Multilevel risk factors may increase the risk of experiencing intimate partner violence among women. The overall goal of this study was to provide a comprehensive view of factors that may be associated with three forms of intimate partner violence. The primary aim was to explore associations between understudied factors and women's experiences of physical and sexual violence and stalking by an intimate partner. Secondary analysis of existing health registry data was conducted. Our evidence-driven strategy was based on a multipronged analytical approach informed by existing literature and the social-ecological model. We created an evidence-based hierarchical list comprised of three tiers. Three separate multiple logistic regression analyses were performed. Several shared risk factors were retained across all three forms including low levels of formal education, past experiences of non- partner sexual violence, residential instability, presence of children, experiences of a traumatic event and panic attacks, status of receiving US government benefits, and barriers to healthcare access. Results contribute to future research on intimate partner violence prevention by providing preliminary evidence of emerging factors associated with experiencing three forms of intimate partner violence.


The research reported here and sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute was initiated to demonstrate the applicability and use of the finite element method for probabilistic assessment of the risk of turn insulation breakdown in large AC motors. Computer models were developed for computation of the electromagnetic transients in the AC motor windings. Mathematical models were developed to compute the risk of turn insulation breakdown. The application of the proposed approach was demonstrated for a typical installation. This allowed evaluation of the advantages of using the finite element method in terms of accuracy, efficiency, capability and limitations. It also identified the need for further research to facilitate the use of this risk assessment method by utility engineers.


SUMMARY: Adverse pregnancy outcome include two or more consecutive spontaneous abortions, intrauterine foetal death, intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight, stillbirths, early neonatal death and/or congenital anomalies. Maternal infections and infestations play a critical role in adverse pregnancy outcome. In Libya, scarce data exist on the roles of Toxoplasma gondii (T.Gondii) in the etiology of adverse pregnancy outcome. The aim of this study was to evaluate the seroprevalence of T. gondii in relation to previous adverse pregnancy outcome in pregnant women. We also aimed to find out the possible risk factors of acquiring this infection in Libyan women at Benghazi region. We included 143 pregnant women with adverse pregnancy outcome who attended Gynecology and Obstetric Department in Jamhoriya Teaching Hospital over a period of six months to estimate seroprevalences of IgM and IgG antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii. Serum samples were collected and assayed using quantitative ELISA technique. Out of 143 serum sample, 64 (44.8%) were positive for Toxoplasma. IgM seropositivities to Toxoplasma were 8.4%. All of those with high IgG and IgM positive cases gave a positive history of habitual abortion. Further remarks were obtained and will be presented and stressed.


Multifactorial risk factors such as HIV/HCV co-infection and antiretroviral therapy (ARV) have been associated with osteoporosis in HIV+ women. We retrospectively analysed which known risk factors were associated with the diagnosis of osteoporosis, according to the WHO definition, in HIV positive women who were followed-up at the AIDS Centre of the University of Palermo, Italy between January 2011 and December 2014. Twenty-one HIV+ women with osteoporosis (13 HIV+ mono-infected and 8 HIV/HCV co-infected females) who underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and liver stiffness assessment were included in the study. No significant differences between the HIV and HIV/HCV group were found regarding liver stiffness and lumbar/femoral osteoporosis scores. In a univariate analysis, we observed a positive linear correlation between LBD score (Lumbar Bone Density) with pre-fractures (p-value = 0.0082), smoke (p-value = 0.0008), alcohol (p-value < 0.0001) and ARV exposure score (p-value = 0.0039), while there were no significant negative linear correlations. In multivariate analysis, prefractures, smoke and alcohol were positive predictors of LBD score, while previous antiretroviral therapy (ARV) (years) score was a negative predictor compared to others. Univariate analysis showed a positive linear correlation between FDB (Femoral Bone Density) with smoke (p-value = 0.0303) and alcohol (p-value = 0.0050), while there were no significant negative linear correlations. In multivariate analysis, alcohol was a positive predictor of FDB score compared to others, while ARV score was a negative predictor compared to others. This preliminary study suggests that other factors besides ARV score and liver fibrosis may affect the skeletal system in osteoporotic women with HIV infection. Some of these factors, such as alcohol and smoking, are modifiable. Additional research into impact on osteoporosis in HIV women with osteoporosis is required. PhOL Serra, et al. 52 (pag 51-61) http://pharmacologyonline.silae.it ISSN: 1820-8620


Obesity has long been
recognised as a risk
factor for
the development of variety of
life
threatening diseases; examples
include diabetes mellitus and cardio vascular disease.
In
particular, in
young women,
it is widely
thought to predispose towards impaired
glucose tolerance and gestational
diabetes. Obesity is not only common but it is
increasing
in prevalence
despite the efforts made by individuals and their health
advisors to avoid
it.
Identification
of
factors contributing
to obesity could be useful
in
planning
preventative
policies.
Many
women relate the onset of
their obesity
to one or more of their pregnancies. We
now know
that there is more
to obesity
than the actual amount of excess weight. The
adverse metabolic effects of obesity are proved
to be greater when excess
fat
deposition
is
central rather
than peripheral. The idea
that fat deposition may be
directed
to different body sites with
different effects on glucose tolerance and
insulin
levels,
is
a relatively new concept.
The majority of
investigators have focused only on the magnitude of weight changes
during
pregnancy and postpartum.
There is
not much
information with regard to the compartmental changes
in body composition
during and after delivery. Most
studies
in
the developed world show maternal net
fat gain accompanying pregnancy. The
extent to which such
fat gain
is physiological, and what
is its beneficial
effects
is
unknown.
It is therefore
important to study the impact of other
factors with possible
effects on
fetal growth and maternal
body composition. The present work examines
further
the question of
fat
storage
by means of a
longitudinal
study to establish
changes
in body fat
content
during normal pregnancy and postpartum and also
its
relationship to maternal glucose
tolerance,
fetal metabolism, new-born anthropometry
and
infant
growth.
For
this purpose, 123 women were recruited at their first
visit to Antenatal Clinics
of
the Northern General Hospital, from which 73 completed 3 visits during
pregnancy
and 46
participated
in the whole course of the study. Maternal
anthropometry and
body
composition were measured at 13 (5
-
15), 24 (23
-
32) and 36 (34
-
41) weeks
gestation during pregnancy and also 6 weeks and 6 months postpartum. Skinfold
thickness measurements and Bio-electrical Impedance were used to assess the changes
in body
composition during pregnancy and postpartum.
Glucose
tolerance tests were performed at 28-31 weeks gestation.
Insulin
and/or C-
peptide
levels were also collected at birth and assessed
later. Infant anthropometry
(weight, length and
head circumference) were measured at birth, 6 weeks and 6
months postpartum.
The
subjects were
divided into four groups of under-weight, normal weight, over-
weight and obese, based on their early pregnancy BMI. The
statistical analyses were
performed on the whole group and also the groups were then compared
for
the above
mentioned variables.
The
two methods
(Skinfold thickness measurements and Bio-electrical Impedance)
showed a reasonable agreement
in
predicting the fat
changes during
pregnancy. A
considerable variation was observed,
however, between
the two methods
in
the
results
of changes
from early pregnancy
to postpartum. Therefore, direct interpretation
of
skinfold thickness (which was consistent with the converted version of
it
to fat mass)
was alone chosen
to derive the conclusions During
pregnancy, a
formula which
is
corrected
for hydration
changes during
gestation, was used to convert skinfold
thicknesses to fat mass. The
results confirmed
that a substantial net gain of
fat was made during pregnancy of which a significant
amount was still retained at 6 month postpartum. Maternal weight
increased (10.87
kg ± 4.67), but it
reverted
to the early pregnancy values by 6 months postpartum. The
rate of
fat
and weight changes was significantly higher in
the first half
of pregnancy
compared to later. The observed changes
in maternal weight and
fat mass, during
pregnancy were not significantly
different between the BMI groups
(normal weight,
over-weight and obese group). At the postpartum period, the obese group retained
more of the net
fat gain than the other
two groups. A state of redistribution of
fat
tissue was observed
in the subjects
in particular
in the obese group who had
a
tendency towards central
fat
retention.
Gestational fat gain was not directly
related
to infant birth weight.
In
this well
nourished population, maternal early pregnancy
lean body mass
(LBM) was the most
significant predictor of
infant birth weight.
There was a positive correlation
between maternal BMI and cord
insulin (r=0.44,
p=0.002) and/or C-peptide (r=0.33, p=0.008).
In addition higher levels
of
insulin
were observed
in large for gestational age
(LGA) babies in
comparison with the
average
for gestational age
(AGA) babies. These observations might have
an
important impact on the care of overweight women.
It may be
that
reduction of
maternal BMI in the prepregnancy period
in
the obese women would reduce the risk
of gestational diabetes and also the rate of
fetal hyperinsulinemia
and macrosomia.
Further investigation on
this hypothesis is needed.
In
summary; obese women
had significantly heavier babies
than the normal weight
women. Maternal fasting glucose was significantly correlated to infant birth weight.
On
the other hand, maternal
fasting glucose and the level
of
fetal insulinisation
was
significantly associated with maternal early pregnancy BMI. This is likely
to be a
metabolic effect operating
throughout gestation. What we can suggest
is
that
,
in
the
studies of maternal glucose metabolism and
fetal
growth, the confounding effects of
maternal BMI
should
be seriously considered


A case study of the first 35 years, 1945 to 1980, of the Swedish nuclear institution. The purpose is to discover which actors that have shaped the Swedish nuclear institution. By using the theories of historical institutionalism and advocacy coalition framework I have analyzed these 35 years in three separate parts. Historical institutionalism puts emphasis on the creation of an institution, and so have I. The creation phase goes from 1945 to 1972. The following two parts are critical junctures that spans the years 1973-1978 and 1978-1980. The first critical juncture deals with the Centre Party's reversal in their opinion on nuclear power, the 1976 election and the outcome of that election. The third juncture starts with the Harrisburg accident and ends after the 1980 referendum. Using the advocacy coalition framework to analyze the actions or actors and coalitions during these three phases, I have come to the conclusion that the industry actors, those that have built the reactors, have been the most successful in pushing their coalition's agendas, over the years. Their influence was considerable during the years of institutional creation, while the coalitions that opposed nuclear power were quite weak during this time frame, which is consistent with historical institutionalism's focus on the creation, and path dependence.


