There are specific environments where potatoes contain much larger amounts of lead than is generally realised. Nevertheless, if we accept the hypothesis that human adults are only likely to be harmed if they absorb more than 100 micrograms of lead daily for extended periods(10) then only in rare instances are they apt to be adversely affected by eating potatoes. Medical data suggest that where children are involved the acceptable amounts of lead are significantly less. However, where potatoes do show evidence of contamination by virtue of their high lead content, the possibility of more general contamination should be investigated. The intake of lead from potatoes, if supplemented by lead provided from other foodstuffs, from air, and possibly from water, can well reach unacceptable amounts.Patterson's(12) claim that most people in industrialised countries are suffering from a chronic lead insult, does seem justified but, because of the remarkable ability of humans to adapt to some conditions, but how much this insult constitutes a menace to heath must be dealt with by medical men.


This paper is concerned with contemporary reforms to the institutional body responsible for overseeing the regulation of the medical profession in the United Kingdom: the General Medical Council (GMC). Recently the state has introduced legislation which has changed the organisation of the GMC and how it ensures medical practitioners are fit to practice. It is argued that these changes provide supportive evidence for the restratification thesis. This holds that rank and file practitioners are becoming subject to greater peer appraisal and review as a result of external pressure to reform medical governance and increase professional accountability mechanisms. But it is also noted that reforms in medical regulation are bound up with a broader shift in how good governance is conceptualised and operationalized under neo-liberal mentalities of rule as the state seeks to promote at a distance a certain type of citizen-subject congruent with the enterprise form within the risk saturated conditions associated with high modernity. The paper concludes that it is important to investigate contemporary reforms in the regulation of doctors while also bearing in mind the broader socio-political context so social scientists can better contribute to current debate concerning how best to regulate professional forms of expertise.


We develop a set of controlled, analytic approximations to study the effects of bubble collisions on cosmology. We expand the initial perturbation to the inflaton field caused by the collision in a general power series, and determine its time evolution during inflation in terms of the coefficients in the expansion. In models where the observer's bubble undergoes sufficient slow-roll inflation to solve the flatness problem, in the thin wall limit only one coefficient in the expansion is relevant to observational cosmology, allowing nearly model-independent predictions. We discuss two approaches to determining the initial perturbation to the inflaton and the implications for the sign of the effect (a hot or cold spot on the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature map). Lastly, we analyze the effects of collisions with thick-wall bubbles, i.e. away from the thin-wall limit.


This paper presents a new challenging information extraction task in the domain of materials science. We develop an annotation scheme for marking information on experiments related to solid oxide fuel cells in scientific publications, such as involved materials and measurement conditions. With this paper, we publish our annotation guidelines, as well as our SOFC-Exp corpus consisting of 45 open-access scholarly articles annotated by domain experts. A corpus and an inter-annotator agreement study demonstrate the complexity of the suggested named entity recognition and slot filling tasks as well as high annotation quality. We also present strong neural-network based models for a variety of tasks that can be addressed on the basis of our new data set. On all tasks, using BERT embeddings leads to large performance gains, but with increasing task complexity, adding a recurrent neural network on top seems beneficial. Our models will serve as competitive baselines in future work, and analysis of their performance highlights difficult cases when modeling the data and suggests promising research directions.


ABSTRACT The family Poxviridae contains two subfamilies: theEntomopoxvirinae (poxviruses of insects) and theChordopoxvirinae (poxviruses of vertebrates). Here we present the first characterization of the genome of an entomopoxvirus (EPV) which infects the North American migratory grasshopper Melanoplus sanguinipes and other important orthopteran pests. The 236-kbp M. sanguinipes EPV (MsEPV) genome consists of a central coding region bounded by 7-kbp inverted terminal repeats and contains 267 open reading frames (ORFs), of which 107 exhibit similarity to previously described genes. The presence of genes not previously described in poxviruses, and in some cases in any other known virus, suggests significant viral adaptation to the arthropod host and the external environment. Genes predicting interactions with host cellular mechanisms include homologues of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein, stress response protein phosphatase 2C, extracellular matrixin metalloproteases, ubiquitin, calcium binding EF-hand protein, glycosyltransferase, and a triacylglyceride lipase. MsEPV genes with putative functions in prevention and repair of DNA damage include a complete base excision repair pathway (uracil DNA glycosylase, AP endonuclease, DNA polymerase β, and an NAD+-dependent DNA ligase), a photoreactivation repair pathway (cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer photolyase), a LINE-type reverse transcriptase, and a mutT homologue. The presence of these specific repair pathways may represent viral adaptation for repair of environmentally induced DNA damage. The absence of previously described poxvirus enzymes involved in nucleotide metabolism and the presence of a novel thymidylate synthase homologue suggest that MsEPV is heavily reliant on host cell nucleotide pools and the de novo nucleotide biosynthesis pathway. MsEPV and lepidopteran genus B EPVs lack genome colinearity and exhibit a low level of amino acid identity among homologous genes (20 to 59%), perhaps reflecting a significant evolutionary distance between lepidopteran and orthopteran viruses. Divergence between MsEPV and theChordopoxvirinae is indicated by the presence of only 49 identifiable chordopoxvirus homologues, low-level amino acid identity among these genes (20 to 48%), and the presence in MsEPV of 43 novel ORFs in five gene families. Genes common to both poxvirus subfamilies, which include those encoding enzymes involved in RNA transcription and modification, DNA replication, protein processing, virion assembly, and virion structural proteins, define the genetic core of the Poxviridae.


The two polymorphs of lithium cobalt oxide, LiCoO2, present an opportunity to contrast the structural requirements for reversible charge storage (battery function) vs. catalysis of water oxidation/oxygen evolution (OER; 2H2O → O2 + 4H+ + 4e−). Previously, we reported high OER electrocatalytic activity from nanocrystals of the cubic phase vs. poor activity from the layered phase – the archetypal lithium-ion battery cathode. Here we apply transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction, voltammetry and elemental analysis under OER electrolysis conditions to show that labile Li+ ions partially deintercalate from layered LiCoO2, initiating structural reorganization to the cubic spinel LiCo2O4, in parallel with formation of a more active catalytic phase. Comparison of cubic LiCoO2 (50 nm) to iridium (5 nm) nanoparticles for OER catalysis (commercial benchmark for membrane-based systems) in basic and neutral electrolyte reveals excellent performance in terms of Tafel slope (48 mV dec−1), overpotential (η = ∼420 mV@10 mA cm−2 at pH = 14), faradaic yield (100%) and OER stability (no loss in 14 hours). The inherent OER activity of cubic LiCoO2 and spinel LiCo2O4 is attributed to the presence of [Co4O4]n+ cubane structural units, which provide lower oxidation potential to Co4+ and lower inter-cubane hole mobility. By contrast, the layered phase, which lacks cubane units, exhibits extensive intra-planar hole delocalization which entropically hinders the four electron/hole concerted OER reaction. An essential distinguishing trait of a truly relevant catalyst is efficient continuous operation in a real electrolyzer stack. Initial trials of cubic LiCoO2 in a solid electrolyte alkaline membrane electrolyzer indicate continuous operation for 1000 hours (without failure) at current densities up to 400 mA cm−2 and overpotential lower than proven PGM (platinum group metal) catalysts.


Objectives : To estimate with reasonable precision the prevalence of active trachoma (TF) inchildren aged 1-9 years and potentially blinding trachoma (TT) in adults 15 years and older inLaikipia District. Design: Baseline community based survey conducted from 22nd to 30th July 2007 using thestandardized WHO protocol Setting: Laikipia District of the Lift Valley Province of Kenya. Subjects: A total of 348 households were visited. 1,017 children aged 1-9 years and 1,225 adults aged >15 years were examined. Results: Ninety seven out of the 1,017 children had TF hence the prevalence of TF in Laikipia is 9.5% (95% CI: 6.3-13.9). 14 out of the 1,225 adults had TT. Prevalence of TT in Laikipia is 1.1% (95% CI: 0.5-2.4). Conclusions: Active trachoma is not a district wide public health problem in Laikipia. Potentially blinding trachoma (TT) is a district wide public health. Recommendations: District-wide mass antibiotic treatment is not justifi able but all the suspected endemic sub-locations should be surveyed and treated where necessary. There is need for TT surgical services in the entire district.


Purpose - The prices of old apartments in Taipei have reached record highs, with the market exhibiting a 'the older the building, the higher the price' inverse depreciation phenomenon. Because that real estate value includes not only use value, but also contains redevelopment value. This study examines the redevelopment value affected by redevelopment potential and by intensity of use and regional price levels of real estate parcels.Design/methodology/approach - This study is based on the hedonic price model and adopts a semi-logarithmic regression model to explore the depreciation effect.Findings - The results of this study showed that old buildings in Taipei do exhibit increasing value and thus inverse depreciation. The effect of building age on redevelopment value is that, the higher the expandable floor area ratio, the more intense is the inverse depreciation effect. Moreover, the higher regional price levels are, the more intense the age effect is. The combination of these two factors will have an intensifying effect on inverse depreciation.Originality/value - This study separated redevelopment value from real estate price, adopting a direct approach to explore the building age effect in redevelopment value, not only to avoid possible bias due to confusion inherent in the indirect analysis used in previous studies, but also to further clarify the role of redevelopment value in real estate value.


