Abstract. The interaction of a tropical disturbance with its environment is thought to play an important role in whether a disturbance will develop or not. Most developing disturbances are somewhat protected from the intrusion of environmental dry air at mid-levels. For African easterly wave (AEW) disturbances, the protective boundary is approximated by closed streamlines in the wave-relative frame, and their interior is called the wave pouch. The dynamic and thermodynamic processes of spin-up occur inside the pouch. In this study, we define the kinematic boundaries for a non-AEW disturbance in the Bay of Campeche that originated along a sharp frontal boundary in a confluent region of low pressure. We examine these boundaries during the genesis of Hurricane Nate (2011) to show how a pouch boundary on isobaric levels in the Lagrangian frame may allow for some transport into the pouch along the frontal boundary while still protecting the innermost development region. This result illustrates a generic property of weakly unsteady flows, including the time-dependent critical layer of AEWs, that lateral exchange of air occurs along a segment of the boundary formed by the instantaneous, closed translating streamlines. Transport in the Lagrangian frame is simplest when measured with respect to the stable and unstable manifolds of a hyperbolic trajectory, which are topologically invariant. In this framework, an exact analysis of vorticity transport identifies the primary source as the advection of vorticity through the entrainment and expulsion of bounded material regions called lobes. We also show how these Lagrangian boundaries impact the concentration of moisture, influence convection, and contribute to the pouch vertical structure.


Purpose: Limited healthcare access can affect general health for diabetics, but information on this relationship is lacking for middle-aged, female diabetics. Our study aims to assess whether general health differs by healthcare access, both coverage and cost, in diabetic females ages 30-50 years.
Methods: This cross-sectional analysis used 2015 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for diabetic females ages 30-50 from Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. We assessed the relationship between general health and healthcare access, both coverage and cost, using multiple logistic regression analysis while controlling for weight status, comorbid health conditions, age, ethnicity, marital status, income, education level, and state.
Results: Across states, the majority of diabetic females reported good or better general health (49-63%), having healthcare coverage (77-89%), and not having cost preclude doctor visits (69-76%). Adjusted analyses indicated that healthcare coverage was not related to general health, but those with healthcare costs precluding doctors' visits were about two times less likely to report good or better general health. General health was also related inversely to having two or more comorbid health conditions, and related positively to income and education levels.
Conclusion: General health was related inversely to healthcare costs and number of comorbid health conditions, and positively related to socioeconomic status. Given that healthcare coverage was not related to general health, the issues around health in middle-aged diabetic females may be more related to the out of pocket expenses for healthcare rather than just having health insurance. For middle-aged diabetic females in primary care, practitioners should screen for multiple health conditions and assess management for all health conditions, especially as related to whether the patient can afford treatment. Practitioners in low income areas should be aware of treatment options for those who cannot afford them.


The traditional destructive tests in damage detection require high cost, long consuming time, repairing of damaged members, etc. In addition to these, powerful equipments with advanced technology have motivated development of global vibration based damage detection methods. These methods base on observation of the changes in the structural dynamic properties and updating finite element models. The existence, location, severity and effect on the structural behavior of the damages can be identified by using these methods. The main idea in these methods is to minimize the differences between analytical and experimental natural frequencies. In this study, an application of damage detection using model updating method was presented on a one storey reinforced concrete (RC) building model. The model was designed to be 1/2 scale of a real building. The measurements on the model were performed by using ten uni-axial seismic accelerometers which were placed to the floor level. The presented damage identification procedure mainly consists of five steps: initial finite element modeling, testing of the undamaged model, finite element model calibration, testing of the damaged model, and damage detection with model updating. The elasticity modulus was selected as variable parameter for model calibration, while the inertia moment of section was selected for model updating. The first three modes were taken into consideration. The possible damaged members were estimated by considering the change ratio in the inertia moment. It was concluded that the finite element model calibration was required for structures to later evaluations such as damage, fatigue, etc. The presented model updating based procedure was very effective and useful for RC structures in the damage identification.


This thesis is performed as a pre-study to find some marketing guidelines for Saturnus TRD, with concentration on the potential business case for a new product on the USA market. The USA market for TRD´s is currently not growing organically in matter of new power lines, though an increase of TRD delivery to USA can be predicted the coming years due to replacement of Transformers equipped with old TRD´s. For Sat-urnus to be more competitive on the USA market it is almost a necessity to improve their product portfolio to better match with the regional requirements, mainly in re-gards of product rating and maintenance aspects. Such product aspects have been evaluated in this study along with potential order increase for Saturnus TRD if such a new product is realized.In this study I have mainly gained information by interacting with people within the Saturnus organization who have direct access to important customer preferences for Transformers as well as TRD´s i.e. Front End Sales persons and technical experts. To get valuable information of general character such as marketing principles, organiza-tional aspects and competitor insights a lot of colleagues within the Saturnus organi-zation have contributed with their knowledge, such knowledge combined with excel-lent marketing literature and industry documentation have all together built the infor-mation foundation of this report.This study shows that there are good possibilities for potential increase of business in USA if Saturnus TRD develop a new product, better suited to existing market re-quirements. Such product is found to be designed as an on-tank type of TRD, operat-ing with vacuum technology at a current rating of 1000A. The cost for development of the suggested TRD would be in the range of 30% above the cost for developing the existing TRD. Estimated annual increase in order-intake with a new TRD is evaluated to be approximately 250 units. With estimated sales volumes, development cost will be covered after 1,5 years and the profit scenario is good due to the fact that the mar-gins will be better for the vacuum TRD compared to the existing technology.In addition to improved product technology, the study points out significant im-provements to be made in matter of marketing strategies. Specifically customer seg-mentation is assumed to be a key factor for improved market orientation by focusing on customers organizational size and choice criteria.


Agricultural, industrial, and urban water use in the conterminous United States (CONUS) is highly dependent on groundwater that is largely drawn from nonsurficial wells (>30 m). We use a Demand‐Sensitive Drought Index to examine the impacts of agricultural water needs, driven by low precipitation, high agricultural water demand, or a combination of both, on the temporal variability of depth to groundwater across the CONUS. We characterize the relationship between changes in groundwater levels, agricultural water deficits relative to precipitation during the growing season, and winter precipitation. We find that declines in groundwater levels in the High Plains aquifer and around the Mississippi River Valley are driven by groundwater withdrawals used to supplement agricultural water demands. Reductions in agricultural water demands for crops do not, however, lead to immediate recovery of groundwater levels due to the demand for groundwater in other sectors in regions such as Utah, Maryland, and Texas.


In this paper, we proposed a technique for the synthesis of linear antenna array with non-uniform inter-element spacing. Scatter-search was used in the algorithm to obtain the optimal position of the elements in order to get the minimum side lobe level and nulls in desired directions. The main difference in the relation to other work was in applying objective function with weight coefficient. Through weight coefficients we gave importance of one part of the objective function with respect to the other in the synthesis process. The simulation results verify that by using objective function with weight coefficient the proposed method outperforms the previously published methods in term of suppression side lobe level while maintaining nulls in specified directions.


Hot rolled 350MPa Grade structural hot dip galvanized steel sheets was used to study the effect of annealing process and cold reduction ratio on the microstructures and mechanical properties. The results showed that the experimental steel was recrystallize finished after cold rolling follow different cold reduction ratio and Salt-bath annealing (annealing temperature 750°C and soaking time 60s) under experimental condition. When the cold reduction ratio was increased, annealing temperature was above 720°C, the yield strength and tension strength had no significant change. The annealing temperature was 750°C,the elongation had no significant change . when the cold reduction ratio was increased,the plastic strain ratio value reduced, and the strain hardening exponent value was gradually increase. In the end, that suggested the optimal annealing temperature is 750°C,and cold reduction ratio is 55% to 65%, consequently that obtained good match of mechanical properties and punching property.


OBJECTIVE: To investigate the in vivo mutagenic effects of ribavirin in mice.
METHODS: Mice were injected (i.p.) 20, 100, or 200 mg/kg ribavirin (single exposure) for bone marrow micronucleus, peripheral blood micronucleus and bone marrow chromosome aberration tests. Five treatments of 200 mg/kg ribavirin was given (i.p.) for sperm morphology test. The tests were performed as per the standard procedures.
RESULTS: Ribavirin induced significant number of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes (MNPCEs) at 24, 48 and 72 h following the exposure with more effects at 24 h (p<0.05-0.001). Micronucleated PCEs were more at 48 h in lower dose-levels and at 72 h in highest dose-level in the peripheral blood (p<0.05-0.001). Ribavirin induced structural chromosomal damage hence producing the fragments for the micronucleus formation. Ribavirin decreased the PCE%, P/N ratio and the mitotic index indicating that it prevents cell division in mouse bone marrow. Ribavirin also decreased the testis weight and induced the formation of abnormal sperms.
CONCLUSION: Ribavirin is a potent mutagen and cytotoxic agent in mice in vivo . Further, it also induces point mutations in germ cells yielding abnormal sperms. The genotoxic effects of ribavirin are not exerted in a dose-dependent pattern in mouse.


Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate the ways in which states are still significant actors in creating and shaping the nature and characteristics of global labour markets. My argument is demonstrated through an empirical case study of the global labour market for British seafarers. Problem Investigated: The last 30 years has witnessed a decimation of the number of employed British seafarers, particularly at lower rank levels, such as ratings. I contend that despite Britain's long and rich maritime history, the British state has not acted meaningfully to reverse the decline of British seafarers. The lack of meaningful action I contend is an attempt to crew British owned ships with cheaper seafaring labour from Asia, particularly south east Asia. In so doing the British state has contributed to the decline of a once thriving labour market. There has simultaneously been an upsurge in the employment of seafarers of other nationalities, and thus the creation of new labour markets in countries such as the Philippines. This paper is an attempt to understand some of the factors responsible for the decline of the British labour market for seafarers. Methodology and Approach: This paper is the outcome of a larger qualitative study undertaken for my doctoral thesis in industrial sociology which examined the transformation of the global labour market for South African, Filipino and British seafarers. The methodology consists of in depth interviews with maritime officials and trade union leaders. These were conducted in person in London, United Kingdom between 2005 and 2008. These interviews are supported by extensive literature and documentary research, to validate, support and test claims made by my interviewees. Implications and Value of the Research: The theoretical contribution of this paper is to reinsert the state more critically into the literature on labour markets. Empirically, seafaring labour markets are largely ignored by the disciplines of both sociology and commerce. The paper attempts to fill this gap by investigating a much neglected occupational sector. Very little empirical work is being done by South African researchers on global labour markets outside South Africa. This paper is therefore primarily addressed to a South African audience. Conclusion: The paper demonstrates that the state has to be a willing and active partner in ensuring employment security of its worker-citizens in global labour markets. The private sector and organised labour by themselves are unable or unwilling to prevent massive job losses without state intervention. As increasing numbers of workers join global labour markets, states need to become more involved rather than less involved in ensuring the stability of employment for their citizens.


A well-developed visual system can provide significant sensory information to guide motor behavior, especially in fruit-eating bats, which usually use echolocation to navigate at high speed through cluttered environments during foraging. Relatively few studies have been performed to elucidate the organization of the visual system in bats. The present work provides an extensive morphological description of the retinal projections in the subcortical visual nuclei in the flat-faced fruit-eating bat (Artibeus planirostris) using anterograde transport of the eye-injected cholera toxin B subunit (CTb), followed by morphometrical and stereological analyses. Regarding the cytoarchitecture, the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) was homogeneous, with no evident lamination. However, the retinal projection contained two layers that had significantly different marking intensities and a massive contralateral input. The superior colliculus (SC) was identified as a laminar structure composed of seven layers, and the retinal input was only observed on the contralateral side, targeting two most superficial layers. The medial pretectal nucleus (MPT), olivary pretectal nucleus (OPT), anterior pretectal nucleus (APT), posterior pretectal nucleus (PPT) and nucleus of the optic tract (NOT) were comprised the pretectal nuclear complex (PNT). Only the APT lacked a retinal input, which was predominantly contralateral in all other nuclei. Our results showed the morphometrical and stereological features of a bat species for the first time.


Research has documented the connection between poor waste management and the contamination of ground and surface water across the globe and in Lagos in particular. This makes access to improved sanitation and water central to the pursuit of a good quality of life. This paper set out to explore variations in access to improved sanitation and water across Local Government Areas in Lagos state. Secondary data from the 2006 census of the Federal Republic of Nigeria were used. The study shows that access to improved sanitation and water is not equitable in the state. Collection of domestic solid waste ranges from 4 to 73% while access to improved water provided by the water corporation in the state ranges from 2 to 50%. The paper concludes that access to improved sanitation and water in Lagos is largely 'metropocentric'. The implication is a high likelihood of variations in the incidence of cholera and waterborne diseases in the non-metropolitan parts of the state. The paper recommends concerted research-based intervention aimed at increasing access to sanitation and government-provided safe water in the non-metropolitan parts of Lagos state.


A B S T R A C T In this paper, a new broadcast encryption scheme is presented based on threshold secret sharing and secure multiparty computation. This scheme is maintained to be dynamic in that a broadcaster can broadcast a message to any of the dynamic groups of users in the system and it is also fair in the sense that no cheater is able to gain an unfair advantage over other users. Another important feature of our scheme is collusion resistance. Using secure multiparty computation, a traitor needs k cooperators in order to create a decryption machine. The broadcaster can choose the value of k as he decides to make a trade-o between communication complexity and collusion resistance. Comparison with other Broadcast Encryption schemes indicates enhanced performance and complexity on the part of the proposed scheme (in terms of message encryption and decryption, key storage requirements, and ciphertext size) relative to similar schemes. In addition, the scheme is modeled using applied pi calculus and its security is veried by means of an automated verication tool, i.e., ProVerif.


Vaccinium L., comprising approximately 450 species primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, is a genus of shrubs or lianas in the family Ericaceae. The berries of many species are harvested for household consumption and commercial sale. The genus produces a wide range of compounds such as anthocyanins, flavonoids, chromones, coumarins, lignans, benzoic acids, iridoids, sterols, and triterpenoids, but is best known for the production of anthocyanins and flavonoids. Extracts and isolates of anthocyanins and flavonoids from Vaccinium fruits or leaves showed antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antiviral, vasoprotective, and antifungal activities. To data, more than 116 anthocyanins and flavonoids compounds have been isolated and identified primarily from the fruits or leaves of Vaccinium. This article reviews phytochemistry and pharmaceutical properties of these compounds.


Critical thinking "thinking explicitly aimed at well-founded judgment, utilizing appropriate evaluative standards in an attempt to determine the true worth, merit, or value of something". "Education knits together critical thinking …with the fabric of students' experiences as a synthesizing process, providing students with the tools they will need to make sense of their world and the choices available to them and the insight they will need to make those choices wisely". The educational process seeks to produce growth in cognivite development, but it is not the only way to achieve growth. Learning and thinking are processes that, if it nurtured, will continue for a lifetime. An assumption among many educators is that nursing students who attend college will develop the necessary critical thinking skills simply by attendance in class and participation in class discussion. Class and small group discussions, case studies and the use of nursing scenarios are very popular with istructors. Educators know that critical thinking is enhanced when nursing students come to class prepared. When instructors assign written papers, journals, verbal presentations and in class quizzes, students are encouraged to thoroughly prepare. Students have not endorsed focused critical thinking courses as helpful. They tend to favor debate, discussion and the freedom tos hare ideas.


Let $L$ be a line bundle on a proper, geometrically reduced scheme $X$ over a
non-trivially valued non-Archimedean field $K$. Roughly speaking, the
non-Archimedean volume of a continuous metric on the Berkovich analytification
of $L$ measures the asymptotic growth of the space of small sections of tensor
powers of $L$. For a continuous semipositive metric on $L$ in the sense of
Zhang, we show first that the non-Archimedean volume agrees with the energy.
The existence of such a semipositive metric yields that $L$ is nef. A second
result is that the non-Archimedean volume is differentiable at any semipositive
continuous metric. These results are known when $L$ is ample, and the purpose
of this paper is to generalize them to the nef case. The method is based on a
detailed study of the content and the volume of a finitely presented torsion
module over the (possibly non-noetherian) valuation ring of $K$.


Earth's magnetosphere is a magnetic shield that protects the Earth from the energetic emissions of the high-speed Solar Wind (HSSW). We perform a statistical analysis of the response of Earth's magnetosphere inner part under the impact of HSSW over 40 years of data encompassing solar cycles 20-23. With misidentified events or events interacting with interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) removed, only 23552 events were identified. The results we obtained show that more than 85% of the events recorded from 1964 to 2009 are generated by coronal holes (CHs). Almost all observations were confined between 250-800 km/s and show a unimodal distribution per solar cycle: (1) 93% of the solar wind (SW) velocities are on the order of 567.77 ± 2.46 km/s for solar cycle 20, (2) 81% of the SW velocities are worth 524.30 ± 2.69 km/s for cycle 21, (3) 92% of the SW velocities progress to 565.15 ± 2.72 km/s for cycle 22, and (4) 75% of the SW velocities show a value on the order of 530.38 ± 2.22 km/s for cycle 23. Furthermore, our analysis shows a lower electron density at the beginning of the cycle (48%) than at the end of the solar cycle (52%). Thus HSSWs are more frequent at the end of solar cycles, while the magnetospheric electric field (EM) instead shows dominant features during the upward phase of odd cycles and the downward phase of even cycles. Therefore, the stability of the inner magnetosphere is more significant during the decline of solar cycles.


The purpose of this work has been to test complementary methods in order to classify marine organisms, with particularly attention to zooplankton and fish. Algorithms to separate fish and zooplankton have been developed and implemented at IMR and at IRD. A novel optimised model framework based on known scattering models are used to classify zooplankton and to separate these from fish. Acoustic data from up to 6 frequencies were collected to test the scattering model framework, while concurrent biological samples from multi-net oblique or horizontal MOCNESS tows, WP2 vertical net hauls and pelagic trawl were also obtained and analysed. Great attention are given on one side to the inter calibration and the comparability of all the frequencies, and to the space and time coherence between the samples collected and the acoustical data which are processed. All algorithms involve zooplankton scattering models, the high-pass ones from Stanton, or the more complex ones like the truncated fluid sphere from Holliday or the DWBA set of models from Chu and Stanton. A set of reliable acoustical and biological data has been chosen in order to proceed to comparisons between the results of the acoustic data processing through the classification algorithms and the results of the biological processing.


We propose minimum regret search (MRS), a novel acquisition function for Bayesian optimization. MRS bears similarities with information-theoretic approaches such as entropy search (ES). However, while ES aims in each query at maximizing the information gain with respect to the global maximum, MRS aims at minimizing the expected simple regret of its ultimate recommendation for the optimum. While empirically ES and MRS perform similar in most of the cases, MRS produces fewer outliers with high simple regret than ES. We provide empirical results both for a synthetic single-task optimization problem as well as for a simulated multi-task robotic control problem.


