Electrical current versus potential relationships were measured for solutions of dodecane containing the charge control agent poly(isobutylene succinimide) (PIBS) at various concentrations. Both one-dimensional (parallel planar electrodes) and two-dimensional (strip electrodes) fields were studied. The initial current was proportional to the applied voltage for both electrode configurations. Using the initial decay rate of the current (t < 0.5 s) in the planar electrode cell and the Gouy-Chapman model for electrode polarization, we determined the diffusion coefficient of the charge carriers (micelles) in the solution, from which we calculated their effective radius to be 10 nm. The constancy of the carrier radius over a 7-fold change in PIBS concentration, along with the proportionality between conductivity and concentration, supports the hypothesis that the charged species result from the interactions between two micelles. The experimentally determined geometric factor (cell constant) relating current to applied potential at time zero for the strip electrode cell agrees with the value predicted from the solution of Laplace's equation for the electrical potential in this system. The intermediate-time (0.5-3.0 s) decay rate of current was faster than predicted from the classical Gouy-Chapman theory of the double layer, possibly because of volume fraction effects in the double layer. The very long-time (minutes to hours) residual current that we observed is not explained, but we suspect that some charge transfer across the electrode must have occurred because there was insufficient ion capacity (i.e., amount of PIBS) in the solution to account for the total charge transferred through the cell.


The Hippocratic Corpus is a collection of approximately sixty medical treatises that were written by the Hippocratics during the Classical period of Greece. The Hippocratics were a group of practicing physicians and are today considered as one of the first Greek scientists. The treatises in the Corpus are unique and show us what the Hippocratics believed about the human body and how it functioned.This essay aims to investigate the Hippocratics' knowledge of the female physiology, their reproductive organs and if there is a connection between the Hippocratics' knowledge and the society's view and attitude towards women during the Classical period. To do so I have chosen to mainly use ancient sources as my main material, which consist of selected parts of the Hippocratic Corpus as well as works from Hesiod, Xenophon and Plutarch. Since all the ancient texts are written by men we only get their male perspective and therefore I will be using a feministic perspective in order to weigh against the male-bias in their writings. In order to see if the Hippocratics were influenced by society's attitude towards women, I need to try to understand the mindset of men during that time and look into how women's lives were like (those that were born as free citizens) during the Classical period.By looking at the Hippocratics' knowledge of the female body in parallel to the information about women's lives during Classical Greece, there is a clear connection between the two. They are complementary and seem to have been used to continue to normalize and at the same time perpetuate the idea that women were second class citizens and were inherently weaker than men. It seems like the Hippocratics' knowledge of the female body was used as an encouragement to women to pursue their destined roles; to get married as soon as possible and produce children. Also, in the Hippocratic Corpus, women and their bodies are depicted in a misogynistic way where the Hippocratics are, without a doubt, influenced by the society's attitude towards women in their writings.


The paper reviews the psychosocial literature regarding the impact of maternal HIV on mothers and their uninfected children. Drawing on the ecological theory of Urie Bronfenbrenner, the review proposes a framework that both demonstrates the link between maternal HIV and child psychosocial outcome, and examines the pathways that account for this relationship. Maternal HIV has been found to potentially affect a mother's well-being negatively through a host of mediation factors associated with her infection. These factors affect a mother's ability to be sensitive and responsive towards her child, influencing on attachment security, and thereby the quality of the mother-child interaction. One important finding appearing from this review is that children of HIV-infected mothers are at greater risk for psychosocial problems compared to children of non-infected mothers. An important channel through which child psychosocial problems emerge is the quality of the mother-child interaction. However, some studies reports that both children of infected and non-infected mothers are in the clinical range of concern, which draws attention to the fact that these children and their mothers all originate from high-risk environments. On the optimistic side, many HIV-infected mothers and their children cope well in face of adversity, which speaks for the presence of resilience factors. One particular resilience factor studied in this review is the support of the extended family system. The majority of the literature reviewed is from studies in the Western world, but the focus in the discussion takes into consideration the subSaharan African context. Based on the findings from the literature reviewed, intervention programs are recommended taking into consideration the sub-Saharan African context. Also, the findings are used for the recommendation for further research in sub-Saharan Africa. Maternal HIV and child psychosocial outcome 3


The recent study of BOOMERanG 150 GHz Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation maps have detected ellipticity of the temperature anisotropy spots independent on the temperature threshold. The effect has been found for spots up to several degrees in size, where the biases of the ellipticity estimator and of the noise are small. To check the effect, now we have studied, with the same algorithm and in the same sky region, the WMAP maps. We find ellipticity of the same average value also in WMAP maps, despite of the different sensitivity of the two experiments to low multipoles. Large spot elongations had been detected also for the COBE-DMR maps. If this effect is due to geodesic mixing and hence due to non precisely zero curvature of the hyperbolic Universe, it can be linked to the origin of WMAP low multipoles anomaly.


The prevailing view of thymocyte selection is that the fate of developing cells is dictated exclusively by the affinity/avidity of the expressed TCR for self-MHC/self-ligand. We hypothesize that there is significant plasticity in the signaling processes that control T cell development and that the ability to 'fine-tune' the TCR signaling response, through the regulated expression of molecules that positively or negatively impact the TCR signaling response operates to maximize the TCR repertoire. One example of a 'fine-tuning' molecule that was previously characterized is the cell surface protein CD5. We found that CD5 is an inhibitory tuning receptor, and its surface expression is directly and proportionately regulated by the affinity of the TCR for selecting ligand. In order to identify additional candidates for 'TCR-tuning', we employed a TCR transgenic experimental system where TCR expression was fixed on all developing thymocytes and where the affinity of the positively selecting TCR/self-MHC/self-ligand interaction could be altered by changing the MHC haplotype. Thymocytes that successfully underwent selection under conditions of relatively low or relatively high avidity interactions were analyzed by microarray. These experiments identified CD5 as well as several additional potential tuning molecules not previously thought to play a role in 'TCR-tuning'. Our results provide important new insights into the genetic and molecular processes that control thymocyte selection.


This article is conducted to estimate the casualty relationship between economic growth and domestic savings. A cointegration and Granger casualty methods are employed with panel data from Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN); we excluded Myanmar from our sample due to unavailability of data. To this end, we extracted time series annual data from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank for the period of 1980 to 2014. The results demonstrate the significant differences of relationship between economic growth and savings among the countries. The study finds that the domestic savings cause the economic growth of Singapore, The Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam. Meanwhile, the economic growth causes the demotic savings of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. A bi-directional causality relationship is showed for Cambodia and Lao PDR.


Software measurement, like measurement in any other discipline, must adhere to the science of measurement if it is to gain widespread acceptance and validity. The observation of some very simple, but fundamental, principles of measurement can have an extremely beneficial effect on the subject. Measurement theory is used to highlight both weaknesses and strengths of software metrics work, including work on metrics validation. We identify a problem with the well-known Weyuker properties (E.J. Weyuker, 1988), but also show that a criticism of these properties by J.C. Cherniavsky and C.H. Smith (1991) is invalid. We show that the search for general software complexity measures is doomed to failure. However, the theory does help us to define and validate measures of specific complexity attributes. Above all, we are able to view software measurement in a very wide perspective, rationalising and relating its many diverse activities. >


: A patient, male, 57 years old, with hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach is reported. Chief complaint was right upper abdominal mass and anorexia for 11 months. The patient's serum AFP level was found to be elevated (652.8 ng/ml) and a mass was observed in left hepatic lobe by isotope scan. It was diagnosed as primary hepatic carcinoma. A large ulcerative tumor (14 x 13 x 0.8 cm) in gastric pylorus-antrum and liver metastasis were found by autopsy. Histologically, the tumor, diagnosed as hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach by pathology, was composed of two but closely related to well differentiated tubular papillary adenocarcinoma and differentiated hepatoid adenocarcinoma. Histogenesis, production of AFP and its significance, and clinicopathologic characteristics of this tumor are discussed with review of literature.


Objectives—Inflammatory macrophage apoptosis is critical to atherosclerotic plaque formation, but its mechanisms remain enigmatic. We hypothesized that inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) survivin regulates macrophage death in atherosclerosis. Methods and Results—Western blot analysis revealed discrete survivin expression in human aorta lipid streaks but virtually none in advanced atherosclerotic plaques, despite increased XIAP and cIAP2 levels. Survivin was detected in CD68-positive macrophages infiltrating human lipid streaks by immunohistochemistry. In advanced atherosclerotic plaques, only rare macrophages outside the necrotic core or occasional fibrous cap smooth muscle cells expressed survivin. In vitro, macrophage colony-stimulating factor-stimulated mouse macrophage survivin expression, proliferation and resistance to apoptosis. Conversely, prolonged oxidized low-density lipoprotein treatment abolished macrophage survivin expression and triggered apoptosis after 12 hours, despite enhanced XIAP and cIAP2 expression. Adenoviral overexpression of survivin conferred macrophages with sustained resistance to apoptosis after oxidized low-density lipoprotein, tumor necrosis factor, or staurosporine challenge. Conclusions—Survivin is a critical modulator of atherosclerotic macrophage apoptosis under dual control by growth factors and oxidized lipids accumulating in atheroma. In early lipid streaks, growth factor-stimulated survivin expression may contribute to macrophage accumulation and survival, but dysregulation of survivin expression caused by recurrent oxidized low-density lipoprotein exposure may favor apoptosis in advanced atherosclerotic plaques, despite upregulated cIAP2 and XIAP. (Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2007;27:901-907.)