How did industrial museums cross the Atlantic? When the first American museums of science and industry were created in the 1920s, they looked to Europe in order to import what was seen at that time as a burgeoning cultural institution. In this article, I look at this process of appropriation through an analysis of the changing perceptions of European industrial museums as expressed in the reports, surveys and books written by the curators, directors and trustees of the New York Museum of Science and Industry. I will pay particular attention to the 1927 film Museums of the New Age, documenting the main national industrial museums in Europe, and to a 1937 report on the techniques of display at the Palais de la Découverte. I will argue that their contrasting assessment of European industrial museums, which in only ten years ceased to be seen as cathedrals of a new age to become old-fashioned storehouses, is symptomatic of the significant transformation of museums of science and industry as cultural institutions during the 1930s in the United States. Compone nt DOI: http://dx.doi .org/10.15180/160606/001


An important challenge to economists is to explain how financial contracts and institutions affect economic growth while simultaneously explaining how economic development elicits the creation and modification of an economy's financial structure. This paper addresses one side of this inherently two-sided issue. The paper shows how risk, transactions costs, and economies of scale in information gathering and resource coordination create incentives for the emergence of commonly observed financial institutions and contracts and how the resulting financial structure influences the steady state growth rate of per capita output. Policy can affect growth directly by altering investment incentives and indirectly by changing the incentives underlying the creation of financial structures.


A wide spectrum of the biological actions of nitric oxide and its oxidizing metabolites are mediated via mitochondria. Mitochondria are highly compartmentalized organelles consisting of three distinct compartments: the matrix, the intermembrane space, and the membranes. These compartments are different in their electrochemical properties, redox state, pH, enzymes, and ion content. Nitric oxide and its reactive species react within these compartments in distinct manners. The mitochondrial intermembrane space provides an environment that favors S-nitrosation, whereas nitration occurs largely within the matrix. This article will review some of the interactions of these species with certain mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes, apoptotic proteins, and enzymes. The reversibility and the suborganelle preference of these reactions will be discussed.


The biological surface has developed functional structures during long-term evolution, which inspires the development of biomimic materials for optical and optoelectronic applications. For example, the micropapillae and nanofolding structures of rose petals could enhance light absorption and color saturation. Here, the authors report a successful replication of rose hierarchical surface structures by simple and cost-effective processes. A variety of rose structured surfaces were investigated, which confirmed the diversity of functional surface architecture. The polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) negative replica was formed by casting PDMS solution on top of a rose petal followed by a temperature-assisted curing process. The hierarchical structure was further transferred into photoresist films by ultraviolet nanoimprint using the PDMS replica as molds. The imprinted photoresist films demonstrated uniform replications of rose microconvex cells with nanofolding details in the scale of a square centimeter. Super-hyd...


ABSTRACT The gram-negative gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori is equipped with an extraordinarily large set of outer membrane proteins (OMPs), whose role in the infection process is not well understood. The Hop (Helicobacter outer membrane porins) and Hor (Hop-related proteins) groups constitute a large paralogous family consisting of 33 members. The OMPs AlpA, AlpB, BabA, SabA, and HopZ have been identified as adhesins or adherence-associated proteins. To better understand the relevance of these and other OMPs during infection, we analyzed the expression of eight different omp genes (alpA, alpB, babA, babB, babC, sabA, hopM, and oipA) in a set of 200 patient isolates, mostly from symptomatic children or young adults. Virtually all clinical isolates produced the AlpA and AlpB proteins, supporting their essential function. All other OMPs were produced at extremely variable rates, ranging from 35% to 73%, indicating a function in close adaptation to the individual host or gastric niche. In 11% of the isolates, BabA was produced, and SabA was produced in 5% of the isolates, but the strains failed to bind their cognate substrates. Interleukin-8 (IL-8) expression in gastric cells was strictly dependent on the presence of the cag pathogenicity island, whereas the presence of OipA clearly enhanced IL-8 production. The presence of the translocated effector protein CagA correlated well with BabA and OipA production. In conclusion, we found unexpectedly diverse omp expression profiles in individual H. pylori strains and hypothesize that this reflects the selective pressure for adhesion, which may differ across different hosts as well as within an individual over time.


Despite its ubiquity in scholarly and popular publications, relatively few attempts have been made to interrogate the meanings and implications of the notion of "old media." This article discusses this notion in the context of theoretical debates within media and communication studies. Defining old media as artifacts, technologies, or in terms of their social use is problematic, because media constantly change, resisting clear-cut definitions related to age. The article therefore proposes to treat new media as a relational concept: not an attribute characterizing media as such, but an element of how people perceive and imagine them. Rhetoric, everyday experience, and emotions are key contexts where new ground can be found to redefine the concept of "old media."


Mass spectrometric techniques for the measurement of ²³⁰Th and ²³⁴U have been developed. These techniques have made it possible to reduce the analytical errors in ²³⁰Th dating of corals using very small samples. Samples of 8 x 10⁷ atoms of ²³⁰Th can be measured to an accuracy of ±130% (2 sigma), 6 x 10⁸ atoms of ²³⁰Th can be measured to an accuracy of ±29%, and 3 x 10¹⁰ atoms of ²³⁰Th can be measured to an accuracy of ±2%. The time range over which useful data on corals can now be obtained ranges from 15 to 500,000 years. The error in age (based on analytical error) for a sample that is 18 years old ±3 years (2 sigma). The error is ±5 years at 180 years, ±44 years at 8294 years, and ±1 ky at 123.1 ky. For young corals, this approach may be preferable to ¹⁴C dating. Fluctuations in climate result in changes in sea level because the ice stored in continental glaciers is ultimately derived from the ocean. Certain species of coral grow close to the sea surface. Fossils of these species therefore record the former height of the sea surface. The precision with which the age of a coral can now be determined makes it possible to determine, with some precision, the timing of sea level fluctuations in the late Quaternary. This record will allow a critical test of the Milankovitch hypothesis, which predicts the timing of Pleistocene climate fluctuations from changes in the distribution of solar insolation that result from changes in the earth's orbital geometry. Analyses of a number of corals that grew during the last interglacial period yield ages of 122 to 130 ky. The ages coincide with or slightly postdate the summer solar insolation high at 65°N latitude, which occurred 128 ky ago. This supports the idea that changes in Pleistocene climate can be the result of orbital forcing. Apparent fluctuations in sea level recorded on tectonically active shorelines are the result of both sea level change and vertical tectonic movement. If the record of sea level change is known (e.g., from the coral record in a stable area), this record can be subtracted from the record of apparent sea level change, in the tectonically active area, to yield a record of vertical tectonic movement. The precision with which coral ages can now be determined may allow us to resolve the ages of individual coseisimic uplift events and thereby date prehistoric earthquakes. This possibility has been examined at two localities, northwest Santo Island and north Malekula Island, Vanuatu. Previous work (Taylor et al., 1980, 1985a, 1987) showed (using the counting of annual growth bands to determine ages) that the tops of partially emerged coral heads at each locality died at the same time as the last major earthquake at each locality (MS = 7.5, 1973, on northwest Santo; and MS = 7.5, 1965, on north Malekula). It was concluded that the tops of these coral heads were killed by coseismic uplift. At each locality, there were also completely emerged coral heads, which were inferred to have been killed by earlier coseismic uplift events. These could not be dated by growth band counting because the coral heads were completely dead. The accuracy of ²³⁰Th ages of very young corals was tested by dating portions of three corals whose ages were known from the counting of growth bands. Within analytical error, the ²³⁰Th ages were the same as the growth band ages for all three samples (dates of growth by counting growth bands - A.D. 1971 to 1973, A.D. 1935 to 1939, and A.D. 1804 to 1810; dates of growth from ²³⁰Th measurements - A.D. 1969 ± 3, A.D. 1932 ± 5, and A.D. 1806 5 [2 sigma ±1) demonstrating that the ²³⁰Th ages were accurate. The ²³⁰Th growth dates of the surfaces of adjacent emerged coral heads, collected from the same elevation (1.2 m) on northwest Santo Island, were, within analytical error, identical (A.D. 1866 ± 4 and A.D. 1864 ± 4). This indicates that the corals died at the same time and is consistent with the idea that they were killed by coseismic uplift. Similar adjacent coral heads on north Malekula Island yielded ²³⁰Th growth dates of A.D. 1729 ± 3 and A.D. 1718 ± 5. The ages are similar but analytically distinguishable. The difference may be due to erosion of the outer, younger, portion of the latter coral head. Using the date of the large historical earthquake at each locality and the ²³⁰Th growth date of the emerged corals at each locality, recurrence intervals of 108 years for northwest Santo and 236 years for north Malekula are calculated. This experiment has shown that it is possible to date corals that grew in the past several centuries to accuracies of ±3 to ±5 years (2 sigma). The main problems with applying this approach to determine seismic histories will be associated with the preservation of fossil corals that have been killed by coseimic uplift and the ability to identify such features in the field.