This is a report of a female patient in her midthirties who sustained a hemorrhage secondary to an arteriovenous malformation in the region of the pons. The patient's initial symptoms included hearing loss and tinnitus, which were followed by the more characteristic symptoms of headache and loss of consciousness. Results of audiological testing at three months postaccident documented the presence of a hearing loss and a central auditory processing disorder, and the patient was provided an auditory rehabilitation program. Follow-up testing over the course of an additional year documented improvement in both pure-tone threshold and central test results; however, at 15 months postaccident, some auditory deficits remained, especially in the ear ipsilateral to the primary site of lesion. The anatomical correlates of these deficits are discussed, as are the potential contributions of both the auditory rehabilitation program and spontaneous recovery mechanisms to the documented improvements in auditory function.


We have used synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments to measure the strain field introduced by a hydride blister grown on a section of a pressure tube from a CANDU nuclear reactor. After charging the tube section with a homogeneous hydrogen concentration of 300 wt ppm, the blister was produced by creating a small cold spot on its surface (∼200 °C), while the bulk was kept at a temperature of 338 °C over a period of 1008 h. The blister studied here is ellipsoidal in shape, with its long axis along the tube axial direction. The experiments were performed on the wiggler beam line ID15 at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) using a polychromatic beam of high-energy X-rays (60 to 300 keV). Unlike conventional X-ray diffraction, in this mode the scattering angle is fixed and the diffracted beam is discriminated on the basis of the photon energy. The results show that the blister is composed by two crystallographic phases (δ-ZrH and α-Zr), with volume fractions varying with position. The maximum stresses appear at the blister-matrix interfaces. Near the tube outer surface, we found large compressive stresses of (−450±90) MPa along the blister long axis, and tensile stresses (+320±90) MPa along the tube hoop direction. The main uncertainty in these stresses results from the uncertainty in the elastic constants of the hydride phase. Large strains and broad peaks were observed for this phase, which were explained by a rather low Young's modulus (35 GPa) for the hydride. The results are compared with finite element simulations found in the literature.


Objectives: 1- To evaluate the incidence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterial pathogens in burn patients. 2- To determine the antibiogram profile of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to selected antibacterial agents. 3- To assist their production of β-lactamases. Patients and methods: This study enrolled 90 burned patients including 63 (70%) females and 27 (30%) males. Pus and wound swabs were collected aseptically from these patients and assessed microbiologically. The isolates of P. aeruginosa were tested for their susceptibility to 10 selected antimicrobial agents, and evaluated for β-lactamases using iodometric and double disk approximation methods. Results: Out of the 90 studied patients with second and third degree burns, 60 (66.7%) yielded positive bacterial growth, while 30 (33.3%) were culture negative. From the total 105 bacterial isolates 88 (83.8%) were gram negative and the remaining 17 (16.2%) were gram positive. The predominant microorganism was P. aeruginosa (50%), whereas the least isolated one was Proteus (3.3%).The antibiogram study of P. aeruginosa showed that the least resistance was against piperacillin, while the highest resistance was noted in cases of carbencillin and cefoxitin. Multidrug resistance (MDR) P. aeruginosa formed 44.4% of the total isolates of P. aeruginosa and they had statistical association with ceftriaxone, meropenem, ceftazidime and amikacin consumption. Ninety percent of P. aeruginosa were β-lactamases producer and 10 % of them produced the inducible β-lactamases. Conclusion: The bacteria isolated from Burn Units are the best examples for the study of pathogenic bacterial species, specially Pseudomonas aeruginosa, other enteric bacilli and Staph. aureus which frequently responsible for human colonization. Also, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other gram negative bacilli are frequently associated with nosocomial burn infection. Furthermore, most isolates of P. aeruginosa from Burn Units are β- lactamases producers and most of these isolates were MDR pseudomonas aeruginosa.


Integrating our knowledge of star formation (SF) traced by observations at different wavelengths is essential for correctly interpreting and comparing SF activity in a variety of systems and environments. This study compares extinction corrected integrated ultraviolet (UV) emission from resolved galaxies with color–magnitude diagram (CMD) based star formation rates (SFRs) derived from resolved stellar populations and CMD fitting techniques in 19 nearby starburst and post-starburst dwarf galaxies. The data sets are from the panchromatic Starburst Irregular Dwarf Survey and include deep legacy GALEX UV imaging, Hubble Space Telescope optical imaging, and Spitzer MIPS imaging. For the majority of the sample, the integrated near-UV fluxes predicted from the CMD-based SFRs—using four different models—agree with the measured, extinction corrected, integrated near-UV fluxes from GALEX images, but the far-UV (FUV) predicted fluxes do not. Furthermore, we find a systematic deviation between the SFRs based on integrated FUV luminosities and existing scaling relations, and the SFRs based on the resolved stellar populations. This offset is not driven by different SF timescales, variations in SFRs, UV attenuation, nor stochastic effects. This first comparison between CMD-based SFRs and an integrated FUV emission SFR indicator suggests that the most likely cause of the discrepancy is the theoretical FUV–SFR calibration from stellar evolutionary libraries and/or stellar atmospheric models. We present an empirical calibration of the FUV-based SFR relation for dwarf galaxies, with uncertainties, which is ∼53% larger than previous relations.


Beth A. Richmond, PhD, and Mark G. Richmond, EdD, Co-Executive Directors serving for the ABCP, have assumed this role for the past 30 years. Their experience working with a variety of perfusionists in the field influenced the profession and some of the professionals we view as perfusion leaders. Anyone with time working as a clinical perfusionist acknowledges the role they have had establishing the certification process and influencing perfusion education. The goal of this article is simply to highlight the Board's history through the words of both Co-Directors. Our profession, young in years, has a unique history. The names have not been changed and many of the stories have yet to be told. During the winter of 2009, we sat down with Beth and Mark Richmond to talk about their experience working with different Boards over the past 30 years. The following article is their story in their words.


The Guardian newspaper's survey of social workers in the UK published in 2015 made the discovery that 'The happiest social workers are in Wales'. In exploring why this may be so, the authors undertook an in-depth national online survey in 2017 of all social workers in Wales registered as employed at that point. The survey sought information including broad demographic features, qualifications, employment histories, decision making and relationships with management. The workforce is mainly white and female, with few higher degree qualifications other than at qualifying levels. They believe their work is of sound quality and are clear about their aims and responsibilities. Our analysis suggests a workforce not discomfited by invasive management and work-processing systems, nor do respondents appear disempowered in matters of work decision making over which they claim much control. Most look forward to going to work. The data suggest a workforce that is relatively durable and long-serving. The contrast between the broadly positive perspectives held by the workforce and a social work literature that often paints a world of professional marginalisation provides a frequent point of challenge to our analysis.


This analysis of changes in the immune status of patients operated for splenic lesions is based on the observations of 126 subjects. Fifty of them underwent autolientransplantation and 26 conservative surgery. The main parameters of humoral and cellular immunity were measured along with changes in the microflora. Splenectomy was shown to cause changes in the characteristics of both cellular and humoral immunity. Autolientransplantation caused a significant decrease in the serum level of total complement and its C3- and C-4 fractions while the amount of circulating immune complexes increased All other parameters of the immune status remained unaltered The best outcome of the treatment was documented after conservative surgery.


This paper draws on the views of lecturers working in and delivering college-based higher education (CBHE) in the UK. There have been numerous works on the culture of higher education in further education (HE in FE). However, as noted by some literati, the culture of further education (FE) is not easy to define, and does not readily lend itself to the incorporation of a higher education (HE) culture. This could be due to the large number of changes FE has had to adopt owing to various government policies. The study comprises 26 in-depth individual interviews conducted at various further education colleges throughout the Yorkshire and Humber region of the UK. Via the use of an interpretivist approach, common themes and word use were extracted from the narratives for analysis. The organisational culture of these further education colleges was relatively easy to define, the word 'blame' being one of the common themes. However, when identifying if the individual colleges had a HE culture; this proved more difficult.


ABSTRACT Grandmothers serve as primary care-givers for a significant number of South African children. Previous research has documented that South African grandmothers experience physical, financial, emotional and social adversity. However, less attention has been given to South African grandmothers' resilience, or their capacity to respond to the challenges associated with raising their grandchildren. Utilising Walsh's (2003; 2012) family resilience model, this qualitative study examined resilience and resilient processes among 75 Black South African grandmothers raising grandchildren. Grandmothers participated in structured interviews during a weekly visit to a local luncheon (social) club. Results indicated that the grandmothers perceived themselves as engaging in a number of resilient processes, including relying on their spirituality, accessing sources of instrumental support, and seeking emotional support and companionship from their grandchildren and larger communities. Grandmothers also believed that focusing on their grandchildren contributed to their sense of resilience. This involved maintaining a sense of responsibility to their grandchildren, having hope for their grandchildren's futures and finding enjoyment in the grandmother–grandchild relationship. The findings reveal that, by engaging in various resilient processes, South African grandmothers raising grandchildren perceive themselves and their families as having strategies they can utilise in order to successfully cope with adversity. Findings also highlight the need for prevention and intervention efforts designed to promote grandmothers' resilience, as well as the resilience of their grandchildren.