Abstract. A lab scale infiltration experiment was conducted in a sand tank to evaluate the use of time-lapse multi-offset ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data for monitoring dynamic hydrologic events in the vadose zone. Sets of 21 GPR traces at offsets between 0.44–0.9 m were recorded every 30 s during a 3 h infiltration experiment to produce a data cube that can be viewed as multi-offset gathers at unique times or common offset images, tracking changes in arrivals through time. Specifically, we investigated whether this data can be used to estimate changes in average soil water content during wetting and drying and to track the migration of the wetting front during an infiltration event. For the first problem we found that normal-moveout (NMO) analysis of the GPR reflection from the bottom of the sand layer provided water content estimates ranging between 0.10–0.30 volumetric water content, which underestimated the value determined by depth averaging a vertical array of six moisture probes by 0.03–0.05 volumetric water content. Relative errors in the estimated depth to the bottom of the 0.6 m thick sand layer were typically on the order of 2%, though increased as high as 25% as the wetting front approached the bottom of the tank. NMO analysis of the wetting front reflection during the infiltration event generally underestimated the depth of the front with discrepancies between GPR and moisture probe estimates approaching 0.15 m. The analysis also resulted in underestimates of water content in the wetted zone on the order of 0.06 volumetric water content and a wetting front velocity equal to about half the rate inferred from the probe measurements. In a parallel modeling effort we found that HYDRUS-1D also underestimates the observed average tank water content determined from the probes by approximately 0.01–0.03 volumetric water content, despite the fact that the model was calibrated to the probe data. This error suggests that the assumed conceptual model of laterally uniform, one-dimensional vertical flow in a homogenous material may not be fully appropriate for the experiment. Full-waveform modeling and subsequent NMO analysis of the simulated GPR response resulted in water content errors on the order of 0.01–0.03 volumetric water content, which are roughly 30–50% of the discrepancy between GPR and probe results observed in the experiment. The model shows that interference between wave arrivals affects data interpretation and the estimation of traveltimes. This is an important source of error in the NMO analysis, but it does not fully account for the discrepancies between GPR and the moisture probes observed in the experiment. The remaining discrepancy may be related to conceptual errors underlying the GPR analysis, such as the assumption of uniform one-dimensional flow, a lack of a sharply defined wetting front in the experiment, and errors in the petrophysical model used to convert dielectric constant to water content.


This article argues that the general practice of describing interrater reliability as a single, unified concept is at best imprecise, and at worst potentially misleading. Rather than representing a single concept, different statistical methods for computing interrater reliability can be more accurately classified into one of three categories based upon the underlying goals of analysis. The three general categories introduced and described in this paper are: 1) consensus estimates, 2) consistency estimates, and 3) measurement estimates. The assumptions, interpretation, advantages, and disadvantages of estimates from each of these three categories are discussed, along with several popular methods of computing interrater reliability coefficients that fall under the umbrella of consensus, consistency, and measurement estimates. Researchers and practitioners should be aware that different approaches to estimating interrater reliability carry with them different implications for how ratings across multiple judges should be summarized, which may impact the validity of subsequent study results. Many


The thyroid gland morphology of West African Dwarf goat was investigated in the foetal, pre-pubertal and pubertal age of development in an attempt to evaluate the changes that take place during these periods. It was studied by gross dissection and morphometric determination of size. The results showed that the location of the thyroid gland on the larynx and trachea varied between the cricoid cartilage of larynx and 12 th tracheal cartilage as the age progressed. The right lobe was more cranially located on the larynx and trachea than the left lobe in all age groups. Thyroid isthmus was absent in few foetal thyroid but was consistent in the postnatal thyroids. It became a mere thin fibrous tissue in the older pubertal goats. Accessory thyroid was not observed in all age groups. There were significant differences (p<0.05) in the mean weight, length, width and thickness of thyroids of the studied age groups. All measured gross parameters increased with advancing foetal and postnatal age. The study demonstrated the variability of location, size and presence of isthmus during development of thyroid in WAD goats. Keywords: Thyroid gland, anatomy, morphometry, development, Goats


The agronomic and nutritional values of eggplant (Solanum melongena) can be increased by harnessing its genetic variability. In this work, we aimed to study the variation and inter-character association among eggplant genotypes, with the ultimate goal of identifying genotypes that are useful for breeding. The study was carried out at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria in 2013, using seven eggplant genotypes. Data were collected on seventeen agro-morphological characters and subjected to principal component analysis (PCA), single linkage cluster analysis (SLCA), correlation analysis, and Genotype × Yield-Trait-biplot (GYT-biplot) procedure. PCA revealed that plant, fruit and yield characters were relevant in discriminating the genotypes while SLCA classified the genotypes into four clusters. Correlation analyses revealed a strong, significant but negative correlation between fruit breadth and yield traits while the GYT-biplot procedure delineated the genotypes into three sectors. We suggest that reduced fruit breadth should be selected for in order to obtain improved yield in eggplant. Genotypes 10014-101a, 97068-091a, and 12078-092e should be further investigated because they are in distinct clusters and, they are the vertex genotypes in sectors 1, 2 and 3.


Diabetic nephropathy is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease. Diabetes mellitus is characterized by generalized endothelial dysfunction. However, recent data also emphasizes the role of local renal endothelium dysfunction in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy. Hyperglycemia triggers a complex network of signal-transduction molecules, transcription factors, and mediators that culminate in endothelial dysfunction. In the glomerulus, vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF)-induced neoangiogenesis may contribute to the initial hyperfiltration and microalbuminuria due to increased filtration area and immaturity of the neovessels, respectively. However, subsequent decrease in podocytes number decreases VEGF production resulting in capillary rarefaction and decreased glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Decreased nitric oxide availability also plays a significant role in the development of advanced lesions of diabetic nephropathy through disruption of glomerular autoregulation, uncontrolled VEGF action, release of prothrombotic substances by endothelial cells and angiotensin-II-independent aldosterone production. In addition, disturbances in endothelial glycocalyx contribute to decreased permselectivity and microalbuminuria; whereas there are recent evidences that reduced glomerular fenestral endothelium leads to decreased GFR levels. Endothelial repair mechanisms are also impaired in diabetes, since circulating endothelial progenitor cells number is decreased in diabetic patients with microalbuminuria. Finally, in the context of elevated profibrotic cytokine transforming growth factor-β levels, endothelial cells also confer to the deteriorating process of fibrosis in advanced diabetic nephropathy through endothelial to mesenchymal transition.


Proceedings: AACR 107th Annual Meeting 2016; April 16-20, 2016; New Orleans, LA

Carcinosarcoma (CS) of the uterus or the ovary, known as malignant mixed Muellerian tumor, is a biphasic neoplasm composed of malignant epithelial (carcinoma) and mesenchymal (sarcoma) elements. CS is a rare disease (two per 100,000 women) and exhibits poor prognosis (5-year survival rates: uterus and ovary; 31 and 7.5%, respectively). Treatment regimen for CS follows to that for endometrioid adenocarcinoma (EC) since CS has been considered as an aggressive form of high-grade EC. However, CS has a significantly worse prognosis than EC. Identification of a molecular target and/or a molecular mechanism in tumorigenesis from a large cohort study may improve unfavorable outcomes. Toward this aim, we perform targeted resequencing analysis with a panel of 596 genes, which were previously implicated as critical not only for uterine, ovarian or sarcomatus oncogenesis but also for molecular targets in therapeutics. Through analyses of 84 cases of uterine and ovarian CS, consensus clustering with deregulated pattern of CS genome identified four genomic subtypes that correlate with genetic or epigenetic alterations, histopathology and patient outcomes. Moreover, potentially actionable alterations were found in a substantial number of genes (including PIK3CA, MTOR, KRAS and CCNE1). This study would provide deep insights into the development of novel diagnostic and personalized treatment for CS patients.

Citation Format: Seiichi Mori, Osamu Gotoh, Yuko Sugiyama, Kazuyoshi Kato, Yutaka Takazawa, Tetsuo Noda. Comprehensive sequencing analyses of uterine and ovarian carcinosarcoma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 145.


The temperature-dependent characteristics of ac plasma display panels (PDPs) are investigated, based on various case studies using a conventional driving scheme with reset pulses. Though the main factor of the thermal effects is caused by strong sustain discharges, it is not only caused by the panel characteristics, but also by the temperature-dependent characteristics of the driving system. One important thermal effect is a decreased breakdown voltage due to an increase in the panel temperature. Therefore, these results may be helpful in solving image-sticking and temperature-related phenomena.


On-line condition monitoring is a useful tool for maintaining and extending the longevity of power transformers. An intelligent diagnostic system is desirable for operational safety and reliability. Bringing these concepts together results in a powerful support tool for engineers, reducing the volume of data to deal with, and making the data more meaningful. This work describes how a multi-agent system for diagnosing the cause of transformer partial discharge activity was coupled with a method of UHF partial discharge monitoring, creating an on-line condition monitoring system. The challenges presented by the on-site environment are discussed, along with the implications for the complete system.


Environmental risk assessments hinge on our ability to predict the fate and mobility of radionuclides and metals in terrestrial soils and aquatic sediments. Solid-solution partitioning (the Kd approach), despite its shortcomings, has been used extensively. Much attention has been devoted to grooming the existing key compendia for values applicable for each nuclear risk assessment carried out worldwide. This appears to be an important task. For example, soil Kd values for a single nuclide can vary over several orders of magnitude, yet the soil Kd value is the most important parameter in the soil leaching model. Similarly, plant uptake depends primarily on the nuclide present in solution phase. Despite this apparent sensitivity, our experience has shown that risk assessors dwell too much on the precision of the Kd value for all nuclides. This paper discusses the effect of the Kd value on the resulting soil concentration during leaching and identifies those radionuclides and assessment conditions where a precise value is required. Only those radionuclides that typically have a soil Kd value of 10 L/kg or less (Tc, Cl, I, As) need be accurately described for timeframes of up to 10,000 years for desired soil model prediction outcomes (soil concentrations within two-fold).