This study assesses important aspects of human resource practices in small business enterprises. The data was analysed using both content analysis and Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings show that small business recruitment has been a problem for many years especially in identifying hard workers and trustworthy employees; thus some of the small business enterprise owners run their businesses solely on their own. As a result some of the small business owners employ assistants ranging from one up to five depending on the actual requirement of their business undertakings. In addition, the findings reveal that there are only two major challenges facing small business enterprises, those which are related to employees and others which are related to employers. Furthermore, the study shows the only compensation that has been identified is salary. Similarly, the findings show that most of the small business enterprises do not have a human resource policy, thus they can not enforce the existing labor laws policy, laws and procedures. Based on these findings, this study recommends that there is a great need of enforcing labor laws, small business enterprises having their own human resource policy, and Government, through VETA, supporting local initiatives or strengthening existing organizational forms.


This is a research guide that provides additional study aids and other tools for those who take Federal Taxation of Corporation and Partnerships course in Fall 2018.


Derivatives are one of the most exciting areas of finance. Exciting in this context means that there is a possibility of remarkable gain, but also a chance of devastating loss. Clearly, anyone contemplating an investment of this nature needs to have a thorough understanding of the mechanics of these types of instruments.


The aim of this paper is to explain the relevance of the theory of indirect communication strategy and negotiating conflict. Based on Thomas Schelling illustrates indirect communication cases: bribery and threats. It shows that both bribery and threats are rational preference mechanisms, whose functions can be expressed in non-linear diagrams. This analysis also contributes to the theory of strategic games very different from zero. Indirect communication is a fundamental basis for strategic action in various forms of conflict, from war to irregular traffic jams caused by vehicular traffic. Our particular interest in the bribery and the threat is related to common cases in the colombian conflict.


AIM
To identify the downstream regulated genes of GAEC1 oncogene in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and their clinicopathological significance.

METHODS
The anti-proliferative effect of knocking down the expression of GAEC1 oncogene was studied by using the RNA interference (RNAi) approach through transfecting the GAEC1-overexpressed esophageal carcinoma cell line KYSE150 with the pSilencer vector cloned with a GAEC1-targeted sequence, followed by MTS cell proliferation assay and cell cycle analysis using flow cytometry. RNA was then extracted from the parental, pSilencer-GAEC1-targeted sequence transfected and pSilencer negative control vector transfected KYSE150 cells for further analysis of different patterns in gene expression. Genes differentially expressed with suppressed GAEC1 expression were then determined using Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0 cDNA microarray analysis by comparing with the parental cells and normalized with the pSilencer negative control vector transfected cells. The most prominently regulated genes were then studied by immunohistochemical staining using tissue microarrays to determine their clinicopathological correlations in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by statistical analyses.

RESULTS
The RNAi approach of knocking down gene expression showed the effective suppression of GAEC1 expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell line KYSE150 that resulted in the inhibition of cell proliferation and increase of apoptotic population. cDNA microarray analysis for identifying differentially expressed genes detected the greatest levels of downregulation of calpain 10 (CAPN10) and upregulation of trinucleotide repeat containing 6C (TNRC6C) transcripts when GAEC1 expression was suppressed. At the tissue level, the high level expression of calpain 10 protein was significantly associated with longer patient survival (month) of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma compared to the patients with low level of calpain 10 expression (37.73 ± 16.33 vs 12.62 ± 12.44, P = 0.032). No significant correction was observed among the TNRC6C protein expression level and the clinocopathologcial features of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

CONCLUSION
GAEC1 regulates the expression of CAPN10 and TNRC6C downstream. Calpain 10 expression is a potential prognostic marker in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.


Research on housework labor saving and automation for housework robots is growing as the population grays and improved electronics are becoming available to the home. Special problems for housework robots include the enormous reecognition complexity needed if such robots are to be highly independent of the work environment. Robot must deal, for example, with the variety of "nonsolid" household objects. We studied the technology by which a robot handles nonsolid objects, focusing on putting clothing to order at a specified site. Concrete subtasks this involves include removing one type of clothing from a wash and spreading out, classifying, folding, and putting it in a specified place. This paper propose a "unfolding" planning strategy.


Wireless transmission of cortical signals is an essential step to improve the safety of epilepsy procedures requiring seizure focus localization and to provide chronic recording of brain activity for Brain Computer Interface (BCI) applications. Our group developed a fully implantable and externally rechargeable device, able to provide wireless electrocorticographic (ECoG) recording and cortical stimulation (CS). The first prototype of a wireless multi-channel very low power ECoG system was custom-designed to be implanted on non-human primates. The device, named ECOGIW-16E, is housed in a compact hermetically sealed Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) enclosure, allowing seamless battery recharge. ECOGIW-16E is recharged in a wireless fashion using a special cage designed to facilitate the recharge process in monkeys and developed in accordance with guidelines for accommodation of animals by Council of Europe (ETS123). The inductively recharging cage is made up of nylon and provides a thoroughly novel experimental setting on freely moving animals. The combination of wireless cable-free ECoG and external seamless battery recharge solves the problems and shortcomings caused by the presence of cables leaving the skull, providing a safer and easier way to monitor patients and to perform ECoG recording on primates. Data transmission exploits the newly available Medical Implant Communication Service band (MICS): 402–405 MHz. ECOGIW-16E was implanted over the left sensorimotor cortex of a macaca fascicularis to assess the feasibility of wireless ECoG monitoring and brain mapping through CS. With this device, we were able to record the everyday life ECoG signal from a monkey and to deliver focal brain stimulation with movement elicitation.


Archetypal Heresy: Arianism through the Centuries. By Maurice Wiles. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. vii + 204 pp. $55.00 (cloth). Like a dormant volcano that suddenly erupts and then returns to a state of uncertain quiescence, so "Arianism" has erupted onto the landscape of Christian doctrine on three occasions, according to Maurice Wiles, and each time has been pushed into seeming oblivion. Its opening appearance was, of course, in the early fourth century when the Alexandrian presbyter Arius and his episcopal supporters were first labeled "Arians" by Athanasius-a label which marked the beginning of a polemical construction that would be used to tar and feather anyone who sought his deposition. Only later did the label function as a reproach of any anti-Nicene sentiment. It is in this patristic period where Wiles has already made many important contributions to doctrinal history, especially in analyzing the anatomy of heresy and its relation to what became orthodoxy. Student and specialist alike will find here a useful summary of the central tenets of fourth-century "Arianism," or what the author calls "A Sympathetic Reconstruction" (pp. 5-26). Because Athanasius's denunciation of "Arianism" has so successfully dominated all subsequent opinion, the "Arian" appeal to Scripture, tradition and reason for theological vindication has generally been deemed a "deliberate cloak for other, sinister aims." Wiles seeks to counter-balance this impression by arguing that orthodox doctrine, i.e., pro-Nicene, was developed only in response to Arianism by distorting and misrepresenting it (p. 183). The triumph of the Nicene faith is, therefore, a dubious one at best and no more plausible a resolution of Christian doctrine than "Arianism." By the sixth century, Gothic Christianity had been catholicized and "Arianism" suffered its "first death." Nevertheless, charges of "Arianism" did not cease to be flung at later unorthodox opponents whose theology has little or nothing in common with the fourth-century phenomenon. In the sixteenth century, doctrinal positions as diverse as Socinianism (which is never defined for the reader), or the unitarianism of Michael Servetus, or modalism, or Anabaptistism or even Calvinism, were sometimes labeled as "Arian," although it was not the teaching of Arius that opponents had in mind as much its representative character. As "Arianism" was "the archetypal heresy and Arius the archetypal heretic" (p. 54), it had become polemically effective, and therefore commonplace, to damn one's opponents by association. The same methods are found again during the eighteenth century in Britain with the third rise of "Arianism" and the pivotal point of interest for Wiles. Chapter Four, "The Rise and Fall of British Arianism" comprises fully half of the book. Here one discovers why Newman and Gwatkin wrote so vociferously in defense of Athanaius against "Arianism" in the nineteenth century. The Lucasian professor at Cambridge University, Isaac Newton, was a closet "Arian," as was his more outspoken successor, William Whiston. …


ABSTRACT The goniopholidid Eutretauranosuchus delfsi is currently known from two skulls from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of Colorado. Here we present a detailed osteology for a third Eutretauranosuchus delfsi specimen (AMNH FARB 570), consisting of a skull and fragmentary postcranium from Bone Cabin Quarry, Wyoming (Morrison Formation). Additional preparation, computed tomography (CT), and three-dimensional processing of CT images reveal matrix-covered structures on AMNH FARB 570, provide new information on goniopholidid cranial anatomy, and allow for the first description of an articulated North American goniopholidid braincase. These new data, along with restudy of the palatal anatomy in Eutretauranosuchus, provide valuable insight into the phylogenetic history of goniopholidid crocodyliforms. The skull of AMNH FARB 570 is extremely similar to other specimens of E. delfsi and Amphicotylus spp., especially in details of the architecture of the palate. In these Morrison Formation goniopholidids the secondary palate is incomplete such that the nasopharyngeal passage has no ventral floor. Additionally, there is a complex septum, constructed from the vomers and pterygoid, which extends ventrally near to the plane of the secondary palate. Characters diagnosing Eutretauranosuchus delfsi include: (1) an elongate, platyrostral skull; (2) a prominent depression on the posterolateral surface of the alveolar process of the maxilla; (3) minimal lateral undulation of the maxillary tooth row; (4) broad- ening of the nasals anterior to the prefrontals; (5) nasals that do not contact external nares; (6) a broad, flat interfenestral bar with raised rims along the supratemporal fenestrae; (7) a nasopharyngeal septum formed from diverging vomeral processes anteriorly and a midline pterygoid process posteriorly (also in Amphicotylus lucasii, AMNH FARB 5782); and (8) a vomeral septal complex that forms an X shape in cross section. Based on a revised phylogenetic analysis of 88 crocodylomorph taxa, a novel phylogenetic hypothesis is proposed in which a clade of Calsoyasuchus + Sunosuchus is sister to a clade of Goniopholis baryglyphaeus + (Goniopholis simus + (Amphicotylus lucasii + Eutretauranosuchus delfsi)). Examination of secondary palate characters in Goniopholididae suggests that this group "experimented" with changes to the bony secondary palate a number of times, resulting in morphologies not seen other mesoeucrocodylian clades.


