations, and examinations of the spinal cord ganglia of man (autopsy material) and experimental animals (dogs) performed with the use of a set of naurohistological and cytochemical methods an original explanation of the pathogenesis of the Head zones is suggested. The principal link in the formation of the viscero-cutaneous and viscero-sclerotomic sensation syndrome are transitory presynaptic terminals formed by the axons of the vegetative sensor neurons (cells of Dogel type 2) on the surface of the somatic receptor neurons innervating the skin and the sclerotomic tissues, and responding to temperature and pain. Within the zone of the innervation by the dendrites of these somatic receptor neurons (cutaneous and sclerotomic) a reflected viscero-sensory syndrome is formed. The formation of these viscero-cutaneous and viscero-sclerotomic syndromes proceeds in 4 steps.


In collaboration with the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), a "Blended Learning Program for Golf Course Water Conservation" was developed. This program is a new and unique concept in training golf course superintendents, in that, it was designed as a learning experience which assists the practitioner in development of a water conservation plan site-specific to their golf course. The University of Georgia turfgrass faculty was responsible for development of sound scientific-based educational resources and the responsibilities of GCSAA were to market the program to its clientele. The first phase of the program was the development and launch of an online course, to provide introductory level information on Water and how it is impacted by atmospheric factors, uptake and use by the turfgrass plant, impact of edaphic or soil factors, and the relationship of the soil / plant / atmosphere continuum, the title of the course was the acronym W.A.T.E.R. The second phase of this program was development of an extensive document (template) on components of a water conservation plan, including a proposed planning process and a workshop with hands-on development of a water conservation plan. The superintendents received instruction and access to templates they could modify and implement to accommodate the nuances of their locale. The program concludes with a 90-day access to instructors through a GCSAA maintained list-serve for final refinement of individual plans. The deliverables of this program are written plans to be followed for water conservation on individual golf courses. Within the first two weeks of launching the online phase, registrants included superintendents from 20 states and 7 counties. The program was initiated in winter 2004 and has been requested for winter 2005.


As automation technology continues to be integrated into industrial and mobile machinery, more precise control of hydraulic cylinders will assist in the achievement of desired response characteristics. Thus, in designing the cushioning mechanism for a hydraulic cylinder, there is value in predicting the deceleration response due to pressure generated when fluid passes through the cushion orifice. The cushion orifice can be designed to change as a function of piston position to meet a desired velocity response. In practice, determination of the orifice area requires a lengthy iterative process of trial and error. Therefore, to overcome these design process challenges, dynamic models of cylinder cushioning systems were developed that, when solved numerically, predicted the pressure and velocity responses of the cylinder with time. Utilizing these dynamic models, a cushion design optimization procedure was also developed to obtain the dimensions of the cushioning spear that most closely obtains the desired velocity response profile. Simulations of the dynamic cushion model were performed using a cushion spear with a shape designed through a static analysis to produce constant deceleration during the cushioning phase. Spear shapes were fit to the analytically developed common spear profile and their performance was assessed with simulation. The developed optimization procedure was run to compare the performance the spear shapes common to industry. Lastly, to identify the range of results produced by the optimizer, the procedure was run ten times for each spear type with the variation between runs. The performance of each run was quantified by measuring the root-mean square error (RMSE) between the desired velocity profile and the simulated velocity profile. When surrounding system conditions were held constant, the analytical analysis produced vii a profile leading to nearly constant deceleration with an RMSE of 1.4x10 m/s (0.29 feet per minute; fpm) when simulated by the dynamic model. However, attempts to replicate the results of the analytical model with common spear shapes resulted in deviation from the constant deceleration goal with the parabolic and linear regression curves producing RMSE values of 14.9x10 and 21.7x10 m/s (2.94 and 4.28 fpm) respectively. The optimizer produced a consistent family of results for each spear with an average standard deviation of 2.6x10 m/s (0.51 fpm). This dynamic modeling approach has potential to assist designers in the development of cushioning spears that meet customer cushion response specifications.


Abstract The global nature of foreign direct investment (FDI) is changing in terms of both location and sectors of activity. This paper analyses recent flows of R&D FDI across the globe. It is found that North America has been the source of one‐half of all R&D FDI between 2002 and 2005. Asia Pacific, especially China and India, has been the overwhelming destination for most R&D FDI, accounting for more than one‐half of all investment and almost three‐quarters of the jobs created. In general, R&D FDI has not been equitably spread across nations such as India and China but concentrated in a small number of locations. R&D FDI from advanced economies is facilitating the emergence of new centres and clusters of knowledge across the globe. This global redistribution of knowledge brings challenges to policymakers in both the developed and the developing world. The challenges come in two main forms: first, cross‐regional disparities in knowledge‐based wealth creation within particular nations; and second, anxieties about the offshoring of knowledge‐based tasks and jobs. It is argued that current patterns of global knowledge flow require policies to nurture the open regional innovation systems being established by these flows.