Levels of management staffing in the UK National Health Service (NHS) have received considerable political and media attention in the last four years or so. Both the previous and current governments committed themselves to reducing management expenditure in the health service, and significant cuts appear to have been be made in this area in the last year or so. Few systematic evaluations have been undertaken of the value of general of management input, however, and policy changes appear to have been largely determined by popular opinion. This study attempts to quantify the effect of management input on hospital productivity for the first three years of the go NHS internal market (1991/2-1993/4). An average cost function was used to model the effect of management inputs on hospital costs after adjustment for the levels of outputs produced, input costs, and internal and external exogenous constraints on as hospital functioning. Two measures of management input were used: the proportion of total spending consumed by in top level management, and the proportion consumed by all administrative activities. Cross-sectional and longitudinal models with contemporaneous and lagged management input effects were estimated. Higher spending on top level management was associated with poorer productivity levels in most in instances. Total administrative inputs had a weaker, but still generally negative, association with productivity. No evidence was found that increasing management inputs was associated with improved productivity. On the contrary, spending more on top level managers appeared in fact to be associated with lower productivity levels. Results would thus appear to be in line with decisions to reduce the level of expenditure on management in NHS hospitals. Quality differences could not be measured, however, and it is possible that management input is associated with quality improvements which might reduce or reverse observed productivity losses.


5 Universidade de São Paulo, Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto, Departamento de Enfermagem Psiquiátrica e Ciências Humanas, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil. ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze the professional insertion of registered nurses, taking into account the current structure of work in the health area and in the training of technical workers, from the perspective of training of professionals who will develop their activities in the Brazilian Unified Health System. Method: Quantitative, cross-sectional, and exploratory study, with descriptive and inferential statistical analysis using Fisher's exact test, carried out with 105 alumni of a nursing undergraduate course. An electronic questionnaire was applied. Results: The alumni worked as nurses (n = 59, 56.2%) or teachers (n = 18, 17.1%). The areas with the greatest absorption of alumni were hospitals (n = 37, 62.7%), the public sector (n = 35, 59.3%), and high-school level technical professional education (n = 16, 88.9%). Most participants were dissatisfied with their income (n = 56, 72.7%) and pointed out that the received values were incompatible with the work (n = 59, 76.6%). Conclusion: The alumni faced problems in developing their professional activities, especially because of the current policies, which establish limits on the recognition of healthcare workers and education as a public asset. Progress in the recognition of the profession of registered nurse is necessary, given the relevance of these professionals in the health and education systems and the nature of the profession's practice of providing education and care, which have a transformative potential.


We study the problem faced by a decision maker who wants to locate a set of facilities on a real line and allocate agents/items to the facilities. The items have given locations on the line, and can only be assigned to one of their closest facilities. The facilities are controlled by managers, who have additive utility over the items. An optimal solution that maximizes the (utilitarian or egalitarian) social welfare of the facilities may present a very unbalanced allocation of the items to the facilities and hence be perceived as unfair. In this paper, we are interested in fair allocation among facility managers and consider the well-studied proportionality and envy-freeness fairness notions and their relaxations. We assess the availability, existence, approximability, and the quality (price of fairness) of fair solutions, where the quality measures the system efficiency loss under a fair allocation compared to the one that maximizes the social welfare. Further, we show that one can find a Pareto-optimal solution in polynomial time.


Hans Egede's remarkable 1770-1778 journals were first published in 1818 when the British launched their great nineteenth-century Arctic explorations and such information was in enormous demand. The coast of eastern Greenland had been virtually inaccessible to Europeans for four centuries. Egede's fascinating writings relate his determined quest for remnants of old settlements, keen observations of the Greenlandic Inuit on subjects as varied as polygamy, witchcraft, health, education, how the Inuit's contact with outsiders affected this indigenous people, and previously little-known information about the geography of the island's eastern territories. After years of being out-of-print, Egede's colorful accounts are once again made available to English-speaking readers in this wonderful and timely new series, launched just as the eyes of the world are, not a moment too soon, drawn northward.


This paper maps some of the social and commercial forces shaping the debate around 'realistic' or 'appropriate' levels of energy specification in the commercial office market. It discusses how the dynamics of the market, alternative lease arrangements, enhanced building management standards, technological innovation and shifts in cultural taste are all redefining contemporary office space and presenting new opportunities for environmental innovation. Drawing upon interviews with developers, investors, agents, occupiers and property researchers in Britain and France, the changing, often conflicting, priorities underpinning decisions about energy standards are explored. The paper explores possible 'futures' for office development processes in the United Kingdom. Highlighting the ebb and flow of the market, the paper points to the changing nature of tenant demand and current 'opportunities' for the development of alternative, more 'realistic' energy specification levels. Looking beyond the current property slump it examines the cultural and structural shifts likely to sustain any reformation of British real estate practices. In particular, the paper highlights contemporary debates around transformation of the institutional lease and legislative codification of energy and environmental standards. It is argued that this loose constellation of social forces promises a significant, new mutuality of interests between developers and occupiers which is cultivating 'appropriate' specification and procurement practices. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.


We have previously demonstrated the presence of a binding site for high-molecular-mass kininogen (HK), spanning residues Val59-Lys83, in the first Apple (A1) domain in the heavy-chain region of factor XI. We have now prepared conformationally constrained synthetic peptides and recombinant A1 domain (rA1) constructs to identify the specific amino acid residues that constitute the HK-binding site. Expression of the A1 domain (Glu1-Ser90) was achieved in a bacterial expression system following PCR amplification of the A1 domain from factor XI cDNA and ligation into an expression plasmid. The rA1 inhibited factor XI binding to HK [Ki approximately (2-3) x 10(-7) M] in a manner indistinguishable from purified factor XI, indicating that all the information necessary for binding HK is contained within the A1 domain. To identify specific amino acid residues involved in binding HK, conformationally constrained peptides were synthesized containing conservative amino acid substitutions at residues suspected to contain side chains involved in binding, including Val64-->Ala, Glu66-->Ala, Arg73-->Ala and Ile77-->Ala. Because normal results were obtained with all peptides with the exception of Val64-->Ala and Ile77-->Ala, which failed to compete normally with factor XI for binding to HK, we prepared two mutant rA1 domains (Val64-->Ala and Ile77-->Ala) by PCR-based site-directed mutagenesis, both of which exhibited diminished capacity to inhibit factor XI binding to HK. Competition studies with prekallikrein (PK) and a PK-dependent synthetic peptide suggested that PK and factor XI have a common surface in the A1 domain for binding HK of which Val64 is a part. We conclude that the binding of factor XI to HK is mediated at least in part by Val64 and Ile77 in the A1 domain of factor XI.


Deficit of the feed and fodder availability of the desired quality has been considered as the major bottleneck in harnessing the potential of the livestock sector in India. With the objective to find out the suitable variety of oat for getting maximum seed yield, a field experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2007 to 2008 at JNKVV, Jabalpur (MP). The treatments consisted of six varieties of oat (Kent, UPO 2005-1, NDO-1, JO 2003-78, OS-6 and JHO-822). The results showed that the variety NDO-1 produced the highest number of tillers/m2, panicle weight and 1000 grain weight which resulted into higher seed yield (3.64 t/ha) than other varieties followed by Kent (3.52 t/ha) whereas, the variety OS-6 recorded lowest (2.86 t/ha) but its variation with JO 2003-78 (2.95 t/ha), UPO 2005-1 (3.10 t/ha) and JHO-822 (3.18 t/ha) was not significant. The straw yield was higher under variety OS-6 (10.62 t/ha) compared to other varieties. Growth parameters such as crop growth rate, relative growth rate and leaf area index were superior for variety NDO-1. NDO-1 recorded highest benefit-cost ratio (2.84), which was due to high gross as well as net monetary returns obtained.

 Key words: Avena sativa L., benefit-cost ratio, forage dry matter, oat varieties, net monetary returns, yield.


Laparoscopic appendectomy is currently a widely used surgical treatment for acute appendicitis. Compared to open access, laparoscopy offers several advantages, such as less postoperative pain, shorter hospital stay, faster recovery and lower incidence of wound infection. Although laparoscopy is associated with prolonged surgical and high operative costs, it is more effective and costeffective than open surgery for uncomplicated appendicitis in experienced hands. However, it remains the first choice for surgical treatment and is indicated specifically for obese patients, the elderly, and patients with underlying medical conditions. Due to the range of techniques available, appendicular stump closure has been the subject of several studies: endoligures (pre-defined suture loops (including endo-loops) and intracorporeal tie stitches). There are two important factors to decide which approach to take: patient safety and financial costs. The first component includes prolonged anaesthetic effects due to longer operating times, repeated closures and damage for improper closure (eg, loop failure), extended hospital stay, and cost reduction.