Advances over the past decade have presented new avenues to achieve control over material properties using intense pulses of electromagnetic radiation, with frequencies ranging from optical (approximately 1 PHz, or 1015 Hz) down to below 1 THz (1012 Hz). Some of these new developments have arisen from new experimental methods to drive and observe transient material properties, while others have emerged from new computational techniques that have made nonequilibrium dynamics more tractable to our understanding. One common issue with most attempts to realize control using electromagnetic pulses is the dissipation of energy, which in many cases poses a limit due to uncontrolled heating and has led to strong interest in using lower frequency and/or highly specific excitations to minimize this effect. Emergent developments in experimental tools using shaped X-ray pulses may in the future offer new possibilities for material control, provided that the issue of heat dissipation can be resolved for higher frequency light.


With a large amount of user activity data accumulated, it is crucial to exploit user sequential behavior for sequential recommendations. Conventionally, user general taste and recent demand are combined to promote recommendation performances. However, existing methods often neglect that user long-term preference keep evolving over time, and building a static representation for user general taste may not adequately reflect the dynamic characters. Moreover, they integrate user-item or item-item interactions through a linear way which limits the capability of model. To this end, in this paper, we propose a novel two-layer hierarchical attention network, which takes the above properties into account, to recommend the next item user might be interested. Specifically, the first attention layer learns user long-term preferences based on the historical purchased item representation, while the second one outputs final user representation through coupling user long-term and short-term preferences. The experimental study demonstrates the superiority of our method compared with other state-of-the-art ones.


An enzyme-linked immunoassay based on dual signal transduction mechanisms has been developed for detection of ovarian cancer biomarker CA125. The immunoassay uses a nanoelectrode array (NEA) chip and absorbance methods for the dual detection. The NEA is used to confirm the optical detection of CA125 that is carried out in a high-binding 96-well plate. An alkaline phosphatase (AP) enzyme was used to label the detection antibody to allow for both the optical and electrochemical detection of CA125. Two kinds of substrates were catalyzed by the AP enzyme. para-Nitrophenylphosphate (PNPP) produces chromogenic para-nitrophenol (PNP), which can be optically detected at 405 nm. para-Aminophenylphosphate (PAPP) produces electroactive para-aminophenol (PAP), which can be detected amperometrically between -0.1 and 0.3 V. The linear ranges have been determined to be 5-1000 U mL(-1) and 5-1000 U mL(-1) for the optical and electrochemical immunoassays, respectively. The limit of detection of the optical immunoassay is 1.3 U mL(-1) and 40 U mL(-1) for the optical and electrochemical methods, respectively.


This work addresses a Multi-Objective Shortest Path Problem (MO-SPP) on a graph where the goal is to find a set of Pareto-optimal solutions from a start node to a destination in the graph. A family of approaches based on MOA* have been developed to solve MO-SPP in the literature. Typically, these approaches maintain a "frontier" set at each node during the search process to keep track of the non-dominated, partial paths to reach that node. This search process becomes computationally expensive when the number of objectives increases as the number of Pareto-optimal solutions becomes large. In this work, we introduce a new method to efficiently maintain these frontiers for multiple objectives by incrementally constructing balanced binary search trees within the MOA* search framework. We first show that our approach correctly finds the Pareto-optimal front, and then provide extensive simulation results for problems with three, four and five objectives to show that our method runs faster than existing techniques by up to an order of magnitude.


BACKGROUND
Recent findings indicate that craving during alcohol withdrawal, also in abstinent patients, can relate to kindling phenomena caused by sensitization in temporo-limbic structures. Because limbic structures are involved in stress, anxiety, and emotional processing, kindling and temporolimbic seizure-like activity are also closely related to various psychiatric symptoms frequently presented without seizure disorders. Recent findings also show that these seizure-like processes are related to limbic irritability, which may also be significantly influenced by stressful life events.

MATERIAL/METHODS
The hypothesis tested in the present study is that limbic irritability could be closely related to craving symptoms. Therefore, limbic irritability and craving were assessed using psychometric measures in 40 alcohol-dependent patients and the results were compared with those of 40 healthy controls.

RESULTS
Statistical analysis showed highly significant correlation (r=0.75, p<0.0000001) between limbic irritability (LSCL-33) and craving (ACQ-R) and highly increased limbic irritability scores in the patients compared with the healthy controls.

CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that craving symptoms are related to the kindling process presented in the form of cognitive, affective, sensory, somatic, behavioral, and memory symptoms linked to limbic irritability and temporo-limbic seizure-like activity.


IP blacklists are a spam filtering tool employed by a large number of email providers. Centrally maintained and well regarded, blacklists can filter 80+% of spam without having to perform computationally expensive content-based filtering. However, spammers can vary which hosts send spam (often in intelligent ways), and as a result, some percentage of spamming IPs are not actively listed on any blacklist. Blacklists also provide a previously untapped resource of rich historical information. Leveraging this history in combination with spatial reasoning, this paper presents a novel reputation model (PreSTA), designed to aid in spam classification. In simulation on arriving email at a large university mail system, PreSTA is capable of classifying up to 50% of spam not identified by blacklists alone, and 93% of spam on average (when used in combination with blacklists). Further, the system is consistent in maintaining this blockage-rate even during periods of decreased blacklist performance. PreSTA is scalable and can classify over 500,000 emails an hour. Such a system can be implemented as a complementary blacklist service or used as a first-level filter or prioritization mechanism on an email server.


Modulatory actions of various biogenic amines and peptides on the locust forewing stretch receptor (SR) were examined. The response of the SR to sinusoidal wing movements was unaffected by physiological concentrations (5×10−8moll−1) of the peptides AKHI, AKHII, proctolin and FMRFamide. The biogenic amine octopamine, however, enhanced the SR response in a dosedependent manner when injected into the haemolymph of an almost intact animal or perfused over an isolated thorax preparation in which head, abdomen, gut and the entire central nervous system were removed (threshold at 5×10−8moll−1, maximal effect at 5×10−4moH−1 DL-octopamine). The SR was as sensitive to D-octopamine, the naturally occurring isomer of octopamine, as it was to DLoctopamine. Serotonin was equal to octopamine in effectiveness, followed in order of potency by synephrine, metanephrine and tyramine. Dopamine was ineffective. Phentolamine, but not DL-propranolol, antagonized the action of octopamine. The threshold of the modulatory effect of octopamine on the SR suggests that the increased haemolymph octopamine level which occurs during flight is sufficient to increase the SR activity. Two observations suggest that dorsal unpaired median (DUM) cells are involved in the octopaminergic modulation of the SR during flight: (1) selective stimulation of these cells modulated the SR response and this effect was blocked by phentolamine; and (2) a number of DUM cells were activated during flight. These results suggest that the SR activity is enhanced by octopamine following the onset of flight. Since the SR is involved in the control of wing beat frequency, the modulation of the SR might influence the generation of the motor pattern in flying locusts.


Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a thermogenic organ, which helps to protect body temperature against cold and can counteract metabolic disease. Numerous pathways modulate the activity of BAT in a highly regulated and coordinated manner to exert tight control over its immense calorie burning capacity. However, less is known regarding the transcriptional and epigenomic mechanisms controlling the thermogenic gene program of brown adipocytes. Here, we show that histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) is required for the activation of BAT enhancers to ensure thermogenic aptitude, thus enabling survival of dangerously cold environmental temperature. Loss of HDAC3 leads to deficient expression of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) and oxidative phosphorylation genes, resulting in an inability to survive severely cold temperatures. Mechanistic studies demonstrate BAT HDAC3 functions as a coactivator of the nuclear receptor estrogen-related receptor α (ERRα), through deacetylation of PGC-1α to promote enhancer activation and gene transcription. Remarkably, this coactivator function of HDAC3 is required for the basal expression of the thermogenic gene program and occurs independently of adrenergic signaling. Thus, HDAC3 primes Ucp1 and the thermogenic transcriptional program to maintain a critical capacity for BAT to enable survival of dangerously cold temperature. We further demonstrate that short environmental exposure to a moderate cold temperature circumvents the genetic requirement of HDAC3 for Ucp1 transcriptional activation. Environmental exposure facilitates a persistent epigenomic rescue mechanism permitting the prolonged expression of thermogenic genes and an acquired BAT aptitude to avert hypothermia. Notably, we discovered that moderate cold activates BAT ERRα enhancers in an HDAC3-independent manner. Together, these studies identify for the first time, that BAT HDAC3 coactivation of ERR enhancers promotes a basal thermogenic transcriptional program ensuring cold survival, while HDAC3-independent mechanisms, signaling from a moderate cold environment to genes, imparts epigenomic changes to influence the BAT thermogenic capacity against probable and impending dangerously cold temperatures. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Cell & Molecular Biology First Advisor Mitchell A. Lazar


The author has previously shown that solvable Lie A-algebras and complemented solvable Lie algebras decompose as a vector space direct sum of abelian subalgebras, and their ideals relate nicely to this decomposition. However, neither of these classes is contained in the other. The object of this paper is to find a larger class of algebras, containing each of these classes, in which these same results hold. Mathematics Subject Classification 2000: 17B05, 17B20, 17B30, 17B50.


The reform of the medical service dealing with occupational pathologies in the city of Kazan, introduction of new management conditions involving the market-economy tools and emergence, in this connection, of patient-care and prevention facilities of different organizational-and-legal types had a negative effect on the health of employees occupied at hazardous and dangerous enterprises. Data related with the system of periodical prevention measures undertaken for the sake of health protection of able-bodied population are elucidated; methods of promoting the structure and management of the occupational-pathology service functioning under the conditions of a big industrial city are suggested.