The land surface air temperature (LSAT) is one of the fundamental parameters to represent heat transfer and to modulate the moisture cycle between land and atmosphere. Here, we quantify the spatiotemporal characteristics of four newly developed hourly temperature products by merging reanalysis with in situ data Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Overall, LSATs from different hourly products are consistent with each other, and their differences are generally smaller in magnitude than biases between hourly products and monthly averaged daily maximum and minimum temperature data from CRU. While the true monthly mean (using hourly values) and the monthly mean (of daily maximum and minimum temperatures) and their seasonality [as represented by the (July–January) differences] differ, their trends agree with each other very well. The polar amplification ratio of average temperature trend north of 65°N to that over global land (excluding Greenland and Antarctica) is also similar among different products, with the annual ratio of around 1.7. The ratio in summer (June–August) is always smaller than the annual value for different periods among all products. Based on the probability distribution functions from the monthly anomalies of different variables, the coldest tenth percentile of temperature in each decade overall increases with time, while the warmest tenth percentile does not vary much from 1950–1979, followed by a rapid increase from 1980–2009. These results and additional sensitivity tests suggest that the 4‐h LSAT products can be widely used for climate analysis, model evaluation, and offline land surface modelling from 1948–2009.


We performed a 24-week, placebo-controlled, comparative trial of hydroxyurea (HU) monotherapy, didanosine(ddI) monotherapy, and the combination of ddI plus HU administered as 1000 mg qd or 1500 mg qd in antiretroviral-naive and experienced subjects with CD4+ lymphocyte counts of 200-700 cells/mm3. Enrollment included 134 subjects. HU enhanced the antiviral activity of ddI by 1.0 log10 copies/ml after 8 weeks of therapy, with sustained responses over 24 weeks. HU alone over 4 weeks had no effect. Lamivudine resistance had little impact on antiretroviral activity when examined across treatment arms. Increases in absolute CD4+ T cell counts, but not CD4+ T cell percentages, were less in subjects who received HU compared to ddI monotherapy, and lymphoproliferative responses to antigenic and mitogenic stimuli were not altered. Subjects who received HU 1500 mg were more likely to experience dose-limiting hematological toxicities compared to those who received 1000 mg, without any additional antiviral benefit. HU may continue to have a role as a component of HIV therapy.


Cytokine-induced expression of ICAM-1, VCAM-1, and MHC class I and II was studied at different time points in microvascular endothelial cells (EC) of heart origin, using three different rat endothelial cell (RHEC) lines that were stimulated with TNFalpha and/or IFNgamma. Each of the three RHEC lines responded to TNFalpha as well as to IFNgamma; stimulation with combined cytokines led to increased or even synergistic effects. TNFalpha was most potent in inducing ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, whereas MHC class II was most effectively induced by IFNgamma. The 3 RHEC lines responded similarly regarding induction of MHC class II and upregulation of constitutively expressed MHC class I on the cells. However, the RHEC lines showed remarkable differences with respect to ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 induction, with each line having a unique expression profile. In RHEC-3, both ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 were well inducible, whereas in RHEC-10, no ICAM-1 and only some VCAM-1 could be induced. RHEC-11 showed minimal induction of ICAM-1, but strong induction of VCAM-1. For P-selectin induction, no such differences were found between the RHEC lines. These heterogeneous effects of cytokine stimulation could neither be explained by differences in mobilization of calcium nor by ultra-structural differences between the lines. Stimulation of the RHEC lines for ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 or MHC class II molecule induction resulted in expressing and non-expressing EC. Experiments with selected and subsequently cultured expressing and non-expressing cell populations for either ICAM-1, VCAM-1 or MHC class II, indicated that this selective induction most likely results from intrinsic regulation mechanisms in the cell cultures, and not from the presence of particular EC subpopulations within the lines. We conclude that microvascular heart endothelial cells, as represented by the 3 RHEC lines, demonstrate a selective heterogeneity in expression of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, but not of MHC class I and II, upon cytokine stimulation. The consequences of this heterogeneity for leukocyte-endothelial cell interactions in heart inflammation and immune reactivity is discussed.


Abstract
The merging fields of photonics and organic electronics into organic optoelectronics has created a surge of enthusiasm over the possibility of developing low-cost and large-area advanced optoelectronic systems. These applications can combine the best functionalities of both fields, such as tailoring the organic semiconductors by chemical means, engineering the structure in which organic materials are embedded in, are to name a few. These advances have stimulated the excitement over the next generation of optoelectronic systems with enhanced capabilities and low-cost manufacturing processes compared to their inorganic counterparts. Such technology direction is mainly reflected by the high investments towards the aim of developing flexible, and roll-to-roll organic light-emitting diodes and organic solar cells.
Interestingly, more sophisticated applications require a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms at play that merge concepts from the fields of photonics and organic electronics. Particularly, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) under certain constraints (such as cavity light confinement, strong exciton-photon interaction) exhibit modified spectral emission compared to OLED devices that are not bounded by the same conditions. The introduction of the polariton concept as a quasi-particle, which is part-light and part-matter, has emerged to describe such new physical phenomena caused by this photon-exciton intricate interaction. Polariton physics is well established in inorganic semiconductors were a plethora of physical phenomena have been demonstrated, such as the appearance of Bose-Einstein Condensation or low-threshold laser devices. The later is what has as yet to be demonstrated from the field of solid state physics utilising organic semiconductors.
This thesis is focused on the study of the physics and the engineering of organic light-emitting diodes that will aid in the realization of efficient organic polariton LEDs. The main body of work examines various organic semiconductor materials in their ability to reach the strong light and matter interaction regime and, subsequently, to be used in OLEDs as the emissive component. Furthermore, a degradation investigation highlights the issues that affect small-molecule based OLEDs, and finally, the possible pathways for achieving efficient polariton OLEDs are discussed.


We have adapted and developed a PCR (polymerase chain reaction)-based technique for the T-cell receptor (TCR)-gamma chain gene, which has subsequently been used for routine diagnosis. Variable-region oligonucleotide primers were chosen from subgroups I and II, and the joining region primer was from the J2 segment. The primers were used to perform a 32P-incorporation PCR, and the products were then separated on an 8% denaturing polyacrylamide gel. In our hands, this technique is more reliable than cold methods, when separation is performed on either agarose or nondenaturing polyacrylamide. The radioactive technique was used to look at 102 T-cell proliferations, of which eight of eight T-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 24 of 34 T-non-Hodgkin's leukemia (NHL), and 35 of 60 large granular lymphocyte (LGL) expansions were clonal. Of 122 B-cell proliferations investigated, including 72 cases of B-cell lineage ALL, 36 demonstrated a T-cell rearrangement (33 ALLs and three myelomas). Samples from nonlymphoid tumors were tested and produced a normal distribution ladder of PCR products after autoradiography, a pattern also observed with antenatal and preoperative patients. The radiolabel-incorporation method detected an abnormal pattern of a ladder with prominent dark bands in 29 of 122 B-cell and 27 of 102 T-cell cases and in 0 of 49 of the nonlymphoid and normal samples. The abnormal banding patterns obtained in a proportion of the B- and T-cell cases was not readily discernible by nondenaturing-acrylamide or agarose-separation methods.


Abstract Five ice cores have been retrieved from a transect close to the terminus of Glacier de Tsanfleuron, Switzerland. The cores extend from the ice surface to the glacier bed, and are 3.5–44.8 m long. Stratigraphic logging based on bubble size and density reveals the presence of a highly metamorphosed basal ice layer, about 10 m thick, from which all traces of bubble-rich ice have been removed. This bubble-poor ice, which corresponds closely with clear-facies ice observed in cavities beneath numerous temperate-based glaciers, contrasts with the overlying bubble-rich or bubble-foliated englacial ice and the underlying debris-rich and bubble-free dispersed-facies basal ice. Down-core patterns in major-ion composition, stable-isotope composition and total gas content and composition are generally consistent with formation of clear-facies ice by deformation-related metamorphism of bubbly, englacial ice. In addition, isotopic data suggest that storage of downward-percolating meltwaters occurs close to the upper surface of the clear-facies ice layer, perhaps reflecting a local variation in ice permeability across the transition from englacial to clear-facies ice. Enrichment in crustally derived ionic species is noted in the lowermost decimetres of the debris-free, clear-facies ice that immediately overlies debris-rich dispersed-facies basal ice. This ionic enrichment in debris-free ice is interpreted in terms of active inter-granular meltwater flow within some decimetres of the glacier bed.


The Gachsaran Formation from the Fars Group has a vast extent in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar (Dam Formation). It extends from the Zagros Folded Belt Zone in the south of Iran to the north of Iraq, and even to northeast Syria (Fatha Formation). In order to eliminate the ambiguities of the proposed age and cover the regional information misplacements in cases where biostratigraphy studies can be effective, surface outcrops of these deposits were investigated in three stratigraphic sections near the border of Iran and Iraq, in the area behind the mountains of the Lurestan region (Posht-e-Kuh arc). According to similar results obtained in two other sections, the age of the Gachsaran Formation in the studied region is considered to be Early Miocene (Late Burdigalian). Comparison of the results of this study with biostratigraphic studies from other parts of the Middle East, which includes 16 study areas, shows that the Gachsaran Formation in Iran and its equivalent formations (Fatha and Dam) in neighboring countries have an age range of early Miocene (Aquitanian–Burdigalian) and even Burdigalian. This age has been determined by comparing the biological contents of the Gachsaran Formation with valid official biozones, as well as the presence of the index fossil Borelis melo curdica, to cover the information gap in the area. Isotopic studies of these sections in the region show that the maximum age of these sediments is early Miocene (Burdigalian), and this confirms the results of biostratigraphic studies.