P. putida lysine metabolism can produce multiple commodity chemicals, conferring great biotechnological value. Despite much research, the connection of lysine catabolism to central metabolism in P. putida remained undefined. Here, we used random barcode transposon sequencing to fill the gaps of lysine metabolism in P. putida. We describe a route of 2-oxoadipate (2OA) catabolism, which utilizes DUF1338-containing protein P. putida 5260 (PP_5260) in bacteria. Despite its prevalence in many domains of life, DUF1338-containing proteins have had no known biochemical function. We demonstrate that PP_5260 is a metalloenzyme which catalyzes an unusual route of decarboxylation of 2OA to d-2-hydroxyglutarate (d-2HG). Our screen also identified a recently described novel glutarate metabolic pathway. We validate previous results and expand the understanding of glutarate hydroxylase CsiD by showing that can it use either 2OA or 2KG as a cosubstrate. Our work demonstrated that biological novelty can be rapidly identified using unbiased experimental genetics and that RB-TnSeq can be used to rapidly validate previous results. ABSTRACT Despite intensive study for 50 years, the biochemical and genetic links between lysine metabolism and central metabolism in Pseudomonas putida remain unresolved. To establish these biochemical links, we leveraged random barcode transposon sequencing (RB-TnSeq), a genome-wide assay measuring the fitness of thousands of genes in parallel, to identify multiple novel enzymes in both l- and d-lysine metabolism. We first describe three pathway enzymes that catabolize l-2-aminoadipate (l-2AA) to 2-ketoglutarate (2KG), connecting d-lysine to the TCA cycle. One of these enzymes, P. putida 5260 (PP_5260), contains a DUF1338 domain, representing a family with no previously described biological function. Our work also identified the recently described coenzyme A (CoA)-independent route of l-lysine degradation that results in metabolization to succinate. We expanded on previous findings by demonstrating that glutarate hydroxylase CsiD is promiscuous in its 2-oxoacid selectivity. Proteomics of selected pathway enzymes revealed that expression of catabolic genes is highly sensitive to the presence of particular pathway metabolites, implying intensive local and global regulation. This work demonstrated the utility of RB-TnSeq for discovering novel metabolic pathways in even well-studied bacteria, as well as its utility a powerful tool for validating previous research. IMPORTANCE P. putida lysine metabolism can produce multiple commodity chemicals, conferring great biotechnological value. Despite much research, the connection of lysine catabolism to central metabolism in P. putida remained undefined. Here, we used random barcode transposon sequencing to fill the gaps of lysine metabolism in P. putida. We describe a route of 2-oxoadipate (2OA) catabolism, which utilizes DUF1338-containing protein P. putida 5260 (PP_5260) in bacteria. Despite its prevalence in many domains of life, DUF1338-containing proteins have had no known biochemical function. We demonstrate that PP_5260 is a metalloenzyme which catalyzes an unusual route of decarboxylation of 2OA to d-2-hydroxyglutarate (d-2HG). Our screen also identified a recently described novel glutarate metabolic pathway. We validate previous results and expand the understanding of glutarate hydroxylase CsiD by showing that can it use either 2OA or 2KG as a cosubstrate. Our work demonstrated that biological novelty can be rapidly identified using unbiased experimental genetics and that RB-TnSeq can be used to rapidly validate previous results.


Objective: Assess efficacy of intermittent intravaginal metronidazole gel treatment in reducing frequency of bacterial vaginosis (BV). Design: Randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial. Setting: Postnatal and family planning clinics of the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and two health centers in Blantyre, Malawi. Participants: Nonpregnant HIV-uninfected and -infected women. Intervention: Intravaginal metronidazole treatment and placebo gels provided at baseline and every 3 mo for 1 y. Outcome measures: Primary: Cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons of BV frequency at baseline, 1 mo after product dispensation (post-treatment evaluation [PTE]), and every quarterly visit. Secondary: Effect of treatment on BV clearance and recurrence. Results: Baseline: 842 HIV-uninfected and 844 HIV-infected women were enrolled. The frequency of BV at baseline in treatment and placebo arms, respectively, was 45.9% and 46.8% among HIV-uninfected women, and 60.5% and 56.9% among HIV-infected women. Primary outcomes: At the PTEs the prevalence of BV was consistently lower in treatment than placebo arms irrespective of HIV status. The differences were statistically significant mainly in HIV-uninfected women. Prevalence of BV was also reduced over time in both treatment and placebo arms. In a multivariable analysis that controlled for other covariates, the effect of intravaginal metronidazole treatment gel compared with placebo was not substantial: adjusted relative risk (RR) 0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.83–0.97 in HIV-uninfected women and adjusted RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.89–1.01 in HIV-infected women. Secondary outcomes: Intravaginal metronidazole treatment gel significantly increased BV clearance (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.34, 95% CI 1.07–1.67 among HIV-uninfected women and adjusted HR 1.29, 95% CI 1.06–1.58 among HIV-infected women) but was not associated with decreased BV recurrence. Safety: No serious adverse events were related to use of intravaginal gels. Conclusion: Intermittent microbicide treatment with intravaginal gels is an innovative approach that can reduce the frequency of vaginal infections such as BV.


In this paper an implementation for a small-sized subwoofer system is proposed, utilizing three 4-inch drivers. The low frequency reproduction approach adopted here is based on narrow bandwidth loudspeaker design with high quality factors. The desired resonance frequency of each loudspeaker is obtained by increasing the cone mass, in order to minimize the volume of each enclosure.


The Small Grant Scholarship for Thesis Writing,The thrust of this study is to highlight and expose the effects of HIV and AIDS on the
traditional Ndau woman in Chipinge District. This thesis emphasises how much the
woman in Chipinge has sacrificed in terms of providing care to people living with HIV
and AIDS (herein after referred to as PLWHA). Apart from examining this and the other
diverse burdens that women carry, this project highlights how Ndau women in Chipinge
have been key to the overall response to HIV and AIDS. This is achieved through
application of cultural hermeneutics of the Ndau religion, the traditional religion of
Chipinge. I apply a hermeneutic of suspicion to assess the role played by some Ndau
traditional practices which fall into the category of Harmful Cultural Practices
(HCPs).Most of these, as analysed, are embedded in most traditional marriage practices
as is explained in chapter 2. Furthermore, I employ a hermeneutic of commitment and a
hermeneutic of liberation as I argue that not all Ndau practices affect women negatively
with regards to HIV and AIDS: there is still a silver lining in the 'not so dark' cloud. I
look for alternative ways in which Ndau practices and custom can be re-interpreted and
contextualized in a helpful way to fight the epidemic. This purpose is achieved especially
in chapter 4. This research is motivated by feminism, and in particular, liberal feminism.
In this project I strongly argue that though most African traditional practices have been
assessed negatively, and most are known to victimise women, their liberation can still
happen within their own traditional societies. Though I do not argue against any other
means such as new religious ideologies and westernisation, my argument is that though
most Ndau traditional societies victimise women, there still exists redemptive beliefs and
practices for women within the traditional setting of the Ndaus. I look for liberating
resources that can be tapped from folklores, myths and other forms of oral literature in
Ndau religion. I argue for the silver lining in the dark cloud presented by some harmful
cultural practices (HCPs) that present African Traditional Religions (ATRs) as oppressive
and ruthless to women. In this thesis, I deliberate on how the roles of women should not
be looked down upon, and why maleness should not be a means to power if the response
to HIV and AIDS is to be effective. Ndau traditional culture presents women mostly at
the receiving end, particularly in the era HIV and AIDS. It is key to understand that this
thesis therefore becomes a microcosm of the macrocosm. What this study comes up with
can have basic information on women, HIV and AIDS, and many other traditional
societies. As such, this thesis provides a social framework on how such cultures and
customs can be contextualised, reinterpreted, remodeled, adapted and adopted in the
framework of HIV and AIDS. Apart from cultural hermeneutics as a method, sociology
of religion is key in this project. Interviews particularly snowball sampling gives results.
However, the overarching methodology employed in this study is phenomenology of
religion, as suggested in the topic. I gather information for this project through such ways
as mentioned earlier, but central is the idea that 'the believer is always right', which is
key in phenomenology. The results of my research try as much as possible to present
what the believer presents to the researcher, trying by all means to be unbiased.The
effects of HIV and AIDS on women are ruthless, but however, there are some positive
effects which are not so much talked about as the negative effects.,Council of the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA


Many countries have recently implemented digital competence as an important part of their school curricula. In Sweden, the curriculum states: "Teaching should give students the opportunity to use digital tools in a way which promotes knowledge development" [3], making it mandatory to implement digital tools in teaching and learning. This poses challenges for schools and teachers: schools need to assist with infrastructure and make technology available, teachers need to acquire knowledge on how to use technology for educational purposes. Achieving technology integration to support teaching and learning in the classroom has been argued to be influenced by teachers' attitudes and pedagogical beliefs [4], therefore the link between teachers' pedagogical beliefs and their practices must be examined in order to fully understand the integration [1]. This study is part of the Erasmus+ project Functional Information and Communication Technology Instruction On the Net (FICTION) [2] and investigates science teachers' attitudes towards integration of technology, and how teachers elaborate and implement digital technologies into their teaching practices. In winter/spring 2019 five teachers from a local primary school took part in three focus group interviews. The first interview defined the current situation, the second generated input on how to challenge each teacher based on their needs. Each teacher was given instructions for a specific technology to try out during teaching. The teachers recorded their experiences on video for the third focus group discussion, which included an evaluation of how they perceived the specific technology to improve their students' learning. The data so far consist of audio and video recordings from the interviews and the teachers' experiences of using the proposed technologies in their teaching. Some preliminary findings are that while schools invest in infrastructure and technology, the opportunities to use the technology often are hindered by administrative issues such as scheduling, lack of time for competence development and no choice on platforms and systems to work with. The link between the teachers' pedagogical beliefs and their practice is based on these prerequisites, but also on the teachers' willingness to try out various technological tools. The data show that the teachers' pedagogical perspectives and work with, e.g., formative teaching, pleasurable learning, and quality assured teaching and feedback, affect the teachers' willingness to integrate new technologies and tools in their teaching.