A key technology for the development of efficient and low-emission engines is the development of modern and efficient high pressure compressors with higher stage loading and improved efficiencies. A limiting factor for this is the decreasing stability which is accompanied with this development. A possibility to operate a compressor nevertheless in stable conditions is to keep a correspondingly large safety margin to the surge line, as done in the current design process of modern compressor. However, this method is contrary to the objective to develop compressors with higher efficiencies. Because mostly it is precisely near the surge line where the best efficiencies can be achieved. One way in which the objective of modern compressor designs can be achieved is to improve the detail knowledge of the secondary flows in a compressor passage. With this knowledge already in the development phase of a compressor the surge margin and unstable operating conditions can be verified and detected in advance. Furthermore, losses can be reduced and therefore the efficiency and the stage pressure ratio can be increased. Another aspect that can be taken into account with an improved knowledge of the secondary flow structures, is the increased understanding of the noise emitted by a compressor. Because the majority of the noise is generated by the interaction of unsteady fluid mechanics and aero-acoustic mechanisms. In recent experimental work on this subject, the authors focused primarily on a specific secondary flow structure and neglected the interaction of various structures with each other. Furthermore, the majority of studies was performed on linear cascades, leading to the fact, that some boundary conditions as they occur in real compressors are completely ignored. This thesis is now taking up the existing results in this subject and focuses on a detailed study of the secondary flow structures in a passage of a compressor stator. The questions, in what manner the individual secondary flow structures interact with each other and how these interactions change with varying blade loading are answered. In addition, a model is worked out based on detailed results.


The issue of borderline p -value seems to divide health scientists into two schools of thought. One school of thought argues that when the p -value is greater than or equal to the statistical significance cut-off level of 0.05, it should not be considered statistically significant and the null hypothesis should be accepted no matter how close the p -value is to the 0.05. The other school of thought believes that by doing so one might be committing a Type 2 error and possibly missing valuable information. In this paper, we discuss an approach to address this issue and suggest the test of random duplication of participants as a way to interpret study outcomes when the statistical significance is borderline. This discussion shows the irrefutability of the concept of borderline statistical significance, however, it is important that one demonstrates whether a borderline statistical significance is truly borderline or not. Since the absence of statistical significance is not necessarily evidence of absence of effect, one needs to double check if a borderline statistical significance is indeed borderline or not. The p -value should not be looked at as a rule of thumb for accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis but rather as a guide for further action or analysis that leads to correct conclusions.


Absence or deficit of FMR1 protein (FMRP) resulting from methylation of full mutation genes is the fundamental defect in fragile X syndrome. We used FMRP immunocytochemistry and detailed phenotypic assessment to investigate the relationship between degree of FMRP expression and the broad clinical spectrum of impairment in 80 individuals affected with fragile X syndrome. FMRP expression correlated with IQ in mosaic males (P=0.043), males with a partially methylated full mutation (P=0.0005), and females with a full mutation (P=0.046). In the females, FMRP expression also correlated with the number of fragile X physical features (P=0.0003). Even modest deficits in FMRP result in some manifestations of fragile X syndrome. In this initial study of 53 males, FMRP expression testing had a very high positive predictive value (100%, confidence interval of 29-100%) for a nonretarded IQ among males with expression of FMRP in > or = 50% of lymphocytes (3 males), suggesting that FMRP expression may have potential as a prognostic indicator in males with fragile X syndrome.


Summary
The usual arguments for decentralization by its advocates are that it can achieve accountability, transparency, participation and democracy. In reaching these goals, however, proponents of decentralization reform have articulated concerns about whether government officials have sufficient capacity to implement decentralization policies, particularly at local level. This article asserts that in Cambodia, where decentralization has unfolded gradually since its adoption some 15 years ago, lack of capacity is not the main problem. Decentralization is designed and implemented as part of the ruling political party's strategy to strengthen its grip at the sub-national level rather than as an exercise for improving accountability and democracy. Although decentralization is unlikely to lead to democratic gains, it does provide an opportunity for the rejuvenation of a patronage-based party in ways that could increase state capacity and improve development outcomes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


BACKGROUND
After the WHO recommended HPV vaccination of the general population in 2009, government support of HPV vaccination programs was increased in many countries. However, this policy was not implemented in Korea due to perceived low cost-effectiveness. Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze the cost-utility of HPV vaccination programs targeted to high risk populations as compared to vaccination programs for the general population.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Each study population was set to 100,000 people in a simulation study to determine the incremental cost-utility ratio (ICUR), then standard prevalence rates, cost, vaccination rates, vaccine efficacy, and the Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs) were applied to the analysis. In addition, sensitivity analysis was performed by assuming discounted vaccination cost.

RESULTS
In the socially vulnerable population, QALYs gained through HPV vaccination were higher than that of the general population (General population: 1,019, Socially vulnerable population: 5,582). The results of ICUR showed that the cost of HPV vaccination was higher for the general population than the socially vulnerable population. (General population: 52,279,255 KRW, Socially vulnerable population: 9,547,347 KRW). Compared with 24 million KRW/QALYs as the social threshold, vaccination of the general population was not cost-effective. In contrast, vaccination of the socially vulnerable population was strongly cost-effective.

CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest the importance and necessity of government support of HPV vaccination programs targeted to socially vulnerable populations because a targeted approach is much more cost-effective. The implementation of government support for such vaccination programs is a critical strategy for decreasing the burden of HPV infection in Korea.


Intestinal Perforation can occur in less than 1% of cases of ingestion of foreign bodies. Clinical suspicion is very important to make the diagnosis since many medical conditions can simulate this pathology. We present a case of a 63 years old man who swallowed a chicken bone that perforated the sigmoid colon and produced a clinical picture mimicking a perforated colonic diverticulitis. At surgery, the bone was removed without any evidence of abscess formation. A Hartmann procedure was performed and we reanastomosed it 3 month later. The patient followed an uneventful postoperative course. We demonstrated that early detection and opportune surgical treatment decrease the risk of developing complications such as abscess formation, intestinal fistula or obstruction.


Abstract Ever since the commencement of industrial-scale coal mining (in northeast England around 1600), substantial environmental impacts have been recorded as arising from both the mined voids and from the wastes left behind at the surface. In the early days of coal mining, complaints about such impacts were strident, as the newly established industry adversely affected long-established agricultural interests. When the coal trade had come to dominate regional economies in mining districts, its negative impacts came to be accepted as a necessary byproduct of the generation of coal-based wealth. It has only been since large-scale mine closures began to take place in the major coal-mining economies of the developed world during the last few decades that the negative impacts of coal mining have once more been deemed unacceptable. The environmental impacts arising from coal mining activities are fundamentally attributable to the exposure of reduced earth materials (especially coal, pyrite, siderite, and ankerite) to the oxidizing power of the Earth's atmosphere. The consequences range from the spontaneous combustion of coal to the release of acidic waters from pyrite oxidation. A typology of the known impacts arising from mine voids and wastes in coal mining districts has been developed, which recognizes many subcategories of impacts under five major headings: air pollution, fire hazards, ground deformation, water pollution, and water resource depletion. A robust understanding of geochemical processes is key to understanding how these impacts arise, and to developing sustainable mitigation strategies. The application of the newly developed typology is illustrated using the case of the Shilbottle Coalfield (Northumberland, UK). Although few demonstrable impacts have arisen in the categories of air pollution, fire hazards, or ground deformation, major problems of water pollution have required both preventative and remedial interventions. For the flooded underground voids, these took the form of a pump-and-treat system, whereas emissions of leachates from surface spoil heaps have necessitated the installation of an innovative 'hybrid' passive treatment system, comprising a permeable reactive barrier, oxidation ponds, and a wetland. Inverse geochemical modelling has clarified the linkages between the various types of water encountered in the coalfield, providing a baseline geochemical understanding upon which future investigations of remedial system sustainability can be based.


Inactivation of ribosomal proteins (RP) is known to cause diseases called ribosomopathies, which are often associated with abnormal hematopoiesis and an increased risk for development of leukemia. Our laboratory has recently reported an important link between inactivation of one such ribosomal protein, Rpl22, and poor survival in T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) patients. Preliminary bioinformatic analysis shows that RPL22 is lost in ∼10% of pediatric T-ALL patients, who exhibit a more aggressive disease course. Deletion of the RPL22 locus is also enriched in the early T-cell precursor (ETP-ALL) subset of T-ALL patients, which exhibit a more aggressive disease course. Thus, RPL22 loss appears to be a marker for poor outcome in pediatric T-ALL patients. While RP inactivation has previously been linked to increased cancer risk, the mechanistic basis for this linkage remained unclear. We have recently demonstrated that inactivation of Rpl22 promotes leukemic transformation by activating NF-κB and inducing the stem cell gene, LIN28B. Nevertheless, the molecular link between Rpl22 inactivation and the induction of NF-κB activity remained unclear. We have now determined that inactivation of Rpl22 activates NF-κB signaling by exacerbating ER stress responses. Indeed, Rpl22 loss results in hyperactivation of the PERK-EIF2a-ATF4 stress pathway, which is known to activate NF-κB. We have demonstrated that knockdown of PERK using shRNA abrogates the activation of NF-κB in Rpl22 mutant cells and returns Lin28B expression levels to baseline. This reduction in Lin28B eliminates the predisposition to transformation exhibited by Rpl22 mutant cells, as evidenced by decreased formation of colonies in soft agar. Taken together, these data suggest that RPL22 inactivation may serve as a negative prognostic indicator in T-ALL and that pharmacologic targeting of ER stress pathways may represent a novel therapeutic alternative in this molecularly-defined subclass of T-ALL. Citation Format: Nehal Solanki Patel, Noa Greenberg Kushnir, Shuyun Rao, Suraj Peri, Michele Rhodes, Panduka Nagahawatte, Charles Mullighan, David L. Wiest. Role of ribosomal protein, Rpl22 in regulating leukemic transformation. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 1269. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-1269


ABSTRACT The EU discourse on increasing female employment holds promise. The integration of women into the labour market supposedly supports economic growth, social cohesion, and citizenship. The question is, however, whether the expected consequences of female employment are consistent with reality. Using the EU discourse as a point of departure, this paper scrutinises the effects of female employment from a citizenship perspective in three European cities: Aalborg (Denmark), Leeds (England), and Bologna (Italy). Using survey data collected in the three cities, it quantitatively analyses whether employment counteracts poverty, supports social and political participation, and increases social trust. It also analyses whether there are spill-over effects from the different dimensions of citizenship; that is, whether poverty leads to social isolation, political apathy, and low levels of social trust. We find that unemployment is important for citizenship but that the differences between employed women and women outside the labour force are rather limited. We also find that the effect of a woman's position in the vertical and horizontal division of labour is rather limited, and no spill-over effects from economic hardship on other dimensions of citizenship exist. What matters for citizenship are personal and family characteristics as well as the city of residence.