ABSTRACT Pathogenic fungi have developed mechanisms to cope with stresses imposed by hosts. For Cryptococcus spp., this implies active defense mechanisms that attenuate and ultimately overcome the onslaught of oxidative stresses in macrophages. Among cellular pathways within Cryptococcus neoformans' arsenal is the plasma membrane high-affinity Cch1-Mid1 calcium (Ca2+) channel (CMC). Here we show that CMC has an unexpectedly complex and disparate role in mitigating oxidative stress. Upon inhibiting the Ccp1-mediated oxidative response pathway with antimycin, strains of C. neoformans expressing only Mid1 displayed enhanced growth, but this was significantly attenuated upon H2O2 exposure in the absence of Mid1, suggesting a regulatory role for Mid1 acting through the Ccp1-mediated oxidative stress response. This notion is further supported by the interaction detected between Mid1 and Ccp1 (cytochrome c peroxidase). In contrast, Cch1 appears to have a more general role in promoting cryptococci survival during oxidative stress. A strain lacking Cch1 displayed a growth defect in the presence of H2O2 without BAPTA [(1,2-bis(2-aminophenoxy)ethane-N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid, cesium salt] or additional stressors such as antimycin. Consistent with a greater contribution of Cch1 to oxidative stress tolerance, an intracellular growth defect was observed for the cch1Δ strain in the macrophage cell line J774A.1. Interestingly, while the absence of either Mid1 or Cch1 significantly compromises the ability of C. neoformans to tolerate oxidative stress, the absence of both Mid1 and Cch1 has a negligible effect on C. neoformans growth during H2O2 stress, suggesting the existence of a compensatory mechanism that becomes active in the absence of CMC.


Zinc (Zn) is essential for growth and development of plants, animals and human beings. Its deficiency poses a serious challenge for crop production, especially for wheat and rice, which are considered as staple food crops in most of the developing countries. Beside plants, health related issues in human beings also reported due to deficiency of Zn, which calls for suitable research strategies that can boost the yield and quality of crops, Zn concentration in the grains of cereals such as rice and wheat, increase Zn bio-availability in diets. Across the globe several strategies viz., supplementation, pharmaceutical preparation, food fortification and dietary diversification have been attempted to solve the problem of Zn deficiency induced malnutrition but the agronomic biofortification seems more feasible option particularly in developing countries, where other alternative could prove costly. It could easily be achieved through improved approaches such as integrated nutrient management (INM) and integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) because these helps in enhancing the uptake of micronutrients like Zn, particularly in deficient soils. Though, agronomic biofortification helps to reduce the health hazards still more research efforts are needed to solve the problem of malnutrition and food insecurity for a better and


Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) integrate legal services into health care settings to provide holistic care and address the social determinants of health. This article brings a legal-empowerment lens to MLP work, arguing for a stronger focus on communities. It examines the application to MLPs of bringing services to communities, investing in rights literacy, and partnering with community-based paralegals. It then outlines the potential for a transformation in health and legal services to a rights - rather than needs-based framework where communities are active partners in program design and development.


Fuchs heterochromic uveitis (FHU) in its classic presentation is a unilateral, chronic, low grade, often asymptomatic anterior uveitis. It is characterized by a classic triad of iris heterochromia, cataract and keratic precipitates. Neovascularization of the iris and the anterior chamber (AC) angle (radial and circumferential) occurs in 6–22% of cases. This angle and iris new vessels can sometimes lead to a characteristic filiform haemorrhage and formation of hyphaema after AC paracentesis and is a hallmark of FHU known as Amsler–Verrey sign. This haemorrhage has been previously associated with trivial trauma, mydriasis, applanation tonometry, gonioscopy, or it may occur spontaneously. In the setting of cataract surgery it has been previously reported with the use of a Honan balloon. We report a case of cataract and FHU where the Amsler–Verrey sign developed intraoperatively during a phacoemulsification procedure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first documented report of this sign occurring intraoperatively during cataract surgery.


Using daily fed cattle purchase transaction records collected by the Packers and Stockyards Program over the period April 1992 to April 1993, we identify characteristics associated with the choices of fed cattle procurement and pricing methods. The methodology involves the use of a multinomial logit model. Regional concentration; processing capacity; number of head per lot; average weight per head; cattle type; yield grade, quarterly grade, seasonality, and distance from packing plants play a significant role in determining the methods of procurement and pricing chosen by packers. The method chosen by packers to procure fed cattle also affects the choice of a given pricing method.


The Japanese have been very successful in developing and implementing a management style that has made Japan one of the most productive and affluent societies in the world today. It is a style of management based on a long-term investment in people and characterized by management techniques that emphasize simplicity, flexibility, and human values in the corporation. These techniques, when adapted to American medical group practices, can provide valuable lessons in management for the American medical group administrator.