The unusually shaped bacteria of the genera Stella, Labrys and Angulomicrobium have been described based on their cell morphology and biochemistry. However, their phylogenetic relationships remain unresolved. An earlier study that was based on 5S rRNA gene sequences placed the genus Stella within the 'Alphaproteobacteria'. In the present report, polar lipids and 16S rRNA genes of the type strains of the two species in the genus Stella, Stella humosa DSM 5900(T) and Stella vacuolata DSM 5901(T), are studied, as well as the type strains of the monospecific genera Labrys (Labrys monachus VKM B-1479(T)) and Angulomicrobium (Angulomicrobium tetraedrale DSM 5895(T)). It was found that the genus Stella belongs to the order Rhodospirillales in the family Rhodospirillaceae, and not to the Acetobacteraceae. Whilst the position of the genus Angulomicrobium in the family Hyphomicrobiaceae was confirmed, the genus Labrys could not be placed into any known family, but was adjacent to the family 'Beijerinckiaceae'. In addition, data were obtained for strain VKM B-1336, which was shown not to belong to the genus Angulomicrobium, and strain NCIMB 1785(T) (=DSM 15561(T)), for which the name Angulomicrobium amanitiforme sp. nov. is proposed.


Traditional optical transport networks are gradually evolving to intelligent optical networks. Intelligent optical networks can support fast bandwidth provision, so they need a faster reconfiguration algorithm. In this paper, we present an algorithm based on simulated annealing for solving the joint logical topology design and routing problem for WDM optical networks. We introduce new mechanism to accelerate the running speed of the simulated annealing algorithm. Computational experiments show that our modified simulated annealing algorithm can obtain a solution very close to that of the classical simulated annealing algorithm, but the running speed of the modified algorithm is much faster.


The process of teaching and methods of teaching depends on the means of transferring information from teacher to learner. This method whenever appropriate, the process of learning was better, faster and less effort. There have been many ways or means of transferring information and have made great progress because of the development of modern concepts of the educational process. Concentration of attention and its relation to the skills of chest handling and correction of the free throw basketball at the Center for Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons, and the search there are significant differences between the results of tribal and remote tests of the experimental group and for the tests dimension (14) players aged (10-14) years, and through the results were reached the conclusions and the most important: 1 - that the exercises have a special impact Good in the development of concentration of attention Fastness of performance of chest handling and accuracy of free throw of stability in the experimental group Recommendations 1 - attention to focus development attention Speed of handling chest handling and accuracy of free kick correction and other characteristics of the disabled


To the Editor: Benign tertian malaria, caused by Plasmodium vivax, has long been considered absent, or at least extremely rare, in western and central Africa. In these regions, 95%–99% of humans are of the Duffy negative phenotype, a condition that is thought to confer complete protection against the parasite during the blood stages of its life cycle (1,2). Sporadic reports throughout the latter half of the 20th century, however, have hinted at the presence of the parasite in these regions, the most convincing of which were the steady and consistent numbers of non-African travelers who returned to their countries of origin infected with malarial parasites that were subsequently identified as P. vivax (2).

More recently, evidence has emerged regarding the transmission of P. vivax in regions of Africa where the local human population is predominantly Duffy negative (3–6). In 4 (3.5%) of 155 patients from western Kenya (6), 7 (0.8%) of 898 persons from Angola (4), and 8 (8.2%) of 97 persons from Equatorial Guinea (4), P. vivax parasites were detected in the blood of apparently Duffy-negative persons, suggesting that the parasite might not be as absolutely dependent on the Duffy receptor for erythrocyte invasion as previously thought. These findings are supported by a report from Madagascar (where the human population is composed of a mixture of Duffy-positive and Duffy-negative persons), in which 42 (8.8%) of 476 Duffy-negative persons who had symptoms of malaria were reported to be positive for P. vivax by both microscopy and PCR (7). The prevalence of P. vivax in Duffy-negative persons was significantly lower than its prevalence in Duffy-positive persons residing in the same area, suggesting that Duffy negativity is a barrier to the parasite to some degree. Given the extremely high rates of malaria transmission in western and central Africa, a P. vivax parasite that could efficiently invade Duffy-negative erythrocytes would, presumably, become highly prevalent very rapidly.

With the exception of the cases reported from Angola and Kenya, which lie outside the area where the proportion of the population with Duffy negativity is highest, the reports of the transmission of P. vivax within predominantly Duffy-negative populations all come from regions inhabited by chimpanzees and gorillas (i.e., Democratic Republic of the Congo [3], Uganda [4], and Equatorial Guinea [5]). During our seroepidemiologic study from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which P. vivax sporozoite–specific antibodies were detected in ≈10% of the population, we found that women were significantly more likely than men to have been exposed to P. vivax sporozoites (3). Women in this region typically spend more time than men near the forest fringe, where they work in crop fields. This forest is within the known habitat range of the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes and the gorilla, Gorilla gorilla gorilla, both of which have been reported to be natural hosts of the malaria parasite P. schwetzi, which is a P. vivax–like or P. ovale–like parasite that might also be unable to invade the erythrocytes of persons who are Duffy negative (8). These animals have recently been shown to be infected occasionally with parasites that have mitochondrial genomes closely resembling those of P. vivax (9,10).

We have argued that, given the high malaria transmission rates in sub-Saharan Africa, it is plausible that the 1%–5% of the human population who are Duffy positive might maintain the transmission of the parasite (2). The discovery of P. vivax parasites (or P. vivax–like parasites) in the blood of African great apes leads to a question: could nonhuman primates in Africa be acting as Duffy-positive reservoirs of P. vivax in regions where the human population is almost entirely insusceptible? This possibility warrants further investigation. Given the increasing rarity of the great apes, however, their capacity to act as zoonotic reservoirs could be limited. It would be informative, in any case, to determine how the regions that P. vivax–positive travelers visit during their stay in Africa correspond with the ranges of chimpanzees and gorillas.

If African great apes do, indeed, constitute a zoonotic reservoir of P. vivax parasites, what are the repercussions for human health? Given that 95%–99% of humans possibly exposed to such a reservoir are Duffy negative, and therefore resistant to the parasite, these would appear to be slight. However, as humans encroach more frequently into ape habitats, the chances of humans encountering the parasite will increase. In the short term, the risks are probably limited to Duffy-positive persons who enter areas where apes are present, such as tourists and migrant workers.


The means by which extracellular matrix density regulates three-dimensional capillary morphogenesis is unclear. To study this phenomenon, we utilized a fibrin-based in vitro assay in which a fibroblast monolayer is plated atop a fibrin gel approximately 2.5 mm away from endothelial cell-coated beads within the matrix. Increasing fibrin density from 2.5 to 10 mg/ml resulted in a threefold reduction in capillary network formation. However, distributing fibroblasts throughout the matrix completely eliminated this inhibitory effect, resulting in robustly vascularized matrices suitable for in vivo applications, as functional anastomoses formed between the implanted tissues and host vasculature when implanted into immune-compromised mice. Dense matrices did not stimulate fibroblast-mediated matrix remodeling: differentiation into myofibroblasts, matrix production, and protease secretion were not enhanced by the dense condition. Instead, quantifying diffusivity of FITC-dextran (molecular mass 10, 40, 70, and 150 kDa) through fibrin revealed a two- to threefold decrease within the 10 mg/ml matrices. Thus, distributing a proangiogenic source (fibroblasts) throughout the matrix stimulates capillary network formation by overcoming this diffusion restriction due to significantly reduced diffusion distances. Although roles for matrix stiffness and ligand binding density have previously been identified, our results emphasize the importance of diffusion restrictions in limiting capillary morphogenesis.


Quark was prepared from cow milk by the optimization of different parameters like concentration of rennet, sugar percentage and flavor types. The rennet concentration used for optimization was 0.00139 %, 0.00234 %, 0.00278 % and 0.00468 %. In terms of acidity, texture, flavor and appearance. 0.00234 percent rennet was found significantly best product. The concentration of sugar in quark was varied in different proportion viz. 2, 4 and 5 %, among these 4 % was ranked best with respect to sensory properties. Flavor optimization with vanilla 125ppm without color addition was preferred significantly. Though the high quality life (HQL) of the optimized product was 45 days in deep frozen condition (-20°C), 6 days in refrigerated condition (-4°C). Yet, the product remained acceptable up to 2 days at room temperature (33 ± 2°C) and up to 15 days in refrigerated condition. Sunsari Technical College Journal 2015, 2(1):38-43


In 21st century, with the rapid global urbanization, cities are undergoing dramatic expansion and regeneration. Urban migration, driven by jobs and other opportunities for wealth generation and economic development, has created the phenomenon of 'megacities'. Mega Urban Regeneration Projects (MURP) and emblematic projects were once urban policy solution. However in practice, MURPs, due to their complexity, scale and risk, were often over-budget or late (Flyvbjerg et al, 2003: Altshule and Luberoff 2003).Issue: Besides the risk of waste and high opportunity costs, the other criticism levelled against MURP is their proclivity to concentrate spatially on privileged enclaves or capital cities. Arguably, London has had too many construction projects whilst regional UK is neglected but is this a sustainable development model?This paper draws upon case studies in the UK. It first develops a MURP screening framework and then uses it to critically evaluate London's large urban regeneration developments. This study will contribute to academic discourse and produce practical implications for the policy makers, planners, investors, developers and other key stake holders who are involved with Mega Urban Regeneration developments, to reinforce positive trends and enable policies to avoid mistakes. The methodology involves an extensive literature review, secondary data analysis and profiling a series of case studies and interviews with key players involved with mega urban regeneration projects.