Typhoid is still prevalent in many parts of the world. We reviewed all published and unpublished studies of a newly licensed vaccine composed of the Vi capsular polysaccharide of Salmonella typhi, the causative agent of the disease, which had been licensed previously outside the United States. These included observational studies and double-blind randomized studies done in the United States, Europe, and the developing world in which children and adults unexposed to typhoid or those living in endemic areas were enrolled. A single dose of 25 micrograms of the purified polysaccharide was given by intramuscular injection. The vaccine was well tolerated, inducing only minor reactions in fewer than 10% of subjects. An antibody response occurred in about 90% of subjects and lasted about 3 years. Seroconversion was shown in children as young as 2 years. Protective efficacy was evaluated in two studies conducted in areas in which typhoid is endemic; the efficacy was 55% and 75%, respectively, in adults and in children older than 5 years. The Vi vaccine compares favorably with other typhoid vaccines in regard to safety, patient compliance, immunogenicity, and efficacy. Vi polysaccharide is a well-standardized antigen that is effective in a single parenteral dose, is safer than whole-cell vaccine, and may be used in children 2 years of age or older.


ABSTRACT Vancomycin (VAN) is often used to treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia despite a high incidence of microbiological failure. Recent in vitro analyses of β-lactams in combination with VAN demonstrated synergistic activity against MRSA. The goal of this study was to examine the impact of combination therapy with VAN and a β-lactam (Combo) on the microbiological eradication of MRSA bacteremia compared to VAN alone. This was a retrospective cohort study of patients with MRSA bacteremia who received Combo therapy or VAN alone. Microbiological eradication of MRSA, defined as a negative blood culture obtained after initiation of therapy, was used to evaluate the efficacy of each regimen. A total of 80 patients were included: 50 patients in the Combo group and 30 patients in the VAN-alone group. Microbiological eradication was achieved in 48 patients (96%) in the Combo group compared to 24 patients (80%) in the VAN-alone group (P = 0.021). In a multivariable model, the Combo treatment had a higher likelihood of achieving microbiological eradication (adjusted odds ratio, 11.24; 95% confidence interval, 1.7 to 144.3; P = 0.01). In patients with infective endocarditis (n = 22), 11/11 (100%) who received Combo therapy achieved microbiological eradication compared to 9/11 (81.8%) treated with VAN alone, but the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.20). Patients with MRSA bacteremia who received Combo therapy were more likely to experience microbiological eradication of MRSA than patients who received VAN alone.


ABSTRACT The mitochondrial genetic differentiation of the Mediterranean horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus euryale Blasius, 1853, was investigated in southeastern Europe and Anatolia. Mitochondrial DNA tRNA-proline and control region sequences were used for the analyses. As a result of the phylogenetic analyses, two reciprocally monophyletic clades were found with very high support. The results suggested that secondary contact after allopatric differentiation in separate glacial refugia, and subsequent range expansion was the best explanation regarding the evolutionary history of this species in the region. The geographical distribution of the haplotypes also suggested that the Balkans and the Black Sea could be representing refugia from which the region was populated. There also was evidence for population expansion following a pattern of isolation by distance, with geographically more distant samples also being genetically more differentiated.


A novel method for simplifying adduct patterns to improve the detection and identification of peptide toxins using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry is presented. Addition of 200 microM zinc sulfate heptahydrate (ZnSO(4) . 7H(2)O) to samples prior to spotting on the target enhances detection of the protonated molecule while suppressing competing adducts. This produces a highly simplified spectrum with the potential to enhance quantitative analysis, particularly for complex samples. The resulting improvement in total signal strength and reduction in the coefficient of variation (from 31.1% to 5.2% for microcystin-LR) further enhance the potential for sensitive and accurate quantitation. Other potential additives tested, including 18-crown-6 ether, alkali metal salts (lithium chloride, sodium chloride, potassium chloride), and other transition metal salts (silver chloride, silver nitrate, copper(II) nitrate, copper(II) sulfate, zinc acetate), were unable to achieve comparable results. Application of this technique to the analysis of several microcystins, potent peptide hepatotoxins from cyanobacteria, is illustrated.


Testing of network protocols and distributed applications has become increasingly complex, as the diversity of networks and underlying technologies increase, and the adaptive behavior of applications becomes more sophisticated. In this paper, we present NIST Net, a tool to facilitate testing and experimentation with network code through emulation. NIST Net enables experimenters to model and effect arbitrary performance dynamics (packet delay, jitter, bandwidth limitations, congestion, packet loss and duplication) on live IP packets passing through a commodity Linux-based PC router. We describe the emulation capabilities of NIST Net; examine its architecture; and discuss some of the implementation challenges encountered in building such a tool to operate at very high network data rates while imposing minimal processing overhead. Calibration results are provided to quantify the fidelity and performance of NIST Net over a wide range of offered loads (up to 1 Gbps), and a diverse set of emulated performance dynamics.


Among various frameworks of intelligence, in general, feed-forward perceptron neural networks (FPNN) is a useful and common method, because of the network's ability to approximate highly nonlinear functions. Similarly, among various paradigms of learning, evolutionary-based algorithms such as genetic algorithms (GA) have gained increasing interest in recent years due to their ability to locate globally optimal solutions in nonlinear, noisy and uncertain problem domains. Here, we propose a cooperative co-evolutionary strategy for finding weights and structure of FPNN simultaneously. The new algorithm allows for separate populations of weights and structures of neural networks to coexist and cooperatively evolve thru two separate genetic algorithms. The proposed algorithm is simulated in RoboSoccer multi-agent environment, and is used for learning the "ball interception" skill of robot soccer players. Also, the convergence properties of the new algorithm are statistically compared with two other approaches as well as standard back propagation (BP) algorithm. Simulation results indicate that the proposed co-evolutionary approach is superior in terms of consistently finding improved solutions.


Variations in serum alkaline DNase activity before and repeatedly after standardized chemotherapy were examined in patients with head and neck carcinomas. The enzyme activity was measured by way of a modified spectrophotometric method. No variations of such activity observed in patients without therapeutic response or with minor response could be considered as a marker of primary or acquired resistance to chemotherapy. Distinct variations in serum alkaline DNase activity (a steep decrease after therapy followed a few weeks later by a regain of values higher than the initial value) correspond to complete or partial positive responses. Such observations of the variations in enzyme activity in relation to individual initial values measured before therapy could be considered as a reliable prognostic test for the therapy of many head and neck carcinomas.


The author reports the investigations performed in Panama, through colposcopy, colpocytology and directed biopsy for determining oncological risk. The results confirm the existing link between HPV--Dysplasia--Cancer.


We examine the role of trust in households' decisions to hold a bank account and to switch to a new bank. We explore Italian household-level data that contain restricted information on the banks that the households are doing business with, as well as measures of trust in the households' main bank and the banking sector. We find that households who distrust the banking sector are less likely to hold a bank account. Moreover, account holders are more likely to switch to a new main bank if they do not trust their current one. The estimated relationships persist over and above a range of socioeconomic variables. JEL Classification: G21, G28, D14


Studies were designed to explore the association of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and hepatic triglyceride lipase (HTGL) activities with lipoproteins in human postheparin plasma (PHP). The major peak of LPL activity after gel filtration of PHP eluted after the triglyceride-rich lipoproteins and just before the peak of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. When PHP contained chylomicrons, an additional peak of LPL activity eluted in the void volume of the column. Most HTGL activity eluted after the LDL and preceded the elution of high density lipoprotein cholesterol. LPL activity in preheparin plasma eluted in the same position, relative to lipoproteins, as did LPL in PHP. Gel filtration of purified human milk LPL mixed with plasma or isolated LDL produced a peak of activity eluting before LDL. During gel filtration of PHP in high salt buffer (1 M NaCl) or after isolation of lipoproteins by ultracentrifugation in high salt density solutions, most of the lipase activity was not associated with lipoproteins. LPL activity was removed from PHP by elution through immunoaffinity columns containing antibodies to apolipoprotein (apo) B and apo E. Since lipoproteins in PHP have undergone prior in vivo lipolysis, LPL activity in PHP may be bound to remnants of chylomicrons and very low density lipoproteins.