Abstract. Large compressions of the magnetopause are proposed to occasionally result from temporary encounters of the magnetosphere with dust streams in interplanetary space. Such streams may have their origin in cometary dust tails or asteroids which cross the inner heliosphere or in meteoroids in Earth's vicinity. Dust ejected from such objects when embedding the magnetosphere for their limited transition time should cause substantial global deformations of the magnetopause/magnetosphere due to the very large dust grain mass and momentum which compensates for the low dust density when contributing to the upstream pressure variation.


The financial crisis of 2008 devastated the American economy and caused U.S. policymakers to rethink their approaches to major financial crises. More than five years have passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, but questions still persist about the best ways to avoid and respond to future financial crises. In Across the Great Divide, contributors from academia, industry, and government analyze the financial crisis of 2008: its causes, effects on the U.S. economy, and the way ahead. The expert contributors consider post-crisis regulatory policy reforms and emerging financial and economic trends, including the roles played by highly accommodative monetary policy, securitization run amok, government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), large asset bubbles, excessive leverage, and the Federal funds rate, among other potential causes. They discuss the role played by the Federal Reserve and examine the concept of "too big to fail." And they review and assess resolution frameworks, considering experiences with Lehman Bros. and other firms in the crisis, Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act, and the Chapter 14 bankruptcy code proposal.


ABSTRACT . Women empowerment is an effort to enhance the capacity of women gaining access and control to economic, politic, social and cultural resources. It is also to strengthen self-development and self-confidence regarding ability to contribute and active participation in the process of decision-making, that reinforce development capability and self-concept. Women headed household empowerment program (Program Pemberdayaan Perempuan Kepala Keluarga – PEKKA)aims to cope and deal with any potential women headed household problems comprehensively through community organizing, in particular, related to class and gender inequalities in the community.  In order to achieve that objective, the strategy of project management of PEKKA focuses on five pillars, which are participatory, flexibility, mentoring and facilitating, sustainability, and decentralized. This study aims to assess the level of empowerment of women headed household after joining the PEKKA program.  The study employs qualitative approach, which is women headed household as a unit analysis.  Data gathering was through primary and secondary sources.  Primary data collected through participatory observation, in-depth interview, and focus group discussion, meanwhile secondary obtained through project related supportive documents.  The process of analysis data was using data reduction, data arrangement and presentation, interpretation, tentative argument and conclusion, and verification.  The study shows that the significance of the program encouragingly contributes to empowering women headed household through improvement of wellbeing, opens access to resources, increase critical awareness, as well as participation and control.  It is to the greater extent connects to the objective of the program.


Motivation The explosive increase of biomedical literature has made information extraction an increasingly important tool for biomedical research. A fundamental task is the recognition of biomedical named entities in text (BNER) such as genes/proteins, diseases, and species. Recently, a domain-independent method based on deep learning and statistical word embeddings, called long short-term memory network-conditional random field (LSTM-CRF), has been shown to outperform state-of-the-art entity-specific BNER tools. However, this method is dependent on gold-standard corpora (GSCs) consisting of hand-labeled entities, which tend to be small but highly reliable. An alternative to GSCs are silver-standard corpora (SSCs), which are generated by harmonizing the annotations made by several automatic annotation systems. SSCs typically contain more noise than GSCs but have the advantage of containing many more training examples. Ideally, these corpora could be combined to achieve the benefits of both, which is an opportunity for transfer learning. In this work, we analyze to what extent transfer learning improves upon state-of-the-art results for BNER. Results We demonstrate that transferring a deep neural network (DNN) trained on a large, noisy SSC to a smaller, but more reliable GSC significantly improves upon state-of-the-art results for BNER. Compared to a state-of-the-art baseline evaluated on 23 GSCs covering four different entity classes, transfer learning results in an average reduction in error of approximately 11%. We found transfer learning to be especially beneficial for target data sets with a small number of labels (approximately 6000 or less). Availability and implementation Source code for the LSTM-CRF is available at https://github.com/Franck-Dernoncourt/NeuroNER/ and links to the corpora are available at https://github.com/BaderLab/Transfer-Learning-BNER-Bioinformatics-2018/. Contact firstname.lastname@example.com Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


SUMMARY
2-D Finite Differences models are used to analyse the strain produced by gravity-driven sinking of dense rectangular inclusions through homogeneous and vertically stratified Newtonian salt. We systematically modelled the descent of dense blocks of different sizes and initial orientations (aspect ratios) representing the Main Anhydrite fragments documented within, for example, the Gorleben salt diapir. Model results demonstrate that size of the blocks is a governing parameter which dictates the amount of strain produced within the block and in the surrounding host salt. Initial block orientation (aspect ratio), on the other hand, causes fundamental differences in block deformation, while the resulting structures produced in the salt are principally the same in all models with homogeneous salt, covering shear zones and folding of passive markers. In models with vertically stratified salt with different viscosities, block descent takes place along complex paths. This results from greater strain accommodation by the 'salt formation' with the lowest viscosity and an asymmetrical distribution of initial vertical shear stresses around the block. Consequently, in these models, block strain is lower compared with the models with homogeneous salt (for the same viscosity as the high-viscosity salt), and sinking is accompanied by block rotation. The latter causes diapir-scale disturbance of the pre-sinking salt stratigraphy and complex sinking paths of the blocks. In particular, vertically oriented blocks sink into high-viscosity salt and drag with them some low-viscosity salt, while horizontal blocks sink in the low-viscosity salt. The resultant sinking velocities vary strongly depending on the sinking path of the block. Based on model results and observed structural configuration within the Gorleben salt diapir, we conclude that the internal complexity of a salt diapir governs its post-ascent deformation. Salt structure and its interaction with dense blocks should hence be considered in the assessment of the long-term stability of storage sites for hazardous waste.


This PhD thesis explores dialogue-based, "intimate" collaboration through the creation of new works for clarinet. It borrows from Grounded Theory in order to facilitate an analysis through which emergent themes within a dialogue-based
collaboration are discovered. The aim has not been to insist on one model of collaboration, but to discover methods for improving one's collaborative skills and to identify ways in which one benefits from a focus on dialogue in
collaboration. Furthermore, it aims to suggest that through collaboration one can make discoveries about the instrument: original contributions to clarinet technique are made within this thesis. The literature from which the research draws inspiration to further collaborative "technique" is cross-disciplinary and wide-ranging: it draws from social theory, collaborative creative writing, dance, the visual arts and of course, music. Added to this is a select discussion of collaboration throughout the repertoire of the clarinet. Finally, this consists of practice-based research. Seven new pieces for clarinet accompany the text.


Mosquitos are the most prolific invasive insect species contributing to spread of endemic or exotic diseases, which exert a large burden on human health. Humans continue to develop and use physical, chemical, and biological methods for control of mosquito-borne infections. However, mosquito control methods are usually more effective when they target larvae, density of which is closely associated with biological factors, such as the community index and the predator population. Predictive models of mosquito larval abundance were developed based on species richness and on diversity and richness index ratio of individual Odonata, Coleoptera and Hemiptera group (OCH index) to evaluate suitability of the models using r2 value and Akaike information criterion (AIC) score. The most suitable model had an r2 value of 0.532 and an AIC score of 2.659 and was employed to estimate mosquito larval abundance. The prediction model developed should help explain correlation between benthic macroinvertebrate communities and mosquito larval abundance.


The process dependence of Ir-based-alloy-coated Ni-based single crystal superalloys was investigated. An Ir-4at%Ta alloy, 10 μm thick, was coated on a Ni-based single crystal superalloy TMS-82+, by means of magnetron sputtering deposition (SD) and electron beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD). X-ray analysis revealed that the grain size of the as-SD-coated layer (∼20 nm) has five times smaller than that of the as-EB-PVD coated layer (∼100 nm), and the SD-coated specimens showed more rapid outer diffusion of Ni and Al from the substrate after annealing, than the EB-PVD-coated ones. On the other hand, the aluminizing treatment reduces the differences between the SD coated and EB-PVD coated specimens in terms of compositional distribution and oxidation resistance. This study also revealed that even without aluminizing, the simple annealing treatment enhances the oxidation resistance of the Ir-4%Ta-coated TMS-82+.


In this study I will examine two texts by the Congolese Author Sony Labou Tansi, namely The Seven Solitudes of Lorsa Lopez and Parenthesis of Blood. The aim of the research is to examine how and why the author uses techniques of allegory and magic realism instead of realism in his work. By closely examining the two texts and with the help of comparisons with his other works, I intend to show that the world he is representing is too fabulous to be rendered in a realistic manner. The use of allegory and irony in the text is a strategy that helps the author to challenge the oppression and despair in his society. The issue of gender is also important in both texts, therefore, I will examine how Labou Tansi portrays women in his works. I will do this by comparing his presentation of women to other female characters found in African canonical works by male writers.


Anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is a subtype of peripheral T‐cell lymphoma (PTCL) first described in 1985 as a lymphoid malignancy characterized by marked cellular pleomorphism, propensity to grow cohesively, tendency to invade lymph node sinuses and diffuse expression of CD30 1 . The discovery of the t(2;5), involving the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene on chromosome 2 and the nucleophosmin (NPM) gene on chromosome 5 in the majority of systemic ALCL, has soon pointed out that ALCL is a clinically and biologically heterogeneous disease. While ALK‐positive (ALK+) ALCL is usually characterized by onset in children and young adults and better prognosis, epidemiology, poor outcome and possibly genetic defects of ALK‐negative (ALK−) ALCL suggest that this neoplasms should be considered an independent pathological entity. The aim of this review is to illustrate clinical features, histology, immunophenotype, genetics and biology of ALCL and discuss possible relationship(s) among different T‐non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (T‐NHL). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Recently, prognostics is an active area and growth rapidly. In this paper, bearing prognostic has been studied in viewpoint of failure degradation as an object of prediction. This study proposes the application of relevance vector machine (RVM), logistic regression (LR) and ARMA/GARCH in order to assess the failure degradation of run-to-failure bearing simulated data. Failure degradation is calculated using LR and then regarded as target vectors of failure probability for RVM training. ARMA/GARCH based on multi-step-ahead prediction is employed for censored data. Furthermore, RVM is selected as intelligent system then trained by using run-to-failure bearing data and target vectors of failure probability estimated by LR. After training process, RVM is employed to predict failure probability of individual unit of bearing sample. The result shows the novelty of the proposed method which can be considered as machine degradation prognostic model.