Two patients with cluster-tic syndrome are reported. The first, a 43-years-old man, complaining of trigeminal pain in the right side of the face, accompanied by homolateral autonomic signs, such as ocular injection, sweating and drooped eyelid. The cluster attack was triggered by chewing, shaving and washing the face. The periodicity of bouts was six months. The pain was relieved by carbamazepine (800 mg/day). The second patient, a 43-year-old man, with an excruciant, neuralgic pain in the left side of the face, accompanied by tearing, conjuntival injection, drooped eyelid, rhinorrhea, photophobia and phonophobia. The neurologic examination showed triggered points in the first and second division of the trigeminal nerve. The patient was treated with verapamil (160 mg/day) and prednisone (60 mg/day), with relief of his symptoms. The periodicity of bouts was once a year. The literature was reviewed and 37 cases previosly reported are considered. We conclude that there are two different groups of patients. In the first group, the patients had cluster and trigeminal bouts in different time. In the second group, with only nine cases, the patients presented both cluster and trigeminal type of pain at the same time, as in the two cases reported here.


Pathogen inactivation is expected to occur in compost if temperatures over 55°C (131°F) are maintained for at least 3 days, or 15 days in windrows. However, a literature review revealed pathogen survival in a significant number of processes appearing to meet the prescribed time-temperature criteria. It was hypothesized that pathogen survival may be due to the existence of undetected temperature variations within the compost mass. In order to investigate this possibility, it is necessary to monitor the conditions that a random particle of compost would experience as it passes through the composting process. As no adequate methods currently exist to monitor the temperatures of random particles, it was deemed necessary to develop a method to monitor temperature conditions that random particles of compost material encounter during the high-temperature phase of composting. A self-contained, battery powered temperature probe was designed for this purpose, with properties of size and density similar to those of compost particles, in order to allow it to move freely as it undergoes the composting process (in a manner similar to that of a random particle of material). Preliminary tests were done to ensure adequate device operation prior to manufacturing. Though the results were promising, improvements and further testing were recommended to ensure that the probe could withstand the harsh conditions encountered during composting, and to ensure that it would move randomly during compost agitation.


: According to the literature, bovine tuberculosis in man has been an illness of minor importance in Norway, unlike in Sweden and Denmark. This situation cannot be explained, since in former days infected cattle were a problem in the southeastern part of the country in particular. No case of bovine tuberculosis in humans has been reported in Norway since 1940. Recently we have observed a 29-year-old female immigrant from India with cervical lymph node tuberculosis caused by M. bovis. A second case is a 77-year-old Norwegian male. In the 1920s, at the age of ten, he was infected in Norway by drinking raw milk from tuberculous cattle. He developed tuberculosis of the mesenterial lymph nodes. Neither of these patients had tuberculosis in any other part of their body. Previous Norwegian reports, covering eight cases, are summarized.


This paper proposes a deep learning-based mmWave radar and RGB camera sensor early fusion method for object detection and tracking and its embedded system realization for ADAS applications. The proposed system can be used not only in ADAS systems but also to be applied to smart Road Side Units (RSU) in transportation systems to monitor real-time traffic flow and warn road users of probable dangerous situations. As the signals of mmWave radar are less affected by bad weather and lighting such as cloudy, sunny, snowy, night-light, and rainy days, it can work efficiently in both normal and adverse conditions. Compared to using an RGB camera alone for object detection and tracking, the early fusion of the mmWave radar and RGB camera technology can make up for the poor performance of the RGB camera when it fails due to bad weather and/or lighting conditions. The proposed method combines the features of radar and RGB cameras and directly outputs the results from an end-to-end trained deep neural network. Additionally, the complexity of the overall system is also reduced such that the proposed method can be implemented on PCs as well as on embedded systems like NVIDIA Jetson Xavier at 17.39 fps.


The Maverick and the Machine: Governor Dan Walker Tells His Story. By Dan Walker. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007, Pp 352. Illus., index. Cloth, $29.95). When Dan Walker was defeated for re-nomination as governor by the regular Democratic organization's Daley-backed candidate, Michael Howlett in 1976, surprisingly little regret was expressed by reform-minded Illinois Democrats and Independents. Walker had alienated many of them by his upset defeat of the widely respected and admired Paul Simon in the 1972 Democratic gubernatorial primary and Walker's subsequent term in office had been characterized by what often seemed unnecessary contentiousness and a stubborn refusal to compromise on legislative issues. But while there were those, including Simon and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, who saw him as intellectually dishonest, his career, to that point, had been free of anything to suggest that he was dishonest in a financial sense. In consequence, his 1987 federal indictment and guilty plea to charges of bank fraud, misapplication of bank funds, and perjury came as a considerable surprise to most observers. There were still further surprises in the revelations of the high life Walker had lived with his second wife after leaving the governor's mansion for he had gone out of his way while governor to insure that the office was free of ostentation and showy trappings. Now, after prison and decades of living in obscurity, Walker has told his story in his memoir, The Maverick and the Machine. It is in part the classic American tale of a rise to the top from humble beginnings; a hardscrabble childhood in rural San Diego County, service in the navy, a successful legal career accompanied by frequent involvement in politics and civic affairs. This was all capped by a sudden rise to prominence as director of the study group which produced the report on the confrontations between police and demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic National Convention which came to be known as The Walker Report. And while the report was actually rather even-handed, it earned for Walker Mayor Richard J. Daley's undying enmity by labeling the worst police misconduct during the disorders as a "police riot," a label which predictably caught on with the national media and the public. Some two years later Walker decided to enter the race for the 1972 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, a venture which most observers regarded as quixotic and hopeless. By the summer of 1971 that certainly seemed to be the case and the Walker campaign was ready to resort to desperate measures. Walker remembered that his friend, Lawton Chiles, had walked through portions of Florida during his run for the Senate and Chiles believed that it had helped his campaign. Victor DeGrazia, Walker's closest adviser, described the idea of the candidate walking the entire length of the state to the campaign's public relations experts and was told that it was "the worst idea we've ever heard." "He'll be a laughing stock" one of the experts added. But it worked. Perhaps it was the image of this determined fellow wearing boots and work clothes, with a red bandanna tied around his neck, trudging along country roads in scorching summer weather that convinced voters that the former LaSalle Street lawyer was a "regular guy," not the usual Illinois pol. Undoubtedly, resentment of Illinois' perennial bumper crop of corrupt politicians, the efforts of a host of anti-machine volunteers, an unusual number of newly-legalized Republican crossovers voters, and a laid back, too passive campaign by an over-confident Paul Simon all played a part. Whatever the reasons, Walker defeated Simon by a narrow margin and in the subsequent general election won another hairbreadth victory, defeating incumbent Richard Ogilvie who had sealed his own fate by courageously insisting on the enactment of a much-needed state income tax. What sort of administration was it? …


In controlled conditions water can be used as a means of transforming sonic periodicities to water wavelet periodicities, a process that results in the production of Faraday Wave images. The present study uses a Cymascope instrument to render visible the sonic periodicities emitted by cancer cells and healthy cells in human brain tissues, in medical grade water, a step toward developing a real-time surgical procedure support in which the margins of cancerous tissue may be clearly identified for the surgeon during tumor removal. Sound files generated from sonified Raman spectroscopy signals of cancer tissue and healthy tissue are injected into the Cymascope instrument's fused-quartz, water-filled cuvette. The resulting imagery is captured by digital camera and quantitatively analyzed using a generalized form of the Planck radiation formula, termed Planckian Distribution Equation (PDE). PDE has been found to fit many long-tailed asymmetric histograms (LAH) reported in fields as diverse as atomic physics, protein folding, single-molecule enzymology and in many other fields. The apparent universality of PDE is postulated to be due to the principle of wave-particle duality embedded in PDE that applies not only to quantum mechanics but also to macrophysics. The new classification method referred to as the Planck-Shannon Classifier, which is formulated based on PDE is shown to successfully distinguish between the Faraday Wave images from cancer cell and healthy cell sounds.


Problem-solving procedures have been typically aimed at achieving well-defined goals or satisfying straightforward preferences. However, learners and solvers may often generate rich multiattribute results with procedures guided by sets of controls that define different dimensions of quality. We explore methods that enable people to explore and express preferences about the operation of classification models in supervised multiclass learning. We leverage a leave-one-out confusion matrix that provides users with views and real-time controls of a model space. The approach allows people to consider in an interactive manner the global implications of local changes in decision boundaries. We focus on kernel classifiers and show the effectiveness of the methodology on a variety of tasks.


The spatial design of experiment and information subset had been studied by correlated random sequence sampling. The problems in many applied region had been found, such as statistical geology, sampling sequence, and environmental statistics. In all applications, maximum sampling sequence can be selected and different location and times. In maximum sampling sequence design, the feasible design program would be taken when the design domain and time are discrete from the design goal and expected result. The main problem is how to solve the maximum sampling sequence design idea. This is the algorithm GA sequence theory problem. In order to apply the GA design in computer experiments, in many cases, the design space is not possible to calculate accurately. In order to improve the efficient experiment of sampling sequence, the GA algorithm is developed to take advantage of business power of sequence algorithm. The results show that design idea and construction are very efficient for solving the mistake.


Dolomitic formations constitute one of the most important reservoirs in the Middle East Region. The complex diagenetic history which prevails in these reservoirs impacts on the final static and dynamic reservoir properties. Therefore in order to optimise the current production of reservoirs and future field development plans, it is mandatory to: •understand the type, impact and timing of the main diagenetic phases at all scales from regional understanding to the fine-scale reservoir heterogeneities in order to constrain geometry, •and develop approaches to effectively incorporate the most significant ones into the static reservoir model. Dolomitization is one of the most crucial diagenetic phases since it strongly constrains the permeability architecture of the field. Detailed diagenetic studies suggest that various types of genetic dolomite types exist, including evaporative, mixed evolved sea-water - freshwater and late thermobaric dolomites. The modelling approach is geologically-driven and based on the relationships between dolomite type, stratigraphic position, palaeogeographic position, depositional facies, and proximity to fault/fracture zones. The results are then quality controlled to ensure coherency with the conceptual models. The outcome of this modelling workflow is fed into a dynamic simulator to assess the potential impact on field behaviour, production profiles and well productivities.