This paper introduces our proposed system for the MIA Shared Task on Cross-lingual Openretrieval Question Answering (COQA). In this challenging scenario, given an input question the system has to gather evidence documents from a multilingual pool and generate from them an answer in the language of the question. We devised several approaches combining different model variants for three main components: Data Augmentation, Passage Retrieval, and Answer Generation. For passage retrieval, we evaluated the monolingual BM25 ranker against the ensemble of re-rankers based on multilingual pretrained language models (PLMs) and also variants of the shared task baseline, re-training it from scratch using a recently introduced contrastive loss that maintains a strong gradient signal throughout training by means of mixed negative samples. For answer generation, we focused on languageand domain-specialization by means of continued language model (LM) pretraining of existing multilingual encoders. Additionally, for both passage retrieval and answer generation, we augmented the training data provided by the task organizers with automatically generated question-answer pairs created from Wikipedia passages to mitigate the issue of data scarcity, particularly for the low-resource languages for which no training data were provided. Our results show that language- and domain-specialization as well as data augmentation help, especially for low-resource languages.


This study is an analysis of the roots of human savagery, dealing with the fundamental questions of why the majority of violence is perpetrated by men, whether this is a matter of nature or nurture and whether anything can be done about it. The book provides some surprising answers, based on comparison of male violence among human and among man's closest relatives, the great apes. In three or four species, male violence is common, but the form of violence differs: male orangutangs tend to rape, male chimps wage war and male gorillas kill the offspring of other males. Only in the fourth species, the little-known bonobo, are males (as well as females) non-violent - females are co-dominant, there is no observable aggression between groups, and there is a high level and diversity of sexual activity. The findings are based on 30 years of field research on the behaviour and ecology of chimpanzees and other mammals in Africa.


The global food crisis led to upward trends in food prices across the world. The millions of impoverished people living in developing countries including Ghana were the worst affected by the phenomenal increases in world food prices. This paper examines the implications of the global food crisis on the trends of food prices in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The data used for the analyses were average monthly prices of some selected grain cereals, grain legumes, vegetables, and root and tuber food items consumed in the region. The data were gathered from the Upper East Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The analyses revealed that on the average, the prices of food items grew over 200 percent during the last twenty years. However, the all time record high increase in food prices in the Upper East Region of Ghana was recorded in 2008 which is estimated as over 100 percent. It is concluded that the global food crisis among other things translated positively in terms of prices in the Upper East Region of Ghana. This has had negative effects on the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals especially on the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger in the area where over 80 percent of the people are said to be poor. It is recommended that farmers in the area should be supplied with subsidized farm inputs and credit facilities to help boost their production levels to help mitigate the effects of hunger, malnutrition and poverty on the vulnerable – women, children and the physically challenged.


Background: Longitudinal studies have shown that high serum total cholesterol (TC) at midlife is a risk factor for dementia/Alzheimer disease. The significance of TC later in life is unclear. Objective: To investigate changes in serum TC from midlife to late life and their relationship with late-life cognition. Methods: Participants of the Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia study were derived from random, population-based samples previously studied in a survey in 1972, 1977, 1982, or 1987. After an average follow-up of 21 years, 1,449 individuals aged 65 to 79 were reexamined in 1998. Results: Serum TC levels decreased in most individuals. High midlife TC represented a risk factor for more severe cognitive impairment later in life, and the values were significantly different between the control, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia groups. There were no significant differences in serum TC at reexamination. A moderate decrease in serum TC from midlife to late life (0.5 to 2 mmol/L) was significantly associated with the risk of a more impaired late-life cognitive status, even after adjusting for age, follow-up time, sex, years of formal education, midlife cholesterol, changes in body mass index, APOE ε4 genotype, history of myocardial infarction/stroke/diabetes, and lipid-lowering treatment. Conclusions: The relationship between serum total cholesterol (TC) and dementia seems to be bidirectional. High midlife serum TC is a risk factor for subsequent dementia/Alzheimer disease, but decreasing serum TC after midlife may reflect ongoing disease processes and may represent a risk marker for late-life cognitive impairment.


This paper examines the value orientations of executives and their linkages to leadership behaviors. The 181 executives in this study were randomly selected from the top 500 Australian companies. Value orientations of Australian executives compared with their Russian, Japanese, and Chinese counterparts reveal as many similarities as there are differences. In general, transformational leadership styles were most closely related to personal values orientations. The implications of the findings are discussed, and practical suggestions for leadership development and research are proposed.


In response to the growing salience of re-centralization in several Latin American countries that decentralized in the 1980s and 1990s, this paper exam- ines presidential efforts to re-centralize fiscal power in the 1990s. In our study of re-centralization in Argentina and Brazil, we assess the utility of four common political economy explanations: the presence of economic crisis; the partisan pow- ers of the president; the division of formal powers between the branches; and the extent of intra-bureaucratic conflict. We find that the success of economic stabili- zation measures facilitated re-centralization in both countries, though the path- ways connecting the two phenomena were partially distinct. In Argentina, key re-centralization measures were rapidly achieved after stabilization as the result of the president's strong partisan powers and in the form of political deals within the Peronist party. Subsequently, the dissipation of President Carlos Menem's powers over the course of his second term facilitated the "return of the gover- nors." In Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso re-centralized despite weak parti- san powers, largely by using his reputation as a successful stabilizer to build a broad reform coalition. In Cardoso's Brazil, strong partisan cohesion in impor- tant cabinet posts also served as a partial substitute for the lack of partisan power in the legislature. These findings suggest the need for a closer examination of re- centralization efforts, particularly in the wake of macroeconomic stabilization and economic reform.


OBJECTIVE Establishing Caenorhabditis elegans as a model for glucose toxicity–mediated life span reduction. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS C. elegans were maintained to achieve glucose concentrations resembling the hyperglycemic conditions in diabetic patients. The effects of high glucose on life span, glyoxalase-1 activity, advanced glycation end products (AGEs), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and on mitochondrial function were studied. RESULTS High glucose conditions reduced mean life span from 18.5 ± 0.4 to 16.5 ± 0.6 days and maximum life span from 25.9 ± 0.4 to 23.2 ± 0.4 days, independent of glucose effects on cuticle or bacterial metabolization of glucose. The formation of methylglyoxal-modified mitochondrial proteins and ROS was significantly increased by high glucose conditions and reduced by mitochondrial uncoupling and complex IIIQo inhibition. Overexpression of the methylglyoxal–detoxifying enzyme glyoxalase-1 attenuated the life-shortening effect of glucose by reducing AGE accumulation (by 65%) and ROS formation (by 50%) and restored mean (16.5 ± 0.6 to 20.6 ± 0.4 days) and maximum life span (23.2 ± 0.4 to 27.7 ± 2.3 days). In contrast, inhibition of glyoxalase-1 by RNAi further reduced mean (16.5 ± 0.6 to 13.9 ± 0.7 days) and maximum life span (23.2 ± 0.4 to 20.3 ± 1.1 days). The life span reduction by glyoxalase-1 inhibition was independent from the insulin signaling pathway because high glucose conditions also affected daf-2 knockdown animals in a similar manner. CONCLUSIONS C. elegans is a suitable model organism to study glucose toxicity, in which high glucose conditions limit the life span by increasing ROS formation and AGE modification of mitochondrial proteins in a daf-2 independent manner. Most importantly, glucose toxicity can be prevented by improving glyoxalase-1–dependent methylglyoxal detoxification or preventing mitochondrial dysfunction.


By the use of sedimentation method the interaction of F-protein (phosphofructokinase) with F-actin has been studied in 0.1 M KCl, 10 mM K-phosphate buffer, pH 6.5. The calculated value of the constant of F-protein binding to F-actin is (7.3 +/- 1.0) X 10(5) M-1. The number of the F-protein binding sites calculated per chain weight of 80,000 is 0.43. The binding of F-protein to F-actin was found to be affected by pH-value.


The study of experimental design in conjunction with artificial neural networks for optimization of isocratic ultra performance liquid chromatography method for separation of mycophenolate mofetil and its degradation products has been reported. Experimental design showed to be suitable for selection of experimental scheme, while Kennard‐Stone algorithm was used for selection of training data set. The input variables were column temperature and composition of mobile phase including percentage of acetonitrile, concentration of ammonium acetate in buffer, and its pH value. The retention factor of the most retentive component and selectivity factors were used as the dependent variables (outputs). In this way, artificial neural network has been applied as a predictable tool in solving a method optimization problem using small number of experiments. Network architecture and training parameters were optimized to the lowest root‐mean‐square error values, and the network with 5‐4‐4‐4 topology has been selected as the most predictable one. Predicted data were in good agreement with experimental data, and regression statistics confirmed good ability of trained network to predict compounds retention. The optimal chromatographic conditions included column temperature of 40°C, flow rate of 700 µl min−1, 26% of acetonitrile and 9 mM ammonium acetate in mobile phase, and buffer pH of 5.87. The chromatographic analysis has been achieved within 5.2 min. The validation of the proposed method was also performed considering selectivity, linearity, accuracy, precision, limit of detection, and limit of quantification, and the results indicated that the method fulfilled all required criteria. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of commercial dosage form. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A fowlpox virus isolate obtained from an outbreak of disease in a vaccinated poultry flock was propagated in chicken embryo fibroblast cell culture. Analysis of purified virus polypeptide on 7.5-15% gradient polyacrylamide gel revealed 45 structural polypeptides after Coomassie blue staining. The mol.wt. of polypeptides ranged between 225.53 and 10.50 kDa with total mol.wt. of 2650 kDa. Variable numbers of immunogenic virion polypeptides were detected in immunoblot with fowlpox virus infected chicken sera collected at different time intervals. A total of 29 polypeptides reacted with sera collected at 1st week post-infection and the number gradually declined to 27, 26, 20, 17 and 15 when reacted with 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th week post-infection sera, respectively. Reaction with fowlpox virus hyperimmune sera revealed 35 immunogenic polypeptides. A number of major and minor immunogens were detected. Antisera against seven major single band polypeptides including one double band polypeptide showed very low reactivity both in ELISA and serum neutralization test. Involvement of multigenic components in virus neutralization is indicated.