When purchasing animals from abroad, agricultural enterprises often underestimate their demand for feed quality and feeding standards for ensuring genetically determined milk productivity. Therefore, increasing attention should be paid to raising local breeds. During the creation of new production relations, it is very important to preserve achievements of scientists and breeders. The widespread use of red steppe cows is due to good feed payment, unpretentiousness, and their adaptability to the steppe zone with its arid climate. There was a real threat of extinction of purebred red steppe cattle: with the intensification of dairy cattle breeding, as well as low milk productivity, these animals are inferior to the best dairy breeds by productivity, but they are better by endurance, resistance to diseases, and adaptability to extreme environmental conditions. Therefore, scientific research is needed on improving the productive and technological qualities of this breed using the best global gene pool of dairy cattle. This article presents the results of a study on the development of heifers of purebred red steppe cows and their Ayrshire and red-motley Holstein crossbreeds. Differences in the live weight indicators of the purebred and crossbred heifers were due to the effect of crossbreeding and intensive growing technology, which made it possible to maximize the genetic potential of the crossbred animals.
Keywords: breed, steppe red, Holstein, Ayrshire, live weight, feed costs, diet


Abstract Introduction and aims Prostate cancer (PC) is common and affects black African and Caribbean men disproportionally. Awareness of PC is low in these groups, but knowledge is lacking about other factors that may deter information seeking or getting tested for PC. The aim of the review was to appraise and synthesise research on knowledge and perceptions of PC among black men. Methods Four medical and social science databases were systematically searched and reference lists of relevant papers hand searched. Non-English publications were excluded. Qualitative findings were synthesised using comparative thematic analysis, to which quantitative findings were incorporated. Results 13 qualitative studies and 20 cross-sectional surveys were included. All except one were conducted in North-America. The analysis identified individual, cultural and social factors likely to impact on black men's awareness of, and willingness to be tested for, PC. Black men's awareness of personal risk of PC varied greatly between studies. Misunderstandings regarding methods of diagnosis and treatment were widespread. PC testing and treatment were perceived as threatening to men's sense of masculinity. Mistrust of the healthcare system, limited access to healthcare and lack of consistent, trusting relationships with health professionals were also prominent. Conclusion These factors could contribute to late PC diagnosis and should be taken into account when planning PC services and communicating with black men who seek prostate care. Further, the review demonstrated a need for high quality studies in Europe to determine the relevance of the review findings for black European men.


This comment discusses three recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in the cases of McElhinney v Ireland, Al-Adsani v UK, and Fogarty v UK. All three applications concerned the dismissal by the courts of the respondent States of claims against a third State on the ground of that State's immunity from suit. They thus raised important questions about the relation the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention)—especially the right to a fair trial and access to court enshrined in Arcticle 6(1)—and the law of State immunity.


Tuberculosis of the genito-urinary tract, while not a common disease, occurs frequently enough as a complication of generalized tuberculosis to warrant the serious consideration of the profession. To the physician who is called on to treat a case, realizing, as he does, that it is a condition in which treatment has been far from uniformly successful and for the most part merely temporary and palliative, I hope I have something of value to offer. Before outlining our treatment, at the Fitzsimons General Hospital, for genito-urinary tuberculosis, a brief review of the literature will be given and also our reasons for employing strictly medical procedures, the principle one of which is heliotherapy. Compared with other diseases, genito-urinary tuberculosis is conceded very little space or attention. In medical works this is explainable by the reason that the condition is not considered amenable to medical treatment, and only enough mention is made to


In this paper, we develop a distributed intelligent fuzzy learning controller for serpentine locomotion while doing lasso-type grasping in 3D environments. The novelty of our approach is not only in the control modularity but on a lasso type grasping having as a moving base the remaining snake links undergoing serpentine gait. Dynamical constraints due to environmental conditions are considered online by a genetic algorithm based evaluator, which evaluates the feasibility of behaviors suggested by the high level controller and modify them. Our approach is demonstrated on the simulation of our modular 12 link snake robot


Abstract Multilingualism has been regarded to be an academic disadvantage to students. Consequently, multilingual students have been a source of concern for most lecturers because of their perceived low academic proficiency in reading and comprehending academic texts written in English. This paper reports on a research study conducted to ascertain the effectiveness of using a translanguaging approach to assist students in understanding texts. Through discussion of the main ideas from the text in their own languages participants of the treatment group showed an improved understanding of the text, evidenced by the summaries they produced. The results show that instead of insisting on the monolingual use of English in reading instruction, it can be suggested that encouraging students to identify the main idea and overall meaning of texts should be at the heart of L2 reading instruction. This can be done by allowing students to translanguage during class/ group discussions where meaning will be negotiated until the main ideas are understood.


Bupropion can serve as a discriminative stimulus (SD) in an operant drug discrimination task, and a variety of stimulants substitute for the bupropion SD. There are no reports, however, of bupropion functioning as a Pavlovian occasion setter (i.e. feature positive modulator). The present experiment seeks to fill this gap in the literature by training bupropion in rats as a feature positive modulator that disambiguates when a light will be paired with sucrose. Specifically, on bupropion (10 mg/kg intraperitoneal) sessions, offset of 15‐second cue lights were followed by brief delivery of liquid sucrose; saline sessions were similar except no sucrose was available. Rats readily acquired the discrimination with more conditioned responding to the light on bupropion sessions. Bupropion is approved for use as a smoking cessation aid, and more recently has drawn attention as a potential pharmacotherapy for cocaine and methamphetamine abuse. Accordingly, after discrimination training, we tested the ability of cocaine (1–10 mg/kg), methamphetamine (0.1 to 1 mg/kg) and nicotine (0.00625 to 0.2 mg/kg) to substitute for the bupropion feature. Nicotine (0.05 mg/kg) and methamphetamine (0.3 mg/kg) substituted fully for bupropion; cocaine did not substitute. These results extend previous research on shared stimulus properties between bupropion and other stimulants to a Pavlovian occasion setting function. Further, this is the first report of nicotine and methamphetamine substitution for bupropion. The overlap in stimulus properties might explain the effectiveness of bupropion as a smoking cessation aid and highlight the possible utility of bupropion for treatment of stimulant use disorder.


This paper reports a numerical investigation of a periodic metallic structure sandwiched between two quartz plates. The volume comprised between the quartz plates and the metallic structure is infiltrated by a mixture of azo-dye-doped liquid crystal. The exposure to a low power visible light beam modifies the azo dye molecular configuration, thus allowing the wavelength shift of the resonance of the system. The wavelength shift depends on the geometry of the periodic structure and it also depends on the intensity of the visible light beam.


: Modifications in the technique for the performance of standard radical neck dissection have been used for the past 12 years at this institute. The use of transverse skin incisions, removal of the platysma muscle and proceedings from a posterior to anterior direction are stressed in this procedure. Primary healing, reconstruction and cosmesis have been quite good, and local recurrences have been minimal. The five year survival rates for each type of cancer of the head and neck are comparable with those obtained at other cancer referral centers.


Butirosin, an aminoglycoside antibiotic, is produced by Bacillus circulans B-3312. Experiments using recombined ribosomal and supernatant fractions from this strain and from B. megaterium KM have shown that the ribosome of both are sensitive to butirosin. The aminoglycoside 3'-phosphotransferase present in B. circulans modifies butirosin and neomycin in vitro but confers resistance only to the former in vivo. The phosphotransferase does not modifya detectable amount of extracellular butirosin while mediating resistance to the antibiotic. In vitro, however, the enzyme appears to protect against inhibition by butirosin by inactivating the bulk of the antibiotic in the system. An extrachromosomal element of unknown function has been detected in B. circulans.


Abstract History taught us that the best time to talk about adaptability and innovation is that of disruption, crisis and adverse conditions. This research paper addresses the pre- and post-pandemic learning environment in terms of online and classroom delivery. The main objective of this research paper is to analyze factors that have been impacted by the shift from face-to-face (or in person) to online learning practices, assessing elements related to a learning session as: logistics, participation adoption, tools, feedback and geographical span. As research method, the approach incorporates a case study on the European population of one of the major players in the service industry in analyzing European relevant training data points, over a period of three years. Reasoning of data comparison is aligned to data relevance, hence one-year pre pandemic versus two years in the forced virtual delivery of pandemic conditions. The main aspects under research were aiming for a found analysis of a sustainable shift while understanding the implications of such changes. The result of the study shows a positive learning landscape, with multiple opportunities for those ready to adapt, a trusted tool for sustainability and yet at the early age of becoming one of the core elements for keeping relevant in the business imperatives. The element of novelty in this study suggests impact, shift, dependability and responsibility for learning at scale; and the global impact of the adapted learning opportunities, such as awareness, relevance and adoption rate of learning offerings.