BACKGROUND
Automatic event detection is used in telemedicine based heart failure disease management programs supporting physicians and nurses in monitoring of patients' health data.

OBJECTIVES
Analysis of the performance of automatic event detection algorithms for prediction of HF related hospitalisations or diuretic dose increases.

METHODS
Rule-Of-Thumb and Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) algorithm were applied to body weight data from 106 heart failure patients of the HerzMobil-Tirol disease management program. The evaluation criteria were based on Youden index and ROC curves.

RESULTS
Analysis of data from 1460 monitoring weeks with 54 events showed a maximum Youden index of 0.19 for MACD and RoT with a specificity > 0.90.

CONCLUSION
Comparison of the two algorithms for real-world monitoring data showed similar results regarding total and limited AUC. An improvement of the sensitivity might be possible by including additional health data (e.g. vital signs and self-reported well-being) because body weight variations obviously are not the only cause of HF related hospitalisations or diuretic dose increases.


Our understanding of the link between neural activity and perception remains incomplete. Microstimulation and optogenetic experiments have shown that manipulating cortical activity can influence sensory-guided behaviour or elicit artificial percepts. And yet, some perceptual tasks can still be solved when sensory cortex is silenced or removed, suggesting that cortical activity may not always be essential. Reconciling these findings, and providing a quantitative framework linking cortical activity and behaviour, requires knowledge of the identity of the cells being activated during the behaviour, the engagement of the local and downstream networks, and the cortical and behavioural state. Here, we performed two-photon population calcium imaging in L2/3 primary visual cortex (V1) of headfixed mice performing a visual detection task while simultaneously activating specific groups of neurons using targeted two-photon optogenetics during low contrast visual stimulation. Only activation of groups of cells with similar tuning to the relevant visual stimulus led to a measurable bias of detection behaviour. Targeted photostimulation revealed signatures of centre-surround, predominantly inhibitory and like-to-like connectivity motifs in the local network which shaped the visual stimulus representation and partially explained the change in stimulus detectability. Moreover, the behavioural effects depended on overall performance: when the task was challenging for the mouse, V1 activity was more closely linked to performance, and cortical stimulation boosted perception. In contrast, when the task was easy, V1 activity was less informative about performance and cortical stimulation suppressed stimulus detection. Altogether, we find that both the selective routing of information through functionally specific circuits, and the prevailing cortical state, make similarly large contributions to explaining the behavioural response to photostimulation. Our results thus help to reconcile contradictory findings about the involvement of primary sensory cortex in behavioural tasks, suggesting that the influence of cortical activity on behaviour is dynamically reassigned depending on the demands of the task.


OpenSees is a well-recognized open source platform with high compatibility, and it has a well-developed fiber element method to cope with nonlinear structural analysis. Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) confined concrete can effectively improve the seismic performance of concrete structures. However, sophisticated constitutive models for FRP confined concrete are not available in the current version of OpenSees. In this paper, after reviewing several typical FRP confined concrete constitutive models, a modified constitutive model for FRP confined concrete in circular sections was proposed based on Lam and Teng (2003)'s model with four main modifications including the determination of FRP rupture strain, ultimate condition, envelope shape, and hysteretic rules. To embed the proposed constitutive model into OpenSees is a practical solution for engineering simulation. Hence, the secondary development of OpenSees New UserMat was briefly demonstrated and a set of critical steps were depicted in a flow chart. Finally, with the numerical implementations of a series of FRP confined concrete members covering a wide range of load cases, FRP confinement types and geometric properties, the utility and accuracy of the proposed model compared with Lam and Teng (2003)'s model and new material secondary development in OpenSees were well validated.


This paper proposes a novel wheel-shaped grinding/polishing tool, which is designed to be controlled on both the self-rotation around its axis and the co-rotation around vertical axis Z at the specified speeds respectively. Therefore, the surface material of the workpiece can be removed by virtue of self-rotating motion. On the other hand, the co-rotating motion will also change the manufacturing orbit continually. To analyze the characteristics of the tool, material removal in the manufacturing zone on the workpiece surface is first established through theoretical modeling. Subsequently, a good evaluating method, i.e. power spectral density, for analyzing the frequency spectrum features of material removal function in computer-controlled optical grinding and polishing is introduced in detail. By simulation, the power spectral density of the material removal function was cut into several parts, some frequency with low amplifies of material removal function were removed, and the modified material removal function reflected the actual processing status, which was helpful in removing some residual high frequency errors on the surface of the workpiece. Finally, the high amplitude such as at high frequency of 110mm-1 and 210mm-1 was reserved and some other low amplitude frequencies were removed.


The characteristics of official National Hurricane Center (NHC) intensity forecast errors are examined for the North Atlantic and east Pacific basins from 1989 to 2018. It is shown how rapid intensification (RI) and rapid weakening (RW) influence yearly NHC forecast errors for forecasts between 12 and 48 h in length. In addition to being the tail of the intensity change distribution, RI and RW are at the tails of the forecast error distribution. Yearly mean absolute forecast errors are positively correlated with the yearly number of RI/RW occurrences and explain roughly 20% of the variance in the Atlantic and 30% in the east Pacific. The higher occurrence of RI events in the east Pacific contributes to larger intensity forecast errors overall but also a better probability of detection and success ratio. Statistically significant improvements to 24-h RI forecast biases have been made in the east Pacific and to 24-h RW biases in the Atlantic. Over-ocean 24-h RW events cause larger mean errors in the east Pacific that have not improved with time. Environmental predictors from the Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS) are used to diagnose what conditions lead to the largest RI and RW forecast errors on average. The forecast error distributions widen for both RI and RW when tropical systems experience low vertical wind shear, warm sea surface temperature, and moderate low-level relative humidity. Consistent with existing literature, the forecast error distributions suggest that improvements to our observational capabilities, understanding, and prediction of inner-core processes is paramount to both RI and RW prediction.


In 2003, part-time employment in Australia accounted for over 42% of the Australian female workforce, nearly 17% of the male workforce, and represented 28% of total employment. Of the OECD countries, only the Netherlands has a higher proportion of working women employed part-time and Australia tops the OECD league in terms of its proportion of working men who are part-time. In this paper we investigate part-time full-time hourly wage gaps using important new panel data from the first four waves of the new Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. We find that, once unobserved individual heterogeneity has been taken into account, part-time men and women typically earn an hourly pay premium. This premium varies with casual employment status, but is always positive, a result that survives our robustness checks. We advance some hypotheses as to why there is a part-time pay advantage in Australia.


China and India, demographically being the two largest countries in the world, are together accounting for more than a third of the world's total population. This makes the Sino-Indian relationship critical not only for those living in China and India, but for the whole world. Regardless of a history filled with conflicts and a contemporary competition over regional influence have the two Asian powers managed to increasingly deepen their economic ties. Even though the relationship seems to be moving in a more peaceful direction of mutual understanding and cooperation, it is still a very fragile relationship. The focus of this research lies in the contemporary Sino-Indian relations, which aims to understand the role trade and cooperation have had in moving the attention away from security-related issues on to more positive fields. The empirical observations that will be tested in the case of Sino-Indian relations are the border dispute at Arunachal Pradesh and the political and economic interdependence. Together these will represent the empirical foundation of the research, which will be tested and interpreted by the neo-realist and neo-liberal perspective. The concluding remarks on the research is that trade and cooperation unlikely is the main factor in the Sino-Indian relationship, preventing or reducing attention from being given to security-related issues, but should rather be seen as the foundational source on which a process towards confidence-building measures, institutions, mutual interests and a political goodwill has been established.


In making movies, ads, or video clip punk often found as an ornamental figure of a director's creative ideas to beautify and simplify the work that is displayed to get sympathy from the audience, the punk, or ordinary people. Punk used as an object that can be used as consumer
allure. In the film Punk in Love by Ody C. Harahap also use object punk community. From where researchers want to know the meaning of the punk community representation in the film Punk in Love by Ody C. Harahap. Representation is a process of social representing. Representations can mean the process of changing ideological concepts are abstract in the concrete forms. The representation also represents or symbolizes or show an image, picture, dramatic appearance. Representation is a vital way to support the ideology of a culture: worldviewsubject is subject to discipline. The concept of representation is also closely linked with the concept of repetition (repetition): could
be argued that the word, for example, is the only representation received from a number of things that may be repeated that is reused in different contexts. So the representation of the punk community is the description of a punkers from a conjecture. While the film is the dominant
form of visual mass communication in this world.
This study uses a semiotic approach to the type of research interpretative. The focus of this study is the punk community representation in the film Punk in Love by Ody C. Harahap. While the scope of the film Punk in Love by Ody C. Harahap. For this study the unit of analysis are some
scenes in the film, both in terms of audio (voice) or visual (picture). Data analysis technique in accordance with the semiotics of Roland Barthes, if you want to find the meaning, then that is first of all the data are grouped according to their own kind which is then analyzed with respect to the meaning denotative and connotative.
Based on data analysis has been done, the movie punk in Love Works Ody C. Harahap was found that of punk and music, punk in this film represents a community that whiny, outdated, old people, from among the middledown, do not have the struggle of life and has no shame. In public spaces, the punk community represented in this film that the punk community likes to make trouble, people are weak and not robust in the face hard life. In this film also represents that the punk community is people who do not believe in the existence of god and god only remember if you have the will alone. In the balance of public space, punk in the film is represented as a person who is weak, a loser. Punk community in the film is also represented as
people who are not consistent through life, glamorous, pleasureloving and likes to insult. In the film Punk in Love, representing that punk is a child who does not want to think, who just completed a problem with any muscle or strength, and cowards.