Gaining streams can provide an integrated signal of relatively large groundwater capture areas. In contrast to the point‐specific nature of monitoring wells, gaining streams coalesce multiple flow paths. Impacts on groundwater quality from unconventional gas development may be evaluated at the watershed scale by the sampling of dissolved methane (CH4) along such streams. This paper describes a method for using stream CH4 concentrations, along with measurements of groundwater inflow and gas transfer velocity interpreted by 1‐D stream transport modeling, to determine groundwater methane fluxes. While dissolved ionic tracers remain in the stream for long distances, the persistence of methane is not well documented. To test this method and evaluate CH4 persistence in a stream, a combined bromide (Br) and CH4 tracer injection was conducted on Nine‐Mile Creek, a gaining stream in a gas development area in central Utah. A 35% gain in streamflow was determined from dilution of the Br tracer. The injected CH4 resulted in a fivefold increase in stream CH4 immediately below the injection site. CH4 and δ13CCH4 sampling showed it was not immediately lost to the atmosphere, but remained in the stream for more than 2000 m. A 1‐D stream transport model simulating the decline in CH4 yielded an apparent gas transfer velocity of 4.5 m/d, describing the rate of loss to the atmosphere (possibly including some microbial consumption). The transport model was then calibrated to background stream CH4 in Nine‐Mile Creek (prior to CH4 injection) in order to evaluate groundwater CH4 contributions. The total estimated CH4 load discharging to the stream along the study reach was 190 g/d, although using geochemical fingerprinting to determine its source was beyond the scope of the current study. This demonstrates the utility of stream‐gas sampling as a reconnaissance tool for evaluating both natural and anthropogenic CH4 leakage from gas reservoirs into groundwater and surface water.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate effects of age (immature vs adult) and location along the trachea on the biomechanical properties (via a tensile stress relaxation test) and biochemical properties (Water content and total proteoglycan content) of canine tracheal ring cartilage.

SAMPLE POPULATION
Entire trachea from 8 immature and 8 adult dogs.

PROCEDURE
A section of each tracheal ring from 8 immature dogs (6 months old) and 8 adult dogs (2 to 3 years old) was tested biomechanically (maximal stress, equilibrium stress, equilibrium modulus, and percentage of relaxation) and processed for biochemical analysis (water content and total proteoglycan content). Two rings from each trachea were prepared for histologic analysis (H&E or safranin-O staining).

RESULTS
Biomechanical and biochemical parameters were not different between cervical and thoracic rings of either age group. Mean maximal stress, equilibrium stress, and equilibrium modulus were significantly higher for adult, compared with immature, dogs. However, percentage of relaxation for adult dogs was significantly lower. Tracheal rings of adult dogs had a significantly higher proteoglycan content and a significantly lower water content than did those of immature dogs. Water content and biomechanical parameters were significantly correlated, and proteoglycan content and biomechanical properties were significantly but weakly correlated. On histologic sectioning, a qualitative decrease in safranin-O staining in the rings of immature dogs also was observed.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Biomechanical and biochemical properties of the canine tracheal ring cartilage are altered with age. However, location of the ring along the trachea did not affect these properties for either age group. Results lend support to the theory that proteoglycan content has some effect on tensile properties of tracheal rings and may explain increased compliance observed in rings from dogs with collapsed trachea.


ABSTRACT Treatment of Mycobacterium avium disease remains challenging when macrolide resistance develops. We infected C57 beige mice and treated them with mefloquine, SRI-286, and moxifloxacin. SRI-286 (80 mg/kg) was bactericidal in the liver. Mefloquine plus moxifloxacin or mefloquine plus SRI-286 were better than mefloquine alone.


The concern in Australian universities about the prevalence of plagiarism has led to the development of policies about academic integrity and in turn focused attention on the need to inform students about how to avoid plagiarism and how to properly acknowledge. Teaching students how to avoid plagiarism can appear to be straightforward if based on the notion that plagiarism is copying without proper acknowledgment. This paper reviews the term 'proper acknowledgment' in the academic context and argues that proper acknowledgement can be a matter of context and perception. In this paper forms of plagiarism are reviewed, reasons for student plagiarism are considered and different contexts for acknowledgement and how these fit in with concepts of attribution and originality are discussed. Comments from international students new to Australian academic culture provide insights and reveal that students in trying to master the rules of acknowledgment can be perplexed and concerned about when and why they should acknowledge.


We consider the problem of dynamic pricing in the presence of patient consumers. We call a consumer patient if she is willing to wait a certain number of periods for a lower price and will purchase as soon as the price is equal to or below her valuation. We allow for arbitrary joint distributions of patience levels and valuations. We propose an efficient dynamic programming algorithm for finding optimal pricing policies. The dynamic program requires a larger state space than its counterpart for a strategic consumers model. We find numerically that optimal policies can take the form of incomplete cyclic policies, combining features of both nested sales policies and decreasing cyclic policies.


We apply genetic programming techniques to the `shepherding' problem, in which a group of one type of animal (sheep dogs) attempts to control the movements of a second group of animals (sheep) obeying flocking behavior. Our genetic programming algorithm evolves an expression tree that governs the movements of each dog. The operands of the tree are hand-selected features of the simulation environment that may allow the dogs to herd the sheep effectively. The algorithm uses tournament-style selection, crossover reproduction, and a point mutation. We find that the evolved solutions generalize well and outperform a (naive) human-designed algorithm.


Developed countries' national governments operates huge and complicated information systems in order for daily public services. In the United States, public officers can negotiate about procurement conditions in order to find not only the lowest price but also high quality. On the other hand, Japan, believed one of the developed countries, prohibits public officers from making negotiations when they procure any public materials and services. Today's information systems are complicated; it is always challenging to express what to be implemented. Therefore, less communication including negotiations causes lower satisfaction of users, more expensive prices, and longer delivery time. From this viewpoints, Japan's regulation controlling public procurement is not practical. Nevertheless, they do not plan to change the procedure shortly. This paper shows the reason that Japan's law set such a strict procurement rule and explore problems using system dynamics models.


Based on the Dirac equation describing an electron moving in a uniform and cylindrically symmetric magnetic field which may be the result of the self-consistent mean field of the electrons themselves in a neutron star, we have obtained the eigen solutions and the orbital magnetic moments of electrons in which each eigen orbital can be calculated. From the eigen energy spectrum we find that the lowest energy level is the highly degenerate orbitals with the quantum numbers pz = 0, n = 0, and m ≥ 0. At the ground state, the electrons fill the lowest eigen states to form many Landau magnetic cells and each cell is a circular disk with the radius λfree and the thickness λe, where λfree is the electron mean free path determined by Coulomb cross section and electron density and λe is the electron Compton wavelength. The magnetic moment of each cell and the number of cells in the neutron star are calculated, from which the total magnetic moment and magnetic field of the neutron star can be calculated. The results are compared with the observational data and the agreement is reasonable.


The patient's right to consent to any medical treatment proposed by medical personnel is now internationally recognized. The principle of the right of the inviolable right of the individual to choose and to decide the circumstances of his health necessitates this consent.  The consent must be free, prior and informed.  Free implies that consent is not valid if obtained by manipulation or coercion.  Where consent is obtained involuntarily, by duress or coercion, it may result to an action for battery.  The consent must be voluntarily given by a patient who has legal capacity to give such consent.   Prior implies that consent must be sought sufficiently in advance of any authorization by the medical or hospital authorities or commencement of activities by a hospital that affects the health of the patient.  Informed means that the patient's consent must only be sought after full and legally accurate disclosure of information concerning the proposed medical procedure. The disclosure must be in a form which is both accessible and understandable by the patient regarding inter alia the nature, scope, duration, potential risks and foreseeable implications of the medical procedure.  There must be full disclosure of information relating to treatment, benefit, risk involved, the complication and consequences of such procedure. The physician provides all the necessary information regarding a procedure or treatment to be carried out on the patient.In Nigeria, the issue of free, prior, informed consent in medical practice is poorly implemented. Several factors are responsible for this. Firstly, there is the problem of low level of literacy in Nigeria.  Illiterate patients tend to rely completely on the judgment of the physician.The second factor is the fact that the right to informed consent is poorly enforced. There is limited remedy available in Nigerian law to patients whose rights to informed consent have been breached. Furthermore, the mechanisms for enforcing the right to informed consent are hampered by bureaucracy.  This paper argues that Nigeria's laws on informed consent is inadequate. Keywords : Consent, Informed Consent, Healthcare, Legal implication, Patient.


