Research on social media political communication with the public has neglected the important role of the intermediate layer. This article bridges the gap to enable an insider reflection on online political discussions between members of parliament (MPs) and the public. Using quantitative questionnaires, this study surveys intermediaries in Israel, Germany, and the United States to examine their political discussion management practices on social media, which indirectly reflect their MPs' attitudes. Reading and responding to users' comments, reflect a more tolerant and pro-discussion attitude, while the blocking of users and the deletion of comments reflect censorship and anti-discussion attitudes. Findings expose the political aides' "deletion paradox," which differentiates oppositional comments' deletions, which they disapprove of, from plain comments' deletion, which is an unavoidable necessity. The two-sided scale, developed for this study, on which each country is situated twice, according to its positive and negative political discussion management practices, reveals that the countries' positions, on both sides of the scale, are an exact mirror image, the greater the pro-political discussion, the less the anti-political discussion, and vice versa .


Point of View Reinhard Hesse* Received: 01/05/2019       |       Accepted: 10/07/2019 As human beings do we at all have a common ground for dialogue and mutual understanding? Yes: what we as human beings have in common, is that we can use and understand arguments. In other words: that we are rational beings. 2. Is our capability for argumentation the only ground we have in common as the basis for dialogue and mutual understanding? There is no argumentation against argumentation. Argumentation can´t be transcended. Thus argumentation, more precisely: the capability of argumentation – i.e. reason - is the only ground we have in common as human beings. 3. Does religion play a role in this respect? Isn´t religion superfluous for a rational human being? No, not in the sense Kant has ascribed to it. To know about the boundaries of knowledge (of reason) and to humbly marvel about the miraculous existence of world, life and reason can rightly be seen as the form of religion - as the form of attitude towards the "beyond" - which is adequate (and unavoidable) for a rational being. Religion is the source of truth and ethics if it means: humble acknowledgment of the un-knowable and hence of the fact that in our search for orientation we are relegated to ourselves as fellow human beings, as brothers and sisters. * Prof. Dr. Dr. Reinhard Hesse, Chair of Philosophy and Ethics (retired), University of Education Freiburg, Germany.    ׀    email@example.com 🞕 Hesse, R. (2019). Can Religion be the Basis for Dialogue at the Global Level. The Journal of Philosophical-Theological Research, 21(81), 157۔ 162.  doi: 10.22091/jptr.2019.4315.2113.


A route to renewable phthalic anhydride (2-benzofuran-1,3-dione) from biomass-derived furan and maleic anhydride (furan-2,5-dione) is investigated. Furan and maleic anhydride were converted to phthalic anhydride in two reaction steps: Diels–Alder cycloaddition followed by dehydration. Excellent yields for the Diels–Alder reaction between furan and maleic-anhydride were obtained at room temperature and solvent-free conditions (SFC) yielding 96% exo-4,10-dioxa-tricyclo[22.214.171.124]dec-8-ene-3,5-dione (oxanorbornene dicarboxylic anhydride) after 4 h of reaction. It is shown that this reaction is resistant to thermal runaway because of its reversibility and exothermicity. The dehydration of the oxanorbornene was investigated using mixed-sulfonic carboxylic anhydrides in methanesulfonic acid (MSA). An 80% selectivity to phthalic anhydride (87% selectivity to phthalic anhydride and phthalic acid) was obtained after running the reaction for 2 h at 298 K to form a stable intermediate followed by 4 h at 353 K to drive the reaction to completion. The structure of the intermediate was determined. This result is much better than the 11% selectivity obtained in neat MSA using similar reaction conditions.


This study is attempted to analyze the investors' attitude towards share market investments and non-risky investments among the respondents in Kerala. The first part of the analysis deals with measuring level of preference among individual respondents and second part of the analysis deals with the analysis of investment decision factors influence in risky and non-risky investments. This is empirical in nature and the data collected by using convenient sampling technique. The factor analysis and Regression techniques were used to analyse the samples. It concluded that, Banks is perceived as the top favored enthusiasm for Kerala. The Keralites gives more preference to Non risky investments while compare with Risky investments. The variables affecting the decision of various investments modes are emphatically impacting investment inclination among the individuals in Kerala.


We demonstrate that the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (FTPL) cannot be used to determine the price level uniquely in the overlapping generations (OLG) model. We provide two examples of OLG models, one with three 3-period lives and one with 62-period lives. Both examples are calibrated to an income profile chosen to match the life-cycle earnings process in U.S. data estimated by Guvenen et al. (2015). In both examples, there exist multiple steady-state equilibria. Our findings challenge established views about what constitutes a good combination of fiscal and monetary policies. As long as the primary deficit or the primary surplus is not too large, the fiscal authority can conduct policies that are unresponsive to endogenous changes in the level of its outstanding debt. Monetary and fiscal policy can both be active at the same time.


Poor physical stability is a limiting factor in the pharmaceutical development of APIs.
Amorphous drugs are attractive due to increased dissolution; however can unpredictably
revert to the thermodynamically stable crystalline form. Accurate prediction of molecular
level physical stability would be advantageous. Research surrounding stability prediction is
evolving; but challenging, including thermodynamic, molecular and kinetic factors.
This study focussed on gaining a molecular level understanding of the structure and dynamics
of amorphous dispersions using three model drugs. We aimed to develop solid-state NMR
methods to provide invaluable information on molecular mobility; to ultimately use NMR for
the prediction of crystallisation outcomes from stability studies, leading to quicker prediction
of potential storage issues, since mobility is a key factor a�ecting stability in the amorphous
state.
VT solid-state NMR was used to probe di�erences in local mobility between drug and
polymer; and to monitor polymorphic transitions/crystallisation in high loaded dispersions.
Methodologies were veri�ed using additional physicochemical approaches.
We demonstrated:
• Di�erences in local mobility of drug/polymer dependent on model system and drug
loading.
• Miscibility detection down to 2 nm, including important temperature dependent
observations. VT relaxation curves could become important visual tools for
quanti�cation of drug loading and prediction of miscibility during initial development.
• VT NMR was a useful tool for quick and accurate prediction of high temperature
stability study outcomes
• Insight into crystallisation of pharmaceuticals in formulation, demonstrating mapping
complex phase transitions in high loaded dispersions
• Detection of di�erent dynamic features of tolbutamide, including the identi�cation of
motional processes responsible for the detection of its structural transitions
VT solid-state NMR has provided a signi�cant quantity of data surrounding the mobility and
stability of our systems of study. These methods provide us with a valuable characterisation
`toolkit' for probing molecular mobility in solid dispersions, therefore aiding the prediction
of potential long term stability issues.


The on going explicit controversial political dilemma of Cyprus has been in the forefront
of its agenda since 1960s and was acknowledged by the European Union in 2003. At
present, it continues to preserve its singularity and is under the auspices of EU. The
country owes its unique reputation to its territorial lack of integrity and unity all of which
make it an exceptional Member State, together with its breakaway de facto proclaimed in
1983, when compared with the other Member States of the European Union.
The island is divided into two territories and governed by two different administrations;
the north where the Turkish Cypriots dwell is governed by the Turkish Cypriot
administration, TRNC and is recognized by Turkey only, and the south which is in the
sovereignty of the Greek Cypriots, is the internationally acclaimed Republic of Cyprus.
The problem statement of this study, therefore, is: "what is the status of the Turkish
Cypriots under the European Law". Thereof, the analysis of the territorial disparities of
the two territories of Cyprus and their European citizenship rights on the behalf of EU
laws is crucially important. The main objective of this study is, therefore, to determine the
status of the Turkish Cypriots based on the European Citizenship mentality. This is
substantiated as means of the viable analysis of the legal and academic resources
concerning the Turkish Cypriot community in the northern part of Cyprus. Conclusively,
the study advocates the analysis through the application of the European Union laws to
Cyprus, and in particular, the ones considering the citizenship rights of the two
communities under the legal tenet of Cyprus. Herein, the study analyzes the status of the
Turkish Cypriots with respect to the sources of EU Law.


The practice of achieving engineering functionality through folding and fold-like operations — known as origami engineering — is receiving increased attention in the research community. Self-folding systems are of particular interest due to their potential to operate (semi-) autonomously in applications across a wide range of length scales. In recent work, we created a reconfigurable self-folding sheet using shape memory alloy (SMA) layers to achieve fold-like behavior. The prior work was devoted to modeling, simulation, and experimentation with the sheet. No attempt had been made to control the sheet. This paper extends our prior work to include feedback control of the self-folding sheet. In particular, the goal is to perform fold control — the use of feedback control to ensure the sheet achieves a desired folded configuration.Control of SMA material is difficult due to its hysteretic nature. This application involves a laminate material with embedded SMA wires, which further complicates control due to the interaction of the wires with each layer of the sheet. We explore two feedback control methods, On/Off and PID, using a simulation framework for controller evaluation. In the interest of computational efficiency, we introduce a new model for sheet behavior based on classical laminate theory. This allows for a significant reduction in computational cost compared to the finite element models we used in prior work with only a modest tradeoff in terms of accuracy. Our results show that both control methods are capable of performing fold control, but that the On/Off controller is superior in terms of energy requirements.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


A self-administered survey based questionnaire study about oral carcinoma conducted at Bharati hospital, Pune. Aims: To assess the awareness and knowledge about oral malignancy, to assess the knowledge about risk factors related to oral malignancy and to assess the awareness about signs/symptoms of oral cancer in urban Pune. A self designed questionnaire-based survey was conducted at the OPD of a tertiary care institute. Materials and Methods: A self administered questionnaire-based survey. Time period: two months Study Area: OPD of a tertiary care hospital in Pune. Total Participants: 500 persons. Statistical analysis used: The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software to assess and associate oral cancer awareness. Results: The general awareness, knowledge of signs and risk factors of oral cancer were found to be proportionate to the literacy level with the highest rate of awareness being among health-care workers and post-graduates and lowest among illiterates. It was also observed that on most of these dimensions the younger age groups (<30 years) were significantly more knowledgeable. Conclusion: The awareness of oral cancer in the population of Pune was not satisfactory, pointing to a need for further dissemination of information on this issue. This is especially important for the youngsters, as this may possibly help them keep away from indulgence in any form.