Hybrid cultivar is one of the best alternative to increase national hot pepper production. However, lacking of local hybrid cultivars resulted in the dependency on imported expensive seeds. The objective of this research is to study heterobeltiosis potential and yield of hybrids generated from crosses of several hot pepper lines. Nine parental lines and their 19 hybrids were evaluated in field experiment at the Pasir Sarongge Experimetal Station of IPB, Cipanas, West Java, in a randomize complete block design with 3 replications. The results indicated that several crosses showed a high potential heterobeltiosis. The cross of CI034 x CI026, CI042 x CI025, dan CI042 x CI026 showed heterobeltiosis value of more than 100%. Most of the crosses revealed an excellent yield for medium fruit type the yield was about 1 kg per plant (CI034 x CIO06), and for large fruit type was 1,8 kg per plant (CI042 x CIO06), in average, which were higher than the yield of Hot Beauty, a commercial hybrid cultivar. Key words: Heterobeltiosis, Hot pepper


Online search intermediaries, such as Amazon or Expedia, use rankings (ordered lists) to present third party sellers' products to consumers. These rankings decrease consumer search costs and increase the probability of a match with a seller, ultimately increasing consumer welfare. Constructing relevant rankings requires understanding their causal effect on consumer choices. However, this is challenging since rankings are endogenous: highly ranked products are also the most relevant ones for consumers. In this paper, I use the first data set with experimental variation in the ranking from a field experiment at Expedia to identify the causal effect of rankings. Using this data set, I make three contributions. First, I show that rankings affect what consumers search, but conditional on search, do not affect purchases. I also exploit a feature of the data set (opaque offers), to show that rankings lower search costs, instead of affecting consumer expectations or utility. Second, I quantify the effect of rankings using a sequential search model and find an average position effect of $2.64, lower than previous estimates in the literature obtained without experimental variation. Finally, I show that a utility-based ranking built on this model's estimates leads to an almost twofold increase in consumer welfare, while also increasing transactions and revenue for the search intermediary.


Renewable generation affects power quality due to its nonlinearity, since solar generation plants and wind power generators must be connected to the grid through high-power static PWM converters. This paper presents active power filter implemented with a four-leg voltage-source inverter. The main features of this control scheme is 1) To control power converter to inject power generated from RES to the grid, and 2)To act as a shunt APF to compensate current unbalance, load current harmonics, load reactive power demand and load neutral current. The compensation performance of the proposed active power filter and the associated control scheme under steady state and transient operating conditions is demonstrated through simulation results. In this paper the topology of three phase four leg inverter is shown along with its controlled on the basis of hysteresis control and SRF theory for current reference generation 3) The results are presented for both wind & solar type renewable power generation systems.


Almost all Glioblastoma (GBM) are either intrinsically resistant to the chemotherapeutical drug temozolomide (TMZ) or acquire therapy-induced mutations that cause chemoresistance and recurrence. The genome maintenance mechanisms responsible for GBM chemoresistance and hypermutation are unknown. We show that the E3 ubiquitin ligase RAD18 (a proximal regulator of TLS) is activated in a Mismatch repair (MMR)-dependent manner in TMZ-treated GBM cells, promoting post-replicative gap-filling and survival. An unbiased CRISPR screen provides a new aerial map of RAD18-interacting DNA damage response (DDR) pathways deployed by GBM to tolerate TMZ genotoxicity. Analysis of mutation signatures from TMZ-treated GBM reveals a role for RAD18 in error-free bypass of O6mG (the most toxic TMZ-induced lesion), and error-prone bypass of other TMZ-induced lesions. Our analyses of recurrent GBM patient samples establishes a correlation between low RAD18 expression and hypermutation. Taken together we define novel molecular underpinnings for the hallmark tumorigenic phenotypes of TMZ-treated GBM.


Courts have long struggled with how to balance false association claims brought under the Lanham Act with the protections for speech under the First Amendment. The leading approach is the Rogers test, but this test comes in multiple forms with varying degrees of protection for speech. A substantial portion of the litigation raising this issue now involves video games, a medium that more so than others, likely needs the benefit of a clear rule that protects speech. The original version of the test is the simplest and the one most protective of speech. In 2013, the Ninth Circuit endorsed the original version of the Rogers test in unusually clear terms, yet in the face of conflicting decisions from the court of appeals, the district courts may still mistake the Ninth Circuit's meaning. The Ninth Circuit may soon have the opportunity to clarify its meaning yet again. This article suggests the court does so, making clear that the original Rogers approach is indeed the law of at least the Ninth Circuit.


Donald Trump's aggressive stance on trade has led to heavy tariffs on US agricultural products. This has exposed American farmers to a high amount of volatility and work stress. Suicides in America have drastically increased since the late 1990's, and agriculture has been one of the hardest-hit industries with suicide rates far above the national average. The added stress of Trump's trade war has the potential to exacerbate the growing rates of depression and suicide among farmers and agricultural workers. The Trump administration's attempt to ease the strain on farmers with simple monetary compensation has been heavily criticized for its short-sighted nature, and pundits highlight the need for a long-term solution. However, this issue is not limited to the United States and has been observed in several countries around the world, and none have yet identified an effective resolution. A greater response is needed by federal governments to aid farmers and stabilize agricultural markets, as national advocacy groups struggle to provide essential resources to those in need and improve the rates of suicide and depression among farmers.


Research shows that disabled workers often have negative experiences in the workplace (e.g., Burchardt, 2005; Newton et al., 2007; ONS, 2013). However despite the wealth of empirical evidence on discrimination and stigma, theoretical models of disability remain inadequate in comprehensively explaining the work experiences of disabled employees. This paper contributes by investigating whether the medical or social model of disability is best equipped to illustrate the work experiences of disabled persons. In addition, unlike most studies (e.g., Hoque and Noon, 2004; Roberts et al., 2004; Van Wanrooy et al., 2013) which differentiate between sector of employment, we instead consider the foci of organisations. This factor is important as according to Person-Organisation Fit theory, the type of organisation can influence employee outcomes (Boon et al., 2011).

Much of the disability literature focuses on the contention between the medical and social model of disability (see: Oliver, 1990; Shakespeare, 2006; Thomas, 2007). The former conceptualises disability as a personal tragedy, where the focus is on the individual's functional limitations (Barnes and Mercer, 2005), while the latter states that disability and disadvantage are the result of the inequitable manner in which society is organised (Oliver, 1990). According to the social model, if society is organised to include the needs of the disabled person, then disadvantage would not exist. Amidst a plethora of debate about the inadequacies and limitations of these models to effectively explain disadvantage and discrimination in the labour market and society (see: Llewellyn and Hogan, 2000; Shakespeare and Watson, 2001; Thomas, 2007), there remains a literary lacuna on which model is actually reflective of practice and whether either can explain the differences in workplace experience.

The methodology used was inductive and qualitative, and attributed expert status to participants in lieu of researchers or medical professionals (see: Albrecht, 1992). The sample comprised of 30 disabled graduates, who had experience of work since the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was introduced. Semi-structured interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Then data were interpreted using Braun and Clarke's (2006) recommended guidelines on thematic analysis. Positive and negative experiences of work were assessed by the subjective perceptions of participants.

The data show that participants working in disability roles in the voluntary sector had the most positive experiences of work. This perception was reported as a direct result of feeling "normal" in an organisation that did not stigmatise disability and any existing stigmas associated with disability were more easily challenged. For example, Lisa explained that her office was the sort of place "where if you are disabled you fit in". In addition, the ease and accessibility of adjustments and the feeling of helping others in a similar position further fortified positive experiences. For example, Rebecca shared that she can ask for help without being afraid that her colleagues will think she is incapable or "stupid".

In contrast, disabled participants working in non-disability related roles had the least positive experiences of work. In particular, those working in the private sector fared the worst. The reasons were reported as one's disability identity not being easily accepted and having difficulties in accessing adjustments. For example, Clareshared that when she "moved to another area outside the deaf field it hit me how big a problem it was being deaf".

In view of these findings we propose that in disability organisations the social model is embedded into the culture of the organisation and therefore disabled people are not seen as different. This facilitates their Person – Organisation fit. In contrast, in non-disability related organisations, the medical model was more prominent- where disability was objectified and adjustments were more difficult to secure, despite formal equality policies. This finding supports the notion of the "empty shell" hypothesis by Hoque and Noon (2004) and therefore participant experiences were more likely to be negative.

The practical implications of this paper are two-fold. Firstly, the data supports the notion that difference needs to be mainstreamed, as argued by Liff (1999). In addition, the paper points to the benefits of a flexible structure for adjustments and provision to more accurately support the needs of disabled workers. However, despite the apparent success of the social model to de-stigmatise disability, there was still room for acknowledging impairments, which points to the Impairment Effects model by Thomas (2007).


Following Brexit, if the UK is no longer a member of the European Economic Area, then there will be no 'one stop shop' for mergers at the EU level and a separate merger review may need to be carried out in the UK. This means merger notifications may be required in both the EU and the UK. This would result in a significant increase in transaction costs, time and administration, in addition to the risk of potential uncertainty as companies face possibly divergent or inconsistent decisions.