This book about Luther's theology is written out of a two-fold conviction. First, that many of our problems have arisen because we have not really understood our own traditions, especially in the case of Luther; and second, that there is still a lot of help for us in someone like Luther if we take the trouble to probe beneath the surface. It is an attempt to interpret Luther's theology for our own day. The fundamental theme of the book is the down-to-earth character of Luther's theology. In using this theme, Forde points out that we have failed to understand the basic thrust or direction of Luther's theology and that this failure has caused and is still causing us grief. Modern scholarship has demonstrated that Luther simply did not share the views on the nature of faith and salvation that subsequent generations have foisted upon him and used to interpret his thinking. This book attempts to bring the results of some of that scholarship to light and make it more accessible to those who are searching for answers today. The central questions of Christianity are examined in this fresh restatement of Luther's thought the God-man relationship, the cross, the sacraments, this world and the next, and the role of the church. The author presents the down-to-earth character of Luther's theology in the hope that it will help individual Christians today to be both faithful to God and true to their human and social responsibilities.


In seismic events, glass curtain walls undergo racking deformation, while the flat glass lites do not rack due to their high shear stiffness. If the glass curtain wall is not isolated from the building frame by specifically designed connections that accommodate relative motion, seismic racking motion of the building frame will demand significant resiliency of the sealant that secures the glass to the curtain wall framing. In typical four-sided structural silicone glazing systems used in buildings with unbraced moment frames, the magnitude of seismic racking is likely to stress the sealants significantly beyond the sealant design strength. In this paper, the extent of the expected seismic racking motion, the behavior of the structural silicone glazing when subjected to the expected racking motion, and the field performance of a building with four-sided structural silicone glazing during the Northridge earthquake are discussed. The details of a curtain wall design concept consisting of shop-glazed subframes connected to the building frame and the connections that accommodate seismic motion of the subframe relative to the building frame is developed. Specific recommendations are made for the design of the four-sided structural silicone glazing systems for seismic loads.


We provide a unifying view of statistical information measures, multi-way Bayesian hypothesis testing, loss functions for multi-class classification problems, and multi-distribution $f$-divergences, elaborating equivalence results between all of these objects, and extending existing results for binary outcome spaces to more general ones. We consider a generalization of $f$-divergences to multiple distributions, and we provide a constructive equivalence between divergences, statistical information (in the sense of DeGroot), and losses for multiclass classification. A major application of our results is in multi-class classification problems in which we must both infer a discriminant function $\gamma$---for making predictions on a label $Y$ from datum $X$---and a data representation (or, in the setting of a hypothesis testing problem, an experimental design), represented as a quantizer $\mathsf{q}$ from a family of possible quantizers $\mathsf{Q}$. In this setting, we characterize the equivalence between loss functions, meaning that optimizing either of two losses yields an optimal discriminant and quantizer $\mathsf{q}$, complementing and extending earlier results of Nguyen et. al. to the multiclass case. Our results provide a more substantial basis than standard classification calibration results for comparing different losses: we describe the convex losses that are consistent for jointly choosing a data representation and minimizing the (weighted) probability of error in multiclass classification problems.


Introduction The improvement of vascular health in the exercising limb can be attained by sprint interval training (SIT). However, the effects on systemic vascular function and on circulating angiogenic cells (CACs) which may contribute to endothelial repair have not been investigated. Additionally, a comparison between SIT and sprint continuous training (SCT) which is less time committing has not been made. Methods 12 women (22±2 yrs) completed 12 sessions of either SIT (n = 6) or work-matched SCT (n = 6) on 3 days/week. Pre and post-training assessments included brachial artery endothelial function and peripheral blood analysis for CAC number (CD34+/CD34+CD45dim). CAC function was measured by migration and adhesion assays. Cardio-respiratory fitness, carotid arterial stiffness and carotid-radial and brachial-foot pulse wave velocity (PWV) were also evaluated. Results CD34+ CACs increased following training in both groups but CD34+CD45dim did not (Pre CD34+: 40±21/105 leukocytes, Post CD34+: 56±24/105 leukocytes, main time effect p<0.05). Brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) increased following SIT but SCT had no effect (Pre SIT: 5.0±3.4%, Post SIT: 5.9±3.0%, Pre SCT: 7.2±2.7%, Post SCT: 6.5±2.9%; group x time interaction p = 0.08). increased in both training groups (Pre: 34.6±4.6 ml•kg•ml−1, Post: 36.9±5.4 ml•kg•ml−1, main time effect p<0.05). CAC function, carotid arterial stiffness and PWV did not change after training (p>0.05). Discussion SCT involving little time commitment is comparable to SIT in increasing CD34+ cell number and . An increased mobilisation of CD34+ CACs suggests that sprint training may be an effective method to enhance vascular repair.


Marine mesocosm experiments were conducted using a natural phytoplankton assem- blage from the Tromsheim fjord, Norway, in June 2000. Replicate experiments were conducted at 2 inorganic nitrogen:silicon (N:Si) molar ratios, 4:1 and 1:1. Time course changes in the different groups that comprised the microplanktonic community and inorganic nutrient concentrations were recorded. We sought to simulate these data using 3 alternative mathematical models based on a com- mon framework of functional groups and inter-group interactions following an earlier model. The functional groups incorporated within the model were bacteria, diatoms, dinoflagellates, phyto- flagellates, picophytoplankton, heteroflagellates and larger microzooplankton along with inorganic nutrients, dissolved organic matter and detritus. We modified the autotroph functional group sub- models to achieve different levels of model sophistication in terms of utilisation of nutrients (single (N) or dual (N:Si) inorganic nutrient models) and organism structure (biomass growth made a func- tion or extracellular or intracellular nutrient concentration). We tested the influence of different model formulations on simulations of particulate carbon (C) biomass and its partitioning amongst the microbial groups in the 2 different experimental nutrient regimes. To achieve satisfactory global simulations (both nutrient regimes) with a single-parameter set, it was found necessary to include a dual currency of both inorganic N and Si in the model, and to relate C biomass growth to the intra- cellular rather than extracellular concentration of the nutrient in the least relative supply. Models lacking these 2 features were unable to simulate N and Si and C biomass dynamics of the microbial assemblage in alternative conditions of high and low N:Si ratio.


Background This is a 63-year-old female hiker with normal corrected vision followed status post emergent surgery secondary to bilateral acute angle closure glaucoma (AACG). She was started on acetazolamide by a travel clinic for acute mountain sickness prophylaxis (AMS) prior to hiking Machu Picchu in Peru. Six days later, she rapidly developed blurry vision, headache and nausea. She had mild blurry vision at high altitude, but following descent, she rapidly developed near-irreversible blindness, with an intraocular pressure (IOP) of 60 mm Hg. She required bilateral iridotomies at the Hospital de Clinicas Pinchincha in Quito, Ecuador. Following the procedure, she was started on prednisone and high-dose acetazolamide. Her vision remained blurry with an elevated IOP of 15mm Hg, prior to flying back to the United States for further management. Objective Examining a rare case and understanding the mechanism behind acetazolamide-induced glaucoma. Design Case Report. Setting Machu Picchu, Peru; Hospital de Clinicas Pichincha in Quito, Ecuador; and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA. Participant A 63-year-old American hiker. Interventions Peripheral iridotomies in Ecuador and discontinuation of acetazolamide in the United States. Main outcome measurements Slit-lamp, iridotomy, and intraocular pressure readings. Results Return to baseline visual acuity with normal intraocular pressures following the discontinuation of acetazolamide. Conclusions AACG is a rare side effect of acetazolamide reported in few patients following cataract surgery. This is the first case report of acetazolamide-induced glaucoma seen in a hiker secondary to the prophylactic dose for AMS. This case report highlights the potential harmful side effects of acetazolamide at low doses, pertinent for international hikers and any conditioned athletes who rapidly ascend or fly to high altitudes. Figure 1 Ciliochoroidal Edema. Figure 2 Ciliary Body edema (CB). .


Home users face increasingly higher risks of privacy loss and struggle with the difficult task of protecting large volumes of personal information. Most privacy research assumes that users have uniform privacy requirements. The main problem with this approach is that research has also shown that users have different privacy attitudes and expectations based upon a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) gender, age and education level. Privacy therefore can mean different things in different contexts, to different people at different times. For example, some uses are less concerned regarding the sharing and use of their location information while others will be very concerned. Therefore, it is important to factor these requirements in to a privacy-awareness model that can enhance user's awareness and make more informed decisions to reduce their specific degree of exposure. The quantity and range of sensitive information also requires approaches that give users back the control over their data. Therefore, prioritization of privacy-related information based on an individual user basis should be utilised to ensure relevant and timely notification about privacy-related information that is important to the user. This paper presents a critical analysis of the current state of the art and proposes a novel mobile-based architecture to provide users with effective and usable privacy protection.


Organizations have long been treated as stable and fixed entities, defined by concrete buildings, catchy names, and strategic goals neatly written on paper. The Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) school proposes an alternative, practice-grounded conceptualization for studying organizations as emerging in communicative (inter)actions. In so doing, CCO invites organizational scholars to trace back organizational phenomena to how they are communicated into existence. The concept of ventriloquism can help us explain the communicative constitutive view as it depicts how various elements of a situation are communicated into being and make a difference in interaction. However, ventriloquism lacks a proper methodological outline. Taking employee conversations about visions—a classic constituent of organizations—as our venue, we created a four-step framework for ventriloquial analyses and explored how visions are talked into existence. In this paper, we introduce and illustrate our analytical framework, showing how to identify, order, and present ventriloquial effects. We thus provide organizational (communication) scholars with a new methodological tool that facilitates the systematic inquiry into organizing and the organized from a communicative constitutive perspective.