This paper studies a novel audio segmentation-by-classification approach based on Factor Analysis (FA) with a channel compensation matrix for each class and scoring the fixed-length segments as the log-likelihood ratio between class/no-class. The system described here is designed to segment and classify the audio files coming from broadcast programs into five different classes: speech (SP), speech with noise (SN), speech with music (SM), music (MU) or others (OT). This task was proposed in the Albayzin 2010 evaluation campaign. The article presents a final system with no special features and no hierarchical structure. Finally, the system is compared with the winning system of the evaluation (the system use specific features with hierarchical structure) achieving a significant error reduction in SP and SN. These classes represent 3/4 of the total amount of the data. Therefore, the FA segmentation system gets a reduction in the average segmentation error rate that is able to be used in a generic task.


Abstract Kelly, DT, Tobin, C, Egan, B, Carren, AM, O'Connor, PL, McCaffrey, N, and Moyna, NM. Comparison of sprint interval and endurance training in team sport athletes. J Strength Cond Res 32(11): 3051–3058, 2018—High-volume endurance training (ET) has traditionally been used to improve aerobic capacity but is extremely time-consuming in contrast to low-volume short-duration sprint interval training (SIT) that improves maximal oxygen uptake (V[Combining Dot Above]O2max) to a similar extent. Few studies have compared the effects of SIT vs. ET using running-based protocols, or in team sport athletes. Club level male Gaelic football players were randomly assigned to SIT (n = 7; 21.6 ± 2.1 years) or ET (n = 8; 21.9 ± 3.5 years) for 6 sessions over 2 weeks. V[Combining Dot Above]O2max, muscle mitochondrial enzyme activity, running economy (RE), and high-intensity endurance capacity (HEC) were measured before and after training. An increase in V[Combining Dot Above]O2max (p ⩽ 0.05) after 2 weeks of both SIT and ET was observed. Performance in HEC increased by 31.0 and 17.2% after SIT and ET, respectively (p ⩽ 0.05). Running economy assessed at 8, 9, 10, and 11 km·h−1, lactate threshold and vV[Combining Dot Above]O2max were unchanged after both SIT and ET. Maximal activity of 3-&bgr;-hydroxylacyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase (&bgr;-HAD) was increased in response to both SIT and ET (p ⩽ 0.05), whereas the maximal activity of citrate synthase remained unchanged after training (p = 0.07). A running-based protocol of SIT is a time-efficient training method for improving aerobic capacity and HEC, and maintaining indices of RE and lactate threshold in team sport athletes.


In the field of the mold-curved free surface polishing, how to control the removing depth of the polishing surface exactly is one of the important problems to be solved. In this paper, a mould automatic polishing system that is developed on Motoman-NL20 robot is used to make theoretical analysis and experimental research on the removing depth of the polishing surface based on a novel Spinning-Inflated-ballonet Polishing tool for curved surface of mould. Firstly, FEM (finite element analysis) software is used to emulate three kinds of situation in the process of polishing, then the model of surface removing depth of SBCT polishing is established. At last, through the analysis and comparison, the result of emulation and experiment has a remarkable consistency which accords with the model established by formal theory. This indicates the correctness of the model.


Africa is absorbing new socio-technologies such as eGovernment while simultaneously building basic norms and institutional frameworks for governance. This paper addresses the absence of adequate philosophical and methodological bases to theorize complex technology change in a postcolonial context. In this ongoing research, we evaluate Bhaskar"s Critical realism and associated writings as a robust analytical framework in the light of contemporary African philosophy and the notion of society as an open system. Societal openness is an axiom of critical realism; some researchers argue that in the light of empirical findings from complexity theory many natural systems are open severely limiting philosophies such as logical positivism. Secondly, by committing the epistemic fallacy, both positivism and interpretivism have limited analytical capability and only provide an impoverished account of reality. ICT discourse in Africa is dominated by the World Bank"s development for progress agenda that has received widespread criticism. Nascent alternatives to development movements are insufficiently grounded philosophically to mount an equal ideological challenge, despite divorcing themselves from Marxist and essentialist origins in post-colonial writings. Critical realism together with Complexity may provide an ontological and epistemological basis for such alternatives, with potential to shift discourse from the present non-productive focus on instrumental progress. Some challenges discussed include some problems with critical realisms account of the ontology of social systems, how to model and interpret complex contexts, and the interpretation of complexity theory models. For now, the challenge in Africa is ideological rather than practical, the new proposals have the potential to shift discourse to a more productive base for information systems change theories.


This Study was conducted on the challenges of implementing public procurement Act 2005. The objective of this study was to identifysuccesses, challenges and bottlenecks in the implementation of the PPDA with recommendations on how the successes can be replicated and the challenges surmounted. This research was conducted in selected secondary schools in Mombasa district. The study is significant to ministry of education, public secondary schools, BOGS and PTA committee members for it will enable them formulate policy to overcome the challenges faced in the implementation of PPDA in secondary schools Literature review: represent a review of other studies done relevant to this study. It also outlines a theoretical framework for the study. It was therefore important to review issues, concerning public procurement in Kenya and the rest of the world so as to understand the issue concerning public procurement Act. Under theoretical literature review several aspects of public procurement have been considered including: Public procurement disposal Act 2005, Challenges of implementing public procurement in developing countries. Changing role of purchasing procurement. Review of public procurement in Kenya and Change management and resistance to change. Conclusions and gaps were also done as well as conceptual framework. Research Methodologyr is made up of research design in which descriptive research design has been adopted; target population has also been identified as selected public secondaryschools in Mombasa district; w'hile simple random sampling technique wras used in this research. Data collection instrument was mainly questionnaires and interview of the key personnel involved in purchasing. Data was presented by frequency tables and analyzed using measures of central tendency such as mean, mode and medium. Major findings of the study is identification of challenges that the selected public secondaryschools faced in implementing PPDA, 2005; Lack of enough resources (cash) to implement the Act, Uncertainty of the flow of cash in the school, Lack of trained staff in procurement department, Lack of sensitization or training to tender committee members, Resistance to change by the implementers o f PPDA, Resistance to change by existing suppliers, Influence from external stake holders and the Size of the school. Recommendations is that there was need to provide adequate funds to the public secondaryschools for implementation o f procurement and disposal Act, strengthen procurement committees in schools. Amend the procurement law and to have procurement and stores department to handle issues o f purchasing. Individual public secondary schools were also required to recruit procurement personnel's as well as to train school tender committee members in terms of both formal as well as sensitization workshop.


This article focuses on the educational quality of the newly emerged quasi-state schools for rural migrant children in urban China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 government officers, school leaders, teachers and migrant parents in Shanghai. Adopting a theoretical perspective of policy as a temporary settlement of interests, the article deconstructs the power relations that constructed the disadvantaged positionality of these schools in the local school system. What can be identified from the empirical data is the emergence of an "interim quasi-state school system" with three interrelated features: it belongs to the state sector, offers quasi-state education and has an interim nature. Under the local government's low-cost and inferior schooling approach, the whole system is treated as an emergency mechanism for solving the floating children's schooling problem, rather than as regular schools offering high quality education. While realising the children's right to education, this system does not guarantee them a "good" education.


Based on a unique dataset of legislative changes in industrial countries, we identify events that strengthen the competition control of mergers and acquisitions, analyze their impact on banks and non-financial firms and explain the different reactions observed with specific regulatory characteristics of the banking sector. Covering nineteen countries for the period 1987 to 2004, we find that more competition-oriented merger control increases the stock prices of banks and decreases the stock prices of non-financial firms. Bank targets become more profitable and larger, while those of non-financial firms remain mostly unaffected. A major determinant of the positive bank returns is the degree of opaqueness that characterizes the institutional setup for supervisory bank merger reviews. The legal design of the supervisory control of bank mergers may therefore have important implications for real activity.


A strain of Zygosaccharomyces bailii was selected for studies on fructose and glucose transport to determine the basis of the fructophilic behaviour of this species. Fructose was transported by a specific low-affinity, high-capacity transport system with a K
m of 65.6 mM and a V
max of 6.7 mmol g-1 h-1 for cells grown on 2% (w/v) fructose, while the transport of glucose showed a K
m of 7 mM and a V
max of 1.7 mmol g-1 h-1 for cells grown on 2% (w/v) glucose. The transporter of glucose also fructose as a substrate. Fructose inactivated the glucose transporter; inactivation was faster at higher concentrations. Both transporters were partially inductive. Measurements of metabolic fluxes and respiration and fermentation rates supported the general features identified by transport measurements. The kinetics and regulation of transport of the two sugars confirm the fructophilic behaviour previously described by other authors.


The relationship between marital splits and personal income changes is of great relevance to social policy. The aim of this paper is to provide new longitudinal evidence for Britain about the relationship between marital splits and changes in personal economic well-being using data from the first four waves (1991-94) of the British Household Panel Survey. It finds that marital dissolution is associated with significant decreases in real income for separating wives and the children of separating couples, and that separating husbands do not fare as badly. The paper's conclusions about the different experiences of separating husbands and separating wives and children echo those of earlier studies for the United States, Germany and Canada. This is interesting because of the diversity of labour markets and welfare states across these countries and suggests that outcomes may be linked to gender-related differences that are common across countries.


Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common movement disorder and affects 1% of people over the age of 60 (1). Because ageing is the most important risk factor, cases of PD will increase during the next decades (2). Next to pathological protein folding and impaired protein degradation pathways, alterations of mitochondrial function and morphology were pointed out as further hallmark of neurodegeneration in PD (3-11). After years of research in murine and human cancer cells as in vitro models to dissect molecular pathways of Parkinsonism, the use of human fibroblasts from patients and appropriate controls as ex vivo models has become a valuable research tool, if potential caveats are considered. Other than immortalized, rather artificial cell models, primary fibroblasts from patients carrying disease-associated mutations apparently reflect important pathological features of the human disease. Here we delineate the procedure of taking skin biopsies, culturing human fibroblasts and using detailed protocols for essential microscopic techniques to define mitochondrial phenotypes. These were used to investigate different features associated with PD that are relevant to mitochondrial function and dynamics. Ex vivo, mitochondria can be analyzed in terms of their function, morphology, colocalization with lysosomes (the organelles degrading dysfunctional mitochondria) and degradation via the lysosomal pathway. These phenotypes are highly relevant for the identification of early signs of PD and may precede clinical motor symptoms in human disease-gene carriers. Hence, the assays presented here can be utilized as valuable tools to identify pathological features of neurodegeneration and help to define new therapeutic strategies in PD.