To study the formation of the coronary vessels in the developing avian heart, we stained developmentally staged quail hearts with the endothelial specific antibody QH‐1. QH‐1 reacted with individual cells in the proepicardial organ in Hamburger and Hamilton stage (HH) 17 embryos only after it had contacted the heart. In HH18–26 hearts, individual QH‐1+ cells accumulated over the surface of the atria and ventricles. The first endothelial vessels appeared in the dorsal atrioventricular groove in HH23 hearts. CD45+ hematopoietic precursors accumulated on the heart surface, demonstrating the close temporal relationship of hematopoiesis with vasculogenesis during heart development. However, CD45 expression preceded association of these cells with the vasculature, suggesting hematopoietic commitment precedes formation of blood islands in the coronary vasculature. Endothelial tubules first appeared on the dorsal and then the ventral aspects of the heart, coalescing into large sinusoids. These sinusoids remodeled into compact muscularized vessels by HH35. Smooth muscle cell markers were first expressed at HH27 and only in association with developing vasculature. We did not observe markers of smooth muscle differentiation in the proepicardium, but it remains uncertain whether cells in the proepicardium are committed to this cell fate. Our data support a strictly vasculogenic mechanism for the formation of the coronary vessels and blood islands. Developmental Dynamics 230:34–43, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This thesis has been carried out in the field of Computer Networks and has been conducted in collaboration with my colleague Lorenzo Miniero.

We have looked after a challenging and popular application family over the Internet, namely Real-time Multimedia Applications.
The proliferation of new network technologies that characterizes the last years has led to the birth of a variegated set of new complex services on top of the Internet.
The network, which in its early days was mainly aimed at distributing static contents, is rapidly evolving toward a paradigm based on dynamic or even real time information.
One of the most appealing services is the streaming of real time multimedia contents over the Internet. In this context, the most challenging goal for operators is to provide users with services that are comparable in terms of perceived quality to the traditional TV broadcasting system. At the time of this writing the whole portfolio of real time multimedia streaming services is characterized by some common issues. First of all the need for users to install third party software or plugins for web browsers in order to be able to reproduce multimedia streams. It's worth noting that different services rely upon different software solutions and in most of the cases they are not inter-operable. Furthermore, existing streaming services are afflicted by high transmission delay. This fact can be very annoying when users are provided with a feedback channel to interact with the source of the streaming. For example, if during a webinar (online seminar) participants can interact with the current speaker, even a few seconds delay could cause misunderstandings and slow down the progress of the event.
As another example, it must be said that one of the most common use cases when it comes to streaming is the broadcast of sport events. In this case, someone in the neighbourhood watching the same event on television could rejoice and scream, hence spoiling the surprise for a scored goal.

To cope with such issues, we have worked on a novel architecture aimed to provide a web-based real-time multimedia streaming service capable to serve a very large number of users.
The framework we propose leverages techniques that have been successfully exploited in Content Delivery Networks (CDN) at the application level and in the field of the so called Software Defined Networking (SDN) for what concerns the underlying network infrastructure.
Our platform envisages the cloud-based deployment of several elements cooperating to deliver the service to end users. More specifically, the server side of our architecture is based on an overlay network of application level components configured to create a self-organized tree topology. Each node of the tree plays one of the following roles: (i) root (ii) relay (iii) leaf. The source of the stream, i.e. the broadcaster, sends multimedia flows to the root node which transcodes them in order to generate different quality replicas of the original flows. When new users try to access the stream (by simply opening a web page) they are directed by the framework to one of the leaves of the tree depending on the overall status of the network and/or on particular client side constraints (type of device, available bandwidth, etc.). A distributed algorithm is used to provide the root node with information about the overall load status of the network and to allow it to dynamically manage the content distribution chain (by adding or removing nodes).
As for the real time requirement, communication among broadcaster, internal nodes and final users relies entirely upon the upcoming WebRTC/RtcWeb (Real-Time Communication in Web-browsers) technology, which guarantees pure web based access to multimedia streams, as well as support for real time delivery of multimedia contents.

In the second part of the thesis, we focus on SDN enabled networks, once again basing our work on a study of current architectural and performance challenges. The acronym SDN stands for Software Defined Networks and it represents an innovative approach to networking, attempting to keep the pace of the substantial diffusion and utilization we are experiencing in the latest years. By developing an application on the top of an SDN, a network administrator can obtain a substantial degree of scalability and reconfiguration that they would not be able to reach in any other way.
We hence propose a framework for the performance optimization of the above mentioned streaming platform, as well as for the simplification of its management and administration.


This article reports findings from research about trans* citizenship in 14 post-socialist countries. It evidences substantial deficits concerning trans policy making, and a lack of policy debate in this area. Most examined countries have a lack of protocols for official gender change in birth certificates, IDs, passports and other documents. Usually there are no guidelines, measures and procedures defining the standards of healthcare for trans persons. Practice concerning healthcare varies widely, and trans people and advocates exercise agency in negotiating access to care. The article suggests that trans citizenship studies need to foreground legal and social aspects of citizenship, as these are highlighted in the post-socialist context. Policy implications are discussed in relation to key citizenship debates including those concerning challenges to normative models of citizenship.


Elastic wave scattering of single spherical particle and the multiple scattering in particle-reinforced composite with imperfect interfaces are studied by the use of wave function expansion method. Four typical interfaces are obtained by appropriate selection of spring constants in the classical spring interface model, i.e. perfect interface, slide interface, rough interface and unbonded interface. The jump and continuous conditions of displacement vector and traction vector are used to derive the equation which the unknown expansion coefficients of the scattered wave field satisfy. Furthermore, the multiple scattering in composite reinforced by random distributed spherical particles is investigated. The effective velocity and attenuation of coherent waves and the dynamic effective moduli of composites are evaluated. The numerical simulation is performed for the SiC-Al composite. The influences of interface parameters on the scattering cross section, the effective velocity, the effective attenuation and the effective elastic moduli are discussed.


Twitter has been developed as an immense information creation and sharing network through which users post information. Information could vary from the world»s breaking news to other topics such as sports, science, religion, and even personal daily updates. Although a user would regularly check her Twitter timeline to stay up-to-date on her topics of interest, it is impossible to cope with manual tracking of those topics while tackling the challenges that emerge from the Twitter timeline nature. Among these challenges are the big volume of posted tweets (about 500M tweets are posted daily), noise (e.g., spam), redundant information (e.g., tweets of similar content), and the rapid development of topics over time. This necessitates the development of real-time summarization systems (RTS) that automatically track a set of predefined interest profiles (representing the users» topics of interest) and summarize the stream while considering the relevance, novelty, and freshness of the selected tweets. For instance, if a user is interested in following the updates on the "GCC crises», the system should efficiently monitor the stream and capture the on-topic tweets including all aspects of the topic (e.g., official statements, interviews and new claims against Qatar) which change over time. Accordingly, real-time summarization approaches should use simple and efficient approaches that can scale to follow multiple interest profiles simultaneously. In this work, we tackle such problem by proposing RTS system that adopts a lightweight and conservative filtering strategy. Given a set of user interest profiles, the system tracks those profiles over Twitter continuous live stream in a scalable manner in a pipeline of multiple phases including pre-qualification, preprocessing, indexing, relevance filtering, novelty filtering, and tweets nomination. In prequalification phase, the system filters out non-English and low-quality tweets (i.e., tweets that are too short or including many hashtags). Once a tweet is qualified, the system preprocesses it in a series of steps (e.g., removing special characters) that aim at preparing the tweet for relevance and novelty filters. The system adopts a vector space model where both interest profiles and incoming tweets are represented as vectors constructed using idf-based term weighting. An incoming tweet is scored for relevance against the interest profiles using the standard cosine similarity. If the relevance score of a tweet exceeds a predefined threshold, the system adds the tweet to the potentially-relevant tweets for the corresponding profile. The system then measures the novelty of the potentially-relevant tweet by computing its lexical overlap with the already-pushed tweets using a modified version of Jaccard similarity. A tweet is considered novel if the overlap does not exceed a predefined threshold. This way the system does not overwhelm the user with redundant notifications. Finally, the list of potentially-relevant and novel tweets of each profile is re-ranked periodically based on both relevance and freshness and the top tweet is then pushed to the user; that ensures the user will not be overwhelmed with excessive notifications while getting fresh updates. The system also allows the expansion of the profiles over time (by automatically adding potentially-relevant terms) and the dynamic change of the thresholds to adapt to the change in the topics over time. We conducted extensive experiments over multiple standard test collections that are specifically developed to evaluate RTS systems. Our live experiments on tracking more than 50 topics over a large stream of tweets lasted for 10 days show both effectiveness and scalability of our system. Indeed, our system exhibited the best performance among 19 international research teams from all over the world in a research track organized by NIST institute (in the United States) last year.


In online discussion fora, speakers often make arguments for or against something, say birth control, by highlighting certain aspects of the topic. In social science, this is referred to as issue framing. In this paper, we introduce a new issue frame annotated corpus of online discussions. We explore to what extent models trained to detect issue frames in newswire and social media can be transferred to the domain of discussion fora, using a combination of multi-task and adversarial training, assuming only unlabeled training data in the target domain.


Federated Learning allows the training of machine learning models by using the computation and private data resources of many distributed clients. Most existing results on Federated Learning (FL) assume the clients have ground-truth labels. However, in many practical scenarios, clients may be unable to label task-specific data due to a lack of expertise or resource. We propose SemiFL to address the problem of combining communication-efficient FL such as FedAvg with Semi-Supervised Learning (SSL). In SemiFL, clients have completely unlabeled data and can train multiple local epochs to reduce communication costs, while the server has a small amount of labeled data. We provide a theoretical understanding of the success of data augmentation-based SSL methods to illustrate the bottleneck of a vanilla combination of communication-efficient FL with SSL. To address this issue, we propose alternate training to `fine-tune global model with labeled data' and `generate pseudo-labels with the global model.' We conduct extensive experiments and demonstrate that our approach significantly improves the performance of a labeled server with unlabeled clients training with multiple local epochs. Moreover, our method outperforms many existing SSFL baselines and performs competitively with the state-of-the-art FL and SSL results.