We propose FuCoLoT -- a Fully Correlational Long-term Tracker. It exploits the novel DCF constrained filter learning method to design a detector that is able to re-detect the target in the whole image efficiently. FuCoLoT maintains several correlation filters trained on different time scales that act as the detector components. A novel mechanism based on the correlation response is used for tracking failure estimation. FuCoLoT achieves state-of-the-art results on standard short-term benchmarks and it outperforms the current best-performing tracker on the long-term UAV20L benchmark by over 19%. It has an order of magnitude smaller memory footprint than its best-performing competitors and runs at 15fps in a single CPU thread.


With 1 table

Abstract

Russian wheat aphid, Diuraphis noxia (Kurdjumov), is an important pest of wheat and barley in North America, Africa and the Middle East. Host plant resistance is the most economical and practical means of controlling this insect. Field and greenhouse screening in Syria of bread wheat lines from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas' (ICARDA) gene bank, using the Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy (FIGS), identified 12 lines resistant to D. noxia. These sources of resistance will be used to develop germplasm resistant to D. noxia for the highland areas of North Africa, and West and Central Asia, where this insect causes economic damage. This study also showed the relevance of the FIGS approach in better targeting accessions held in gene banks for valuable traits.


Purpose of review Adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) may experience anxiety specifically related to their medical condition. This review introduces the concepts of health anxiety and heart-focused anxiety, summarizes what is currently known about heart-focused anxiety among adults with CHD and offers suggestions to help adult CHD providers address heart-focused anxiety in their patients. Recent findings Although minimal research has been conducted specific to this outcome, health anxiety may occur at any point across the lifespan of individuals with CHD. A recent study found that children and adolescents with CHD reported greater health anxiety than community peers. Health anxiety was commonly reported among adults with CHD presenting for psychological assessment. It was linked with older age, trait anxiety, perceived parental overprotection and greater CHD complexity in one study. Summary Adults with CHD face many potential health-related stressors, including cardiac symptoms, treatments and interventions throughout the lifespan (including surgeries and other invasive procedures), the impact of CHD on daily lives and longer-term health expectations. Providers should be aware that heart-focused anxiety among patients is understandable and perhaps common. Patient-centred education and psychological intervention should be integrated within a comprehensive approach to long-term disease management.


Purpose:
To investigate whether modulating GSK-3β could attenuate myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury (MIRI) induced acute lung injury (ALI) and analyze the underlying mechanism.

Methods:
Male SD rats were subjected to MIRI with or without myocardial ischemic post-conditioning in the presence or absence of GSK-3β inhibitor. GSK-3β inhibitor was injected peritoneally 10min before MIRI. Lung W/D weight ratio, MPO, PMNs, histopathological changes, TUNEL, Bax, Bcl-2, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, GSK-3β, and caspase-3 were evaluated in the lung tissues of all rats.

Results:
After MIRI, lung injury was significantly increased manifested as significant morphological changes and increased leukocytes in the interstitial capillaries, Lung W/D ratio, MPO, and PMN in BALF, which was associated with enhanced inflammation evidenced by increased expressions of IL-6, IL-8 and reduced expression of IL-10. MIRI significantly increased cell apoptosis in the lung as increased levels of apoptotosis, Bax, cleaved caspase-3, and reduced expression of Bcl-2 was observed, which was concomitant with reduced p-GSK-3β. All these changes were reversed/prevented by ischemic post-conditioning, while these beneficial effects of ischemic post-conditioning were abolished by GSK-3β inhibition.

Conclusion:
Myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury induces acute lung injury by induction of inflammation and cell apoptosis. Ischemic post-conditioning protects the lung from ALI following MIRI by increasing p-GSK-3β.


ABSTRACT The paper will focus on the identification of several key criteria in e-discourses via the constitution of e-images of the Anonymous arising from e-medias (Facebook, twitter, Snapchat, WeChat, etc.) with a specific focus on youngsters and their (ab)uses of these communication channels to facilitate digital predation, and so to lead to e-victimization. I will explain the specifics of e-victimization discourse taking into consideration its triadic dimension. I will then be able to conceptualize a dominant e-communication and the e-victimization theory around central ideas of dynamics of violence, gender discrimination and power abuse leading to a semio-sphere with a deep focus on anonymity, exposure, frequency, and insecurity as indicators of collective e-delinquency and proneness to e-victimization.


Bulgaria held parliamentary elections on 5 October following the resignation of the country's government in July. We asked six experts in Bulgarian politics for their reactions to the result, which saw former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) emerge with the largest share of seats in parliament.

Dimitar Bechev: "Who's the winner then? Arguably, the smaller parties"
Aneta Spendzharova: "The new government will need a thick skin to solve the country's latest predicaments – and, perhaps, a hint of magic"
Boyko Vassilev: "Bulgarian media have a problem – public awareness on this issue is crucial"
James Dawson: "GERB finds itself in a very strong position internationally"
Cristina Chiva: "Given the options, the real question is whether GERB can afford to keep the Movement for Rights and Freedoms out of government"
Dragomir Stoyanov: "The elections show the increasing alienation of citizens from the democratic political process"


Many single-particle tracking data related to the motion in crowded environments exhibit anomalous diffusion behavior. This phenomenon can be described by different theoretical models. In this paper, fractional Brownian motion (FBM) was examined as the exemplary Gaussian process with fractional dynamics. The autocovariance function (ACVF) is a function that determines completely the Gaussian process. In the case of experimental data with anomalous dynamics, the main problem is first to recognize the type of anomaly and then to reconstruct properly the physical rules governing such a phenomenon. The challenge is to identify the process from short trajectory inputs. Various approaches to address this problem can be found in the literature, e.g., theoretical properties of the sample ACVF for a given process. This method is effective; however, it does not utilize all of the information contained in the sample ACVF for a given trajectory, i.e., only values of statistics for selected lags are used for identification. An evolution of this approach is proposed in this paper, where the process is determined based on the knowledge extracted from the ACVF. The designed method is intuitive and it uses information directly available in a new fashion. Moreover, the knowledge retrieval from the sample ACVF vector is enhanced with a learning-based scheme operating on the most informative subset of available lags, which is proven to be an effective encoder of the properties inherited in complex data. Finally, the robustness of the proposed algorithm for FBM is demonstrated with the use of Monte Carlo simulations.


: This self-study activity has been developed for nurses, estheticians, and other health care professionals whose patients use alpha-hydroxy acid (AHA) products. Skin anatomy and physiology are reviewed and information is presented on the mechanisms of action of AHAs. Cosmetic and therapeutic benefits of AHA-containing products are detailed. Factors that influence the safety and effectiveness of AHA products are explored, including concentration, pH, and the amount of free acid present. A method is detailed for applying AHA-containing chemexfoliating agents, and guidelines are offered for taking a patient history, post-procedure skin care, and applying subsequent peels.


Introduction Nintedanib can inhibit processes involved in the progression of fibrosis and can reduce the decline in forced vital capacity in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and fibrotic-interstitial lung disease (fibrotic-ILDs). Although the adverse events associated with nintedanib in IPF patients are well known, its safety in other fibrotic-ILD patients remained unclear. Methods We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL and Cochrane CDSR for randomized controlled studies which compared nintedanib with a placebo in ILD patients. We estimated pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for adverse events using the DerSimonian–Laird random-effects model. Results Six studies with a total of 2,583 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled estimates showed that patients treated with nintedanib had a significantly higher likelihood of having any adverse events (OR = 2.39; 95% CI = 1.71–3.36) or adverse events leading to treatment discontinuation (OR = 1.73; 95% CI = 1.34–2.25). However, they had trend to lower likelihood of having fatal adverse events (OR = 0.69; 95% CI = 0.41–1.14) compared with the placebo group. Use of nintedanib was positively associated with diarrhea (OR = 5.96; 95% CI = 4.35–8.16), nausea (OR = 3.00; 95% CI = 1.93–4.66), vomiting (OR = 3.22; 95% CI = 2.17–4.76) and weight loss (OR = 3.38; 95% CI = 1.1.76–6.47). Whereas, patients treated with nintedanib were less likely to have a cough (OR = 0.73; 95% CI = 0.56–0.96) and dyspnea (OR = 0.70; 95% CI = 0.53–0.94). Conclusions Compared to a placebo, nintedanib was associated with a higher risk of adverse events, especially for diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and weight loss, but it was also associated with a lower risk of cough and dyspnea in IPF and fibrotic-ILD patients.


Samples of Andrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Nees of different age i.e. after 30, 60, 90, 110 and 130 days of plantation with samples of different location were studied. Results of extractive value determination show that alcohol soluble extractive value was maximum and Pet. ether soluble extractive value was least. Among all samples studied alcohol soluble extractive value of LL sample was highest (23.42%) followed by QL sample. Results of physiological variation clearly indicate that both Chlorophyll a and Chlorophyll b were more in young plants than matured ones. Results also show that as Chlorophyll content decreases Carotenoids and Anthocyanin content increases.