This article examines Ireland's implementation of the right to work for protection applicants, post Ireland's opt-in to the EU Reception Conditions Directive Recast (RCDr) in 2018. Ireland sought to exclude persons potentially subject to Dublin Regulation transfers from accessing the labour market. Competing legal interpretations on this issue, now exist in Ireland, between the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) and the High Court. Engaging in an analysis of the legislative intent and emerging domestic case-law, it is argued that Ireland's wholescale exclusion of persons potentially subject to a Dublin transfer from the labour market is not permitted under EU law. With this ultimately to be decided by the Court of Justice, it is argued that the legal interpretation of IPAT, which would grant protection applicants within the Dublin transfer process an entitlement to enter the labour market, is to be preferred to the interpretation of the RCDr proffered by the Irish High Court. The focus of the High Court on 'abuse of rights' obfuscated key legal protections EU law provides to protection applicants.
International protection, Common European Asylum System, Dublin III Regulation, Reception Conditions Directive (recast), Labour Market, Abuse of Rights.


3D printing plays an important role in various biomedical research applications including, but not limited to, culture systems and implantable devices. In this review, we discuss recent development in the applications of 3D printing technologies for clinically motivated research, particularly focusing on the fabrication of constructs subsequently incorporated with cells. Applications of this technology include pharmaceutical delivery, bioreactor culture platforms, acellular scaffolds, imaging modalities, and organ-on-a chip systems. Emphasis is placed on technological developments not possible without 3D printing technologies: where traditional manufacturing approaches would be cumbersome to demonstrate research objectives. The clinical applications of 3D printing are rapidly moving from the research to production phases and will certainly continue to grow, with ever increasing numbers of therapies becoming commercialized. The work discussed here holds promise for various applications in structural improvements, drug delivery, and physiology research. Published by AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5046087


Full 4K videos (3840x2160, 60 FPS) are becoming popular in human life. They can provide better user experience because of their sharpness and smoothness. However, the lack of full 4K video sources is limiting their popularization. The problem can be overcome by up converting HD (1920xl080, 24 FPS) videos, but the transcoding progress is time consuming, and traditional distributed video transcoding is not applicable as frame rate up convert (FRUC) during the progress may introduce timestamp mismatch and quality loss. What's more, cases like IPTV need video streams with a fixed group of pictures (GOP) to obtain stable transmitting and channel switching, while no existing distributed transcoding method can obtain such requirement. To utilize the advantages of cloud computing in such scenarios, in this paper we propose a novel distributed scheduling algorithm for FRUC video transcoding. The algorithm slice videos at instantaneous decoder refresh (IDR) frames to prevent quality loss, and introduce overlap while processing for fixing GOP, and finally remove the redundancies for timestamp matching. Experiment results show that with the same amount of computing resources, our algorithm transcodes a video faster than single node transcoder, and shows more efficiency than single node transcoder when the number of CPU cores increases.


Astrobiology, the study of life in the universe, offers profound insights into human sustainability. However, astrobiology is commonly neglected in sustainability research. This paper develops three topics connecting astrobiology to sustainability: constraints on what zones in the universe are habitable, the absence of observations of extraterrestrial civilizations, and the physical fate of the universe. These topics have major implications for our thinking and action on sustainability. While we may not be doomed, we must take certain actions to sustain ourselves in this universe. The topics also suggest that our current sustainability efforts may be of literally galactic importance.


Recently developed bulk metallic glass (BMG) alloys have attractive mechanical properties for structural applications, and tungsten fiber reinforced bulk metallic glass matrix composite(BMGC) would further improve the properties compared to un-reinforced BMG. With INSTRON1196 test machine system and SHPB experimental system, quasi-static and dynamic compression experiments on tungsten fiber reinforced bulk metallic glass matrix composite were carried out. The material flow stress is about 2200MPa in quasi-static, and the dynamic flow stress of the material is around 2800MPa with strain rate of 740 s-1. The specimen fails with the form of axial cracks


The mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) plays an important role in damage-induced cell death, and agents inhibiting the MPT may have a therapeutic potential for treating human conditions such as ischemia/reperfusion injury, trauma, and neurodegenerative diseases. The mitochondrial matrix protein, cyclophilin D (CYP D), a member of a family of highly homologous peptidylprolyl cis-trans isomerases (PPIases), plays a decisive role in MPT, being an integral constituent of the MPT pore. Other putative MPT pore proteins include the adenine nucleotide translocator (ANT) and the voltage-dependent anion channel (VDAC). In an alternative model, the MPT pore is formed by clusters of misfolded membrane proteins outlining aqueous channels that are regulated by CYP D and other chaperone-like proteins. Like cyclophilin A (CYP A) and other cyclophilin family members, CYP D is targeted by the immunosuppressant cyclosporin A (CsA). CsA is cytoprotective in many cellular and animal models, but protection may result from either inhibition of the MPT through an interaction with CYP D or inhibition of calcineurin-mediated dephosphorylation of BAD through an interaction with CYP A. The relevance of MPT inhibition by CsA for its cytoprotective effects is well documented in many cellular models. Mechanisms of action in vivo are more difficult to define, and accordingly the evidence is as yet less compelling in in vivo animal models of ischemia/reperfusion injury, trauma and neurodegenerative diseases. Notwithstanding, CYP D is a drug target of high interest. Structural considerations suggest feasibility of designing CYP D ligands without immunosuppressant properties. This is highly desirable, since they have the potential of being useful therapeutic agents in a variety of disease states. It might be a tougher challenge to obtain compounds specific for CYP D vs. other cyclophilins, and/or of small molecular weight, allowing brain penetration to make them suitable for treating neurodegenerative diseases.


BACKGROUND
Around the world in tropical areas, certain vector-borne diseases have become endemic and hyperendemic. Among the developing nations, there are common difficulties in establishing the incidences of various diseases, especially vector-borne diseases with complex etiologies and a broad spectrum of presentations. One alternative approach to characterization of the disease outbreaks examines the possibilities of developing proxy information from online news articles. Such sources are being evaluated for applications to disease surveillance, early outbreak detection, and epidemiology research. Our study here looks to examine the potential of news articles in elucidating outbreaks of dengue in India and zika disease in Brazil.

OBJECTIVE
This study is designed to assess the potential usefulness of news articles in tracking case numbers of dengue and zika through an improved understanding of how news outlets report on disease. We specifically examine the possibilities of providing near real-time reporting on the development of outbreaks of dengue and zika.

METHODS
Newspaper articles related to dengue fever and zika disease in India and Brazil, respectively were extracted from the LexisNexis database. We targeted news articles available from five popular international news sources and two local newspapers in each country. The news articles were processed to provide yearly and weekly time series in the number of articles concerned with dengue and zika to test their potential suitability as proxies for disease prevalence. The collections of articles were analyzed using a text mining tool-kit that subdivides a collections of news articles into smaller clusters to study the topical focus of articles and their relevance to tracking diseases.

RESULTS
For dengue fever in India, the local newspapers provide a better source of information than international newspapers. The multi-year analysis (2010-2016) suggests that the numbers of dengue cases are strongly correlated with the numbers of news reports, with an R2 value of 0.88. For zika disease in Brazil, the news reports provided useful information on the timing of the zika outbreak. Reporting increase sharply at the beginning of 2016, peaked in weeks 5 to 8, and decreased sharply. The numbers of articles remained low for the remainder of 2016 and 2017. Comparisons with reported case again show article numbers to be a useful proxy of prevalence of zika in Brazil.

CONCLUSIONS
The paper describes a strategy that applies newspaper as proxies to monitor outbreaks of infectious diseases and to study the epidemiology. It has potential applicability in some developing countries and regions with relatively poor medical infrastructures and records. Clearly, large national newspapers in India provide a better source of information on diseases than international outlets. This approach has potential with selected diseases in a few selected countries. Article numbers internationally appear to vary in proportion to the perceived health impact.