We define a standard independent unit (SIU) of heparin as that amount that, in plasma containing 1 mumol of ATIII, raises the (pseudo-)first-order breakdown constant of factor Xa by 1 min-1. These units measure all material with a high affinity for ATIII (HAM); only material above the critical chain length of 17 monosaccharide units (above critical chain length material; ACLM) catalyzes the inactivation of thrombin. An SIU of ACLM is therefore analogously defined as the amount that, in plasma containing 1 mumol of ATIII, will raise the (pseudo-)first-order breakdown constant of thrombin by 1 min-1. Of any given heparin preparation one can determine the specific HAM and ACLM activities in terms of SIU/mg. On the basis of the factor Xa and thrombin breakdown constants found in a plasma sample one can then determine the levels of HAM and ACLM. Preliminary experiments were carried out in plasma samples obtained after subcutaneous injection of unfractionated heparin (UFH) and of two types of low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH). About three times more of UFH activity than of LMWH activity has to be injected to obtain the same levels of ACLM in the plasma. Only with the LMWHs significant amounts of BCLM are found, which rises higher and persists longer than the ACLM. We determined the course of thrombin generation in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and in platelet-poor plasma (PPP), as well as in the PPP factor Xa generation curve and the course of prothrombin conversion. The observed inhibitions correlated much better with the levels of ACLM than with those of below critical chain length material. The difference between UFH and LMWHs can therefore not be explained in terms of antithrombin and anti-factor-Xa activity. The essential difference between UFH and LMWH appears in the feedback effect of thrombin in PRP, where thrombin generation is both inhibited and retarded by LMWH, while it is only retarded but hardly inhibited by UFH.


The project to develop the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) was begun with high hopes and the best of intentions. Its vision was to replace six aging legacy systems supporting various State administered welfare programs with a single system using current technologies. The expected benefits from CBMS were better service to clients and assurance that the State's welfare programs were being administered properly. The bulk of the development effort was outsourced to a large systems integration firm, and a comprehensive project oversight structure was put in place. Despite these actions, the project was troubled from the start. Nearing one more projected conversion date, the two executive sponsors of the project were faced with a decision of whether or not to implement the system despite protests from the user community that CBMS was not ready to be put into operation.


Using observational data and an elementary rigorous statistical fact it is easily shown that the distribution of Earth's climate is non-stationary. Examination of records of hundreds of local Industrial Era temperature histories in the Northern Hemisphere were used to show this fact. Statistically, the mean of the ensemble has been rising during the Industrial Era. All of this confirms what climate scientists already know. The issue of predictions under uncertainties was tackled as well: a simple balance model was tuned to track an ensemble of climate records. Stochastic parametrizations were created to capture natural and anthropogenic CO2 forcings. The resulting stochastic model was then tested against historical data and then used to make future predictions. This exercise confirmed as well climate science attribution to significant global warming during the Industrial Era to anthropogenic activities. The variability of the model due to uncertainties is simply not large enough to obfuscate a clear rise in the mean temperature in the Industrial Era. Further, even if the variance of the natural CO2 contribution is greatly increased artificially (in the model), the fluctuations cannot account for the current change in the historical mean. These outcomes weaken the factual validity of the US administration, 2016-2020, claims that there are too many uncertainties in climate and climate science to make climate predictions, and further that contemporary reports of floods, extreme weather, even a rising global mean temperature are simply manifestations of a climate that always fluctuates within a nature-derived statistical distribution.


This brief report proposes a model in which academic psychological capital (PsyCap) mediates between the satisfaction of student's basic psychological needs and their academic performance, as assessed by students' GPA. Participants were 407 adolescents, aged 12–18, recruited from three Chilean schools. Through structural equation modeling, direct and indirect effects were calculated. Results show that academic PsyCap (assessed at time 2) fully mediates the relationship between the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (assessed at time 1) and academic performance (assessed at time 3). This means that students whose basic psychological needs are satisfied at school experience more hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism (PsyCap), which, in turn, leads to better academic performance. Both theoretical and practical implications of the results are addressed, as well as strengths and weaknesses and directions for future research.


PGE2 promotes cell motility during colorectal carcinogenesis. The mechanism by which PGE2 signaling regulates cell motility is not completely understood. Here, we demonstrated that PGE2 treatment induces HEF1 expression that links with cell motility in colorectal cancer cells. PGE2 rapidly stimulated HEF1 expression in colorectal cancer cells. Both PGE2 treatment and HEF1 overexpression activated Rac 1 and resulted in similar effects on cell spreading. Moreover, knockdown of HEF1 using shRNA suppressed PGE2‐driven cell spreading. PKA activator forskolin induced HEF1 expression and cell spreading in a similar manner as PGE2. Inhibition of PKA activity by H‐89 attenuated HEF1 expression induced by PGE2. Furthermore, PKA knockdown by siRNA blocked the HEF1 expression and cell spreading induced by PGE2. These data suggest that PGE2 induces HEF1 expression to promote cell motility through a PKA‐involved pathway. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(1 Suppl):B39.


Probiotic microorganisms, especially lactic acid bacteria, are effective in the treatment of infectious diarrhoeal diseases and experimental colitis. Although the mechanisms by which these organisms exert their anti-inflammatory effects are largely unknown, immunomodulating effects are suggested. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of a 5-week oral administration of Lactobacillus rhamnosus subspecies GG (Lb. GG) on the cellular immune response to intestinal microorganisms in ten healthy volunteers. Peripheral blood cells (PB) were stimulated with either 'self' or 'non-self' preparations of faecal samples and isolated Bacteroides fragilis group-organisms (Bfg) or Escherichia coli (Esch. coli), and pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-10, IL-4, IL-6, IFN-γ, TNF-α) were measured in the culture supernatant. CD4+ T-lymphocyte activation was determined by measurement of intracellular ATP following lysis of the cells. The activational response of CD4+ T-lymphocytes towards isolated and heat-inactivated intestinal organisms was increased after the probiotic treatment. Additionally, TNF-α, IL-6 and in part IFN-γ cytokine secretion by PB cells following stimulation with whole stool preparations and single members of the flora was significantly decreased, whereas the IL-10 and in part IL-4 cytokine secretion was increased at the end of the study. In contrast, the activational response of CD4+ T-lymphocytes following stimulation with whole 'non-self' intestinal flora was higher than by 'self' intestinal flora, but both responses showed a trend towards a reduction at the end of the study. This study documents a direct effect by Lb. GG on the cellular immune system of healthy volunteers and offers a promising tool to investigate systemic immunomodulation due to oral administration of probiotic microorganisms.


Tribology is the branch of engineering that deals with the interaction of surfaces in relative motion (as in bearings or gears): their design, friction, adhesion, lubrication and wear. Continuous miniaturization of technological devices like hard disc drives and biosensors increases the necessity for the fundamental understanding of tribological phenomena at the micro- and nanoscale. Biological systems show optimized performance also at this scale. Examples for biological friction systems at different length scales include bacterial flagella, joints, articular cartilage and muscle connective tissues. Scanning probe microscopy opened the nanocosmos to engineers: not only is microscopy now possible on the atomic scale, but even manipulation of single atoms and molecules can be performed with unprecedented precision. As opposed to this top-down approach, biological systems excel in bottom-up nanotechnology. Our model system for bionanotribological investigations are diatoms, for they are small, highly reproductive, and since they are transparent, they are accessible with different kinds of optical microscopy methods. Furthermore, certain diatoms have proved to be rewarding samples for mechanical and topological in vivo investigations on the nanoscale. There are several diatom species that actively move (e.g. Bacillaria paxillifer forms colonies in which the single cells slide against each other) or which can, as cell colonies, be elongated by as much as a major fraction of their original length (e.g. Ellerbeckia arenaria colonies can be reversibly elongated by one third of their original length). Therefore, we assume that some sort of lubrication of interactive surfaces is present in these species. Current studies in diatom bionanotribology comprise techniques like atomic force microscopy, histochemical analysis, infrared spectrometry, molecular spectroscopy and confocal infrared microscopy.


In urban areas where natural environmental processes are allowed to occur, they contribute to air and water quality, stable water supply, flood moderation, biodiversity, and reduced demand on energy producers and sewer collection systems. Urban landscape technologies developed in recent years make a radical combination of environmental and human functions possible in the streets of dense urban districts. This paper reviews their construction, roles, and performance, and illustrates their application in urban design. Beneath trafficked surfaces, structural soils or deck-like bridging structures maintain viable tree rooting space, enabling street trees to grow to the size necessary to provide effective shade, cooling, biodiversity, and air quality. Permeable pavements of concrete, open-jointed blocks, and other materials open vehicular and pedestrian surfaces to air and water, allowing urban soils to absorb rainwater, reduce runoff, restore water quality, recharge regional aquifers, and activate tree rooting zones. Where urban space permits, open rain gardens use soil to combine water restoration and growth of living things. Contemporary urban design analyses complete the realization of a street's multiple roles by identifying and integrating spaces for these technologies in the midst of dense urban construction. Monitoring has confirmed environmental performance, while industry innovations and standards continue to evolve. Participation in natural processes is a relatively new concept for cities, which in the past have been considered sacrifices of local environment for human welfare. In the kind of street that can be constructed today, there need not be antagonism between environmental processes and human welfare.