Problem statement: The problem is to classify a given web query to a set of 67 target categories. The target categories are ranked based on the degree of similarity to a given query. Approach: The feature set is the set of intermediate categories retrieved from a directory search engine for a given query. Using direct mapping and Normalized Web Distance (NWD) the intermediate categories are mapped to the required target categories. The categories are then ranked based on three parameters of the intermediate categories namely, position, frequency and a combination of frequency and position. Results: The results proved that the third parameter gave a better result and a maximum of 40 search result pages ensure better results. Conclusion: With NWD as the similarity measure, the precision and recall is found to increase by 10% over the previous methods.


ABSTRACT Current literature suggests that while teacher educators perform a multitude of complex roles, they receive minimal preparation or possibilities for professional development to fulfil these roles. As a result, they need to acquire relevant knowledge and skills after taking on the position of teacher educators. Therefore, it is important to learn what skills and knowledge teacher educators need and how they acquire such skills and knowledge throughout their career. The purpose of this study is to describe the professional development needs and activities of 61 teacher educators across six national jurisdictions (England, Ireland, Israel, Norway, Scotland and The Netherlands) and to reveal influencing factors and affordances conducive to professional development. Semi-structured interviews constituted questions on professional learning opportunities and teacher education and research. Results from the interviews convey themes around the areas of (i) self-initiated professional development, (ii) the importance of experiencing professional development through collaboration with peers and colleagues, (iii) accessing opportunities to improve teacher education teaching practices, and (iv) the inextricable link between teaching and research and, consequently, the need to upskill in research skills. Discussion points that arise include the induction period, frustration and tension in navigation, haphazard professional learning and learning with, and from, each other.


Pulmonary sequestration is a congenital abnormality consisting of a mass of pulmonary tissue that presents an abnormal connection with the tracheobronchial tree, with a blood supply coming from an anomalous artery derived from the systemic circulation. Extralobar pulmonary sequestration is characterized by having pleural coverings that are independent of the normal lungs, with vascular supply usually coming from the aorta or from one of its branches. This diagnosis can be suspected prenatally if an abdominal mass, generally below the diaphragm, is seen. Here, we present a case of a neonate on the second day of life, with ultrasonography showing extralobar pulmonary sequestration located above the left adrenal gland that prenatally simulated a neuroblastoma.


In the following essay, I will examine the connection between phenomenality and finitude, a problem developed by Michel Henry in The Essence of Manifestation in the context of a close dialogue with Heidegger and Kant on the theme of time and self-affection. Henry's consideration of Kant's transcendental philosophy, and of his conception of time as self-affection, appears in § 24 of The Essence of Manifestation, in the context of what Henry himself terms the "problematique" of The Essence of Manifestation as such, the "critique of ontological monism." It does so, then, in the context of Henry's "interpretation of the essence of phenomenality… within the fundamental ontological presuppositions of monism," in which Henry situates, and develops, the decisive problem of the receptivity of transcendence. The conclusive moment of this critique is provided by Henry's ontological interpretation of Kant, through a point-by-point "contrelecture" of Heidegger's own Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. This constitutes only a final moment (or even a "simple repetition") of a long critical path, that was always directed to the "essential interconnection of being and human finitude," the "coappartenance" that, in the wake of Heidegger, contemporary phenomenological ontology would establish between the essence of phenomenality and finitude, on the basis of the transcendence of Dasein. The determination of the structure of the latter, which is the true task of Henry's 'ontological interpretation' of Kant, is initiated already in the first part of L'essence de la manifestation, which thus will be the focus of my analysis herein. My intention is to reconstitute the methodological and theoretical foundations on which rest, ultimately, the phanomenologische Aufweisung—in the Heideggerian sense of a "demonstration phenomenologique" and a "mise en lumiere"—of the internal incoherence of the ontological presuppositions of monism, as constitutes the pars destruens of this foundational work of Henry's phenomenology.


Background: Foreign bodies are most commonly diagnosed in stomach (proventriculus and gizzard) of galliformes birds and waterfowl. Endoscopyis routinely used to assess birds' respiratory, gastrointestinal and urogenital tracts. Endosurgeryis also used for sex determination and intra-coelomaticorgan biopsy. Benefits of endoscopic approaches are widely reported in birds. Conventional surgical approaches are far more invasive and risky for those patients. Thus, the purpose of this study was to describe a successful case of gizzard foreign body removal in a greylag goose (Anseranser), using a rigid endoscopic approach through a minimally invasive percutaneous access. Case: A 2-year-old female greylag goose, weighting 3,116 g, was referred to a Veterinary Teaching Hospital presenting apathy and anorexia for at least 24 h. The results on hematologic assessment were within normal range for the species. Radiographic examination indicated presence of radiopaque content, resembling gizzard sediment. Thus, the patient undergone to endoscopy for examination and aspiration of the content. The goose was fasted for 6 h. Anesthesia was induced by face mask and maintained by endotracheal tube, using isoflurane vaporized in 100% oxygen. The patient was positionedin the lateral recumbence. The patient's neck was longer than the working length of the rigid endoscope. Thus, the telescope was inserted into the esophagus following a small distal esophagotomy, carried out on the caudal third of the neck. A 0º 10-mm operative rigid telescope, with a 6-mm working channel, and a 5-mm diameter and 42-cm in length laparoscopic Babcock forceps were used. The endoscope was inserted through the esophagotomy up to the ventricle level. Sand sediments and stones were viewed. The stones were grasped and retrieved, and the sediments were rinsed with normal saline solution and aspirated with a suction cannula through the working channel of the telescope. Inspection following sediment and foreign body retrieval revealed moderate inflammation of the gizzard mucosa. Total procedure time was 24 min. The patient recovered uneventfully and was discharged following 72 h. Discussion: Rigid endoscopy provided accurate visualization of the thoracic esophagus, proventriculus and gizzard. In general, endosurgery is usually employed for sex determination in birds. It is also useful to access digestive tract using rigid endoscopy, in order to remove foreign body. Such minimally approach reduces postoperative morbidity, which is usually seen following conventional surgical approaches. This technique has been used for removal of foreign body in the digestive tract of several species. Foreign bodies found within crop should require ingluviotomy. However, could be easily removed by endoscopy. If the foreign body is within the proventriculus or gizzard, rigid endoscopy may be useful, as celiotomy could cause morbidity. The small esophagotomy access at the base of the neck was essential for the procedure. In short-necked birds, a 30º Trendelenburg positioning provides more caudal access to the digestive tract. In this case, such positioning was unnecessary. In conclusion, the use of an operative telescope provided accurate retrieval of foreign bodies and drainage of sediments within the digestive tract. Moreover, it can be used as a minimally invasive approach to foreign bodies in the esophagus, crop or stomach (esophagus and gizzard) of geese.


Hypopituitarism is an important consequence of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Growth monitoring can be used as an indicator of pituitary function in children. A retrospective audit of case notes of 123 children who required intensive care unit admission with TBI found that only 71 (33%) of 212 attendances in 38 of 85 children followed up had documented height and weight measurements. Children were reviewed in 11 different specialty clinics, which showed a wide variation in the frequency of growth monitoring. Serial growth measurements were available for only 22 patients (17%), which showed a reduction in height standard deviation scores (0.17 (SD 0.33), p = 0.017) over a mean follow-up period of 25.2 (SD 21.6) months. In conclusion, growth monitoring following TBI was poorly performed in this cohort, highlighting the need for a co-ordinated approach by primary and secondary care and all departments in tertiary centres involved in the follow-up of children with TBI.


Share capital market industry now is growing rapidly and significant value of their transactions reach hundreds of trillion rupiah with the risk can virtually so small that this is an opportunity to invest. But although have a small risk in investing needed a strategy or the right method to reduce a risk that will happen. One model that will be used to know the system performance of the portfolio is to use the model of constant correlation on business index 27th. This research is done with the period of 2 years i.e. early 2017 until the end of the year 2018 with stock data into Business index 27th. From the period of the research during 2 this year in the index heading 27th selected all shares are numbered 27 share. The results from the model of constant correlation on 27th Business Index is as follows: BBCA (44.76%), AKRA (35.91%), PTBA (12.10%) and BDMN (7.23%). Portfolio return (ERP) 27th Business index of 0.079917153, portfolios risk (?p) bisnsis 27th of 0.03149347. The results of the measurement of the performance of the portfolio using sharpe index of 0.123296087, 0.007067026 Treynor index of index and Jansen of 0.0069643. The results of the analysis show that the performance of the portfolio of shares of Business index 27th better, but the level of portfolio volatility index shares Busines 27th vulnerable to changes in the market.


The purpose of this systematic review was to identify trends in educational leadership and management (EDLM) knowledge production in the Arabian Gulf region, drawing on a database of 272 studies published in local (Arabic) journals over a 10-year period (2009–2018). The review focused on the geographic distribution of the literature, authorship trends, types of studies, research topics, research methods and data collection techniques. The study employed quantitative methods aimed at highlighting patterns of EDLM knowledge production rather than synthesising research findings. The study used the Arabic databases hosted by Dar Almandumah (EduSearch, EcoLink, IslamicInfo, AraBase, and Humanindex), in addition to the Shamaa database to identify relevant sources. The study found that the literature under investigation reflected many of the features characterising EDLM literatures from other developing countries, especially in terms of the types of studies, topical coverage and research methods. The most notable features included uneven geographic distribution, predominance of single-authored papers, absence of certain important topics, prevalence of empirical articles, and heavy reliance on quantitative research methods and data collection techniques. Recommendations were provided to improve future EDLM research in the region. The study supports findings from previous reviews of EDLM literature in the Arab region and highlights the need for more concerted efforts to enhance the quality and relevance of this literature to increase its ability to inform policy and practice.