Boreal headwaters and aquatic sediments are significant transporters, stores and processors of terrestrial carbon (C) as well as emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), mainly CO2 and CH4. While terrestrial ecosystems are net sinks of atmospheric C, lateral fluxes of total organic and dissolved inorganic C (TOC, DIC) as well as GHG release can significantly reduce the land C sink. However, the fate of the laterally exported C remains often unresolved. Here, we combine datasets from high‐frequency sensors, monitoring and modeling to produce a C budget for a typical boreal lake and its catchment and examine it in a regional context. We show that lake TOC removal is dominated by microbial metabolism which shows strong seasonal fluctuations following stratification and ice‐cover dynamics. We estimate that 11.5 g C m−2 catchment yr−1 are exported from the catchment soils and wetlands, including 9.5 g of TOC. Only 5.4 g C m−2 catchment yr−1 reach the coast while over 50% is reemitted to the atmosphere (5.7 g C m−2 catchment yr−1). Part of the reemitted C originates from rapid turnover cycles and would not affect atmospheric CO2 and the land C sink. However, we show that the land C sink at Langtjern is reduced by >14% over the whole aquatic continuum, and by >10% within the headwater catchment. Our regional analysis suggests that headwater lake TOC mineralization is the main TOC loss along the aquatic continuum with burial being relatively small, and highlights the significance of small headwaters as intensive and fast‐responding TOC processors.


The development of the Electromagnetic Data Exchange (EDX) standard was initiated as a joint effort in the Antenna Centre of Excellence (ACE) and the European Antenna Modelling Library (EAML) project, respectively funded under EU-FP6 and ESA-TRP budgets. Since the end of ACE the development continues in the Working Group on Software of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) in close cooperation with the EAML partners. The key issues in the recent developments have been a vastly improved interface to MATLAB and so-called companion tools which enable easy browsing of EDX files and graphical visualization of the contents of such files. Further, new methods for automatic formal data set validation have been studied and new validation tools have been implemented. The future role of the EDX as an important component for data exchange is also discussed showing its potential for improved EM modelling.


ABSTRACT Helicobacter pylori induces cellular proliferation in host cells, but the mechanism remains unclear. Thus, we examined the effect of H. pylori on cyclin D1, an important regulator of the cell cycle, especially in relation to intracellular signaling pathways. In a Northern blot analysis, cyclin D1 transcription in gastric cancer (AGS) cells was enhanced by coculture with H. pylori strain TN2 in a time-dependent and multiplicity-of-infection-dependent manner. An isogenic mutant form ofvacA also increased cyclin D1 transcription, but mutant forms of cagE or the entire cag pathogenicity island did not enhance cyclin D1 transcription. These effects were confirmed with a luciferase assay of the cyclin D1 promoter (pD1luc). Cyclin D1 promoter activation by H. pylori was inhibited by MEK inhibitors (U0126 and PD98059), indicating that the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway may be involved in intracellular signal transduction. In contrast, transfection of a reporter plasmid having any point mutations of the NF-κB binding sites in the promoter (pD1-κB1M, pD1-κB2M, or pD1-κB1/2M) or cotransfection of dominant negative IκBα did not affect cyclin D1 activation by H. pylori. In conclusion, H. pylori activates cyclin D1 through the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway and not through NF-κB activation in AGS cells. This activation of cyclin D1 is partly dependent on the cagpathogenicity island but not on vacA.


In the present case of explosive injuries in peacetime, when suddenly there are usually accidental or intentional explosions methane in mines, tanks with gas or explosives, fuel tanks or gas content, gas tanks, gas pipelines, product pipelines, as well as the explosion of military ordnance--grenades, mines, fuses, shells, and accidentally found child or maliciously used by terrorists. Collected statistical data on manmade disasters in coal mines and explosive injuries in terrorist attacks, the physical parameters of which were able to identify only approximately and type of damage incurred,mostly multiple and combinative combined and presented significant challenges in health care. The reasons and circumstances of the explosion in peacetime, gave a detailed description of the damaging factors, mechanisms, and characteristics arise from injuries suffered in the blast injuries. We describe the pathogenesis of blast injury, basic and clinical manifestations of lesions in the explosions.


Introduction: Prebiotic and food with functional properties are beneficial for consumers through prevention of many diseases. Aim: Verify the acceptance of handmade product (chocolate bar, soy sweet and sweet bread) formulated based on oil seeds (flaxseed, peanut and Brazil nut) and or fructooligosaccharides (FOS). Methods: Four samples of each handmade product were prepared adding different concentrations of oil seed and FOS. The sensory evaluation was performed by a sample of 373 consumers; 126, 121 and 126 tasters of chocolate bar, soy sweet and sweet bread, respectively, using a hedonic scale of nine points. The results were submitted to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's test. Results and Discussion: Observing the trials averages, we inferred that samples of sweet bread with Brazil nut and/or FOS had the greater acceptance. However, all the samples are good market alternatives because they had presented averages between 6 and 9 points, and conferred accretion of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, protein, fiber, antioxidant vitamins and minerals, as well as, phytochemicals, which plays an important role in health promotion. Conclusion: The handmade products formulated based on oil seeds and FOS had good acceptance and can improve the consumer dietary patterns. But, in order to prove the functionality of these products, new studies should be performed.


The safety of high quality drinking water supply relies on the quantities to be delivered, on the complexity of the water supply systems, and on the widespread phenomena of the contamination of water bodies. These parameters indicate the need for the development of an application that will allow the quick acquisition of data on strategic management. This is requires both the analysis of factors related to the hydraulic operation of the plants and the characteristics of water quality. The present paper aims to evaluate the use of models that predict data for water quality in a distribution system. The assessment is made in order to consider the use of the model as a support tool for the management system of a supply network and to optimize the quality of the provided service. The improvement of the control system related to the operations of disinfection, in particular, in the case of long pipelines, is absolutely mandatory in order to ensure the safety of public health and respect for the environment at high levels.


Abdominal abscesses carry high morbidity and mortality unless properly drained. In recent years, percutaneous drainage has become an accepted alternative to surgery. A brief overview of diagnostic principles, selection of patients, percutaneous drainage catheters and technique, contraindications, and post-drainage follow-up is presented. In experienced hands, more than 80% of abdominal abscesses can be drained successfully by this method and with lower rates of morbidity, mortality, and complications than by surgery.


ABSTRACT In development agendas regarding children in low-income communities, both older and emerging media are typically ignored or assumed to have beneficial powers that will redress social and gender inequality. This article builds on a recent rapid evidence review on adolescents' digital media use and development interventions in low- and middle-income countries to examine the contexts of children and adolescents' access to, and uses of, information and communication technology(ICT). Noting that only a handful of studies heed the significance of social class and gender as major axes of inequality for adolescents, the article scrutinises the gap between the rhetoric of ICT-based empowerment and the realities of ICT-based practice. It calls for a radical rethinking of childhood and development in light of the actual experiences, struggles, and contexts.


Next generation sequencing (NGS) technology produces massive amounts of data in a reasonable time and low cost. Analyzing and annotating these data requires sequence alignments to compare them with genes, proteins and genomes in different databases. Sequence alignment is the first step in metagenomics analysis, and pairwise comparisons of sequence reads provide a measure of similarity between environments. Most of the current aligners focus on aligning NGS datasets against long reference sequences rather than comparing between datasets. As the number of metagenomes and other genomic data increases each year, there is a demand for more sophisticated, faster sequence alignment algorithms. Here, we introduce a novel sequence aligner, Qudaich, which can efficiently process large volumes of data and is suited to de novo comparisons of next generation reads datasets. Qudaich can handle both DNA and protein sequences and attempts to provide the best possible alignment for each query sequence. Qudaich can produce more useful alignments quicker than other contemporary alignment algorithms. Author Summary The recent developments in sequencing technology provides high throughput sequencing data and have resulted in large volumes of genomic and metagenomic data available in public databases. Sequence alignment is an important step for annotating these data. Many sequence aligners have been developed in last few years for efficient analysis of these data, however most of them are only able to align DNA sequences and mainly focus on aligning NGS data against long reference genomes. Therefore, in this study we have designed a new sequence aligner, qudaich, which can generate pairwise local sequence alignment (at both the DNA and protein level) between two NGS datasets and can efficiently handle the large volume of NGS datasets. In qudaich, we introduce a unique sequence alignment algorithm, which outperforms the traditional approaches. Qudaich not only takes less time to execute, but also finds more useful alignments than contemporary aligners.


The Kids Active program was developed with the aim of increasing physical activity (PA) and fundamental movement skill (FMS) levels of children in preschool services in Ireland through training educators to encourage active play opportunities. In this study, the impact of a six-week pilot program on educator confidence, as well as children's PA levels and FMS proficiency, is evaluated. Educators' (n = 32) confidence to teach PA was measured through questionnaire, while data (anthropometric data, PA via accelerometry, and proficiency in four FMS; run, vertical jump, overhand throw, and catch) were collected from 141 children in five intervention and four control services. Educators in the intervention group achieved significantly higher confidence scores at post-intervention testing in comparison to the control group. No significant differences between control and intervention groups were found for children's PA across the three-hour period. Children in the intervention group significantly increased scores in the overhand throw. Small positive changes in educator confidence to teach PA and in children's performance of the skill of overhand throw indicate potential effects of the Kids Active intervention that warrant further investigation of efficacy over longer periods of time.