: Using the Seldinger technique, a total of 5306 percutaneous femoral vein catheterisations were performed in the course of ten years. Two-catheter venovenous dialysis was performed 2357 times and single-needle technique 592 times. There were five important complications: severe retroperitoneal bleeding after perforation of the external iliac vein three times, fatal bleeding from the femoral artery once, and reversible damage to the femoral nerve once. The results indicate that for every 1000 percutaneous femoral-vein catheterisations one must expect one severe complication. However, by using the correct catheter technique, especially careful manipulation of the wire, complications can be largely avoided.


The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of melatonin on acute necrotizing pancreatitis (ANP) induced by glycodeoxycholic acid in rats. The induction of ANP resulted in significant increases in mortality rate, pancreatic necrosis and increased serum activity of amylase, alanine aspartate transferase (ALT), interleukin 6 (IL-6), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid, serum concentration of urea, tissue activity of myeloperoxidase (MPO) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in the pancreas and lung, and significant decrease of concentrations of calcium, blood pressure, urine output and pO (2). Melatonin inhibited the changes in blood pressure, urine output, pO (2), serum concentration of urea, and calcium, tissue activity of MPO and MDA in the pancreas and lung, LDH level in BAL fluid, and partially reduced serum activity of IL-6. Melatonin did not change serum activity of amylase, ALT, pancreatic damage and the mortality rate. The use of melatonin has a limited value on the course of ANP. It may be useful as a supportive treatment during ANP.


This paper describes a FEM-based computer system implemented by BethForge to model the open-die forging process and its application to product and process development. A brief overview of BethForge, the markets it serves,and the typical product development cycle is given. Alternative methods for modeling open-die forging are discussed and the advantages offered by FEM techniques due to recent advances in computer hardware and software are presented. The FEM-based modeling system that BethForge has developed in partnership with the Lehigh University Computer Integrated Manufacturing Laboratory (LU-CIM) and UES, Inc. is described along with the associated modeling methodologies. Several case studies are presented including 2D-axisyrnmedc simulation of head-forming, punch-forming, upsetting, and back extrusion, and the 3D simulation of ingot cogging.


ABSTRACT While it is increasingly common for live lectures to be recorded and made available online, there has been little exploration of how lecture capture usage fits within the wider context of digital resources available to students. Here the authors report on in-depth semi-structured interviews with first-year students taking both flipped and non-flipped classes in mathematics and physics at the University of Edinburgh. Through thematic analysis two conceptual themes emerged: (a) Supporting learning in live lectures and (b) Self-customisation of learning. Students saw lecture capture as just one of a number of digital resources available to them, and their choice of resource depended on resource affordances, the way in which information was presented in lectures and their beliefs about learning. Digital resources seemed to support learning in lectures through reducing the multi-tasking involved in note-taking and by providing a safety net for missed notes. Implications for teaching practice are discussed.


To the Editor. —The osmotic effects of acute hyperglycemia are becoming better understood. Although many such effects have been described, there has been little mention of diabetic hyperglycemia precipitating angle closure. We have recently seen such an occurrence. Report of a Case. —A 59-year-old man with a 15-year history of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and a six-year history of open angle glaucoma was seen by us in August 1985. His best corrected visual acuity was 20/60 OD and 20/40 OS. The applanation tensions were 22 mm Hg OU, while he was being treated with 4% topical pilocarpine hydrochloride, 0.5% timolol maleate, and 0.1% dipivefrin hydrochloride. The anterior chambers were of normal depth, and gonioscopy showed the angles to be open to at least the full trabecular meshwork for 360° in both eyes. Neither angle was thought to be closable. The optic discs had a cup-to-disc ratio of 0.8, and both fundi


Catholic psychotherapy in the post-war Netherlands. Boundaries, gender, and authority in the Terruwe Affair

 In Dutch historiography the Terruwe Affair is at the heart of an explanatory narrative which presents the professionalization of religion-based mental health as part of a liberation of Catholics from the clerically-enforced moral regulations and requirements of their Church. The affair culminated in an official warning by the Holy See in 1956 concerning moral standards in the treatment of mental health issues. This warning implicitly identified the academically-trained psychiatrist and psychotherapist Anna Terruwe (1911-2004) as a morally questionable practitioner. This article explores the manner in which Terruwe as a medical professional sought clerical and ecclesiastical approval for her psychotherapeutic practice. She embedded her psychotherapy in an ecclesiastically-approved theoretical framework, forged professional alliances with influential clerics, and attempted to enhance her professional status by appealing to divine authority. To her mind, her psychotherapeutic practice served the salvation of souls. This approach threatened to blur the already diffuse boundaries between psychotherapy and pastoral care, as her alliances with influential clerics challenged inner-church authority relationships based on differences of gender and state in life. This explains more clearly the official warning issued in 1956, but complicates at the same time earlier historiographical evaluations of Terruwe as a 'mental liberator' since she clearly tried to position herself as a psychotherapist operating under the tutelage of her church.


Cancer- and treatment-related cognitive changes have been a focus of increasing research since the early 1980s, with meta-analyses demonstrating poorer performance in cancer patients in cognitive domains including executive functions, processing speed, and memory. To facilitate collaborative efforts, in 2011 the International Cognition and Cancer Task Force (ICCTF) published consensus recommendations for core neuropsychological tests for studies of cancer populations. Over the past decade, studies have used neuroimaging techniques, including structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography, to examine the underlying brain basis for cancer- and treatment-related cognitive declines. As yet, however, there have been no consensus recommendations to guide researchers new to this field or to promote the ability to combine data sets. We first discuss important methodological issues with regard to neuroimaging study design, scanner considerations, and sequence selection, focusing on concerns relevant to cancer populations. We propose a minimum recommended set of sequences, including a high-resolution T1-weighted volume and a resting state fMRI scan. Additional advanced imaging sequences are discussed for consideration when feasible, including task-based fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging. Important image data processing and analytic considerations are also reviewed. These recommendations are offered to facilitate increased use of neuroimaging in studies of cancer- and treatment-related cognitive dysfunction. They are not intended to discourage investigator-initiated efforts to develop cutting-edge techniques, which will be helpful in advancing the state of the knowledge. Use of common imaging protocols will facilitate multicenter and data-pooling initiatives, which are needed to address critical mechanistic research questions.


Abstract This paper analyses a case study of the re-organization of a regional orthopaedic service. The purpose of the research was to demonstrate the utility of a model of large system change through a retrospective analysis of how the re-organization was planned, managed and implemented. The theoretical framework for the retrospective analysis of the case was the Coghlan and McAuliffe (2003) model of large system change. Documentary analysis allowed an understanding of the steps taken in the change process. Semi-structured interviews were retrospectively conducted with key stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of the change process. The Coghlan and McAuliffe model of large system change provided a very good structure for this retrospective analysis of the re-organization of orthopaedic services. It facilitated the exploration of a change that from an external perspective was considered successful. Through this exploration a number of important lessons have been highlighted. The analysis highlights the importance of a systems perspective. Interviewee responses demonstrate how failure to take adequate account of the system's future needs is likely to impact negatively on continuing progress in the orthopaedic services and on future change initiatives within the organization. This paper, through the retrospective analysis of a case study, uses empirical data to demonstrate the utility of a model of large system change. The findings highlight the weaknesses in change models that fail to pay attention to the consolidation and sustainability of change by neglecting the impact of the change on the wider system.


Abatacept modulates CD28-mediated T cell costimulation and is efficacious in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Its mechanism of action has not been fully elucidated but will likely reveal critical pathologic pathways in RA. We show that abatacept substantially modulated Ag-specific T and B cell responses in vivo. Ag-specific T cell proliferation was reduced, and the acquisition of an activated phenotype, characterized by upregulation of CD69, OX40, ICOS, and programmed death-1 and downregulation of CD62L, was suppressed. Furthermore, abatacept suppressed the production of inflammatory cytokines, such as IFN-γ and IL-17. These effects were associated with a failure of Ag-specific T cells to acquire the CXCR5+ICOS+ T follicular helper cell phenotype. This, in turn, led to a failure of these cells to enter B cell follicles, resulting in reduced specific Ab responses, despite normal B cell clonal expansion. To test the pathologic significance of this, we used a novel model of RA associated with breach of self-tolerance to self-Ag and demonstrated that abatacept prevented the emergence of self-reactivity. Thus, CD28-dependent signaling is required for optimal T follicular helper cell maturation and expansion, and its inhibition prevents loss of self-tolerance in a model of articular pathology. Thus, we provide a novel mode of action for abatacept with profound implications for its potential usefulness in early inflammatory arthropathies associated with autoantibody expression.


Thirty-one patients with proven acute myocardial infarction (MI) were studied prospectively at the time of admission to hospital and at 3, 7 and 18 days using 4 immune complex (IC) assays. Each assay showed an increased incidence of IC activity in MI with 76% of patients being positive in at least 1 assay on one or more of the sampling days. A positive IC assay did not show a significant correlation with cardiac failure, pericarditis, post MI syndrome or previous infarction. The presence of IC was found to correlate with serum C-reactive protein (CRP), serum enzymes and ESR and suggested that complexed CRP or other acute phase proteins may account for some of the IC activity found with less specific assays. The measurement of IC levels in MI has not proved helpful in the diagnosis, management or prediction of outcome in this disorder.