A fiber-optic curvature sensor based on the singlemode-multimode-singlemode (SMS) fiber structure is developed. Several notches in the transmitted spectrum of the SMS fiber structure are generated due to the multimode interference effect. The dependence of the wavelength shifts and intensity changes of three transmission notches on the applied curvature are different from each other. The maximum sensitivities of wavelength-curvature and intensity-curvature relationships are - 10.38 nm/m-1 and - 130.37 dB/m-1, respectively. By properly choosing to measure wavelength shifts or intensity changes, high sensitivity measurement of curvature over a large scale can be obtained. The wavelength of the second notch is insensitive to the curvature change, offering the possibility for simultaneous measurement of curvature and other parameters such as temperature or strain.


In this paper, we study the problem of computing $U$-statistics of degree $2$, i.e., quantities that come in the form of averages over pairs of data points, in the local model of differential privacy (LDP). The class of $U$-statistics covers many statistical estimates of interest, including Gini mean difference, Kendall's tau coefficient and Area under the ROC Curve (AUC), as well as empirical risk measures for machine learning problems such as ranking, clustering and metric learning. We first introduce an LDP protocol based on quantizing the data into bins and applying randomized response, which guarantees an $\epsilon$-LDP estimate with a Mean Squared Error (MSE) of $O(1/\sqrt{n}\epsilon)$ under regularity assumptions on the $U$-statistic or the data distribution. We then propose a specialized protocol for AUC based on a novel use of hierarchical histograms that achieves MSE of $O(\alpha^3/n\epsilon^2)$ for arbitrary data distribution. We also show that 2-party secure computation allows to design a protocol with MSE of $O(1/n\epsilon^2)$, without any assumption on the kernel function or data distribution and with total communication linear in the number of users $n$. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our protocols through experiments on synthetic and real datasets.


How practice is/gets aligned with strategy is a topic of great interest for the SP literature. This paper is about the middle manager's role in enacting strategy through his practices and production of textual tools that provide a frame and sensegiving resulting in a local adjustment of the global strategy, contributing to a successful implementation. The important role of the middle manager as the interface between global strategy and strategy practice, particularly through his production of textual tools that creates alignment, is highlighted in an empirical study of a new strategy implementation in an organization. More specifically, this paper focus on the critical role a middle manager played in determining how a global strategy was enacted (strategy practice) and how the textual tools (materializing) managers produce shaped this strategy enactment by embodying his sensegiving and conveying it successfully to frontline staff. We used Latour works (1999; 1997) to inquire the materialization of strategy in textual tools (i.e.: how tools through materializing processes frame the multiple activities) and studied three different categories that we identified: operating texts, geography design and time/timing texts. Our findings are important in suggesting that enacted strategy is not only supported by traditional strategic tool, nor by oral activity, but mainly and structurally by the materiality that is produced by middle managers to give sense to the strategy to employees. Second we add value to empirical work on strategizing because of the diversity of our data: our sample included top managers, managers and employees, and various texts were documented. They gave us the capacity to analyze the important role of the middle manager as the interface between global strategy and strategy practice.


Limited studies have explored body size stigmatization in preschool children. The purpose of this study was to explore preschool children's perceptions of body size through the Adjective Attribution Task and the Drawing Task. Research was conduted with 23 preschool children from 36 months to 59 months old. Findings show that children associated more positive traits to the average size figure and more negative traits to the thin figure when presented with three figures of body sizes (thin, average, overweight). Children's responses revealed that they are aware of body sizes and in addition, they appear to stigmatize different body types. Future research in this area wil be important in order to help encourage the development of programs that can promote positive body image in young children. Furthermore, this study may encourage educators and practitioners working in community programs with children to use educational materials that reflect accurate depictions of body size.


Background : Gunshot injuries (GSIs) though a rarity in Nigeria before the Nigerian civil war have now become rampant with variable epidemiology. It is emerging as a common cause of trauma-related emergency hospitalizations. Aim: The study was aimed at reviewing the epidemiology of gunshot injuries in the emergency department (ED) of a Nigerian tertiary hospital over a 5-year period. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study of GSIs seen at the ED of Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Nigeria using data from medical records, patients' case notes, ED admission registers, and nurses' report books. The data collected included age, sex, place of the incidence, time of the incidence, time of presentation to the hospital, anatomic sites, and etiology of the injury. Results : The age ranged from 14 years to 80 years with mean age of 47 ± 8.1 years. There were 95 males and 22 females with a male to female ratio of 4.3:1. The three most common causes were armed robbery (31.6%), kidnapping (21.3%), and police brutality (17.9%). The incident predominantly affected the middle age group (57.3%), occurred mostly during the day time (72.6%), affecting mainly the lower limbs (65.8%) and majority (84.6%) of the victims presented 1 hour after the injury. None of the victims received prehospital care. Conclusion: There was variability in the epidemiology of GSIs with kidnapping and police brutality emerging among preeminent contributors and downward trend of armed robbery-related GSIs. The incident occurred predominantly during the day time and most victims presented late to the ED. Interventional strategies including the responsible security apparatus system are advocated.


In February 2003, a month before the invasion of Iraq, peace and anti-war activists around the world organised mass demonstrations. A coordinated international demonstration against the invasion started on Valentine's Day in Melbourne, Australia, with between 100 000 and 250 000 people in attendance. Australia was one of the countries supporting the United States-led invasion. The Melbourne demonstration was followed by massive demonstrations in cities around the world over the weekend of 14 to 16 February 2003. As many as 10 million people are believed to have voted with their feet against an invasion of Iraq, in what is said to the be largest internationally coordinated demonstration by human beings in history. This unprecedented achievement of hundreds, or probably thousands, of local peace groups working in synchronicity throughout the world gave a vision of the potential power social movements might have in the 21st century, including the ability to mobilise literally millions of people within only a few months. This raised the research question of just how this outpouring of support was achieved. Given that we live in an epoch of mass access to communication technologies, it suggested that information and communication technologies (ICT) may have been an important part of achieving the public support the peace movement received. The use of ICTs in the peace movement in Australia has been selected as a case study to investigate this proposition. The finding of this article is that there have been many constructive, innovative and successful uses of ICTs in the peace movement around Australia. The research also highlights many unrealised synergies among organisations investigated. Suggestions provided in the conclusion include that strength, endurance and creativity, as well as efficiency may be gained from a more organised approach to the peace movement at the national level and that ICT has a role in contributing to this.


The global gender gap in educational attainment, workforce participation, and political representation has narrowed in recent years. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the share of female legislators in national assemblies increased by 8 percent around the globe between 1998 and 2008, compared with a mere 1 percent increase over the previous two decades. About 200 million women have joined the workforce worldwide over the last decade, and gender equality has been reached in primary schooling in much of the world. Still, people around the world say gender inequalities persist in their countries and that more changes are needed to ensure that women have the same rights as men. In particular, many, especially in wealthy nations, say that men receive more job opportunities than equally qualified women and that life is generally better for men than it is for women in their countries. These are just some of the findings from a 22-nation survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project in the spring of 2010. The study also reveals that gender equality is generally embraced across the globe, even in some countries that have not made wide strides toward giving women the same opportunities as men. Still, there are some notable exceptions, especially on the issue of whether women should have the same right to jobs as men when economic times are tough. In many countries, there are significant gender gaps on these questions, with women expressing more support for gender equality and perceiving more gender disparities than their male counterparts. Support for Gender Equality Majorities in 21 of the 22 nations surveyed say women should have equal rights with men, and across 13 countries, more than 90 percent express this view, including 99 percent in Spain and France and 97 percent in Argentina, Germany, Britain, and the United States. Nigeria is the clear outlier--54 percent of Nigerians believe women should not have the same rights as men--while more than three-in-ten also reject equal rights in Indonesia, Egypt, and Jordan. In addition to the general concept of equal rights, people around the world also tend to believe that women should have educational and economic opportunities similar to those of men. In 18 of 22 countries, majorities disagree with the notion that a university education is more important for a boy than for a girl. More than 80 percent hold this opinion in the United States as well as in the Western European and Latin American nations surveyed. The strongest support for the idea that a college education is more important for boys is in India, where 63 percent agree with this notion. The survey also finds broad support for women entering the job market. Majorities in all 22 nations agree that women should be able to work outside the home. Moreover, publics in nearly every country surveyed say a marriage where both husband and wife have jobs and take care of the house and children is more satisfying than one where the husband provides financially while the wife cares for the household. However, support for women working outside the home and a preference for a more egalitarian approach to marriage do not necessarily mean that people think women should always have the same employment opportunities as men. Indeed, in half the countries polled, most people believe that when jobs are scarce, men should have more of a right to jobs than women. Overall, attitudes toward gender equality are tied to economic conditions, as higher levels of support for equality are consistently associated with greater per capita GDP. For instance, in the countries surveyed, the percentage of those saying that women should have the same rights as men is strongly correlated with per capita GDP. On the question of whether a man should have more right to a job than a woman when jobs are scarce, views are even more strongly correlated with GDP. …


Background: Quitline services are an effective population-wide tobacco cessation strategy adopted widely in the United States as part of state comprehensive tobacco control efforts. Despite widespread evidence supporting quitlines' effectiveness, many states lack sufficient financial resources to adequately fund and promote this service. Efforts to augment state tobacco control efforts might be fostered by greater knowledge of state level factors associated with the funding and implementation of those efforts. Methods: We analysed data from the 2004 North American Quitline Consortium survey and from publicly available sources to identify state level factors related to quitline implementation and funding. Factors included in the analyses were state demographic characteristics, tobacco use variables, state tobacco control spending, and economic and political climate variables. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were conducted. Results: The best fitting multivariate model that significantly predicted the presence or absence of a state quitline included only cigarette excise tax rate (p = 0.020). In terms of funding levels, states with high rates of cigarette consumption (p = 0.047) and with higher per capita expenditures for tobacco control programmes (p = 0 .0.004) were most likely to spend more on per capita operations budget for quitlines. Conclusion: State level factors appear to play a part in whether states had established quitlines by mid-2004 and the amount of per capita quitline funding.