After the identification of the gamma-ray blazar TXS 0506+056 as the first compelling IceCube neutrino source candidate, we perform a systematic analysis of all high-energy neutrino events satisfying the IceCube realtime trigger criteria. We find one additional known gamma-ray source, the blazar GB6 J1040+0617, in spatial coincidence with a neutrino in this sample. The chance probability of this coincidence is 30% after trial correction. For the first time, we present a systematic study of the gamma-ray flux, spectral and optical variability, and multiwavelength behavior of GB6 J1040+0617 and compare it to TXS 0506+056. We find that TXS 0506+056 shows strong flux variability in the Fermi-Large Area Telescope gamma-ray band, being in an active state around the arrival of IceCube-170922A, but in a low state during the archival IceCube neutrino flare in 2014/15. In both cases the spectral shape is statistically compatible (≤2σ) with the average spectrum showing no indication of a significant relative increase of a high-energy component. While the association of GB6 J1040+0617 with the neutrino is consistent with background expectations, the source appears to be a plausible neutrino source candidate based on its energetics and multiwavelength features, namely a bright optical flare and modestly increased gamma-ray activity. Finding one or two neutrinos originating from gamma-ray blazars in the given sample of high-energy neutrinos is consistent with previously derived limits of neutrino emission from gamma-ray blazars, indicating the sources of the majority of cosmic high-energy neutrinos remain unknown.


Chlorhexidine is one of the commonly used agents in the treatment of periodontitis. In the present study, a biodegradable dental chip of chitosan containing chlorhexidine was evaluated both in vitro and in vivo, as a targeted drug delivery system in patients of chronic periodontitis. Thirty patients having localized periodontal pockets ≥5 mm were selected. At baseline, the experimental patients received full mouth scaling and root planing followed by placement of a chlorhexidine chip. The placebo group received plain chitosan chips, and conventional scaling and root planing were performed for the control group. Measurements of plaque, gingival index were recorded at 1, 2, 3, and 4 months. Probing depth and clinical attachment levels were recorded at the 3rd and 4th month. GCF and saliva samples were procured from the subjects to analyze the drug release at 0, 2, 4, 6, and 24 h and on days 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 30, 60, and 90. The study showed improvement in plaque index, gingival index, probing depth, and clinical attachment levels, but the chlorhexidine chip–treated group showed a significantly better improvement than placebo and control groups at the end of 120 days. Based on the results of the present in vivo study, we can conclude that the chlorhexidine‐containing chitosan drug delivery system may be an adjunct in treating patients with chronic periodontitis. Drug Dev Res, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The crustal stress state in the Midcontinent of the United States has been a focus of research for many years due to anomalously high rates of seismicity in the region. This interest is recently renewed because of ongoing wastewater injection and CO2 sequestration in the Illinois Basin and its potential to induce seismicity. When fluid is injected, pore pressure increases, decreasing effective normal stress and increasing the potential for faults optimally oriented with respect to the direction of maximum compressive stress to slip. In order to better manage this risk, we present a study on the spatial distribution of principal stress orientations in the Illinois Basin and surrounding region using focal mechanism solutions and in situ measured maximum horizontal stress orientation indicators from borehole breakout, core fracture, overcoring, hydraulic fracture, and strain gauge measurements. To invert these data for the deviatoric stress tensor, we extend the damped‐least stress inversion of Hardebeck and Michael (2006, https://doi:10.1029/2005JB004144) with the mixed linear/nonlinear Bayesian inversion scheme of Fukuda and Johnson (2010, https://doi:10.1111/j.1365‐246X.2010.04564.x ). The stress inversion provides an objective means to estimate nonlinear parameters including the spatial smoothing parameter, unknown data uncertainties, and selection of focal mechanism nodal planes. Results indicate a systematic rotation of the maximum horizontal stress orientation (SHmax) across a 1,000‐km width of the Midcontinent. SHmax rotates from ~N60°E to ~E/W orientation across the southern Illinois Basin. The principal stress orientations are largely consistent with the observed pattern of strike‐slip faulting and reverse faulting near the New Madrid and Wabash Valley Seismic Zones.


Discrete optimization problems arise in a variety of domains, such as VLSI design, transportation, scheduling and management, and design optimization. Very often, these problems are solved using state space search techniques. Due to the high computational requirements and inherent parallel nature of search techniques, there has been a great deal of interest in the development of parallel search methods since the dawn of parallel computing. Significant advances have been made in the use of powerful heuristics and parallel processing to solve large-scale discrete optimization problems. Problem instances that were considered computationally intractable only a few years ago are routinely solved currently on server-class symmetric multiprocessors and small workstation clusters. Parallel game-playing programs are challenging the best human minds at games like chess. In this paper, we describe the state of the art in parallel algorithms used for solving discrete optimization problems. We address heuristic and nonheuristic techniques for searching graphs as well as trees, and speed-up anomalies in parallel search that are caused by the inherent speculative nature of search techniques.


Network direct selling organisations (NDSOs), for example GNLD and Avroy Shlain, exist in more than 70 countries and have more than 88 million members, who produce a global turnover of billions of US dollars annually. The most recent statistical information reveals that the vast majority of members do not earn significant income. Criticism of these organisations revolves around the ethicality of consumption, the commercialisation of personal relationships, and the exploitation of unrealistic expectations. This article summarises the theoretical developments in the study that informed it, and is based, in essence, on secondorder cybernetics as a methodology as well as a development in theory. It aims to show how communication creates networks that sustain an industry of this kind despite the improbability of its existence. The article concludes that individuals are composite unities of self-creating systems, and they co-create social systems by self-creating and co-creating meaning. Meaning is described as the continuous virtualisation and actualisation of potentialities that in turn coordinate individual and social systems' actions. A communication process flow model is created and applied to provide a theoretical explanation for the existence of NDSOs as selfcreating systems. * Dr Corné Davis lectures in the Department of Strategic Communication at the University of Johannesburg.


"Play Ball: 100 Baseball Practice Games" is the best way to develop players' skills, execution, and on-field team play! With more than 100 skill-building competitions, "Play Ball: 100 Baseball Practice Games" covers everything from the fundamentals of fielding, pitching, catching, and hitting to special situations such as rundowns, base stealing, and bunting. You'll even learn how to incorporate the games into team practices to perfect execution and prepare for opponents.Renowned coach and American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame member Tom O'Connell includes games for individual players as well as group competitions for infielders, outfielders, and pitchers and catchers. Coaching tips and variations also allow the developmental games to be used with beginning, intermediate, and advanced players and teams alike.From outfielder to catcher, from player to coach, "Play Ball: 100 Baseball Practice Games" is your guide to more productive and engaging practices, focused play, and on-the-field excellence.


10.32474/ANOAJ.2018.01.000103. 6 Introduction Herbal medicines have been widely used around the world since ancient times. Medicinal plants are most effective when their active constituent reach at the site of action. Most of plant contains flavonoids, tannins, and terpenoids, which are hydrophilic and unable to cross the lipid membranes of the cells so poor absorption, results in less bio availability and efficacy hence need to take in high dose and frequency of dose also increases. If they are formulated using nanotechnology, due to nano ¬structured systems might be able to potentiate the action of plant extracts also reduce the required dose and side effects, and improving activity. Research has shown that use of nanotechnology and formulations like nano liposomes, nano emulsions, lipid nanocarries, phytosomes, micelles and poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles beneficial in case of phyto constituent they increases the rate of absorption bio availability and result in better effect of herbal medicines [1-10].


By means of ultra and cytochemical study the catecholamine inserts in erythrocytes look like dark lumps and beads the size and quantity of which being directly proportional to the sympathetic adrenaline system functional state. Under the conditions of catecholamine shortage the inserts reducing to fragments occurs and under catecholamine growth the increase in inserts size takes place. In both cases the erythrocyte structure disorder has been observed. Cytochemical method of catecholamine detection in erythrocytes also allows simultaneously to determine the erythrocyte morphological state.


Understanding the dynamic relationship between components of a system or pathway at the individual cell level is a current challenge. To address this, we developed an approach that allows simultaneous tracking of several endogenous proteins of choice within individual living human cells. The approach is based on fluorescent tagging of proteins at their native locus by directed gene targeting. A fluorescent tag-encoding DNA is introduced as a new exon into the intronic region of the gene of interest, resulting in expression of a full-length fluorescently tagged protein. We used this approach to establish human cell lines simultaneously expressing two components of a major antioxidant defense system, thioredoxin 1 (Trx) and thioredoxin reductase 1 (TrxR1), labeled with CFP and YFP, respectively. We find that the distributions of both proteins between nuclear and cytoplasmic compartments were highly variable between cells. However, the two proteins did not vary independently of each other: protein levels of Trx and TrxR1 in both the whole cell and the nucleus were substantially correlated. We further find that in response to a stress-inducing drug (CPT), both Trx and TrxR1 accumulated in the nuclei in a manner that was highly temporally correlated. This accumulation considerably reduced cell-to-cell variability in nuclear content of both proteins, suggesting a uniform response of the thioredoxin system to stress. These results indicate that Trx and TrxR1 act in concert in response to stress in regard to both time course and variability. Thus, our approach provides an efficient tool for studying dynamic relationship between components of systems of interest at a single-cell level.


For university students, internships in industry are opportunity to apply concepts learned in their academics and develop their soft skills required to work in an interdisciplinary team of professionals. Internship projects can be implemented over a short duration or long duration, which often decides the insight and experience gained by students during that period. In order to maximise this gain, students need to be efficient in learning pre-requisites, planning and execution of the project. This work focuses on application of CDIO approach in an integrated digital environment, for implementation and progression of such projects. The projects in an industry environment are often target oriented and require students to learn/practice new skills required for their project. It is a lifelong learning process, as in industry engineers have to work on new projects requiring new skills and collaborate with professionals from different background. We present an implementation of a new usage-scenario for Virtual Twin project at Learning Lab in Global Academia, Dassault Systèmes. Virtual twin project is implementation of open source humanoid robot – 'Poppy humanoid', using 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The usage scenario discussed, focusses on basics of machine learning and mechatronics for Poppy humanoid robot. The CDIO concept is applied in forms of inspire, learn, innovate, create and evaluate activities using combination of different 3D systems and digital platform. This work shows how to effectively evolve an advanced project for students and their supervisors over a short duration, using CDIO methodology and an integrated digital platforms.


Frontline workers, such as teachers and social workers, often experience stress, for instance because of high workloads. To deal with this, they use coping strategies. However, it is still unclear how coping strategies influence performance at work. The first goal of this article is therefore to theoretically and empirically study whether one important coping strategy (prioritizing motivated clients) influences job performance. The secondary goal is to go beyond testing a linear relationship between coping and performance by examining how work experience moderates this relationship. We use a multi-source survey of frontline workers and their supervisors in the United States to achieve these goals. We found that coping by prioritizing motivated clients is positively related to job performance. A strong moderation effect was also found: The positive effect is weaker for experienced frontline workers. Experienced frontline workers do not 'have to' prioritize motivated clients for high performance, as their knowledge and skills enable them to deliver results also for more difficult target groups. Contrary, for less experienced frontline workers, this coping strategy seems quite beneficial. We conclude with implications and a future research agenda. stressful times: Analyzing coping strategies of civil servants ". The project combines insights from psychology and public administration to study how frontline workers cope during public service delivery (www.larstummers.com/coping).


Abstract This study is an overview of published empirical research on the impact of leaders and leadership styles on employee stress and affective well-being. A computerized search and systematic review of nearly 30 years of empirical research was conducted. Forty-nine papers fulfilled the inclusion criteria, which include the requirements for papers to report empirical studies and to be published during the period 1980 to 2009 in English-language peer-reviewed journals. The studies were mostly cross-sectional (43/49 papers) and examined the impact of leaders' stress (4 papers), leaders' behaviours (e.g. support, consideration and empowerment) (30 papers) and specific leadership styles (20 papers) on employees' stress and affective well-being. Three research questions were addressed. The review found some support for leader stress and affective well-being being associated with employee stress and affective well-being. Leader behaviours, the relationship between leaders and their employees and specific leadership styles were all associated with employee stress and affective well-being. It is recommended that future studies include more qualitative data, use standardize questionnaires and examine the processes linking leaders with employee stress. This may lead to effective interventions.


OBJECTIVES: This paper reviews the cognitive-behavioral treatment of kleptomania, compulsive buying, and pathological gambling. METHOD: A review of the published literature was conducted. RESULTS: Treatment research in all of these areas is limited. The cognitive-behavioral techniques used in the treatment of kleptomania encompass covert sensitization, imaginal desensitization, systematic desensitization, aversion therapy, relaxation training, and alternative sources of satisfaction. Regarding compulsive buying, no empirical support for treatment exists but common techniques examined were covert sensitization, exposure and response prevention, stimulus control, cognitive restructuring, and relapse prevention. Treatment of pathological gambling has been successful in both group and individual format using techniques such as aversive therapy, systematic desensitization, imaginal desensitization and multimodal behavior therapy (which have included in vivo exposure, stimulus control, and covert sensitization) along with cognitive techniques such as psychoeducation, cognitive-restructuring, and relapse prevention. CONCLUSIONS: There is a general consensus in the literature that cognitive-behavioral therapies offer an effective model for intervention for all these disorders. An individualized case formulation is presented with a case study example. Clinical practice guidelines are suggested for each disorder.


The scientific research we have conducted concerns volunteering as a collaborative practice and as a basis for the sustainable development of local communities. Identifying the suitable practices capable of transforming a group of individuals into a prosperous and sustainable collaborative community has became our priority concern. Therefore, the main objective of the study was outlined as a response to the question: "which are the tangible and intangible effects of the acts and facts of the collaboration identified in the communities where the participants in the study came from?". The answer was prefigured as the outcome of an exploratory analysis that also revealed to us the motivation, satisfaction and results obtained by the participants in the survey, as a consequence of their personal experience in relation to their community. The quantitative analysis of collected data was performed in IBM SPSS software and the qualitative analysis with the Atlas Ti application. Despite the poverty of information sources in the field, our exploratory research has succeeded in highlighting the role of volunteering as a factor of sustainable social cohesion and practice in local communities. And this is at least one of our reasons useful to continue our theoretical and applied researches related to the emergence and sustainable development of collaborative communities.Keywords: exploratory analysis; collaborative community; sustainability; social economy enterprise; social innovation


Abstract A case study is carried out on a highly porous limestone called tuffeau located in an urban environment. Weathering effects are characterized by several complementary techniques: mechanical resistance (compressive test), imbibition (capillarity test), mercury intrusion porosimetry, chemical analysis [inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES)], scanning electron microscope (SEM) image analysis and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results show the different composition of the deteriorated zone of the stone and mainly the presence of high gypsum content in the black crust surface. The analysis also shows that the natural penetration of water into this stone under environmental conditions (atmospheric precipitation, relative humidity and temperature) is limited to 20 mm. Moreover, the presence of gypsum is only detected in this limited zone, which demonstrates the depth of alteration in this stone. Finally, this study clearly highlights the important role of water movements in the deterioration of stone.


Moisture and water penetration is one of the main phenomena altering the electrical characteristics and performance of resistive switching (RS) devices based on metal/insulator/metal nanojunctions. However, the effect of these phenomena in RS devices made of two dimensional (2D) materials has never been studied. In this paper it is shown that 2D materials based RS devices exposed to high relative humidity environments develop dielectric screening effects. The devices measured right after fabrication show a yield of 95% and bipolar RS characteristics, while after exposure to humid environments for two months the yield decreases to 65%. More than 30% of the devices show much lower currents than the fresh counterparts, and at high voltages they exhibit clear dielectric screening effects. This behavior is even more accentuated in RS devices that require the transfer of the 2D material, and we observe that a baking step at 120 °C for 5 min can mitigate this effect.


IntroductionNo doubt your Electronic Health Records have been meticulously gathered, imported, validated and standardised. However, if you want to be certain that they are an accurate representation of reality, you can't beat physically going to hospitals and cross-checking their records against yours. Our biobank did exactly this.
Objectives and ApproachOur validation exercise encompassed all reported cases in our follow-up data of three key conditions: stroke, heart disease, and cancer. Key data about each hospitalisation was extracted and exported to tablet computers running custom software. Our staff then visited each hospital in this dataset seeking the corresponding medical notes, and collected additional data from those that they found including photographs of key documents. These results were then adjudicated by specialist physicians to determine the accuracy of the diagnosis, and identify disease phenotypes of interest. Finally, all these results were merged back into our follow-up data.
ResultsNot only was gathering the data a huge logistical and technical challenge, integrating it back into the database presented its own difficulties. Our initial plan was to assign each sought event a status of 'validated', 'corrected' or 'unfound'. However, this proved inadequate for addressing the complexities of the data, as we will discuss, with examples.
Our solution was to initially treat the retrieved hospital notes as simply another source of follow-up data. We were thus able to use our existing systems for validating, standardising and aggregating events; and thus produce validated endpoints that were meaningfully comparable to our reported endpoints. We could then implement and test definitions of the required validation statuses at a participant level for each disease of interest.
Conclusion/ImplicationsThis validation project was a huge and daunting undertaking, but repaid our investment with proof that our Electronic Health Records were generally very reliable, and also with much richer data about disease diagnosis and phenotyping. Other projects using Electronic Health Records may wish to adopt this approach.


A guide to healthcare management resources, especially for those in the MBA Executive Health Care Management concentration and Master of Healthcare administration programs


Many benefits can be felt by the local community with the presence of tourists Middle East, such as the presence of new business opportunities as a business place or a restaurant meal, lodging or hotel, convenience stores, clothing stores and souvenirs, as well as services travel or scouting, transportation services, even haddamah community, the people who have the ability to cook specifically for Middle Eastern cuisine. In addition to tourist activities undertaken by Middle Eastern tourists, sometimes there is also participating in social activities such as donating funds for the construction of mosques or schools. But the benefits are felt by residents around the tourist arrivals in the Middle East in improving its economy is not only related to things - positive things that have been mentioned above. As it is common knowledge that the practice of temporary marriages in the tourist area of Puncak Bogor with local women. The purpose of this research to know the concept of self-possessed women offenders marriage contract in Region travel Puncak, Bogor West Java. Research is conducted methodology used is descriptive qualitative


Improving public sector performance and governance is a key pillar in the World Bank's engagement strategy for the MNA region. Public governance is one of the mechanisms through which the values of development are secured for the people. These values include equality of treatment, freedom to choose, and opportunities to participate in the process. Good governance recognizes the integrity, rights, and needs of everyone within the state. Good governance - in which public institutions function responsively, transparently, and with accountability - is also essential to reducing poverty and stimulating growth. Weak governance translates into poor public services and limited participation by citizens in shaping their future. It has also contributed to weak growth in the MNA region and has shackled the business environment and investment climate. The region needs a sound, attractive business environment for investment and production. To help in the difficult process of improving governance, Better Governance for Development in the Middle East and North Africa proposes two universal criteria that might be used in defining a program to enhance governance: inclusiveness and accountability. While recognizing that improving governance is no simple matter, this book challenges the region to formulate and implement national programs that would enhance governance by strengthening inclusiveness and accountability mechanisms. Such programs could build on the progress increasingly evident across the region and lead to a strategy for better governance that can simultaneously encourage growth and development, as well as meet the needs and aspirations of the region's people in the decades ahead. Recognizing that the elements of each country's program and the mechanisms for implementing them are matters for individual societies to decide, the book declines to offer answers to the complex challenge of improving governance. Rather, it seeks to enhance the dialogue in the MNA region on governance and marshal evidence showing that good governance matters for development.