A comparative study of the social, ethical and legal reasons why India has banned all forms of gender selection, and how those reasons apply in the context of a constitutional analysis of gender selection in the United State. India presents a unique example of the problems that can arise given unrestricted usage of gender selection. After decades of permitting gender selection, India has experienced drastic social ramifications in the form of a markedly skewed sex ratio, thus drawing international attention to their practices of selective abortion and female infanticide, the purposeful killing of unwanted female newborns. This paper also focuses on the potential effect of new technologies that allow gender selection to be performed prior to fertilization.


This paper presents a genetic algorithm to seek the optimal location of multi-type FACTS devices in a power system. The optimizations are performed on three parameters: the location of the devices, their types, and their values. The system loadability is applied as a measure of power system performance. Four different kinds of FACTS controllers are used and modeled for steady-state studies: TCSC, TCPST, TCVR, and SVC. Simulations are done on a 118-bus power system for several numbers of devices. Results show the difference of efficiency of the devices used in this context. They also show that the simultaneous use of several kinds of controllers is the most efficient solution to increase the loadability of the system. In all the cases (single-and multi-type FACTS devices), we observe a maximum number of devices beyond which this loadability cannot be improved.


An Environmental Risk Management methodology was developed for the Toka catchment area, an abandoned base metal mining site in Gyöngyösoroszi, Hungary. The postmining activities on the Hungarian site require the management of both the point and diffuse sources. The mobile Cd and Zn content of the mine waste, soil and sediment transported by water pose the highest environmental risk in the area. The approach is "GIS based" (Geographical Information System) and "catchment scale", using a three tiered, iterative Environmental Risk Assessment methodology. The model parameters of the metal transport were determined in leaching microcosms. The risk reduction concept aims at reducing the runoff water quantity and contamination by removal of the point sources and chemical & phytostabilisation of the residual and diffuse pollution. The planning of the field application was based on the results of the stabilisation microcosms.


Morphological, rheological and mechanical properties of various biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) (PBS)/poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) blends via conventional melt blending technique are studied. The morphology, rheology, and tensile properties of the PBS/PBAT blends were observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), rotational rheometer, and universal testing machine, respectively. The SEM micrographs of the PBS/PBAT blends reveal an occurrence of phase separation indicating by a presence of spherical particles/cavities for a range of 10 to 30 wt% (i.e. PBS90-PBS70), and 70 to 90 wt% (i.e. PBS30-PBS10) PBT content and co-continuous structure for a range of 40 to 60 wt% (i.e. PBS60PBS40) PBAT content. The rheological observation reveals that storage modulus (G'), loss modulus (G''), and complex viscosity (η*) for the PBS/PBAT lends exhibit similar tendency. The morphological properties of the blends appear to affect the tensile behavior of the PBS/PBAT blends.


Infra-red photoluminescence (PL) spectra of zinc and copper
related defects in silicon are presented in this thesis.
Seven new PL systems with principal zero phonon lines
at 919.8, 943.67, 945.8, 1033.5, 1059.9, 1090.7 and 1129.8
meV are discussed. All of the spectra can be classified as
being due to isoelectronic bound exciton ( IBE )
recombination. Although the identities of the binding centres
have not been conclusively established clear evidence has
been obtained in most cases for the involvement of at least
one specific transition metal ( TM ) impurity element.
The PL systems at 945.8, 919.8 and 1059.9 meV are all
observed in silicon diffused with zinc and another TM. The
945.8 meV system is observed in silicon diffused with zinc at
1100° C for 16 hours. The system is not created by
interstitial Mn and substitutional Zn as previously
suggested. The 919 meV system is observed in silicon
co-diffused with zinc and copper at 1100° C for 16 hours,
while the 1059.9 meV system is most clearly observed in
SisFeZn quenched from 1000° C.

For silicon implanted with zinc the 1129.8 and 1090.7 meV
systems are observed. Both of these systems have ground state
and excited state splittings placing them in a minority group
of IBE centres in silicon associated with deep acceptors and
including the indium and thallium systems.

The quenching rate is found to be crucial for samples
diffused with copper only. Slow quenches produce the 1034 meV
SK system. Zeeman studies on the zero phonon lines of this
centre reveal a singlet - triplet nature indicative of a
strong central cell potential about the defect as well as a
strong crystal field reaction. Rapid quenches combined with
*
low copper concentrations produces the 943.7 Cu PL system.
Uniaxial stress and magnetic field measurements on this
centre suggest that the two lowest energy transitions arise
from bound exciton recombination at a defect with tetrahedral
or near tetrahedral symmetry. Diffusion rate calculations
show that a single interstitial copper atom is not the most
likely configuration . A larger defect involving one or more atoms in a Td arrangement is more likely, perhaps similar to
to those already reported for the Mn4 and Li^ defects in PL
and for the NL22 Fe related centre in EPR.

It is concluded that diffusion is not a suitable method of
introducing transition metal impurities into silicon since
the process is extremely susceptible to contamination.
Implantation of the desired element followed by rapid thermal
annealing is suggested as a much more promising avenue of
investigation since this method affords much more control
over the concentration, implantation depth and most
importantly of all, the identity of the chemical element
introduced into the host crystal.


The Things in the smart Internet of Things (IoT) depend more on self decision making abilities instead of relying on human interventions. In the IoT, static security mechanisms are not well suited to handle all security risks sufficiently. A security mechanism can be considered static if it is developed with fixed security measures whereas an adaptive security mechanism can be considered dynamic if it can continuously monitor, analyse, and reassess a security risk at runtime. Adaptive security mechanisms can be a better choice to secure dynamic and heterogeneous computing systems in the IoT. This paper presents a patient monitoring scenario using the smart IoT and aims at highlighting all important assets, vulnerabilities, and threats that can harm assets and disrupt eHealth systems. We describe adaptive security and introduce a concept of adaptive security countermeasures for the smart IoT in eHealth.


Fareeha Zafar's book Canals, Colonies and Class: British
 Policy in the Punjab 1880-1940 is essentially an edited reproduction of
 her PhD thesis, The Impact of Canal Construction on the Rural Structures
 of the Punjab: The Canal Colony Districts, 1880 To 1940. The thesis was
 completed about 35 years ago at the School of Oriental and African
 Studies, the University of London (now SOAS, the University of London).
 She studies the British colonisation process in the Punjab and its
 effect on the local environment, the production patterns, and social
 relations, understanding that despite several similar studies on the
 region, no serious effort had been made to synthesise these issues the
 way she does in this book. However, in the form of a new book, the
 synthesis does not add much value as it reiterates the British
 colonisers' well-known strategies, namely irrigation development as a
 tool to settle disarmed forces and nomads and, thereby, strengthening a
 class of local landed elite to maintain their power in the colonies,
 their revenue-seeking policies, indebtedness of the landed class and
 alike. Nevertheless, considering the timing of the original
 contribution, the book, if read together with the contributions such as
 Khuhro (1978/1999) and Cheesman (1997), provides a relatively rich
 description of geographers' analyses of the British policies, their
 intentions, and their effects.


Abstract The objective of this study was to examine the unique contribution of social cognition to the prediction of community functioning and to explore the relevance of social cognition for clinical practice. Forty-six schizophrenia patients and 53 healthy controls were assessed with tests of social cognition [emotion perception and Theory of Mind (ToM)], general cognition, and, within the patient sample, psychiatric symptoms. Community functioning was rated by nurses or family members. Social cognition was a better predictor of community functioning than general cognition or psychiatric symptoms. When the contributions of emotion perception and ToM were examined separately, only ToM contributed significantly to the prediction of community functioning. Independent living skills were poor in patients with impaired social cognition. In controls, social cognition was not related to community functioning. ToM was the best predictor of community functioning in schizophrenia. However, to fully understand a patient's strengths and weaknesses, assessment of social cognition should always be combined with assessment of general cognition and psychiatric symptoms. (JINS, 2009, 15, 239–247).


Whereas most of the studies conducted nowadays to boost electrode performance in bioelectrochemical systems (BES) are focused on carbonaceous scaffolds, in this study we demonstrate that ice-templated titanium-based ceramics (ITTC) can provide a new alternative for this purpose. We combined the chemistry of titanium suboxides (Ti4O7) with an ice-templating technique (ISISA) to produce electrically conducting and highly porous (88% porosity) 3D architectures. The ITTC platforms were characterized by strongly aligned macrochannels that provided a direct path for substrate supply under a flow-through configuration, while supporting the growth of electroactive Geobacter sulfurreducens biofilms. This new electrode material is demonstrated to outperform graphite when used as an anode in bioelectrochemical reactors, providing volumetric current densities of 9500 A m−3, equating to projected current densities of 128.7 A m−2 and maximum power densities of 1.9 kW m−3. The performance of the ITTC scaffolds levels that of any of the available materials on the current state of research. The presented alternative may lead to the start of a branch into the exploration of conducting ITTC materials in the growing area of bioelectrochemical technologies.