: Terbutaline sulphate (Bricanyl; Keatings) aerosol or placebo aerosol was administered in a randomized fashion to 26 asthmatic children with proven exercise-induced asthma. The children were then subjected to the modified standard exercise challenge test involving running on the level for 6 minutes. Terbutaline sulphate aerosol had a marked protective effect against exercise-induced asthma in these children. Compared with placebo, a significant reduction in exercise-induced bronchospasm was achieved. The improved design of the mouthpiece, incorporating a newly introduced 'misting tube' enabled the children to handle the apparatus easily. The need to synchronize the activation of the aerosol with inhalation was eliminated. Terbutaline aerosol can be recommended to protect children affected by exercise-induced asthma. The preparation can be given prior to the exercise challenge and will offer prolonged and adequate protection against exercise asthma.


The electrical characteristics of a SiC-MESFET are affected by the channel structure characteristics, such as impurity density and thickness. MESFETs fabricated with ion implantation technique, can form thinner and higher doped channel layers than those fabricated with conventional epitaxial growth, thus improve RF characteristics of MESFETs. We calculated the doping profile of the channel layer for an ion implanted SiC-MESFET using a simulator and then fabricated a SiC-MESFET with the same doping profile as obtained from the simulation. The ion implanted SiC-MESFET operated successfully and had the same electrical characteristics as the epitaxial SiC-MESFET. We demonstrated the effectiveness of one-step implantation channel layer for the ion implanted SiC-MESFET.


The bag of words (BOW) represents a corpus in a matrix whose elements are the frequency of words. However, each row in the matrix is a very high-dimensional sparse vector. Dimension reduction (DR) is a popular method to address sparsity and high-dimensionality issues. Among different strategies to develop DR method, Unsupervised Feature Transformation (UFT) is a popular strategy to map all words on a new basis to represent BOW. The recent increase of text data and its challenges imply that DR area still needs new perspectives. Although a wide range of methods based on the UFT strategy has been developed, the fuzzy approach has not been considered for DR based on this strategy. This research investigates the application of fuzzy clustering as a DR method based on the UFT strategy to collapse BOW matrix to provide a lower-dimensional representation of documents instead of the words in a corpus. The quantitative evaluation shows that fuzzy clustering produces superior performance and features to Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), two popular DR methods based on the UFT strategy.


The article examines the role of indigenous knowledge (IK) systems in the governance of common-property rangeland resources among pastoral communities in Northern Tanzania. It draws on the political ecology approach to examine the role and state of indigenous knowledge on rangeland governance in the changing socio-cultural, political and ecological context. It employs qualitative methodology to capture the narratives from the indigenous people. Using purposive (non-probability strategy) technique, the study obtained a sample of 50 interviews and life histories combined, and four focus group discussions from four research sites. Findings indicate that forms of indigenous knowledge—such as rangeland rituals and cosmologies, rangeland zonation, livestock taxonomy, water communism and pastoral mobility—regulate and maintain a harmonious relationship between indigenous people and the wider ecosystem. The article concludes that IK should be recognized as an integral component of local resource governance. Also, indigenous rangeland cooperatives should be formed to help the sustainability of IK systems and settling emerging rangeland disputes. Keywords: indigenous knowledge, rangelands, common-property resources, pastoralism, political ecology.


Purpose: The main goal of the research is to identify the role of social campaigns in the protection of natural resources, to relate their subject matter to the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) of the 2030 Agenda, and to discuss their potential effectiveness. Design/Methodology/Approach: The article focuses on the quality analysis of environmental campaigns that have been organized in Poland over the last 25 years. In total, 341 descriptions (of 1698 contained in the base) were analyzed, from which only those social campaigns were selected that met the following criteria: organized by governmental and non-profit organizations; using various media to convey information; addressed to recipients at least at the regional level; covering a set of various activities; making people aware of the problem of using natural resources and promoting attitudes contributing directly or indirectly to their protection. Findings: The research proved that ecology and the environment are still rare campaign topics. However, the literature on the subject shows that environmental campaigns can largely translate into the desired change in social attitudes and thus contribute to slowing down the process of depletion of natural resources and favor the implementation of SDGs. Practical Implications: The results of the research indicated the need to develop a framework that could be used for evaluation of social campaigns impact on realization level of SDGs. Originality/Value: The conducted research contributed to the narrowing of the research gap concerning the identification of the role of social campaigns in the implementation of SDGs.


Germany Scores a Hat-trick of Non-Aid Measures!* At the end of April, the European Commission announced that seven measures were found not to constitute State aid because they could not be…


Dynamic attention mechanism and global modeling ability make Transformer show strong feature learning ability. In recent years, Transformer has become comparable to CNNs methods in computer vision. This review mainly investigates the current research progress of Transformer in image and video applications, which makes a comprehensive overview of Transformer in visual learning understanding. First, the attention mechanism is reviewed, which plays an essential part in Transformer. And then, the visual Transformer model and the principle of each module are introduced. Thirdly, the existing Transformer-based models are investigated, and their performance is compared in visual learning understanding applications. Three image tasks and two video tasks of computer vision are investigated. The former mainly includes image classification, object detection, and image segmentation. The latter contains object tracking and video classification. It is significant for comparing different models' performance in various tasks on several public benchmark data sets. Finally, ten general problems are summarized, and the developing prospects of the visual Transformer are given in this review.


Cyclic lipopeptides (CLPs) with antibiotic, biosurfactant producing fluorescent pseudomonads were isolated from sugar beet-maize intercropped in sandy loam soils at Maize Research Station, Vagarai, TNAU. Approximately 20 fluorescent pseudomonads from sandy loam soils were isolated by using two different growth media. The strains were distinguished based on their growth, CFU/g, fluorescence, and pigment production. Growth inhibition of maize pathogens by CLP producing fluorescent pseudomonads strains were studied by dual culture experiments. The impact of CLP producing flurorescent pseudomonads strain on the zoospores of Downy mildew pathogen of maize was studied by direct microscopy and encysted zoospores were observed. Invitro, biochemical experiments confirmed the presence of Viscosinamide producing strain among the fluorescent pseudomonads isolates in terms of utilization of C and N sources. The particular strain was tested for its growth promoting activity by treating the maize seeds for their germination, and seedling vigour performance. Fluorescent pseudomonads can be affiliated to group under CLP producing biotypes/biovars. Purification of CLP (Viscosinamide) and characterization by HPLC analysis was carried out. Pot culture experiments were conducted to test the performance of CLP producing Pf strains in maize crop for testing their disease resistance. These biovars with antibiotic properties are the potential targets for the disease management in maize. CLPs in general receive considerable attention as potent antimicrobial drugs.

 Key words: Cyclic lipopeptides, fluorescent pseudomonads, viscosinamide, zoospores, antifungal.


In the information visualization reference model, visual mapping is the most crucial step in producing a visualization from a data set. The conventional visual mapping maps each data attribute onto a single visual channel (e.g. the year of production of a car to the position on the horizontal axis). In this work, we investigate composite visual mapping: mapping single data attributes onto several visual channels, each one representing one aspect of the data attribute (e.g. its order of magnitude, or its trend component). We first propose a table which allows us to explore the design space of composite mappings by offering a systematic overview of channel combinations. We expect that using more than one visual channel for communicating a data attribute increases the bandwidth of information presentation by displaying separable information on different aspects of data. In order to evaluate this point, we compare horizon graph, an existing technique which successfully adopts a composite visual mapping, with a selection of alternative composite mappings. We show that some of those mappings perform as well as –and in some cases even better than– horizon graph in terms of accuracy and speed. Our results confirm that the benefits of composite visual mapping are not limited to horizon graph. We thus recommend the use of composite visual mapping when users are simultaneously interested in several aspects of data attributes.


Feed management is one of the principal levers by which the production and composition of milk by dairy cows can be modulated in the short term. The response of milk yield and milk composition to variations in either energy or protein supplies is well known. However, in practice, dietary supplies of energy and protein vary simultaneously, and their interaction is still not well understood. The objective of this trial was to determine whether energy and protein interacted in their effects on milk production and milk composition and whether the response to changes in the diets depended on the parity and potential production of cows. From the results, a model was built to predict the response of milk yield and milk composition to simultaneous variations in energy and protein supplies relative to requirements of cows. Nine treatments, defined by their energy and protein supplies, were applied to 48 cows divided into 4 homogeneous groups (primiparous or multiparous x high or low milk potential) over three 4-wk periods. The control treatment was calculated to cover the predicted requirements of the group of cows in the middle of the trial and was applied to each cow. The other 8 treatments corresponded to fixed supplies of energy and protein, higher or lower than those of the control treatment. The results highlighted a significant energy x protein interaction not only on milk yield but also on protein content and yield. The response of milk yield to energy supply was zero with a negative protein balance and increased with protein supply equal to or higher than requirements. The response of milk yield to changes in the diet was greater for cows with high production potential than for those with low production potential, and the response of milk protein content was higher for primiparous cows than for multiparous cows. The model for the response of milk yield, protein yield, and protein content obtained in this trial made it possible to predict more accurately the variations in production and composition of milk relative to the potential of the cow because of changes in diet composition. In addition, the interaction obtained was in line with a response corresponding to the more limiting of 2 factors: energy or protein.


In ASARCO, Inc. v. Idaho State Tax Commission, the Supreme Court rejected Idaho's definition of income, and limited the apportionability of dividends, interest, and capital gains. The Court held that a unitary business relationship did not exist between ASARCO and the dividend payors, but did not address whether such a relationship was a sufficient precondition or a necessary one. This article addresses two federal tax doctrines that may provide insight into state taxation of dividends: (1) the "effectively connected" doctrine, and (2) the Corn Products doctrine. The article first provides a detailed examination of the facts in ASARCO, and discusses the Court's holding. The article explains that Idaho's sweeping definition of income, which conflated business and nonbusiness income, invited the Court's rejection. Next, the article examines the applicability of Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes of Vermont, and how that holding is not dispositive regarding the apportionability of dividends in general. Finally, the article discusses the two aforementioned federal tax doctrines. These two doctrines do not expressly address the characterization of dividends as business income, but implicate the same underlying issue. The article concludes by explaining that the tax treatment of dividends and capital gains as business income is not unique to state taxation.


A single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber (EDF) laser based on a simple linear cavity is proposed and demonstrated. The SLM operation is achieved by incorporating a dual-phase-shift fiber grating with two ultranarrow transmission bands. Due to the gain grating produced by spatial hole-burning in the EDF, the proposed linear cavity supports dual-wavelength oscillation at room temperature with a wavelength interval of 27 pm. The laser output is heterodyned on a photodetector and the generated microwave signal has a linewidth <20 kHz without any feedback.


The double layer at the solid/electrolyte interface is a key concept in electrochemistry. Here, we present an experimental study combined with simulations, which provides a molecular picture of the double-layer formation in operando processes. By THz spectroscopy we are able to follow the stripping off of the cation/anion hydration shells for a NaCl electrolyte at the Au surface when decreasing/increasing the bias potential. While Na+ is attracted toward the electrode already at the smallest applied negative potentials, stripping-off of the Cl- hydration shell is observed only at higher potential values. These phenomena are directly measured by in operando THz spectroscopy with ultra-bright synchrotron light as a source and rationalized by accompanying molecular-dynamics simulations and electronic-structure calculations.


Ovarian cancer begins at a molecular level, however to date, our knowledge of genetic changes and mechanisms of ovarian tumorigenesis is limited. The natural history of ovarian cancer may depend on different anatomo-clinical and biological factors. In the life history of ovarian cancers the stage, histology, tumor grade, age of the patient and gene abnormalities, both oncogenes (c-myc, H-ra, new) and oncosuppressor genes (p53, in particular), DNA ploidy and steroid receptor status have important prognostic significance. Residual disease, when less than 1 cm, is another important prognostic factor, being significantly associated to the survival and, progression free, improvement in the survival. In the low stage ovarian cancer (Stage IA, IB, IAII,IBII,IC,IIA,IIB,IIC), adjuvant treatment seems not to influence Disease Free Survival (DFS) or Overall Survival (OS) The exception to this rule is when cisplatin regimen is assessed, as it can highly reduce the relapse rate while the survival is not significantly influenced. Ovarian cancers disseminate, primarily by continuity. Lymphatic dissemination to the pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes (40% of patients at stage III-IV disease) as well as to the peritoneum is common. At the time of diagnosis, bone or brain metastases are rarely present and their presence is not related to the histology or grading of the tumor.


In recent years, data-driven methodologies have enjoyed great success due in large part to the increasing accessibility of highly accurate machine learning tools. The challenge, however, is that such tools generally offer little interpretability in their learning tasks. This is a significant concern in many applications, such as scenarios with ethical implications or high risk. On the other hand, current interpretable learning algorithms are typically less accurate for prediction tasks, and comparably not scalable to accommodate large size datasets. This motivates the theme of this dissertation, which is to develop interpretable, yet accurate and scalable learning algorithms and apply them to real-life data-driven applications in management science. As our first problem, we investigate the Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) problem. Our aim is to learn the optimal alignment between sequences of data. Applications of MSA include bioinformatics, high frequency trading, speech recognition, and computer vision. Although higher qualityalignments offer significantly more insight for practitioners, most MSA algorithms are heuristic, and have been shown to often generate alignments far below the accuracy of an optimal solution on benchmark instances. In fact, only one viable exact algorithm has been developed for MSA, whichis limited to solving small sized instances with five sequences and a total of 600 data entries. Usingtools from dynamic programming, mathematical programming, constraint programming, and decompositiontechniques, we develop a novel exact alignment algorithm capable of aligning up to ten sequences and 1,600 total data entries. Our method is able to close 37 out of 51 real-life benchmark instances to optimality for the first time, and considerably improves the alignment quality on theremaining instances. In the next chapter, we develop novel techniques for constraint-based sequential pattern mining(SPM). SPM is an unsupervised learning algorithm that involves finding frequent patterns in data. Frequent patterns are used, e.g., to extract knowledge from data, and to develop novel association rules. Constraint satisfaction is often critical in the practice of SPM, to prevent overwhelming the practitioner with millions of uninteresting patterns. Unfortunately, the literature accommodates only simple constraints, and is further limited to databases with up to a million data entries. Using novel modelling techniques, we increase the scalability of our SPM algorithm by an order ofmagnitude, and further design and prove constraint-specific information for a number of complex constraints common in practice. Our algorithm is the first to handle complex constraints such as average and median, but is also competitive or more efficient when compared to a state-of-the-art SPM algorithms with simple constraints.We next study data-driven sequential decision making with an emphasis on interpretability and sequential structure in SPM. Using a novel data tree model of the database, we are able to increase the capability of SPM algorithms from databases with ten million to three billion data entries.We leverage data trees to design a pattern mining algorithm capable of extracting novel sequential patterns from large datasets, and design an interpretable knowledge tree equipped with statistical hypothesis tests, to increase reliability in data-driven decision making. Using our approach, we investigate two large-size real-world applications in marketing and finance. In marketing, we consider reducing the skip rate of users in an online music streaming platform. We find that almost all one billion user skips in the database can be explained using an average of 6,400 sequential patterns, with an average likelihood of 83%. In finance, we assess using historical sequential patterns of price change to aid investment decision making in the stock market. We find that, at best, 80% of nine hundred thousand monthly price change events can be explained using approximately 7,000 sequential patterns, with a low average likelihood of 53%. In the final chapter, we study the provider network selection and insurance design problem faced by a major healthcare insurance provider. The provider network consists of physicians and hospitalsthat are under contract by the insurer and offer a wide range of healthcare services to insured patients. The problem involves choosing/changing the physicians and hospitals to contract, and designing insurance plans to target patients under competition with a rival firm. We provide a novelmethodology that incorporates the literature's interpretable utility approach for patient behavior into a simultaneous multi-column-and-row generation optimization framework. By optimizing the provider network as a whole, we compose higher quality insurance plans that increase the profit ofthe insurer by an average of 548% on test instances, while decreasing the overall patient healthcare costs by 36% and the overall premiums payed by patient by 21%. We showed how interpretable information can be extracted from the optimization framework to aid decision making, and lastlyanalyzed the impact of inaccurate patient predictions on the insurer. Our results show that a more accurate yet interpretable predictor of patient choice can greatly enhance insurance plan design.


Semantic Web technologies have redefined and strengthened the Enterprise-Web interoperability over the last decade. Linked Open Data (LOD) refers to a set of best practices that empower enterprises to publish and interlink their data using existing ontologies on the World Wide Web. Current research in LOD focuses on expert search, the creation of unified information space and augmentation of core data from an enterprise context. However, existing approaches for publication of enterprise data as LOD are domain-specific, ad-hoc and suffer from lack of uniform representation across domains. The paper proposes a novel methodology called LinkED that contributes towards LOD literature in two ways: (a) streamlines the publishing process through five stages of cleaning, triplification, interlinking, storage and visualization; (b) addresses the latest challenges in LOD publication, namely: inadequate links, inconsistencies in the quality of the dataset and replicability of the LOD publication process. Further, the methodology is demonstrated via the publication of digital repository data as LOD in a university setting, which is evaluated based on two semantic standards: Five-Star model and data quality metrics. Overall, the paper provides a generic LOD publication process that is applicable across various domains such as healthcare, e-governance, banking, and tourism, to name a few.


This letter describes the characteristics of two organic electronic devices-monolithically integrated transistors and light emitting diodes (e.g. smart pixels), and complementary inverter circuits-that are fabricated on flexible plastic substrates with low cost, low-temperature casting and microcontact printing techniques. Both devices incorporate micron-sized features and have geometries and performance comparable to similar components produced with photolithographic techniques on rigid, inorganic supports.


A total of 112 AIDS and no AIDS cryptococcosis patients admitted at Emilio Ribas Hospital - Sao Paulo, Brazil, were treated with amphotericin B (AMB) or amphotericin B and 5 fluorcytosine (5FC). Age, race, predisposing and epidemiological factors, respiratory symptons were evaluated. Goodman tests applied in three patients groups (I, II and III) with associate or unique therapy revealed: 1. prognostic factors: leukocytes ang glucose showed similar response in groups I, II and 111 and protein spinal fluid after l.Sg/AMB; 2. India ink tests and Cryptococcus culture were often positive until l.Og/AMB; 3. significant hypokalemia during monotherapy. Hypo and hyperkalemia had similar data in associate therapy; 4. significant difference in adverse reactions often appeared above 0.7g AMB/250g 5FC; 5. early and late death were common in group 111 (unique) and group I (no AIDS) and III (2.5 to 4. Og) respectively; 6. similar remission and deaths were verified in AIDS/ cryptococosis. Conclusions: adverse reactions were observed above 0.75g/AMBplus 250g 5FC. Association was important in initial therapy and AMB maintenance permitted late relapses.


The mass transfer coefficients at different axial positions in a bubble column have been measured using a conductivity method. Measurements of CO2 absorption in methyldiethanolamine solutions were carried out in a prismatic column 0.06 m side and 1.03 m height. Five electrode pairs were placed at various axial positions in the column. Measurements were conducted at different gas flow rates and amine concentration. It was found that the local mass transfer varied in the axial direction. An experimental model was developed to obtain the absorption rate values using the electrochemical method data. The model agrees quite well with the experimental obtained data.


Walter Ong's suggestion that since irony "depends on tone and distance […] movies cannot achieve the tonal complexities of literature, so cinematic irony can never reach the height of verbal irony" (Ong 18) hinges on a conception of the cinematic image as relatively void of meaning and closer to its represented content when compared to written text. Out of a great influx of action blockbusters, however, a film like Starship Troopers still stands out as especially precarious—either subversive or quietistic—due to its appropriation of signs ripped from Triumph of the Will. These signs are cinematic—conventional ways of framing and shooting, like the shot/reverse shot method used in filming Jenkins and his soldiers—and they do not pertain to any single shot, as no shot has been completely copied from the Riefenstahl film; rather, they refer to the rhythm and sequence of the propaganda shots that are repeated to provoke a specific cinematic memory. The "tone and distance" needed for irony reside in this cinematic intertext.
In fact, Ong's insistence that cinematic irony depends on its "overwhelming visualism" (17) testifies to what Noel Carroll calls the "medium-specificity" fallacy. (see Carroll 2008) In Dangerous Liaisons, for example, the gaze is used as a tool for adapting the text into the cinematic medium, but the letters are preserved as well, both as text—via voiceover and the actors reading them out aloud—and as physical object. By being encoded within the film, they become cinematic elements as well. In Traffic and Inglourious Basterds, the use of color filters and familiar Nazi imagery, respectively, help construct a hierarchy or a difference which, at first, appears to anchor the viewer in a specific ideological perspective. As the films progress, however, a Bordwellian reader resistance comes into play, and this anchoring visualism ends up being the very thing ironized. Cinematic vision is text, they seem to say, and just as vulnerable to irony's instability.
Irony is unstable, but also directed. When someone identifies a cinematic irony, they are constructing an intertextual network like the one described by Hutcheon in the case of Henry V and its film adaptations. (see Hutcheon 1994, 65) An author like Steven Soderbergh can even use this knowledge to create a filmic opus that is dialogized not only within the diegetic universe of a specific film, among the characters—like in Contagion, which I've tried to demonstrate by analyzing which questions each character is asking about the central plot device—but also within
the film's intertextual network, as it challenges (and is challenged by) other films' logical structures—like when the viewer's desire to reify the cartels in Traffic as the ethical "other" is put in contrast to the various ways characters in Contagion narrativize the plague to themselves.
Hutcheon (1994) uses the term "edge" when discussing defining characteristics of irony. It is a metaphor for the instability of irony and points to the effect of irony on those ironized. It also points to a certain risk inherent in irony, as what is at stake in it is never a specific meaning, but an "inclusive and relational" (12) meaning: inclusive because it is not a matter of one meaning displacing another, but of multiple meanings being present at once; relational because the individual meanings present in the ironic meaning are constructed differentially, in relation to each other. Ultimately, any dismissal of cinematic irony or championing of verbal irony like Ong's fails to see these two characteristics, and instead conceives of irony as fundamentally instrumental, a tool that either exhumes a present meaning behind a given sign or engages in a politics of displacement of meaning; of course, in this conception, verbal irony is seen as the finer tool. But irony is unwieldy, and always gets unwanted results, precisely because results are not what is at stake in irony: what is at stake is an inclusion, an opening up, an affirmation of the plural, playful, dynamic and dialogic nature of any sign, be it word or image.


Long-range target identification is well studied in the Visible (Vis) and near-infrared (NIR) bands, and more recently in the shortwave infrared (SWIR). The longer wavelength of SWIR (1-1.7μm) improves target detection for both long ranges and under challenging atmospheric conditions because it is less limited by scattering and absorption in the atmosphere. For these reasons, SWIR sensors are proliferating on military platforms. The extended shortwave infrared (eSWIR) band spanning from 2 to 2.5μm is not typically limited by diffraction, and, as a result, the band benefits target acquisition both at long ranges and for degraded visual environments. Theoretical and experimental data compare eSWIR to Vis, NIR, and SWIR for atmospheric transmission, reflectivity, illumination, and sensor resolution and sensitivity. The experimental setup includes two testbeds, each with four cameras. The first is a wide field of view (FOV) testbed matching FOV at 20 degrees for each camera. The second is a narrow FOV telescope testbed to match instantaneous FOV (IFOV) for consistent resolution across all four bands at long ranges. Both the theory and experiment demonstrate advantages of using eSWIR for long-range target identification under degraded visual environments.


Silicates are among the most abundant and important inorganic materials, not only in the Earth's crust, but also in the interstellar medium in the form of micro/nanoparticles or embedded in the matrices of comets, meteorites, and other asteroidal bodies. Although the crystalline phases of silicates are indeed present in nature, amorphous forms are also highly abundant. Here, we report a theoretical investigation of the structural, dielectric, and vibrational properties of the amorphous bulk for forsterite (Mg2SiO4) as a silicate test case by a combined approach of classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for structure evolution and periodic quantum mechanical Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations for electronic structure analysis. Using classical MD based on an empirical partial charge rigid ionic model within a melt-quenching scheme at different temperatures performed with the GULP 4.0 code, amorphous bulk structures for Mg2SiO4 were generated using the crystalline phase as the initial guess. This has been done for bulk structures with three different unit cell sizes, adopting a super-cell approach; that is, 1 × 1 × 2, 2 × 1 × 2, and 2 × 2 × 2. The radial distribution functions indicated a good degree of amorphization of the structures. Periodic B3LYP-geometry optimizations performed with the CRYSTAL14 code on the generated amorphous systems were used to analyze their structure; to calculate their high-frequency dielectric constants (ε∞); and to simulate their IR, Raman, and reflectance spectra, which were compared with the experimental and theoretical crystalline Mg2SiO4. The most significant changes of the physicochemical properties of the amorphous systems compared to the crystalline ones are presented and discussed (e.g., larger deviations in the bond distances and angles, broadening of the IR bands, etc.), which are consistent with their disordered nature. It is also shown that by increasing the unit cell size, the bulk structures present a larger degree of amorphization.


We investigate the gauge dynamics of nonsupersymmetric SU(N) gauge theories featuring the simultaneous presence of fermionic matter transforming according to two distinct representations of the underlying gauge group. We bound the regions of flavors and colors which can yield a physical infrared fixed point. As a consistency check we recover the previously investigated conformal windows bounds when restricting to a single matter representation. The earlier conformal windows can be imagined to be part now of the new conformal house . We predict the nonperturbative anomalous dimensions at the infrared fixed points. We further investigate the e ff ects of adding mass terms to the condensates on the conformal house chiral dynamics and construct the simplest instanton induced e ff ective Lagrangian terms.


We present a model for finding optimal multi-commodity flows on networks based on optimal transport theory. The model relies on solving a dynamical system of equations. We prove that its stationary solution is equivalent to the solution of an optimization problem that generalizes the one-commodity framework. In particular, it generalizes previous results in terms of optimality, scaling, and phase transitions obtained in the one-commodity case. Remarkably, for a suitable range of parameters, the optimal topologies have loops. This is radically different to the one-commodity case, where within an analogous parameter range the optimal topologies are trees. This important result is a consequence of the extension of Kirkchoff's law to the multi-commodity case, which enforces the distinction between fluxes of the different commodities. Our results provide new insights into the nature and properties of optimal network topologies. In particular, they show that loops can arise as a consequence of distinguishing different flow types, and complement previous results where loops, in the one-commodity case, were arising as a consequence of imposing dynamical rules to the sources and sinks or when enforcing robustness to damage. Finally, we provide an efficient implementation for each of the two equivalent numerical frameworks, both of which achieve a computational complexity that is more efficient than that of standard optimization methods based on gradient descent. As a result, our model is not merely abstract but can be efficiently applied to large datasets. We give an example of concrete application by studying the network of the Paris metro.